One of the Bandits (In Memory of Comrade Khodounov)

During the wrecking of the Moscow Anarchist Federation [April 1918], the Bolshevik authorities executed one of the Federation’s most active workers, Comrade Khodounov.

He was known as an honest and sincere comrade not only among Anarchists but wherever he had an opportunity to work.

He was one of the workers of the Telephone shops and as such he enjoyed high confidence among his fellow employees. He organized an Anarchist group at the factory. The workers elected him as their representative to the Soviet of one of the Moscow boroughs.

During the October days comrade Khodounov organized a fighting unit consisting of Anarchist workers living in various districts of Moscow. He spent several sleepless night at the sessions of the Soviet which at that time were held day and night. And he was one of the first to announce to the Federation the joyful news of the final victory of the workers.

Due to his energy the Telephone shops passed into the hands of the workers. As one of the organizers of this enterprise, comrade Khodounov threw himself into his work, spending days and nights at his task, neglecting even the most necessary rest.

When the food crisis came, the workers of the Telephone shops designated comrade Khodounov as the delegate of their purchasing committee which went south to obtain bread. Khodounov came back to Moscow after a six week absence. That was just on the eve of the break-up of the Federation by the Bolshevik authorities.

Among the victims of this savage, unwarranted assault upon the revolutionary organization of Moscow Anarchists was also comrade Khodounov. He was arrested as “a bandit”, dragged to the Criminal Department of the Police and booked as an underworld character. This was done in spite of the fact that even the Bolsheviks paid homage to him as a member of the Borough Soviet and as an active worker of the Central Soviet.

On the way to the prison this “bandit” was shot. And then the Bolsheviks keep on affirming that they are combating only the casual criminal element among the Anarchist and not Anarchism as an honest, ideological movement.

From: ("Uralsky Nabat", No. 2, 1919). reprinted in "The Guillotine at Work" p.388-9 .