Olga Taratuta
Encyclopedia
Olga Taratuta was a Ukrainian
anarcho-communist
. She was the founder of the Ukrainian Anarchist Black Cross
.
in Ukraine
, then part of the Russian Empire
. Her family was Jewish and her father ran a small shop. Taratuta worked as a teacher after completing her studies.
Taratuta was arrested on "political suspicions" in 1895. In 1897 she joined a social democratic
group associated with Abram and Iuda Grossman in Ekaterinoslav
. Taratuta was a member of the South Russian Union of Workers and the Elizavetgrad committee of the Social-Democratic Party
from 1898 and 1901. In 1901 she moved to Germany
and then to Switzerland
; during this period she worked for the Party organ Iskra
("Spark") and met Georgi Plekhanov
and Vladimir Lenin
.
In 1903, while in Switzerland, Taratuta became an anarcho-communist. She returned to Odessa
in 1904 and joined Neprimirimye ("The Intransigents"), which was made up of anarchists and other followers of Jan Wacław Machajski
. Taratuta was arrested in April 1904, but she was freed for lack of evidence several months later. After her release she joined the Odessa Workers Group of Anarcho-Communists. She began to acquire a reputation as one of the foremost anarchists in Russia.
Taratuta was arrested again in October 1905, but she was released during the political amnesty that resulted from that year's Revolution. She joined the militant wing of the South Russian Group of Anarcho-Communists, which used "motiveless terror"—attacks against institutions and representatives of the bourgeoisie
, rather than specific individuals. Taratuta was involved in the bomb attack on Odessa's Café Libman in December 1905, for which she was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Taratuta escaped from prison in December 1906 and fled to Geneva, where she joined Buntar ("The Mutineer") and edited its newspaper, also called Buntar. In late 1907, she returned to Odessa, where she helped plan attentats
against General Aleksandr Kaulbars, the commander of the Odessa military region, and against General Tolmachev, governor of Odessa, and an explosion at the Odessa tribunal.
Taratuta was arrested in 1908 in Ekaterinoslav and given a 21-year prison sentence. She was released in March 1917, following the February Revolution
. In May 1918, she joined the Political Red Cross, which help imprisoned revolutionaries of all political affiliations.
Although she initially kept her distance from the anarchist movement, the growing persecution of anarchists by the Bolshevik
government inspired Taratuta to join Golos Truda
("Voice of Labor") and the Nabat
confederation in June 1920. She returned to Ukraine in September 1920, after the Makhnovists
signed a truce with the Soviet government. The Makhnovist commanders gave her 5 million ruble
s; Taratuta went to Kharkov and used the money to establish the Anarchist Black Cross
to provide aid to imprisoned and other persecuted anarchists.
in January 1921 and to Orlov
in April 1921. The following month, she was offered a release on the condition that she publicly denounce her anarchist beliefs. Instead, she joined her fellow anarchist prisoners in an 11-day hunger strike
. In March 1922 she was exiled to Veliky Ustyug
for two years.
After her release in 1924, Taratuta moved to Kiev
. She was arrested in the middle of that year for publishing anarchist propaganda, but she was soon released. Later that year she moved to Moscow. In 1927, she joined the international campaign to support Sacco and Vanzetti
. During 1928 and 1929, Taratuta wrote many letters trying to organize an international organization to support anarchists in Soviet prisons. She moved to Odessa in 1929, and she was arrested for trying to organize an anarchist organization among the rail workers. She was sentenced to two years in prison.
Taratuta returned to Moscow after her release. She joined the Society of Political Prisoners and Exiles, which tried without success to obtain pensions for old, impoverished, and sick revolutionaries. She was arrested and sentenced in 1933, but little is known about this arrest.
Taratuta was arrested on November 27, 1937, and accused of anarchist and anti-Soviet activity. She was condemned to death on February 8, 1938, and executed the same day.
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
anarcho-communist
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with...
. She was the founder of the Ukrainian Anarchist Black Cross
Anarchist Black Cross
The Anarchist Black Cross is an anarchist politics support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organises material and legal support for class struggle prisoners worldwide...
.
Early life and activism
Taratuta was born Elka Ruvinskaia in the village of Novodmitrovka, near KhersonKherson
Kherson is a city in southern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kherson Oblast , and is designated as its own separate raion within the oblast. Kherson is an important port on the Black Sea and Dnieper River, and the home of a major ship-building industry...
in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, then part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. Her family was Jewish and her father ran a small shop. Taratuta worked as a teacher after completing her studies.
Taratuta was arrested on "political suspicions" in 1895. In 1897 she joined a social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
group associated with Abram and Iuda Grossman in Ekaterinoslav
Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk or Dnepropetrovsk formerly Yekaterinoslav is Ukraine's third largest city with one million inhabitants. It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central region of the country...
. Taratuta was a member of the South Russian Union of Workers and the Elizavetgrad committee of the Social-Democratic Party
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
from 1898 and 1901. In 1901 she moved to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and then to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
; during this period she worked for the Party organ Iskra
Iskra
Iskra was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Initially, it was managed by Vladimir Lenin, moving as he moved. The first edition was published in Stuttgart on December 1, 1900. Other editions were...
("Spark") and met Georgi Plekhanov
Georgi Plekhanov
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. He was a founder of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist." Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland in 1880, where...
and Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
.
In 1903, while in Switzerland, Taratuta became an anarcho-communist. She returned to Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
in 1904 and joined Neprimirimye ("The Intransigents"), which was made up of anarchists and other followers of Jan Wacław Machajski
Jan Wacław Machajski
Jan Wacław Machajski , pseudonym A. Wolski , was a Polish anarchist whose methodology was thoroughly Marxist.-Life:...
. Taratuta was arrested in April 1904, but she was freed for lack of evidence several months later. After her release she joined the Odessa Workers Group of Anarcho-Communists. She began to acquire a reputation as one of the foremost anarchists in Russia.
Taratuta was arrested again in October 1905, but she was released during the political amnesty that resulted from that year's Revolution. She joined the militant wing of the South Russian Group of Anarcho-Communists, which used "motiveless terror"—attacks against institutions and representatives of the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, rather than specific individuals. Taratuta was involved in the bomb attack on Odessa's Café Libman in December 1905, for which she was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Taratuta escaped from prison in December 1906 and fled to Geneva, where she joined Buntar ("The Mutineer") and edited its newspaper, also called Buntar. In late 1907, she returned to Odessa, where she helped plan attentats
Propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed is a concept that refers to specific political actions meant to be exemplary to others...
against General Aleksandr Kaulbars, the commander of the Odessa military region, and against General Tolmachev, governor of Odessa, and an explosion at the Odessa tribunal.
Taratuta was arrested in 1908 in Ekaterinoslav and given a 21-year prison sentence. She was released in March 1917, following the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
. In May 1918, she joined the Political Red Cross, which help imprisoned revolutionaries of all political affiliations.
Although she initially kept her distance from the anarchist movement, the growing persecution of anarchists by the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
government inspired Taratuta to join Golos Truda
Golos Truda
Golos Truda was a Russian language anarcho-syndicalist newspaper. Founded by working-class Russian expatriates in New York in 1911, Golos Truda shifted to Petrograd during the Russian Revolution in 1917, when its editors took advantage of the general amnesty and right of return for political...
("Voice of Labor") and the Nabat
Nabat
The Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations, better known simply as Nabat , was an anarchist organization that came to prominence in Ukraine during the years 1918 to 1920. The area where it held the most influence is sometimes referred to as the Free Territory, though Nabat had branches in...
confederation in June 1920. She returned to Ukraine in September 1920, after the Makhnovists
Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine
The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine , popularly called Makhnovshchina, less correctly Makhnovchina, and also known as the Black Army, was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian and Crimean peasants and workers under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno during the...
signed a truce with the Soviet government. The Makhnovist commanders gave her 5 million ruble
Soviet ruble
The Soviet ruble or rouble was the currency of the Soviet Union. One ruble is divided into 100 kopeks, ....
s; Taratuta went to Kharkov and used the money to establish the Anarchist Black Cross
Anarchist Black Cross
The Anarchist Black Cross is an anarchist politics support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organises material and legal support for class struggle prisoners worldwide...
to provide aid to imprisoned and other persecuted anarchists.
Soviet repression
In November 1920, Taratuta was arrested during a Soviet sweep of anarchists and Makhnovists in Ukraine. The Soviets shut down the Anarchist Black Cross. Taratuta was transferred to MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in January 1921 and to Orlov
Orlov, Russia
Orlov is a town and the administrative center of Orlovsky District of Kirov Oblast, Russia, situated on the right bank of the Vyatka River, west of Kirov. Population: It was first mentioned in 1459. Town status was granted to it in 1780...
in April 1921. The following month, she was offered a release on the condition that she publicly denounce her anarchist beliefs. Instead, she joined her fellow anarchist prisoners in an 11-day hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
. In March 1922 she was exiled to Veliky Ustyug
Veliky Ustyug
Veliky Ustyug is a town in the northeast of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Sukhona and Yug Rivers. Administratively, it is incorporated as a town of oblast significance . It also serves as the administrative center of Velikoustyugsky District, by which it is completely...
for two years.
After her release in 1924, Taratuta moved to Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
. She was arrested in the middle of that year for publishing anarchist propaganda, but she was soon released. Later that year she moved to Moscow. In 1927, she joined the international campaign to support Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
. During 1928 and 1929, Taratuta wrote many letters trying to organize an international organization to support anarchists in Soviet prisons. She moved to Odessa in 1929, and she was arrested for trying to organize an anarchist organization among the rail workers. She was sentenced to two years in prison.
Taratuta returned to Moscow after her release. She joined the Society of Political Prisoners and Exiles, which tried without success to obtain pensions for old, impoverished, and sick revolutionaries. She was arrested and sentenced in 1933, but little is known about this arrest.
Taratuta was arrested on November 27, 1937, and accused of anarchist and anti-Soviet activity. She was condemned to death on February 8, 1938, and executed the same day.