How one Russian intellectual tried to unite the fractured world of anarchist thought.

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Volin was a central figure in the Russian Revolution who spent his life fighting both Tsarist autocracy and Bolshevik authoritarianism. He pioneered a theory of anarchist synthesis, attempting to bridge the deep divides between communists, individualists, and syndicalists. His life remains a testament to the struggle for liberty against totalizing regimes.

Born Vsevolod Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum in 1882, Volin was an educated revolutionary who transitioned from the Socialist Revolutionary Party to anarcho-syndicalism. By the 1917 Revolution, he had become a prominent voice in Petrograd, editing the newspaper Golos truda. He quickly identified the Bolsheviks as a new authoritarian threat, warning that they would inevitably usurp the power of the soviets. His critique of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a betrayal of world revolution led him to Ukraine, where he became a key intellectual leader of the Makhnovshchina.

In Ukraine, Volin developed his theory of anarchist synthesis. At a 1918 conference in Kursk, he sought to create a unified framework that could accommodate different anarchist tendencies. As chair of the Military Revolutionary Council, he attempted to steer the movement toward the establishment of free soviets. However, his efforts were constantly undermined by the violence of the era and the hostility of the Bolsheviks. He was arrested multiple times, narrowly escaping execution by the Cheka in 1920 after appeals from figures like Victor Serge.

Following his deportation from Soviet Russia in 1922, Volin spent his final decades in exile, primarily in France. He remained a fierce critic of platformism, which he viewed as an attempt to create an authoritarian anarchist party, and he famously denounced Bolshevism as 'red fascism.' Despite living in extreme poverty and evading persecution during the Nazi occupation of France, he completed his major historical work, The Unknown Revolution. He died of tuberculosis in 1945, leaving behind a legacy that Victor Serge described as one of 'exceptional rigor of thought' and 'moral grandeur.'

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