My Disillusionment in Russia

My Disillusionment in Russia de Emma Goldman es una crítica a los bolcheviques, de quiénes, dice, se “apropiaron de las demandas de los trabajadores”. Fue publicado en los Estados Unidos en 1923.

Goldman pasó dos años en Rusia, donde se desilusionó de la revolución, especialmente después de la rebelión Kronstadt. Señala a quienes escribieron sobre la revolución rusa, criticando su superficialidad: “ni siquiera hablaban el idioma y muchos de ellos viajaron con chaperones soviéticos que les impidieron ver la realidad”. Los bolcheviques se convirtieron en los enemigos de la revolución, solo fueron una mascarada llevada adelante por la propaganda comunista.

Intensos viajes, entrevistas con amigos y enemigos de los bolcheviques, la convencieron del engaño de estos para con el mundo.

En vocabulario buscamos foist y también el significado de la rebelión Kronstadt.

“Cuando la corte de Nueva York me quitó mi ciudadanía norteamericana no apelé para poder retornar a Rusia y ayudar en el gran trabajo. Creía fervientemente que los bolcheviques estaban adelantando la revolución y trabajando por los derechos de la gente. Me aferré a mi fé por más de un año después de llegar a Rusia…”

Goldman en 1901

Párrafos

THE decision to record my experiences, observations, and reactions during my stay in Russia I had made long before I thought of leaving that country.

I had come to Russia possessed by the hope that I should find a new-born country, with its people wholly consecrated to the great, though very difficult, task of revolutionary reconstruction.

I found reality in Russia grotesque, totally unlike the great ideal that had borne me upon the crest of high hope to the land of promise. It required fifteen long months before I could get my bearings. Each day, each week, each month added new links to the fatal chain that pulled down my cherished edifice. I fought desperately against the disillusionment. For a long time I strove against the still voice within me which urged me to face the overpowering facts. I would not and could not give up

Then came Kronstadt. It was the final wrench. It completed the terrible realization that the Russian Revolution was no more.

I saw before me the Bolshevik State, formidable, crushing every constructive revolutionary effort, suppressing, debasing, and disintegrating everything. Unable and unwilling to become a cog in that sinister machine, and aware that I could be of no practical use to Russia and her people, I decided to leave the country. Once out of it, I would relate honestly, frankly, and as objectively as humanly possible to me the story of my two years’ stay in Russia.

I left in December, 1921. I could have written then, fresh under the influence of the ghastly experience. But I waited four months before I could bring myself to write a series of articles. I delayed another four months before beginning the present volume.

While in Russia I had no clear idea how much had already been written on the subject of the Russian Revolution. But the few books which reached me occasionally impressed me as most inadequate. They were written by people with no first-hand knowledge of the situation and were sadly superficial. Some of the writers had spent from two weeks to two months in Russia, did not know the language of the country, and in most instances were chaperoned by official guides and interpreters. I do not refer here to the writers who, in and out of Russia, play the role of Bolshevik court functionaries. They are a class apart. With them I deal in the chapter on the "Travelling Salesmen of the Revolution." Here I have in mind the sincere friends of the Russian Revolution. The work of most of them has resulted in incalculable confusion and mischief. They have helped to perpetuate the myth that the Bolsheviki and the Revolution are synonymous. Yet nothing is further from the truth.

The actual Russian Revolution took place in the summer months of 1917. During that period the peasants possessed themselves of the land, the workers of the factories, thus demonstrating that they knew well the meaning of social revolution. The October change was the finishing touch to the work begun six months previously. In the great uprising the Bolsheviki assumed the voice of the people. They clothed themselves with the agrarian programme of the Social Revolutionists and the industrial tactics of the Anarchists. But after the high tide of revolutionary enthusiasm had carried them into power, the Bolsheviki discarded their false plumes. It was then that began the spiritual separation between the Bolsheviki and the Russian Revolution. With each succeeding day the gap grew wider, their interests more conflicting. To-day it is no exaggeration to state that the Bolsheviki stand as the arch enemies of the Russian Revolution.

Superstitions die hard. In the case of this modern superstition the process is doubly hard because various factors have combined to administer artificial respiration. International intervention, the blockade, and the very efficient world propaganda of the Communist Party have kept the Bolshevik myth alive. Even the terrible famine is being exploited to that end.

How powerful a hold that superstition wields I realize from my own experience. I had always known that the Bolsheviki are Marxists. For thirty years I fought the Marxian theory as a cold, mechanistic, enslaving formula. In pamphlets, lectures, and debates I argued against it. I was therefore not unaware of what might be expected from the Bolsheviki. But the Allied attack upon them made them the symbol of the Russian Revolution, and brought me to their defence.

From November, 1917, until February, 1918, while out on bail for my attitude against the war, I toured America. I published a pamphlet in elucidation of the Russian Revolution and in justification of the Bolsheviki. I defended them as embodying in practice the spirit of the revolution, in spite of their theoretic Marxism. My attitude toward them at that time is characterized in the following passages from my pamphlet, "The Truth About the Bolsheviki:

 

"The Russian Revolution is a miracle in more than one respect. Among other extraordinary paradoxes it presents the phenomenon of the Marxian Social Democrats, Lenin and Trotsky, adopting Anarchist revolutionary tactics, while the Anarchists Kropotkin, Tcherkessov, Tschaikovsky are denying these tactics and falling into Marxian reasoning, which they had all their lives repudiated as "German metaphysics."

 

The Bolsheviki of 1903, though revolutionists, adhered to the Marxian doctrine concerning the industrialization of Russia and the historic mission of the bourgeoisie as a necessary evolutionary process before the Russian masses could come into their own. The Bolsheviki of 1917 no longer believe in the predestined function of the bourgeoisie. They have been swept forward on the waves of the Revolution to the point of view held by the Anarchists since Bakunin; namely, that once the masses become conscious of their economic power, they make their own history and need not be bound by traditions and processes of a dead past which, like secret treaties, are made at a round table and are not dictated by life itself.

When the Courts of the State of New York upheld the fraudulent methods by which I was disfranchised and my American citizenship of thirty-two years denied me, I waived my right of appeal in order that I might return to Russia and help in the great work. I believed fervently that the Bolsheviki were furthering the Revolution and exerting themselves in behalf of the people. I clung to my faith and belief for more than a year after my coming to Russia.

Observation and study, extensive travel through various parts of the country, meeting with every shade of political opinion and every variety of friend and enemy of the Bolsheviki—all convinced me of the ghastly delusion which had been foisted upon the world.

Vocabulario

Foist: to force another to accept especially by stealth or deceit.

when the states … foist unnecessary expenses on local taxpayers.

Para saber

La rebelión Kronstadt fue una insurrección de 1921 en contra del gobierno bolchevique en la ciudad portuaria de Kronstadt (en San Petersburgo). Por 16 días los rebeldes se levantaron contra el gobierno que ellos mismos habían ayudado a consolidar. Fue la última revuelta grande contra los bolcheviques en territorio ruso durante la Guerra Civil Rusa.

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Fuentes

My Disillusionment in Russia

 

Esta casa puede ser comprada por Emma Goldman, o cualquier otro bolchevique. Está en pleno centro de Salta y a un precio bastante tentador. Déjanos tu mail que te contestamos a la brevedad:

Casa en venta en Salta