gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642) (04/19/85)
> ... the anarchists had control of one province of Russia for a period until > quashed by the Red army. There were also Soviets which were independent > of the Communist party for a period. Unfortunately these too, were ultimately > defeated and coopted by the Party) 'Co-opted' is a very strange word to use here. The first mass arrest and execution of Anarchists took place in 1921 after the suppression of the Kronstadt rising. After some protests and hunger strikes, some of the better known anarchists were released and forced to emigrate (Volin, Maksimov, Berkman, Emma Goldman). All surviving anarchists were arrested in 1929, never to be seen again. The Kropotkin Museum in Moscow was closed shortly afterwards. The best references on this subject are the books of Paul Avrich and Leonard Shapiro. To get a feel for the atmosphere of the Civil War, one must read the superb short stories of Isaac Babel. (He fought on the Red side and was not executed until 1938.) As to the U.S. intervention, it was a farce, a sideshow and a blunder whose only beneficiaries were the Bolsheviks themselves. ----- Gabor Fencsik {dual,nsc,hplabs,intelca,proper}!qantel!gabor