23 Facts About Volin

Volin became involved in revolutionary socialist politics during the 1905 Russian Revolution, for which he was forced into exile, where he gravitated towards anarcho-syndicalism.

Volin returned to Petrograd following the February Revolution of 1917 and propagandised for anarcho-syndicalism in the Russian capital.

Volin lived out the last years of his life in poverty, evading persecution by the Nazis and the French State, as he was wanted for his Jewish heritage and his anarchist political convictions.

Volin died of tuberculosis shortly after the liberation of France.

Volin mostly worked to educate workers as a tutor, establishing a library and organising study groups.

Volin managed to evade capture and fled to the United States in 1915.

Volin soon joined the editorial staff of its newspaper, Golos Truda, and in December 1916, he went on a speaking tour of North American cities.

Volin quickly became a leading proponent of anarcho-syndicalism during the 1917 Revolution, calling for workers' control in his frequent speeches to the workers of Petrograd and as editor of Golos Truda, which expanded its circulation to 25,000 readers.

Volin particularly criticised the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which he considered to be a renouncement of world revolution by the Bolsheviks.

Volin called for the prosecution of partisan warfare against the Central Powers and consequently decided to move to Ukraine, which had fallen under the occupation of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary.

Nevertheless, Volin continued to advocate for his organisational theory through the Nabat, which grew to include autonomous branches throughout Ukraine, as well as a youth section and a publishing house.

Volin joined the movement's Cultural-Educational Commission, serving as an editor for its publications and organising its regional congresses, even going on to act as chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council, the movement's executive body.

Volin edited the movement's Draft Declaration, which proposed the establishment of free soviets as the basis for a transition towards a communist society.

In December 1919, Volin went to Kryvyi Rih in order to counter the spread of Ukrainian nationalism in the region, but he contracted typhus and was forced to stop for recovery in a peasant village.

Volin was finally released in October 1920, as part of the terms of the Starobilsk agreement between the Bolsheviks and the Makhnovists, and he was even offered the post of People's Commissar for Education in the Ukrainian Soviet government, which he rejected.

Volin published a weekly newspaper, The Anarchist Herald, translated Peter Arshinov's History of the Makhnovist Movement and publicised evidence of political repressions against Russian anarchists.

In 1927, Volin was caught in the debate over the Platform, which had caused a split in the exiled Russian anarchist movement.

Volin himself was extremely critical of the Platform, which he claimed contradicted the anarchist principle of decentralisation and reflected a desire to create an anarchist political party.

Volin criticised the "anarcho-Bolsheviks", who had favoured collaboration with the Bolshevik government, and was openly critical of the "anarcho-Bolshevik" German Sandomirskii, who he accused of lacking anarchist convictions.

Volin attempted to continue his educational activities by providing free classes about anarchism, but he needed money to support his family, so he took up a number of jobs in the publishing industry, notably working on a Russian translation of Eugene O'Neill's play Lazarus Laughed.

Volin lived out the following years in poverty, until Andre Prudhommeaux provided him a job on the board of his newspaper Terre Libre, which he contributed to in Nimes.

On 18 September 1945, Volin died in a Parisian hospital.

Volin's ashes were buried in a niche of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, near the resting place of his comrade Nestor Makhno.