Composition
The largest collection of anarchist terrorists in Imperial Russia, ''Chernoe Znamia'' attracted its strongest following in the western and southern provinces at the frontier of the Empire, including nearly all anarchists in Białystok. Their ranks included mostly students, factory workers and artisans, though there were also peasants, unemployed labourers, drifters, and self-professed Übermensch, Nietzschean supermen. Ethnically, Jews predominated, and many members were of Ukrainian, Polish and Great Russian nationality. The typical age of the ''Chernoznamentsy'' was nineteen or twenty, and some of the most active adherents were as young as fifteen years old.Tactics and ideology
With a history marked, in the words of historian Paul Avrich, by "reckless fanaticism and uninterrupted violence", the ''Chernoznamensty'' were the first anarchist group with a deliberate policy of terrorism, terror against the established order. They saw merit in every act of propaganda by the deed, no matter how intemperate and senseless it appeared to the public, as evoking the lust of the underclass for vengeance against their tormentors. Along with the equally fanatical ''Beznachalie'' ("Without Authority"), ''Chernoe Znamia'' was the most conspicuous anarchist communist organisation in Russia.See also
*Anarchism in Russia *''Narodnaya Volya (organization), Narodnaya Volya'', a similar organisation of an earlier generationReferences
Bibliography
* *External links