User:QWEDB/Aida Basevich

Aida Basevich was a Russian anarchist who lived from 1905 to 1995 and was arrested several times throughout her life on account of her political beliefs. She is most notable for her efforts to acquire better treatment for political prisoners as well as her memoir which details the first half of her life and her experiences in the anarchist movement.

Early Life
Basevich was born into a wealthy family in St. Petersburg, where her father was a successful construction engineer. She noted that that he had a “revolutionary spirit”, and owned publications of the likes of Peter Kropotkin, Vera Figner, and Sergei Stepniak Kravchinskii, books which she credits for her “entire moral upbringing”.

Basevich attended the Vyborg Commercial School in her youth. The school was known for its contemporary education practices education, including coeducation, parent teacher committees and high political engagement in the classroom. Her schooling there was cut short. In 1919, Basevich and her mother fled when the Red Guard attempted to seize Petrograd (the name of St. Petersburg at the time) in 1919, as part of the Russian Civil War.

Adolescence and Young Adulthood
In 1921, her family returned to Petrograd and she enrolled in night school which she attended in 1924, but she did not find it very stimulating. It was this time in her life she began thinking about politics, and sometimes contemplated becoming a Komsomol member, an idea which she later abandoned.

Basevich enrolled in the Institute for The History of The Arts in 1924. There, she became excited about the anarchist movement, which she discussed regularly with an informal group of peers. Some members of this group were arrested in for being anarchists after being elected to an internal school committee dedicated to helping students find work. Basevich lead the efforts to collect and delivering parcels for her imprisoned friends.

Arrests, Prison, and Exiles
Basevich was arrested for the first time on February 8, 1925. She was accused of being an anarchist and against Soviet regime. She writes that "From my very first day in prison, my main task was to fight for a special regime for political prisoners". One of her first efforts was a hunger strike to gain visitation rights, a cause she took up with several other prisoners. After her first arrest, she spent three years in exile the first two in Orsk and the final one in Orenburg. She fought for cell visits, better food, and freer exercise time.

Her second arrest was in 1929 and she received three years of exile in Minusink for some involvement in the escape of prolical prisoners. Then she was arrested in 1932 for involvement in anarchist activity and she was exiled until 1937. Her final arrest was in 1941 where she was sentenced to 10 years in military camps. She was released from the camp on account of giving birth to a son while there and as an alternative, she was exiled to the Kuybyshev Region.

Throughout her many arrests and exiles, she encountered like minded revolutionaries who intensified her anarchist leanings.

Later Life
Basevich’s final bout of exile ended in 1957. Afterward, she spent the rest of her life in Leningrad, working as a technician until 1979 and reaching her death in 1995. She never strayed from her anarchist ideology and was a member of the Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists (KAS)

Personal Life
Basevich's brother died of appendicitis in 1919, just before her family fled Petrograd. She married twice and was the mother of three children.

Memoir
While imprisoned, Basevich wrote a memoir detailing her early life and several anecdotes from her time in exile and imprisonment.

another time, how she was menstruating during an interrogation.