Alternative history of Stalinism

Via RA-L, notice of a new publication:

Skirda, Alexandre. Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack. The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine, 1917-1921.

Here come the Anarchist Cossacks, led by a remarkable strategist, the Ukrainian Nestor Makhno, fighting against the White Army and crushed by the Soviet Army. This popular peasant movement- 300,000 men according to a report in 1920 - is a poignant moment in the Soviet revolution.

The author, Alexandre Skirda, is a respected historian who will leave no one indifferent. He has consulted a large number of primary sources, including Viktor Belash’ “Memoirs”, an important document that completes Makhno’s and Arshinov’s own works, as well as many other papers in several countries.

The analysis of this exceptional moment of anarchist history is accompanied by a discussion of other historians’ interpretations and distortions. The present edition includes some texts from the Makhnovists and an updated bibliography.

It is not exagerated to say that this book ought to be available in any serious library, because it will remain an indispensable reference in the study of the Russian Revolution, guerilla history, the critique of Stalinist interpretations and, of course, a rediscovery of anarchism as a mass movement.

Publication details: xi, 414 p. Illustrated. ISBN 1-902593-68-5 paperback £13
Published by AK Press, PO Box 12766, Edinburgh, EH8 9YE ak@akedin.demon.co.uk
and Kate Sharpley Library, BM Hurricane, London, WC1N 3XX info@katesharpleylibrary.net

Buy from Word Power/AK Press

For more, see:
RA Forum > MAKHNO, Nestor Ivanovic (1889-1934). A Bibliography



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File under: totalitarianism and freedom/heroes of freedom