There were two periods in the history of the Russian anarchist movement when it reached its highest peak. The first period is the revolutionary years 1905-1907, the second period is the time period between the February Revolution of 1917 and the strengthening of the Bolshevik dictatorship in the first half of the 1920s. Both in the first and in the second period, tens and hundreds of anarchist groups operated in Russia, uniting thousands of active participants and an even larger number of sympathizers.
After the February Revolution of 1917, anarchists intensified their activities in the former Russian Empire. The most prominent representatives of the movement returned from emigration, including the ideologist of anarchist communism, Pyotr Kropotkin. Political prisoners were released from prisons (among them was, in particular, Nestor Makhno - later the legendary leader of the peasant anarchist movement in Eastern Ukraine). Together with the Bolsheviks, leftist socialist revolutionaries, socialist revolutionary maximalists and some other smaller associations, the anarchists represented the extreme left flank of the Russian political scene, opposing the "bourgeois" Provisional Government, for a new revolution.
Anarchists in the days of the Revolution
Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, Odessa, Kiev, Yekaterinoslav, Saratov, Samara, Rostov-on-Don and many other cities of the country became the centers of anarchist propaganda. Anarchist groups operated in many enterprises, in military units and on ships, and anarchist agitators also infiltrated rural areas. In the period between February and October 1917, the number of anarchists grew incredibly: for example, if in March 1917 there were only 13 people at the meeting of the Petrograd anarchists-communists, then a few months later, in June 1917, at a conference of anarchists in the dacha of the former Tsarist Minister of Internal Affairs Durnovo was attended by representatives of 95 factories and military units of Petrograd.
Along with the Bolsheviks and Left SRs, the anarchists played a significant role in the October Revolution of 1917. Thus, the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (the actual headquarters of the uprising) included anarchists - the leader of the Petrograd Federation of Communist Anarchists Ilya Bleikhman, anarcho-syndicalists Vladimir Shatov and Yefim Yarchuk. The anarchist communists Alexander Mokrousov, Anatoly Zheleznyakov, Justin Zhuk, the anarcho-syndicalist Yefim Yarchuk directly commanded the detachments of the Red Guards who were solving certain combat missions in the days of October. Anarchists also actively participated in the revolutionary events in the provinces, including in Rostov-on-Don and Nakhichevan, where activists of the Don Federation of Communist Anarchists and the Rostov-Nakhichevan group of communist anarchists took part in the overthrow of Kaledin, along with the Bolsheviks. In Eastern Siberia, anarchists played one of the key roles in the formation of local Red Guard units, and then partisan formations that fought against the troops of Admiral Kolchak, Ataman Semyonov, Baron Ungern von Sternberg.
However, barely gaining a foothold in power after the overthrow of the Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks began a policy of suppressing their opponents "on the left" - anarchists, maximalists, left Socialist-Revolutionaries. Already in 1918, systematic repressions against anarchists began in various cities of Soviet Russia. At the same time, the Bolshevik authorities argued that their repressive measures were not directed against "ideological" anarchists, but set as their goal only the destruction of "bandits hiding behind the flag of anarchism." The latter, indeed, during the years of the revolution, were often covered up with the names of anarchist or Socialist-Revolutionary organizations, on the other hand, and many revolutionary groups did not disdain, on occasion, outright criminality, including theft, robbery, robbery, arms or drug trafficking. Naturally, the Bolsheviks, who were trying to ensure public order, had to disarm or even destroy such units if necessary. By the way, Nestor Makhno himself wrote about such anarchists - lovers of robbing and speculating with stolen or scarce goods - in his "Memoirs".
Relations between anarchists and Bolsheviks became especially acute during the years of the Civil War. On the path of open confrontation with the new government, firstly, the peasant rebel movement of Eastern Ukraine, which formed an anarchist republic with a center in Gulyai-Polye and an insurgent army under the leadership of Nestor Makhno, and secondly, some anarchist groups in the capitals and other cities of Soviet Russia, united in the All-Russian Central Committee of Revolutionary Partisans ("anarchists of the underground") and launched terrorist acts against representatives of the Soviet regime, thirdly - the rebel movements in the Urals, in Western and Eastern Siberia, among whose leaders there were many anarchists. Well, and, finally, the sailors and workers of Kronstadt, who in 1921 opposed the policy of the Soviet government - there were also anarchists among their leaders, although the movement itself gravitated towards the extreme left wing of the communists - the so-called. "Workers' opposition".
Ideological currents and political practice
As before the revolutions of 1917, Russian anarchism in the post-revolutionary period did not represent a single whole. Three main directions were distinguished - anarcho-individualism, anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism, each of which had several more branches and modifications.
Anarcho-individualists. The first supporters of anarcho-individualism, dating back to the teachings of the German philosopher Kaspar Schmidt, who wrote the famous book "The One and His Own" under the pseudonym "Max Stirner", appeared in Russia in the 50s-60s of the nineteenth century, but only by the beginning In the twentieth century, they were able to more or less take shape ideologically and organizationally, although they did not reach the level of organization and activity that was inherent in the anarchists of the syndicalist and communist trends. Anarcho-individualists paid more attention to theoretical and literary activity than to practical struggle. As a result, in 1905-1907. a whole galaxy of talented theorists and publicists of the anarcho-individualistic trend declared itself, among which the first were Alexei Borovoy and Auguste Viscount.
After the October Revolution of 1917, several independent trends emerged within anarcho-individualism, claiming primacy and loudly declaring themselves, but in practice they were limited only to the publication of printed publications and numerous declarations.
Lev Cherny (pictured) advocated "associative anarchism", which was a further creative development of the ideas laid down by Stirner, Pierre Joseph Proudhon and Benjamin Thacker. In the economic sphere, associative anarchism advocated the preservation of private property and small-scale commodity production, in the political sphere it demanded the destruction of state power and the administrative apparatus.
Another wing of anarcho-individualism was represented by the very extravagant brothers Vladimir and Abba Gordins - the sons of a rabbi from Lithuania, who received a traditional Jewish education, but became anarchists. The Gordins brothers in the fall of 1917 announced the creation of a new direction in anarchism - pan-anarchism. Pananarchism was presented to them as the ideal of general and immediate anarchy, the driving force of the movement was to be "crowds of tramps and lumpen", in which the Gordins followed the concept of M. A. Bakunin on the revolutionary role of the lumpen proletariat and the views of "anarchist-communist-rulers" who acted during the revolution of 1905-1907. In 1920, having “modernized” pan-anarchism, Abba Gordin announced the creation of a new trend, which he called anarcho-universalism and which combined the basic tenets of anarcho-individualism and anarcho-communism with the recognition of the idea of a world communist revolution.
Subsequently, another branch emerged from anarcho-universalism - anarcho-biocosmism, the leader and theorist of which was AF Svyatogor (Agienko), who published his work "The Doctrine of the Fathers and Anarchism-Biocosmism" in 1922. Biocosmists saw the ideal of anarchy in the maximum freedom of an individual and humanity as a whole in the future era, offering a person to extend his power to the vastness of the Universe, as well as to achieve physical immortality.
Anarcho-syndicalists. Supporters of anarcho-syndicalism considered the main and highest form of organization of the working class, the main means of its social emancipation and the initial stage of the socialist organization of society, trade unions of the working people. Denying the parliamentary struggle, the party form of organization and political activity aimed at conquering power, the anarcho-syndicalists saw the social revolution as a general strike of workers in all sectors of the economy, while they recommended strikes, sabotage, and economic terror as their daily methods of struggle.
Anarcho-syndicalism became especially widespread in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Latin American countries, in the first two decades of the twentieth century the labor movement of Japan was on anarcho-syndicalist positions, many supporters of anarcho-syndicalism acted in the ranks of the American organization Industrial Workers of the World. In Russia, however, anarcho-syndicalist ideas were not initially widespread. A more or less significant anarcho-syndicalist group operated in 1905-1907. in Odessa and was called "Novomirtsy" - by the pseudonym of its ideologist Y. Kirillovsky "Novomirsky". However, then anarcho-syndicalist ideas gained recognition among anarchists in other cities, in particular Bialystok, Yekaterinoslav, Moscow. Like representatives of other areas of anarchism, after the suppression of the revolution of 1905-1907. Russian anarcho-syndicalists, although they were not completely defeated, were forced to significantly reduce their activity. Many anarcho-syndicalists emigrated, including to the United States and Canada, where a whole Federation of Russian Workers arose.
On the eve of the February Revolution, only 34 anarcho-syndicalists were active in Moscow; they were somewhat more numerous in Petrograd. In Petrograd in the summer of 1917, the Union of Anarcho-Syndicalist Propaganda was created, headed by Vsevolod Volin (Eikhenbaum), Efim Yarchuk (Khaim Yarchuk) and Grigory Maksimov. The Union considered the main goal of the social revolution, which was to destroy the state and organize society in the form of a federation of syndicates. The Union of Anarcho-Syndicalist Propaganda fully justified its name and was active in factories and plants. Soon the unions of metalworkers, port workers, bakers, and separate factory committees were under the control of the anarcho-syndicalists. The syndicalists pursued a line of establishing real workers' control in production and defended it at the first conference of the factory committees of Petrograd in May-November 1917.
Certain anarcho-syndicalists actively participated in the October Revolution, in particular, Efim Yarchuk and Vladimir Shatov ("Bill" Shatov, who returned after the revolution from the USA, where he was an activist of the Federation of Russian Workers of the USA and Canada) were members of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, which carried out leadership of the October Revolution. On the other hand, part of the anarcho-syndicalists from the very first days of the October Revolution took pronounced anti-Bolshevik positions, not hesitating to propagandize them in their official press.
Anarcho-communists. Anarcho-communists, who combined the demand for the destruction of the state with the demand for the establishment of universal ownership of the means of production, the organization of production and distribution on communist principles, and during the revolution of 1905-1907, and during the revolutions and the Civil War, constituted the majority of Russian anarchists. The theorist of anarcho-communism, Pyotr Kropotkin, was tacitly recognized as the spiritual leader of all Russian anarchism, and even those of his ideological opponents who argued with him on the pages of the anarchist press did not try to challenge his authority.
In the spring of 1917, after emigrants returned from abroad, and anarcho-communist political prisoners from places of detention, anarcho-communist organizations were recreated in Moscow, Petrograd, Samara, Saratov, Bryansk, Kiev, Irkutsk, Rostov-on -Don, Odessa and many other cities. Among the theorists and leaders of the anarcho-communist trend, apart from P. A. Kropotkin, there were also Apollo Karelin, Alexander Atabekyan, Peter Arshinov, Alexander Ge (Golberg), Ilya Bleikhman.
The Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups (IFAG), founded on March 13, 1917 and published from September 13, 1917 to July 2, 1918, the newspaper "Anarchy" edited by Vladimir Barmash. The October Revolution was supported and welcomed by the anarcho-communists, the anarcho-communists Ilya Bleikhman, Justin Zhuk and Konstantin Akashev were members of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, Anatoly Zheleznyakov and Alexander Mokrousov commanded detachments of the Red Guards who stormed the Winter Palace in the provinces, and the anarcho-communists played a prominent role (in particular, in Irkutsk, where the figure of the "Siberian dad" Nestor Aleksandrovich Kalandarishvili, a Georgian anarchist who became the leader of the East Siberian partisans, was of colossal importance for the revolutionary movement).
As the positions of the Bolshevik Party strengthened and representatives of other socialist trends were removed from real power, a demarcation took place in Russian anarchism on the issue of attitudes towards the new government. As a result of this demarcation, by the end of the Civil War in the ranks of the anarchist movement there were both ardent opponents of the Soviet government and the Bolshevik Party, and people who were ready to cooperate with this government, go to work in the administration and even renounce their previous views and join the Bolshevik Party.
Together with the Bolsheviks - for Soviet power
It is noteworthy that the division into supporters and opponents of cooperation with the Soviet government took place in the ranks of the anarchists completely regardless of their affiliation to one direction or another - among the anarchist-communists, and among the anarcho-syndicalists, and among the anarcho-individualists, they were like adherents of the Soviet power, so also those who spoke out with her hot criticism and even with weapons in their hands against her.
The leaders of the "pro-Soviet" trend in anarchism in the first post-revolutionary years were Alexander Ge (Golberg) and Apollo Karelin (pictured) - anarcho-communists who became part of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Ge died in 1919, being sent to the North Caucasus as an operative of the Cheka, and Karelin continued his legal anarchist activities within the framework of the All-Russian Federation of Communist Anarchists (VFAK), which he led.
After the end of the Civil War, in the ranks of the anarchists, ready to cooperate with the Soviet regime, there was a tendency to merge with the Bolshevik Party. Such well-known figures of pre-revolutionary anarchism as Judas Grossman-Roshchin (the latter even became a close friend of Lunacharsky and Lenin himself) and Ilya Geitsman appeared with the propaganda of "anarcho-Bolshevism", and in 1923 a very remarkable and characteristic of that time appeared in the newspaper Pravda the statement of the "anarchist-communists", which asserted that the Russian working class has been waging a dangerous struggle with world capital for six years, being deprived of the opportunity to come to an anarchist system: “Only through the dictatorship of the proletariat can we get rid of the power of capital, destroy militarism and organize production and distribution on a new basis. Only after the final victory and after the suppression of all attempts by the bourgeoisie for restoration can we talk about the elimination of the state and power in general. Whoever disputes this path, without putting forward another, more worthy one, actually prefers miserable hobbyist hobbyists, inner passivity and unrealizable illusions to direct action and organization of victory - all this under the guise of revolutionary phrases. Such impotence and disorganization on the part of international anarchism infuse new forces into the war-shaken organization of the bourgeoisie. " This was followed by a call to the anarchist comrades "not to scatter the revolutionary forces in the capitalist countries, to rally together with the communists around the only revolutionary organs of direct action - the Comintern and the Profintern, to create solid bases in the struggle against the advancing capital and finally come to the aid of the Russian Revolution."
Despite the fact that the statement was voiced on behalf of the anarcho-communists, it was originally signed by six individualist anarchists - L. G. Simanovich (saddler worker, revolutionary experience since 1902), M. M. Mikhailovsky (doctor, revolutionary experience since 1904), A. P. Lepin (house painter, revolutionary experience since 1916), I. I. Vasilchuk (Shidlovsky, worker, revolutionary experience since 1912), D. Yu. Goyner (electrical engineer, revolutionary experience since 1900) and V. Z. Vinogradov (intellectual, revolutionary experience since 1904). Subsequently, anarcho-communists I. M. Geitsman and E. Tinovitsky and anarcho-syndicalists N. Belkovsky and E. Rothenberg added their signatures. Thus, the “anarcho-Bolsheviks,” as other members of the anarchist movement called them with a negative connotation, sought to legitimize the new power in the eyes of their comrades in the revolutionary struggle.
"Nabat" of the Baron and "Black Guard" of Cherny
However, other anarchists did not abandon the idea of absolute anarchy and classified the Bolsheviks as "new oppressors" against whom an anarchist revolution should immediately begin. In the spring of 1918, the Black Guard was created in Moscow. The emergence of this armed formation of anarchists was a response to the creation of the Red Army by the Soviet government in February 1918. The Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups (IFAG) was directly involved in the creation of the Black Guard. Soon, the IFAG activists managed to rally militants from organizations with the speaking names "Smerch", "Hurricane", "Lava", etc. into the Black Guard. During the period under review, Moscow anarchists occupied at least 25 mansions they had seized and were uncontrollable armed detachments created according to the principles of personal acquaintance, ideological orientation, nationality and professional affiliation.
The work on the creation of the Black Guard was headed by the secretary of the IPAH Lev Cherny. In fact, his name was Pavel Dmitrievich Turchaninov (1878-1921). Coming from a noble family, Lev Cherny began his revolutionary path in pre-revolutionary Russia, then lived in exile for a long time. He met the February revolution as an anarcho-individualist, but this did not prevent him, together with representatives of other directions in anarchism, to create the IFAH and the Black Guard. The latter, according to its founders, was supposed to become an armed unit of the anarchist movement and ultimately not only carry out the tasks of protecting the anarchist headquarters, but also prepare for a possible confrontation with the Bolsheviks and their Red Army. Naturally, the creation of the Black Guard was not to the liking of the Moscow Bolsheviks, who demanded its immediate dissolution.
On March 5, 1918, the Black Guard officially announced its creation, and on April 12, 1918, the head of the Cheka Felix Dzerzhinsky gave an order to disarm the Black Guard. Detachments of the Chekists began storming the mansions in which the anarchist detachments were based. The most fierce resistance came from the anarchists who occupied the mansions on Povarskaya Street and Malaya Dmitrovka, where the headquarters of the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups was located. In one night alone, 40 anarchist militants and 12 employees of the IBSC were killed. In the mansions, in addition to the ideological anarchists, the Chekists detained a large number of criminals, professional criminals, and also found stolen things and jewelry. In total, the Moscow Chekists managed to detain 500 people. Several dozen detainees were soon released - they turned out to be ideological anarchists who were not involved in the robberies. By the way, Felix Dzerzhinsky himself officially stated that the IBSC operation did not set itself the goal of combating anarchism, but was carried out to counteract criminal crime. However, three years later, the operation to "clean up" the anarchist movement in Moscow was repeated. This time, its results turned out to be more deplorable for the anarchists - for example, the secretary of the IFAH Lev Cherny was shot for anti-Soviet activities.
Aaron Baron became one of the leaders of the irreconcilable wing of the anarchists. Aron Davidovich Baron - Faktorovich (1891-1937) took part in the anarchist movement since the pre-revolutionary years, then emigrated to the United States, where he actively manifested himself in the American labor movement. After the February Revolution of 1917, the Baron returned to Russia and rather quickly became one of the leading activists of the anarchist movement in the first post-revolutionary years.
He organized his own partisan detachment, which took part in the defense of Yekaterinoslav from the German and Austrian troops (by the way, in addition to the Baron's detachment, detachments of the Left SRs Yu. V. Sablin and V. I., "Red Cossacks" by VM Primakov). Later, the Baron took part in organizing the defense of Poltava and even was for some time the revolutionary commandant of this city. When Soviet power was established on the territory of Ukraine, the Baron lived in Kiev. He decided to continue his further struggle - now against the Bolsheviks, and entered the leadership of the Nabat group. On the basis of this group, the famous Confederation of Anarchist Organizations of Ukraine "Nabat" was created, which shared the ideology of "united anarchism" - that is, unification of all radical opponents of the state system, regardless of their specific ideological differences. In the Nabat Confederation, the Baron held leading positions.
Explosion in Leontievsky lane
The most famous terrorist act of Russian anarchists in the first years of Soviet power was the organization of the explosion of the Moscow Committee of the RCP (b) in Leontievsky Lane. The explosion took place on September 25, 1919, 12 people were killed.55 people present in the building at the time of the explosion were injured of varying severity. The meeting in the Moscow city committee of the RCP (b) on this day was devoted to the issues of agitation and the organization of educational and methodological work in party schools. About 100-120 people gathered to discuss these problems, including prominent representatives of the Moscow City Committee of the RCP (B) and the Central Committee of the RCP (B), such as Bukharin, Myasnikov, Pokrovsky and Preobrazhensky. When some of those who had gathered after the speeches of Bukharin, Pokrovsky and Preobrazhensky began to disperse, there was a loud crash.
The bomb detonated a minute after being thrown. A hole was punched in the floor of the room, all the insoles were knocked out, the frames and some doors were torn off. The power of the explosion was such that the back wall of the building collapsed. During the night from 25 to 26 September, the debris was cleared. It turned out that several employees of the Moscow city committee of the RCP (b), including the secretary of the city committee Vladimir Zagorsky, as well as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front, Alexander Safonov, a member of the Moscow Council Nikolai Kropotov, two students of the Central Party School Tankus and Kolbin, and workers of the district party committees became victims of the terrorist act. Among the 55 wounded was Nikolai Bukharin himself - one of the most authoritative Bolsheviks at that time, who was wounded in the arm.
On the same day when the explosion sounded in Leontievsky Lane, the newspaper Anarchia published a statement by a certain All-Russian Insurgent Committee of Revolutionary Partisans, which took responsibility for the explosion. Naturally, the Moscow Extraordinary Commission began to investigate the high-profile case. The head of the Cheka Felix Dzerzhinsky initially rejected the version that Moscow anarchists were involved in the explosion. After all, he knew many of them personally from the time of the tsarist hard labor and exile. On the other hand, a number of veterans of the anarchist movement long ago accepted the Bolshevik power, they were well acquainted, again from pre-revolutionary times, with the leaders of the RCP (b) and would hardly have planned such actions.
However, soon the Chekists managed to get on the trail of the organizers of the terrorist attack. The case helped. On the train near Bryansk, the Chekists detained for a document check 18-year-old anarchist Sophia Kaplun, who had with her a letter from one of the leaders of the KAU "Nabat" Aaron Baron - Faktorovich. In the letter, the Baron directly informed about who was behind the explosion in Leontievsky Lane. It turned out that they were still anarchists, but not Moscow ones.
Behind the explosion in Leontyevsky Lane was the All-Russian Organization of Underground Anarchists, an illegal anarchist group created by participants in the civil war in Ukraine, including former Makhnovists, to oppose the Bolshevik regime. The decision to blow up the city committee of the RCP (b) was made by the anarchists in response to the repressions against the Makhnovists on the territory of Ukraine. In July 1919, there were no more than thirty people in the ranks of the Moscow organization of the underground anarchists. Although the anarchists do not (and cannot have, in accordance with the specifics of their ideology) official leaders, several people ran the organization. Firstly, it was the railway worker anarcho-syndicalist Kazimir Kovalevich, secondly - the former secretary of the All-Russian Federation of Anarchist Youth (AFAM) Nikolai Markov, and finally - Peter Sobolev, about whose past only some fragmentary moments were known, including episodes of work in the Makhnovist counterintelligence. Four groups were created in the organization - 1) combat, headed by Sobolev, who carried out robberies with the aim of stealing money and valuables; 2) technical, under the leadership of Azov, making bombs and weapons; propaganda, which, under the leadership of Kovalevich, was engaged in the compilation of texts of a revolutionary nature; 4) printing, headed by Tsintsiper, engaged in direct support of the publishing activities of the organization.
The underground anarchists contacted several other left-wing extremist groups dissatisfied with the policies of the Bolshevik authorities. First of all, these were separate circles that were part of the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Union of Socialists-Revolutionary-Maximalists. Representative of the PLSR Donat Cherepanov soon became one of the leaders of the underground anarchists. In addition to Moscow, the organization has created several branches throughout Russia, including in Samara, Ufa, Nizhny Novgorod, Bryansk. In their own printing house, equipped with funds received from expropriations, the underground anarchists printed ten thousand copies of propaganda leaflets, and also published two issues of the newspaper Anarchia, one of which contained a loud statement about involvement in the terrorist attack in Leontyevsky Lane. When the anarchists became aware of the upcoming meeting of the Moscow City Committee of the RCP (b) in the building on Leontyevsky Lane, they decided to carry out a terrorist act against those gathered. Moreover, information was received about the impending arrival at the meeting of V. I. Lenin. The direct perpetrators of the terrorist act were six militants of the underground anarchist organization. Sobolev and Baranovsky threw bombs, Grechannikov, Glagzon and Nikolaev guarded the action, and Cherepanov acted as a gunner.
Almost immediately after the Chekists became aware of the true perpetrators and organizers of the terrorist acts, the arrests began. Kazimir Kovalevich and Pyotr Sobolev were killed in a shootout with the Chekists. The headquarters of the underground workers in Kraskovo was surrounded by a military detachment of the IBSC. For several hours the Chekists tried to take the building by storm, after which the anarchists who were inside blew themselves up with bombs so as not to be captured. Among those killed at the dacha in Kraskovo were Azov, Glagzon and four other militants. Baranovsky, Grechannikov and several other militants were captured alive. At the end of December 1919, eight people detained by the Extraordinary Commission were shot on charges of terrorist acts. They were: Alexander Baranovsky, Mikhail Grechannikov, Fedor Nikolaev, Leonty Khlebnysky, Khilya Tsintsiper, Pavel Isaev, Alexander Voskhodov, Alexander Dombrovsky.
Of course, the anarchists of the underground were far from the only such organization in those years. On the territory of Soviet Russia, both peasant rebel movements, in which anarchists played a prominent role, and urban groups and detachments that opposed Soviet power, operated. But not a single anarchist organization in Soviet Russia succeeded in committing terrorist acts like the explosion in Leontievsky Lane.
Opposition to the anti-Soviet activities of the anarchists was one of the main conditions for the survival of the new communist government. Otherwise, anarchist organizations could only aggravate the destabilization of the situation in the country, which would ultimately lead to the victory of the "whites" or the dismemberment of the country into spheres of influence of foreign states. At the same time, in some places, especially in the 1920s, the Soviet government acted unjustifiably harshly towards the anarchists, who did not pose a threat to it. So, in the 1920s - 1930s. Many prominent in the past members of the anarchist movement, who had long retired and engaged in constructive social activities for the good of the country, were repressed.
