Nestor Makhno: Ukraine’s Anarchist Cossack and the Battle for the Ukraine, 1917-1921

alexft in #anarchy • 6 years ago

 Of the many violent and often grandiose and dramatic revolutionist/reactionary heroes and/or tyrants of the Russian Civil War 1917-1921 perhaps none is as controversial or infamous as the Ukrainian anarchist-peasant turned revolutionary warlord, "Batko" (Father) Nestor Makhno (b.1889-1934). 

 Nestor Makhno in 1919

The influence and the impact of the greater culture of the irregular guerrilla insurgent and cavalrymen cannot be overstated in regards to the Russian Civil War and its corresponding conflicts from 1917-1923. Though essentially outlaw bandits in some cases, there were some units who were legitimate military forces  as well, whether they be ‘Red’, ‘White’, revolutionary or reactionist, anarchist or nationalist, all were a product of Russian culture and the general socio-economic & cultural turmoil of the fall of the old Russian Imperial regime.

Makhno and his anarchist Makhnovist faction were revolutionaries by doctrine and yet they were counter revolutionaries and also anti-reactionary as well. They were anti-monarchy as well as anti-imperialist. Makhno and his men waved the black flag of anarchism, his men fought their oppressed families. For their militant & semi collectivist-anarchist stance alone the Makhnovists were markedly unique amongst the many different armies, movements, and political factions which developed in not just the Ukrainefrom 1917-1920, but in all of corners Russia and central Europe and in partsAsia as well during the same period.

The Early Life of Makhno, Ukraine during & after World War I

A hero and near folk-hero, Nestor Makhno, was born in the year 1889, spending his formative years in the fields of Guliai Pole, Ukraine, then a territory of the Russian Empire as a farmhand and later factory worker. Ukraine in this era was an important part of Russia's economic output, long called the "breadbasket of Eastern Europe", Ukraine had been established on the hard labor of Ukrainians working the vast farm-estates of the Czar's Southern Russian Empire. By the age of 17, Makhno had left for the city at the height of the Revolution of 1905 which would eventually shake the foundation of the old Russian Empire. Russia had lost the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, its people demanding a say in the government and an end to their collective sufferings. Taking to the streets of St. Petersburg in January, the Russian poor & middle class were met by Imperial bullets and Cossack Sabres. Soon after, those who had survived the war would return from the Far East began to and the Revolution petered out.

Having been arrested in 1908 for being a member of a revolutionary/anarchist cell (his service may or may not have entailed assassinating a local politician) Makhno spent eight years in a Moscow prison before his release in 1917 under the political prisoner pardon under the new Provisional Government of Georgy Lvov and later Alexander Kerensky. Makhno left Russia and returned home to the Ukraine an even more hardened revolutionary and anarchist that he had been in 1905. Returning to Gulia Pole, Makhno must have been surprised to see that his hometown had now become a hotbed for revolutionary activity. Even before the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 which allowed the Austro-German armies into the Ukraine as occupiers, Makhno had organized peasant unions to protect and punish the hated landowning kulaks. The kulaks, many of whom were German Mennonites loyal to the Czar or the Austro-Hungarians were most hated by the ethnic Ukrainians because of their societal status and at times poor treatment of Ukrainian farmers during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Other Mennonite farmers and settlers were the targets of revolutionary and anti-revolutionary reprisals including atrocities committed by Makhno's army.

 Ukraine 1919

Immediately after Brest-Litovsk, Pavlo Skoropadsky (b.1873-1945), a former Tsarist cavalry officer was installed as Hetman, a military warlord/puppet regime figurehead of occupied Ukraine. A German by birth and a veteran of Russo-Japanese War and the Great War, Skoropadsky formed the Ukrainian National Union in March of 1918, fleeing in December of that year after the Central Powers collapsed in November.

The Black Flag Rises: Makhno and the Battle for Ukraine

Makhno raised the black flags of the Revolutionary Insurrectionist Army in the spring and summer of 1918 when German Hetman puppet government still controlled part of the Ukraine with the partial military support of German heer. Though young and by no means a proven military commander in even a modest sense, armed men had begun to flock to the young but charismatic and brave Makhno. In the skirmish near the Dibrivki Forest, Makhno earned the title Batko (Ukrainian for father: in this meaning the literal father of the insurrectionist army itself) for his heroic, inspired, and seemingly fearless & improbable victory over a 1,000 strong kulak militia armed and supported by hated the Austro-German occupiers. Rallying his small force of 30 men or more, they rushed the enemy shooting and cutting their way through their lines in a fierce charge.

  Makhno and his officers during the War

With their leader at the front the Makhnovists killed perhaps hundreds of kulaks during the violent charge and subsequent retreat, riding them down in the rout and slaughtering them, the battle ending with the drowning of the survivors by angry local peasants who had now joined the insurrection of Batko Makhno.

The Ukrainian Socialist Republic had also been declared by this point, with the Russians preparing Red Army and Red Guard units from the North for an expedition south. Their primary objective was to defeat the White army of Lt. General Anton Denikin occupying Ukraine in 1919.

Later the new nationalist minded Polish Republic under Jozef Pilsuduski attacked the Ukraine capturing Kiev for a brief time, inadvertently starting the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921. Poland captured Western Ukraine for a time following their victory but an eventual stalemate ensues, ending with Poland's stunning victory on the Vistula in 1920.  Makhno took advantage of the chaos and the complexity of the multi-sided conflict being fought around him to wage his own war on all those who he felt opposed the peasants of Ukraine. His Makhnovists burned estates, bourgeois mansions, and tge farms of the rich German kulaks or the Russian overlords who had oppressed peasant Ukranians for years, in some cases stripping opulent country houses and estates bare of their provisions and extravagances.

Though unfounded Soviet propaganda later attributed anti-Semitic violence to the Makhnovists which had been most likely committed by reactionary White forces or by apolitical bandit or reactionary groups. Makhno never condoned such killings but may have secretly or unknowingly perpetrated massacres against Jewish, Mennonite, or other minority communities in the Ukraine. Counter revolutionaries and especially Tsarist (White) officers were almost never spared however and no mercy was given or received. Makhno even killed Tsarist officers himself in summary executions with his sabre.

 Makhnovist Army, c.1919

Makhnovists staged raids and ambushes everywhere capturing White army munitions and supplies, killing and harassing any Tsarist-Monarchist army forces they could find in ambushes and raids-weakening the White grasp on the Ukraine before their total collapse in the Fall of 1920. Makhno’s first great enemy was the White general Anton Denikin (b.1872-1947) who was constantly at war with Makhno, overextending his supplies and manpower fighting a brutal insurrection against the Makhnovists while attempting to launch a campaign to take Moscow from the Bolsheviks.

Lieutenant-General Denikin, decorated for his service in the Brusilov Offensive of 1916 which had been fought in parts of the Ukraine during World War I handed title of Supreme Commander of the 'Volunteer Army' to General-Baron Pyotr Wrangel (b.1878-1928) upon his defeat in the Ukraine in the spring of 1920. Makhnovist forces had helped destroy White influence in Russia though Bolshevik oppression kept them from enjoying the White's demise. By April-May 1920 the White armies were losing ground whilst the Nationalists of Petliura were fleeing to safety in Poland. On 28 April the Bolshevik 14th division assaulted "Makhnograd" (Guliai Pole) and routed 2,000 Makhnovist partisans.

Makhnovist Warfare

Makhnovists would typically raid, burn, loot, destroy and then continue on to their next battle or skirmish. Attacks of German Mennonite estates were particularly brutal, arguably because Makhno himself had suffered cruelty at the hands of these same land owners as a youth. Kulaks, as they were called in Russia and the Ukraine also received harsh treatment at the hands of the Makhnovists and later the Bolsheviks. Tactically they fought strictly on the offensive; preferring to charge, retreat, and charge again, waiting for another moment to strike or counter charge to either break the enemy in their center or retreat in order to make guerrilla attacks again at a later date.

Despite their hard charging fighting style the Revolutionary Insurrection Army was really a defensive minded force, fighting a considerable amount of rearguard actions against much better equipped and organized forces. Against the under-equipped ex-Tsarist armies and the local Mennonite militias however, Makhno triumphed more frequently and held a distinct advantage. He won in style and often in brutality; routed and captured tsarist officers were often summarily executed with bullets from rifles or revolvers or were cut down with the sabres. Makhno was a master of intelligence as well and on several occasions disguised himself as an old women and even a bride at a wedding to gain intelligence.

 Fyodor Schuss, center-right, poses with other Makhnovists during the Insurrection

The Soviets took the credit for the Makhnovists victory over the generally despised White officer-warlords in the Ukraine, often demonizing the Makhnovists for any real or imagined crimes and atrocities committed by the Whites against the populace. During their offensive in April & May they took to hanging partisans and setting up individual soviets in the villages they "liberated" from the Whites and Makhnovists.


The fact remained that the Makhnovists had fought for longer against the White Guard's all the while the Red Army was mobilizing and organizing a force from within a revolutionary society still teetering on the brink of collapse. Most of the Makhnovist army fought from horseback each man armed with multiple automatic pistols, a heavily favored weapon of the Makhnovist “officers” and irregular cavalrymen, assorted sabers, daggers and improvised 'peasant' weapons were used as well. Stolen or captured rifles were also very popular amongst the Insurrectionist rebels, including the reliable, accurate, and plentiful M1891 Mosin-Nagant rifle.

Makhnovist officers liked to carry as many weapons as possible as a sign of both rank and prowess in combat. It was a practical solution as well in order to negate reloading in the thick of a charge on horseback. Ammunition and cartridge shortages were a serious problem throughout the Makhnovists campaigns from 1919-1921 so attacks on supply depots and railroad lines were essential for resupply. The Insurrectionists were continually pursued and molested by Red Army cavalry, an arm of the Trotsky's new revolutionary army which would become the most effective fighting force of Soviet Russia.

 Schuss (d.1921), a former sailor and one of Makhno's best cavalry commanders

Makhno’s most ingenious tool of war was the tachanka, a very potent and effective mobile weapons platform which the Makhnovists employed heavily. Basically it was a somewhat crude but highly effective horse-drawn heavy weapons system utilizing a “light, sprung cart drawn by two horses (used by Ukrainian peasants), on which Makhno mounted a machine-gun, with two men to work it, plus the driver-The Tachanki gave Makhno a powerful combination of mobility with fire-power, and the device was copied by the Red Army.” –Leon Trotsky .

Bolshevik betrayal: Makhno’s final ride and escape

While allied with the Bolsheviks during three separate periods Makhno and his forces were fundamentally anti-Leninist and anti-Bolshevik etc., conforming to their leader’s own ideas of a “stateless communist society.” A position which Makhno more or less presented to Lenin in a trip to Moscow in 1918. Ultimately the Red Army’s military might and the political will of the new leadership in the Kremlin succeeded in crushing White resistance in mainland Russia from 1919-1920. Any well organized Tsarist resistance ceased when the ‘Black Baron’ Pyotr Wrangel (b.1878-1928) fled to the Crimean peninsula in November of 1920 following a failed summer offensive in the Ukraine. Makhno had some 20,000-40,000 men in arms in the Insurrectionist army in the year 1919.

 Makhnovist banner


By mid October 1920 however Makhno could field a force possibly as large 10,000-16,000 armed riders and again was allied formally with the Red Army command on the Southern Front trying to prevent Wrangel from escaping the Ukraine to fight again. He had lost hundreds to battle wounds, tuberculosis, and Bolshevik arrests and summary execution. A second front had opened in the Ukraine during this late period with various armies riding through the Ukraine to attack Poland and the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921. Only weeks after the treaty Bolshevik peace treaty, Makhnovists were targeted for summary executions by the the communists.

The end for Makhno; his exile and ideological triumph

Ukraine had been virtually pacified and the Makhnovists all but vanquished saved for Makhno and his remaining die-hards of 6,000-10,000 men. He and his cavalry forces were now engaged in day to day fighting with the Bolsheviks-supposedly fighting 25 battles in 24 days in January of 1921 alone. They managed to best or at least stay one step ahead of the Red Army every time but they were unable to make any real strategic gains. Makhno and his "children" were fighting for their lives in a lost cause. By the middle of winter Makhno and his hundred or so remaining insurgents in arms escape Bolshevik territory into the mountains and plains of Romania or elsewhere. Wounded grievously the Batko left his beloved country for permanent exile in foreign lands.

Ukraine’s chance for independence was all but crushed by the rapidly rising power of the victorious and entirely imperialist Soviet congress of Russia and the might of the Red Army seemingly overnight. Using his connections with academics, writers, and anarchist/socialist activists, Makhno wound up in Paris where he became an active writer and debater of the Anarchist cause. Composing recollections of a great deal of his own experiences and composing other essays on anarchism and other various revolutionary ideologies, he became a politico and historian in later life. Troubled by old war wounds and a never healed bout from tuberculosis from his years spent in tsarist prisons, Nestor Makhno died in Paris on 6 July 1934.

Though his revolution had ultimately failed, Batko Makhno would forever tout the black flag of anarchism, supporting anarchism for the people of Ukraine and in Russia until his death with his writings and speeches. One of his frequent subjects was the corruption of Bolshevik-communism in theSoviet Union and elsewhere which he felt had re-enslaved the proletariat yet again, as was true in his country of birth and in neighboring countries as well.He also wrote on the socio-political situation in Spain at the time as well, predicting a left wing-right wing socialist inspired conflict upcoming in the Spanish Civil War. 

 Insurgent guerrilla, general, and writer, 'Batko' Nestor Makhno

Makhno continued writing on the history of the Makhnovist movement and its greater ideals throughout his exile, defending it from criticism often in his writings and speeches. When he met the famed Spanish Anarchist and revolutionary martyr José Buenaventura Durruti (b.1896-1936) in 1927, Makhno exclaimed to the young anarchist and his companions before they left the gathering, "Makhno has never shirked a fight! If I am still alive when you begin [Spanish revolution/civil war] I will be with you."

  

The State will, though, be able to cling to a few local enclaves and try to place multifarious obstacles in the path of the toilers’ new life, slowing the pace of growth and harmonious development of new relationships founded on the complete emancipation of man.

The final and utter liquidation of the State can only come to pass when the struggle of the

toilers is oriented along the most libertarian lines possible, when the toilers will

themselves determine the structures of their social action. These structures should

assume the form of organs of social and economic self-direction, the form of free “anti-




authoritarian” soviets. The revolutionary workers and their vanguard — the anarchists —

must analyze the nature and structure of these soviets and specify their revolutionary

functions in advance. It is upon that, chiefly, that the positive evolution and development

of anarchist ideas, in the ranks of those who will accomplish the liquidation of the State on their own account in order to build a free society, will be dependent.

Dyelo Truda No.17, October 1926

Makhnovist Flag (trans.)

Anarchism and Authority

ON AUTHORITY- by Frederick Engels

A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. This summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.

 
Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the
imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority
presupposes subordination.  Now, since these two words sound bad, and the
relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated
party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing
with it, whether -- given the conditions of present-day society -- we
could not create another social system, in which this authority would be
given no scope any longer, and would consequently have to disappear. 
 
On examining the economic, industrial and agricultural conditions which
form the basis of present-day bourgeois society, we find that they tend
more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of
individuals.  Modern industry, with its big factories and mills, where
hundreds of workers supervise complicated machines driven by steam, has
superseded the small workshops of the separate producers; the carriages
and wagons of the highways have become substituted by railway trains, just
as the small schooners and sailing feluccas have been by steam-boats. 
Even agriculture falls increasingly under the dominion of the machine and
of steam, which slowly but relentlessly put in the place of the small
proprietors big capitalists, who with the aid of hired workers cultivate
vast stretches of land. 
 
Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon
each other, displaces independent action by individuals.  But whoever
mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to
have organisation without authority? 
 
Supposing a social revolution dethroned the capitalists, who now exercise
their authority over the production and circulation of wealth.  Supposing,
to adopt entirely the point of view of the anti-authoritarians, that the
land and the instruments of labour had become the collective property of
the workers who use them.  Will authority have disappeared, or will it
only have changed its form? Let us see. 
 
Let us take by way if example a cotton spinning mill.  The cotton must
pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to
the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in
different rooms.  Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an
engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current
repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the
products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men,
women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the
hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for
individual autonomy.  The workers must, therefore, first come to an
understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed,
must be observed by all, without any exception.  Thereafter particular
questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of
production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by
decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if
possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will
always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled
in an authoritarian way.  The automatic machinery of the big factory is
much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have
been.  At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the
portals of these factories: _Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate!_
[Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]
 
If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the
forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him,
in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all
social organisation.  Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry
is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power
loom in order to return to the spinning wheel. 
 
Let us take another example -- the railway.  Here too the co-operation of
an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this
co-operation must be practised during precisely fixed hours so that no
accidents may happen.  Here, too, the first condition of the job is a
dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is
represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution
of the resolutions of the majority of persona interested.  In either case
there is a very pronounced authority.  Moreover, what would happen to the
first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the
Hon. passengers were abolished? 
 
But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will
nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. 
There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and
absolute obedience of all to the will of one. 
 
When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid
anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the
following:  Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority
which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted!  These
gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have
changed the things themselves.  This is how these profound thinkers mock
at the whole world. 
 
We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter
how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things
which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us
together with the material conditions under which we produce and make
products circulate. 
 
We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and
circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale
agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. 
Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being
absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely
good.  Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with
the various phases of the development of society.  If the autonomists
confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future
would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions
of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but
they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they
passionately fight the world. 
 
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out
against political authority, the state?  All Socialists are agreed that
the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a
result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions
will lose their political character and will be transformed into the
simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of
society.  But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be
abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth
to it have been destroyed.  They demand that the first act of the social
revolution shall be the abolition of authority.  Have these gentlemen ever
seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing
there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its
will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon --
authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party
does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means
of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists.  Would the Paris
Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority
of the armed people against the bourgeois?  Should we not, on the
contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough? 
 
Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't
know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing
but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the
movement of the proletariat.  In either case they serve the reaction.

written 1872, published 1874 in the Italian Almanacco Repubblicano



Engels is right in his criticism of anti-authoritarian social democrats.

Just like then,  the current  'anti-authoritarian' movement on the left, 

still does the knee jerk reaction to so called authority.

And lets be clear this is a a movement of the generic liberal left

in North America not specifically anarchist or libertarian as much

as it's supporters claim it to be.

Hence the navel gazing crusade to adopt consensus building

as key to the anti capitalist movement, while approving sectarian

self aggrandizing actions like the black block  as being acts of 'autonomy'.

As Engels says; "It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian

for it to be condemned". Yep nothing has changed in 133 years


Anarchism however is NOT Anti-Authoritarian liberalism as Emma Goldman

continously pointed out much to the chagrin of other anarchists of the time.

Which is why I do-not call myself an anti-authoritarian anything.

And neither did he:

From the Makhno Archive

• About the Platform, Nestor Makhno (a reply to Malatesta) 1928

You yourself, dear Malatesta, recognise the individual responsibility
of the anarchist revolutionary. And what is more, you have lent your
support to it throughout your life as a militant. At least that is how
I have understood your writings on anarchism. But you deny the
necessity and usefulness of collective responsibility as regards the
tendencies and actions of the anarchist movement as a whole. Collective
responsibility alarms you; so you reject it.

For myself, who has acquired the habit of fully facing up to the
realities of our movement, your denial of collective responsibility
strikes me not only as without basis but dangerous for the social
revolution, in which you would do well to take account of experience
when it comes to fighting a decisive battle against all our enemies at
once. Now my experience of the revolutionary battles of the past leads
me to believe that no matter what the order of revolutionary events may
be, one needs to give out serious directives, both ideological and
tactical. This means that only a collective spirit, sound and devoted
to anarchism, could express the requirements of the moment, through a
collectively responsible will. None of us has the right to dodge that
element of responsibility. On the contrary, if it has been until now
overlooked among the ranks of the anarchists, it needs now to become,
for us, communist anarchists, an article of our theoretical and
practical programme.

Only the collective spirit of its militants and their collective
responsibility will allow modern anarchism to eliminate from its
circles the idea, historically false, that anarchism cannot be a guide
- either ideologically or in practice - for the mass of workers in a
revolutionary period and therefore could not have overall
responsibility.

MAKHNO AND THE MAKHNOVSHCHINA.

Makhno led his army from the front but he also ran it with few concessions
to his political beliefs, discipline was harsh and often terminal.

The Makhnovist military forces
were commanded directly by Makhno and his staff with only lip service
paid to the ‘Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents’,
who theoretically controlled them. Makhno’s General staff were chosen
by him and were mainly Gulyai-Pole men that he new and trusted, this
group despite its lack of trained career officers was the backbone of
the Insurgent Army. So successful was Makhno’s tactics and organisation
that the White’s believed he had a professional staff pressganged from
captured officers, rumours spread that Makhno was advised by Colonel
Kleist a member of the German General Staff. In reality the Makhnovists
had no professional officers among their army, captured officers and
NCO,s were shot and the ordinary soldiers either joined the Makhnovists
or were disarmed and released after being distributed Makhnovist
propaganda. Though the Staff officers were appointed by Makhno, on a
Regimental level officers were elected by the men from their own ranks
and were mostly ex-soldiers. As to Makhnovist order of battle it is
confusing, certainly troops were organised into regiments, but it is
unknown if they were all of the same size or organisational structure.
Specialised units included eight Machine gun regiments of 300 men each,
and two Artillery divisions. Former Red army infantry Regiments
fighting with the Makhnovists would be of between 400 to 1,000 men.
Regiments seem to have been quite large and when fighting on the front
organised into Corps of six regiments. The confusion over the
Makhnovists order of battle probably has more to do with the
destruction of almost all of the records of the insurgent Army and the
deaths of most of its commanders than with any problems of
organisation. As well as the fighting forces the Makhnovists had their
own intelligence service the Kontrazvedka who gathered intelligence
from the villages and arrested Bolshevik and White spies, foiling
several attempts on Makhno’s life by the Bolshevik’s. The Makhnovists
while certainly not in the same league as the Red Army organisationally
did have an organised senior military staff, a civilian political
organisation and unit organisation at regimental level . Indeed for
several months they were part of the Red Army fighting on the southern
front against Denikin and later the Makhnovists activities in the
Whites rear forced Denikin to divert forces from the Moscow front to
deal with the insurgents. these were hardly the actions of counter
revolutionary kulaks.
The Makhnovists described themselves as Anarchists
but this has been denied by critics and indeed contemporary Anarchist
supporters of the Makhnovists. The 3rd Nabat (Confederation of
Anarchist Organisations of the Ukraine)Conference in Kharkiv held in
September 1920 reported that;
"As regards the ‘Revolutionary Partisan Army of the
Ukraine (Makhnovites)....it is a mistake to call it anarchist....mostly
they are Red soldiers who fell into captivity, and middle peasant
volunteers".
As regards the insurgent army this is basically true
many Red army men captured by the Makhnovists decided to stay and fight
and the majority of Makhno’s cavalry were middle peasants, due to the
agricultural development in South East Ukraine commercial grain farming
in an area of low population wages were higher and there was a far
larger number of middle peasants than in other areas of the Ukraine.
Makhno was undoubtedly an Anarchist of deep conviction he had spent
nine years in prison for his involvement with crimes committed while a
member of an Anarchist Communist group in Gulyai-Pole and had his
beliefs strengthened and sharpened by his time in prison with other
Anarchists. On leaving prison he worked in Gulyai-Pole to set up
organisations based on Anarchistic principles and attempted to apply
his beliefs to the Makhnovshchina. Makhno was no ideologue following
the teachings of any one Anarchist ideology he believed that Anarchism
was not a doctrine but a way of life;
"Anarchism does not depend on theory or on programmes
which try to grasp man’s life in its entirety.
It is a teaching which is based on real life,
which outgrows all artificial limitations".
To compare the Makhnovists and foreign peasant movements one should 
look to Mexico and the Mexican Civil War which gives two peasant 
movements to compare with Makhno’s.That of Doroteo Arango 
(Pancho Villa) and Emiliano Zapata. 
With the fall of the dictator Porfirio Diaz in 1910 Mexico fell into confusion
with peasant rebels, constitutional reformists and reactionary
supporters of the old regime vying for control over the country. Villa
operated in the Northern state of Chihuahua an area mainly of cattle
ranches and dominated by the landed upper classes. Labour was scarcer
and more expensive than in the rest of rural Mexico and the
independently minded cowboy’s and bandit’s provided Villa with
supporters susceptible to revolutionary propaganda. These hard core of
supporters provided Villa with cavalry, and like Makhno his was a war
of manoeuvre. Villa unlike Makhno could obtain weapons and equipment
from outside his own area across the border in the United States. Villa
like Makhno was a peasant who while in Prison gained what political
education he had from Gildardo Magana an intellectual involved in the
Zapatista movement. By 1914 he commanded 40,000 troops in the North of
Mexico. Although he paid lip service to the land reform program of
Zapata he never carried out any agrarian reforms, due partly to the
difficulties of dividing cattle estates up viably among peasants and
cowboys . In the South of Mexico, Emiliano Zapata led a peasant
partisan army that had perhaps more political similarities to the
Makhnovists than any other. Operating in their home region of Morelos
the Zapatistas redistributed the land of the huge estates (Haciendas)
to the local peasantry and sought to build self governing village
communities similar to those advocated by Makhno. Indeed the
Zapatista’s rural anarchism resembled that of the Makhnovists. Like the
Makhnovists the Zapatistas had to rely on what materials and supplies
they could capture and operated in their home region with some success
eventually capturing the capital Mexico city. The Zapatistas fought
mainly a defensive guerrilla campaign which was unable to defeat
superior government forces in open battle. Both the Zapata and Villa
movements failed to become more than peasant rebellions concentrated in
their home regions, and both failed to gain support among the urban
working class. The constitutional government who gained power with the
help of these two movements then turned on them killing Zapata in an
ambush in 1919 and making peace with Villa who was later assassinated
in 1923.
The Makhnovshchina was a peasant movement based
mainly on the support gained from around its centre, Gulyai-Pole and
the surrounding province of Ekaterinoslav. The Makhnovists
redistributed the land to the peasantry and attempted to run its
affairs in an instinctive Anarchistic fashion, despite the lack of
intellectuals among their ranks. While the Bolsheviks attacked them for
being petty-bourgeois Kulaks and agents of French and Belgian
financiers, they were quite happy to accept the Makhnovists help
against the White armies of Denikin and Wrangel. The Makhnovshchina was
a regional phenomenon which failed to gain support in urban areas, it
did succeed in winning the support of the Ukrainian peasant by
addressing their needs and organising in ways they could recognise and
relate to from their own experience of village life. But its strength
in the countryside, the movements understanding of peasant life was its
weakness when trying to organise in the urban environment.

Emma Goldman
My Disillusionment In Russia
CHAPTER XI
A VISIT FROM THE UKRAINA

In 1918, when the Brest Peace opened Ukraina to German and Austrian
occupation, Makhno organized the rebel peasant bands in defence against the
foreign armies. He fought against Skoropadski, the Ukrainian Hetman, who was
supported by German bayonets. He waged successful guerilla warfare against
Petlura, Kaledin, Grigoriev, and Denikin. A conscious Anarchist, he laboured to
give the instinctive rebellion of the peasantry definite aim and purpose. It was
the Makhno idea that the social revolution was to be defended against all
enemies, against every counter-revolutionary or reactionary attempt from right
and left. At the same time educational and cultural work was carried on among
the peasants to develop them along anarchist-communist lines with the aim of
establishing free peasant communes.

In February, 1919, Makhno entered into an agreement with the Red Army. He was
to continue to hold the southern front against Denikin and to receive from the
Bolsheviki the necessary arms and ammunition. Makhno was to remain in charge of
the povstantsi, now grown into an army, the latter to have autonomy in its local
organizations, the revolutionary soviets of the district, which covered several
provinces. It was agreed that the povstantsi should have the right to hold
conferences, freely discuss their affairs, and take action upon them. Three such
conferences were held in February, March, and April. But the Bolsheviki failed
to live up to the agreement. The supplies which had been promised Makhno, and
which he needed desperately, would arrive after long delays or failed to come
altogether. It was charged that this situation was due to the orders of Trotsky
who did not look favourably upon the independent rebel army. However it be,
Makhno was hampered at every step, while Denikin was gaining ground constantly.
Presently the Bolsheviki began to object to the free peasant Soviets, and in
May, 1919, the Commander-in-Chief of the southern armies, Kamenev, accompanied
by members of the Kharkov Government, arrived at the Makhno headquarters to
settle the disputed matters. In the end the Bolshevik military representatives
demanded that the povstantsi dissolve. The latter refused, charging the
Bolsheviki with a breach of their revolutionary agreement.

Meanwhile, the Denikin advance was becoming more threatening, and Makhno
still received no support from the Bolsheviki. The peasant army then decided to
call a special session of the Soviet for June 15th. Definite plans and methods
were to be decided upon to check the growing menace of Denikin. But on June 4th
Trotsky issued an order prohibiting the holding of the Conference and declaring
Makhno an outlaw. In a public meeting in Kharkov Trotsky announced that it were
better to permit the Whites to remain in the Ukraina than to suffer Makhno. The
presence of the Whites, he said, would influence the Ukrainian peasantry in
favour of the Soviet Government, whereas Makhno and his povstantsi would never
make peace with the Bolsheviki; they would attempt to possess themselves of some
territory and to practice their ideas, which would be a constant menace to the
Communist Government. It was practically a declaration of war against Makhno and
his army. Soon the latter found itself attacked on two sides at once--by the
Bolsheviki and Denikin. The povstantsi were poorly equipped and lacked the most
necessary supplies for warfare, yet the peasant army for a considerable time
succeeded in holding its own by the sheer military genius of its leader and the
reckless courage of his devoted rebels.

At the same time the Bolsheviki began a campaign of denunciation against
Makhno and his povstantsi. The Communist press accused him of having
treacherously opened the southern front to Denikin, and branded Makhno's army a
bandit gang and its leader a counterrevolutionist who must be destroyed at all
cost. But this "counter-revolutionist" fully realized the Denikin menace to the
Revolution. He gathered new forces and support among the peasants and in the
months of September and October, 1919, his campaign against Denikin gave the
latter its death blow on the Ukraina. Makhno captured Denikin's artillery base
at Mariopol, annihilated the rear of the enemy's army, and succeeded in
separating the main body from its base of supply. This brilliant manceuvre of
Makhno and the heroic fighting of the rebel army again brought about friendly
contact with the Bolsheviki. The ban was lifted from the povstar~tsi and the
Communist press now began to eulogize Makhno as a great military genius and
brave defender of the Revolution in the Ukraina. But the differences between
Makhno and the Bolsheviki were deeprooted: he strove to establish free peasant
communes in the Ukraina, while the Communists were bent on imposing the Moscow
rule. Ultimately a clash was inevitable, and it came early in January, 1920.

At that period a new enemywas threatening the Revolution. Grigoriev, formerly
of the Tsarist army, later friend of the Bolsheviki, now turned against them.
Having gained considerable support in the south because of his slogans of
freedom and free Soviets, Grigoriev proposed to Makhno that they join forces
against the Communist regime. Makhno called a meeting of the two armies and
there publicly accused Grigoriev of counter-revolution and produced evidence of
numerous pogroms organized by him against the Jews. 

Declaring Grigoriev an enemy of the people and of the Revolution,
Makhno and his staff condemned him and his aides to death,
executing them on the spot. Part of Grigoriev's army joined Makhno.

I Rest my case.



For Nick Driedger

 

Nestor Makhno: The Struggle Against the State

Nestor Makhno

Nestor Makhno (1888-1934) is a controversial figure in the history of the anarchist movement. For three years he led a guerrilla army campaign in Ukraine during the civil war that followed the 1917 Russian Revolution. He would sometimes summarily execute counter-revolutionaries, and his army conscripted some of its members. On the other hand, when his forces liberated a village or town from the control of the Czarists (the “Whites”) or from the Bolsheviks (the “Reds”), they would reopen the presses and meeting halls shut down by those forces and free everyone from the local jails. With his comrade, Peter Arshinov, and some other anarchists, he helped craft the “Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists,” which called on anarchists to form a federalist revolutionary organization based on collective responsibility, which some anarchists regarded as a vanguard organization that would function more like a revolutionary socialist party than a federalist anarchist organization. Around the same time as the Platform appeared, Makhno published this essay on the struggle against the State, summarizing his views on the tasks ahead based on the lessons of the Russian Revolution. I included excerpts from the Platform and responses from some of its critics, including Malatesta and Voline, in Volume One of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, as well as some proclamations by the Makhnovist army and excerpts from Arshinov’s history of the Makhnovist movement.

The Struggle Against the State

THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE STATE

The fact that the modern State is the organizational form of an authority founded upon arbitrariness and violence in the social life of toilers is independent of whether it may be “bourgeois” or “proletarian.” It relies upon oppressive centralism, arising out of the direct violence of a minority deployed against the majority In order to enforce and impose the legality of its system, the State resorts not only to the gun and money, but also to potent weapons of psychological pressure. With the aid of such weapons, a tiny group of politicians enforces psychological repression of an entire society, and, in particular, of the toiling masses, conditioning them in such a way as to divert their attention from the slavery instituted by the State.

So it must be clear that if we are to combat the organized violence of the modern State, we have to deploy powerful weapons appropriate to the magnitude of the task.

Thus far, the methods of social action employed by the revolutionary working class against the power of the oppressors and exploiters — the State and Capital — in conformity with libertarian ideas, were insufficient to lead the toilers on to complete victory.

It has come to pass in history that the workers have defeated Capital, but the victory then slipped from their grasp because some State power emerged, amalgamating the interests of private capital and those of State capitalism for the sake of success over the toilers.

The experience of the Russian revolution has blatantly exposed our shortcomings in this regard. We must not forget that, but should rather apply ourselves to identifying those shortcomings plainly.

We may acknowledge that our struggle against the State in the Russian revolution was remarkable, despite the disorganization by which our ranks were afflicted: remarkable above all insofar as the destruction of that odious institution is concerned.

But, by contrast, our struggle was insignificant in the realm of construction of the free society of toilers and its social structures, which might have ensured that it prospered beyond reach of the tutelage of the State and its repressive institutions.

The fact that we libertarian communists or anarcho-syndicalists failed to anticipate the sequel to the Russian revolution, and that we failed to make haste to devise new forms of social activity in time, led many of our groups and organizations to dither yet again in their political and socio-strategic policy on the fighting front of the Revolution.

If we are to avert a future relapse into these same errors, when a revolutionary situation comes about, and in order to retain the cohesion and coherence of our organizational line, we must first of all amalgamate all of our forces into one active collective, then without further ado, define our constructive conception of economic, social, local and territorial units, so that they are outlined in detail (free soviets), and in particular describe in broad outline their basic revolutionary mission in the struggle against the State. Contemporary life and the Russian revolution require that.

Those who have blended in with the very ranks of the worker and peasant masses, participating actively in the victories and defeats of their campaign, must without doubt come to our own conclusions, and more specifically to an appreciation that our struggle against the State must be carried on until the State has been utterly eradicated: they will also acknowledge that the toughest role in that struggle is the role of the revolutionary armed force.

It is essential that the action of the Revolution’s armed forces be linked with the social and economic unit, wherein the labouring people will organize itself from the earliest days of the revolution onwards, so that total self-organization of life may be introduced, out of reach of all statist structures.

From this moment forth, anarchists must focus their attention upon that aspect of the Revolution. They have to be convinced that, if the revolution’s armed forces are organized into huge armies or into lots of local armed detachments, they cannot but overcome the State’s incumbents and defenders, and thereby bring about the conditions needed by the toiling populace supporting the revolution, so that it may cut all ties with the past and look to the final detail of the process of constructing a new socio-economic existence.

The State will, though, be able to cling to a few local enclaves and try to place multifarious obstacles in the path of the toilers’ new life, slowing the pace of growth and harmonious development of new relationships founded on the complete emancipation of man.

The final and utter liquidation of the State can only come to pass when the struggle of the toilers is oriented along the most libertarian lines possible, when the toilers will themselves determine the structures of their social action. These structures should assume the form of organs of social and economic self-direction, the form of free “anti-authoritarian” soviets. The revolutionary workers and their vanguard — the anarchists — must analyze the nature and structure of these soviets and specify their revolutionary functions in advance. It is upon that, chiefly, that the positive evolution and development of anarchist ideas, in the ranks of those who will accomplish the liquidation of the State on their own account in order to build a free society, will be dependent.

Dyelo Truda No.17, October 1926

Makhnovist Flag (trans.)

https://robertgraham.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/nestor-makhno-the-struggle-against-the-state/