Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

3 12/ ANARCHISM
88. Alexander Berkman: The Bolshevik Myth (1925)
After Alexander Berkman (1870-1936) and Emma Goldman were released from prison in
1919, they and another 247 undesirables were deported to Russia on the S. S. Buford, victims
of the first large-scale "Red Scare" campaign in the United States (of which Ricardo Flores
Magon and Sacco and Vanzetti were also victims). Arriving in Russia in January 1920, unaware
of the growing repression, they were initially sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. But as
they became better acquainted with the situation in Russia, and came into contact with various
Russian anarchists who had managed to escape imprisonment or death, their views of the
Bolsheviks began to change. Berkman travelled to Ukraine to find out the t/"llth about the
Makhnovshchina, which was subject to a vicious Bolshevik propaganda campaign of lies and
vilification. Despite Bolshevik claims to the contrary, it became clear that anarchists of all
persuasions, even the "anarchists of ideas," as well as "bandits" like Makhno, were regarded
by the Bolsheviks as enemies to be ruthlessly crushed. Berkman later encouraged Maksimov to
write a detailed account of Bolshevik repression, which was publislled by the Berkman Memorial
Fund in 1940 as The Guillotine at Work: Twenty Years of Terror in Russia (volume
one was republished by Cienfuegos Press in 1979 under the name of G. P. Maximoff, entitled,
The Guillotine at Work, Vol. 1: The Leninist Counter-Revolution). For Berkman, the final
straw came in March 1921, when the Bolsheviks massacred the Kronstadt sailors, who
had rebelled against Bolshevik authority, calling for such "counter-revolutionary" measures
as elections by secret ballot, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the liberation of
political prisoners. The following extracts are taken from the afterword to Berkman's The
Bolshevik Myth (New York: Bani and Liveright, 1925), published separately by Berkman
wIlen the publisher rejected it as an "anti-climax," which Berkman then used as the name of
his pamphlet. It is il1cludcd in the 1989 Pluio Press edition of The Bolshevik Myth.
TERRORISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE ultima ratio of government alarmed for its existence.
Terrorism is tempting with its tremendous possibilities. It offers a mechanical
solution, as it were, in hopeless situations. Psychologically it is explained as a matter
of self-defence, as the necessity ofthrowing off responsibility the better to strike the
enemy.
But the principles of terrorism unavoidably rebound to the fatal injury of liberty
and revolution. Absolute power corrupts and defeats its partisans no less than its opponents.
A people that knows not liberty becomes accustomed to dictatorship. Fighting
despotism and counter-revolution, terrorism itself becomes their efficient school.
Once on the road of terrorism, the State necessarily becomes estranged from
the people. It must reduce to the possible minimum the circle of persons vested with
extraordinary powers, in the name of the safety of the State. And then is born what