Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as myself, yourself, your, mine

She arrives possessed by hope, determined to become an active part of revolutionary reconstruction, and instead finds reality grotesque and unlike the great ideal that bore her there. Each day adds a new link to the fatal chain pulling down her edifice, yet she fights desperately against the still voice urging her to face the facts. Her slow, resisted disillusionment is the book's engine: everything she witnesses matters because she cannot bring herself to stop believing.

Nestor Makhno

supporting

Also known as Makhno, the Makhno, the Makhno povstantsi, Nestor

Makhno never sits across from the narrator; he reaches her through a friend in hiding, a man with a baby asleep in a dreary room who talks in subdued voices about the Ukrainian peasantry and the Makhno movement. That friend knows every phase from personal experience and is writing the book that will finally tell the world the truth about Makhno and the povstantsi. The movement becomes a measure of what the Revolution promised and what the Bolshevik State crushed.

Angelica Balabanova

supporting

Also known as Balabanova, Angelica

The narrator finds her huddled on a sofa in a small, cheerless room, gracious as an old friend, ordering the inevitable samovar. Where others recite the old refrain, Balabanova admits that life itself is mean and limited, a rock on which the highest hopes are shattered. She gives away her own rations to the stranded Italians and anyone else in need, and her comrades call her a sentimentalist who wastes her time in philanthropy.

Lenin

supporting

From her first interview the narrator reads him as a man who knows exactly what he is about and will stop at nothing to achieve his ends. He swims with the tide when the cry for Soviet power sweeps Russia, then issues slogans like 'Rob the robbers' that confuse the people and injure revolutionary idealism. His compromises form a chain toward an all-powerful centralized Government, and his contempt for his own followers is never hidden.

Peter Kropotkin

supporting

Also known as Peter, Kropotkin, old Peter, Thereafter Kropotkin, Peter Kropotkin Funeral Commission

In two days at his household the narrator learns more of his personal life than in all the years she had known him: the drawings of great merit, the piano he played with unusual ability. He lies on his couch as if peacefully asleep, his face as kindly in death as in life, while the whole village follows his remains to the station. The Anarchist Funeral Commission must beg the Moscow Soviet for printing and transport, and the Cheka refuses to release imprisoned comrades to attend.

Maria Spiridonova

supporting

Also known as XVI Maria Spiridonova, Spiridonova, Maria

The narrator zigzags through back streets to a top-floor room where Spiridonova sits before a desk piled with letters, having escaped from a Kremlin prison. Told she had broken down into hysteria, the narrator instead finds her self-contained and clear on every point, reciting the Brest-Litovsk peace, the razverstka, and the terrorism against revolutionary criticism. When she detects doubt, she reaches for peasants' letters and reads aloud as proof.

Lunacharsky

minor

Also known as Evidently Lunacharsky

Bolshevik Commissar of Education, encountered in cultural and political contexts.

Lisa Zorin

supporting

Also known as Zorin, Lisa, Subsequently Lisa

Lisa Zorin is a schoolteacher of about twenty-five, poorly clad but neat, who tells Goldman plainly that provincial authorities outdo Moscow in arbitrariness and that the glowing reports of falling illiteracy are exaggerated. She fights the abuses in her district while clinging to faith in the Revolution, yet she wonders aloud whether so-called education has really made the literate world better or kinder. Her honesty gives Goldman an early, unsettling glimpse of how the new order looks from the provinces rather than from the capital.

Maxim Gorky

minor

Also known as Gorky, Presently Gorky

Famous Russian writer who interacts with the narrator in Petrograd.

Jack Reed

minor

Also known as Jack, Reed, John Reed

American journalist and communist who appears briefly in the narrative.

Zinoviev

minor

Also known as Chairman Zinoviev

Bolshevik leader and chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, encountered by the narrator.

Trotsky

minor

Bolshevik military leader, mentioned and occasionally seen in political settings.

Alexander Berkman

supporting

Also known as A. Shapiro, Alexander Berkman

Alexander Berkman is Goldman's closest comrade, the companion with whom she entered Russia possessed by hope and with whom she measured each new link in the fatal chain of disappointment. He shares her anarchist ideals and her growing conviction that the Bolshevik State is crushing every constructive revolutionary effort, and it is alongside him that she reads Landauer's letters on the French Revolution while Bolshevik artillery begins the bombardment of Kronstadt. His presence turns private disillusionment into a shared testimony, anchoring the memoir's movement from faith to departure.

Karl Radek

minor

Also known as Radek

Bolshevik official and propagandist, met during political discussions.

Fanya Baron

minor

Anarchist woman who becomes a friend and later a victim of persecution.

Louise Bryant

minor

Also known as Louise

American journalist and wife of Jack Reed, met in Russia.

Lev Tcherny

minor

Also known as Tcherny

Anarchist intellectual and poet, encountered by the narrator.

Ravitch

minor

Also known as Madame Ravitch

Anarchist woman active in the movement, met in the Ukraine.

Bill Shatov

minor

Also known as Bill, Shatov, William Shatov

American anarchist working in Soviet Russia, a friend of the narrator.

Krasnoschekov

minor

Bolshevik official in the Ukraine, met during the narrator's travels.

Alexandra Kollontai

minor

Also known as Kollontai, Madame Kollontai

Bolshevik feminist and diplomat, briefly encountered.

Wetoshkin

minor

Also known as Comrade Wetoshkin

Bolshevik official involved in trade union affairs.

Sasha Kropotkin

minor

Son of Peter Kropotkin, present at his father's funeral.

Alexander Blok

minor

Also known as a Blok, Blok

Russian poet, mentioned in cultural discussions.

Chicherin

minor

Bolshevik Commissar for Foreign Affairs, met briefly.

Kaplun

minor

Also known as Thereupon Kaplun

Bolshevik official involved in cultural matters.

Petrovsky

minor

Bolshevik official in the Ukraine.

Korolenko

minor

Also known as Miss Korolenko

Russian writer and humanitarian, visited by the narrator.

Madame Breshkovsky

minor

Elderly Socialist Revolutionary, met in passing.

Emma Goldman

major

Emma Goldman is the narrator and an anarchist activist who arrives in Russia possessed by the hope of finding a people wholly consecrated to revolutionary reconstruction, and who had fervently hoped to become an active part of that inspiring work. Instead she finds reality grotesque and unlike the great ideal that bore her there, and she struggles desperately against the still voice urging her to face the overpowering facts. Her gradual, unwilling reckoning with what the Revolution has become drives the book's early and middle arc, making her private doubt the lens through which every encounter is weighed.

Volin

minor

Anarchist theorist and activist, met in the Ukraine.

Grigoriev

minor

Ukrainian ataman who briefly allied with Makhno.

Denikin

minor

Also known as the Denikin

White Army general, mentioned as an enemy of the Bolsheviks.

Joffe

minor

Bolshevik diplomat, briefly mentioned.

Kalinin

minor

Bolshevik figurehead, met in passing.

Doctor Pervukhin

minor

Doctor who treated the narrator during illness.

Mr. Kaplan

minor

Also known as Kaplan

Jewish acquaintance met in the Ukraine.

G. Maximoff

minor

Anarchist writer and activist, met briefly.

Mark Mratchny

minor

Also known as Mratchny

Anarchist comrade, encountered in Russia.

Molly Stimer

minor

American anarchist living in Russia, a friend.