justsomeantifas:

Ok kids (of all ages), history lesson time!

In 1905 Russia (st Petersburg specifically - aka “Petrograd”), there were a whole lotta strikes, walkouts, etc (many in response to their unaccountable imperial government going into yet another war, with Japan this time) - in many ways this labor action culminating with a General Strike in October, but in many other ways they culminated sometime before that (exactly when depends on if you believe Trotsky or the Anarchist writer Voline, but sometime that year) in the establishment of the “Petrograd Soviet”.

In Russian, “Soviet” just means something adjacent to “Council” in English - and what it was was a place where regular people (mostly of the burgeoning working class but also peasants) could come together & talk abt what they wanted, what they needed, and how they could go about organizing to achieve it. It varied city to city, but the one in Petrograd had people from hundreds of factories & trade unions in the city.

(pictured: a meeting of a Soviet, I think it’s in Petrograd but based on the signs referencing Lenin I don’t think this is of the one in 1905 bc he wasn’t rly that widely known, below one of the signs is talking abt living under capitalism)

They quieted down in the period between 1905-1917, largely due to state repression as well as state capitulation in the form of a liberal-democratic parliamentary body known as the “Duma”. Many thought this was bullshit, but it appeased the majority of the working people bc it had the appearance of “making gains” & “coming to common ground” with the, y'know, Monarchy. Then that same monarchy within like a year was already renegging on the meagre promises of representation & made it into a spectacle w/o meaningful input. So then 1917 rolled around & the soviets started popping up again like fungi.

The fact that ‘Soviet’ is such a proper, specific name in the anglo psyche belies the fact that they were organic structures bubbling up from ppl following their own interests as workers - people of their own volition organized hundreds of them throughout the Empire & they proved pivotal to the idea of socialist democracy in the SFSR/USSR that followed.

Those of u that learned Russian history in the US probly have alarm bells ringing like ‘wait what abt the bolsheviks didn’t they have control over those’ & that wasn’t until later, & they came to dominance over them in no small part through their principled opposition to the Tsardom’s Imperialism & to the many pointless, seemingly endless wars churning out bodies on an industrial scale.

P much everything up to this point is uncontroversial & easy to corroborate. Then there’s the question of what happened after the revolution - first there was what is called a “Civil War” in the west, though in the USSR it was considered an Invasion by the world’s largest & most bloodthirsty imperial powers (including the USA) Turns out massive war tends to bring down ppl’s drive to participate in voting & discussing :/ After that though, stories tend to diverge based on your ideological flavor, and since I wanna stay dark & mysterious wrt my opinions I’ll end it here. Going back to the original post tho - that organizing model became a sorta meme within working class orgs of many neighboring states, 'get a buncha ppl together & figure out what u wanna do’ does sorta make intuitive sense. Today you can look @ Kurdish organized Communes as the bearers of the legacy, as well as the Commune model that’s growing in Venezuela.

If u wanna learn more I’d suggest starting w China Mieville’s 'October’ - there’s an audiobook somewhere out there, but if u wanna learn in more detail I’d suggest 'Red Petrograd’ & Voline’s writings.