Communism -- Soviet Union; Goldman, Emma, 1869-1940; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Personal narratives, American
After the death of Peter Kropotkin his friends and comrades decided to
found a Kropotkin Museum in commemoration of the great Anarchist
teacher and in furtherance of his ideas and ideals. I removed to Moscow
to aid in the organization of the proposed memorial, but before long the
Museum Committee concluded that for the time being the project could not
be realized. Everything being under State monopoly, nothing could be
done without application to the authorities. To accept Government aid
would have been a deliberate betrayal of the spirit of Kropotkin who
throughout his life consistently refused State assistance. Once when
Kropotkin was ill and in need, the Bolshevik Government offered him a
large sum for the right to publish his works. Kropotkin refused. He was
compelled to accept rations and medical assistance when sick, but he
would neither consent to his works being published by the State nor
accept any other aid from it. The Kropotkin Museum Committee took the
same attitude. It accepted from the Moscow Soviet the house Kropotkin
had been born in, and which was to be turned into a Kropotkin Museum;
but it would ask the Government for nothing more. The house at the time
was occupied by a military organization; it would require months to get
it vacated and then no means would be at hand to have it renovated.
Some of the Committee members felt that a Kropotkin Museum was out of
place in Bolshevik Russia as long as despotism was rampant and the
prisons filled with political dissenters.
While I was in Petrograd on a short visit, the Moscow apartment in which
I had a room was raided by the Tcheka. I learned that the customary trap
had been set and everyone arrested who called at the place during the
_zassada_. I visited Ravitch to protest against such proceedings,
telling her that if the object was to take me into custody I was
prepared for it. Ravitch had heard nothing of the matter, but promised
to get in touch with Moscow. A few days later I was informed that the
Tchekists had been withdrawn from the apartment and that the arrested
friends were about to be released. When I returned to my room some time
later most of them had been freed. At the same time a number of
Anarchists were arrested in various parts of the capital and no news of
their fate or of the cause of their arrest could be learned. Several
weeks later, on August 30th, the Moscow _Izvestia_ published the
official report of the Veh-Tcheka concerning “Anarchist banditism,”
announcing that ten Anarchists had been shot as “bandits” without
hearing or trial.
It had become the established policy of the Bolshevik Government to mask
its barbaric procedure against Anarchists with the uniform charge of
banditism. This accusation was made practically against all arrested
Anarchists and frequently even against sympathizers with the movement. A
very convenient method of getting rid of an undesirable person: by it
any one could be secretly executed and buried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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