Notes
All quotations in this introduction are taken from the authors’ essays in this anthology. It is believed that Bukharin here refers to more than just Russian anarchism and Russian anarchists. In his pamphlet he makes no distinction and speaks in a global sense. On the other hand, Russian anarchists have the same ideas and programs as anarchists in other countries. See The ABC of Communism by Bukharin and Preobrazhensky, Editorial Avanti!, Milan, p. 85. See Marx: “The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Working Men’s Association” in Works of Marx, Engels and Lasalle edited by Avanti!, Milan, vol. 2. (English translation from Marx-EngelsLenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972, p. 110. (Note by English editor.) These and other statements, printed in quotation marks or in heavy type, are literal quotes from... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Publishing Information
Publishing Information “Anarchy and ‘Scientific’ Communism,” by Luigi Fabbri, was first published in 1922 as Anarchia e comunismo sciendfico by Libreria editrice tempos nuovi and translated by Paul Sharkey for the 1981 Cienfuegos Pamphlet The Poverty ofStadsm. “The Soviet System or the Dictatorship of the Proletariat?,” by Rudolf Rocker, was first serialized in Fraye Arbayter Shdme as “Raten-sistem oder diktatur?,” May 15 through May 29, 1920. It was published in French in Les Temps Nouveaux as “Le systeme des soviets ou la dictature du proletariat?” that same year. Numerous Spanish editions were based on the French. This English translation by Paul Sharkey is from the Spanish and was made for the 1981 Cienfuegos pamphlet The Poverty ofStadsm. “The Idea of Equality and the Bolsheviks,” by Nestor Makhno, was first published in Dye... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 12 : The Role of Bolshevik Ideology in the Birth of the Bureaucracy by Cornelius Castoriadis
The Role of Bolshevik Ideology in the Birth of the Bureaucracy by Cornelius Castoriadis [1. The Significance of the Russian Revolution] We are happy to present to our readers the first translation into French of Alexandra Kollontai’s pamphlet The Workers’ Opposition in Russia. This pamphlet was published in Moscow at the beginning of 1921, during the violent controversy that preceded the Tenth Congress of the Bolshevik Party. This Congress was to close discussion forever on this controversy as well as on all the others. People have not finished talking about the Russian Revolution, its problems, its degeneration, and about the regime it ultimately produced. And how could one? Of all the revolts of the working class, the Russian Revolution was the only victorious one. And of all the working class’s failures, it was the most thoroughgoing and the most revealing. The crushing of the Paris Commune in 18... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 11 : Bolshevism and Stalinism by Paul Mattick
Bolshevism and Stalinism by Paul Mattick The alleged purpose of Trotsky’s biography of Stalin is to show ‘how a personality of this sort was formed, and how it came to power by usurpation of the right to such an exceptional role.’ The real purpose of the book, however, is to show why Trotsky lost the power position he temporarily occupied and why his rather than Stalin’s name should follow Lenin’s. Prior to Lenin’s death it had always been ‘Lenin and Trotsky’; Stalin’s name had invariably been near or at the end of any list of prominent Bolsheviks. On one occasion Lenin even suggested that he put his own signature second to Trotsky’s. In brief, the book helps to explain why Trotsky was of the opinion “that he was the natural successor to Lenin” and in effect is a biography of both Stalin and Trotsky. All beginnings are small, of course, and the Bolshevism of L... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 10 : Cries In The Wilderness: Alexander Berkman and Russian Prisoner Aid by Barry Pateman
Cries In The Wilderness: Alexander Berkman and Russian Prisoner Aid by Barry Pateman “Not even a miserable piece of stone is dedicated to their memory for fear of rippling a placid existence.” —Francesc Torres You can get tired of anniversaries. As you get older there are more and more of them, rolling towards you like a never ending freight train carrying commentary after commentary as the skeleton of each event is enthusiastically picked over to justify the positions and ideas that groups and individuals now hold. I am not interested in doing that for October 1917 (or for any other anniversary come to think of it). I rather think peoples lives and experiences are important in themselves and don’t need to be filleted to fit some contemporary idea or abandoned because they don’t appear relevant. Their lives might insist we ask questions, though. Even if the answer... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Anarchy and “Scientific” Communism by Luigi Fabbri
Anarchy and “Scientific” Communism by Luigi Fabbri I. The bourgeois phraseology of “scientific” communism A short while ago, through the publishing firm of the Communist Party of Italy, a little twelve-page pamphlet was issued by that “superlative theoretician” (as he was introduced to the public in the socialist and communist press) Nikolai Bukharin. It bore the pompous title Anarchy and Scientific Communism. Let us just have a look and see how much “science” there is in it. Bukharin does not set out any true notion of anarchism, any of the points in the anarchist-communist program as they truthfully are; nor does he take the trouble to inform himself on anarchist thinking by drawing upon the... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Preface to Ida Mett’s “The Kronstadt Commune” by Maurice Brinton
Preface to Ida Mett’s “The Kronstadt Commune” by Maurice Brinton The fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution will be assessed, analyzed, celebrated or bemoaned in a variety of ways. To the peddlers of religious mysticism and to the advocates of “freedom of enterprise,” Svetlana Stalin’s sensational (and well-timed) defection will “prove” the resilience of their respective doctrines, now shown as capable of sprouting on what at first sight would appear rather barren soil. To incorrigible liberals, the recent, cautious reintroduction of the profit motive into certain sectors of the Russian economy will “prove” that laissez-faire economics is synonymous with human nature and th... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The State and Revolution: Theory and Practice by Iain McKay
The State and Revolution: Theory and Practice by Iain McKay There were three Revolutions in 1917—the February revolution which started spontaneously with strikes on International Women’s Day; the October revolution when the majority of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets voted to elect a Bolshevik government; and what the Russian anarchist Voline termed “The Unknown Revolution” in between when the workers and peasants started to push the revolution from a mere political change into a social transformation. This Unknown Revolution saw the recreation of the soviets first seen during the revolution of 1905 based on delegates elected from workplaces subject to recall, workers creating unions and factory committees... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Epigraph Soon the younger generation will be consigning us to the archives, will they not? No, it’s too soon to put us in the archives—right, my fine, young friend? —Aron Baron, 1925, in a letter to Mark Mrachny... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Dedication Aron Baron was born into a poor Jewish family in the Kiev province of the Ukraine in July, 1891. He was sent to Siberia following the 1905 Revolution and eventually made it to the United States in 1912. In Chicago he met his first wife, Fanya, and was active with the Russian Workers Union and the Industrial Workers of the World. They returned to the Ukraine in 1917. Baron was an editor of the Nabat journal and participant in the movement of the same name. He was an active speaker and organizer. The arrests and imprisonment by the Cheka for Baron’s revolutionary agitation began in 1919, and never seemed to end. In September of 1921 Fanya Baron was shot by the Cheka. Years of exile and imprisonment followed but Baron never st... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)