Upon their scandalous deportation from the United States in 1919, famous
anarchist writers and activists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were
greeted like heroes by the new Bolshevik government in Russia. Berkman
described it as "the most sublime day of my life." And yet he would flee
the country after only two years. Belarus-born Ida Mett, who went
through a similar experience at the time, also wrote a harrowing account
of the Red Army's brutal massacre at the Kronstadt Uprising before she
too went into exile. How did each of these figures become so deeply
disillusioned with Russia so quickly? And why, within a few years, did
they all leave the country forever?
1917 offers a unique alternative perspective on the early years of the
Russian Revolution through the narrative perspective of these three
eyewitnesses. Featuring an introduction by Murray Bookchin, this book
emphasizes the rarely discussed anarchist hopes for a democratic October
revolution, while also critiquing the increasingly authoritarian
responses of Bolshevik leaders at the time. Published for the centennial
of the Russian revolutions, 1917 contains four essays by Emma Goldman,
Alexander Berkman, Ida Mett, and Bookchin, as well as a poem by Dan
Georgakas, that analyze, assess, celebrate, and bemoan both the wild
successes and the bitter failures of the revolution.
