Anarcho-syndicalism and the Russian Revolution: Towards a political explanation of a fleeting romance, 1917–22

Abstract

The Russian Revolution cast its spell over many European anarchists who became supportive of Bolshevism. The most salient example of this was the Spanish CNT, which became an enthusiastic champion of the Soviet Republic. The Spanish anarchists’ infatuation with Russia was short lived and by 1922 the CNT had reaffirmed its libertarian traditions. The fleeting romance of the Spanish anarchists and the Russian communists has often been explained as a mere misunderstanding, produced by the dearth of reliable news from Russia in the early years of the revolution. This paper will challenge this empirical argument, and instead focus on a series of political and psychological factors that filtered the anarchists’ appraisal of the Russian Revolution: the experience of opposition to reformist Social Democracy, especially after 1914, which created new affinities between anti-war Marxists and anarchists; the conditions of class odium and revolutionary optimism of these stormy years, which made anarchists receptive to the ruthless methods of the Bolsheviks; and the dynamics of political competition and the opportunities that the association with the victorious Russian Revolution afforded to anarchist organizations. The paper will conclude with some comparative observations on other European anarcho-syndicalist movements.