Karelin, Apollon Andreevich

Father - artist and photographer Andrey Osipovich Karelin ; mother - Evgenia Nikitichna, nee Makarenko. They had three children: Lyudmila (b. 1862), Apollo (1863) and Andrew (b. 1866).

In 1865, the family moved from St. Petersburg to Kostroma , where his father got a job with photographer M.P. Nastyukov . In 1866 , during the birth of her second son, her mother died. And in 1869, Karelin’s father with three children and his second wife, Olga Grigoryevna (nee Lermontova, a distant relative of the poet ) moved to Nizhny Novgorod , where three more children were born: Olga, Tatyana and Rafail.

The beginning of revolutionary activity

In 1873, Apollo Karelin began to study at the Nizhny Novgorod gymnasium . For the dissemination of proclamations in 1881 he was arrested, expelled from the gymnasium (March 9), but received imperial permission to graduate from the gymnasium. Having passed the matriculation exams in May 1882, he went to enter Kazan University , but he “made a mess” even before being enrolled in it and was forced to flee abroad - to Switzerland. He soon returned and in 1883 was sent for three years to Western Siberia - to Ust-Kamenogorsk , then - to Semipalatinsk .

The American publicist D. Kennan wrote: “Of the political exiles in Ulba at that time, Alexander L. Black, a law student from the city of Saratov on the Volga, Apollon Karelin, the son of a well-known photographer from Nizhny Novgorod, Severin Gross, a young lawyer from the Koven province , and Vitort, a technologist from Riga . Karelina was accompanied by his wife to Siberia, the rest, as far as I could tell, were not married. ” Karelin was married to the doctor Evgenia Fortunatovna Verigo; they had a son, Andrei.

In 1887, he published his first article in the Legal Bulletin, “Walkers and Bonded Workers.” In 1888, as an external student, he received a candidate’s degree at Kazan University , defending a dissertation: “Community ownership in European and Asian Russia” and settled in Nizhny Novgorod as an assistant to a sworn solicitor.

In Vologda. Rapprochement with the Social Revolutionaries

He was exiled to Vologda for 4 years (at the command of the tsar of January 22, 1892) for belonging to the "St. Petersburg Terrorist Circle" ; On May 19, 1892, he applied to the Vologda Governor for permission to use the library and the undeveloped materials of the Vologda Provincial Statistics Committee to study and describe the province, and on November 30, 1892, to the Minister of the Interior with a request for permission to practice law in Vologda and on February 5, 1893 years received such permission. He was an assistant to the attorney K.A. Rozanov. While practicing law, he visited Totma , Gryazovets , Kadnikov to participate in the proceedings.

In 1898, he worked as secretary of the council in Yukhnov , then lived in Yelets . Since 1900 he settled in Irkutsk . He conducted mainly criminal cases, in most cases refusing a fee. He was an employee of the "Eastern Review" . Karelin seriously studied social issues and economics. He took an active part in the events of the fall of 1905 .

Karelin Political Program

On October 14, 1905, a strike began in Irkutsk. 10.16. It swept the whole city: rallies, demonstrations, strikes. A significant role in this strike was played by the agitation of Karelin, who was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party . In his speeches, he called for the establishment of national representation in the country, for a radical change in local self-government on the basis of universal (equal) suffrage for every citizen from the age of 20, called for a democratic republic with inalienable human and civil rights: freedom of speech, conscience, press , meetings, strikes, the inviolability of the person and home, universal equal suffrage. He demanded to provide broad autonomy for the province, advocated the introduction of a progressive tax and the abolition of indirect taxes, the establishment of an 8-hour working day, a minimum wage, workers' insurance, and the creation of trade unions. During the strike, Karelin led the city’s free squad. ^[2] .

Events of the First Russian Revolution

October 21 was arrested, but soon released. The arrest did not affect his activities. At a meeting of the strike committee on November 13, 1905, Karelin voted in favor of the resolution: 1) the realization of the goals pursued by the trade unions is impossible without political freedom; 2) political freedom per se is not a guarantee for the poor from exploitation; 3) in the modern state system of Russia, the need for struggle to achieve the goals set is completely obvious; 4) currently favorable conditions for such a struggle are created by trade unions, which should be united.

November 11, 1905 was again arrested. In 1906, for his revolutionary activities, he was deprived of the status of an assistant to a sworn solicitor, the formal reason was that he did nothing in the divorce case entrusted to him, while the others were reprimanded for such violations.

In exile. Rapprochement with Anarchists

In 1906 he emigrated to France , taught at the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences in Paris , and was a member of the Paris Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist group (1909).

In 1909, after the exposure of E.F. Azef, he withdrew from the Social Revolutionaries. Having officially passed to the anarchists in 1911, he became closer to the leader of the anarchists P. A. Kropotkin . In 1912-14 - an employee, then a member of the editorial board and the actual editor of the anarchist newspaper “Voice of Labor”. One of the organizers of the non-partisan anarchist group of “Free Socialists” (1912, Paris, from the beginning of 1913 - “The Brotherhood of Free Communists” or the Federation of Anarchist Communists) and its printed organ - the magazine “Hammer” and “Society for Active Assistance to Political Prisoners and Exiles”. The author of numerous publications of the Brotherhood.

In 1913, one of the initiators of the convocation of a congress of Russian anarchist communists abroad. On November 2, 1913, Karelin was expelled from the organization by a majority of votes for schismatic activity. According to some reports, Karelin was admitted to the Masonic lodge in France and intended to create a similar organization upon returning to Russia. In 1914 he participated in the publication of the anarchist newspaper “ Bread and Freedom ” in Paris.

The revolution of 1917. In Soviet Russia

In June 1917 he returned to Russia, participated in the Petrograd publications of the anarchists in the newspapers Burevestnik and Labor and Will (1917-1918, the latter being an editor ). Since 1918 in Moscow, he was one of the instigators of the creation of the "All-Russian Federation of Anarchist Communists", a member of the secretariat, editor of the magazine "Free Life". He carried out organizational work on the interaction of conspiracy circles of mystic anarchists in various cities of Russia. From July 4 to 10, 1918 he participated in the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers, Peasants, Soldiers, and Cossack Deputies in Moscow, where he was elected from the anarchists as a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. One of the organizers and participant of the 1st All-Russian Congress of Anarchist Communists (Moscow, December 25-28, 1918). He headed the anarchist faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of several convocations, advocated cooperation with the Bolsheviks. In the same year, he revived in Russia the “Black Cross of Assistance to Needy and Prisoned Anarchists” .

Since February 8, 1921, a member of the group of the All-Russian Public Committee for the Perpetuation of the Memory of P. A. Kropotkin , since September 1921 - a member of the bureau of this committee. In 1923-1926, a member of the anarchist section of the P. A. Kropotkin Museum in Moscow, was engaged in literary activities. In 1924, together with A. A. Solonovich, he organized the creation of the daily newspaper “Breaking Dawn” (published in Chicago ). He collaborated in foreign anarchist publications - the newspapers American News ( New York ), Volna, Dawn ( Chicago ), Voice of Labor ( Buenos Aires , Argentina ), Awakening magazine ( Detroit ). Died of a stroke , at 11 o’clock, 20.03. 1926 .

Bibliography of the works of A. A. Karelin

• Lavatory and bonded workers // Legal Bulletin . St. Petersburg, 1887.
• About scrubbing in Russia // Economic Journal . 1892. - (adj.) To No. 2.
• Community ownership in Russia. SPb, 1893
• Factory laws. (Feature article). St. Petersburg, 1893.
• Rent of peasant allotments. // Russian Thought , 1893. No. 2, No. 3, p. 1-9, Dep. 2.
• Summary of political economy. SPb, 1894
• Wandering Russia. // Northern Herald , 1894. No. 4.
• Agriculture and crafts of peasants of the Yarensky district of the Vologda province.// Vologzhanin. Literary and scientific collection. Vologda , 1895.- S. 112-120.
• On communism.// Bread and will. 1909. No. 2.
• The land program of the communist anarchists. London , 1912.
• The law, its essence and significance for public life. B.M. 1914.
• Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Biography). So said Bakunin. Pg., 1917.
• To young workers. New York , 1917.
• About politics. 11.16.// Petrel. 1917.
• State and anarchists. - M., 1918. - 93 p.
• The land program of the communist anarchists. New York , 1918.
• Russia in 1930. M., 1918.
• Factories to the people. M., 1919.
• The life and work of Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin . M., 1919.
• Evil tales about the Jews. M., 1919.
• Evil gossip on the oppressed. Speeches and conversations of the agitator. M., 1919.
• How they lived and how the peasants will live. M., 1919.
• The lessons of the Paris Commune . M., 1919.
• Factories to the people. M., 1919.
• Adaptability of cooperation // Pochin. 1919. No. 1. S. 3.
• How they lived and how the peasants will live. M., 1920.
• Russia in 1930. M., 1921.
• The death penalty. Detroit , 1923.
• What is anarchy? M., 1923.
• The ninth (22nd) of January 1905. M., 1924.
• The mental and moral development of the capitalists. M., 1925.
• Russian Bakuninists abroad.// M. Bakunin . 1876-1926. Essays on the history of the anarchist movement in Russia. Digest of articles. M., 1926.
• Anarchism in the populist movement of the 70s. // Ibid.
• The positive and negative aspects of democracy from the point of view of anarchist communists. B.M., B.G.

Texts by A. A. Karelin

• https://web.archive.org/web/20071219162229/http://www.iu.ru/biblio/archive/karelin%5Fsneg/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20140220155405/http://www.iu.ru/biblio/archive/kareln_voln/00.aspx

• Russian libertarian A.A. Karelin / V.P. Sapon // Domestic history . - 2008. - No. 2. - S. 160-169. - (Historical portraits). - ISSN 0869-5687
• Sapon V.P. Apollon Andreevich Karelin: Essay on life. - Nizhny Novgorod , 2009 .-- 120 p.

• Karelin Apollon Andreyevich (inaccessible link) on the website of the Russian Humanitarian Internet University