However, we had numerous reasons to believe that the organizational bureau of the Provincial Congress would directly invite delegates from Gulyai-Pole because of an exchange of opinions which had taken place between the Peasants’ Union of Gulyai-Pole and the Provincial Committee of the Peasants’ Unions. But the initiative for this would have to come from Ekaterinoslav, not Gulyai-Pole, i.e. not directly but in an indirect fashion. So we were not certain of participating in the Provincial Congress and returned to Gulyai-Pole with a gloomy feeling that we had suffered a defeat on this occasion.
However, our line of behaviour at the Congress was the correct one from our point of view, and we were not worried about the revolutionary future of our Peasants’ Union. When we got back home we made a report to the Executive of the Peasants’ Union as well as the Union of Metal and Carpentry Workers which always took an interest in peasant congresses and asked to be informed about them. And then we made a report to a general meeting of peasants and workers in Gulyai-Pole and district. At the same time we prepared the peasants and workers to send delegates to the Provincial Congress even without an invitation. Our goal was to expose the attitude of the leaders of the Uyezd Congress which had just ended and also to inform the peasant delegates to the Provincial Congress about how the S-Rs, S-Ds, and Kadets had tried to stifle the revolutionary initiative and self-activity of the peasantry, how their agitator-propagandists with the assistance of the government commissars travelled around the cities and villages holding meetings where they duped the peasants and squeezed rent money out of them for the benefit of the pomeshchiks, rendering thus more difficult the situation of the peasants who, impoverished by the ravages of war, had not taken part in pillaging and brigandage like the pomeshchiks and kulaks, and were not able to acquire the money necessary to pay the landowners for the land which these thieves had appropriated.
But while we were preparing for the Provincial Congress, and also giving advice to the peasants of raions and uyezds belonging to other provinces, the Executive of the Peasant Union of Gulyai-Pole received from the Provincial Soviet of Workers’, Peasants’, Soldiers’ and Cossacks’ Deputies an invitation to send two delegates to the Provincial Congress of Soviets and Unions of Peasants’, Workers’, Soldiers’ and Cossacks’ Deputies.
We decided to call a congress of the Gulyai-Pole Raion Peasant Union. At this time the Executive of the Union prepared a report appropriate for the agenda of the Provincial Congress.
Chapter 11
P. A. Kropotkin Arrives in Russia. Meeting with Ekaterinoslav Anarchists
Around this time we received news that P. A. Kropotkin was already in Petrograd. The local newspapers had written about this, but we, peasant-anarchists, not hearing his powerful appeal to anarchists and his detailed instructions about how the anarchists should begin to overcome the fragmentation in their own movement so we could take our rightful place in the Revolution, did not believe the newspapers. But now we received newspapers and letters directly from Petrograd indicating that P. A. Kropotkin had been taken ill on the journey from London to Russia but had safely arrived at the very heart of the revolution — Petrograd. We heard about how he had been greeted by the socialists in power, in particular by A. Kerensky.
The joy in the ranks of our group was indescribable. A general meeting of the group was called which was devoted exclusively to the subject What Does Our Old Friend Petr Alekseevich Have To Tell Us?
We all came to the same conclusion: Petr Alekseevich showed us the concrete way to organize our movement in the villages. With his sensitivity and his lively comprehension, he saw the absolute necessity for the villages to have the support of our revolutionary force. As a true apostle of anarchism, he recognized the importance of this unique moment in Russian history and, using his moral influence on the anarchists and their groups, he hastened to formulate in a practical way the guidelines of revolutionary anarchism which must inspire the anarchists in this Revolution.
I composed a letter of welcome in the name of the Gulyai-Pole Peasant Group of Anarcho-Communists and sent it, if I remember correctly, to Petr Alekseevich care of the editorial staff of the newspaper “Burevestnik”.
In this letter we greeted Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin and congratulated him on his happy return to his country, expressing our belief that his country, in the person of its best people, has been waiting impatiently for the return of a tireless fighter for the highest concepts of justice, who could not help but influence the unfolding and realization of the Russian Revolution…
We signed: the Ukrainian Anarcho-Communist Group of the Village of Gulyai-Pole, Ekaterinoslav Province.
We didn’t expect an answer to our modest welcoming letter. But we waited impatiently for an answer to the burning question of the moment, without which we would be wasting our efforts for our goal might not be the same as the goal of other groups or it might be the same but we might be working towards it in a completely different way. It seemed to us that the downtrodden countryside posed this direction question: “How do we go about seizing the land and, without submitting to any authority, drive out the parasites who produce nothing and live a life of luxury at our expense?”
The response to this question had been given by Petr Alekseevich in his work “The Conquest of Bread”. But the masses had not read this work, only a few individuals had read it, and now the masses no longer had time to read. What was necessary was that an energetic voice exposed to them in clear, simple language the essential points of “Conquest of Bread” to prevent them from sinking into a speculative inertia, and to show them directly the right path to take and furnish a guide for their actions. But who could provide this lively, strong, straight-forward voice?
Only an anarchist-propagandist and organizer!
But, placing my hand on my heart, I asked: were there ever in Russia or Ukraine schools of anarchist propaganda? I had never heard of any. But if there were, then where were the advanced militants who had graduated from them?
Twice I travelled through several raions and uyezds belonging administratively to the same province, and I did not run into one situation where, in answer to my questions: “Have you had here any anarchist animators?” they would answer: “There have been.” Everywhere they answered: “We have never had any such. And we are very happy and grateful that you have not forgotten us.”.
Where were the forces of our movement generally? In my view they were vegetating in the cities where they were often doing things they shouldn’t have been doing.
The arrival of Petr Alekseevich and his active participation in the Revolution (if his advanced age allowed such a thing) would hopefully give a strong push to our comrades in the cities. Otherwise the oppressed countryside would be enslaved by the political parties and, through them, by the power of the Provisional Government, and that would put an end to the subsequent development of the revolution.
My opinions drew support from those comrades who, working in the factories, had not travelled about the region and sampled the mood of the oppressed peasants directly. Those, on the other hand, who knew the villages, sharply criticized my thinking. They detected in it hesitation and doubt as to the revolutionary