Name Gregori Maximoff | ||
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Died 1950, Chicago, Illinois, United States Books The Guillotine at Work: Twenty Years of Terror in Russia (data and Documents) by G.P. Maximoff | ||
Grigori Petrovitch Maximoff (Russian: Григо́рий Петро́вич Макси́мов, Grigóriy Petróvich Maksímov; 11 November 1893, Mitushino Smolensk Governorate – 16 March 1950, Chicago) was a Russian-born anarcho-syndicalist who was involved in Nabat, a Ukrainian anarcho-syndicalist movement. Along with several other anarchists, he was imprisoned on 8 March 1921 following a Cheka sweep of anarchists in the area. After a hunger strike attracted the attention of visiting syndicalists, Maximoff was one of the 10 anarchists who were released from prison and deported.
Maximoff's work was first published in the US by the Union of Russian Workers, an anarchist organization with nearly 10,000 members which had a substantial presence in New York City.
The Guillotine at Work: Twenty Years of Terror in Russia
This one of Maximoff's best remembered works in which he analysis the consequences of the Bolshevik seizure of power in the October Revolution. Quoting from Lenin's pamphlet The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It (Sept 1917), he argues that Lenin is indeed the "first theoretician of fascism". However, when the actions of the working class in seizing control of both industrial and commercial enterprises make such a course of action, Maximoff argues that Lenin then calls for the establishment of state capitalism, with other elements of fascism being added from time to time. He bases this argument on his reading of The Next Tasks of the Soviet Power.