"Citizen of the world - cosmopolite": anarchist leaders Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman in Petrograd, 1917-1921

The paper looks at the context and circumstances that determined the actions of prominent international anarchist leaders Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman during their stay in Russia of the period of “war communism” in 1920-21. The author uses the hitherto untapped archival and press sources to explain the role of international revolutionaries in the political system of early Soviet Russia. Goldman and Berkman were provided with significant resources and travelled the length and breadth of the war-ravaged country, meeting everyone from the top leaders to poor peasants. Russian politicians viewed Berkman and Goldman as major figures in the international workers‟ movement. Since 1917, their personal influence affected the protest actions of Petrograd anarchists. Their publishing and literary activities also exerted a discernible impact on the Russian anarchist movement, and personal links with some of the most prominent Russian revolutionaries also helped increase their public status. Both Goldman and Berkman eulogized the Bolshevik regime in their US pamphlets. As members of a group of mostly-anarchist deportees, they were given the red-carpet welcome. The deportees, misrepresented by Petrograd press as „Communists‟, featured prominently in propaganda events on arrival in Russia. Their stories about imminent revolution in the West and police brutality in a capitalist democracy contributed to the propaganda aimed at the Soviet population. Berkman and Goldman applied for Soviet residence permits, with the former describing himself as a „citizen of the world - cosmopolite‟ on the form, the formula being a reflection of various influences he received in the anarchist movement. Some of their works were published in Russian, albeit Goldman‟s article on Peter Kropotkin in the historical journal Byloe is evidence of her willingness to accommodate Soviet censorship‟s limitations. Goldman and Berkman were also assigned „responsible worker‟ positions at the Petrograd fuel authority, Petrotop. Despite their criticism of such privileges, the resources granted to them by the Soviet authorities, which sought to get the support of the international anarchist movement, made them authoritative witnesses of the Russian revolution. This made their later criticism of the Communist regime even more persuasive and contributed to the international anarchist movement‟s split from Communist front groups, such as the Third International.