Gregori Maximoff

About the author

Gregori Maximoff: Advocate for Workers' Self-Management

Gregori Maximoff was born on November 10, 1893, in the Russian Empire. He became an important figure in the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements, dedicating his life to advocating for workers' self-management and expressing his thoughts widely through his writings. Maximoff was an influential theorist who provided momentum to the syndicalist movement, with efforts aimed at achieving a society built around cooperative, worker-managed labor unions.

Maximoff passed away on March 16, 1950, but his ideas continued to influence anarchist and leftist circles. Some of his notable works include 'The Guillotine at Work' and 'The Political Philosophy of Bakunin'. These pieces contributed enormously to anarchist literature, providing in-depth and compelling arguments for syndicalist approaches. Maximoff's contribution to the anarchist movement remains significant today, echoing in the principles of collective management and economic decentralization in various radical and leftist movements.

Date of Birth: 1893-11-10

Date of Death: 1950-03-16

Country of Birth: Russian Empire

Political Ideas: Anarcho-syndicalism, Workers' Self-management

Quotes Available: 10

Quotes by Gregori Maximoff

The future social revolution must take into account the circumstance that the industry and agriculture inherited by it from capitalism would not be uniform in the degrees of development of their various branches.

The anarchists reject the path of parliamentary activity. Their tactics are based on the principle of direct action: mass protests, strikes, boycott, sabotage and other methods of direct influence.

I believe that anarchism and communism are feasible on an international scale only, and I do not believe in them in one country alone.

At the base of contemporary capitalist society lies the principle of private property, owing to which society is divided into two fundamental classes -- the capitalists and the proletariat.

I believe that it behooves every honest man to urge the toiling masses not to let the flames of revolution be extinguished.

In this way, the state commune transforms the workers into soulless parts in the huge, centralised communist machine, parts who are obliged to be directed for their whole lives to a single purpose -- the maximum fulfilment of certain production tasks decreed by the state, and who are condemned to a minimum field of initiative, independent action and personal choice.

The revealed despotic character of state communism, Marxism, caused a reaction in the proletarian movement and brought about world Fascism in politics.

Society will have no need to create special institutions for a social insurance. Since it expects all to work, it will determine the minimum and maximum working ages, before and after which all people will be provided, on an equal footing with others, with the necessities for existence and the comforts of life. Similarly, society will provide for invalids, cripples and the sick.

The present Russian regime and the present order of things can not be called bourgeois -- still less can it be called socialistic or communistic.

The revolutionary trade unions, in the view of the anarchists, are not only organs of the struggle against the contemporary structure; they are also the cells of the future society.

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