About the book "Communism at once !"

The communal movement in Ukraine is not well known, for it concerned only a few thousands of people around Kharkov in the beginning of 1919. And it did not survive the Denikin's conquest of the region. Nevertheless, some communes existed until 1935. They were set up by the poorest peasants and were well supported at first by bolshevik power. They represented the most convincing attempt to fulfill the communistic and even libertarian ideals: direct democracy, radical equality and human communion. Nonetheless, communards encountered hanger from the remaining peasantry and indifference from the Makhnovists. Finally the bolsheviks stopped supporting them after they re-conquered Ukraine in 1920. Precisely describing the communal experience, this work (which is based on previously unexploited archives) offers new views about the beginning of the bolshevik revolution and about the penetration of communistic ideas among people. Finally, it points amazingly that the most radical forces fighting for social transformation in these years appeared in the peasantry.On sale here and here.