In the Social Storm: Memoirs of the Russian Revolution
By Boris Yelensky

Introduction

By Arthur Topham
Editor & Publisher

It’s hard to believe that ten years have passed by since the Radical Press first began publishing Boris Yelensky’s anarchist memoirs of the Russian Revolution back in July of 1998. The plan then was to run the complete text in serial form but due to the demise of the monthly hard copy edition of The Radical in June of 2002 I was only able to print up to the first half of Chapter 24 thus leaving the final seven chapters unpublished and regular readers of the tabloid hanging in the air suspended. The eventual aim was to publish the book in hard copy but that too has not happened due to financial restrictions.

Later on, after the newspaper folded, I was able to get the completed text of the book online in the forum section of my website but that also came to a sudden halt back in the fall of 2007 when my server was forced by B’nai Brith Canada and their “League for Human Rights” to cease hosting my site thanks to threats of “racism” and “anti-Semitism” and “hate” literature being alleged against myself and my website.

Since November of 2007 when I was formally charged by the Canadian Human Rights Commission with allegedly publishing articles of a discriminatory nature contrary to section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act I have been literally in an all-out battle with B’nai Brith Canada and the CHR Commission and had little time to reformat and repost this amazing historical document.

In retrospect the timing of its reappearance may be most appropriate. Today Canada and the whole of Western civilization is facing a very real and present threat from the very same mindset that Boris Yelensky describes in his memoirs of the 1917 coup d’etat euphemistically called by the Zionist media the “Russian Revolution.” Yelensky, a Russian Jew born in Krasnodar, southern Russia in 1889, had emigrated to the United States after having been involved in the unsuccessful revolutionary activities of 1905. He remained in the states until word arrived of the successful overthrow of Tzar Nicholas II in 1917 at which time, like many other Russians who had left the country, he returned to his home country to help create what he believed to be a new beginning for the Russian people and for the world in general.

Yelensky’s story, told from a fundamentally different perspective than most known historic recordings of the period, reflects the views of the anarchist movement as it existed during the early years of the 20th Century. Told in a prosaic, yet detailed fashion, unadorned by romanticism (which the anarchists argued for and against endlessly), Yelensky’s account of his time spent during the turbulent period leading up to and following the successful take-over of the former Russian monarchy by Lenin and the Bolshevik forces, provides history with an alternative viewpoint and an important third position with respect to how the events of that momentous period were viewed by a segment of the political dramatis personae known to the world as the anarchists.

In the Social Storm: Memoirs of the Russian Revolution is an attempt by the anarchist Boris Yelensky to try and discern the modus operandi of the Bolsheviks and the reasons for why they willingly sacrificed the one great opportunity to truly implement the socialist ideals that had been fleshed out over the previous half century or more and now were given the opportunity to be realized. But it is a whole lot more than merely an analysis of the mindset of the Bolsheviks. Yelensky provides the reader with vivid examples of how the anarchist movement was a living and vital part of the forces that were at play during the period. His accounts of the anarchists’ struggles and the contributions by men such as Nestor Mahkno who played a crucial role in the struggles during the period of civil war following the coup are both highly instructive and a necessary aspect of the history of the time in order for students of today to grasp the numerous nuances of intrigue that permeated the overall dynamics which necessarily come into play during periods of massive political and social upheaval.

Along with Yelensky’s descriptions of the unfolding events of the time are his own accounts of how the anarchists living and struggling within this maelstrom of sudden change were doing their utmost to live and exemplify their ideas by manifesting the anarchist perspective in everyday life. The experiments in actual anarchist projects which Yelensky was a part of and which he describes in detail and in which he played a vital role are positive examples of redefining social organizations so as to make them fair and liberating to those who were fortunate enough to have been able to partake of them. It was a window for the anarchists and a time, short as it was, where they were able to illustrate the positive aspects of their philosophy and how by example it held promise of exemplifying an alternative manner of social and industrial organization to those of the Bolsheviks who represented a repressive, totalitarian, brutal state dictatorship and that of the capitalists who likewise used a strong and centralized authoritarian government system disguised as “democracy” to fulfill similar ends.

For anarchists and political researchers Yelensky’s book is a revealing account of anarchism in action and a first-hand description of the lives and the efforts of those who went to Russia in good faith believing that positive changes were at hand only to come to the sudden and grim realization that instead of a new utopia, Russia had fallen into the hands of a powerful cabal of Marxist warlords who, along with their dreaded cheka terror squads, were hell-bent on gaining total power and control over one of the largest empires on earth and in the process murdering anyone who stood in the way of achieving their heinous ambitions.

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In the Social Storm: Memoirs of the Russian Revolution
by Boris Yelensky
Introduction, Preface and Prologue

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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Chapter 15

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Chapter 16

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Chapter 17

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Chapter 18

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Chapter 19

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Chapter 20

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Chapter 21

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Chapter 22

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Chapter 23

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Chapter 24

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Chapter 25

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Chapter 26

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Chapter 27

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Chapter 28

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Chapter 29

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Chapter 30

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Chapter 31

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In the Social Storm: Memoirs of the Russian Revolution
by Boris Yelensky
Epilogue