The Unknown Revolution, Book Two

Part 5, Chapter 8 : Counter-Revolution
Chapter 8. Counter-Revolution The creative impotence of the Bolshevik government, the economic chaos into which Russia was plunged, the despotism and unheard-of violence, the bankruptcy of the Revolution, and the tragic situation which resulted from it provoked first a far-flung discontent, and later wide-sweeping backwaters, and finally forceful movements against the insupportable state of affairs imposed by the dictatorship. As always in such cases, those movements came from two opposite poles — from the side of Reaction, from the “right”, which hoped to regain power and reestablish the old order, and from the side of the Revolution, from the “left”, which hoped to redeem the situation and resume revolutionary action. We shall not dwell long upon the counter-revolutionary movements — on the one hand, because they are more or less well known, and on the other, because in themselves they are only of secondary interest... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 5, Chapter 7 : Achievements
Chapter 7. Achievements Despite the numerous works and studies containing abundant documentation and irrefutable details of the pretense of “Soviet achievements”, many persons continue to believe obstinately in this myth. For many such pretend to know and understand things without examining them closely, and without taking the trouble to read what has been published [about the questions before them]. Various naive individuals, with complete confidence in the statements made by partisans of the U.S.S.R., sincerely believe that the marvelous “achievements” of the only “Socialist State” prepare the ground for the coming of true and integral Communism. But we who know that country, we who follow closely what is happening there, and what is revealed there, can appreciate the real value of the Bolshevik “conquests” and their “feats of valor” up to the present. A profound and detailed analysis... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 5, Chapter 6 : General View
Chapter 6. General View To complete the picture that I have just sketched, here are a few last brush strokes. The Bolshevik system wants the State-employer to be, for every citizen, the provider, the moral guide, and the distributor of rewards and penalties. The State provides work for the citizen and assigns him to a job. The State feeds and pays him! The State supervises him; the State uses and manipulates him as it likes; the State educates and trains him; the State judges him; the State recompenses or punishes him. So [in one embodiment we find] employer, provider, protector, supervisor, educator, instructor, judge, jailer, and executioner — all these [embodied] in a State, which, with the help of its functionaries, wants to be omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. Let him who seeks to escape it, beware! We want to emphasize the point that the Bolshevik State (the Government) not only possesses all the material and moral goods in existe... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 5, Chapter 5 : Political Structure
Chapter 5. Political Structure In our analysis of the role of the functionaries, we touch upon the political structure of the U.S.S.R. Politically it is governed by the high State functionaries (as France, according to a time-honored formula, is governed by the prefects), and administered by an innumerable army of subordinate functionaries under their command. It remains for us to support this statement with certain indispensable details. Ahead of everything else, it is necessary to distinguish between two absolutely different elements. The one consists of appearance, decorations, the stage setting, (the sole heritage of the glorious October Revolution); the other is the reality. In appearance, the U.S.S.R. is governed by the soviets. (“The Soviets everywhere!” shout the French Communists, without knowing what to believe about the “soviets”, without having the slightest notion of their... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 5, Chapter 4 : Situation of the Functionaries
Chapter 4. Situation of the Functionaries The third social stratum in the U.S.S.R., the importance of which has become enormous, is that of the bureaucrats, the functionaries. From the moment when direct relations between the various categories of workers were suppressed, as well as their initiative and freedom of action, the functioning of the State machine, of necessity, had to be assured by intermediaries dependent on the central direction of the machine. The name which has been given to these intermediaries — — describes perfectly their role, which consists of making [something] function. In the “liberal” countries the functionaries make function what relates to the State. But in a country where the State is all, they are called upon to make everything function. This means that they are responsible for organizing, coordinating, supervising; in short with making the whole life of the country, economic and o... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Unrestrained Fury
Chapter 3. Unrestrained Fury In 1919–1920 the protests and movements of the Russian workers and peasants against the monopolistic and terroristic procedures of the “Soviet” power toward them were notably intensified. The Government, more and more cynical and implacable in its despotism, replied with increasingly accentuated reprisals. Naturally the Anarchists again were body and soul with the deceived and oppressed masses in the open conflict. Supporting the workers, they demanded for them and their organizations the right to control production [of commodities] themselves, without the intervention of politicians. Supporting the peasants, they demanded for them independence, self-rule, and the right to deal directly and fre... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Case of Leon Tchorny and Fanny Baron
Chapter 4. The Case of Leon Tchorny and Fanny Baron Thirteen Anarchists, held for no plausible reason in the Taganka prison in Moscow, inaugurated a hunger strike in July, 1921, demanding either to be arraigned or set free. This action happened to coincide with the gathering of the International Congress of Red Trade Unions (the Profinterri) in the capital city. A group of foreign Syndicalist delegates (mainly French) questioned the ..“Soviet” government about the strike, having learned of it, with full details, from the prisoners’ relatives. The questioning also bore on other analogous cases, and even on the Bolshevik policy of repressing Anarchists and Syndicalists. In the name of the Government, Leon Trotsky cynically a... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Final Settlement
Chapter 7. The Final Settlement After all that we have said about the nature of State Socialism and its inevitable evolution, the reader will easily understand the reasons which led this “Socialism” into a relentless conflict with the libertarian idea. For an informed person there is of course nothing surprising or unexpected in the fact that the Socialist power in Russia persecuted Anarchism and Anarchists. This was foreseen by the Anarchists themselves (and as early as Mikhail Bakunin) long before the Russian Revolution, in the event that the latter should become statist and authoritarian. Repression of the libertarian concept, persecution of its followers, and suppression of the independent movements of the masses: such are t... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Case of Lefevre, Vergeat and Lepetit
Chapter 5. The Case of Lefevre, Vergeat and Lepetit Three French militants vanished without trace in another outstanding case. They were: Raymond Lefevre, Vergeat, and Lepetit, delegates to the Congress of the Communist International which took place in Moscow in the summer of 1920. Raymond Lefevre, though a member of the Communist Party, repeatedly voiced gloomy sentiments at that time, and was fully aware of the false route his ideological comrades had taken. And Vergeat and Lepetit, both Anarcho-Syndicalists, openly displayed their anger, and did not conceal their criticism of the state of things in Russia. More than once, Lepetit, his head in his hands, said, while weighing the report he would have to make to his French Syndicalist comr... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Deception of Visiting Delegations
Chapter 9. The Deception of Visiting Delegations Here we must devote some paragraphs to a special procedure of “skull-stuffing” utilized by the “Soviets” on a vast scale — the systematic deception of foreign workers’ delegations. The facts are clearly known. One of the “clinching arguments” of the Bolsheviks to disprove unfavorable revelations about their administration of the affairs of Russia and its satellites, consists in calling upon the testimony of delegations sent to the U.S.S.R. by organizations, factories, or institutions of various other countries. After a stay of a few weeks in “the land of Socialism” such delegates, almost without exception, have called everything that... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)