The Bolshevik Myth · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in The Bolshevik Myth by Alexander Berkman.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Unknown Narrator
major
Also known as Your, myself, yourself, me
He comes to Soviet Russia exultant, ready to ignore doctrinal differences and work for the Revolution, and finds himself instead learning its daily texture: surrogat tea, thin soup, and the anxious glance at an empty chair that means more for the rest. His American crackers and condensed milk make him briefly a benefactor at a communal table where Ukrainians hoard salo wrapped in Tsarist police circulars. His growing doubt is the book's engine, turning a pilgrimage into a reckoning.
Nestor Makhno
supporting
Also known as Makhno, young Makhno
To peasants of the South he is their truest friend, one of their own; to Moscow he is a bandit and counterrevolutionary; to the anarchists at the communal table he is the Revolution's last living expression. He proclaims free speech and empty jails wherever he takes a town, and refuses Trotsky's order to march against the Poles, seeing in it a scheme to strip his district of defenders. Whether he is liberator or warlord is the argument the narrator cannot settle.
Lenin
major
Also known as XIII Lenin, ↩ Lenin
The narrator arrives believing Lenin's own assertion that he and his followers are ultimately anarchists, that political power is only a temporary means. That faith is the premise of the whole journey, and every requisition, prison, and silenced press chips at it. Lenin never needs to appear in a scene to dominate it: he is the standard against which the Revolution's drift is measured.
Chicherin
supporting
Also known as VI Chicherin
He turns night into day in a cold office, shawl slipping onto his papers, snapping at a clerk over a confused draft and then snatching it away to retype himself. He asks the narrator how soon revolution might come to America, and calls him pessimistic for doubting it. His feverish, threadbare devotion to recognition and lifting the blockade embodies the besieged state's strange blend of exhaustion and zeal.
Zinoviev
supporting
Also known as Tovarish Zinoviev, tovarish
He belongs to the tier of Bolshevik leadership the narrator encounters as the Revolution's public face, invoked with the easy familiarity of comrades who preside over meetings and circles. Around him cluster the small human comedies of the new order: the servant turned presiding Bolshevik, the samovar, the shared tovarish. His presence marks how thoroughly the party has become the state's ruling apparatus.
Peter Kropotkin
supporting
Also known as Kropotkin, Peter
He looks tired and weak, exhausted by the mere presence of visitors, and the narrator fears he may not live long under such conditions. That the Ukraine's anarchists and even Makhno must smuggle him provisions is a quiet indictment of the Revolution he spent his life imagining. His frailty gives the narrator's disillusion a human face: the old ideal starving in the city that claims to have realized it.
Karakhan
minor
Soviet diplomat and deputy to Chicherin.
Alexander Berkman
supporting
Also known as Berkman, Comrade Berkman
An anarchist veteran of the American movement, Berkman returns to revolutionary Russia only to watch the Bolsheviks strangle the revolution he came to serve.
Emma Goldman
supporting
Also known as Emma
Berkman's fiery companion, Goldman laughs easily and grieves hard, measuring the Revolution by the fate of imprisoned comrades like Spiridonova.
Trotsky
minor
Bolshevik leader and founder of the Red Army.
Radek
minor
Bolshevik politician and journalist.
Kamenev
minor
Bolshevik leader and chairman of the Moscow Soviet.
Lunacharsky
minor
Also known as Comrade Lunacharsky
People's Commissar for Education and culture.
Angelica Balabanova
minor
Also known as Balabanova
Italian socialist and Comintern official.
Bertrand Russell
minor
Also known as Russell
British philosopher visiting Soviet Russia.
Yossif
supporting
Also known as XXIV Yossif
Known as the Emigrant, Yossif is a beloved Ukrainian anarchist organizer whose sunny idealism curdles into militant faith in Makhno's peasant uprising.
Moishe
minor
Also known as Reb Moishe
A Jewish character encountered by the narrator.
Dr. G⸺
minor
Also known as G⸺
A doctor who appears in the narrative.
Tovarish Karus
minor
Also known as Karus, tovarish
A Bolshevik official encountered by the narrator.
The Chekist
minor
Also known as the young Chekist
A member of the Cheka secret police.
Tovarish Drozdov
minor
Also known as Drozdov
A Bolshevik official or comrade.
Liza Zorin
minor
Also known as Zorin, Liza
A woman encountered by the narrator.
Lena
minor
Also known as Poor Lena
A woman encountered by the narrator.
Burov
minor
A character in the narrative.
Ethel Bernstein
minor
Also known as Miss Ethel Bernstein
An American woman visiting Russia.
Bakaiev
minor
A Bolshevik official.
Gallina
minor
A woman encountered by the narrator.
Mr. Berkshire
minor
Also known as Berkshire
A British visitor to Russia.
Novikov
minor
Also known as Comrade Novikov
A Bolshevik official.
Mme. Lunacharskaya
minor
Also known as Lunacharskaya
Wife of Lunacharsky.
The Colonel
minor
A military officer encountered by the narrator.
Big Samuel
minor
Also known as Sam
A Jewish character encountered by the narrator.
Semyon Petrovitch
minor
Also known as Semyon
A character in the narrative.
Bianki
minor
A character in the narrative.
Fanya Baron
minor
Also known as Baron, little Fanya
An anarchist woman encountered by the narrator.
N⸺
minor
A character whose name is redacted.
Little Vera
minor
Also known as Vera
A young girl encountered by the narrator.
Rostchin
minor
A character in the narrative.
Krestinsky
minor
A Bolshevik official.
Lansbury
minor
British Labour politician visiting Russia.
Petlura
minor
Also known as Dictator Petlura
Ukrainian nationalist leader.
Kalinin
minor
Also known as President Kalinin
Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
Maria Spiridonova
minor
Also known as Spiridonova
Left Socialist Revolutionary leader.
Henry Alsberg
minor
Also known as Alsberg
American journalist and relief worker.
Bukharin
minor
Bolshevik leader and theorist.
K⸺
minor
A character whose name is redacted.
Tchaikovsky
minor
A character in the narrative.
Skoropadsky
minor
Also known as Hetman Skoropadsky
Ukrainian hetman during the civil war.
Askarev
minor
Also known as the Universalist Askarev
A universalist thinker encountered by the narrator.
Astrov
minor
Also known as ↩ Astrov
A character in the narrative.
Sergei
minor
Also known as the Kharitonensky Sergei
A character in the narrative.
Louise Bryant
minor
Also known as Louise
American journalist and wife of John Reed.
Jack Reed
minor
Also known as Reed
American journalist and author of Ten Days That Shook the World.
Pashkevitch
minor
A character in the narrative.
Bill Shatov
minor
Also known as Shatov, Bill
An American-born Bolshevik and engineer.
Nadya
minor
A woman known to the narrator.
R⸺
minor
A character whose name is redacted.
D⸺
minor
Also known as The young Bundist
A young Bundist encountered by the narrator.
Yasha
minor
A character in the narrative.
Sasha
minor
A character in the narrative.
T⸺
minor
A character whose name is redacted.
Pyotr Vassilitch
minor
Also known as Pyotr
A character in the narrative.
Stepan
minor
A character in the narrative.
Dr. L⸺
minor
Also known as young L⸺, L⸺
A young doctor encountered by the narrator.
X⸺
minor
A character whose name is redacted.
Ataman Grigoriev
minor
Also known as Grigoriev, The Ataman
Ukrainian ataman who rebelled against the Bolsheviks.
Kolya
minor
A character in the narrative.
Kerensky
minor
Former head of the Russian Provisional Government.
Antselovitch
minor
A Bolshevik official.
Tchernenko
minor
A character in the narrative.
Peters
minor
A Cheka official.
Mariusa
minor
A woman encountered by the narrator.
V⸺
minor
A character whose name is redacted.
Lilina
minor
Also known as tovarish Lilina
A Bolshevik woman official.
Vanya
minor
A character in the narrative.
Count Pirro
minor
Also known as Pirro
An Italian count encountered by the narrator.
Kulakov
minor
A character in the narrative.
Vladimir
minor
A character in the narrative.
Old Peter
minor
An elderly character encountered by the narrator.
Semyon Voskov
minor
Also known as Voskov
A Bolshevik official.
Victor Chernov
minor
Also known as Chernov
Leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
Marusya
minor
A woman encountered by the narrator.
Joffe
minor
Soviet diplomat.
Demian Bedni
minor
Bolshevik poet and propagandist.