User:Nas197/Chernoe Znamia

Composition and Leadership
Ethnically, Jewish migrants from shtetls to larger cities predominated, and many members were of Ukrainian, Polish and, Great Russian nationality.

Notable members of the group included Khaym (Efim) Yartchuk, one of Chernoe Znamia's founding members. Yartchuk continued engaging in anarchism with the Union of Russian Workers of the United States and Canada after immigrating to America. Another was Olga Taratuta, who was sentenced to seventeen years in prison for her involvement in the 1905 bombing of Café Libman but escaped to Geneva to join Buntar, a Switzerland Chernoe Znamia group. Nissan Farber, a Bialystok Chernoe Znamia member, is well known for murdering a Jewish factory owner Avram Kogan, on Yom Kippur. His own bomb killed him during a later terror attack.

Vladamir Striga, who accidentally killed himself with a bomb in Paris, led the communard movement within Chernoe Znamia.

Tactics and Ideology
Two approaches to political violence split Chernoe Znamia. The communards, whom Vladamir Strigar led, intended to recreate the Paris Commune in Bialystok. The bezmotivniki were proponents of motiveless terror, with the latter tactic defining the group's most notable activities. Bezmotivniki advocated unprovoked acts of violence against anyone affiliated with the government or wealth in any way. Wearing a military uniform or enjoying paid entertainment were, under this ideology, signals of punishable government or bourgeoisie affiliation. Within the broader framework of Russia's anarchist groups, Chernoe Znamia was anti-syndicalist and anti-intellectualist. Additionally, they were also proponents of recruiting the lumpenproletariat, "...in that it could not in any way be "controlled" by the bourgeoisie." Chernoe Znamia derived its anarcho-communist political ideology from Peter Kropotkin, but its anti-syndicalism and pro-terrorist positions from Mikhail Bakunin.

Chernoe Znamia members engaged in firefights with police, used bombs in public places, and committed armed robberies to fund their meetings and literature production. The best-known incident of bezmotivniki terror was the 1905 Café Libman bombing in Odessa.