Владимир Шатов

from  Maurice Brinton The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control || The State and Counter-Revolution @marxist.org

Excitement in the Congress reached a climax when Bill Shatov[4*] characterized the trade unions as "living corpses" and urged the working class "to organize in the localities and create a free, new Russia, without a God, without a Tsar, and without a boss in the trade union". When Ryazanov protested Shatov's vilification of the unions, Maximov rose to his comrade's defence, dismissing Ryazanov's objections as those of a white-handed intellectual who had never worked, never sweated, never felt life. Another anarcho-syndicalist delegate, Laptev by name, reminded the gathering that the revolution had been made "not only by the intellectuals, but by the masses"; therefore it was imperative for Russia to "listen to the voice of the working masses, the voice from below".


Vladimir Shatov, born in Russia, emigrated to Canada and USA. In 1914 secretly reprinted 100,000 copies of Margaret Sanger's notorious birth-control pamphlet, Family Limitation. Worked as machinist longshoreman and printer. Joined IWW. Later helped produce Golos Truda, weekly anarcho-syndicalist organ of the Union of Russian Workers of the United States and Canada. Returned to Petrograd in July 1917 and "replanted Golos Truda in the Russian capital". Later became member of Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee and an officer of the 10th Red Army. In 1919 he played important role in defence of Petrograd against Yudenich. In 1920 became Minister of Transport in the Far Eastern Soviet Republic. Disappeared during the 1936-38 purges.

Шатов в русской википедии