Russian anarchist intellectual who theorized anarchist synthesis and chronicled the revolution the Bolsheviks suppressed
In Golos Truda, 1917: 'Once their power has been consolidated and legalized, the Bolsheviks… will start running the life of the country and of the people from the top. They will develop an authoritarian political and state apparatus that will crush all opposition with an iron fist.'
Russian anarchist intellectual and leading theorist of the Makhnovshchina. Editor of Golos Truda in Petrograd, co-founder of the Nabat Confederation in Ukraine, and chairman of the Makhnovist Military Revolutionary Council, he developed the theory of anarchist synthesis to unite communist, individualist, and syndicalist anarchists. After exile from Soviet Russia in 1922, he wrote The Unknown Revolution, the definitive anarchist history of 1917–1921, and opposed the Platformist centralization pushed by his comrade Makhno.
Career Timeline
- 1904Drops out of St. Petersburg University law faculty; joins Socialist Revolutionary Party; organizes workers' study groups
- 1905Participates in Bloody Sunday march and helps form the St. Petersburg Soviet; imprisoned at Peter and Paul Fortress
- 1907Arrested by Okhrana, deported to Siberia; escapes and flees to France
- 1911Becomes anarchist under Apollon Karelin's influence; joins Brotherhood of Free Communists in Paris
- 1915–1916Flees anti-war persecution in France to USA; edits Golos Truda in New York
- 1917Returns to Petrograd after February Revolution; relaunches Golos Truda as leading anarcho-syndicalist organ
- 1918–1920Co-founds Nabat Confederation in Ukraine; chairs Makhnovist Military Revolutionary Council; arrested twice by Cheka
- 1922Exiled from Soviet Russia after hunger strike and Profintern delegate intervention
- 1924–1939Moves to Paris at Sébastien Faure's invitation; contributes to Anarchist Encyclopedia; writes for anarchist periodicals in five languages
- 1940Completes The Unknown Revolution in Marseille while living in poverty
- 1945Dies of tuberculosis in Paris; buried at Père Lachaise near Nestor Makhno
Related historical events
The Anarchist Synthesis
Volin's theory of "anarchist synthesis" (анархический синтез) took concrete form at the founding conference of the Nabat Confederation in Kursk in November 1918. There Volin argued that the three major currents of anarchism, communism (libertarian communism), syndicalism (revolutionary method through trade unions), and individualism (the complete emancipation of the individual), weakened the movement by remaining separate and hostile to one another; the time had come to reintegrate these elements into an organic whole. The Nabat conference unanimously adopted a declaration accepting these three principles, and on this basis Volin succeeded in uniting anarchists of diverse tendencies across Ukraine into a single confederation.
Volin systematised the theory in his 1925 essay "Synthesis (Anarchist)." According to him, the fragmentation of anarchism had been useful during the analytical phase of deepening early ideas, but that phase was now over, and factional hostility was driving the movement into a dead end. The middle ground he proposed, neither rigid dogma nor unprincipled drift, was a "synthesised organisation" based on federalism, free discipline, and collective responsibility. It aimed not to turn anarchists into a political party but to create a movement where diverse tendencies could coexist on a common practical foundation.
This synthesis theory came into direct conflict with the Organisational Platform published in 1926 by Peter Arshinov and Nestor Makhno. Where the Platformists demanded theoretical and tactical unity, collective responsibility, and a tightly coordinated vanguard organisation, Volin charged that this betrayed anarchism's decentralist principles and reproduced the form of an authoritarian party. In 1927, together with Senya Fleshin, Mollie Steimer, and others, he published the "Reply to the Platform," offering a synthesist alternative, and the debate became a defining axis of 20th-century anarchist discourse: Platform versus Synthesis. The dispute ruptured Volin's once-close relationship with Makhno, though the two reconciled shortly before Makhno's death in 1934.
Volin's synthesis theory subsequently spread through Sébastien Faure's Anarchist Encyclopedia into the French and international anarchist movements, and it remains a theoretical foundation for several organisations today, including the International of Anarchist Federations (IFA).