Умирающее общество и Анархия

Library stamps of the University of London

This text by the French anarchist Jean Grave was published in Russian in the United States (most likely in New York) by an association of Russian anarcho-communists living in exile and exile. Jean Grave wrote this important anarchist text in Paris in 1893 while working with the Russian communist anarchist Pyotr Krapotkin. Grave was sentenced to two years in prison for The Dying Society, but the court only drew more attention to the text, which was promptly translated into other European languages. The first Russian translation of the text appeared in 1901 in Geneva, and the first published in the Russian Empire in 1906 in Odessa was confiscated and burned by the tsarist government.

The Russian anarchist movement dates back to the 1850s, when it developed in a general European context. At the turn of the century, it consisted mainly of the working class and intelligentsia who sought to overthrow the monarchy, although some of it also tried to appeal to the peasants and soldiers. A parallel movement of Russian anarchists living in exile or exile was active in Europe and North America, producing many short-lived semi-underground publications and significantly influencing the development of anarchism in Russia. After the revolution of 1917, anarchist groups in Russia initially went over to the side of the Bolsheviks, however, their relations quickly deteriorated, and from the spring of 1918 anarchists began to be actively persecuted. Subsequently, the American and European branches of Russian anarchists became the main strongholds of the movement. This publication of Jean Grave's text was no doubt intended for distribution in North America as well as in Russia. The 1921 edition is rarely seen on sale.