The social portrait of the anarchist regional elite in Russia in the early 20th century

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Relevance. The study of the history of political parties and movements in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, despite the numerous studies, is still far from complete, especially at the regional level. The history of the anarchic provincial party-political elite of Russia in the early 20th century is a relevant topic that has not yet been developed by historical science. Continuing a series of publications reconstructing the demographic composition of the regional elite of different political parties [18, pp. 66-75; 20, pp. 67-72; 21, pp. 19-29; 22, pp. 117-122], this article is devoted to the sociometric indicators of the anarchic regional elite of Russia in the early 20th century.

The aim of the study is to identify sociometric indicators of the anarchic regional elite of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

The objectives of the study include:

- identify representatives of the anarchic provincial political elite;

- to identify the factors that influenced the collective socio-portrait of elite regional anarchists;

- to analyze the social composition of the members of the provincial elite of Russian anarchism;

- to show the image of the anarchist regional political elite against the backdrop of a collective portrait of participants in the anarchist movement in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century as a whole.

Source base. This study is based on the electronic database "Party and political elite of provincial Russia in the 1890s-1920s", formed by a team led by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of TSU named after G.R. Derzhavin L.G. Protasov. The author of this article took direct part in compiling the data bank and publishing some of the results of its analysis.

The database contains information on 21 outstanding (elite) anarchists. Their number is small compared to the total number of followers of M.A. Bakunin and P.A. Kropotkin in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, which, according to historians, did not exceed 10 thousand people [10, p. 118, 253]. Their belonging to the anarchist regional party-political elite of Russia is undoubted, since, despite the syllogism of their doctrine of the complete equality of people, they were leaders of anarchist groups, revolutionary committees, and were members of the executive committees of regional councils.

For each representative of the anarchist provincial elite, there is personal data, such as place and year of birth, age, gender, ethnicity, social origin, education, profession, occupation, revolutionary, prison and exile experience. This information allows us to compile a socio-portrait of the anarchist elite of provincial Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Methods and methodology. The main research methods were:

- prosopographical ( made it possible to create an electronic database, collect characteristics of representatives of the anarchist elite: date, place of birth, social origin, etc.);

- analysis (with its help, the reasons for the political socialization of the participants of the studied group were identified and analyzed);

- synthesis (the historical information obtained is generalized);

- retrospective (made it possible to understand the events and factors that determined the collective socio-portrait of the provincial elite);

- comparative-historical (data obtained as a result of scientific research are correlated with information already available in historiography).

The methodological basis of the research was the principles of scientificity, historicism, and objectivity.

Results

In terms of gender, the absolute majority of elite members of the provincial political elite of the anarchist movement were men, which corresponded to the patriarchal type of Russian society at the beginning of the 20th century. The desire to overcome legal discrimination based on gender determined the small proportion of women in the anarchist elite group. A prominent figure in the group of anarchist communists in the North-West Territory, who attempted to assassinate the Yekaterinoslav Governor A.M. Klingenberg, was F.E. Stavskaya. O.I. Taratuta was one of the organizers of the "Southern Combat Group of Anarchist Communists" [19, p. 604]. In general, the gender distribution of outstanding regional figures in the anarchist movement correlated with the traditional society of Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Table 1. Gender distribution of the anarchic regional elite [ Compiled from: 2-5, 7-9, 11-17, 19, 23-34]

A person became a political figure at a certain age. The oldest elite anarchists (both born in 1868) were A.M. Atabekyan [4, p. 5], who was a member of the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups, and I.S. Bleikhman [11, p. 474], a member of the Kronstadt Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The first of them became a social democrat at the turn of the 1880s and 1890s, a time of widespread Marxism in Russia, and the second became a follower of P.A. Kropotkin in 1904.

More than a third of the elite anarchists belonged to the category of mature people born in the 1870s. They became involved in political activity at the end of the 19th century, when the famine of 1891-1892 occurred, which caused a public outcry and an upsurge in the revolutionary movement. Since 1895, the editor of the prominent anarchist newspaper "Voice of Labor" A.G. Taratuta was engaged in anti-government activity [24, p. 137].

About half of the provincial activists were aged 25-35. Born in the 1880s, they became anarchists in the first decade of the 20th century. The factors of their political socialization were the tightening of government policy in the field of higher education (1899), the growth of the labor movement associated with the economic crisis, the war with Japan, which some subjects perceived as "unjust", the bloody events of 1905-1907 and the revolutionary elements in general. Since 1903, the head of the Kronstadt group of anarchist-syndicalists, a participant in the Revolution of 1917 was E.Z. Yarchuk [25, p. 1085]. In 1882, one of the organizers of the Petrograd Union of Anarcho-Syndicalist Propaganda, V.M. Volin, was born; he died in exile [13, p. 604].

The youngest participants in the provincial anarchist elite of the early 20th century were the prominent anarcho-communist activist in Odessa, Chisinau, and Kherson, who headed the Committee for Agricultural Procurement under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the mid-1930s, I.M. Kleiner (born in 1893 [33, p. 956]) and the secretary of the Headquarters of Revolutionary Organizations of Ivanovo-Voznesensk, writer D.A. Furmanov (born in 1891 [28, p. 594]). They joined the anti-government movement in the 1910s, the era of the "imperialist" First World War and the Great Russian Revolution.

The regional elite figures of the anarchist movement were aged 25-45, having joined politics at the age of 20. Youthful maximalism, instability of social guidelines, and an incompletely formed personality contributed to their choice of an anti-statist worldview and the use of extremist methods and ways of solving social problems in the country.

Table 2. Age structure of elite anarchist activists [Compiled from: 2, 4-5, 7-9, 11-17, 19, 23-34]

In terms of ethnic composition, half of the elite figures were Jews born in the southwestern and western regions of the country, in the "Pale of Settlement" populated by Semites. Their representation should be interpreted as a desire to eliminate national restrictions by the most radical method. The absence of a state for Jews for two millennia and their living in communities could correspond to the idea of self-governing communes propagated by anarchism. The Semites included the leader of the "Chernoznamensky" anarchist group in Kyiv, I.S. Grossman, and F.E. Stavskaya.

Every third activist was a Great Russian, which can be explained by the traditions of centuries-old Russian rebellion, close to anarchism, and the political culture of the “liberation” movement of the 19th century, which included a movement committed to the doctrine of political anarchy.

Among the foreigners there were isolated representatives of Little Russians (the leader of the Gulyai-Polye Revolutionary Committee N.I. Makhno), Armenians (A.M. Atabekyan), Georgians (member of the Irkutsk anarchist group and the military section of the local Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies N.A. Kalandarishvili) and Czechs (one of the organizers of the anarchist-communist circle in Kiev N.I. Rogdaev-Muzil). The national appearance of the provincial elite of the anarchist movement in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was determined by the propagated principle of the "anarchist international" and corresponded to the ethnic composition of the regions of the country in which anarchist groups existed.

Table 3. Ethnic appearance of the provincial anarchist elite [Compiled from: 1, 4, 6-7, 9, 12, 14, 16-17, 23-27, 29, 32]

By social origin, more than half of the elite figures belonged to the bourgeois class, were natives of small towns or cities, where they carried out their anti-state activities. I.M. Geytsman [27, p. 42], one of the organizers of the anarchist-communist movement "khlebovol'tsy" in the North-West Territory and Siberia, and P.A. Arshinov [2, p. 720], secretary of the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups, were bourgeois.

Almost 1/5 of the elite belonged to the nobility and peasantry. However, the anarchists were not genuine representatives of the nobility, but only descendants from it, who did not possess landed property or other privileges. N.A. Kalandarishvili came from the nobility [32, p. 41].

The elite members who were registered as peasants were not “free rural inhabitants”, having no characteristic way of life, occupation, or place of residence. Having migrated from villages to cities due to demographic overpopulation, they replenished the working class and the minor intelligentsia. According to his autobiography, D.A. Furmanov, who came from peasants in the Nerekhta district of the Kostroma province, moved to Ivanovo-Voznesensk and worked as a teacher at workers’ courses [8]. An exception was N.I. Makhno, who worked for a short time as a farm laborer on a landowner’s estate [12, p. 3].

I.S. Grossman stood out as the only one who belonged to the merchant class [26, p. 598]. Two elite anarchists (A.M. Atabekyan [17, p. 26] and the organizer of the "Beznachalie" groups in Tambov, Kiev, and St. Petersburg B.F. Speransky [9, p. 515]) are listed in the database as raznochintsy. They were representatives of the intelligentsia, a social group that officially did not exist in the Russian Empire, which reflected their rejection of the class structure of Russian society, which had become an anachronism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The anarchist provincial elite came from the lower strata of Russian society, which, in the difficult social conditions of reality (poverty, humiliated existence), could have prompted its participants to join the social movement aimed at implementing a social revolution, propagated by anarchism.

Table 4. Social and class composition of the anarchic regional elite [Compiled from: 2, 4-5, 7-9, 11-17, 19, 23-34]

Education is one of the most important socio-cultural characteristics of a person. The relative majority (see Table 5) of outstanding anarchists studied in higher educational institutions, which they did not graduate from due to joining the revolutionary movement or were expelled from them for anti-government activities. L. Cherny-P.D. Turchaninov joined the ranks of revolutionaries from his student days [34, p. VII ].

A quarter of the activists – peasants and townspeople by class affiliation – received a lower level of education. N.I. Makhno graduated from a parish school [ 14, p. 906 ] . The terrorist F.E. Stavskaya received an education close to the primary level – home education [15, p. 532].

The proportions of people with secondary education and those without it were at the same level. There was no need for literacy to deny the authorities. There is no information about E.Z. Yarchuk receiving a systematic education [23, pp. 538-539]. Secondary education was required for a teacher, a technical specialist. O.I. Taratuta completed pedagogical courses [ 6, p. 257 ] . N.I. Rogdaev-Muzil received an education at the Kostroma Mechanical and Technical School [29, p. 413].

Most elite anarchists had a low level of education, which was necessary for the perception and propaganda of anarchist ideas, including in a simplified form. Low literacy contributed to the involvement of people in extremist activities.

Table 5. Educational level of anarchist elite politicians [Compiled from: 2, 4, 7-9, 11-17, 19, 23-34]

The occupation must correspond to the received education. According to this criterion, one of the most numerous categories were people without specific occupations (see Table 6). Social lack of demand associated with unemployment, a difficult life situation, a state of psycho-emotional discomfort gave rise to deviant behavior, the manifestation of which is a commitment to anarchism.

At a high level in the elite group was the share of Jewish artisans engaged in handicraft production in the "Pale of Settlement", who were at the lowest level in the hierarchical structure of Russian society. I.M. Geitsman worked as a carpenter [16, p. 135], and I.M. Kleiner as a cooper [7, p. 221].

Close to the artisans were the workers, who were socially oriented as one of the groups of the “disadvantaged population” and among whom the anarchist intellectuals carried out propaganda. The involvement of the proletarians in the revolutionary movement was facilitated by the difficult working conditions. P.A. Arshinov worked as a mechanic [5, p. 48], and the leader of the fighting squad in the Urals, A.M. Lbov [30, p. 58], was a worker in the steel-making shop.

Every fifth outstanding regional representative of the anarchist movement in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was a student. Higher school students, maximalist-minded due to their age, therefore critically assessed the educational system of the Russian Empire at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. M. Ya. Brown-Rakitin, who joined the southern Russian group of anarchist communists and later joined the Socialist Revolutionaries, was a student of the Physics and Mathematics Department of the Novorossiysk University [31, p. 844].

The proportion of teachers, doctors, and office workers who belonged to the intelligentsia, who were in opposition and revolutionary attitudes towards the political system of the Russian Empire, but who understood the need for power and therefore did not have anti-statist aspirations, was small. O. I. Taratuta was a teacher [ 3, p. 565 ] .

The professional composition of the anarchist regional elite included various layers of the “disadvantaged” (an anarchist term), to whom the followers of M.A. Bakunin and P.A. Kropotkin were socially oriented.

Table 6. Occupations of members of the anarchic provincial elite [Compiled from: 2-5, 7-9, 11-17, 19, 23-34]

Since the elite representatives belonged to the anti-government movement, their revolutionary-criminal characteristics are of scientific interest. According to our calculations, the average revolutionary experience of the participants in the group under study in 1917 was 15 years. Almost all of them were subjected to various measures of state coercion for the offenses they committed in the pre-revolutionary period. N.A. Kalandarishvili was arrested 8 times, N.I. Makhno was sentenced to death, replaced by hard labor, A.M. Lbov was hanged.

Conclusions

The provincial elite of the anarchist movement in Russia in the early 20th century consisted predominantly of Jewish men aged 25–45 who entered politics at the age of 20 in the 1890s and 1900s. Its participants came from and belonged to the lower strata of Russian society and received a low level of education, which influenced the formation of their worldview and political socialization.

Against the background of a generalized portrait of a Russian anarchist [1, pp. 574-576], representatives of the elite appeared to be older, more educated, had more political (revolutionary) experience, and were part of the leadership of anarchist groups, which testifies to their elitism.

The anarchist regional elite in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was a consequence of the transitory state of modernization of the domestic society, the transition from a traditional type of society to an industrial one, the result of the socio-economic and political transformation of the country together with provincial factors of influence.

作者简介

Nikita P'yanykh

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Email: nikita-p-2016@mail.ru
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Candidate of Historical Sciences

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