We cry shame on the #feudal baron who forbade the #peasant to turn a clod of #earth unless he surrendered to his #lord a fourth of his crop. We call those the barbarous times. But if the forms have changed, the relations have remained the same, and the #worker is #forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he will, he can find no better conditions. Everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die of #hunger. #communism#peterkropotkin
Today in Labor History August 19, 1920: A peasant insurrection began in Tambov, USSR, over the confiscation of their grain. Led by Alexander Antonov, a former official of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the Green Army uprising evolved into a guerrilla war against the Red Army, Cheka Units and the Soviet authorities. The Bolsheviks finally suppressed the revolt in June, 1921. 240,000 died in the rebellion and over 50,000 were imprisoned. They also used chemical weapons on the peasants. Dissident writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wrote about it in a short story in his book, “Apricot Jam and other Stories,” (2010).