“Dialogue of Ideas” and the History of the Russian Anarchist Emigration Press in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s

The article was written as part of a scientific discussion with N. I. Gerasimov on the problems of the “dialogue of ideas”, interaction between the organs of the Russian language periodical press of anarchists in the USA in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s. The purpose of the article is to analyze the possibility of applying historical and philosophical analysis to this study. The topic of the history of the anarchist periodical press of the Russian Diaspora in the 1920s and the 1930s has not yet been the subject of comprehensive study. It is important to refer about several of the most influential currents of emigration (traditional anarcho-communism, united anarchism, platformism, anarcho-syndicalism, svobodnichestvo), whose supporters were united in anarchist and cultural-educational workers’ organizations. These organizational structures were the actual founders of such publications as Amerikanskiye Izvestiya (American News), Volna (The Wave), Rassvet (The Dawn), Delo Truda (The Cause of Labor), and Probuzhdeniye (The Awakening). The attempt to adapt the sociopolitical ideas of anarchism to the changing socioeconomic and sociocultural conditions of the 1920s and 1930s led to the creation of the programmatic projects advocated by their ideologists. Their goal was to transform anarchism into a mass movement capable of implementing its own programmatic principles. The defeat of the anarchists in the Russian Revolution of 1917–1922, the economic crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the rise of fascist regimes, and the growing prerequisites for World War II gave a special intensity to the ideological and political struggle within the anarchist movement.