The year 1919 in many ways marks a watershed in human history. Although many anarchist organisations would grow into the 1920s, particularly in Spain, Korea, Manchuria, China and elsewhere, for most it was their high-water mark from which they gradually lost ground to the reformist, communist left and the reactionary, fascist right. It was one of the most terrifyingly dynamic years of the turbulent 20th Century. The Russian Civil War was in full flood and in Ukraine, the anarchist-inspired Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (RPAU) was at the peak of its powers, fully 110,000-strong, with an estimated 250,000 in reserve, organised in four corps in Crimea, Yekaterinoslav, Oleksandrivsk and Gulyai-Polye - under the civilian control of the Congress of Workers, Peasants and Insurgents (KBOP) representing 2,5-million people in a free territory of 27,000km². In the year of the formation of the Comintern, red revolutions were sweeping Europe, from the Spartakist Rising in Germany to the formation of the Hungarian Soviet, while the Tragic Week in Argentina saw the anarcho-syndicalist forces fail to defeat a better-armed state. Counter-revolution was also on the march, with the founding of the Combat Groups (Fascisti) in Italy, of the German Workers' Party (precursor to the Nazis) in Germany, the Yuzonsha (an early ultra-nationalist party) in Japan and the seizure of Hungary by Admiral Horthy - not to mention the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg by Freikorps in Berlin and the assassination of Emiliano Zapata in Mexico.
Imperialism was embattled as the the last Austro-Hungarian king went into exile, the Turkish Independence War, Third Anglo-Afghan War, and Anglo-Irish wars broke out, destined to result in the independence of Turkey, Afghanistan and Eire, while in the Far East, the Philippines gained independence from the USA, and the March 1 and May 4 Movements in Korea and China respectively challenged Japanese and Western intervention. The Egyptian Revolt against the British would result in swift Egyptian independence - but Britain bitterly held onto the crown of its empire in Asia, slaughtering 379 Sikhs in the Amritsar Massacre in India. In the USA, Prohibition was ratified, enabling the growth of the gangster underground, while a spate of anarchist bombings lead to the Palmer Raids in which 10,000 suspected anarchists and communists were arrested and hundreds including Emma Goldman deported to Russia. The Treaty of Versailles was signed - sowing the seeds not only of the independence of countries like Czechoslovakia, but of what I term the "short World War II" also (my "long World War II" starts with the Japanese invasion of China proper in 1937 and also ends in China with the communist triumph in 1949). The modernist Bauhaus movement was formed, the first non-stop transatlantic flight occurred, the Bavarian Soviet Republic was repressed, the miners of the Ruhr embarked on a massive strike, and South Africa assumed the mandate for formerly German South-West Africa, leading to a conflict that would only be resolved in 1991 with Namibian independence. Now, a century on, and communism seems a dead letter, yet the political polar opposites of anarchism and fascism are reviving to challenge each other once again. The future holds its breath...
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