Lively, incendiary, and inspiring, No Harmless Power follows the
life of Nestor Makhno, who organized a seven-million-strong anarchist
polity during the Russian Civil War and developed Platformist anarchism
during his exile in Paris as well as advising other anarchists like
Durruti on tactics and propaganda.
Both timely and timeless, this biography reveals Makhno's rapidly
changing world and his place in it. He moved swiftly from peasant youth
to prisoner to revolutionary anarchist leader, narrowly escaping
Bolshevik Ukraine for Paris. This book also chronicles the friends and
enemies he made along the way: Lenin, Trotsky, Kropotkin, Alexander
Berkman, Emma Goldman, Ida Mett, and others.
No Harmless Power is the first text to fully delve into Makhno's
sympathy for the downtrodden, the trap of personal heroism, his
improbable victories, unlikely friendships, and his alarming lack of gun
safety in meetings. Makhno and the movement he began are seldom
mentioned in most mainstream histories--Western or Russian--mostly on
the grounds that acknowledging anarchist polities calls into question
the inevitability and desirability of the nation-state and unjust
hierarchies.
With illustrations by N.O. Bonzo and Kevin Matthews, this is a fresh,
humorous, and necessary look at an under examined corner of history as
well as a deep exploration of the meaning--and value, if any--of heroism
as history.
