Golos Truda

Following the suppression of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the consequent exile of political dissidents from the Russian Empire, Russian-language journalism in New York City enjoyed a revival. Among the fledgling publications were a number of political newspapers and labor union periodicals, The newspaper adopted its ideology an anarchist version of syndicalism, a fusion of trade unionism and anarchist philosophy which had emerged from the 1907 International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam and along similar lines in America through the influential Industrial Workers of the World. The anarcho-syndicalists rejected state-oriented political struggle and intellectualism, instead proposing labor unions as the revolutionary agents that would bring about an anarchist society characterised primarily by worker collectives. In Vancouver on May 26, 1917, the editors, along with Ferrer Center artist Manuel Komroff and thirteen others, boarded a ship bound for Japan. On board, the anarchists played music, gave lectures, staged plays and even published a revolutionary newspaper, The Float. From Japan, the band made their way to Siberia, and proceeded East to European Russia. ==Publication in Russia==

Though initially the Bolsheviks had not enjoyed much popularity following the February Revolution—with liberal Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky retaining enough support to repress an attempted ''coup d'état'' by the faction in July—they capitalized on the disorder and economic collapse of Russian society, mass worker's strikes and the Kornilov affair to increase their popularity among—and ultimately control over—the Soviets. Volin lamented that the almost six-month gap between the February Revolution and the launch of Golos Truda in Russia as "a long and irreparable delay" for the anarchists; they now faced a difficult task, with the majority of the workers having been won over by the powerful, consolidated Bolshevik Party whose propaganda efforts dwarfed those of the anarchists. Its editorial staff included Maksim Rayevsky, Vladimir Shatov (the linotype operator), Gregori Maksimov, Alexander Schapiro, and Vasya Swieda. The first (weekly) issue was published on August 11, 1917, with an editorial stated its firm opposition to the tactics and programs of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, left Social Revolutionaries, right Social Revolutionaries and others, and that the conception of revolutionary action of the anarchist socialists bore no resemblance to those of the Marxist socialists. It declared as its principal goal a revolution that would replace the state with a free confederation of autonomous "peasant unions, industrial unions, factory committees, control commissions and the like in locations all over the country". This revolution would be "anti-statist in its methods of struggle, syndicalist in its economic content, and federal in its political tasks". Each of the early issues contained what Volin later described as "clear and definite articles on the way in which the Anarcho-Syndicalists conceived the constructive tasks of the Revolution to come", citing as examples "a series of articles on the role of the factory committees; articles on the tasks of the Soviets, and others on how to resolve the agrarian problem, on the new organization of production, and on exchange". The paper shifted to daily publication for three months after the October Revolution of that same year. ==Suppression and legacy==

The Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets issued a press decree that let the Bolsheviks suppress dissident newspapers. After the suppression of the Golos Truda by the Bolshevik government in August 1918, G.P Maximoff, Nikolai Dolenko and Efim Yarchuk established Volny Golos Truda (The Free Voice of Labour). Despite the banning of their paper, the Golos Truda group continued on, however, and issued a final edition in the form of a journal, in Petrograd and Moscow in December 1919. During the New Economic Policy period (1921–1928), it released a number of works, including the publication of the collected works of pre-eminent anarchist theorist Mikhail Bakunin from its bookstore and publishing house in Petrograd between 1919 and 1922. What little anarchist activity the regime tolerated ended in 1929, after the accession of Joseph Stalin, and the bookshops of the Golos Truda group in Moscow and Petrograd were closed permanently amidst an abrupt and violent wave of repression. The newspaper was also suppressed by the Post Office Department in the United States, where it was succeeded by the widely circulated Khleb i Volya (Bread and Freedom), first published on February 26, 1919, which in turn was banned from the United States and Canada for its anarchist position. Russian revolutionary anarchist-turned-Bolshevik Victor Serge described Golos Truda as the most authoritative anarchist group active in 1917, "in the sense that it was the only one to possess any semblance of doctrine, a valuable collection of militants" who foresaw that the October Revolution "could only end in the formation of a new power". ==See also==