The Bolshevik Anti-Anarchist Action of Spring 1918

Abstract

This article sets the context for and the motivation behind the Bolshevik action to suppress the Moscow Anarchists on 11–12 April 1918. It explores the Anarchist view that in October 1917 a tactical alliance between Anarchists and Bolsheviks was essential to move the revolution forward, but that such an alliance was only temporary and would simply be a precursor to a genuinely popular third revolution which would shortly follow. The article suggests that, for the Anarchist leadership in Moscow, the crisis created by the Bolshevik decision to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 meant that the moment for such a third revolution was approaching. Was this talk of revolution real or were the Anarchists just hoping to wreck the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? By wrecking the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, would the Anarchists ignite a popular anti-state insurgency? Either way, the Bolsheviks decided to nip the action in the bud to prove to Imperial Germany that the revolution was under their control.