Reviews
Anarchist Age Weekly Review No. 646 6th June–12th June 2005
Last year, talking to an old Russian woman who'd made her way to Australia and her 50 year old carer a Russian carer, I asked them did they know the name Makhno. They both said in unison "he's the famous anarchist bandit". Eighty-five years after the heyday of the Makhnovist movement, their role in the Russian revolution is still remembered by ordinary Russians. The Bolsheviks continued through their 75-year dictatorship in Russia to denounce the Makhnovists as anti revolutionary bogeymen.
AK Press' decision to give English speaking readers the opportunity to become acquainted with Alexandre Skirda's seminal work on Makhno and the Makhnovist movement that was originally published in Paris in 1982, gives an excellent insight into both the pathos and passion of what can only be described as one of the very few serious attempts to create an anarchist society in the 20th century. If the lessons of this failed libertarian revolution had been applied to the Spanish revolution 15 years later, the outcome may have been different.
Alexandre Skirda's 400-page tome on Makhno and the Makhnovist movement attempts to cut a swathe through the myths that surround this epoch in human history and present the reader with the facts by examining Makhno's personal life and the success and failures of a libertarian movement that, in the midst of a social revolution and a civil war, attempted to create an egalitarian society in the most difficult circumstances. It's a story about failure and victory, alliances and betrayals, death and life. The story of the Makhnovist movement is a story of victory in defeat. Nearly 85 years later, the lesson that can be drawn from Alexandre Skirda's masterly account of this period are as relevant today as they were in the 1920's.
Nestor Makhno Anarchy's Cossack is a book that anarchists can ill afford to ignore. I encourage every reader of the AAWR to try to get a hold of this extremely important addition to anarchist literature. The best way to get hold of a copy is to contact the publishers directly:
AK Press, P.O. Box 12766, Edinburgh Scotland, EH89VE, GB
AK Press, 674-A 23rd Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, US
Or write to Kate Sharpley Library, BM, Hurricane, London, England WC13XX.
Russian editions of publications by Alexandre Skirda are available on the internet www.makhno.ru and www.novset.narod.ru
|
;)
