Alexander Berkman
The tenth anniversary of the Russian revolution

Alexander Berkman, de schrijver van de ‘Memoirs of an anarchist’ was van 1920-1922 in Rusland. Zijn ervaringen heeft hij in dagboekvorm neergelegd in zijn The bolshevik myth, New-York, Boni and Liveright, 1925, 310p.; zijn theoretische en politieke conclusies in het afzonderlijk verschenen The ‘Anti-Climax’, the concluding chapter of my russian diary, the bolshevik myth, 27 pag. Als vele andere anarchisten was hij met een groot geloof in de socialistische revolutie uit Amerika naar Rusland vertrokken, bereid tot een loyale samenwerking met de revolutionaire marxisten, die hun theoretische opvattingen over den ontwikkelingsweg naar het socialisme hadden moeten laten vallen. Weldra bleek, dat er een onverzoenlijke tegenstelling ontstond tusschen de ‘russische revolutie’ en de partij, die door deze revolutie tot de macht gekomen was. Met de dictatuur van een alles centraliseerend staatsapparaat, met staatskapitalisme en NEP ontstond - niet meer ter verdediging tegen de contrarevolutionaire aanvallen - een terreur, die zich meedoogenloos richtte tegen hen, die met de bolschewiki de October-revolutie hadden bevochten. Linksche sociaalrevolutionairen, anarchisten en syndikalisten werden als onder het tsaristische régime ‘administratief’ verbannen, zonder behoorlijken vorm van proces gedood en gevangen gezet voor geen ander misdrijf dan aanhangers te zijn van de leus der Octoberrevolutie: ‘alle macht aan de raden’. A.B. doet een beroep op de materieele en moreele-hulp voor de heden in russische, resp. siberische, gevangenissen smachtende anarchisten en syndikalisten, waarvoor een hulpcomité der Internationale Arbeiders-Associatie van Berlijn (Relief Fund of the International Workingman Association, Berlin 0.34, Warschauerstrasse 62,) in het leven geroepen is.
Voor de tienjarige herdenking der Octoberrevolutie vraagt hij de in vrijheidstelling van hen die er voor streden. A.M.L.

It is only a few months now to the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. Great preparations are being made by the Communist Party and Government of Russia for the celebration of the important event. Numerous committees are at work to make the day the most memorable in the annals of Soviet Russia, and to demonstrate to the country and to the world at large the achievements of the first decade of Bolshevik rule.

There is no doubt that the October Revolution was the most significant social upheaval known in human history. It broke all the molds of established society - not merely political forms, as was the case in previous revolutions, but the very economic foundations that support human slavery and oppression.

The spiritual achievements of the Revolution are tremendous, their ultimate effects immeasurable. It sounded the liberation of a million-headed people that for centuries had been held in bondage. It inspired them with a new vision of life and a new purpose. It opened vista of a reborn civilisation of human dignity, brotherhood and freedom. And it lit the torch of hope and aspiration for all the peoples of the world.

A decade is but a short span in the life of a country. It would be near-sighted and unfair to judge the potentialities of new Russia by her actual achievements within the last ten years. But the Essential Characteristics of Russian life since the Revolution may serve as an indication of the dominant spirit and tendencies of the country.

This is not the place for a detailed review of the first decade of Soviet Russia or even for an approximate estimate of her activities during that period. It is the Fundamental Nature and Trend of Russian development during the past ten years that are important, and they are sufficient to clarify the present situation.

The purpose of the October Revolution was to revalue outlived social conceptions, to free man from his spiritual and physical bondage, to release the creative energies of the people and to establish conditions of human dignity and brotherhood.

Is present-day Russia even in the smallest degree an approach to that purpose? Is it imaginably even on the road toward that end?

It is enough to state the essential factors of Russian life to supply the answer.

What are those fundamental factors? What those essential features that characterise Today in Russia and prepare her Tomorrow?

POLITICALLY: the most absolute despotism, the exclusive rule of an all-powerful political party that ruthlessly suppresses every symptom of disagreement and non-conformance.

ECONOMICALLY: capitalism, State and private, with all its attending attributes of exploitation, degradation and subjection of the toilers.

EDUCATIONALLY: the apotheosis of the ruling political party, its leaders and the State as omniscent and infallible; the intensification of the spirit of authority and blind obedience; the cultivation of militarist discipline and party chauvinism; the rearing of fanatical subjects, whose wills are crippled and minds stifled by the elimination of all freedom of speech and the suppression of all but party doctrines and information.

SOCIALLY: a condition of terror, with the dominant political party as the sole arbiter of all action, thought and behavior; a regime that cultivates the basest qualities of man by rousing fear, insecurity, hypocrisy and debasement.

These are the vital elements of life under the Bolsheviki. What boots it that Russia has ‘succeeded’ in inducing international capital to exploit her natural resources - and her workers at the same time? Was a great revolution, with all its inevitable bloodshed and suffering, necessary merely to advance Russian development on the lines of American industrialism? Was the Revolution fought to etablish modern capitalism in Russia?

It is unspeakably indecent to celebrate these achievements of Bolshevik rule in the name of the October Revolution. It is the greatest crime to rejoice in the betrayal of the Revolution by the Communist Party.

The anniversary of the Revolution can be celebrated only by a revival of the spirit that is now being crushed by the Bolshevik Government. It can be celebrated only by foreswearing tyranny and terror, and by returning to the people the fruits of the Revolution: their liberties and selfdetermination. In short, by the Bolshevik masters getting off the people's back.

The first step on this road is the absolute abolition of the system of suppression and persecution, and the immediate and unconditional liberation of the political prisoners.

Not a fake liberation of the men and women suffering for opinion's sake, not an ‘administrative’ liberation that will leave the prison doors open for their forced return under some new Tcheka pretext. But an actual liberation guaranteed by the elimination of the least semblance of political persecution.

Thus only can the great October Revolution be fittingly commemorated in spirit and in deed.