American Academy of Political and Social Science

Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Jesse D. Clarkson
Reviewed work(s):
The Russian Anarchists by Paul Avrich
Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 375, Women
around the World (Jan., 1968), pp. 209-210
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social
Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1037920
Accessed: 07/10/2010 15:32

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 BOOK DEPARTMENT 209

chosen topics to present much solid mate- aspect of western American history.
rial within a commendably brief compass. Holmes's knowledge of the character of the
Most of the contributors succeed in raising sources is unsurpassed, and he convincingly
new questions about old subjects. A few indicates how much of the early history of
of them offer suggestions that possibly point the western states must be rewritten, once
the way to new insights and a better under- historians become acquainted with the pri-
standing of the form and meaning of the mary sources in the National Archives in
frontier experience. Taken as a whole, the this field. He offers an impressive list of
collection will repay reading by anyone topics within the over-all territorial process
seriously interested in the history of the that await study and development.
American West. In particular, lecturers, Jules Zanger's "The Frontierman in Pop-
textbook writers, and directors of research ular Fiction, 1820-60" presents an interest-
in the field will do well to avail themselves ing analysis of the emerging image of the
of this book. frontierman in the trinity personified by
The "phases" of frontier history that the Boone, Crockett, and Leatherstocking, and
individual investigators take up include cer- shows why Crockett won out. Joe B.
tain aspects of the Turner thesis, interna- Frantz's "Cowboy Philosophy: A Cold
tional relations on the southwest border, Spoor" tells of a futile search for a state-
transportation and travel, religion, docu- ment of the cowboy's philosophy in the
mentary art, cartography, territorial rec- cowboy's own words and concludes that the
ords, the fur trade, and literary treatments philosophy of the cowboy must remain
of the frontier. The reviewer found the "what he was, not what he said." Frantz's
following papers noteworthy for new inter- failure to find what he sought makes one
pretations and approaches, as well as for wonder if the gulf between cowboy reality
the useful factual material that they supply. and cowboy myth might not apply as well
Herman R. Friis's "The Image of the to other aspects of that inflated subject.
American West at Mid-Century (1840- W. N. DAVIS, JR.
60)" points out the potential of the so far Chief of Archives
little-used information about physical and California State Archives
cultural landscapes to be found in the carto-
graphic and graphic records of the National
Archives. Unfortunately, the illustrations
EUROPEAN GOVERNMENT
of the maps that Friis discusses are printed
AND HISTORY
so poorly as to be of little value. Ralph
E. Morrow's "The Great Revival, the
West, and the Crisis of the Church" devel- PAUL AVRICH. The Russian Anarchists.
ops the thesis that the religious organiza- Pp. x, 303. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
tions were too deeply involved in internal University Press, 1967. $7.50.
and external adjustments after the Revolu- At first glance, an account of a movement
tion to take up the challenge of the frontier, that "never became a creed of the mass of
with consequences for the history of life in peasants and industrial workers"-though
the American West that deserve to be more this remark could also be made about the
closely studied than they have been. Bolsheviks-while its surviving participants
John C. Ewers's "Fact and Fiction in were "rejected, reviled, and, finally,
the Documentary Art of the American stamped out or driven into exile," might
West" illustrates with sixteen plates the seem a work of supererogation. Yet this
use of pictures as sources and emphasizes study is, in fact, so conceived and so
the necessity of critical analysis in the executed that it richly deserves the atten-
selection and interpretation of such mate- tion of all those interested in the Russian
rial. One of the most valuable papers in Revolution and its aftermath.
the book is Oliver W. Holmes's "Territorial Dr. Avrich has given due attention to
Government and the Records of Its Admin- the thinking of Bakunin and Kropotkin as
istration," in which the author opens up a the intellectual forebears of Russian an-
grand view of a major, but much neglected, archism, but happily has devoted most of
210 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

his book to the activities and significance able index. Notwithstanding a few quite
of the anarchist movement in Russia itself. minor weaknesses, this work may well serve
He finds it first becoming significant in the as a model of how individualized studies
early years of the twentieth century, chiefly may be made to shed valuable light on
among young Jewish workingmen in the broader topics and genuinely to illuminate
Pale, who, though never numerous, were corners of Russian history that have pre-
distinguished for their reckless terrorism. viously not been given their proper share
A second stream, almost wholly gentile and of attention.
mostly students, was also youthful and, in JESSE D. CLARKSON
the main, also terrorist. Less numerous Professor of History
than these Anarchist-Communists, who Brooklyn College of the City
were inspired by the Paris Commune, were University of New York
the Anarcho-Syndicalists, who accepted
large-scale economic organization, and a
scattering of Anarchist-Individualists, with STUART RAMSAY TOMPKINS. The Triumph
hardly any practical significance. of Bolshevism: Revolution or Reaction?
The author traces clearly the persistence Pp. xi, 331. Norman: University of
of the two main currents, the romantic Oklahoma Press, 1967. $5.95.
Anarchist-Communists and the antiterrorist It is primarily as a student of Russian
Anarcho-Syndicalists, both internally di- thought and culture that Professor Tomp-
vided and mutually hostile, and emphasizes kins addresses himself to the emergence and
the by no means insignificant role that eventual triumph of bolshevism, and he, in-
the two played in the Revolution. He deed, speaks mainly in cultural rather than
gives an excellent account and analysis of in political terms. The Russians' indiffer-
their ambivalent relations with the Bolshe- ence to the "facts," and their predilection
viks, whom the anarchists feared but with for indirect argument, as against the West-
whom they felt constrained to co-operate, ern "passion for clarity" (p. 17), serve ap-
with considerable stress on the anarchists' propriately as his starting point for a sur-
share-for which the Bolsheviks were to vey of the intellectual traditions from
show no gratitude-in "October." which he traces the political outlook of
The progressively vigorous persecution Lenin and the other, less steeped, members
of anarchist intellectuals, who became the of the Marxist revolutionary movement in
most trenchant critics of what they re- Russia. From this source, Lenin was im-
garded as Bolshevik betrayal of the Revolu- bued with the weapons of powerful invec-
tion, is presented in appropriate detail, as tive, a highly developed sense of the
are Makhno's heroic efforts to establish a importance of "nomenclature," especially
genuinely libertarian regime among his fel- the labeling of enemies, and at the same
low peasants in the Ukraine and the sup- time an ability to concentrate with unflag-
pression of his "banditry"by the Bolsheviks ging attention on the minutiae of his
as soon as, with his co-operation, the Red private organization. Professor Tompkins
Army had cleared the area of White forces. reveals the essential conflict between the
The essentially anarchist character of the interests of the workers, who wanted a
Kronstadt revolt in 1921 is also made clear. labor movement, and the intentions of the
The volume concludes with an account Russian socialists, who wanted to make a
of the round-up of most anarchists in the revolution based on an army of socialist-led
early years of the New Economic Policy workers. He is especially concerned,
(NEP), a description of the fate of Rus- rightly, to show the common intellectual
sian anarchists in emigration, and an excel- origins of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks,
lent summary and evaluation of the move- though he does not suggest that they repre-
ment as a whole. sented a Scylla and Charibdis for the labor
The volume is well organized, clearly movement. The question arises here
written, and equipped with a useful chronol- whether they were sole alternatives.
ogy, a comprehensive bibliography, pictures Professor Tompkins suggests that all
of leading figures, and a thoroughly work- Lenin's "agitation" and unceasing conflict