Soviet (council)
Videos
A soviet is a workers' council that follows a socialist ideology, particularly in the context of the Russian Revolution. Soviets were the main form of government in the Russian SFSR and the Makhnovshchina.
Soviet assembly in Petrograd, 1917
Deputies of the first soviet, 1905.
The Soviet of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg in 1905: Leon Trotsky in the center. The soviets were an early example of a workers council
Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union and the leader of the Bolshevik party.
Makhnovshchina
Videos
The Makhnovshchina was a mass movement to establish anarchist communism in southern and eastern Ukraine during the Ukrainian War of Independence of 1917–1921. Named after Nestor Makhno, the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, its aim was to create a system of free soviets that would manage the transition towards a stateless and classless society.
The Union of Poor Peasants, an anarchist-communist peasant group based in Huliaipole, to which Nestor Makhno (seated, front row, far left) was a member
Anarchist soldiers of the Black Guards marching in formation
Soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Army near Odesa, during the occupation of Ukraine by the Central Powers.
The burial of insurgents killed in battle with the Austro-Hungarian Army.