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American Academy of Political and Social Science

Review: [untitled]Author(s): Jesse D. ClarksonReviewed work(s):

The Russian Anarchists by Paul AvrichSource: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 375, Women

around the World (Jan., 1968), pp. 209-210Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and SocialScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1037920

Accessed: 07/10/2010 15:32

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BOOK DEPARTMENT 209chosen topics to present much solid mate-rial within a commendably brief compass.Most of the contributors succeed in raisingnew questions about old subjects. A fewof them offersuggestions that possibly pointthe way to new insights and a better under-standing of the form and meaning of thefrontier experience. Taken as a whole, thecollection will repay reading by anyoneseriously interested in the history of theAmerican West. In particular, lecturers,textbook writers, and directors of researchin the field will do well to avail themselvesof this book.The "phases"of frontier history that theindividual investigators take up include cer-tain aspects of the Turner thesis, interna-tional relations on the southwest border,transportation and travel, religion, docu-mentary art, cartography, territorial rec-ords, the fur trade, and literary treatmentsof the frontier. The reviewer found thefollowing papers noteworthy for new inter-pretations and approaches, as well as forthe useful factual material that they supply.Herman R. Friis's "The Image of theAmerican West at Mid-Century (1840-60)" points out the potential of the so farlittle-used information about physical andcultural landscapesto be found in the carto-graphic and graphic records of the NationalArchives. Unfortunately, the illustrationsof the maps that Friis discusses are printedso poorly as to be of little value. RalphE. Morrow's "The Great Revival, theWest, and the Crisis of the Church" devel-ops the thesis that the religious organiza-tions were too deeply involved in internaland external adjustments after the Revolu-tion to take up the challenge of the frontier,with consequences for the history of life inthe AmericanWest that deserve to be moreclosely studied than they have been.John C. Ewers's "Fact and Fiction inthe Documentary Art of the AmericanWest" illustrates with sixteen plates theuse of pictures as sources and emphasizesthe necessity of critical analysis in theselection and interpretation of such mate-rial. One of the most valuable papers inthe book is Oliver W. Holmes's "TerritorialGovernment and the Records of Its Admin-istration," in which the author opens up agrand view of a major, but much neglected,

aspect of western American history.Holmes's knowledge of the character of thesources is unsurpassed,and he convincinglyindicates how much of the early history ofthe western states must be rewritten, oncehistorians become acquainted with the pri-mary sources in the National Archives inthis field. He offers an impressive list oftopics within the over-all territorial processthat await study and development.Jules Zanger's"The Frontierman in Pop-ular Fiction, 1820-60" presents an interest-ing analysis of the emerging image of thefrontierman in the trinity personified byBoone, Crockett, and Leatherstocking, andshows why Crockett won out. Joe B.Frantz's "Cowboy Philosophy: A ColdSpoor" tells of a futile search for a state-ment of the cowboy's philosophy in thecowboy's own words and concludes that thephilosophy of the cowboy must remain"what he was, not what he said." Frantz'sfailure to find what he sought makes onewonder if the gulf between cowboy realityand cowboy myth might not apply as wellto other aspects of that inflated subject.W. N. DAVIS, JR.Chief of ArchivesCaliforniaState Archives

EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTAND HISTORYPAUL AVRICH. The Russian Anarchists.

Pp. x, 303. Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1967. $7.50.At first glance, an account of a movementthat "never became a creed of the mass ofpeasants and industrial workers"-thoughthis remark could also be made about theBolsheviks-while its surviving participantswere "rejected, reviled, and, finally,stamped out or driven into exile," mightseem a work of supererogation. Yet thisstudy is, in fact, so conceived and soexecuted that it richly deserves the atten-tion of all those interested in the RussianRevolution and its aftermath.Dr. Avrich has given due attention tothe thinking of Bakunin and Kropotkin asthe intellectual forebears of Russian an-archism, but happily has devoted most of

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210 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYhis book to the activities and significanceof the anarchist movement in Russia itself.He finds it first becoming significant in theearly years of the twentieth century, chieflyamong young Jewish workingmen in thePale, who, though never numerous, weredistinguished for their reckless terrorism.A second stream, almost wholly gentile andmostly students, was also youthful and, inthe main, also terrorist. Less numerousthan these Anarchist-Communists, whowere inspired by the Paris Commune, werethe Anarcho-Syndicalists, who acceptedlarge-scale economic organization, and ascattering of Anarchist-Individualists, withhardly any practical significance.The author traces clearly the persistenceof the two main currents, the romanticAnarchist-Communistsand the antiterroristAnarcho-Syndicalists, both internally di-vided and mutually hostile, and emphasizesthe by no means insignificant role thatthe two played in the Revolution. Hegives an excellent account and analysis oftheir ambivalent relations with the Bolshe-viks, whom the anarchists feared but withwhom they felt constrained to co-operate,with considerable stress on the anarchists'share-for which the Bolsheviks were toshow no gratitude-in "October."The progressively vigorous persecutionof anarchist intellectuals, who became themost trenchant critics of what they re-garded as Bolshevik betrayal of the Revolu-tion, is presented in appropriate detail, asare Makhno's heroic efforts to establish agenuinely libertarian regime among his fel-low peasants in the Ukraine and the sup-pression of his "banditry"by the Bolsheviksas soon as, with his co-operation, the RedArmy had cleared the area of White forces.The essentially anarchist character of theKronstadt revolt in 1921 is also made clear.The volume concludes with an accountof the round-up of most anarchists in theearly years of the New Economic Policy(NEP), a description of the fate of Rus-sian anarchists in emigration, and an excel-lent summary and evaluation of the move-ment as a whole.The volume is well organized, clearlywritten, and equippedwith a useful chronol-ogy, a comprehensivebibliography, picturesof leading figures, and a thoroughly work-

able index. Notwithstanding a few quiteminor weaknesses, this work may well serveas a model of how individualized studiesmay be made to shed valuable light onbroader topics and genuinely to illuminatecorners of Russian history that have pre-viously not been given their proper shareof attention.JESSE D. CLARKSONProfessor of HistoryBrooklyn College of the CityUniversity of New York

STUART RAMSAY TOMPKINS. The Triumphof Bolshevism: Revolution or Reaction?Pp. xi, 331. Norman: University ofOklahoma Press, 1967. $5.95.It is primarily as a student of Russianthought and culture that Professor Tomp-kins addresses himself to the emergence andeventual triumph of bolshevism, and he, in-deed, speaks mainly in cultural rather thanin political terms. The Russians' indiffer-ence to the "facts," and their predilectionfor indirect argument, as against the West-ern "passion for clarity" (p. 17), serve ap-propriately as his starting point for a sur-vey of the intellectual traditions fromwhich he traces the political outlook ofLenin and the other, less steeped, membersof the Marxist revolutionary movement inRussia. From this source, Lenin was im-bued with the weapons of powerful invec-tive, a highly developed sense of theimportance of "nomenclature," especiallythe labeling of enemies, and at the sametime an ability to concentrate with unflag-ging attention on the minutiae of hisprivate organization. Professor Tompkinsreveals the essential conflict between theinterests of the workers, who wanted alabor movement, and the intentions of theRussian socialists, who wanted to make arevolution based on an army of socialist-ledworkers. He is especially concerned,rightly, to show the common intellectualorigins of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks,though he does not suggest that they repre-sented a Scylla and Charibdis for the labormovement. The question arises herewhether they were sole alternatives.Professor Tompkins suggests that allLenin's "agitation" and unceasing conflict