Eastern Europe
Matiushenko, Afanasy Nikolaevich 1879-1907
A biography of Afanasy Matiushenko, who was one of the key mutineers on the Battleship Potemkin, immortalised by Eisenstein's film, which helped kick-start the 1905 Revolution.
Afanasy Nikolaevich Matiushenko
Also spelled Afanasiy Matyushenko, born 1879 - Kharkov, Russia, died 20 October 1907 - Sevastopol, Russia
The Potemkin mutineer
Afanasy Matiushenko was the son of peasants from Kharkov province in the Ukraine. He was born in 1879, in the village of Dergachi. His father had to give up the unrewarding work of farming to become a shoemaker.
Strike wave sweeps Finland
Finland is experiencing its worst outbreak of industrial unrest for a generation after relations between the right-leaning government coalition and powerful trade unions collapsed over wage negotiations.
The Financial Times reports:
Strikes have either broken out or are threatened in industries spanning the economy, affecting some 40,000 workers in core areas including shipping, forestry, postal services and steel.
In the most serious development, 12,800 nurses have decided to resign en masse next month if their demands for a 25 per cent wage increase over the next two years are not met.
Poland: Bus drivers win strike
Bus drivers in Kielce have won their strike against privatisation.
After 17 days the bus drivers in the South Polish city of Kielce have surprisingly won their strike. The sale of the communal bus company MPK planned by the city’s mayor is stopped and MPK is given to the workers instead. The strike had been preceded by months of confrontation.
1919-1922: The Workers’ Opposition
A short history of a group within the Russian Communist Party that struggled against the increasing party bureaucracy and for trade union control over industry which, by 1922, had been forcibly disbanded by the party.
The Workers Opposition began to form in 1919, as a result of the policies of War Communism, which set a precedence for the domination of the Communist Party over local party branches and trade unions. During the civil war, the Workers Opposition began agitating against the lack of democracy in the Communist Party as a result of the centralising actions of the party’s bureaucracy.
Counter-revolution and the Soviet Union - Gregori Maximov
Short essay by famous Russian anarchist, Gregori Maximov, on the defeat of the 1917 revolution by counter-revolution from within.
Taken from the Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library, No. 14 (March 1998), can also be found on the KSL website here.
Medvedev, Sergei Pavlovich, 1885-1937
Story of the life of Bolshevik metal worker and member of the Workers' Opposition group, Sergei Medvedev, who, like many others who criticised his party's bureaucracy, was executed by the party he spent the majority of his life serving.
Sergei Pavlovich Medvedev was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, metalworker, and trade union organizer. Born into a peasant estate, he grew up in the countryside near Moscow and in St. Petersburg. After receiving a primary school education, he began factory work at age thirteen. He first worked at the Obukhov factory in St. Petersburg and participated in the 1901 Obukhov strike.
Kollontai, Alexandra, 1872-1952
Short biography of the Bolshevik feminist Alexandra Kollontai who played a crucial role in the Workers Opposition movement.
Alexandra Kollontai was a major figure in the Russian socialist movement from the turn of the century through the revolution and civil war. During periods of exile she was also active as a speaker and writer in Germany, Belgium, France, Britain, Scandinavia and the United States.
Women fighters in the days of the great October Revolution - Alexandra Kollontai
In this article, written in 1927 (well after the Bolshevik consolidation of power), Alexandra Kollontai describes the leading role in which women played in Russian Revolution of 1917. Though heavily Bolshevik in focus, it describes well the activity of working class women in the revolution.
The women who took part in the Great October Revolution – who were they? Isolated individuals? No, there were hosts of them; tens, hundreds of thousands of nameless heroines who, marching side by side with the workers and peasants behind the Red Flag and the slogan of the Soviets, passed over the ruins of tsarist theocracy into a new future...
The Workers' Opposition - Alexandra Kollontai
Kollontai's pamphlet was one of the central theoretical works of the Workers' Opposition movement within the Bolshevik Party, arguing for increased union control of the economy and the debureaucratisation of the party hierarchy.
First published in Pravda, January 25, 1921 this text was banned in Soviet Russia in March of 1921, by resolution of the 10th Congress of the Communist Party. It was then printed in the Workers ' Dreadnought (by Sylvia Pankhurst), April 22 - August 19, 1921.
On the History of the Movement of Women Workers in Russia - Alexandra Kollontai
Written in 1919, Alexandra Kollontai's essay looks at the role of working class women in the history of Russian radicalism with particular focus on the 1905 revolution.
What year could be said to mark the beginning of the working women's movement in Russia?
Shliapnikov, Alexander, 1885-1937
Biography of working class Bolshevik, Alexander Shliapnikov, active in the Workers' Opposition movement who was eventually purged from the party and executed for his activities.
Alexander Shliapnikov was born in 1885 in Murom, Russia, into a Russian family belonging to the urban estate (meshchanstvo) and professing the Old Belief (a religious sect that split from the Russian Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century). His father died when he was three, leaving his mother to support four children by taking in washing.
The Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919: The Forgotten Revolution - Alan Woods
Trotskyist Alan Woods on the Hungarian uprising of 1919. Wood's account suffers from the usual analytical errors by Trotskyists but is included for reference to these little-known events.
November 12, 1979
Poland 1956 - Vladan Vukliš
A history of the uprising in Poland, 1956 which began at the ZISPO factory in Poznan.
This is an English translation of the original Serbian. Further editing by libcom from the translated version.
Polish Revolt of 1956
Appeal of the 22 - Alexander Shliapnikov
Appeal by members of the Workers' Opposition group for support against Bolshevik forces trying to silence their dissent within the party. Distributed at the Eleventh Russian Communist Party Congress in 1922.
Dear comrades!
From our newspapers we have learned that the Executive Committee of the Communist International is discussing the “united workers’ front,” and we consider it our communist duty to inform you that in our country the “united front” is in bad shape not only in the broad sense of this term, but even in its application toward the ranks of our party.
Theses of the Workers Opposition - Alexander Shliapnikov
Original thesis of the Workers' Opposition group within the Bolshevik Party, arguing for greater trade union control of the economy. Written in 1919, it was published in Pravda on January 25, 1921.
General Tenets
On the relations between the Russian Communist Party, the soviets and production unions - Alexander Shliapnikov
Thesis of Workers' Opposition member, Alexander Shliapnikov, given at the ninth Bolshevik Party congress in March 1920.
In it he argues for increased democracy within the party and for more control of the economy to be handed over to the unions.
1. The three-year experience of the Russian Revolution shows that the single force consciously fighting for the organization of society on communist foundations is the Proletariat.
The Truth about Kronstadt
A translation of Pravda o Kronshtadte, produced by SRs shortly after the event in 1921.
This version is taken from: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mhuey/HOME.html Copyright © 1992, 1998 by Scott Zenkatsu Parker.
The author permits the unlimited duplication, transmission, and distribution of this text with the proper citations for academic, educational, and non-commercial use only.
The Communist Left in Russia after 1920 - Ian Hebbes
A re-evaluation by the late Ian Hebbes of the continued existence of a Left Communist opposition within the USSR up until the 1930s.
Hungarian revolution 1956 - Scorcher publications
An pamphlet on the revolution in Hungary 1956, reproduced from Scorcher publications. No.1 in a series of Council Communist Pamphlets.
Online version by http://www.af-north.org
Before October....
Privatisation by the back door: The health workers’ strike and the future of medical care in Poland
Laure Akai analyses the neoliberal reforms to Poland's health service as the doctors' strike enters its fourth month.
Some hospitals have given up the strike, some hospitals are concluding private deals with doctors. Nurses have organised separately from the doctors with a slightly different agenda. And it well may turn out that the results of the strike are strikingly different salaries for health care workers throughout Poland and increased privatization of the health care industry.
