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<title>Why does the Makhnovist movement show there is an alternative to Bolshevism?</title>

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<H1>Why does the Makhnovist movement show there is an alternative to Bolshevism?

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</H1>

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The key Leninist defence of the actions of the Bolsheviks in the

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Russian revolution is that they had no other choice. Complaints

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against the Bolshevik attacks on the gains of the revolution and

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the pro-revolutionary Left in Russia are met with a mantra

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involving the white terror, the primitive state of Russia and

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the reactionary peasantry, the invading imperialist armies (although

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the actual number can, and does, vary depending on who you are

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talking to) and other such "forces of nature" which we are to believe

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could only be met by a centralised authoritarian regime that would

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flinch at nothing in order to survive.

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However, this is not the case. This is for three reasons.

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Firstly, there is the slight problem that many of the attacks

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on the revolution (disbanding soviets, undermining the factory

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committees, repressing socialists and anarchists, and so on)

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started before the start of the civil war. As such, its

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difficult to blame the degeneration of the revolution on

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an event which had yet to happen (see <a href="append43.html#app3">

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section 3</a> of the appendix <a href="append43.html">

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"What caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution?"</a> for

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details).

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Secondly, Leninists like to portray their ideology as "realistic,"

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that it recognises the problems facing a revolution and can

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provide the necessary solutions. Some even claim, flying in the

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face of the facts, that anarchists think the ruling class will

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just "disappear" (see

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<a href="secH2.html#sech21">section H.2.1</a>

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) or that we think "full-blown"

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communism will appear "overnight" (see

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<a href="secH2.html#sech25">section H.2.5</a>). Only

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Bolshevism, it is claimed, recognises that civil war is inevitable

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during a revolution and only it provides the necessary solution,

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namely a "workers state." Lenin himself argued that "[n]ot a

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single great revolution in history has escaped civil war. No one

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who does not live in a shell could imagine that civil war is

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conceivable without exceptionally complicated circumstances."

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[Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?, p. 81] As such, its

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incredulous that modern day followers of Lenin blame the

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degeneration of the Russian Revolution on the very factors

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(civil war and exceptional circumstances) that they claim to

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recognise an inevitable!

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Thirdly, and even more embarrassingly for the Leninists, numerous

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examples exist both from revolutionary Russia at the time and from

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earlier and later revolutions that suggest far from Bolshevik

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tactics being the most efficient way of defending the revolution

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other methods existed which looked to the massive creative energies

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of the working masses unleashed by the revolution.

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During the Russian Revolution the biggest example of this is

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found in South-Eastern Ukraine. For much of the Civil War

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this area operated without a centralised state apparatus of the

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Bolshevik type and was, instead, based on the anarchist idea of

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Free Soviets. There "the insurgents raised the black flag of

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anarchism and set forth on the anti-authoritarian road of the

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free organisation of the workers." [Arshinov, The History of

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the Makhnovist Movement, p. 50] The space in which this

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happened was created by a partisan force that instead of

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using the "efficiency" of executions for desertion, tsarist

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officers appointed over the rank and file soldiers' wishes

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and saluting so loved by the Bolsheviks instead operated as

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a volunteer army with elected officers and voluntary discipline.

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This movement was the Makhnovists, named after its leader, the

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Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno. The Black Flag which floated

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over the lead wagon of the Insurgent Army was inscribed with the

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slogans "Liberty or Death" and

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"The Land to the Peasants, the

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Factories to the Workers." These slogans summarised what the

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Makhnovist were fighting for -- a libertarian socialist society.

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At its height in the autumn of 1919, the Maknovists numbered

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around 40,000 and its extended area of influence corresponded

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to nearly one third of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, comprising

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a population of over seven million.

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It is this that explains the importance of the Makhnovists. As

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historian Christopher Reed notes, the "Bolsheviks' main claim to

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legitimacy rested on the argument that they were the only ones

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capable of preventing a similar disaster [counter-revolution]

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for the workers and peasants of Russia and that their harsh

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methods were necessary in the face of a ruthless and unrelenting

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enemy." However, Reed argues that "the Makhno movement in the

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Ukraine suggests that there was more than one way to fight against

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the counter-revolution." [From Tsar to Soviets, pp. 258-9] This

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is why the Makhnovist movement is so important, why it shows that

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there was, and is, an alternative to the ideas of Bolshevism. Here

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we have a mass movement operating in the same "exceptional

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circumstances" as the Bolsheviks which did not implement the

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same policies. Indeed, rather than suppress soviet, workplace

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and military democracy in favour of centralised, top-down party

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power and modify their political line to justify their

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implementation of party dictatorship, the Makhnovists did all

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they could to implement and encourage working-class self-government.

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As such, it is difficult to blame the development of Bolshevik

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policies towards state-capitalist and party-dictatorship directions

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on the problems caused during the revolution when the Makhnovists,

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facing similar conditions, did all they could to protect working-

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class autonomy and freedom. Indeed, it could be argued that the

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problems facing the Makhnovists were greater in many ways. The

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Ukraine probably saw more fighting in the Russian Civil War

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then any other area. Unlike the Bolsheviks, the Makhnovists lost

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the centre of their movement and had to re-liberate it. To do so

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they fought the Austrian and German armies, Ukrainian Nationalists,

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Bolsheviks and the White Armies of Denikin and then Wrangel. There

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were smaller skirmishes involving Cossacks returning to the Don and

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independent "Green" bands. The anarchists fought all these various

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armies over the four years their movement was in existence. This

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war was not only bloody but saw constant shifts of fronts, advances

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and retreats and changes from near conventional war to mobile

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partisan war. The consequences of this was that no area of the

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territory was a safe "rear" area for any period of time and so

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little constructive activity was possible.

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<a href="append46.html#app4">Section 4</a>

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presents a summary of the military campaigns of these years.

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A brief idea of the depth of fighting in these years can be

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seen by considering the town at the centre of the Makhnovists,

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Hulyai Pole which changed hands no less then 16 times in the

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period from 1917-1921.

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Clearly, in terms of conflict (and the resulting disruption

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caused by it), the Makhnovists did not have the relative peace

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the Bolsheviks had (who never once lost their main bases of

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Petrograd or Moscow, although they came close). As such, the

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problems used to justify the repressive and dictatorial

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policies of the Bolsheviks also apply to the Makhnovists.

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Despite this, the activity of the Makhnovists in the Ukraine

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demonstrated that an alternative to the supposedly necessary

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methods of the Bolsheviks did exist. Where the Bolsheviks

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suppressed freedom of speech, assembly and press, the Makhnovists

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encouraged it. Where the Bolsheviks turned the soviets into

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mere cyphers of their government and undermined soviet power,

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the Makhnovists encouraged working-class participation and

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free soviets. As we discuss in

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<a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>,

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the Makhnovists

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applied their ideas of working class self-management whenever

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and wherever they could.

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Sadly, the Makhnovist movement is a relatively unknown event

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during the revolution. There are few non-anarchist accounts of

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it and the few histories which do mention it often simply slander

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it. However, as the Cohn-Bendit brothers correctly argue, the

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movement, "better perhaps than any other movement, shows that

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the Russian Revolution could have been a great liberating force."

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Equally, the reason why it has been almost totally ignored (or

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slandered, when mentioned) by Stalinist and Trotskyist writers

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is simple: "It shows the Bolsheviks stifling workers and peasants

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with lies and calumnies, and then crushing them in a bloody massacre."

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[Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing

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Alternative, p. 200]

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This section of our FAQ will indicate the nature and history of this

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important social movement. As we will prove, "the Makhnovshchina . . .

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was a true popular movement of peasants and workers, and . . . its

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essential goal was to establish the freedom of workers by means of

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revolutionary self-activity on the part of the masses." [Arshinov,

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The History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 209] They achieved this

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goal in extremely difficult circumstances and resisted all attempts

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to limit the freedom of the working class, no matter where it came

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from. As Makhno himself once noted:

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"Our practice in the Ukraine showed clearly that the peasant problem

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had very different solutions from those imposed by Bolshevism. If our

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experience had spread to the rest of Russia, a pernicious division

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between country and city would not have been created. Years of

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famine would have been avoided and useless struggles between

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peasant and workers. And what is more important, the revolution

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would have grown and developed along very different lines . . .

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We were all fighters and workers. The popular assembly made the

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decisions. In military life it was the War Committee composed of

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delegates of all the guerrilla detachments which acted. To sum up,

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everyone took part in the collective work, to prevent the birth

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of a managing class which would monopolise power. And we were

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successful. Because we had succeeded and gave lie to Bolshevik

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bureaucratic practices, Trotsky, betraying the treaty between

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the Ukraine and the Bolshevik authorities, sent the Red Army to

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fight us. Bolshevism triumphed militarily over the Ukraine

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and at Kronstadt, but revolutionary history will acclaim us one

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day and condemn the victors as counter-revolutionary grave-diggers

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of the Russian Revolution." [quoted by Abel Paz, Durruti: The

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People Armed, p. 88-9]

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</blockquote>

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Two distinct aspects of the anarchist movement existed in the

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Ukraine at this time, a political and non-military structure

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called the Nabat (Alarm) federation which operated through the

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soviets and collectives and a military command structure usually

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known after is commander Nestor Makhno as the Makhnovshchina

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(which means the "Makhno movement") although its proper name was

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the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine. This section

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of the FAQ will cover both, although the Makhnovshchina will be

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the main focus.

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For more information on the Makhnovist movement, consult the

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following books. Anarchist accounts of the movement can be

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found in Peter Arshinov's excellent The History of the

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Makhnovist Movement and Voline's The Unknown Revolution

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(Voline's work is based on extensive quotes from Arshinov's

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work, but does contain useful additional material). For

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non-anarchist accounts, Michael Malet's Nestor Makhno in

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the Russian Revolution is essential reading as it contains

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useful information on both the history of the movement, its

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social basis and political ideas. Malet considers his work as

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a supplement to Michael Palij's The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno,

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1918-1921 which is primarily a military account of the movement

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but which does cover some of its social and political aspects.

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Unfortunately, both books are rare. Paul Avrich's The Russian

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Anarchists contains a short account of the movement and his

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Anarchist Portraits has a chapter on Nestor Makhno. Makhnovist

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source material is included in Avrich's The Anarchists in the

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Russian Revolution. Daniel Guerin includes a section on Makhno

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and the Makhnovist Movement in volume 2 of No Gods, No Masters.

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As well as extracts from Arshinov's book, it has various

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manifestos from the movement as well as Makhno's account of

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his meeting with Lenin. Christopher Read's From Tsar to

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Soviets has an excellent section on the Makhnovists. Serge

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Cipko presents an excellent overview of works on the Makhnovists

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in his "Nestor Makhno: A Mini-Historiography of the Anarchist

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Revolution in Ukraine, 1917-1921" (The Raven, no. 13).

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Alexander Skirda presents an overview of perestroika soviet

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accounts of Makhno in his essay "The Rehabilitation of

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Makhno" (The Raven, no. 8). Skirda's biography Nestor

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Makhno: Le Cosaque de l'anarchie is by far the best account

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of the movement available.

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Lastly, a few words on names. There is a large variation on the

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spelling of names within the source material. For example,

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Makhno's home town has been translated as Gulyai Pole, Gulyai

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Polye Huliai-Pole and Hulyai Pole. Similarly, with other place

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names. The bandit Grigor'ev has been also translated as Hryhor'iv

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and Hryhoriyiv. We generally take Michael Malet's translations

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of names as a basis (i.e. we use Hulyai Pole and Hryhoriyiv,

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for example).

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<a name="app1"><h2>1 Who was Nestor Makhno?</h2>

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The Makhnovist movement was named after Nestor Makhno, a

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Ukrainian anarchist who played a key role in the movement

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from the start. Indeed, Makhnoshchina literally means "Makhno

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movement" and his name is forever linked with the revolution

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in the South-East of the Ukraine. So who was Makhno?

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Nestor Ivanovich Makhno was born on the 27th of October, 1889

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in Hulyai Pole, which is situated in Katerynoslav province,

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in the south east of the Ukraine between the Dnieper River

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and the Sea of Azov. While it seems to be conventional for

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many historians to call Hulyai Pole a "village," it was in

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fact a town with a population of about 30,000 and boasted

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several factories and schools.

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Makhno was the son of a poor peasant family. His father died

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when he was ten months old, leaving him and his four brothers

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in the care of their mother. Due to the extreme poverty of

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his family, he had to start work as a shepherd at the age

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of seven. At eight he started to attend the Second Hulyai

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Pole primary school in winter and worked for local landlords

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during the summer. He left school when he was twelve and

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took up full-time employment as a farmhand on the estates

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of nobles and on the farms of the German colonist kulaks.

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At the age of seventeen, he started to work in Hulyai Pole

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itself, first as an apprentice painter, then as an unskilled

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worker in a local iron foundry and, finally, as a founder in

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the same establishment.

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It was when he was working in the iron foundry that he became

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involved in revolutionary politics. In the stormy years following

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the 1905 revolution, Makhno got involved in revolutionary

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politics. This decision was based on his experiences of injustice

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at work and seeing the terror of the Russian regime during the

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1905 events (in Hulyai Pole there had been no serious disorder,

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yet the regime sent a detachment of mounted police to suppress

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gatherings and meetings in the town, terrorising the population

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by whipping those caught in the streets and beating prisoners

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with rifle butts). In 1906, Makhno decided to join the anarchist

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group in Hulyai Pole (which had been formed the previous year

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and consisted mainly of sons of poorer peasants).

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At the end of 1906 and in 1907, Makhno was arrested and accused of

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political assassinations, but was released due to lack of evidence.

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In 1908, due to the denunciation of a police spy within the

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anarchist group, he was arrested and put in jail. In March, 1910,

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Makhno and thirteen others were tried by a military court and

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sentenced to death by hanging. Due to his youth and the efforts

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of his mother, the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment

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with hard labour. He served his time at the Butyrki prison in

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Moscow, resisting the prison authorities by every means available

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to him. Due to this resistance, he spent much of his time in

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chains or in damp and freezing confinement. This experience

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ensured that Makhno developed an intense hatred of prisons

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(later, during the revolution, his first act in entering a

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town or city was to release all prisoners and destroy the

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prison).

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It was during his time in Butykri that Makhno met Peter Arshinov,

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a fellow anarchist prisoner and later activist and historian of

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the Makhnovist movement. Arshinov was born in 1887 in the Ukrainian

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industrial town of Katerinoslav. His father was a factory worker

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and he was a metal worker. Originally a Bolshevik, he had become

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an anarchist in 1906, taking a leading part in organising factory

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workers and actions against the regime. In 1907 he was arrested

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and sentenced to death, escaping to Western Europe. In 1909, he

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returned to Russia and was again arrested and again escaped. In

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1910, he was arrested and placed in the Butykri prison where he

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met Makhno. The two anarchists established a close personal and

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political friendship, with Arshinov helping Makhno develop and

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deepen his anarchist ideas.

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On March 2nd, 1917, after eight years and eight months in prison,

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Makhno was released along with all other political prisoners as

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a result of the February Revolution. After spending three weeks

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in Moscow with the Moscow anarchists, Makhno returned to Hulyai

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Pole. As the only political prisoner who was returned to his

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family by the revolution, Makhno became very well-respected

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in his home town. After years of imprisonment, suffering but

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learning, Makhno was no longer an inexperienced young activist,

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but a tested anarchist militant with both a powerful will and

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strong ideas about social conflict and revolutionary politics.

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Ideas which he immediately set about applying.

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Once home in Hulyai Pole, Makhno immediately devoted himself

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to revolutionary work. Unsurprisingly, the remaining members

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of the anarchist group, as well as many peasants, came to

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visit him. After discussing ideas with them, Makhno proposed

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beginning organisational work immediately in order to strengthen

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links between the peasants in Hulyai Pole and its region with

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the anarchist group. On March 28-29, a Peasant Union was

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created with Makhno as its chairman. Subsequently, he organised

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similar unions in other villages and towns in the area. Makhno

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also played a large part in a successful strike by wood and

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metal workers at a factory owned by his old boss (this defeat

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led to the other bosses capitulating to the workers as well).

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At the same time, peasants refused to pay their rent to the

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landlords. [Michael Malet, Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil

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War, p. 4] Regional assemblies of peasants were called, both

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at Hulyai Pole and elsewhere, and on August 5-7, the provincial

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congress at Katerinoslav decided to reorganise the Peasant Unions

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into Soviets of Peasants' and Workers' Deputies.

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In this way, "Makhno and his associates brought socio-political

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issues into the daily life of the people, who in turn supported

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his efforts, hoping to expedite the expropriation of large

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estates." [Michael Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno,

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p. 71] In Hulyai Pole, the revolution was moving faster than

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elsewhere (for example, while the Aleksandrovsk soviet supported

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the actions of the Provisional Government during the July days

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in Petrograd, a meeting in Hulyai Pole saluted the rebellious

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soldiers and workers). Peasants were drawn to Hulyai Pole for

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advice and help from the neighbouring volosts (administrative

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districts). The peasantry wanted to seize the land of the large

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landowners and the kulaks (rich peasants). Makhno presented this

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demand at the first sessions of the regional Soviet, which were

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held in Hulyai Pole. In August, Makhno called all the local

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landlords and rich peasants (kulaks) together and all documents

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concerning ownership (of land, livestock and equipment) were

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taken from them. An inventory of this property was taken and

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reported to the session of the local soviet and then at a

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regional meeting. It was agreed that all land, livestock and

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equipment was to be divided equally, the division to include

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the former owners. This was the core of the agrarian program

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of the movement, namely the liquidation of the property of the

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landowners and kulaks. No-one could own more land than they

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could work with their own labour. All this was in flat defiance

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to the Provisional Government which was insisting that all such

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questions be left to the Constituent Assembly. Free communes

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were also created on ex-landlord estates.

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Unsurprisingly, the implementation of these decisions was

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delayed because of the opposition of the landlords and

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kulaks, who organised themselves and appealed to the

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provisional authorities. When General Kornilov tried

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to march on Petrograd and take power, the Hulyai Pole soviet

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took the initiative and formed a local "Committee for the

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Salvation of the Revolution" headed by Makhno. The real

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aim was to disarm the potential local enemy -- the landlords,

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bourgeoisie, and kulaks -- as well as to expropriate their

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ownership of the people's wealth: the land, factories, plants,

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printing shops, theatres and so on. On 25 September a volost

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congress of Soviets and peasant organisations in Hulyai Pole

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proclaimed the confiscation of the landowners' land and its

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transformation into social property. Raids on the estates of

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landlords and rich peasants, including German colonists,

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began and the expropriation of the expropriators began.

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Makhno's activities came to a halt the following spring when

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Lenin's government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This

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treaty gave sizeable parts of the Russian Empire, including

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the Ukraine, to Germany and Austria in return for peace. The

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Treaty also saw the invasion of the Ukraine by large numbers

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of German and Austrian troops, who conquered the entire

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country in less than three months. Makhno succeeded in forming

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several military units, consisting of 1700 men, but could

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not stop Hulyai Pole being taken. After an anarchist congress

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at the end of April in Taganrog, it was decided to organise

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small combat units of five to ten peasants and workers, to

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collect arms from the enemy and to prepare for a general peasant

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uprising against the Austro-German troops and, finally, to

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send a small group to Soviet Russia to see at first hand what

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was happening there to both the revolution and to the anarchists

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under Bolshevik rule. Makhno was part of that group.

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By June, Makhno had arrived in Moscow. He immediately visited

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a number of Russian anarchists (including his old friend Peter

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Arshinov). The anarchist movement in Moscow was cowed, due to

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a Cheka raid in April which broke the backbone of the movement,

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so ending a political threat to the Bolsheviks from the left.

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To Makhno, coming from an area where freedom of speech and

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organisation was taken for granted, the low level of activity

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came as a shock. He regarded Moscow as the capital of the

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"paper revolution," whose red tape and meaninglessness had

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affected even the anarchists. Makhno also visited Peter

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Kropotkin, asking his advice on revolutionary work and the

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situation in the Ukraine. To Makhno, "Moscow appeared as

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'the capital of the Paper Revolution,' a vast factory turning

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out empty resolutions and slogans while one political party,

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by means of force and fraud, elevated itself into the position

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of a ruling class." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 252]

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While in Moscow, Makhno met with Lenin. This meeting came

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about by chance. Visiting the Kremlin to obtain a permit

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for free board and lodging, he met the chairman of the

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All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets,

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Jakov M. Sverdlov, who arranged for Makhno to meet Lenin.

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Lenin asked Makhno, "How did the peasants of your region

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understand the slogan ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS IN THE

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VILLAGES?" Makhno states that Lenin "was astonished" at

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his reply:

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"The peasants understood this slogan in their own way.

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According to their interpretation, all power, in all

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areas of life, must be identified with the consciousness

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and will of the working people. The peasants understand

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that the soviets of workers and peasants of village, country

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and district are neither more nor less than the means of

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revolutionary organisation and economic self-management of

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working people in the struggle against the bourgeoisie and

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its lackeys, the Right socialists and their coalition

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government."

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</blockquote>

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To this Lenin replied: "Well, then, the peasants of your region

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are infected with anarchism!" [Nestor Makhno, My Visit to the

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Kremlin, p. 18] Later in the interview, Lenin stated: "Do the

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anarchists ever recognise their lack of realism in present-day

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life? Why, they don't even think of it." Makhno replied:

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"But I must tell you, comrade Lenin, that your assertion that

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the anarchists don't understand 'the present' realistically,

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that they have no real connection with it and so forth, is

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fundamentally mistaken. The anarchist-communists in the

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Ukraine . . . the anarchist-communists, I say, have already

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given many proofs that they are firmly planted in 'the present.'

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The whole struggle of the revolutionary Ukrainian countryside

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against the Central Rada has been carried out under the

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ideological guidance of the anarchist-communists and also

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in part by the Socialist Revolutionaries . . . Your Bolsheviks

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have scarcely any presence in our villages. Where they have

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penetrated, their influence is minimal. Almost all the communes

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or peasant associations in the Ukraine were formed at the

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instigation of the anarchist-communists. The armed struggle

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of the working people against the counter-revolution in

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general and the Austro-German invasion in particular has

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been undertaken with the ideological and organic guidance

470

of the anarchist-communists exclusively.

471

472

"Certainly it is not in your party's interest to give us

473

credit for all this, but these are the facts and you can't

474

dispute them. You know perfectly well, I assume, the

475

effective force and the fighting capacity of the free,

476

revolutionary forces of the Ukraine. It is not without

477

reason that you have evoked the courage with which they

478

have heroically defended the common revolutionary conquests.

479

Among them, at least one half have fought under the anarchist

480

banner. . .

481

482

"All this shows how mistaken you are, comrade Lenin, in alleging

483

that we, the anarchist-communists, don't have our feet on the

484

ground, that our attitude towards 'the present' is deplorable

485

and that we are too fond of dreaming about the future. What I

486

have said to you in the course of this interview cannot be

487

questioned because it is the truth. The account which I have

488

made to you contradicts the conclusions you expressed about

489

us. Everyone can see we are firmly planted in 'the present,'

490

that we are working and searching for the means to bring about

491

the future we desire, and that we are in fact dealing very

492

seriously with this problem."

493

</blockquote>

494

Lenin replied: "Perhaps I am mistaken." [Makhno, Op. Cit.,

495

pp. 24-5]

496

497

The Bolsheviks helped Makhno to return to the Ukraine. The

498

trip was accomplished with great difficulty. Once Makhno

499

was almost killed. He was arrested by Austro-German troops

500

and was carrying libertarian pamphlets at the time. A

501

Jewish inhabitant of Hulyai Pole, who had know Makhno

502

for some time, succeeded in saving him by paying a

503

considerable sum of money for his liberation. Once back

504

in Hulyai-Pole, he started to organise resistance to the

505

occupying forces of the Austro-Germans and their puppet regime

506

led by Hetman Skoropadsky. With the resistance, the Makhno

507

movement can be said to have arisen (see

508

<a href="append46.html#app3">section 3</a>

509

on way it was named after Makhno). From July 1918 to

510

August 1921, Makhno led the struggle for working class

511

freedom against all oppressors, whether Bolshevik, White

512

or Nationalist. During the course of this struggle, he

513

proved himself to be "a guerrilla leader of quite outstanding

514

ability." [David Footman, Civil War in Russia, p. 245] The

515

military history of this movement is discussed in

516

<a href="append46.html#app4">section 4</a>,

517

while other aspects of the movement are discussed

518

in other sections.

519

520

After the defeat of the Makhnovist movement in 1921, Makhno

521

was exiled in Western Europe. In 1925 he ended up in Paris,

522

where he lived for the rest of his life. While there, he

523

remained active in the anarchist movement, with the pen

524

replacing the sabre (to use Alexander Skirda's colourful

525

expression). Makhno contributed articles to various

526

anarchist journals and in particular to Delo Truda,

527

an anarchist-communist paper started in Paris by Peter

528

Arshinov (many of these articles have been published

529

in the book The Struggle Against the State and Other

530

Essays). He remained active in the anarchist movement

531

to the end.

532

533

In Paris, Makhno met the famous Spanish anarchists

534

Buenaventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso in 1927. He

535

argued that in Spain "conditions for a revolution with

536

a strong anarchist content are better than in Russia"

537

because not only was there "a proletariat and a peasantry

538

with a revolutionary tradition whose political maturity

539

is shown in its reactions," the Spanish anarchists had

540

"a sense of organisation which we lacked in Russia. It is

541

organisation which assures the success in depth of all

542

revolutions." Makhno recounted the activities of the

543

Hulyai Pole anarchist group and the events in revolutionary

544

Ukraine:

545

546

"Our agrarian commune was at once the economic and political

547

vital centre of our social system. These communities were

548

not based on individual egoism but rested on principles of

549

communal, local and regional solidarity. In the same way

550

that the members of a community felt solidarity among

551

themselves, the communities were federated with each

552

other . . . It is said against our system that in the

553

Ukraine, that it was able to last because it was based

554

only on peasant foundations. It isn't true. Our communities

555

were mixed, agricultural-industrial, and, even, some of them

556

were only industrial. We were all fighters and workers. The

557

popular assembly made the decisions. In military life

558

it was the War Committee composed of delegates of all the

559

guerrilla detachments which acted. To sum up, everyone

560

took part in the collective work, to prevent the birth

561

of a managing class which would monopolise power. And we

562

were successful." [quoted by Abel Paz, Durruti: The People

563

Armed, p. 88-9]

564

</blockquote>

565

As can be seen from the social revolution in Aragon, Durruti

566

took Makhno's advice seriously (see

567

<a href="secI8.html">section I.8</a> for more

568

on the Spanish Revolution). Unsurprisingly, in 1936 a number

569

of veterans of Makhno's Insurgent Army went to fight in the

570

Durruti column. Sadly, Makhno's death in 1934 prevented his

571

own concluding statement to the two Spaniards: "Makhno has

572

never refused to fight. If I am alive when you start your

573

struggle, I will be with you." [quoted by Paz, Op. Cit.,

574

p. 90]

575

576

Makhno's most famous activity in exile was his association

577

with, and defence of, the Organisational Platform of

578

the Libertarian Communists (known as the "Platform").

579

As discussed in

580

<a href="secJ3.html#secj33">section J.3.3</a>,

581

the Platform was an attempt

582

to analyse what had gone wrong in the Russian Revolution

583

and suggested a much tighter anarchist organisation in

584

future. This idea provoked intense debate after its

585

publication, with the majority of anarchists rejecting

586

it (for Makhno's discussion with Malatesta on this issue,

587

see The Anarchist Revolution published by Freedom Press).

588

This debate often resulted in bitter polemics and left Makhno

589

somewhat isolated as some of his friends, like Voline,

590

opposed the Platform. However, he remained an anarchist

591

to his death in 1934.

592

593

Makhno died on the morning of July 25th and was cremated three

594

days later and his ashes placed in an urn within Pere Lachaise,

595

the cemetery of the Paris Commune. Five hundred Russian, French,

596

Spanish and Italian comrades attended the funeral, at which the

597

French anarchist Benar and Voline spoke (Voline used the occasion

598

to refute Bolshevik allegations of anti-Semitism). Makhno's wife,

599

Halyna, was too overcome to speak.

600

601

So ended the life of one great fighters for working-class freedom.

602

Little wonder Durruti's words to Makhno:

603

604

"We have come to salute you, the symbol of all those revolutionaries

605

who struggled for the realisation of Anarchist ideas in Russia.

606

We also come to pay our respects to the rich experience of the

607

Ukraine." [quoted by Abel Paz, Op. Cit., p. 88]

608

</blockquote>

609

For fuller details of Makhno's life, see the accounts by Peter

610

Arshinov (The History of the Makhnovist Movement), Paul Avrich

611

("Nestor Makhno: The Man and the Myth," in Anarchist Portraits),

612

Michael Palij, (The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno) and Michael Malet

613

(Nestor Makhno in the Russian Revolution).

614

615

<a name="app2"><h2>2 Why was the movement named after Makhno?</h2>

616

617

Officially, the Makhnovist movement was called the Revolutionary

618

Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine. In practice, it was usually

619

called the "Makhno movement" ("Makhnovshchina"

620

in Russian) or the

621

Makhnovists. Unsurprisingly, Trotsky placed great significance on

622

this:

623

624

"The anti-popular character of the Makhno movement is most clearly

625

revealed in the fact that the army of Hulyai Pole is actually

626

called 'Makhno's Army'. There, armed men are united not around a

627

programme, not around an ideological banner, but around a man."

628

[The Makhno Movement]

629

</blockquote>

630

Ignoring the irony of a self-proclaimed Marxist (and later

631

Leninist and founder of Trotskyism!) making such a comment,

632

we can only indicate why the Makhnovists called themselves

633

by that name:

634

635

"Because, first, in the terrible days of reaction in the

636

Ukraine, we saw in our ranks an unfailing friend and leader,

637

MAKHNO, whose voice of protest against any kind of coercion

638

of the working people rang out in all the Ukraine, calling

639

for a battle against all oppressors, pillagers and political

640

charlatans who betray us; and who is now marching together

641

with us in our common ranks unwavering toward the final

642

goal: liberation of the working people from any kind of

643

oppression." [contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 272]

644

</blockquote>

645

The two of the anarchists who took part in the movement

646

and later wrote its history concur. Voline argues that

647

the reason why the movement was known as the "Makhnovist

648

movement" was because the "most important role in this

649

work of unification [of the peasant masses] and in the

650

general development of the revolutionary insurrection in

651

the southern Ukraine was performed by the detachment of

652

partisans guided by a peasant native to the region:

653

Nestor Makhno." [The Unknown Revolution, p. 551]

654

"From the first days of the movement," Arshinov notes,

655

"up to its culminating point, when the peasants vanquished

656

the landowners, Makhno played a preponderant and central

657

role to such an extent that the whole insurgent region

658

and the most heroic moments of the struggle are linked

659

to his name. Later, when the insurrection had triumphed

660

completely over the Skoropadsky counter-revolution and

661

the region was threatened by Denikin, Makhno became the

662

rallying point for millions of peasants in several regions."

663

[Op. Cit., p. 50]

664

665

It must be stressed that Nestor Mahkno was not the boss of

666

the Mahknovista. He was not their ruler or general. As such,

667

the fact that the Makhnovists were (unofficially) named after

668

Makhno does not imply that it was his personal fiefdom, nor

669

that those involved followed him as an individual. Rather,

670

the movement was named after him because he was universally

671

respected within it as a leading militant. This fact also

672

explains why Makhno was nicknamed "Batko" (see

673

<a href="append46.html#app3">next section</a>).

674

675

This can be seen from how the movement was organised and was

676

run. As we discuss in <a href="append46.html#app5">section 5</a>,

677

it was organised in a

678

fundamentally democratic way, by means of mass assemblies

679

of insurgents, elected officers, regular insurgent, peasant

680

and worker congresses and an elected "Revolutionary Military

681

Soviet." The driving force in the Makhnovist movement was not,

682

therefore, Makhno but rather the anarchist ideas of

683

self-management. As Trotsky himself was aware, the

684

Makhnovists were influenced by anarchist ideas:

685

686

"Makhno and his companions-in-arms are not non-party people

687

at all. They are all of the Anarchist persuasion, and send

688

out circulars and letters summoning Anarchists to Hulyai Pole

689

so as to organise their own Anarchist power there." [Trotsky,

690

Op. Cit.]

691

</blockquote>

692

As part of this support for anarchist theory, the Makhnovists

693

organised insurgent, peasant and worker conferences to discuss

694

key issues in the revolution and the activities of the Makhno

695

movement itself. Three such conferences had been before Trotsky

696

wrote his diatribe The Makhno Movement on June 2nd, 1919. A

697

fourth one was called for June 15th, which Trotsky promptly

698

banned (on pain of death) on June 4th (see

699

<a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a> for

700

full details). Unlike the Bolshevik dictatorship, the Makhnovists

701

took every possibility of ensuring the participation of the working

702

people they were fighting for in the revolution. The calling

703

of congresses by the Makhnovists shows clearly that the movement

704

did not, as Trotsky asserted, follow a man, but rather ideas.

705

706

As Voline argued, "the movement would have existed without

707

Makhno, since the living forces, the living masses who

708

created and developed the movement, and who brought Makhno

709

forward merely as their talented military leader, would

710

have existed without Makhno." Ultimately, the term

711

"Makhnovshchina" is used "to describe a unique, completely

712

original and independent revolutionary movement of the working

713

class which gradually becomes conscious of itself and steps

714

out on the broad arena of historical activity." ["preface,"

715

Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 19]

716

717

<a name="app3"><h2>3 Why was Makhno called "Batko"?</h2>

718

719

Nestor Makhno was often called in the movement "Batko",

720

which is Ukrainian for "father." Peter Arshinov explains

721

how and in what circumstances Makhno was given this

722

name:

723

724

"It was . . . in September 1918, that Makhno received

725

the nickname Batko -- general leader of the revolutionary

726

insurrection in the Ukraine. This took place in the

727

following circumstances. Local pomeshchiks [landed gentry]

728

in the major centres, the kulaks [rich peasants], and

729

the German authorities [the Ukraine being occupied by them

730

at the time], decided to eliminate Makhno and his

731

detachment [of partisans] at any cost. The pomeshchiks

732

created a special volunteer detachment consisting of their

733

own sons and those of kulaks for the decisive struggle

734

against Makhno. On the 30th of September this detachment,

735

with the help of the Austro-Germans, corned Makhno in the

736

region of Bol'shaya Mihhailovka, setting up strong military

737

posts on all roads. At this time Makhno found himself with

738

only 30 partisans and one machine gun. He was forced to

739

make a fighting retreat, manoeuvring in the midst of

740

numerous enemy forces. Arriving in the forest of Dibrivki,

741

Makhno found himself in an extremely difficult situation.

742

The paths of retreat were occupied by the enemy. It was

743

impossible for the detachment to break through, and

744

escaping individually was beneath their revolutionary

745

dignity. No-one in the detachment would agree to abandon

746

their leader so as to save himself. After some reflection,

747

two days later, Makhno decided to return to the village

748

of Bol'shaya Mikhailovka (Dibrivki). Leaving the forest

749

the partisans met peasants who came to warn them that

750

there were large enemy forces in Dibrivki and that they

751

should make haste to go elsewhere. This information did

752

not stop Makhno and his partisans . . . [and] they set

753

out for Bol'shaya Mikhailovka. They approached the village

754

guardedly. Makhno himself and a few of his comrades went

755

on reconnaissance and saw a large enemy camp on the

756

church square, dozens of machine guns, hundreds of

757

saddle horses, and groups of cavalry. Peasants informed

758

them that a battalion of Austrians and a special

759

pomeshchik detachment were in the village. Retreat

760

was impossible. Then Makhno, with his usual stubbornness

761

and determination, said to his companions: 'Well, my

762

friends! We should all be ready to die on this spot . . .'

763

The movement was ominous, the men were firm and full of

764

enthusiasm. All 30 saw only one path before them -- the

765

path toward the enemy, who had about a thousand well-armed

766

men, and they all realised that this meant certain death

767

for them. All were moved, but none lost courage.

768

769

"It was at this movement that one of the partisans, Shchus',

770

turned to Makhno and said:

771

772

"'From now on you will be Batko to all of us, and we

773

vow to die with you in the ranks of the insurgents.'

774

775

"Then the whole detachment swore never to abandon the

776

insurgent ranks, and to consider Makhno the general

777

Batko of the entire revolutionary insurrection. Then

778

they prepared to attack. Shchus' with five to seven

779

men was assigned to attack the flank of the enemy.

780

Makhno with the others attacked from the front. With

781

a ferocious 'Hurrah!' the partisans threw themselves

782

headlong against the enemy, smiting the very centre

783

with sabres, rifles and revolvers. The attack had a

784

shattering effect. The enemy, who were expecting nothing

785

of the kind, were bowled over and began to flee in panic,

786

saving themselves in groups and individually, abandoning

787

arms, machine guns and horses. Without leaving them

788

time to come to themselves, to become aware of the

789

number of attacking forces, and to pass to a

790

counter-attack, the insurgents chased them in separate

791

groups, cutting them down in full gallop. A part of

792

the pomeshchik detachment fled to the Volchya River,

793

where they were drowned by peasants who had joined

794

the battle. The enemy's defeat was complete.

795

796

"Local peasants and detachments of revolutionary insurgents

797

came from all directions to triumphantly acclaim the heroes.

798

They unanimously agreed to consider Makhno as Batko of

799

the entire revolutionary insurrection in the Urkaine."

800

[Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 59-60]

801

</blockquote>

802

This was how Makhno acquired the nickname "Batko," which

803

stuck to him thereafter.

804

805

It should be stressed that "Batko" was a nickname and

806

did not signify any form of autocratic or hierarchical

807

position within the movement:

808

809

"During the civil war, it signified the leadership and control

810

of a specific area and its population in both civil and

811

military fields. The central point of the use of the word,

812

rather than 'leader' or 'dictator' is that the leadership

813

is usually based on respect, as in Makhno's case, and

814

always on intimate knowledge of the home territory."

815

[Michael Malet, Op. Cit., p. 17]

816

</blockquote>

817

That this was a nickname can be seen from the fact that

818

"[a]fter 1920 he was usually called 'Malyi' ('Shorty'),

819

a nickname referring to his short stature, which was

820

introduced by chance by one of the insurgents." [Peter

821

Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 226] To attach significance to

822

the fact that the peasants called Makhno "Batko" (as

823

the Bolsheviks did) simply signifies an ignorance of

824

the Makhnovist movement and its social environment.

825

826

<a name="app4"><h2>4 Can you give a short overview of the Makhnovist movement?</h2>

827

828

This section of the FAQ gives a short overview of the Makhnovists

829

from July 1918 (when Makhno returned to the Ukraine) and August

830

1921, when it was finally defeated by Bolshevik armed force.

831

It will be primarily a military history, with the socio-political

832

aspects of the movement discussed in sections

833

<a href="append46.html#app6">6</a> (its theory)

834

and

835

<a href="append46.html#app7">7</a> (its practice). For details of the rise of influence

836

of Makhno after his release from prison in 1917, see

837

<a href="append46.html#app1">section 1</a>.

838

839

The history of the Makhno movement can be broken up into

840

roughly four periods -- from July 1918 to February 1919, then

841

the rest of 1919, then January to October 1920 and, finally,

842

from October 1920 to August 1921. This section will give an

843

overview of each period in turn.

844

845

By the time Makhno arrived back in the Ukraine in July, 1918,

846

opposition to the German-backed Hetman's regime was mounting and

847

was frequently met with brutal repression, including reprisal

848

executions. Makhno was forced to live underground and on the

849

move, secretly meeting with others, with the Austrians always

850

close behind. Voline recounts Makhno's activities at this

851

time:

852

853

"Back in Hulyai Pole, Makhno came to the decision to die or

854

obtain victory for the peasants . . . He did not delay starting

855

his mission openly among the great masses of peasants,

856

speaking at improvised meetings, writing and distributing

857

letters and tracts. By pen and mouth, he called on the peasants

858

for a decisive struggle against the power of Skoropadsky and

859

the landlords. He declared tirelessly that the workers should

860

now take their fates into their own hands and not let their

861

freedom to act be taken from them . . .

862

863

"Besides his appeals, Makhno proceeded immediately to direct

864

action. His first concern was to form a revolutionary military

865

unit, sufficiently strong to guarantee freedom of propaganda

866

and action in the villages and towns and at the same time

867

to begin guerrilla operations. This unit was quickly organised

868

.. . .

869

870

"His first unit undertook two urgent tasks, namely, pursuing

871

energetically the work of propaganda and organisation among

872

the peasants and carrying out a stubborn armed struggle against

873

all their enemies. The guiding principle of this merciless

874

struggle was as follows. No lord who persecuted the peasants,

875

no policeman of the Hetman, no Russian or German officer who

876

was an implacable enemy of the peasants, deserved any pity;

877

he must be destroyed. All who participated in the oppression

878

of the poor peasants and workers, all who sought to suppress

879

their rights, to exploit their labour, should be executed.

880

881

"Within two or three weeks, the unit had already become the

882

terror, not only of the local bourgeoisie, but also of the

883

Austro-German authorities." [The Unknown Revolution, p. 558]

884

</blockquote>

885

The night of 26 September saw Hulyai Pole briefly liberated

886

from Hetman and Austrian troops by the actions of Makhno's

887

troops in association with local people. On the retreat

888

from this Makhno's small band grew when he met the partisan

889

troops headed by Schus. When the Austrians cornered them,

890

they launched a surprise counter attack and routed the

891

opposition. This became known as the battle of Dibrivki

892

and it is from this date, 5 October 1918 that Makhno is

893

given the nickname 'Batko', meaning "father" (see

894

<a href="append46.html#app3">section 3</a>

895

for details). For the next two months already-

896

existing partisan groups sought out and joined the growing

897

army.

898

899

In this period, Makhno, with portable printing equipment, was

900

raiding the occupying garrisons and troop trains in the

901

Southern Ukraine. Normal practice was to execute the

902

officers and free the troops. In this period the moral of

903

the occupying troops had crumbled and revolutionary propaganda

904

had made inroads into many units. This was also affecting the

905

nationalist troops and on 20 November the first nationalist

906

unit defected to the Makhnovists. This encouraged them to

907

return to Hulyai Pole on 27 December and there the

908

insurrectionary Staff was formed, this body was to lead the

909

army in the coming years and consisted initially of four old

910

and trusted friends and three political comrades. The Makhnovist

911

presence allowed the setting up of a local soviet and the

912

re-opening of the anarchist clubs. German forces started

913

pulling back to the major cities and on December 14 the

914

Hetman fled Kiyiv. In the resulting vacuum, the Makhnovists

915

rapidly expanded taking in most of the South East Ukraine

916

and setting up fronts against local whites. The Ukrainian

917

nationalists had taken power in the rest of the Ukraine under

918

Petliura and on the 15th December the Makhnovists agreed to

919

make common cause with them against the Whites. In return

920

for arms and ammunition they allowed the nationalists to

921

mobilise in the Makhnovist area (while engaging in propaganda

922

directed at the mobilised troops on their way by train to

923

Katerynoslav).

924

925

This was a temporary and pragmatic arrangement directed against

926

the greater enemy of the Whites. However, the nationalists were

927

no friends of working-class autonomy. The nationalists banned

928

elections to the Katerynoslav soviet on 6th of December and the

929

provincial soviet at Kharkiv meet with a similar fate on the 22nd.

930

[Malet, Op. Cit., p. 22] At the same time as their agreement

931

with the nationalists, the Makhnovista had set up links with

932

Bolshevik partisans to the south and before dawn on the 26th

933

the Bolshevik and Makhnovista forces launched a joint attack

934

on the nationalists at Katerynoslav. The city was taken but

935

held only briefly when a nationalist attack on the 29th drove

936

out all the insurgent forces with heavy losses. In the south,

937

White reinforcements led to the insurgents being pushed North

938

and losing Hulyai Pole.

939

940

1919 opened with the Makhnovists organising a congress of front-

941

unit delegates to discuss the progress of the struggle. Over

942

forty delegates attended and a committee of five was elected,

943

along with an operational staff to take charge of the southern

944

front and its rear. It was agreed that local soviets were to

945

be supported in every way, with no military violence directed

946

towards them permitted. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 25]

947

948

By the end of January, white reinforcements were landing in the

949

ports of the south. On January 22nd, a worker, peasant and insurgent

950

congress was held at Velyka Mykhailivka. A resolution was passed

951

urging an end to conflict between Makhnovists, Nationalists and

952

Bolsheviks. An alliance was signed between the Makhnovists and

953

the Bolsheviks in early February. This agreement ensured that

954

the Partisan units entered the Red Army as distinct formations,

955

with their internal organisation (including the election of

956

commanders) intact, and the Red Army in the area formed a brigade

957

to be known as "the third Transdnieper Batko Makhno brigade" with

958

Makhno as commander. The Whites were repulsed and Hulyai Pole

959

retaken and the front pushed some distance eastwards.

960

961

Thus the military situation had improved by the time of the

962

second worker, peasant and insurgent congress held at Hulyai

963

Pole on February 12th. This congress set up a "Revolutionary

964

Military Soviet" to co-ordinate civilian affairs and execute

965

its decisions. The congress resolved that "the land belongs

966

to nobody" and should be cultivated without the use of hired

967

labour. It also accepted a resolution opposing anti-Jewish

968

pogroms. Also passed was a resolution which sharply attacked

969

the Bolsheviks, caused by their behaviour since their arrival

970

in the Ukraine. [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 154-5] A report by the

971

commander of the 2nd Red Army, Skatchco, indicates the nature

972

of this behaviour:

973

974

"Little local Chekas are undertaking a relentless campaign

975

against the Makhnovists, even when they are shedding their

976

blood at the front. They are hunting them down from the rear

977

and persecuting them solely for belonging to the Makhnovist

978

movement . . . It cannot continue like this: the activity of

979

the local Chekas is deliberately ruining the front, reducing

980

all military successes to nothing, and contributing to the

981

creation of a counter-revolution that neither Denikin nor

982

Krasnov [Hetman of the Don Cossacks] could have achieved. . ."

983

[quoted by Alexander Skirda, The Rehabilitation of Makhno,

984

p. 346]

985

</blockquote>

986

Unsurprisingly, the peasants reacted strongly to the

987

Bolshevik regime. Their "agricultural policy and terrorism"

988

ensured that "by the middle of 1919, all peasants, rich and

989

poor, distrusted the Bolsheviks." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 156]

990

In April alone, there were 93 separate armed rebellions

991

against the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine. The "more oppressive

992

the Bolshevik policy, the more the peasants supported Makhno.

993

Consequently, the Bolsheviks began to organise more

994

systematically against the Makhno movement, both as an

995

ideology and as a social movement." [Palij, Op. Cit.,

996

p. 157]

997

998

In mid-March the Red Army attacked eastwards. In the course of

999

this Dybenko, commander of the Trandneiper division, recommended

1000

one of Makhno's commanders for a medal. Then the Makhnovists

1001

attacked the Donbas (east) to relieve the pressure on the Soviet

1002

8th Army caused by a White advance. They took Mariupol following

1003

a White incursion at the beginning of April. A White

1004

counter-offensive resulted in the Red 9th division panicking,

1005

allowing the Whites into Makhno's rear. Red Commander Dybenko

1006

refused orders to come to the Makhnovists aid as he was more

1007

interested in the Crimea (south). [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 31]

1008

1009

This period saw the most sustained freedom for the region around

1010

Hulyai Pole. It had been free of enemy occupation since January,

1011

allowing constructive activity to restart. The inhabitants of

1012

the free region "created new forms of social organisation:

1013

free workers' communes and Soviets." [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 574]

1014

The Revolutionary Military Soviet (RMS) called a third

1015

regional worker, peasant and insurgent congresses had on

1016

April 10th to review progress and to look forward. This

1017

was the largest congress to date, with delegates from 72

1018

volosts containing two million people. The Bolshevik military

1019

commander Dybenko tried to ban it. The Makhnovists, needless

1020

to say, ignored him and the RMS made a famous reply to his

1021

arrogance (see <a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a>

1022

for more details).

1023

1024

It was during this period (late 1918 and early 1919), that

1025

the Nabat anarchist federation was organised. "Anarchist

1026

influence was reported from Aleksandrovsk and other centres,"

1027

notes David Footman, "Anarchists were holding a conference

1028

in Kursk at about the same time and in one of their resolutions

1029

it was stated that 'the Ukrainian Revolution will have great

1030

chances of rapidly becoming Anarchist in its ideas.' The

1031

position called for renewed Bolshevik measures against

1032

the Anarchists. Nabat, the main Anarchist newspaper in the

1033

Ukraine, was suppressed, and its editorial board dispersed

1034

under threat of arrest." [Op. Cit., p. 270] Daniel Guerin

1035

has reproduced two documents from the Nabat federation in

1036

volume II of his No Gods, No Masters.

1037

1038

The anarchist influence in and around Hulyai Pole also worried

1039

the Bolsheviks. They started a slander campaign against the

1040

Makhnovists, to the alarm of Antonov, the overall front commander,

1041

who replied in response to an article in Kharkiv Izvestiya:

1042

1043

"The article is the most perverted fiction and does not in

1044

the least correspond to the existing situation. The insurgents

1045

fighting the whites are on a level with the Red Army men, but

1046

are in a far worse condition for supplies." [quoted by Malet,

1047

Op. Cit., p. 33]

1048

</blockquote>

1049

In a postscript, Antonov added that the press campaign had

1050

certainly helped turn Makhno anti-Soviet (i.e. anti-Bolshevik,

1051

as Makhno supported free soviets).

1052

1053

At the beginning of May, another partisan commander,

1054

Hryhoriyiv, revolted against the Bolsheviks in the

1055

central Ukraine. Hryhoriyiv, like the Makhnovists, had

1056

joined with the Bolsheviks when they had re-entered the

1057

Ukraine, however his social and political background was

1058

totally different. Hryhoriyiv was a former Tsarist officer,

1059

who had commanded numerous troops under the Petliurist

1060

authority and joined the Bolsheviks once that that regime's

1061

armed forces had disintegrated. Arshinov notes that he had

1062

"never been a revolutionary" and that there had been a

1063

"great deal of adventurism in his joining the ranks of

1064

the Petliurists and then the ranks of the Red Army." His

1065

temperament was mixed, consisting of "a certain amount

1066

of sympathy for oppressed peasants, authoritarianism,

1067

the extravagance of a Cossack chieftain, nationalist

1068

sentiments and anti-Semitism." [Op. Cit., p. 110]

1069

1070

Hryhoriyov started his revolt by issuing a Universal, or

1071

declaration to the Ukrainian people, which contained a

1072

virulent attack on the Bolsheviks as well as one explicit

1073

anti-Semitic reference, but without mention of Makhno.

1074

The height of the revolt was his appearance in the

1075

suburbs of Katerynoslav, which he was stopped from

1076

taking. He started a pogrom in Yelyzavethrad which

1077

claimed three thousand victims.

1078

1079

Once the Makhnovists had been informed of this rebellion,

1080

an enlarged staff and RMS meeting was held. A telegram was

1081

sent to the soldiers at the front urging them to hold the

1082

front and another to the Bolsheviks with a similar message.

1083

A few days latter, when more information had been received,

1084

a proclamation was issued against Hyyhoriyiv attacking him

1085

for seeking to impose a new authority on the working class,

1086

for encouraging toiling people to attack each other, and

1087

for inciting pogroms. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 112 and

1088

pp. 114-7]

1089

1090

While it took a fortnight for Red forces to contain Hryhoriyiv

1091

without trouble, this involved using all available reverses

1092

of all three Ukrainian armies. This left none for Makhno's

1093

hard-pressed forces at the front. In addition, Dybenko withdrew

1094

a front-line regiment from Makhno for use against the revolt

1095

and diverted reinforcements from the Crimea which were

1096

intended for Makhno. Despite this Makhnos forces (now numbering

1097

20,000) were ordered to resume the attack on the whites. This

1098

was due to "unremitting pressure from Moscow to take Taganrog

1099

and Rostov." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 36] The Makhnovist advance

1100

stopped due to the non-fulfilment of an urgent order for

1101

ammunition.

1102

1103

On the 19th of May, a White counter-attack not only stopped

1104

the advance of the Red Army, it forced the 9th division

1105

(and then the Makhnovists) to retreat. On the 29th, the Whites

1106

launched a further offensive against the northern Donblas,

1107

opening a gap between the 13th and 8th Red Armies. Due

1108

to the gravity of the situation, the RSV summoned a

1109

fourth congress for June 15th. Trotsky not only banned

1110

this congress but took the lead in slandering the

1111

Makhnovists and calling for their elimination (see

1112

<a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a>

1113

for details). As well as "this deliberately

1114

false agitational campaign, the [Bolshevik] blockade of

1115

the region was carried to the limit . . . The provisioning

1116

of shells, cartridges and other indispensable equipment

1117

which was used by daily at the front, ceased completely."

1118

[Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 118] Palij confirms this, noting

1119

that "the supplies of arms and other war material to

1120

Makhno was stopped, thus weakening the Makhno forces

1121

vis-a-vis the Denikin troops." [Op. Cit., p. 175] David

1122

Footman also notes that the Bolshevik "hold-back of supplies

1123

for the Insurgents developed into a blockade of the area.

1124

Makhnovite units at the front ran short of ammunition."

1125

He also mentions that "[i]n the latter part of May the

1126

Cheka sent over two agents to assassinate Makhno."

1127

[Civil War in Russia, p. 271]

1128

1129

Needless to say, Trotsky blamed this White success to the

1130

Makhnovists, arguing it was retreating constantly before

1131

even the slightest attack by the Whites. However, this was

1132

not the case. Analysing these events in July 1919, Antonov

1133

(the commander of the Southern Front before Trotsky replaced

1134

him) wrote:

1135

1136

"Above all, the facts witness that the affirmations about the

1137

weakness of the most contaminated region -- that from Hulyai

1138

Pole to Berdiansk -- are without foundation . . . It is not

1139

because we ourselves have been better organised militarily,

1140

but because those troops were directly defending their native

1141

place . . . Makhno stayed at the front, in spite of the flight

1142

of the neighbouring 9th division, following by the whole of

1143

the 13th army . . . The reasons for the defeat on the

1144

southern front do not rest at all in the existence of

1145

'Ukrainian partisans' . . . above all it must be attributed

1146

to the machinery of the southern front, in not keeping its

1147

fighting spirit and reinforcing its revolutionary discipline."

1148

[quoted by Alexander Skirda, The Rehabilitation of Makhno,

1149

p. 348]

1150

</blockquote>

1151

This, incidentally, tallies with Arshinov's account that

1152

"hordes of Cossacks had overrun the region, not through

1153

the insurrectionary front but from the left flank where

1154

the Red Army was stationed." [Op. Cit., p. 126]

1155

For what it is worth, General Denikin himself concurs with this

1156

account of events, noting that by the 4th of June his

1157

forces "repulsed the routed and demoralised contingents

1158

of the Eight and Thirteenth Soviet Armies . . . The

1159

resistance of the Thirteenth Army being completely

1160

broken." He notes that an attempt by the Fourteenth

1161

Army (which Makhno's troops were part of) to attack on

1162

the flank came to nothing. He only mentions Makhno when

1163

he recounts that "General Shkuro's division routed Makhno

1164

at Hulyai Pole." [The White Armies, p. 272] With

1165

Whites broken through on their flank and with limited

1166

ammunition and other supplies (thanks to the Bolsheviks),

1167

the Makhnovists had no choice but to retreat.

1168

1169

It was around this time that Trotsky, in a public meeting

1170

in Kharkov, "announced that it were better to permit the

1171

Whites to remain in the Ukraine than to suffer Makhno. The

1172

presence of the Whites, he said, would influence the Ukrainian

1173

peasantry in favour of the Soviet Government, whereas Makhno

1174

and his povstantsi, would never make peace with the

1175

Bolsheviki; they would attempt to possess themselves of

1176

some territory and to practise their ideas, which would be

1177

a constant menace to the Communist Government." [Emma Goldman,

1178

My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 63]

1179

1180

Due to this Bolshevik betrayal, the Makhnovist sector was

1181

in very grave danger. At Hulyai Pole, a peasant regiment

1182

was scraped together in 24 hours in an attempt to save the

1183

town. It encountered White Cossacks ten miles away from

1184

the town and was mown down. The Whites entered Hulyai

1185

Pole the next day (June 6th) and gave it a good going over.

1186

On the same day, the Bolsheviks issued an order for Makhno's

1187

arrest. Makhno was warned and put in his resignation, arguing

1188

that it was "an inviolable right of the workers and peasants,

1189

a right won by the revolution, to call congresses on their

1190

own account, to discuss their affairs." Combined with the

1191

"hostile attitude" of the Bolshevik authorities towards him,

1192

which would lead "unavoidably to the creation of a special

1193

internal front," Makhno believed it was his duty to do

1194

what he could to avert it, and so he left his post. [quoted

1195

by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 129] While Makhno escaped, his

1196

staff was not so lucky. Five of them were arrested the

1197

same day and shot as a result of Trotsky's order to ban

1198

the fourth congress.

1199

1200

Leaving his troops in the frontline, Makhno left with a small

1201

cavalry detachment. While leaving the rest under Red command,

1202

Makhno made a secret agreement with his regimental

1203

commanders to await a message from him to leave the Red

1204

Army and join up against with the partisans. On the 9th and

1205

10th of June, Hulyai Pole was retaken by Bolshevik forces,

1206

who took the opportunity to attack and sack the Makhnovist

1207

communes. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 86f]

1208

1209

After intense fighting, the Whites finally split the Southern

1210

Front into three on June 21st. Needless to say, Trotsky and

1211

the Bolsheviks blamed this on the partisan forces (even

1212

stating that they had "opened the front" to the

1213

Whites). This was nonsense, as noted above.

1214

1215

After leaving the front, Makhno took refuge in the

1216

Chorno-Znamenski forest before continuing the retreat north

1217

and skirmishing with Red Army units. This brought him into

1218

the territory held by Hryhoriyiv and this, in turn, meant

1219

they had to proceed carefully. While the Makhnovists had

1220

made a public denunciation of Hryhoriyiv, Makhno was

1221

approaching the centre of Hryhoriyov's remaining influence.

1222

Surrounded by enemies, Makhno had little choice but to

1223

begin discussions with Hryhoriyiv. This was problematic

1224

to say the least. Hryhoriyiv's revolt had been tinged with

1225

anti-Semitism and had seen at least one major pogrom. Being

1226

faced with Hryhoriyov's anti-Semitism and his proposal for

1227

an alliance with the Whites against the Reds led the

1228

Makhnovists to plot his downfall at a meeting planned

1229

for the 27th July.

1230

1231

This meeting had originally been called to discuss the

1232

current tasks of the insurgents in the Ukraine and was

1233

attended by nearly 20,000 insurgents and local peasants.

1234

Hryhoriyiv spoke first, arguing that the most urgent

1235

task was to chase out the Bolsheviks and that they

1236

should ally themselves with any anti-Red forces available

1237

(a clear reference to the Whites under Denikin). The

1238

Makhnovist Chubenko spoke next, declaring that the

1239

"struggle against the Bolsheviks could be revolutionary

1240

only if it were carried out in the name of the social

1241

revolution. An alliance with the worst enemies of

1242

the people -- with generals -- could only be a

1243

counter-revolutionary and criminal adventure."

1244

Following him, Makhno "demanded before the entire congress"

1245

that Hryhoriyiv "immediately answer for the appalling

1246

pogrom of Jews he had organised in Elisavetgrad in May,

1247

1919, as well as other anti-Semitic actions." [Arshinov,

1248

Op. Cit., p. 136]

1249

1250

Seeing that things were going badly, Hryhoriyiv went

1251

for his revolver, but was shot by a Makhnovist. Makhno

1252

finished him off. Makhnovist guards disarmed the leading

1253

Hryhoriyivists. Then Makhno, Chubenko and others justified

1254

the killing before the mass meeting, which approved the

1255

act passing a resolution that stated that Hryhoriyiv's

1256

death was "an historical and necessary fact, for his

1257

policy, acts and aims were counter-revolutionary and mainly

1258

directed to helping Denikin and other counter-revolutionaries,

1259

as is proved by his Jewish pogroms." [quoted by Malet,

1260

Op. Cit., p. 42] The troops under Hryhoriyiv became part

1261

of the general Insurrectionary Army.

1262

1263

At the end of July, Makhno recalled the troops he had earlier

1264

left in the Red Army and by mid-August the forces met up,

1265

becoming an army of some 15,000. At Mykolaiv, the Red Army units

1266

were defecting to Makhno in large numbers due in part to the

1267

feeling that the Red Army were abandoning the defence of the

1268

Ukraine. This was the start of Denikin's massive push north and

1269

Petliura's push east. By the end of August, Makhno felt strong

1270

enough to go on the offensive against the Whites. Superior

1271

White forces pushed the Makhnovists further and further west,

1272

away from their home region. "Denikin," in Voline's words,

1273

"not only made war on the army as such, but also on the whole

1274

peasant population. In addition to the usual persecutions

1275

and beatings, the villages he occupied were burnt and

1276

wrecked. The greater part of the peasants' dwellings were

1277

looted and wrecked. Hundreds of peasants were shot. The

1278

women maltreated, and nearly all the Jewish women . . .

1279

were raped." This repression "obliged the inhabitants of the

1280

villages threatened by the approach of the Denikinists to

1281

abandon their hearths and flee. Thus the Makhnovist army

1282

was joined and followed in their retreat by thousands of

1283

peaant families in flight from their homes with their

1284

livestock and belongings. It was a veritable migration.

1285

An enormous mass of men, women and children trailed after

1286

the army in its slow retreat towards the west, a retreat

1287

which gradually extended over hundreds of kilometres."

1288

[Op. Cit., p. 607]

1289

1290

Meeting the Nationalists in mid-September, it was agreed on both

1291

sides that fighting would only aid the Whites and so the Makhnovists

1292

entered a non-aggression pact with Petliura. This enabled them to

1293

offload over 1,000 wounded. The Makhnovists continued their

1294

propaganda campaign against the Nationalists, however. By the

1295

24th of September, intelligence reports suggested that White forces

1296

had appeared to the west of their current position (i.e. where

1297

the Nationalists where). The Makhnovists concluded that the only

1298

way this could have happened was if the Nationalists had allowed

1299

the Whites to cross their territory (the Nationalists disputed

1300

this, pointing to the fighting that had started two days before

1301

between them and the Whites).

1302

1303

This meant that the Makhnovists were forced to fight the

1304

numerically superior Whites. After two days of desperate fighting,

1305

the Whites were routed and two regiments were destroyed at the

1306

battle of Peregonovka village. Makhno's forces then conducted an

1307

incredibly rapid advance in three directions helped by their

1308

mobile cart-transported infantry, in three days smashing three

1309

reserve regiments and at the greatest point advancing 235 miles

1310

east. On the 6th October a drive to the south started which took

1311

key White ports and captured a huge quantity of equipment including

1312

600 trucks of British-supplied ammunition and an aeroplane. This

1313

was disastrous for Denikin whose forces had reached the northernmost

1314

point on their advance on Moscow, for these ports were key for his

1315

supply routes. The advance continued, cutting the railway route

1316

and so stopping all shells reaching Denikin's Moscow front.

1317

1318

Denikin was forced to send some of his best troops from the Moscow

1319

front to drive back the Makhnovists and British boats were sent to

1320

towns on the coast where Makhno might retreat through. The key

1321

city of Katerinoslav was taken with the aid of a workers' uprising on

1322

November 9th and held for a month before the advancing Whites and a

1323

typhoid epidemic which was to devastate the Makhnovista ranks by the

1324

end of the year forced them out of the city. In December, the Red Army

1325

advance made possible by Makhno's devastation of Denikin's supply lines

1326

continued.

1327

1328

Thus Voline:

1329

1330

"It is necessary to emphasise here the historic fact that the

1331

honour of having annihilated the Denikinist counter-revolution

1332

in the autumn of 1919, belongs entirely to the Makhnovist

1333

Insurrectionary Army. If the insurgents had not won the decisive

1334

victory of Peregonovka, and had not continued to sap the bases

1335

in Denikin's rear, destroying his supply service for artillery,

1336

food and ammunition, the Whites would probably have entered

1337

Moscow in December 1919 at the latest." [Op. Cit., p. 625]

1338

</blockquote>

1339

In December the Red Army advance made possible by Makhno's

1340

devastation of Denikin's supply lines continued. By early

1341

January the Reds had split White forces into three and their

1342

troops had reached Katerynoslav. The attitude of the Bolsheviks

1343

to the Makhnovists had already been decided. On December

1344

12th, 1919, Trotsky stated that when the two

1345

forces met, the Bolsheviks had "an order . . . from which

1346

we must not retreat one single step." While we discuss this

1347

secret order in more depth in

1348

<a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a>, we will note

1349

here that it gave partisans the option of becoming "fully

1350

subordinate to [Bolshevik] command" or "be subjected to

1351

ruthless punishment." [How the Revolution Armed,

1352

vol. II., pp. 110-1 and p. 442] Another secret order to

1353

the 45th division issued on January 4th instructed them to

1354

"annihilate Makhnovist bands" and "disarm the population."

1355

The 41st was sent "into reserve" to the Hulyai Pole region.

1356

This was "five days before Makhno was outlawed, and shows that

1357

the Bolshevik command had a clear view of Makhno's future,

1358

even if the latter did not." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 54]

1359

1360

Unaware of this, the Makhnovista put out propaganda leaflets

1361

directed at the Red Army rank and file, appealing to them as

1362

comrades. At Aleksandrovsk on December 5th talks occurred

1363

between a representative of the Makhnovists and the commander

1364

of the 45th division's 1st brigade. These broke down when

1365

Makhno was ordered to the Polish front, which the Makhnovists

1366

refused. On January 9th, Yegorov, commander of the Red Army

1367

southern front, used this pretext to outlaw Makhno. This

1368

outlawing was engineered deliberately by the Bolsheviks:

1369

1370

"The author of the order realised at that time there was no

1371

real war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks at that time

1372

and he also knew that Makhno would not abandon his region

1373

.. . . Uborevich [the author] explained that 'an appropriate

1374

reaction by Makhno to this order would give us the chance

1375

to have accurate grounds for our next steps' . . . [He]

1376

concluded: 'The order is a certain political manoeuvre and,

1377

at the very least, we expect positive results from Makhno's

1378

realisation of this.'" [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 210]

1379

</blockquote>

1380

In addition, war with Poland did not break out until the

1381

end of April, over three months later.

1382

1383

Needless to say, the Makhnovists did realise the political

1384

motivations behind the order. As Arshinov notes, "[s]ending

1385

the insurrectionary army to the Polish front meant

1386

removing from the Ukraine the main nerve centre of the

1387

revolutionary insurrection. This was precisely what the

1388

Bolsheviks wanted: they would then be absolute masters of

1389

the rebellious region, and the Makhnovists were perfectly

1390

aware of this." Moreover, the Makhnovists considered the

1391

move "physically impossible" as "half the men, the entire

1392

staff and the commander himself were in hospital with

1393

typhus." [Op. Cit., p. 163]

1394

1395

This was the signal for nine months of bitter fighting between

1396

the Red Army and the Makhnovists. Military events in this period

1397

are confused, with the Red Army claiming victory again and again,

1398

only for the Makhnovists to appear somewhere else. Hulyai Pole

1399

changed hands on a couple of occasions. The Bolsheviks did not

1400

use local troops in this campaign, due to fear of fraternisation.

1401

In addition, they used "new tactics," and "attacked not only

1402

Makhno's partisans, but also the villages and towns in which

1403

the population was sympathetic toward Makhno. They shot

1404

ordinary soldiers as well as their commanders, destroying

1405

their houses, confiscating their properties and persecuting

1406

their families. Moreover the Bolsheviks conducted mass arrests

1407

of innocent peasants who were suspected of collaborating in

1408

some way with the partisans. It is impossible to determine

1409

the casualties involved." They also set up "Committees of

1410

the Poor" as part of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus,

1411

which acted as "informers helping the Bolshevik secret police

1412

in its persecution of the partisans, their families and

1413

supporters, even to the extent of hunting down and executing

1414

wounded partisans." [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 212-3]

1415

1416

In addition to this suffering, the Bolshevik decision to

1417

attack Makhno rather than push into the Crimea was also to

1418

prolong the civil war by nine more months. The Whites

1419

re-organised themselves under General Wrangel, who began a

1420

limited offensive in June. Indeed, the Bolshevik "policy of

1421

terror and exploitation turned almost all segments of Ukrainian

1422

society against the Bolsheviks, substantially strengthened

1423

the Makhno movement, and consequently facilitated the

1424

advance of the reorganised anti-Bolshevik force of General

1425

Wrangel from the Crimea into South Ukraine, the Makhno

1426

region." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214]

1427

1428

It was widely believed on the White side that Makhno was ready

1429

to co-operate with them and, desperate for men, Wrangel decided

1430

to appeal to the Makhnovists for an alliance. Their response

1431

was simple and direct, they decided to immediately execute his

1432

delegate and publish both his letter and a response in the

1433

Makhnovist paper "The Road to Freedom." [Malet, Op. Cit.,

1434

p. 60] Of course, this did not stop the Bolsheviks later

1435

claiming such an alliance existed!

1436

1437

Ironically enough, at a general assembly of insurgents, it

1438

was decided that "the destruction of Wrangel" would "eliminate

1439

a threat to the revolution" and so free "all of Russia"

1440

from "the counter-revolutionary barrage." The mass of workers

1441

and peasants "urgently needed an end to all those wars" and

1442

so they proposed "to the Communists that hostilities between

1443

them and the Makhnovists be suspended in order that they

1444

might wipe out Wrangel. In July and August, 1920, telegrams

1445

to this effect were sent to Moscow and Kharkov." There was

1446

no reply and the Bolsheviks "continued their war against the

1447

Makhnovists, and they also continued their previous campaign

1448

of lies and calumnies against them." [Arshinov, Op. Cit.,

1449

p. 176]

1450

1451

In July and August the Makhnovists went on the offensive,

1452

raiding the Bolsheviks in three provinces and attacking the

1453

Red Army infrastructure. Wrangel began another offensive in

1454

September, driving the Red Army back again and again and

1455

threatening the Makhnovist area. Faced with Wrangel's

1456

success, the Bolsheviks started to rethink their position

1457

on Makhno, although on the 24th of September the Bolshevik

1458

commander-in-chief Kamenev was still declaring the need

1459

for "the final liquidation of the Makhno band." [Malet,

1460

Op. Cit., p. 62] A few days later, the Bolsheviks changed

1461

their mind and negotiations began.

1462

1463

So, by October 1920, the success of the Wrangel offensive was

1464

again forcing the Bolsheviks and Makhnovists to put aside

1465

their differences and take on the common enemy. A deal was

1466

reached and on October 2nd, Frunze, the new Red Army commander

1467

of the Southern Front, ordered a cessation of hostilities

1468

against the Makhnovists. A statement from the Soviet of

1469

the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovists)

1470

explained the treaty as necessitated by the White offensive

1471

but also representing a victory over the "high-handed

1472

communists and commissars" in forcing them to recognise

1473

the "free insurrection." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 64]

1474

1475

The agreement was signed between October 10th and 15th.

1476

It consisted of two parts, a Political and a Military

1477

agreement (see

1478

<a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a>

1479

for full details). The

1480

Political agreement simply gave the Makhnovists and

1481

anarchists the rights they should have had according to the

1482

Soviet Constitution. The Military agreement resulted in

1483

the Makhnovists becoming part of the Red Army, keeping

1484

their established internal structure and, significantly,

1485

stopped them from accepting into their ranks any Red Army

1486

detachments or deserters therefrom. According to

1487

Bolshevik sources, "there was never the slightest

1488

intention on the Bolshevik side of keeping to the

1489

agreement once its military value had passed."

1490

[David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 296]

1491

1492

Even before the agreement came into effect, the Makhnovists

1493

were fighting alongside the Bolsheviks and between October

1494

4 and 17, Hulyai Pole was retaken by the Aleksandrovsk group,

1495

which included 10,000 Makhnovista. On October 22, Aleksandrovsk

1496

was taken with 4,000 white prisoners and from then to early

1497

November the Makhnovists cut through Wrangel's rear, hoping to

1498

cut off his retreat by seizing the Crimean passes. The Whites

1499

fought a skilful rearguard which together with the new White

1500

fortifications on the peninsula held up the advance. But by

1501

the 11th, his hold in the Crimea gone, Wrangel had no choice

1502

but to order a general retreat to the ports and an evacuation.

1503

Even the Bolsheviks had to acknowledge that the "Makhnovist

1504

units fulfilled their military tasks with no less heroism

1505

than the Red Army units." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 69]

1506

1507

On hearing this success on 16th November, the reaction of the

1508

Makhnovista still at Hulyai Pole was cynical but realistic:

1509

"It's the end of the agreement. I'll bet you anything that

1510

the Bolsheviks will be on us within the week." [quoted by

1511

Malet, Op. Cit., p. 70] They were not wrong. Already Frunze,

1512

the Red Army commander, had ordered two entire cavalry armies

1513

to concentrate near Hulyai Pole at the same time as he ordered

1514

the Makhnovist forces to the Caucasus Front! By 24th November

1515

Frunze was preparing for the treachery to come, in Order 00149

1516

(which was not sent to the Makhnovist units) saying if they

1517

had not departed to the Caucasus front by the 26th "the Red

1518

regiments of the front, who have now finished with Wrangel,

1519

will start speaking a different language to these Makhnovist

1520

youths." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 71]

1521

1522

Of course this treachery went right to the top, just before the

1523

26th "deadline" (which Makhno, not having seen the orders,

1524

was unaware of), Lenin urged Rakovski, head of the Ukrainian

1525

government to "[k]eep a close watch on all anarchists and

1526

prepare documents of a criminal nature as soon as possible,

1527

on the basis of which charges can be preferred against them."

1528

[quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 71] Indeed, it later appeared

1529

the treachery had been prepared from at least 14th or 16th

1530

November, as prisoners captured later stated they had

1531

received undated anti-Makhnovist proclamations on that

1532

date. [Malet, Ibid.]

1533

1534

At 3am on the 26th the attacks on the Makhnovists started.

1535

Alongside this one of the Makhnovist commanders was lured

1536

to a meeting by the Bolsheviks, seized and shot. Some

1537

Makhnovist forces managed to break through the encircling

1538

Bolsheviks but only after taking heavy losses -- of the

1539

2,000-4,000 cavalry at Simferopol, only 250 escaped. By the

1540

1st December, Rakovsi reported the imminent demise of the

1541

Makhnovists to the Kharkiv soviet only to have to eat his

1542

words when Makhno routed the 42nd division on the 6th,

1543

retaking Hulyai Pole and 6,000 prisoners, of whom 2,000

1544

joined his forces. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 72] Simultaneously

1545

with the attack on the Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks rounded

1546

up all known anarchists in the Ukraine (many of whom were

1547

in Kharkiv waiting for a legally organised Nabat conference

1548

to begin).

1549

1550

In the resulting struggle between the two forces,

1551

as Palij notes, the "support of the population was a

1552

significant advantage to Makhno, for they supplied

1553

the partisans with needed material, including horses

1554

and food, while the Red troops operated among a foreign

1555

and hostile people." The Bolsheviks found that the peasants

1556

not only refused to supply them with goods, they also

1557

refused to answer their questions or, at best, gave

1558

answers which were vague and confusing. "In contrast

1559

to the Bolsheviks, Makhno partisans received detailed,

1560

accurate information from the population at all times."

1561

[Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 236-7]

1562

1563

Frunze brought in extra forces and ordered both the

1564

"annihilation of the Makhnovists" and total disarming of

1565

the region. Plagued by desertions, it was also ordered that

1566

all Makhnovist prisoners were to be shot, to discourage

1567

the local population and Red Army soldiers thinking of

1568

joining them. There is also evidence of unrest in the

1569

Azov fleet, with acts of sabotage being carried out by

1570

sailors to prevent their weapons being used against the

1571

Makhnovists. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 73] While it was common

1572

practice for the Bolsheviks to shoot all Makhnovist prisoners,

1573

the "existence of roundup detachments at the end of 1920,

1574

whose task was to re-collect prisoners freed by the Makhnovists"

1575

shows that the Makhnovists did not reciprocate in kind.

1576

[Malet Op. Cit., p. 129]

1577

1578

At the end of 1920, the Makhnovists had ten to fifteen

1579

thousand troops and the "growing strength of the Makhno

1580

army and its successes caused serious concern in the

1581

Bolshevik regime, so it was decided to increase the

1582

number of troops opposing Makhno." [Palij, Op. Cit.,

1583

p. 237] All the pressure exerted by the Bolsheviks was

1584

paying off. Although Makhno repeatedly broke through

1585

numerous mass encirclements and picked up deserters from

1586

the Red Army, his forces were being eroded by the far

1587

greater numbers employed against them. In addition,

1588

"the Red command worked out new plans to fight Makhno

1589

by stationing whole regiments, primarily cavalry, in

1590

the occupied villages, to terrorise the peasants and

1591

prevent them from supporting Makhno. . . Also the

1592

Cheka punitive units were constantly trailing the

1593

partisans, executing Makhno's sympathisers and the

1594

partisans' families." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 238] In

1595

spite of the difficult conditions, Makhno was still

1596

able to attract some Red Army soldiers and even whole

1597

units to his side. For example, "when the partisans

1598

were fighting Budenny's Fourth Cavalry Division, their

1599

First Brigade, commanded by Maslak, joined Makhno."

1600

[Palij, Op. Cit., p. 239]

1601

1602

Makhno was forced to leave his home areas of operations

1603

and flee east, then west again. By early January his

1604

forces had fought 24 battles in 24 days. This pattern

1605

continued throughout March and April into May. In June, the

1606

Bolsheviks changed their strategy to one of predicting where

1607

Makhno was heading and garrisoning troops in that area. In

1608

one battle on 15 June, Frunze himself was almost captured.

1609

Despite this, the insurgents were very weak and their

1610

peasant base was exhausted by years of war and civil war.

1611

In the most sympathetic areas, Red Army troops were garrisoned

1612

on the peasants. Thus Palij:

1613

1614

"[T]hrough combat losses, hardship, and sickness, the

1615

number of Makhno partisans was diminishing and they

1616

were cut off from their main sources of recruits and

1617

supplies. The Ukrainian peasants were tried of the endless

1618

terror caused by successive occupation of village after

1619

village by the Red troops and the Cheka. The continuous

1620

fighting and requisitions were leaving the peasants

1621

with little food and horses for the partisans. They could

1622

not live in a state of permanent revolution. Moreover,

1623

there was extreme drought and consequently a bad harvest

1624

in Ukraine, especially in the region of the Makhno movement."

1625

[Op. Cit., pp. 240-1]

1626

</blockquote>

1627

The state terrorism and the summer drought caused Makhno

1628

to give up the struggle in mid-August and instead fight

1629

his way to the Dniester with the last of his forces and

1630

cross into Romania on August 26. Some of his forces

1631

which stayed behind were still active for a short time.

1632

In November 1921 the Cheka seized 20 machine guns and

1633

2,833 rifles in the new Zaporizhya province alone.

1634

1635

For more details of the history of the movement, Michael

1636

Malet's Nestor Makhno in the Russian Revolution is

1637

an excellent summary. Michael Palij's The Anarchism of

1638

Nestor Makhno is also worth consulting, as are the

1639

anarchist histories of Voline and Arshinov.

1640

1641

<a name="app5"><h2>5 How were the Makhnovists organised?</h2>

1642

1643

Being influenced by anarchist ideas, the Makhnovists were

1644

organised along libertarian lines. This meant that in both

1645

civilian and military areas, self-management was practised.

1646

This section discusses the military organisation, while

1647

the next discusses the social aspect of the movement.

1648

1649

By practising self-management, the Makhnovists offered a

1650

completely different model of military organisation to that

1651

of both the Red Army and traditional military forces. While

1652

the army structure changed depending on its circumstances,

1653

the core ideas remained. These were as follows:

1654

1655

"The Makhnovist insurrectionary army was organised according

1656

to three fundamental principles: voluntary enlistment, the

1657

electoral principle, and self-discipline.

1658

1659

"Voluntary enlistment meant that the army was composed

1660

only of revolutionary fighters who entered it of their

1661

own free will.

1662

1663

"The electoral principle meant that the commanders of

1664

all units of the army, including the staff, as well as

1665

all the men who held other positions in the army, were

1666

either elected or accepted by the insurgents of the unit

1667

in question or by the whole army.

1668

1669

"Self-discipline meant that all the rules of discipline

1670

were drawn up by commissions of insurgents, then approved

1671

by general assemblies of the various units; once approved,

1672

they were rigorously observed on the individual responsibility

1673

of each insurgent and each commander." [Op. Cit., p. 96]

1674

</blockquote>

1675

Voline paints a similar picture. He also notes that the

1676

electoral principle was sometimes violated and commanders

1677

appointed "in urgent situations by the commander himself,"

1678

although such people had to be "accepted without reservation"

1679

by "the insurgents of the unit in question or by the whole

1680

army." [Op. Cit., p. 584]

1681

1682

Thus the Makhnovist army, bar some deviation provoked

1683

by circumstances, was a fundamentally democratic organisation.

1684

The guerrillas elected the officers of their detachments, and,

1685

at mass assemblies and congresses, decided policy and discipline

1686

for the army. In the words of historian Michael Palij:

1687

1688

"As the Makhno army gradually grew, it assumed a more

1689

regular army organisation. Each tactical unit was

1690

composed of three subordinate units: a division consisted

1691

of three brigades; a brigade, of three regiments; a

1692

regiment, of three battalions. Theoretically commanders

1693

were elected; in practice, however, the top commanders

1694

were usually carefully selected by Makhno from among his

1695

close friends. As a rule, they were all equal and if

1696

several units fought together the top commanders

1697

commanded jointly. The army was nominally headed by

1698

a Revolutionary Military Council of about ten to

1699

twenty members . . . Like the commanders, the council

1700

members were elected, but some were appointed by Makhno

1701

.. . . There also was an elected cultural section in the

1702

army. Its aim was to conduct political and ideological

1703

propaganda among the partisans and peasants." [Palij,

1704

Op. Cit., pp. 108-9]

1705

</blockquote>

1706

The Revolutionary Military Council was elected and directly

1707

accountable to the regional workers, peasants and insurgent

1708

congresses. It was designed to co-ordinate the local

1709

soviets and execute the decisions of the regional congresses.

1710

1711

Hence Voline:

1712

1713

"This council embraced the whole free region. It was supposed

1714

to carry out all the economic, political, social and military

1715

decisions made at the congress. It was thus, in a certain

1716

sense, the supreme executive of the whole movement. But it

1717

was not at all an authoritarian organ. Only strictly

1718

executive functions were assigned to it. It confined itself

1719

to carrying out the instructions and decisions of the

1720

congress. At any moment, it could be dissolved by the

1721

congress and cease to exist." [Op. Cit., p. 577]

1722

</blockquote>

1723

As such, when Palij notes that this council "had no decisive

1724

voice in the army's actions," he misses the point of the

1725

council. [Palij, Ibid.] It did not determine the military

1726

affairs of the army, but rather the interaction of the

1727

military and civilians and made sure that the decisions of

1728

congresses were executed. Thus the whole army was nominally

1729

under the control of the regional congresses of workers,

1730

peasants and insurgents. At these congresses, delegates of

1731

the toiling people decided upon the policy to be pursued by

1732

the Makhnovist Army. The Revolutionary Military Soviet existed

1733

to oversee that decisions were implemented, not to determine

1734

the military activities of the troops.

1735

1736

It should also be noted that women not only supported the

1737

Makhnovists, they also "fought alongside the men." [Arshinov,

1738

Op. Cit., p. 145] However, "the participation of women in

1739

the movement (by all accounts, quite substantial)" needs

1740

"further investigation." [Serge Cipko, "Nestor Makhno: A

1741

Mini-Historiography of the Anarchist Revolution in Ukraine,

1742

1917-1921," pp. 57-75, The Raven, no. 13, p. 75]

1743

1744

At its height, the army was made up of infantry, cavalry,

1745

artillery, machine-gun units, and special branches, including

1746

an intelligence service. As the success of partisan warfare

1747

depends upon mobility, the army gradually mounted its

1748

infantry in light carts (called "tachanka") during 1918-19.

1749

As Michael Malet notes, this was a "novel tactic" and Makhno

1750

"could be described as the inventor of the motorised division

1751

before the car came into general use." [Op. Cit., p. 85] The

1752

tachanka was used to transport as many troops as possible,

1753

giving the Makhnovists mobile infantry which could keep up

1754

with the cavalry. In addition, a machine-gun was sometimes

1755

mounted in the rear (in autumn 1919, the 1st machine-gun

1756

regiment consisted of 120 guns, all mounted on tachanki).

1757

1758

For the most part the Makhnovist army was a volunteer army,

1759

unlike all others operating in the Russian Civil War. However,

1760

at times of crisis attempts were made to mobilise troops.

1761

For example, the Second regional congress agreed that a

1762

"general voluntary and equalitarian mobilisation" should

1763

take place. This meant that this appeal, "sanctioned by the

1764

moral authority of the congress, emphasised the need for

1765

fresh troops in the insurrectionary army, no-one was compelled

1766

to enlist." [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 577] The Congress itself

1767

passed a resolution after a long and passionate debate that

1768

stated it "rejected 'compulsory' mobilisation, opting for

1769

an 'obligatory' one; that is, each peasant who is able to

1770

carry arms, should recognise his obligation to enlist in

1771

the ranks of the partisans and to defend the interests of

1772

the entire toiling people of Ukraine." [quoted by Palij,

1773

Op. Cit., p. 155] There were far more volunteers than

1774

arms, the opposite of what occurred to both the Reds

1775

and Whites during the Civil War. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 106]

1776

1777

The third Congress decided to conduct a voluntary mobilisation

1778

all those born between 1889 and 1898. This congress told them

1779

to assemble at certain points, organise themselves and elect

1780

their officers. Another mobilisation decided at the Aleksandrovsk

1781

congress never took place. How far the Makhnovists were forced

1782

to conscript troops is still a matter of debate. Paul Avrich,

1783

for example, states that "voluntary mobilisation" in reality

1784

"meant outright conscription, as all able-bodied men were

1785

required to serve." [Op. Cit., p. 114] On the other side,

1786

surviving leaflets from 1920 "are in the nature of appeals

1787

to join up, not instructions." [Malet,Op. Cit., p. 105]

1788

Trotsky, ironically, noted that "Makhno does not have

1789

general mobilisations, and indeed these would be impossible,

1790

as he lacks the necessary apparatus." [quoted by Malet,

1791

Op. Cit., p. 106] It is probably right to say that the

1792

Congresses desired that every able-bodied man join the

1793

Makhnovist army, but they simply did not have the means

1794

to enforce that desire and that the Makhnovists tried their

1795

best to avoid conscription by appealing to the peasants'

1796

revolutionary conscience, with some success.

1797

1798

As well as the military organisation, there was also an

1799

explicitly anarchist federation operating in the Ukraine

1800

at the same time. The first conference to organise a

1801

"Confederation of Anarchist Organisations of the Ukraine"

1802

was held between November 12th to 16th, 1918. The new

1803

federation was named "Nabat" (Alarm) and had a six-person

1804

Secretariat. Kharkiv was chosen as its headquarters, while

1805

it had groups in other major Ukrainian cities (including

1806

Kyiv, Odessa and Katerynoslav). The final organisation of

1807

the Nabat was accomplished at a conference held in April

1808

2-7, 1919. The federation aimed to form a "united anarchism"

1809

and guaranteed a substantial degree of autonomy for every

1810

participating group and individual. A number of newspapers

1811

appeared in a Ukrainian towns and cities (mostly entitled

1812

Nabat), as did leaflets and pamphlets. There was a main

1813

weekly paper (called Nabat) which was concerned largely

1814

with anarchist theory. This completed the Makhnovist

1815

papers Road to Freedom (which was often daily, sometimes

1816

weekly and dealt with libertarian ideas, everyday problems

1817

and information on partisan activities) and The Makhnovist

1818

Voice (which dealt primarily with the interests, problems,

1819

and tasks of the Makhnovist movement and its army). The

1820

Nabat organisation was also published a pamphlet dealing

1821

with the Makhnovist movement's problems, the economic

1822

organisation of the region, the free soviets, the social

1823

basis of the society that was to be built, and the

1824

problem of defence.

1825

1826

Unsurprisingly, the Nabat federation and the Makhnovists

1827

worked together closely, with Nabat members worked in

1828

the army (particularly its cultural section). Some of

1829

its members were also elected to the Makhnovist Revolutionary

1830

Military Soviet. It should be noted that the Nabat federation

1831

gained a number of experienced anarchists from Soviet Russia,

1832

who fled to the Ukraine to escape Bolshevik repression. The

1833

Nabat shared the fortunes of the Makhno movement. It carried

1834

on its work freely as long as the region was controlled by

1835

the Makhnovist Army, but when Bolshevik or White forces

1836

prevailed, the anarchists were forced underground. The

1837

movement was finally crushed in November 1920, when the

1838

Bolsheviks betrayed the Makhnovists.

1839

1840

As can be seen, the Makhnovists implemented to a large degree

1841

the anarchist idea of self-managed, horizontally federated

1842

associations (when possible, of course). Both the two major

1843

organisational layers to the Makhnovist structure (the army

1844

and the congresses) were federated horizontally and the "top"

1845

structure was essentially a mass peasant, worker and guerrilla

1846

decision-making coalition. In other words, the masses took

1847

decisions at the "top" level that the Revolutionary Military

1848

Soviet and the Makhnovist army were bound to follow. The army

1849

was answerable to the local Soviets and to the congresses of

1850

soviets and, as we discuss in

1851

<a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>, the Makhnovists

1852

called working-people and insurgent congresses whenever they

1853

could.

1854

1855

The Makhnovist movement was, fundamentally, a working class

1856

movement. It was "one of the very few revolutionary movements

1857

to be led and controlled throughout by members of 'the toiling

1858

masses.'" [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 245] It applied its

1859

principles of working class autonomy and self-organisation

1860

as far as it could. Unlike the Red Army, it was predominantly

1861

organised from the bottom up, rejecting the use of Tsarist

1862

officers, appointed commanders, and other "top-down" ways of

1863

the Red Army (see

1864

<a href="append46.html#app14">section 14</a>

1865

for further discussion of

1866

the differences between the two forces).

1867

1868

The Makhnovist army was not by any means a perfect model

1869

of anarchist military organisation. However, compared to

1870

the Red Army, its violations of principle are small and

1871

hardly detract from their accomplishment of applying

1872

anarchist ideas in often extremely difficult circumstances.

1873

1874

<a name="app6"><h2>6 Did the Makhnovists have a constructive social programme?</h2>

1875

1876

Yes, they did. The Makhnovists spent a great deal of energy and

1877

effort in developing, propagating and explaining their ideas on

1878

how a free society should be created and run. As Michael Malet

1879

noted, the "leading Makhnovists had definite ideas about the ideal

1880

form of social organisation." [Nestor Makhno in the Russian

1881

Civil War, p. 107] Moreover, as we discuss in the

1882

<a href="append46.html#app7">next section</a>,

1883

they also successfully applied these ideas when and where they

1884

could.

1885

1886

So what was their social programme? Being anarchists, it comprised

1887

two parts, namely political and economic aspects. The Makhnovists

1888

aimed for a true social revolution in which the working classes

1889

(both urban and rural) could actively manage their own affairs and

1890

society. As such, their social programme reflected the fact

1891

that oppression has its roots in both political and economic power

1892

and so aimed at eliminating both the state and private property.

1893

As the core of their social ideas was the simple principle of

1894

working-class autonomy, the idea that the liberation of

1895

working-class people must be the task of the working-class

1896

people themselves. This vision is at the heart of anarchism

1897

and was expressed most elegantly by Makhno:

1898

1899

"Conquer or die -- such is the dilemma that faces the Ukrainian

1900

peasants and workers at this historic moment . . . But we will

1901

not conquer in order to repeat the errors of the past years,

1902

the error of putting our fate into the hands of new masters;

1903

we will conquer in order to take our destinies into our own

1904

hands, to conduct our lives according to our own will and

1905

our own conception of the truth." [quoted by Peter Arshinov,

1906

The History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 58]

1907

</blockquote>

1908

As such, the Makhnovists were extremely hostile to the idea

1909

of state power, recognising it simply as a means by which the

1910

majority are ruled by the few. Equally, they were opposed to

1911

wage slavery (to private or state bosses), recognising that as

1912

long as the workers do not manage their own work, they can

1913

never be free. As they put it, their goals could only be

1914

achieved by an "implacable revolution and consistent struggle

1915

against all lies, arbitrariness and coercion, wherever they

1916

come from, a struggle to the death, a struggle for free

1917

speech, for the righteous cause, a struggle with weapons

1918

in hand. Only through the abolition of all rulers, through

1919

the destruction of the whole foundation of their lies, in

1920

state affairs as well as in political and economic affairs.

1921

And only through the social revolution can the genuine

1922

Worker-Peasant soviet system be realised and can we arrive

1923

at SOCIALISM." [contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 273]

1924

They, like other anarchists and the Kronstadt rebels, termed

1925

this programme of working class self-management the "third

1926

revolution."

1927

1928

We will discuss the political aspect of the Makhnovist programme

1929

first, then its economic one. However, the Maknovists considered

1930

(correctly) that both aspects could not be separated. As they

1931

put it: "We will not lay down our arms until we have wiped out

1932

once and for all every political and economic oppression and

1933

until genuine equality and brotherhood is established in the

1934

land." [contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 281] We split the

1935

aspects simply to aid the presentation of their ideas.

1936

1937

At the core of their ideas was what they termed the "Free

1938

Soviet System" (or "free soviets" for short). It was this

1939

system which would allow the working class to create and run

1940

a new society. As they put it:

1941

1942

"[The] Makhnovists realise that the working people are no

1943

longer a flock of sheep to be ordered about by anyone. We

1944

consider the working people capable of building, on their

1945

own and without parties, commissars or generals, their own

1946

FREE SOVIET SYSTEM, in which those who are elected to the

1947

Soviet will not, as now [under the Bolsheviks], command

1948

and order us, but on the contrary, will be only the

1949

executors of the decisions made in our own workers'

1950

gatherings and conferences." [contained in Peter Arshinov,

1951

Op. Cit., pp. 280-1]

1952

</blockquote>

1953

Thus the key idea advocated by the leading Makhnovista for

1954

social organisation and decision-making was the "free toilers'

1955

soviet of peasant and worker organisations." This meant they

1956

were to be independent of all central authority and composed

1957

of those who worked, and not political parties. They were to

1958

federate on a local, then regional and then national level,

1959

and power within the federation was to be horizontal and not

1960

vertical. [Michael Malet, Op. Cit., p. 107] Such a system

1961

was in opposition to the Bolshevik practice of Soviets defined

1962

and dominated by political parties with a vertical decision-

1963

making structure that reached its highest point in the Bolshevik

1964

Central Committee.

1965

1966

Thus, for the Makhnovists, the soviet system would be a "bottom-up"

1967

system, one designed not to empower a few party leaders at the

1968

centre but rather a means by which working people could manage

1969

their own affairs. As the put it, the "soviet system is not the

1970

power of the social-democratic Communist-Bolsheviks who now

1971

call themselves a soviet power; rather it is the supreme form

1972

of non-authoritarian anti-state socialism, which expresses itself

1973

in the organisation of a free, happy and independent system of

1974

social life for the working people." This would be based on the

1975

"principles of solidarity, friendship and equality." This

1976

meant that in the Makhnovist system of free soviets, the

1977

"working people themselves must freely choose their own soviets,

1978

which will carry out the will and desires of the working

1979

people themselvs, that is to say, ADMINISTRATIVE, not ruling

1980

soviets." [contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 272-3]

1981

1982

As David Footman summarises, Makhno's "ultimate aims were

1983

simple. All instruments of government were to be destroyed.

1984

All political parties were to be opposed, as all of them

1985

were working for some or other form of new government in

1986

which the party members would assume the role of a ruling

1987

class. All social and economic affairs were to be settled

1988

in friendly discussion between freely elected representatives

1989

of the toiling masses." [Op. Cit., p. 247]

1990

1991

Hence the Makhnovist social organisation was a federation of

1992

self-managed workers' and peasants' councils (soviets), which

1993

would "be only the executors of the decisions made in our

1994

workers' gatherings and conferences." [contained in Arshinov,

1995

Op. Cit., p. 281] In other words, an anarchist system based

1996

on mass assemblies and decision-making from the bottom up.

1997

1998

Economically, as is to be expected, the Makhnovists opposed

1999

private property, capitalism and wage-slavery. Their economic

2000

ideas were summarised in a Makhnovist declaration as follows:

2001

2002

"The lands of the service gentry, of the monasteries, of the

2003

princes and other enemies of the toiling masses, with all

2004

their livestock and goods, are passed on to the use of those

2005

peasants who support themselves solely through their own

2006

labour. This transfer will be carried out in an orderly

2007

fashion determined in common at peasant assemblies, which

2008

must remember in this matter not only each of their own

2009

personal interests, but also bear in mind the common

2010

interest of all the oppressed, working peasantry.

2011

2012

"Factories, workshops, mines and other tools and means of

2013

production become the property of the working class as a

2014

whole, which will run all enterprises themselves, through

2015

their trade unions, getting production under way and striving

2016

to tie together all industry in the country in a single,

2017

unitary organisation." [contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit.,

2018

p. 266]

2019

</blockquote>

2020

They continually stressed that the "land, the factories, the

2021

workshops, the mines, the railroads and the other wealth of

2022

the people must belong to the working people themselves,

2023

to those who work in them, that is to say, they must be

2024

socialised." This meant a system of use-rights, as "the

2025

land, the mines, the factories, the workshops, the

2026

railroads, and so on, will belong neither to individuals

2027

nor to the government, but solely to those who work with

2028

them." [Op. Cit., p. 273 and p. 281]

2029

2030

In industry, such a system clearly implied a system of

2031

worker's self-management within a system of federated

2032

factory committees or union branches. On the land, it

2033

meant the end of landlordism, with peasants being entitled

2034

to as much land and equipment as they could cultivate

2035

without the use of hired labour. As a Makhnovist congress

2036

in 1919 resolved:

2037

2038

"The land question should be decided on a Ukraine-wide

2039

scale at an all-Ukrainian congress of peasants on the

2040

following basis: in the interests of socialism and the

2041

struggle against the bourgeoisie, all land should be

2042

transferred to the hands of the toiling peasants. According

2043

to the principle that 'the land belongs to nobody' and

2044

can be used only by those who care about it, who cultivate

2045

it, the land should be transferred to the toiling peasantry

2046

of Ukraine for their use without pay according to the norm

2047

of equal distribution." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 155]

2048

</blockquote>

2049

In addition to advocating the abolition of private property

2050

in land and the end of wage labour by distributing land to

2051

those who worked it, the Makhnovists also supported the

2052

forming of "free" or "working" communes. Like their policy

2053

of land distribution, it also aimed to benefit the poorer

2054

peasants and rural wage labourers. The "free commune" was

2055

a voluntary association of rural workers who took over an

2056

expropriated estate and managed the land in common. The

2057

commune was managed by a general meeting of all its members

2058

and based on the liberty, equality and solidarity of its members.

2059

2060

Clearly, in terms of their economic policies, the Makhnovists

2061

proposed a clear and viable alternative to both rural and

2062

urban capitalism, namely workers' self-management. Industry

2063

and land would be socialised, with the actual management of

2064

production resting in the hands of the workers themselves

2065

and co-ordinated by federated workers' organisations. On the

2066

land, they proposed the creation of voluntary communes which

2067

would enable the benefits of co-operative labour to be applied.

2068

Like their political ideas, their economic ideas were designed

2069

to ensure the freedom of working people and the end of hierarchy

2070

in all aspects of society.

2071

2072

In summary, the Makhnovist had a constructive social ideas which

2073

aimed to ensure the total economic and political emancipation of

2074

the working people. Their vision of a free society was based on

2075

a federation of free, self-managed soviets, the socialisation of

2076

the means of life and workers' self-management of production by

2077

a federation of labour unions or factory committees. As the

2078

black flags they carried into battle read, "liberty or death"

2079

and "the land to the peasants, the factories to the workers."

2080

2081

<a name="app7"><h2>7 Did they apply their ideas in practice?</h2>

2082

2083

Yes, the Makhnovists consistently applied their political and social

2084

ideas when they had the opportunity to do so. Unlike the Bolsheviks,

2085

who quickly turned away from their stated aims of soviet democracy

2086

and workers' control in favour of dictatorship by the Bolshevik party,

2087

the Makhnovists did all in their power to encourage, create and defend

2088

working-class freedom and self-management (see

2089

<a href="append46.html#app14">section 14</a> for

2090

further discussion). In the words of historian Christopher Reed:

2091

2092

"there can be no question that the anarchists did everything

2093

they could to free the peasants and workers and give them the

2094

opportunity to develop their own forms of collective control

2095

over land and factories . . . [T]he Ukrainian anarchists fought

2096

under the slogan of land to the peasants, factories to the

2097

workers and power to the soviets. Wherever they had influence

2098

they supported the setting up of communes and soviets. They

2099

introduced safeguards intended to protect direct self-government

2100

from organised interference . . . They conducted relentless

2101

class war against landlords, officers, factory owners and the

2102

commercial classes could expect short shrift from Makhno and

2103

his men, especially if they had taken up arms against the

2104

people or, like the Whites . . ., had been responsible for

2105

looting, pogroms and vicious reprisals against unarmed peasants

2106

on a colossal scale." [From Tsar to Soviets, p. 263]

2107

</blockquote>

2108

As we discussed in the

2109

<a href="append46.html#app6">last section</a>, the core ideas which

2110

inspired the Makhnovists were working-class self-determination

2111

and self-management. They aimed at the creation of a "free

2112

soviet system" and the end of capitalism by rural and industrial

2113

self-management. It is to the credit of the Makhnovists that

2114

they applied these ideas in practice rather than talking about

2115

high principles and doing the exact opposite.

2116

2117

In practice, of course, the war left little room for much

2118

construction work. As Voline pointed out, one of the key

2119

disadvantages of the movement was the "almost continual

2120

necessity of fighting and defending itself against all

2121

kinds of enemies, without being able to concentrate on

2122

peaceful and truly positive works." [The Unknown Revolution,

2123

p. 571] However, in the disruption of the Civil War the

2124

Makhnovists applied their ideas when and where they could.

2125

2126

Within the army, as we discussed in

2127

<a href="append46.html#app5">section 5</a>, the

2128

insurgent troops elected their own commanders and had

2129

regular mass assemblies to discuss policy and the agreed

2130

norms of conduct within it. In civilian matters, the

2131

Makhnovists from the start encouraged working-class

2132

self-organisation and self-government. By late 1917,

2133

in the area around Hulyai Pole "the toiling masses

2134

proceeded . . . to consolidate their revolution. The

2135

little factories functioned . . . under the control of

2136

the workers. The estates were split up . . . among the

2137

peasants . . . a certain number of agricultural communes

2138

were formed." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 248]

2139

2140

The aim of the Makhnovists was to "transfer all the lands

2141

owned by the gentry, monasteries, and the state into the

2142

hands of peasants or to organise, if they wished, peasant

2143

communes." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 70] This policy was

2144

introduced from the start, and by the autumn of 1917, all

2145

land, equipment and livestock around Hulyai Pole had been

2146

expropriated from the gentry and kulaks and placed in the

2147

hands of working peasants. Land reform had been achieved

2148

by the direct action of the peasantry.

2149

2150

However, "many of the peasants understood that the task

2151

was not finished, that it was not enough to appropriate

2152

a plot of land and be content with it. From the hardships

2153

of their lives they learned that enemies were watching

2154

from all sides, and that they must stick together. In

2155

several places there were attempts to organise social

2156

life communally." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 86]

2157

2158

In line with social anarchist theory, the Makhnovists

2159

also tried to introduce collective forms of farming. These

2160

experiments in collective working and living were called

2161

"free communes." Despite the difficult military situation

2162

communes were established, principally near Hulyai Pole, in

2163

the autumn of 1917. This activity was resumed in February to

2164

March of 1918. They re-appeared in early 1919, once the threat

2165

of counter-revolution had been (temporarily) defeated.

2166

2167

There were four of these communes within five miles of Hulyai

2168

Pole itself and many more further afield. According to Makhno,

2169

these agricultural communes "were in most cases organised by

2170

peasants, though sometimes their composition was a mixture

2171

of peasants and workmen [sic!]. Their organisation was based

2172

on equality and solidarity of the members. All members of

2173

these communes -- both men and women -- applied themselves

2174

willingly to their tasks, whether in the field or the household."

2175

Unlike many communes, people were given the personal space

2176

they desired, so "any members of the commune who wanted

2177

to cook separately for themselves and their children, or

2178

to take food from the communal kitchens and eat it in their

2179

own quarters, met with no objection from the other members."

2180

The management of each commune "was conducted by a general

2181

meeting of all its members." In addition, the communes

2182

decided to introducing anarchist schooling based on the

2183

ideas of Franciso Ferrer (see

2184

<a href="secJ5.html#secj513">section J.5.13</a> for details).

2185

Makhno himself worked on one for two days a week for a

2186

period. [Makhno, quoted by Paul Avrich, Anarchists in

2187

the Russian Revolution, pp. 131]

2188

2189

They were set up on the former estates of landlords, and

2190

consisted of around 10 families or 100 to 300 people and

2191

although each had peasant anarchist members not all the

2192

members were anarchists. Makhno worked on Commune No. 1,

2193

which was on the estate of former landlord Klassen. When

2194

re-founded in 1919 this commune was named after Rosa

2195

Luxemburg, the Marxist revolutionary who had recently

2196

been murdered in the German revolution. It was a success,

2197

for by the spring sowing it had grown from nine families

2198

to 285 members working 340 acres of land. The communes

2199

represented a way that poor and middle peasants could

2200

pool resources to work estates that they could not have

2201

worked otherwise and, as Michael Malet points out, "they

2202

were organised from the bottom up, not the top down."

2203

[Op. Cit., p. 121]

2204

2205

However, as Makhno himself acknowledged, while the "majority

2206

of the toiling population saw in the organisation of rural

2207

communes the healthy germ of a new social life" which

2208

could provide a "model of a free and communal form of

2209

life," the "mass of people did not go over to it." They

2210

cited as their reasons "the advance of the German and

2211

Austrian armies, their own lack of organisation, and their

2212

inability to defend this order against the new 'revolutionary'

2213

[Bolshevik] and counter-revolutionary authorities. For

2214

this reason the toiling population of the district limited

2215

their revolutionary activity to supporting in every way

2216

those bold springs." [Makhno, quoted by Avrich, Op. Cit.,

2217

p. 132] Given that the communes were finally destroyed

2218

by White and Red forces in June 1919, their caution

2219

was justified. After this, peace did not return long

2220

enough for the experiment to be restarted.

2221

2222

As Michael Malet argues:

2223

2224

"Very few peasant movements in history have been able to

2225

show in practice the sort of society and type of landholding

2226

they would like to see. The Makhnovist movement is proof

2227

that peasant revolutionaries can put forward positive,

2228

practical ideas." [Op. Cit., p. 121]

2229

</blockquote>

2230

The Makhnovist experiments, it should be noted, have strong

2231

similarities to the rural revolution during the Spanish

2232

Revolution of 1936 (see sections

2233

<a href="secI8.html#seci85">I.8.5</a> and

2234

<a href="secI8.html#seci86">I.8.6</a> for more

2235

details).

2236

2237

As well as implementing their economic ideas on workers'

2238

self-management, land reform and free communes, the

2239

Makhnovists also organised regional congresses as well

2240

as local soviets. Most of the activity happened in and

2241

around Hulyai Pole, the focal point of the movement.This

2242

was in accord with their vision of a "free soviet system."

2243

Needless to say, the congresses could only be called

2244

during periods of relative calm (i.e. the Makhnovist

2245

home area was not occupied by hostile forces) and so

2246

congresses of insurgents, peasants and workers were

2247

called in early 1919 and another in October of that

2248

year. The actual dates of the regional congresses were:

2249

2250

23 January 1919 at Velyka Mykhailivka

2251

2252

12 February 1919 at Hulyai Pole

2253

2254

10 April 1919 at Hulyai Pole

2255

2256

20 October 1919 at Aleksandrovsk

2257

</blockquote>

2258

A congress for the fifteenth of June 1919 never met because

2259

Trotsky unilaterally banned it, under pain of death to

2260

anyone even discussing it, never mind calling for it

2261

or attending as a delegate. Unlike the third congress,

2262

which ignored a similar ban by Dybenko, the fourth congress

2263

could not go ahead due to the treacherous attack by the

2264

Red Army that preceded it. Four Makhnovist commanders were

2265

executed by the Red Army for advertising this congress.

2266

Another congress planned for Aleksandrovsk in November

2267

1920 was also prevented by Bolshevik betrayal, namely the

2268

attack after Wrangel had been defeated. [Malet, Op. Cit.,

2269

p. 108] See

2270

<a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a> for further details.

2271

2272

The reason for these regional congresses was simple, to

2273

co-ordinate the revolution. "It was indispensable," Arshinov

2274

notes, "to establish institutions which unified first a

2275

district composed of various villages, and then the

2276

districts and departments which composed the liberated

2277

region. It was indispensable to find general solutions for

2278

problems common to the entire region. It was indispensable

2279

to create organs suitable for these tasks. And the peasants

2280

did not fail to create them. These organs were the regional

2281

congresses of peasants and workers." [Op. Cit., pp. 87-8]

2282

These congresses "were composed of delegates of peasants,

2283

workers and of the insurgent army, and were intended to

2284

clarify and record the decisions of the toiling masses and to

2285

be regarded as the supreme authority for the liberated area."

2286

[David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 266]

2287

2288

The first congress, which was the smallest, discussed the

2289

strengthening of the front, the adoption of a common

2290

nomenclature for popular organisations (soviets and the

2291

like) and to send a delegation to convince the draftees

2292

in the Nationalist forces to return home. It was also

2293

decided to organise a second congress. The second congress

2294

was larger, having 245 delegates from 350 districts. This

2295

congress "was strongly anti-Bolshevik and favoured a

2296

democratic socio-political way of life." [Palij, Op. Cit.,

2297

p. 153] One delegate made the issue clear:

2298

2299

"No party has a right to usurp governmental power into

2300

its own hands . . . We want life, all problems, to be

2301

decided locally, not by order from any authority above;

2302

and all peasants and workers should decide their own

2303

fate, while those elected should only carry out the

2304

toilers' wish." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154]

2305

</blockquote>

2306

A general resolution was passed, which acknowledged the

2307

fact that the Bolshevik party was "demanding a monopoly of

2308

the Revolution." It also stated:

2309

2310

"With deep regret the Congress must also declare that

2311

apart from external enemies a perhaps even greater danger,

2312

arising from its internal shortcomings, threatens the

2313

Revolution of the Russian and Ukrainian peasants and

2314

workers. The Soviet Governments of Russia and of the

2315

Ukraine, by their orders and decrees, are making efforts

2316

to deprive local soviets of peasants and workers'

2317

deputies of their freedom and autonomy." [quoted by

2318

Footman, Op. Cit., p. 267]

2319

</blockquote>

2320

As noted in

2321

<a href="append46.html#app5">section 5</a>,

2322

the congress also decided to

2323

issue an "obligatory" mobilisation to gather troops for

2324

the Army. It also accepted a resolution on land reform,

2325

stating that the land "belongs to nobody" and could be

2326

used by anyone as long as they did not use wage labour

2327

(see

2328

<a href="append46.html#app6">section 6</a>

2329

for the full resolution). The

2330

congress accepted a resolution against plunder,

2331

violence, and anti-Jewish pogroms, recognising it as

2332

an attempt by the Tsarist government to "turn the

2333

attention of all toiling people away from the real

2334

reason for their poverty," namely the Tsarist regime's

2335

oppression. [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 155]

2336

2337

The second congress also elected the Revolutionary Military

2338

Soviet of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents, which had "no

2339

powers to initiate policy but designed merely to implement

2340

the decisions of the periodic congresses." [Footman, Op. Cit.,

2341

p. 267]

2342

2343

The third congress was the largest and most representative,

2344

with delegates from 72 volosts (in which two million

2345

people lived). This congress aimed to "clarify the

2346

situation and to consider the prospects for the future

2347

of the region." It decided to conduct a voluntary

2348

mobilisation of men to fight the Whites and "rejected,

2349

with the approval of both rich and poor peasants, the

2350

Bolshevik expropriations." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 158]

2351

Toward the end of the congress, it received a telegram

2352

from the Bolshevik commander Dybenko calling it

2353

"counter-revolutionary," its organisers "outlaws"

2354

and dissolving it by his order. The congress immediately

2355

voted an indignant resolution in rely. This corrected

2356

Dybenko's factual mistakes on who called it, informed

2357

him why it was called, gave him a history lesson on

2358

the Makhnovist region and asked him:

2359

2360

"Can there exist laws made by a few people who call

2361

themselves revolutionaries which permit them to

2362

outlaw a whole people who are more revolutionary

2363

than they are themselves? . . .

2364

2365

"Is it permissible, is it admissible, that they should

2366

come to the country to establish laws of violence,

2367

to subjugate a people who have just overthrown all

2368

lawmakers and all laws?

2369

2370

"Does there exist a law according to which a revolutionary

2371

has the right to apply the most severe penalties to a

2372

revolutionary mass, of which he calls himself the

2373

defender, simply because this mass has taken the good

2374

things which the revolution promised them, freedom

2375

and equality, without his permission?

2376

2377

"Should the mass of revolutionary people perhaps be

2378

silent when such a revolutionary takes away the

2379

freedom which they have just conquered?

2380

2381

"Do the laws of the revolution order the shooting of

2382

a delegate because he believes he ought to carry out

2383

the mandate given him by the revolutionary mass

2384

which elected him?

2385

2386

"Whose interests should the revolutionary defend;

2387

those of the Party or those of the people who set

2388

the revolution in motion with their blood?" [quoted

2389

by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 103]

2390

</blockquote>

2391

As we discuss in

2392

<a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a>,

2393

Trotsky's order to

2394

ban the fourth congress indicates that such laws

2395

do exist, with the "entire peasant and labouring

2396

population are declared guilty of high treason

2397

if they dare participate in their own free congress."

2398

[Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 123]

2399

2400

The last congress was held between 20th and 26th of October

2401

in Aleksandrovsk. One delegate was to be elected per 3000

2402

people and one delegate per military unit. This gave 270

2403

mostly peasant delegates. Only 18 were workers, of which 6

2404

were Mensheviks, who walked out after Makhno called them

2405

"lapdogs of the bourgeoisie" during the discussion on

2406

"free socio-economic organisations"! [Malet, Op. Cit.,

2407

p. 109] The congress passed a number of resolutions,

2408

concentrating on the care of the wounded and the poorest

2409

part of the population, a voluntary mobilisation, voluntary

2410

peasant contributions to feed the army and forced levies on

2411

the bourgeoisie.

2412

2413

According to Voline, the chairman, Makhnovist ideas were

2414

freely discussed:

2415

2416

"The idea of free Soviets, genuinely functioning in the

2417

interests of the working population; the question of

2418

direct relationships between peasants and city workers,

2419

based on mutual exchange of the products of their

2420

labour; the launching of a libertarian and egalitarian

2421

social organisation in the cities and the country; all

2422

these question were seriously and closely studied by

2423

the delegates themselves, with the assistance and

2424

co-operation of qualified comrades." [Op. Cit., p. 640]

2425

</blockquote>

2426

He notes that the congress "decided that the workers,

2427

without any authority, would organise their economic,

2428

political and administrative life for themselves, by

2429

means of their own abilities, and through their own

2430

direct organs, united on a federative basis." [Op. Cit.,

2431

p. 641]

2432

2433

It is significant to note that the congress also discussed

2434

the activities of the Makhnovists within the city itself.

2435

One delegate raised the issue of the activities of the

2436

Kontrrazvedka, the Makhnovist "counter-intelligence"

2437

section. As noted in

2438

<a href="append46.html#app5">section 5</a>,

2439

the Makhnovists,

2440

like all the armies in the Russian Civil War, had its

2441

intelligence service. It combined a number of functions,

2442

such as military reconnaissance, arrest and holding of

2443

prisoners, counter-insurgency ("Originally it had a

2444

punitive function, but because of improper treatment

2445

of prisoners of war, it was deprived of its punitive

2446

function." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 300]). The delegate

2447

stated that this "counter-espionage service" was

2448

engaged in "arbitrary acts and uncontrolled actions

2449

-- of which some are very serious, rather like the

2450

Bolshevik Cheka." [quoted by Voline, Op. Cit., p. 643]

2451

Immediately a commission of several delegates was

2452

created to investigate the situation. Voline argues

2453

that "[s]uch an initiative on the part of workers'

2454

delegates would not have been possible under the

2455

Bolshevik regime. It was by activity of this kind that

2456

the congress gave a preview of the way in which a

2457

society should function from the beginning if it

2458

is based on a desire for progress and self-realisation."

2459

[Voline, Ibid.] Sadly, the commission could not

2460

complete its work due to the city being evacuated

2461

soon after the congress.

2462

2463

Another incident shows that under the Makhnovists the

2464

civilian population was in control. A delegate noted

2465

that Klein, the Makhnovist military commander in the

2466

city, had become publicly and riotously drunk after

2467

issuing proclamations against drunkenness. Klein was

2468

called before the congress, which accepted his apology

2469

and his request to be sent to the front, away from

2470

the boredom of desk work which had driven him to drink!

2471

This, according to Voline, showed that the workers and

2472

their congress were the masters and the army its servant.

2473

[Voline, Op. Cit., pp. 645-7]

2474

2475

Outside of the congresses the work of local Soviets was to be

2476

co-ordinated through the Revolutionary Military Soviet (RMS), the

2477

first RMS was set up by the 2nd congress and consisted of one

2478

delegate for each of the 32 volsts the Makhnovista had liberated.

2479

The RMS was to be answerable to the congresses and limited to

2480

implementing their decisions but the difficult military situation

2481

meant this seldom happened. When it did (the 3rd Congress) the

2482

Congress had no problems with its actions in the previous period.

2483

After the Aleksandrovsk congress, the RMS consisted of 22 delegates

2484

including three known Bolsheviks and four known Makhnovists, the

2485

Bolsheviks considered the remaining delegates "anarchists or

2486

anarchist sympathisers".

2487

2488

The military chaos of 1920 saw the RMS dissolved and replaced by

2489

the Soviet of Revolutionary Insurgents of the Ukraine, which

2490

consisted of seven members elected by the insurgent army. Its

2491

secretary was a left Socialist Revolutionary. The RMS in addition

2492

to making decisions between Congresses carried out propaganda work

2493

including the editing of the Makhnovist paper "The Road to Freedom"

2494

and collected and distributed money.

2495

2496

Lastly, we must discuss what happened when the Makhnovists

2497

applied their ideas in any cities they liberated as this

2498

gives a clear idea of the way they applied their ideas in

2499

practice. Anarchist participant Yossif the Emigrant

2500

stated that it was "Makhno's custom upon taking a city

2501

or town to call the people together and announce to

2502

them that henceforth they are free to organise their

2503

lives as they think best for themselves. He always proclaims

2504

complete freedom of speech and press; he does not fill

2505

the prisons or begin executions, as the Communists do."

2506

He stressed it was "the expression of the toilers themselves"

2507

and "the first great mass movement that by its own efforts

2508

seeks to free itself from government and establish economic

2509

self-determination. In that sense it is thoroughly

2510

Anarchistic." [Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth,

2511

pp. 193-5]

2512

2513

Arshinov paints a similar picture:

2514

2515

"As soon as they entered a city, they declared that they

2516

did not represent any kind of authority, that their armed

2517

forces obliged no one to any sort of obligation and had

2518

no other aim than to protect the freedom of the working

2519

people. The freedom of the peasants and the workers,

2520

said the Makhnovists, resides in the peasants and workers

2521

themselves and may not be restricted. In all fields of

2522

their lives it is up to the workers and peasants themselves

2523

to construct whatever they consider necessary. As for the

2524

Makhnovists -- they can only assist them with advice, by

2525

putting at their disposal the intellectual or military

2526

forces they need, but under no circumstances can the

2527

Makhnovists prescribe for them in any manner." [Arshinov,

2528

Op. Cit., p. 148]

2529

</blockquote>

2530

In addition, the Makhnovists "fully applied the revolutionary

2531

principles of freedom of speech, of thought, of the press,

2532

and of political association. In all cities and towns

2533

occupied by the Makhnovists, they began by lifting all

2534

the prohibitions and repealing all the restrictions

2535

imposed on the press and on political organisations by

2536

one or another power." Indeed, the "only restriction that

2537

the Makhnovists considered necessary to impose on the

2538

Bolsheviks, the left Socialist-Revolutionaries and other

2539

statists was a prohibition on the formation of those

2540

'revolutionary committees' which sought to impose a

2541

dictatorship over the people." They also took the

2542

opportunity to destroy every prison they got their

2543

hands on, believing that free people "have no use

2544

for prisons" which are "always built only to subjugate

2545

the people, the workers and peasants." [Op. Cit., p. 153,

2546

p. 154 and p. 153]

2547

2548

The Makhnovists encouraged self-management. Looking

2549

at Aleksandrovsk:

2550

2551

"They immediately invited the working population to

2552

participate in a general conference of the workers

2553

of the city. When the conference met, a detailed

2554

report was given on the military situation in the

2555

region and it was proposed that the workers organise

2556

the life of the city and the functioning of the factories

2557

with their own forces and their own organisations, basing

2558

themselves on the principles of labour and equality. The

2559

workers enthusiastically acclaimed all these suggestions;

2560

but they hesitated to carry them out, troubled by their

2561

novelty, and troubled mainly by the nearness of the

2562

front, which made them fear that the situation of the

2563

town was uncertain and unstable. The first conference was

2564

followed by a second. The problems of organising life

2565

according to principles of self-management by workers

2566

were examined and discussed with animation by the masses

2567

of workers, who all welcomed these ideas with the greatest

2568

enthusiasm, but who only with difficulty succeeded in

2569

giving them concrete forms. Railroad workers took the first

2570

step in this direction. They formed a committee charged

2571

with organising the railway network of the region . . .

2572

From this point, the proletariat of Aleksandrovsk began

2573

to turn systematically to the problem of creating organs

2574

of self-management." [Op. Cit., p. 149]

2575

</blockquote>

2576

Unfortunately, the Makhnovists occupied only two cities

2577

(Alexandrovsk for four weeks and Katerinoslav for two

2578

periods of one and five weeks respectively). As a rule

2579

the Makhnovist rank and file had little or no

2580

experience of life in the cities and this placed severe

2581

limits on their ability to understand the specific problems

2582

of the workers there. In addition, the cities did not

2583

have a large anarchist movement, meaning that the Mensheviks

2584

and Bolsheviks had more support then they did. Both parties

2585

were, at best, neutral to the Makhnovists and anarchists,

2586

so making it likely that they would influence the city

2587

workers against the movement. As Voline noted, the

2588

"absence of a vigorous organised workers' movement which

2589

could support the peasant insurgents" was a disadvantage.

2590

[Op. Cit., p. 571]

2591

2592

There were minor successes in both cities. In Alexandrovsk,

2593

some trains were got running and a few factories reopened.

2594

In Katerinoslav (where the city was under a state of siege

2595

and constant bombardment by the Whites), the tobacco workers

2596

won a collective agreement that had long been refused and

2597

the bakers set themselves to preparing the socialisation of

2598

their industry and drawing up plans to feed both the army

2599

and the civilian population. Unsurprisingly, the bakers

2600

had long been under anarcho-syndicalist influence. [Malet,

2601

Op. Cit., p. 124]

2602

2603

Clearly, whenever they could, the Makhnovists practised their

2604

stated goals of working-class self-management and supported

2605

the organisational structures to ensure the control of and

2606

participation in the social revolution by the toiling masses.

2607

Equally, when they liberated towns and cities they did not

2608

impose their own power upon the working-class population but

2609

rather urged it to organise itself by setting up soviets,

2610

unions and other forms of working-class power. They urged

2611

workers to organise self-management of industry. True to the

2612

anarchist vision of a free society, they advocated and practised

2613

freedom of assembly, speech and organisation. In the words

2614

of historian Christopher Reed:

2615

2616

"Makhno's Insurgent Army . . . was the quintessence of a

2617

self-administered, people's revolutionary army. It arose

2618

from the peasants, it was composed of peasants, it handed

2619

power to the peasants. It encouraged the growth of communes,

2620

co-operatives and soviets but distrusted all permanent

2621

elites attempting to take hold within them. It would be

2622

foolish to think that Makhno was supported by every

2623

peasant or that he and his followers could not, on

2624

occasions, direct their cruelty towards dissidents within

2625

their own ranks, but, on the whole, the movement perhaps

2626

erred on the side of being too self-effacing, of handing

2627

too much authority to the population at key moments."

2628

[From Tsar to Soviets, p. 260]

2629

</blockquote>

2630

As such, Makhnovist practice matched its theory. This can

2631

be said of few social movements and it is to their credit

2632

that this is the case.

2633

2634

<a name="app8"><h2>8 Weren't the Makhnovists just Kulaks?</h2>

2635

2636

According to Trotsky (and, of course, repeated by his followers),

2637

"Makhno created a cavalry of peasants who supplied their

2638

own horses. These were not the downtrodden village poor whom

2639

the October revolution first awakened, but the strong and

2640

well-fed peasants who were afraid of losing what they had.

2641

The anarchist ideas of Makhno (ignoring of the state,

2642

non-recognition of the central power) corresponded to the

2643

spirit of this kulak cavalry as nothing else could." He

2644

argued that the Makhnovist struggle was not the anarchist

2645

struggle against the state and capitalism, but rather "a

2646

struggle of the infuriated petty property owner against the

2647

proletarian dictatorship." The Makhno movement, he stressed,

2648

was just an example of the "convulsions of the peasant petty

2649

bourgeoisie which desired, of course, to liberate itself from

2650

capital but at the same time did not consent to subordinate

2651

itself to the dictatorship of the proletariat." [Lenin and

2652

Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 80, p. 89 and pp. 89-90]

2653

2654

Unfortunately for those who use this kind of argument against

2655

the Makhnovists, it fails to stand up to any kind of scrutiny.

2656

Ignoring the sophistry of equating the Bolshevik party's

2657

dictatorship with the "dictatorship of the proletariat,"

2658

we can easily refute Trotsky's somewhat spurious argument

2659

concerning the background of the Makhnovists.

2660

2661

Firstly, however, we should clarify what is meant by the term

2662

"kulak." According to one set of Trotskyist editors, it was

2663

"popularly used to refer to well-to-do peasants who owned land

2664

and hired poor peasants to work it." ["glossary," Lenin

2665

and Trotsky,

2666

Kronstadt, p. 146] The term itself derives from the Russian

2667

for "fist," with appropriate overtones of grasping and meanness.

2668

In other words, a rural small-scale capitalist (employer of wage

2669

labour and often the renter of land and loaner of money as well)

2670

rather than a well-off peasant as such. Trotsky, however, muddies

2671

the water considerably by talking about the "peasant petty

2672

bourgeoisie" as well. Given that a peasant is "petty" (i.e.

2673

petit) bourgeois (i.e. own and use their own means of production),

2674

Trotsky is blurring the lines between rural capitalist (kulak)

2675

and the middle peasantry, as occurred so often under Bolshevik

2676

rule.

2677

2678

Secondly, we could just point to the eyewitness accounts of

2679

the anarchists Arshinov and Voline. Both stress that the

2680

Makhno movement was a mass revolutionary movement of the

2681

peasant and working poor in the Southern Ukraine. Arshinov

2682

states that after Denikin's troops had been broken in 1919,

2683

the Makhnovists "literally swept through villages, towns

2684

and cities like an enormous broom" and the "returned

2685

pomeshchiks [landlords], the kulaks , the police,

2686

the priests" were destroyed, so refuting the "the myth

2687

spread by the Bolsheviks about the so-called kulak

2688

character of the Makhnovshchina." Ironically, he states

2689

that "wherever the Makhnovist movement developed, the

2690

kulaks sought the protection of the Soviet authorities,

2691

and found it there." [Op. Cit., p. 145] Yossif the Emigrant,

2692

another anarchist active in the movement, told anarchist

2693

Alexander Berkman that while there was a "kulak" element

2694

within it, "the great majority are not of that type."

2695

[quoted by Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth, p. 187] According

2696

to Gallina Makhno (Makhno's wife), when entering a town

2697

or village it was "always Makhno's practice to compel

2698

the rich peasants, the kulaki , to give up their surplus

2699

wealth, which was then divided among the poor, Makhno keeping

2700

a share for his army. Then he would call a meeting of the

2701

villagers, address them on the purposes of the povstantsi

2702

[partisan] movement, and distribute his literature." [Emma

2703

Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 149]

2704

2705

However, this would be replying to Trotsky's assertions

2706

with testimony which was obviously pro-Makhnovist. As such,

2707

we need to do more than this, we need to refute Trotsky's

2708

assertions in depth, drawing on as many non-anarchist

2709

sources and facts as possible.

2710

2711

The key to refuting Trotsky's argument that the Makhnovists

2712

were just kulaks is to understand the nature of rural life

2713

before and during 1917. Michael Malet estimates that in 1917,

2714

the peasantry could be divided into three broad categories.

2715

About 40 percent could no longer make a living off their land

2716

or had none, another 40 per cent who could make ends meet,

2717

except in a bad year, and 20 per cent who were relatively

2718

well off, with a fraction at the very top who were very well

2719

off. [Op. Cit., p. 117] Assuming that "kulak" simply meant

2720

"rich" or "well-off" peasant, then Trotsky is arguing that

2721

the Makhnovist movement represented and was based on this

2722

top 20 per cent. However, if we take the term "kulak" to

2723

mean "small rural capitalist" (i.e. employer of wage labour)

2724

then this figure would be substantially smaller as few within

2725

this group would employ hired labour or rent land. In fact,

2726

the percentage of peasant households in Russia employing

2727

permanent wage-labour was 3.3% in 1917, falling to 1% in

2728

1920. [Teodor Shanin, The Awkward Class, p. 171]

2729

2730

In 1917, the peasants all across the Russian Empire took

2731

back the land stolen by the landlords. This lead to two

2732

developments. Firstly, there was a "powerful levelling

2733

effect" in rural life. [Shanin, Op. Cit., p. 159] Secondly,

2734

the peasants would only support those who supported their

2735

aspirations for land reform (which was why the Bolsheviks

2736

effectively stole the Socialist-Revolutionary land policy

2737

in 1917). The Ukraine was no different. In 1917 the class

2738

structure in the countryside changed when the Hulyai Pole

2739

peasants were amongst the first to seize the landlords'

2740

land. In August 1917 Makhno assembled all the landed gentry

2741

("pomeshchiks") of the region "and made them give him

2742

all the documents relating to lands and buildings." After

2743

making an exact inventory of all this property and

2744

presenting a report to the local and then district

2745

congress of soviets, he "proceeded to equalise the rights

2746

of the pomeshchiks and kulaks with those of the poor

2747

peasant labourers in regard to the use of the land . . .

2748

the congress decided to let the pomeshchiks and kulaks

2749

have a share of the land, as well as tools and livestock,

2750

equal to that of the labourers." Several other peasant

2751

congresses nearby followed this example and adopted the

2752

same measure. [Peter Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 53-4]

2753

2754

Most of this land, tools and livestock was distributed to poor

2755

peasants, the rest was used to set up voluntary communes where

2756

the peasants themselves (and not the state) self-managed the

2757

land. Thus the peasants' "economic conditions in the region of

2758

the Makhno movement were greatly improved at the expense of

2759

the landlords, the church, monasteries, and the richest

2760

peasants." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214] This redistribution was

2761

based on the principle that every peasant was entitled to as

2762

much land as their family could cultivate without the use of

2763

hired labour. The abolition of wage labour in the countryside

2764

was also the method the anarchists were to use in Spain to

2765

divide up the land some 20 years later.

2766

2767

We should also note that the Makhnovist policy of land reform

2768

based on the abolition of wage labour was, as we noted in

2769

<a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>,

2770

the position agreed at the second regional congress called

2771

in 1919. The Makhnovists specifically argued with regards to

2772

the kulaks:

2773

2774

"We are sure that . . . the kulak elements of the village will

2775

be pushed to one side by the very course of events. The toiling

2776

peasantry will itself turn effortlessly on the kulaks, first by

2777

adopting the kulak's surplus land for general use, then naturally

2778

drawing the kulak elements into the social organisation." [cited

2779

by Michael Malet, Op. Cit., pp. 118-9]

2780

</blockquote>

2781

As such, when Trotsky talks about the "downtrodden village poor

2782

whom the October revolution first awakened," he is wrong. In the

2783

area around Hulyai Pole it was not the October revolution which

2784

"first awakened" them into action, it was the activities of

2785

Makhno and the anarchists during the summer and autumn of 1917

2786

which had done that (or, more correctly, it was their activities

2787

which aided this process as the poor peasants and landless workers

2788

needed no encouragement to expropriate the landlords).

2789

2790

Needless to say, this land redistribution reinforced Makhno's

2791

popularity with the people and was essential for the army's

2792

later popularity and its ability to depend on the peasants for

2793

support. However, the landlords and richer kulaks did not

2794

appreciate it and, unsurprisingly, tried to crush the movement

2795

when they could. Once the Austro-Germans invaded, the local

2796

rich took the opportunity to roll back the social revolution

2797

and the local pomeshchiks and kulaks formed a "special

2798

volunteer detachment" to fight Makhno once he had returned

2799

from exile in July 1918. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 59]

2800

2801

This system of land reform did not seek to divide the village.

2802

Indeed, the Makhnovist approach is sometimes called the "united

2803

village" theory. Rather than provoke unnecessary and damaging

2804

conflict behind the frontlines, land reform would be placed

2805

in the hands of the village community, which would ensure that

2806

even the kulaks would have a fair stake in the post-revolutionary

2807

society as everyone would have as much land as they could till

2808

without using hired labour. The Bolshevik policy, as we will see,

2809

aimed at artificially imposing "class conflict" upon the villages

2810

from without and was a disaster as it was totally alien to the

2811

actual socio-economic situation. Unsurprisingly, peasant

2812

communities as a whole rose up against the Bolsheviks all

2813

across Russia.

2814

2815

As such, the claim that the Makhnovists were simply "kulaks"

2816

is false as it fails to, firstly, acknowledge the actual

2817

pre-revolutionary composition of the peasantry and, secondly,

2818

to understand the social-revolution that had happened in

2819

the region of Hulyai Pole in 1917 and, thirdly, totally ignores

2820

the actual Makhnovist position on land reform. As Michael Malet

2821

argues, the Bolsheviks "totally misconstrued the nature of the

2822

Makhno movement. It was not a movement of kulaks, but of the

2823

broad mass of the peasants, especially the poor and middle

2824

peasants." [Op. Cit., p. 122]

2825

2826

This was sometimes acknowledged by Bolsheviks themselves.

2827

IAkovlev acknowledged in 1920 that in 1919 Makhno "was a

2828

real peasant idol, an expression of all peasant spontaneity

2829

against . . . Communists in the cities and simultaneously

2830

against city capitalists and landowners. In the Makhno movement

2831

it is difficult to distinguish where the poor peasant begins

2832

[and] the 'kulak' ends. It was a spontaneous peasant movement

2833

.. . . In the village we had no foothold, there was not one

2834

element with which we could join that would be our ally in

2835

the struggle against the bandits [sic!]." [quoted by Palij,

2836

Op. Cit., p. 157]

2837

2838

According to a Soviet author present at the Makhnovist regional

2839

congresses on January 23 and February 12: "In 1919 when I asked

2840

the chairman of the two Congresses (a Jewish farmer) whether

2841

the 'kulaks' were allowed to participate in the Congress, he

2842

angrily responded: 'When will you finally stop talking about

2843

kulaks? Now we have no kulaks among us: everybody is tilling

2844

as much land as he wishes and as much as he can.'" [quoted

2845

by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 293]

2846

2847

According to Christian Rakovskii, the Bolshevik ruler of

2848

Ukraine, "three-fourths of the membership of the [partisan]

2849

bands were poor peasants." He presented a highly original

2850

and inventive explanation of this fact by arguing that "rich

2851

peasants stayed in the village and paid poor ones to fight.

2852

Poor peasants were the hired army of the kulaks." [Vladimir

2853

N. Brovkin, Behind the Front the Lines of the Civil War,

2854

p. 112 and p. 328]

2855

2856

Even Trotsky (himself the son of a rich peasant!) let the cat

2857

out of the bag in 1919:

2858

2859

"The liquidation of Makhno does not mean the end of the

2860

Makhnovschyna, which has its roots in the ignorant popular

2861

masses." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 122]

2862

</blockquote>

2863

Ultimately, all sources (including Bolshevik ones) accept that

2864

in the autumn of 1919 (at the very least) Makhno's support was

2865

overwhelming and came from all sections of the population.

2866

2867

Even ignoring the fact there was a social revolution and the

2868

eye-witness Bolshevik accounts (including Trotsky's!) which

2869

contradict Trotsky's assertions, Trotsky can be faulted for

2870

other reasons.

2871

2872

The most important issue is simply that the Makhnovist movement

2873

could not have survived four years if (at best) 20 per cent of

2874

the population supported it. As Christopher Reed notes, when

2875

the Makhnovists were "in retreat they would abandon their weapons

2876

and merge with the local population. The fact that they were able

2877

to succeed shows how closely they were linked with the ordinary

2878

peasants because such tactics made Makhno's men very vulnerable

2879

to informers. There were very few examples of betrayal." [Op. Cit.,

2880

p. 260] If Makhno's social base was as weak as claimed there

2881

would have been no need for the Bolsheviks to enter into alliances

2882

with him, particularly in the autumn of 1920 when the Makhnovists

2883

held no significant liberated area. Even after the defeat of

2884

Wrangel and the subsequent Bolshevik betrayal and repression,

2885

Makhno's mass base allowed him to remain active for months.

2886

Indeed, it was only when the peasants themselves had become

2887

exhausted in 1921 due to worsening economic conditions and

2888

state repression, were the Makhnovists finally forced into

2889

exile.

2890

2891

In the attempt to "eradicate his influence in the countryside" the

2892

Bolsheviks "by weight of numbers and consistent ruthlessness they

2893

achieved a partial success." This was achieved by state terrorism:

2894

2895

"On the occupation of a village by the Red Army the Cheka would

2896

hunt out and hang all active Makhnovist supporters; an amenable

2897

Soviet would be set up; officials would be appointed or imported

2898

to organise the poor peasants . . . and three or four Red militia

2899

men left as armed support for the new village bosses." [David

2900

Footman, Op. Cit., p. 292]

2901

</blockquote>

2902

Moreover, in these "military operations the Bolsheviks shot all

2903

prisoners. The Makhnovists shot all captured officers unless the

2904

Red rank and file strongly interceded for them. The rank and file

2905

were usually sent home, though a number volunteered for service

2906

with the Insurgents. Red Army reports complain of poor morale . . .

2907

The Reds used a number of Lettish and Chinese troops to decrease

2908

the risk of fraternisation." [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 293] If the

2909

Makhnovists were made up of kulaks, why would the Bolsheviks

2910

fear fraternisation? Equally, if the Makhnovists

2911

were "kulaks" then how could they have such an impact on

2912

Red Army troops (who were mostly poor peasants)? After all,

2913

Trotsky had been complaining that "Makhnovism" had been

2914

infecting nearby Red Army troops and in August 1919 was

2915

arguing that it was "still a poison which has infected

2916

backward units in the Ukrainian army." In December 1919,

2917

he noted that "disintegration takes place in unstable

2918

units of our army when they came into contact with

2919

Makhno's forces." It seems unlikely that a movement

2920

made up of "kulaks" could have such an impact. Moreover,

2921

as Trotsky noted, not all Makhnovists were anarchists,

2922

"some of them wrongly regard themselves as Communists."

2923

Again, why would people who regarded themselves as

2924

Communists join a movement of "kulaks"? [How the

2925

Revolution Armed, vol. II, p. 367, p. 110 and p. 137]

2926

2927

In addition, it seems highly unlikely (to say the least!) that a

2928

movement which is alleged to be either made up of or supported

2929

by the kulaks could have had a land policy which emphasised and

2930

implemented an equal share for the poorest peasantry, not just

2931

of land but also of live and dead stock as well as opposing the

2932

hiring of labour. This fact is reinforced when we look at the

2933

peasant reaction to the Bolshevik (and, presumably, anti-kulak

2934

and pro-"downtrodden village poor") land policy. Simply put,

2935

their policies resulted in massive peasant unrest directed

2936

against the Bolsheviks.

2937

2938

The Bolshevik land decrees of the 5th and 11th of February,

2939

1919, stated that large landlord holdings would become

2940

state farms and all stock was to be taken over by the

2941

Ministry of Agriculture, with only between one third and

2942

one half of the land being reserved for poor peasants.

2943

This was "largely irrelevant, since the peasantry had

2944

expected, and in some cases already controlled, all

2945

of it. To them, the government was taking away their

2946

land, and not seizing it from the landlords, then keeping

2947

some of it and handing the rest over to its rightful

2948

owners." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 134] Thus the land was

2949

to expropriated by the state, not by the peasants.

2950

The result of this policy soon became clear:

2951

2952

"The Bolsheviks expropriation policy was countervailed by

2953

the peasants' resistance based upon their assumption that

2954

'the land belongs to nobody . . . it can be used only by

2955

those who care about it, who cultivate it.' Thus the

2956

peasants maintained that all the property of the former

2957

landlords was now by right their own. This attitude was

2958

shared not only by the rich and middle peasants but also

2959

the poor and landless, for they all wished to be independent

2960

farmers. The poorer the areas, the more dissatisfied were

2961

the peasants with the Bolshevik decrees.

2962

2963

"Thus Communist agricultural policy and terrorism brought

2964

about a strong reaction against the new Bolshevik regime.

2965

By the middle of 1919, all peasants, rich and poor,

2966

distrusted the Bolsheviks." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 156]

2967

</blockquote>

2968

The Bolshevik inspired Poor Peasant Committees were

2969

"associated with this disastrous policy, were discredited,

2970

and their reintroduction would need the aid of troops."

2971

[Malet, Op. Cit., p. 135] The Makhnovists, in contrast,

2972

did not impose themselves onto the villages, nor did they

2973

attempt to tell the peasants what to do and how to divide

2974

the land. Rather they advocated the formation of Free Soviets

2975

through which these decisions could be made. This, along

2976

with their support for land reform, helped win them mass

2977

support.

2978

2979

After evacuating the Ukraine in mid-1919 due to the success

2980

of Denikin's counter-revolution, the Ukrainian Communists

2981

took time to mull over what had happened. The Central

2982

Committee's November 1919 resolution on the Ukraine

2983

"gave top priority to the middle peasant -- so often and

2984

so conveniently lumped in together with the kulak and

2985

dealt with accordingly -- the transfer of landlord land

2986

to the poor peasants with only minimum exceptions for

2987

state farms." These points were the basis of the new

2988

Ukrainian land law of 5th of February, 1920. [Malet,

2989

Op. Cit., p. 135] This new law reflected long standing

2990

Makhnovist theory and practice. Therefore, the changing

2991

nature of Bolshevik land policy in the Ukraine indicates

2992

that Trotsky's claims are false. The very fact that the

2993

Bolsheviks had to adjust their policies in line with

2994

Makhnovist theory indicates that the later appealed to

2995

the middle and poor peasants.

2996

2997

Equally, it seems strange that the "kulaks" who apparently

2998

dominated the movement should have let themselves be led

2999

by poor peasants and workers. Voline presents a list of

3000

some of the participants of the movement and the vast

3001

majority are either peasants or workers. [Op. Cit.,

3002

pp. 688-91] As historian Michael Palij notes, "[a]lmost

3003

to a man, they [the Makhnovist leadership] were of poor

3004

peasant origin, with little formal education." [Op. Cit.,

3005

p. 254] Exceptions to the general rule were usually

3006

workers. Most were Anarchists or Socialist-Revolutionaries.

3007

[Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 254-62]

3008

3009

Of course, it can be argued that the leadership of a

3010

movement need not come from the class which it claims to

3011

lead. The leadership of the Bolsheviks, for example, had

3012

very few actual proletarians within it. However, it seems

3013

unlikely that a class would select as its leaders members

3014

of the population it oppressed! Equally, it seems as unlikely

3015

that poor peasants and workers would let themselves lead a

3016

movement of kulaks, whose aims would be alien to theirs.

3017

After all, poor peasants would seek land reform while kulaks

3018

would view this as a threat to their social position. As

3019

can be seen from the Makhnovist land policy, they argued

3020

for (and implemented) radical land reform, placing the land

3021

into the hands of peasants who worked the land without hiring

3022

labour (see <a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>)

3023

3024

As regards Trotsky's argument that the Makhnovists had to be

3025

kulaks because they originally formed a cavalry unit, it is

3026

easy to refute. Makhno himself was the son of poor peasants,

3027

an agricultural labourer and a worker in a factory. He was

3028

able to ride a horse, so why could other poor peasants not do

3029

so? Ultimately, it simply shows that Trotsky knew very little

3030

of Ukrainian peasant life and society.

3031

3032

Given that the Bolshevik government was meant to be a "worker-peasant"

3033

power, it seems strange that Trotsky dismisses the concerns of the

3034

peasantry so. He should have remembered that peasant uprisings

3035

against the Bolshevik government occurred constantly under the

3036

Bolsheviks, forcing them (eventually) to, first, recognise the

3037

false nature of their peasant policies in 1919 and, second, to

3038

introduce the NEP in 1921. As such, it seems somewhat ironic for

3039

Trotsky to attack the Makhnovists for not following flawed Bolshevik

3040

ideology as regards the peasantry!

3041

3042

The Bolsheviks, as Marxists, saw the peasants as "petit bourgeoisie"

3043

and uninterested in the revolution except as a means to grab their

3044

own plot of land. Their idea of land collectivisation was limited to

3045

state ownership. The initial Bolshevik land strategy can be summed up

3046

as mobilising the poor peasantry against the rest on the one hand and

3047

mobilising the city worker against the peasants (through forced grain

3048

confiscation on the other). The lack of knowledge of peasant life

3049

was the basis of this policy, which was abandoned in 1919 when it

3050

was soon proven to be totally wrong. Rather than see wealth extremes

3051

rise, the 1917 revolution saw a general levelling.

3052

3053

As regards the peasantry, here as elsewhere the Bolsheviks claimed

3054

their strategy was the objectively necessary (only possible) one

3055

in the circumstances. And here again the Makhnovists demonstrate

3056

this to be false, as the Bolsheviks themselves acknowledged in

3057

practice by changing their agricultural policies and bringing

3058

them closer to the Makhnovist position.

3059

3060

Clearly, both factually and logically, Trotsky's arguments

3061

are false. Ultimately, like most Bolsheviks, Trotsky uses

3062

the term "kulak" as a meaningless term of abuse, with no

3063

relation to the actual class structure of peasant life. It

3064

simply means a peasant opposed to the Bolsheviks rather than

3065

an actual social strata. Essentially, he is using the standard

3066

Leninist technique of specifying a person's class (or ideas)

3067

based on whether they subscribe to (or simply follow without

3068

question) Leninist ideology (see

3069

<a href="secH2.html#sech212">section H.2.12</a> for further

3070

discussion of this). This explains why the Makhnovists went

3071

from being heroic revolutionaries to kulak bandits (and back

3072

again!) depending on whether their activity coincided with

3073

the needs of Bolshevik power or not. Expediency is not a sound

3074

base to build a critique, particularly one based simply on

3075

assertions like Trotsky's.

3076

3077

<a name="app9"><h2>9 Were the Makhnovists anti-Semitic and pogromists?</h2>

3078

3079

No, they were not. Anyone who claims that the Mahnovist

3080

movement was anti-Semitic or conducted pogroms against

3081

Jews simply shows ignorance or a desire to deceive. As

3082

we will show, the Makhnovists were both theoretically

3083

and practically opposed to anti-Semitism and progroms.

3084

3085

Unsurprisingly, many Leninists slander the Makhnovists on

3086

this score. Trotsky, for example, asserted in 1937 that

3087

Makhno's followers expressed "a militant anti-Semitism."

3088

[Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 80] Needless to say, the

3089

Trotskyist editors of the book in question did not indicate

3090

that Trotsky was wrong in the accusation. In this way a

3091

slander goes unchecked and becomes "accepted" as being

3092

true. As the charge of "militant anti-Semitism" is a

3093

serious one, so it is essential that we (unlike Trotsky)

3094

provide evidence to refute it.

3095

3096

To do so we will present a chronological overview of the

3097

evidence against it. This will, to some degree, result in

3098

some duplication as well as lengthy quotations, however

3099

it is unavoidable. We are sorry to labour this point,

3100

but this allegation is sadly commonplace and it is

3101

essential to refute it fully.

3102

3103

Unsurprisingly, Arshinov's 1923 account of the movement takes

3104

on the allegations that the Makhnovists were anti-Semitic. He

3105

presents extensive evidence to show that the Makhnovists opposed

3106

anti-Semitism and pogroms. It is worth quoting him at length:

3107

3108

"In the Russian press as well as abroad, the Makhnovshchina was

3109

often pictured as a very restricted guerrilla movement, foreign

3110

to ideas of brotherhood and international solidarity, and even

3111

tainted with anti-Semitism. Nothing could be more criminal than

3112

such slanders. In order to shed light on this question, we will

3113

cite here certain documented facts which relate to this subject.

3114

3115

"An important role was played in the Makhnovist army by

3116

revolutionaries of Jewish origin, many of whom had been

3117

sentenced to forced labour for participation in the 1905

3118

revolution, or else had been obliged to emigrate to Western

3119

Europe or America. Among others, we can mention:

3120

3121

"Kogan -- vice-president of the central organ of the

3122

movement, the Regional Revolutionary Military Council of

3123

Hulyai Pole. Kogan was a worker who, for reasons of principle,

3124

had left his factory well before the revolution of 1917, and

3125

had gone to do agricultural work in a poor Jewish agricultural

3126

colony. Wounded at the battle of Peregonovka, near Uman, against

3127

the Denikinists, he was seized by them at the hospital at Uman

3128

where he was being treated, and, according to witnesses, the

3129

Denikinists killed him with sabres.

3130

3131

"L. Zin'kovsky (Zadov) -- head of the army's counter espionage

3132

section, and later commander of a special cavalry regiment. A

3133

worker who before the 1917 revolution was condemned to ten years

3134

of forced labour for political activities. One of the most active

3135

militants of the revolutionary insurrection.

3136

3137

"Elena Keller -- secretary of the army's cultural and

3138

educational section. A worker who took part in the syndicalist

3139

movement in America. One of the organisers of the 'Nabat'

3140

Confederation.

3141

3142

"Iosif Emigrant (Gotman) -- Member of the army's cultural and

3143

educational section. A worker who took an active part in the

3144

Ukrainian anarchist movement. One of the organisers of the 'Nabat'

3145

Confederation, and later a member of its secretariat.

3146

3147

"Ya. Alyi (Sukhovol'sky) -- worker, and member of the army's

3148

cultural and educational section. In the Tsarist period he was

3149

condemned to forced labor for political activity. One of the

3150

organisers of the 'Nabat' Confederation and a member of its

3151

secretariat.

3152

3153

"We could add many more names to the long list of Jewish

3154

revolutionaries who took part in different areas of the Makhnovist

3155

movement, but we will not do this, because it would endanger their

3156

security.

3157

3158

"At the heart of the revolutionary insurrection, the Jewish working

3159

population was among brothers. The Jewish agricultural colonies

3160

scattered throughout the districts of Mariupol, Berdyansk,

3161

Aleksandrovsk and elsewhere, actively participated in the regional

3162

assemblies of peasants, workers and insurgents; they sent delegates

3163

there, and also to the regional Revolutionary Military Council.

3164

3165

"Following certain anti-Semitic incidents which occurred in the

3166

region in February, 1919, Makhno proposed to all the Jewish colonies

3167

that they organise their self-defence and he furnished the necessary

3168

guns and ammunition to all these colonies. At the same time Makhno

3169

organised a series of meetings in the region where he appealed to the

3170

masses to struggle against anti-Semitism.

3171

3172

"The Jewish working population, in turn, expressed profound

3173

solidarity and revolutionary brotherhood toward the revolutionary

3174

insurrection. In answer to the call made by the Revolutionary

3175

Military Council to furnish voluntary combatants to the Makhnovist

3176

insurgent army, the Jewish colonies sent from their midst a large

3177

number of volunteers.

3178

3179

"In the army of the Makhnovist insurgents there was an exclusively

3180

Jewish artillery battery which was covered by an infantry detachment,

3181

also made up of Jews. This battery, commanded by the Jewish insurgent

3182

Shneider, heroically defended Hulyai Pole from Denikin's troops in

3183

June, 1919, and the entire battery perished there, down to the last

3184

man and the last shell.

3185

3186

"In the extremely rapid succession of events after the uprising of

3187

1918-19, there were obviously individuals who were hostile to Jews,

3188

but these individuals were not the products of the insurrection; they

3189

were products of Russian life. These individuals did not have any

3190

importance in the movement as a whole. If people of this type took

3191

part in acts directed against Jews, they were quickly and severely

3192

punished by the revolutionary insurgents.

3193

3194

"We described earlier the speed and determination with which the

3195

Makhnovists executed Hryhoriyiv and his staff, and we mentioned

3196

that one of the main reasons for this execution was their

3197

participation in pogroms of Jews.

3198

3199

"We can mention other events of this nature with which we are

3200

familiar.

3201

3202

"On May 12, 1919, several Jewish families - 20 people in all -

3203

were killed in the Jewish agricultural colony of Gor'kaya, near

3204

Aleksandrovsk. The Makhnovist staff immediately set up a special

3205

commission to investigate this event. This commission discovered that

3206

the murders had been committed by seven peasants of the neighbouring

3207

village of Uspenovka. These peasants were not part of the

3208

insurrectionary army. However, the Makhnovists felt it was impossible

3209

to leave this crime unpunished, and they shot the murderers. It was

3210

later established that this event and other attempts of this nature

3211

had been carried out at the instigation of Denikin's agents, who had

3212

managed to infiltrate the region and had sought by these means to

3213

prepare an atmosphere favourable for the entry of Denikin's troops

3214

into the Ukraine.

3215

3216

"On May 4th or 5th, 1919, Makhno and a few commanders hurriedly

3217

left the front and went to Hulyai Pole, where they were awaited by

3218

the Extraordinary Plenipotentiary of the Republic, L. Kamenev, who

3219

had arrived from Khar'kov with other representatives of the Soviet

3220

government. At the Verkhnii Tokmak station, Makhno saw a poster with

3221

the words: 'Death to Jews, Save the Revolution, Long Live Batko

3222

Makhno.'

3223

3224

"'Who put up that poster?' Makhno asked.

3225

3226

"He learned that the poster had been put up by an insurgent whom

3227

Makhno knew personally, a soldier who had taken part in the battle

3228

against Denikin's troops, a person who was in general decent. He

3229

presented himself immediately and was shot on the spot.

3230

3231

"Makhno continued the journey to Hulyai Pole. During the rest of

3232

the day and during his negotiations with the Plenipotentiary of the

3233

Republic, he could not free himself from the influence of this event.

3234

He realised that the insurgent had been cruelly dealt with, but he

3235

also knew that in conditions of war and in view of Denikin's advance,

3236

such posters could represent an enormous danger for the Jewish

3237

population and for the entire revolution if one did not oppose them

3238

quickly and resolutely.

3239

3240

"When the insurrectionary army retreated toward Uman in the summer

3241

of 1919, there were several cases when insurgents plundered Jewish

3242

homes. When the insurrectionary army examined these cases, it was

3243

learned that one group of four or five men was involved in all

3244

these incidents -- men who had earlier belonged to Hryhoriyiv's

3245

detachments and who had been incorporated into the Makhnovist

3246

army after Hryhoriyiv was shot. This group was disarmed and

3247

discharged immediately. Following this, all the combatants who

3248

had served under Hryhoriyiv were discharged from the Makhnovist

3249

army as an unreliable element whose re-education was not possible

3250

in view of the unfavorable conditions and the lack of time. Thus

3251

we see how the Makhnovists viewed anti-Semitism. Outbursts of

3252

anti-Semitism in various parts of the Ukraine had no relation

3253

to the Makhnovshchina.

3254

3255

"Wherever the Jewish population was in contact with the

3256

Makhnovists, it found in them its best protectors against

3257

anti-Semitic incidents. The Jewish population of Hulyai Pole,

3258

Aleksandrovsk, Berdyansk, Mariupol, as well as all the Jewish

3259

agricultural colonies scattered throughout the Donets region, can

3260

themselves corroborate the fact that they always found the

3261

Makhnovists to be true revolutionary friends, and that due to the

3262

severe and decisive measures of the Makhno visits, the anti-Semitic

3263

leanings of the counter-revolutionary forces in this region were

3264

promptly squashed.

3265

3266

"Anti-Semitism exists in Russia as well as in many other countries.

3267

In Russia, and to some extent in the Ukraine, it is not a result of

3268

the revolutionary epoch or of the insurrectionary movement, but is on

3269

the contrary a vestige of the past. The Makhnovists always fought it

3270

resolutely in words as well as deeds. During the entire period of the

3271

movement, they issued numerous publications calling on the masses to

3272

struggle against this evil. It can firmly be stated that in the

3273

struggle against anti-Semitism in the Ukraine and beyond its borders,

3274

their accomplishment was enormous." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 211-215]

3275

</blockquote>

3276

Arshinov then goes on to quote an appeal published by Makhnovists

3277

together with anarchists referring to an anti-Semitic incident

3278

which took place in the spring of 1919. It is called WORKERS,

3279

PEASANTS AND INSURGENTS FOR THE OPPRESSED, AGAINST THE OPPRESSORS

3280

-- ALWAYS!:

3281

3282

"During the painful days of reaction, when the situation

3283

of the Ukrainian peasants was especially difficult and

3284

seemed hopeless, you were the first to rise as fearless and

3285

unconquerable fighters for the great cause of the liberation

3286

of the working masses. . . This was the most beautiful and

3287

joyful moment in the history of our revolution. You marched

3288

against the enemy with weapons in your hands as conscious

3289

revolutionaries, guided by the great idea of freedom and

3290

equality. . . But harmful and criminal elements succeeded

3291

in insinuating themselves into your ranks. And the

3292

revolutionary songs, songs of brotherhood and of the

3293

approaching liberation of the workers, began to be disrupted

3294

by the harrowing cries of poor Jews who were being tormented

3295

to death. . . On the clear and splendid foundation of the

3296

revolution appeared indelible dark blots caused by the

3297

parched blood of poor Jewish martyrs who now, as before,

3298

continue to be innocent victims of the criminal reaction,

3299

of the class struggle . . . Shameful acts are being carried

3300

out. Anti-Semitic pogroms are taking place.

3301

3302

"Peasants, workers and insurgents! You know that the workers

3303

of all nationalities -- Russians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Armenians,

3304

etc. -- are equally imprisoned in the abyss of poverty. You know

3305

that thousands of Jewish girls, daughters of the people, are sold

3306

and dishonoured by capital, the same as women of other nationalities.

3307

You know how many honest and valiant revolutionary Jewish fighters

3308

have given their lives for freedom in Russia during our whole

3309

liberation movement. . . The revolution and the honour of workers

3310

obliges all of us to declare as loudly as possible that we make war

3311

on the same enemies: on capital and authority, which oppress all

3312

workers equally, whether they be Russian, Polish, Jewish, etc. We

3313

must proclaim everywhere that our enemies are exploiters and

3314

oppressors of various nationalities: the Russian manufacturer,

3315

the German iron magnate, the Jewish banker, the Polish aristocrat

3316

.. . . The bourgeoisie of all countries and all nationalities is

3317

united in a bitter struggle against the revolution, against the

3318

labouring masses of the whole world and of all nationalities.

3319

3320

"Peasants, workers and insurgents! At this moment when the

3321

international enemy -- the bourgeoisie of all countries --

3322

hurries to the Russian revolution to create nationalist hatred

3323

among the mass of workers in order to distort the revolution and

3324

to shake the very foundation of our class struggle - the solidarity

3325

and unity of all workers -- you must move against conscious and

3326

unconscious counter-revolutionaries who endanger the emancipation

3327

of the working people from capital and authority. Your revolutionary

3328

duty is to stifle all nationalist persecution by dealing ruthlessly

3329

with all instigators of anti-Semitic pogroms.

3330

3331

"The path toward the emancipation of the workers can be reached by

3332

the union of all the workers of the world." [quoted by Arshinov,

3333

Op. Cit., 215-7]

3334

</blockquote>

3335

Arshinov also quotes an order issued by Makhno to "all

3336

revolutionary insurgents without exception" which states,

3337

in part, that the "goal of our revolutionary army, and

3338

of every insurgent participating in it, is an honourable

3339

struggle for the full liberation of the Ukrainian workers

3340

from all oppression." This was "why every insurgent should

3341

constantly keep in mind that there is no place among

3342

us for those who, under the cover of the revolutionary

3343

insurrection, seek to satisfy their desires for personal

3344

profit, violence and plunder at the expense of the peaceful

3345

Jewish population." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 217-8]

3346

3347

Unsurprisingly, as an anarchist, Makhno presents a class

3348

analysis of the problem of racism, arguing as follows:

3349

3350

"Every revolutionary insurgent should remember that his

3351

personal enemies as well as the enemies of all the people

3352

are the rich bourgeoisie, regardless of whether they be

3353

Russian, or Jewish, or Ukrainian. The enemies of the

3354

working people are also those who protect the unjust

3355

bourgeois regime, i.e., the Soviet Commissars, the

3356

members of repressive expeditionary corps, the Extraordinary

3357

Commissions which go through the cities and villages

3358

torturing the working people who refuse to submit to

3359

their arbitrary dictatorship. Every insurgent should

3360

arrest and send to the army staff all representatives

3361

of such expeditionary corps, Extraordinary Commissions

3362

and other institutions which oppress and subjugate the

3363

people; if they resist, they should be shot on the spot.

3364

As for any violence done to peaceful workers of whatever

3365

nationality - such acts are unworthy of any revolutionary

3366

insurgent, and the perpetrator of such acts will be punished

3367

by death." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 218]

3368

</blockquote>

3369

It should also be noted that the chairmen of three Makhnovist

3370

regional congresses were Jewish. The first and second congresses

3371

had a Jewish chairman [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 293], while Voline

3372

was the chair for the fourth one held at Aleksandrovsk.

3373

Similarly, one of the heads of the army's counter-espionage

3374

section was Jewish. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 212] Little wonder

3375

both Arshinov and Voline stress that an important role was

3376

played by Jews within the movement.

3377

3378

The Jewish American anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma

3379

Goldman were also in Russia and the Ukraine during the

3380

revolution. Between 1920 and 1921, they were in contact

3381

with anarchists involved with the Makhnovists and were

3382

concerned to verify what they had heard about the movement

3383

from Bolshevik and other sources. Berkman recounts meeting

3384

the Jewish anarchist Yossif the Emigrant (shot by the

3385

Bolsheviks in late 1920). Yossif stated that "Nestor

3386

is merciless toward those guilty of Jew-baiting. Most

3387

of you have read his numerous proclamations against

3388

pogroms, and you know how severely he punishes such

3389

things." He stressed that any stories of atrocities and

3390

pogroms committed by the Makhnovists were "lies wilfully

3391

spread by the Bolsheviks" who "hate Nestor worse than

3392

they do Wrangel." For Yossif, "Makhno represents the

3393

real spirit of October." [quoted by Berkman, Op. Cit.,

3394

pp. 187-9] He also notes that Gallina Makhno, Nestor's

3395

wife, would "slightly raise her voice in indignation

3396

when reports of Jew-baiting by povstantsi [partisans]

3397

were mentioned. These stories were deliberately spread

3398

by the Bolsheviki, she averred. No-one could be more

3399

severe in punishing such excesses than Nestor. Some of

3400

his best comrades are Jews; there are a number of them

3401

in the Revolutionary Soviet and in other branches of

3402

the army. Few men are so loved and respected by the

3403

povstantsi as Yossif the Emigrant, who is a Jew, and

3404

Makhno's best friend." [Berkman, Op. Cit., pp. 238-9]

3405

Both Goldman and Berkman became friends with Makhno

3406

during his exile in Paris.

3407

3408

After his exile, Makhno himself spent time refuting

3409

allegations of anti-Semitism. Two articles on this

3410

subject are contained in The Struggle Against the

3411

State and other Essays, a collection of Makhno's

3412

exile writings. In the article "The Makhnovshchina

3413

and Anti-Semitism" he recounts various examples of

3414

the "uncompromising line on the anti-Semitism of

3415

pogromists" which the Makhnovists took "throughout

3416

its entire existence." This was "because it was

3417

a genuinely revolutionary toilers' movement in the

3418

Ukraine." He stressed that "[a]t no time did the

3419

movement make it its business to carry out pogroms

3420

against Jews nor did it ever encourage any." [The

3421

Struggle Against the State and Other Essays, p. 38

3422

and p. 34] He wrote another article (called "To the

3423

Jews of All Countries"):

3424

3425

"In my first 'Appeal to Jews, published in the French

3426

libertarian newspaper, Le Libertaire, I asked Jews in

3427

general, which is to say the bourgeois and the socialist

3428

ones as well as the 'anarchist' ones like Yanovsky, who

3429

have all spoken of me as a pogromist against Jews and

3430

labelled as anti-Semitic the liberation movement of the

3431

Ukrainian peasants and workers of which I was the leader,

3432

to detail to me the specific facts instead of blathering

3433

vacuously away: just where and just when did I or the

3434

aforementioned movement perpetrate such acts? . . .

3435

Thus far, no such evidence advanced by Jews has come to

3436

my attention. The only thing that has appeared thus far

3437

in the press generally, certain Jewish anarchist organs

3438

included, regarding myself and the insurgent movement I

3439

led, has been the product of the most shameless lies and

3440

of the vulgarity of certain political mavericks and their

3441

hirelings." [Op. Cit., p. 28]

3442

</blockquote>

3443

It should be noted that Yanovsky, editor of the Yiddish language

3444

anarchist paper Freie Arbeiter Stimme later admitted that

3445

Makhno was right. Yanovsky originally believed the charges of

3446

anti-Semitism made against Makhno, going so far as ignoring

3447

Makhno's appeal to him out of hand. However, by the time of

3448

Makhno's death in 1934, Yanovsky had learned the truth:

3449

3450

"So strongly biased was I against him [Makhno] at that time I did

3451

not think it necessary to find out whether my serious accusation

3452

was founded on any real facts during the period of his great

3453

fight for real freedom in Russia. Now I know that my accusations

3454

of anti-Semitism against Makhno were built entirely on the lies

3455

of the Bolsheviks and to the rest of their crimes must be added

3456

this great crime of killing his greatness and the purity of

3457

this fighter for freedom."

3458

</blockquote>

3459

Due to this, he could not forgive himself for "so misjudg[ing]

3460

a man merely on the basis of calumny by his bitter enemies who

3461

more than once shamefully betrayed him, and against whom he

3462

fought so heroically." He also notes that it had "become

3463

known to me that a great many Jewish comrades were heart and

3464

soul with Makhno and the whole Makhno movement. Amongst them

3465

was one whom I knew well personally, Joseph Zutman of Detroit,

3466

and I know that he would not have had anything to do with

3467

persons, or a movement, which possessed the slightest leaning

3468

towards anti-Semitism." ["appendix," My Visit to the Kremlin,

3469

pp. 36-7]

3470

3471

However, by far the best source to refute claims of anti-Semitism

3472

the work of the Jewish anarchist Voline. He summarises the

3473

extensive evidence against such claims:

3474

3475

"We could cover dozens of pages with extensive and irrefutable

3476

proofs of the falseness of these assertions. We could mention

3477

articles and proclamations by Makhno and the Council of

3478

Revolutionary Insurgents denouncing anti-Semitism. We could

3479

tell of spontaneous acts by Makhno himself and other insurgents

3480

against the slightest manifestation of the anti-Semitic spirit

3481

on the part of a few isolated and misguided unfortunates in

3482

the army and the population. . . One of the reasons for the

3483

execution of Grigoriev by the Makhnovists was his anti-Semitism

3484

and the immense pogrom he organised at Elizabethgrad . . .

3485

3486

"We could cite a whole series of similar facts, but we do not

3487

find it necessary . . . and will content ourselves with

3488

mentioning briefly the following essential facts:

3489

3490

"1. A fairly important part in the Makhnovist movement was

3491

played by revolutionists of Jewish origin.

3492

3493

"2. Several members of the Education and Propaganda Commission

3494

were Jewish.

3495

3496

"3. Besides many Jewish combatants in various units of the

3497

army, there was a battery composed entirely of Jewish

3498

artillery men and a Jewish infantry unit.

3499

3500

"4. Jewish colonies in the Ukraine furnished many volunteers

3501

to the Insurrectionary Army.

3502

3503

"5. In general the Jewish population, which was very numerous

3504

in the Ukraine, took an active part in all the activities of

3505

the movement. The Jewish agricultural colonies which were

3506

scattered throughout the districts of Mariupol, Berdiansk,

3507

Alexandrovsk, etc., participated in the regional assemblies

3508

of workers, peasants and partisans; they sent their delegates

3509

to the regional Revolutionary Military Council.

3510

3511

"6. Rich and reactionary Jews certainly had to suffer from

3512

the Makhnovist army, not as Jews, but just in the same way

3513

as non-Jewish counter-revolutionaries." [The Unknown

3514

Revolution, pp. 967-8]

3515

</blockquote>

3516

However, it could be claimed that these accounts are from

3517

anarchists and so are biased. Ignoring the question of why

3518

so many Jewish anarchists should defend Makhno if he was, in

3519

fact, a pogromist or anti-Semite, we can turn to non-anarchist

3520

sources for confirmation of the fact that Makhno and the

3521

Makhnovist movement were not anti-Semites.

3522

3523

First, we turn to Voline, who quotes the eminent Jewish

3524

writer and historian M. Tcherikover about the question

3525

of the Makhnovists and anti-Semitism. Tcherikover had, for

3526

a number of years, had specialised in research on the

3527

persecutions of the Jews in Russia. The Jewish historian

3528

states "with certainty that, on the whole, the behaviour of

3529

Makhno's army cannot be compared with that of the other armies

3530

which were operating in Russian during the events 1917-21.

3531

Two facts I can certify absolutely explicitly.

3532

3533

"1. It is undeniable that, of all these armies, including

3534

the Red Army, the Makhnovists behaved best with regard

3535

the civil population in general and the Jewish population

3536

in particular. I have numerous testimonies to this. The

3537

proportion of justified complaints against the Makhnovist

3538

army, in comparison with the others, is negligible.

3539

3540

"2. Do not speak of pogroms alleged to have been organised by

3541

Makhno himself. That is a slander or an error. Nothing of the

3542

sort occurred. As for the Makhnovist Army, I have had hints

3543

and precise denunciations on this subject. But, up to the

3544

present, every time I have tried to check the facts, I have

3545

been obliged to declare that on the day in question no

3546

Makhnovist unit could have been at the place indicated, the

3547

whole army being far away from there. Upon examining the

3548

evidence closely, I established this fact, every time, with

3549

absolute certainty, at the place and on the date of the

3550

pogrom, no Makhnovist unit was operating or even located

3551

in the vicinity. Not once have I been able to prove the

3552

existence of a Makhnovist unit at the place a pogrom

3553

against the Jews took place. Consequently, the pogroms

3554

in question could not have been the work of the Makhnovists."

3555

[quoted by Voline, Op. Cit., p. 699]

3556

3557

This conclusion is confirmed by later historians. Paul

3558

Avrich notes that "[c]harges of Jew-baiting and of

3559

anti-Jewish pogroms have come from every quarter, left,

3560

right, and centre. Without exception, however, they are

3561

based on hearsay, rumour, or intentional slander, and

3562

remain undocumented and unproved." He adds that the

3563

"Soviet propaganda machine was at particular pains to

3564

malign Makhno as a bandit and pogromist." Wishing to

3565

verify the conclusions of Tcherikover proved by Voline,

3566

Avrich examined several hundred photographs in the

3567

Tcherikover Collection, housed in the YIVO Library in

3568

New York and depicting anti-Jewish atrocities in the

3569

Ukraine during the Civil War. He found that "only one

3570

[was] labelled as being the work of the Makhnovists,

3571

though even here neither Makhno himself nor any of his

3572

recognisable subordinates are to be seen, nor is there

3573

any indication that Makhno had authorised the raid or,

3574

indeed, that the band involved was in fact affiliated

3575

with his Insurgent Army." Avrich then states that

3576

"there is evidence that Makhno did all in his power

3577

to counteract anti-Semitic tendencies among his

3578

followers" and that "a considerable number of Jews took

3579

part in the Makhnovist movement." He also points out

3580

that the Jewish anarchists Alexander Berkman, Emma

3581

Goldman, Sholem Schwartzbard, Voline, Senya Fleshin,

3582

and Mollie Steimer did not criticise Makhno as an

3583

anti-Semite, they also "defended him against the

3584

campaign of slander that persisted from all sides."

3585

[Anarchist Portraits, pp. 122-3] It should be noted

3586

that Schwartzbard assassinated the Nationalist leader

3587

Petliura in 1926 because he considered him responsible

3588

for pogroms conducted by Nationalist troops during the

3589

civil war. He shot Petliura the day after he, Makhno

3590

and Berkman had seen him at a Russian restaurant in

3591

Paris. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 189]

3592

3593

Michael Malet, in his account of the Makhnovists, states

3594

that "there is overwhelming evidence that Makhno himself

3595

was not anti-Semitic." [Op. Cit., p. 168] He indicates

3596

that in the period January to September 1919, the Central

3597

Committee of Zionist Organisations in Russia listed the

3598

Nationalists as creating 15,000 victims of pogroms, then

3599

the Denikinists with 9,500 followed by Hryhoriyiv,

3600

Sokolovsky, Struk, Yatsenko and Soviet troops (500

3601

victims). Makhno is not mentioned. Of the pogroms listed,

3602

almost all took place on the western Ukraine, where the

3603

local otamany (warlords) and the Nationalists were strong.

3604

Very few took place where Makhno's influence predominated,

3605

the nearest being in Katerinoslav town and Kherson province;

3606

none in the provinces of Katerinoslav or Tavria. It should

3607

also be noted that the period of January to June of that

3608

year was one of stability within the Makhnovist region,

3609

so allowing them the space to apply their ideas. Malet

3610

summarises:

3611

3612

"Even granted the lower level of Jewish involvement in

3613

left-bank trade, the almost total lack of anti-Semitic

3614

manifestations would show that Makhno's appeals, at a

3615

time when anti-Semitism was fast becoming fashionable,

3616

did not go unheeded by the population. There were a

3617

number of Jewish colonies in the south-east Ukraine."

3618

[Op. Cit., p. 169]

3619

</blockquote>

3620

Unsurprisingly, Malet notes that apart from certain

3621

personal considerations (such as his friendship with

3622

a number of Jews, including Voline and Yossif the

3623

Emigrant), "the basis of Makhno's hostility to

3624

anti-Semitism was his anarchism. Anarchism has always

3625

been an international creed, explicitly condemning

3626

all forms of racial hatred as incompatible with the

3627

freedom of individuals and the society of equals."

3628

And like other serious historians, he points to "the

3629

continual participation in the movement of both

3630

intellectual Jews from outside, and Jews from the

3631

local colonies" as "further proof . . . of the low

3632

level of anti-Semitism within the Makhnovshchina."

3633

[Op. Cit., p. 171 and pp. 171-2]

3634

3635

Anarchist Serge Cipko summarises the literature by

3636

stating that the "scholarly literature that discusses

3637

Makhno's relationships with the Jewish population

3638

is of the same opinion [that the Makhnovists were

3639

not anti-Semitic] and concur that unlike the Whites,

3640

Bolsheviks and other competing groups in Ukraine

3641

during the Revolution, the Makhnovists did not engage

3642

in pogroms." ["Nestor Makhno: A Mini-Historiography of

3643

the Anarchist Revolution in Ukraine, 1917-1921," pp. 57-75,

3644

The Raven, no. 13, p. 62]

3645

3646

Historian Christopher Reed concurs, noting that "Makhno

3647

actively opposed anti-Semitism . . . Not surprisingly,

3648

many Jews held prominent positions in the Insurgent

3649

movement and Jewish farmers and villagers staunchly

3650

supported Makhno in the face of the unrestrained

3651

anti-Semitism of Ukrainian nationalists like Grigoriev

3652

and of the Great Russian chauvinists like the Whites."

3653

[Op. Cit., pp. 263-4] Arthur E. Adams states that

3654

"Makhno protected Jews and in fact had many serving

3655

on his own staff." [Bolsheviks in the Urkaine, p. 402]

3656

3657

We apologise again for labouring this point, but the lie

3658

that Makhno and the Makhnovists were anti-Semitic is

3659

relatively commonplace and needs to be refuted. As noted,

3660

Trotskyists repeat Trotsky's false assertions without

3661

correction. Other repeat the lie from other sources.

3662

It was essential, therefore, to spend time making the

3663

facts available and to nail the lie of Makhnovist anti-

3664

Semitism once and for all!

3665

3666

<a name="app10"><h2>10 Did the Makhnovists hate the city and city workers?</h2>

3667

3668

For some reason the Makhnovists have been portrayed as being

3669

against the city and even history as such. This assertion is

3670

false, although sometimes made. For example, historian Bruce

3671

Lincoln states that Makhno "had studied the anarchist writings

3672

of Bakunin, whose condemnation of cities and large-scale

3673

industries fit so well with the anti-urban, anti-industrial

3674

feelings of the Ukrainian peasants, and his program was

3675

precisely the sort that struck responsive chords in peasant

3676

hearts." [Red Victory, p. 325] Lincoln fails to present

3677

any evidence for this claim. This is unsurprising as it is

3678

doubtful that Makhno read such condemnations in Bakunin as

3679

they do not, in fact, exist. Similarly, the Makhnovist

3680

"program" (like anarchism in general) was not "anti-urban"

3681

or "anti-industrial."

3682

3683

However, Lincoln's inventions are mild compared to Trotsky's.

3684

According to Trotsky, "the followers of Makhno" were marked by

3685

"hatred for the city and the city worker." He later gives some

3686

more concrete examples of this "hostility to the city" which,

3687

as with the general peasant revolt, also "nourished the movement

3688

of Makhno, who seized and looted trains marked for the factories,

3689

the plants, and the Red Army; tore up railway tracks, shot

3690

Communists, etc." [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 80 and

3691

p. 89]

3692

3693

Unsurprisingly, Trotsky simply shows his ignorance of the

3694

Makhno movement by these statements. To refute Trotsky's

3695

claim we can simply point to how the Makhnovists acted

3696

once they occupied a city. As we discuss in

3697

<a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>,

3698

the first thing the Makhnovists did was to call a conference

3699

of workers and urge them to organise their own affairs

3700

directly, using their own class organs of self-management

3701

(soviets, unions, etc.). Hardly the activity of a group of

3702

people who allegedly "hated" city workers!

3703

3704

We can also point to the fact that the Makhnovists arranged

3705

direct exchanges of goods between the towns and country. In early

3706

1918, for example, corn was shipped directly to a Moscow factory

3707

in return for textiles (without state interference). In 1919, 1500

3708

tons of grain (and a small amount of coal) was sent by train to

3709

Petrograd and Moscow where the commander of the train was to

3710

exchange it again for textiles. The initiative in both cases

3711

came from the Hulyai Pole peasants. Again, hardly the work of

3712

city-hating peasants.

3713

3714

Peter Arshinov indicates the underlying theory behind the

3715

Makhnovists as regards the relations between city and

3716

country:

3717

3718

"The Makhnovshchina . . . understands that the victory and

3719

consolidation of the revolution . . . cannot be realised

3720

without a close alliance between the working classes of

3721

the cities and those of the countryside. The peasants

3722

understand that without urban workers and powerful

3723

industrial enterprises they will be deprived of most

3724

of the benefits which the social revolution makes possible.

3725

Furthermore, they consider the urban workers to be their

3726

brothers, members of the same family of workers.

3727

3728

"There can be no doubt that, at the moment of the victory

3729

of the social revolution, the peasants will give their

3730

entire support to the workers. This will be voluntary and

3731

truly revolutionary support given directly to the urban

3732

proletariat. In the present-day situation [under the

3733

Bolsheviks], the bread taken by force from the peasants

3734

nourishes mainly the enormous governmental machine. The

3735

peasants see and understand perfectly that this expensive

3736

bureaucratic machine is not in any way needed by them or

3737

by the workers, and that in relation to the workers it

3738

plays the same role as that of a prison administration

3739

toward the inmates. This is why the peasants do not have

3740

the slightest desire to give their bread voluntarily to

3741

the State. This is why they are so hostile in their

3742

relations with the contemporary tax collectors -- the

3743

commissars and the various supply organs of the State.

3744

3745

"But the peasants always try to enter into direct relations

3746

with the urban workers. The question was raised more than

3747

once at peasant congresses, and the peasants always resolved

3748

it in a revolutionary and positive manner." [Op. Cit.,

3749

p. 258]

3750

</blockquote>

3751

Simply put, Trotsky misinterprets hostility to the repressive

3752

policies of the Bolshevik dictatorship with hostility to the

3753

city.

3754

3755

Moreover, ignoring the actual relationships of the Makhnovists

3756

with the city workers, we can fault Trotsky's arguments without

3757

resource to such minor things as facts. This is because every one

3758

of his "examples" of "hatred for the city and the city worker"

3759

can be explained by more common sense arguments.

3760

3761

As regards the destruction of trains and railway tracks,

3762

a far simpler and more plausible explanation can be found

3763

than Trotsky's "hostility to the city." This is the fact

3764

that a civil war was taking place. Both the Reds and Whites

3765

used armoured trains to move troops and as bases of operations.

3766

To destroy the means by which your enemy attacks you is

3767

common sense! Equally, in the chaotic times of the war,

3768

resources were often in low supply and in order to survive

3769

the Makhnovists had to "loot" trains (needless to say, Trotsky

3770

does not explain how the Makhnovists knew the trains were

3771

"marked for the factories."). It should be noted that the

3772

Bolsheviks "looted" the countryside, can we surmise that

3773

the Bolsheviks simply expressed "hostility to the village"?

3774

3775

As regards the shooting of Communists, a far simpler and more

3776

plausible explanation also exists. Rather than show "hostility

3777

to the city," it shows "hostility" to the Communist Party,

3778

its policies and its authoritarian ideas. Given that the

3779

Bolsheviks had betrayed the Makhnovists on

3780

three occasions

3781

(see

3782

<a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a>) and attacked them, "hostility" to

3783

Communists seems a sensible position to take! Equally, the

3784

first Bolshevik attack on the Makhnovists occurred in

3785

mid-1919, when the Bolsheviks began justifying their party

3786

dictatorship as essential for the success of the revolution.

3787

The other two occurred in 1920, when the Bolsheviks were announcing

3788

to the whole world at the Communist International (to quote

3789

Zinoviev) that "the dictatorship of the proletariat is at the

3790

same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party." [Proceedings

3791

and Documents of the Second Congress 1920, vol. 1, p. 152]

3792

Given this, perhaps the fact that the Makhnovists shot Communists

3793

can be explained in terms of defence against

3794

Bolshevik betrayal and opposition to the dictatorship of the

3795

Communist Party rather than "hostility to the city." Needless to

3796

say, the Communists shot Makhnovists and anarchists. What does

3797

that suggest a "hostility" to by the Bolsheviks? Working-class

3798

autonomy and freedom?

3799

3800

Clearly, Trotsky was clutching at straws in his smearing of

3801

the Makhnovist movement as haters of the city worker. The

3802

"hostility" Trotsky speaks of can be far more easily explained

3803

in terms of the necessities imposed upon the Makhnovists by

3804

the civil war and the betrayals of the Bolsheviks. As such,

3805

it would be fairer to state that the Makhnovists showed

3806

"hostility" or "hatred" to the city or city workers only if

3807

you equate both with the Bolshevik party dictatorship. In

3808

other words, the Makhnovists showed "hostility" to the new

3809

ruling class of the Communist Party hierarchy.

3810

3811

All this does not mean that there were not misunderstandings

3812

between the Makhno movement, a predominantly rural movement,

3813

and the workers in the cities. Far from it. Equally, it can

3814

be said that the Makhnovists did not understand the workings

3815

of an urban economy and society as well as they understood

3816

their own. However, they made no attempt to impose their

3817

world-view on the city workers (unlike the Bolsheviks, who

3818

did so on both urban and rural workers). However, ignorance of

3819

the city and its resulting misunderstandings do not constitute

3820

"hostility" or "hatred."

3821

3822

Moreover, where these misunderstandings developed show that the

3823

claims that the Makhnovists hated the city workers are simply

3824

false. Simply put, the misunderstanding occurred when the

3825

Makhnovists had liberated cities from the Whites. As we

3826

discussed in

3827

<a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>, the first thing the Makhnovists

3828

did was to call a conference of workers' delegates to discuss

3829

the current situation and to urge them to form soviets, unions

3830

and co-operatives in order to manage their own affairs. This

3831

hardly shows "hatred" of the city worker. In contrast, the

3832

first thing the Bolsheviks did in taking a city was to

3833

form a "revolutionary committee" to govern the town and

3834

implement Bolshevik policy.

3835

3836

This, needless to say, shows a distinct "hostility" to the

3837

city workers on the part of the Bolsheviks. Equally, the

3838

Bolshevik advocacy of party dictatorship to overcome the

3839

"wavering" of the working class. In the words of Trotsky

3840

himself (in 1921):

3841

3842

"The Workers' Opposition has come out with dangerous

3843

slogans, making a fetish of democratic principles!

3844

They place the workers' right to elect representatives

3845

above the Party, as if the party were not entitled

3846

to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship

3847

temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers'

3848

democracy. It is necessary to create amongst us the

3849

awareness of the revolutionary birthright of the party.

3850

which is obliged to maintain its dictatorship, regardless

3851

of temporary wavering even in the working classes. This

3852

awareness is for us the indispensable element. The

3853

dictatorship does not base itself at every given moment

3854

on the formal principle of a workers' democracy."

3855

[quoted by Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, p. 209]

3856

</blockquote>

3857

Opposing workers' democracy because working people could

3858

make decisions that the party thought were wrong shows a

3859

deep "hostility" to the real city workers and their

3860

liberty and equality. Equally, Bolshevik repression of

3861

workers' strikes, freedom of speech, assembly, organisation

3862

and self-determination shows far more "hostility" to the

3863

city worker than a few Makhnovist misunderstandings!

3864

3865

All in all, any claim that the Makhnovists "hated" city

3866

workers is simply false. While some Makhnovists may not

3867

have liked the city nor really understood the complexities

3868

of an urban economy, they did recognise the importance of

3869

encouraging working-class autonomy and self-organisation

3870

within them and building links between the rural and urban

3871

toilers. While the lack of a large-scale anarcho-syndicalist

3872

movement hindered any positive construction, the Makhnovists

3873

at least tried to promote urban self-management. Given

3874

Bolshevik authoritarianism and its various rationalisations, it

3875

would be fairer to say that it was the Bolsheviks who expressed

3876

"hostility" to the city workers by imposing their dictatorship

3877

upon them rather than supporting working-class self-management

3878

as the Makhnovists did!

3879

3880

<a name="app11"><h2>11 Were the Makhnovists nationalists?</h2>

3881

3882

Some books on the Makhnovist movement try to present the

3883

Makhnovists as being Ukrainian nationalists. A few discuss

3884

the matter in order, perhaps, to increase the respectability

3885

of the Makhnovist movement by associating it with a more

3886

"serious" and "respectable" political theory than anarchism,

3887

namely "Nationalism." Those who seriously investigate the

3888

issue come to the same conclusion, namely that neither

3889

Makhno nor the Makhnovist movement was nationalist (see,

3890

for example, Frank Sysyn's essay Nestor Makhno and the

3891

Ukrainian Revolution which discusses this issue).

3892

3893

Therefore, any claims that the Makhnovists were nationalists

3894

are incorrect. The Makhnovist movement was first and foremost

3895

an internationalist movement of working people. This is to be

3896

expected as anarchists have long argued that nationalism is a

3897

cross-class movement which aims to maintain the existing class

3898

system but without foreign domination (see

3899

<a href="secD6.html">section D.6</a> for

3900

details). As such, the Makhnovists were well aware that

3901

nationalism could not solve the social question and would

3902

simply replace a Russian ruling class and state with a

3903

Ukrainian one.

3904

3905

This meant that the aims of the Makhnovists went further

3906

than simply national liberation or self-determination.

3907

Anarchists, rather, aim for working-class self-liberation

3908

and self-determination, both as individuals and as groups,

3909

as well as politically, economically and socially. To quote

3910

Makhno's wire to Lenin in December 1918, the Makhnovist

3911

"aims are known and clear to all. They are fighting against

3912

the authority of all political governments and for liberty

3913

and independence of the working people." [quoted by Palij,

3914

Op. Cit., p. 80]

3915

3916

From this class and anti-hierarchical perspective, it is

3917

not unsurprising that the Makhnovists were not nationalists.

3918

They did not seek Ukrainian independence but rather working-

3919

class autonomy. This, of necessity, meant they opposed all

3920

those who aimed to govern and/or exploit the working class.

3921

Hence Arshinov:

3922

3923

"Composed of the poorest peasants, who were united by the

3924

fact that they all worked with their own hands, the Makhnovist

3925

movement was founded on the deep feeling of fraternity which

3926

characterises only the most oppressed. During its entire history

3927

it did not for an instant appeal to national sentiments. The

3928

whole struggle of the Makhnovists against the Bolsheviks was

3929

conducted solely in the name of the rights and interests of

3930

the workers. Denikin's troops, the Austro-Germans, Petliura,

3931

the French troops in Berdyansk, Wrangel -- were all treated by

3932

the Makhnovists as enemies of the workers. Each one of these

3933

invasions represented for them essentially a threat to the

3934

workers, and the Makhnovists had no interest in the national

3935

flag under which they marched." [Op. Cit., p. 210]

3936

</blockquote>

3937

He stressed that "national prejudices had no place in the

3938

Makhnovshchina. There was also no place in the movement

3939

for religious prejudices . . . Among modern social movements,

3940

the Makhnovshchina was one of the few in which an individual had

3941

absolutely no interest in his own or his neighbour's religion or

3942

nationality, in which he respected only the labour and the

3943

freedom of the worker." [Op. Cit., p. 211]

3944

3945

The Makhnovists made their position on nationalism clear

3946

in the 'Declaration' published by the Revolutionary Military

3947

Council of the army in October, 1919:

3948

3949

"When speaking of Ukrainian independence, we do not mean national

3950

independence in Petliura's sense but the social independence of

3951

workers and peasants. We declare that Ukrainian, and all other,

3952

working people have the right to self-determination not as an

3953

'independent nation' but as 'independent workers'" [quoted by

3954

Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 210]

3955

</blockquote>

3956

In other words, the Makhnovists "declared, that in their

3957

option Petlurovtchina [the Petliura movement, Petliura

3958

being the leader of the Nationalists] was a bourgeois

3959

nationalist movement whose road was entirely different from

3960

that of the revolutionary peasants, that the Ukraine should

3961

be organised on a basis of free labour and the independence

3962

of the peasants and the workers . . . and that nothing but

3963

struggle was possible between the Makhnovitchina , the

3964

movement of the workers, and the Petlurovtchina , the

3965

movement of the bourgeoisie." [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 572]

3966

3967

This does not mean that anarchists are indifferent to

3968

cultural and national domination and oppression. Far from

3969

it! As we discussed in sections

3970

<a href="secD6.html">D.6</a> and

3971

<a href="secD7.html">D.7</a>, anarchists

3972

are against foreign domination and cultural imperialism,

3973

believing that every community or national group has the

3974

right to be itself and develop as it sees fit. This means

3975

that anarchists seek to transform national liberation

3976

struggles into human liberation struggles, turning any

3977

struggle against foreign oppression and domination into

3978

a struggle against all forms of oppression and domination.

3979

3980

This means that the Makhnovists, like anarchists in general,

3981

seek to encourage local culture and language while opposed

3982

nationalism. As Frank Sysyn argues, it "would be a mistake

3983

. . . to label the Makhnivtsi as 'anti-Ukrainian.' Although

3984

they opposed the political goals of most 'svidomi ukraintsi'

3985

(nationally conscious Ukrainians), they accepted the existence

3986

of a Ukrainian nation and used the terms 'Ukraine' and

3987

'Ukrainian.'" [Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian Revolution,

3988

p. 288] It should be noted that opponents of Ukrainian

3989

independence generally called it the "south of Russia" or

3990

"Little Russia."

3991

3992

Thus an opposition to nationalism did not imply a rejection

3993

or blindness to foreign domination and free cultural expression.

3994

On the question of the language to be taught in schools, the

3995

Cultural-Educational Section of the Makhnovist Insurgent Army

3996

wrote the following in October, 1919:

3997

3998

"The cultural-educational section of the Makhnovist army

3999

constantly receives questions from school teachers asking

4000

about the language in which instruction should be given in

4001

the schools, now that Denikin's troops have been expelled.

4002

4003

"The revolutionary insurgents, holding to the principles of

4004

true socialism, cannot in any field or by any measure do

4005

violence to the natural desires and needs of the Ukrainian

4006

people. This is why the question of the language to be

4007

taught in the schools cannot be solved by our army, but can

4008

only be decided by the people themselves, by parents, teachers

4009

and students

4010

4011

"It goes without saying that all the orders of Denikin's

4012

so-called 'Special Bureau' as well as General Mai-Maevsky's

4013

order No. 22, which forbids the use of the mother tongue

4014

in the schools, are null and void, having been forcibly

4015

imposed on the schools.

4016

4017

"In the interest of the greatest intellectual development

4018

of the people, the language of instruction should be that

4019

toward which the local population naturally tends, and

4020

this is why the population, the students, the teachers

4021

and the parents, and not authorities or the army, should

4022

freely and independently resolve this question." [quoted by

4023

Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 210-1]

4024

</blockquote>

4025

They also printed a Ukrainian version of their paper ("The

4026

Road to Freedom").

4027

4028

Clearly their opposition to Ukrainian nationalism did not

4029

mean that the Makhnovists were indifferent to imperialism

4030

and foreign political or cultural domination. This explains

4031

why Makhno criticised his enemies for anti-Ukrainian actions

4032

and language. Michael Malet summarises, for the Makhnovists

4033

"Ukrainian culture was welcome, but political nationalism

4034

was highly suspect." [Op. Cit., p. 143]

4035

4036

Given anarchist support for federal organisation from below

4037

upwards, working-class self-determination and autonomy, plus

4038

a healthy respect for local culture, it is easy to see why

4039

some historians have fostered a nationalist perspective onto

4040

the Makhnovists where none existed. This means that when

4041

they agitated with the slogan "All to whom freedom and

4042

independence are dear should stay in the Ukraine and

4043

fight the Denikinists," it should be noted that "[n]owhere

4044

.. . . nationalism openly advocated, and the line of

4045

argument put forward can more easily be interpreted as

4046

libertarian and, above all, anti-White." [Malet, Op. Cit.,

4047

p. 146]

4048

4049

In 1928, Makhno wrote a rebuttal to a Soviet historian's

4050

claim that Makhno became a Ukrainian Nationalist during

4051

the 1920-21 period. He "totally dismissed the charges"

4052

and argued that the historian "distorted anarchism's

4053

espousal of local autonomy so as to create trumped-up

4054

charges of nationalism." As Sysyn argues, while Makhno

4055

"never became a nationalist, he did to a degree become

4056

a Ukrainian anarchist." [Op. Cit., p. 292 and p. 303]

4057

4058

Thus while neither Makhno nor the movement were nationalists,

4059

they were not blind to national and cultural oppression. They

4060

considered nationalism as too narrow a goal to satisfy the

4061

social aspirations of the working classes. As Makhno

4062

argued in exile, the Ukrainian toilers had "asserted their

4063

rights to use their own language and their entitlement

4064

to their own culture, which had been regarded before the

4065

revolution as anathema. They also asserted their right to

4066

conform in their lives to their own way of life and specific

4067

customs." However, "[i]n the aim of building an independent

4068

Ukrainian State, certain statist gentlemen would dearly love

4069

to arrogate to themselves all natural manifestations of

4070

Ukrainian reality." Yet the "healthy instincts of the

4071

Ukrainian toilers and their baleful life under the Bolshevik

4072

yoke has not made them oblivious of the State danger in

4073

general" and so they "shun the chauvinist trend and do not

4074

mix it up with their social aspirations, rather seeking their

4075

own road to emancipation." [The Struggle Against the State

4076

and Other Essays, pp. 24-5]

4077

4078

In summary, the Makhnovists were opposed to nationalism

4079

but supported culture diversity and self-determination

4080

within a free federation of toilers communes and councils.

4081

They did not limit their aims to national liberation, but

4082

rather sought the self-liberation of the working classes

4083

from every oppression -- foreign or domestic, economic or

4084

political, cultural or social.

4085

4086

<a name="app12"><h2>12 Did the Makhnovists support the Whites?</h2>

4087

4088

No, they did not. However, black propaganda by the Bolsheviks

4089

stated they did. Victor Serge wrote about the "strenuous

4090

calumnies put out by the Communist Party" against him

4091

"which went so far as to accuse him of signing pacts with

4092

the Whites at the very moment when he was engaged in a

4093

life-and-death struggle against them." [Memoirs of a

4094

Revolutionary, p. 122]

4095

4096

According to Arshinov, "Soviet newspapers spread the false

4097

news of an alliance between Makhno and Wrangel" and in the

4098

summer of 1920, a representative of the Kharkov government

4099

"declared at the Plenary Session of the Ekaterinoslav

4100

Soviet, that Soviet authorities had written proof of the

4101

alliance between Makhno and Wrangel. This was obviously

4102

an intentional lie." Wrangel, perhaps believing these

4103

lies had some basis, sent a messenger to Makhno in July,

4104

1920. "Wrangel's messenger was immediately executed"

4105

and the "entire incident was reported in the Makhnovist

4106

press. All this was perfectly clear to the Bolsheviks.

4107

They nevertheless continued to trumpet the alliance

4108

between Makhno and Wrangel. It was only after a

4109

military-political agreement had been concluded between

4110

the Makhnovists and the Soviet power that the Soviet

4111

Commissariat of War announced that there had never been

4112

an alliance between Makhno and Wrangel, that earlier

4113

Soviet assertions to this effect were an error."

4114

[Op. Cit., pp. 173-5]

4115

4116

Needless to say, while the Bolsheviks spread the rumour

4117

to discredit Makhno, the Whites spread it to win the

4118

confidence of the peasants. Thus when Trotsky stated

4119

that Wrangel had "united with the Ukrainian partisan

4120

Makhno," he was aiding the efforts of Wrangel to learn

4121

from previous White mistakes and build some kind of

4122

popular base. [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 220] By

4123

October, Trotsky had retracted this statement:

4124

4125

"Wrangel really tried to come into direct contact with

4126

Makhno's men and dispatched to Makhno's headquarters

4127

two representatives for negotiations . . . [However]

4128

Makhno's men not only did not enter into negotiations

4129

with the representatives of Wrangel, but publicly

4130

hanged them as soon as they arrived at the headquarters."

4131

[quoted by Palij, Ibid.]

4132

</blockquote>

4133

Trotsky, of course, still tried to blacken the Makhnovists.

4134

In the same article he argued that "[u]ndoubtedly Makhno

4135

actually co-operated with Wrangel, and also with the Polish

4136

szlachta, as he fought with them against the Red Army.

4137

However, there was no formal alliance between them. All

4138

the documents mentioning a formal alliance were fabricated

4139

by Wrangel . . . All this fabrication was made to deceive

4140

the protectors of Makhno, the French, and other imperialists."

4141

[quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 225]

4142

4143

It is hard to know where to start in this amazing piece of

4144

political story-telling. As we discuss in more detail in

4145

<a href="append46.html#app13">section 13</a>,

4146

the Makhnovists were fighting the Red Army

4147

from January to September 1920 because the Bolsheviks had

4148

engineered their outlawing! As historian David Footman points

4149

out, the attempt by the Bolsheviks to transfer Makhno to Polish

4150

front was done for political reasons:

4151

4152

"it is admitted on the Soviet side that this order was primarily

4153

'dictated by the necessity' of liquidating Makhnovshchina as an

4154

independent movement. Only when he was far removed from his home

4155

country would it be possible to counteract his influence" [Op.

4156

Cit., p. 291]

4157

</blockquote>

4158

Indeed, it could be argued that by attacking Makhno in January

4159

helped the Whites to regroup under Wrangel and return later

4160

in the year. Equally, it seems like a bad joke for Trotsky to

4161

blame the victim of Bolshevik intrigues for defending themselves.

4162

And the idea that Makhno had "protectors" in any imperialist

4163

nation is a joke, which deserves only laughter as a response!

4164

4165

It should be noted that it is "agreed that the initiative for

4166

joint action against Wrangel came from the Makhnovites." This was

4167

ignored by the Bolsheviks until after "Wrangel started his big

4168

offensive" in September 1920 [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 294 and

4169

p. 295]

4170

4171

So while the Bolsheviks claimed that the Makhnovists had made a

4172

pact with General Wrangel, the facts are that Makhnovists fought

4173

the Whites with all their energy. Indeed, they considered the

4174

Whites so great a threat to the revolution they even agreed to

4175

pursue a pact with the Bolsheviks, who had betrayed them twice

4176

already and had subjected both them and the peasantry to

4177

repression. As such, it could be argued that the Bolsheviks

4178

were the only counter-revolutionaries the Makhnovists can be

4179

accurately accused of collaborating with.

4180

4181

Every historian who has studied the movement has refuted

4182

claims that the Makhnovist movement made any alliance with

4183

the counter-revolutionary White forces. For example, Michael

4184

Palij notes that Denikin "was the main enemy that Makhno fought,

4185

stubbornly and uncompromising, from the end of 1918 to the end

4186

of 1919. Its social and anti-Ukrainian policies greatly

4187

antagonised all segments of Ukrainian society. The result

4188

of this was an increased resistance to the Volunteer Army

4189

and its regime and a substantial strengthening of the Makhno

4190

movement." He also notes that after several months of "hard

4191

fighting" Denikin's troops "came to regard Makhno's army as

4192

their most formidable enemy." Makhno's conflict with Wrangel

4193

was equally as fierce and "[a]lthough Makhno had fought both

4194

the Bolsheviks and Wrangel, his contribution to the final

4195

defeat of the latter was essential, as is proved by the

4196

efforts of both sides to have him as an ally." [Op. Cit.,

4197

p. 177, p. 202 and p. 228] According to Footman, Makhno

4198

"remained to the end the implacable enemy of the Whites."

4199

[Op. Cit., p. 295] Malet just states the obvious: "The

4200

Makhnovists were totally opposed to the Whites." [Op. Cit.,

4201

p. 140]

4202

4203

We will leave the last word to the considered judgement of

4204

the White General Denikin who, in exile, stated that the

4205

Makhno movement was "the most antagonistic to the idea of

4206

the White movement." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 140]

4207

4208

In summary, the Makhnovists fought the White counter-revolution

4209

with all their might, playing a key role in the struggle and

4210

defeat of both Denikin and Wrangel. Anyone who claims that

4211

they worked with the Whites is either ignorant or a liar.

4212

4213

<a name="app13"><h2>13 What was the relationship of the Bolsheviks to the movement?</h2>

4214

4215

The Makhnovists worked with the Bolsheviks in three periods. The

4216

first (and longest) was against Denikin after the Red Army had

4217

entered the Ukraine after the withdrawal of the Austro-Germans.

4218

The second was an informal agreement for a short period after

4219

Denikin had been defeated. The third was a formal political and

4220

military agreement between October and November 1920 in the

4221

struggle against Wrangel. Each period of co-operation ended

4222

with Bolshevik betrayal and conflict between the two forces.

4223

4224

As such, the relationship of the Bolsheviks to the

4225

Makhnovists was one of, at best, hostile co-operation

4226

against a common enemy. Usually, it was one of conflict.

4227

This was due, fundamentally, to two different concepts of

4228

social revolution. While the Makhnovists, as anarchists,

4229

believed in working-class self-management and autonomy,

4230

the Bolsheviks believed that only a centralised state

4231

structure (headed by themselves) could ensure the success

4232

of the revolution. By equating working-class power with

4233

Bolshevik party government (and from 1919 onwards, with

4234

the dictatorship of the Bolshevik party), they could not

4235

help viewing the Makhnovist movement as a threat to their

4236

power (see

4237

<a href="append46.html#app14">section 14</a>

4238

for a discussion of the political

4239

differences and the evolving nature of the Bolshevik's

4240

conception of party rule).

4241

4242

Such a perspective ensured that they could only co-operate

4243

during periods when the White threat seemed most dangerous.

4244

As soon as the threat was defeated or they felt strong enough,

4245

the Bolsheviks turned on their former allies instantly. This

4246

section discusses each of the Bolshevik betrayals and the

4247

subsequent conflicts. As such, it is naturally broken up into

4248

three parts, reflecting each of the betrayals and their

4249

aftermath.

4250

4251

Michael Malet sums up the usual Bolshevik-Makhnovist relationship

4252

by arguing that it "will be apparent that the aim of the Soviet

4253

government from the spring of 1919 onwards was to destroy the

4254

Makhnovists as an independent force, preferably killing Makhno

4255

himself in the process . . . Given the disastrous nature of

4256

Bolshevik land policy . . . this was not only unsurprisingly,

4257

it was inevitable." He also adds that the "fact that Makhno

4258

had a socio-political philosophy to back up his arguments only

4259

made the Bolsheviks more determined to break his hold over

4260

the south-east Ukraine, as soon as they realised that Nestor

4261

would not surrender that hold voluntarily." [Op. Cit., p. 128

4262

and p. 129]

4263

4264

The first betrayal occurred in June 1919. The Makhnovists had

4265

been integrated with the Red Army in late January 1919,

4266

retaining their internal organisation (including the election

4267

of commanders) and their black flags. With the Red Army they

4268

fought against Denikin's Volunteer Army. Before the arrival

4269

of Red forces in their region and the subsequent pact, the

4270

Makhnovists had organised a successful regional insurgent,

4271

peasant and worker congress which had agreed to call a

4272

second for February 12th. This second congress set up a

4273

Revolutionary Military Soviet to implement the decisions

4274

of this and following congresses. This congress (see

4275

<a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>)

4276

passed an anti-Bolshevik resolution, which

4277

urged "the peasants and workers to watch vigilantly the

4278

actions of the Bolshevik regime that cause a real danger

4279

to the worker-peasant revolution." Such actions included

4280

the monopolisation of the revolution, centralising power

4281

and overriding local soviets, repressing anarchists and

4282

Left Socialist Revolutionaries and "stifling any

4283

manifestation of revolutionary expression." [quoted by

4284

Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154]

4285

4286

This change from the recent welcome was simply the behaviour

4287

of the Bolsheviks since their arrival. The (unelected)

4288

Ukrainian Bolshevik government had tried to apply the

4289

same tactics as its Russian equivalent, particularly as

4290

regards the peasants. In addition, the Bolshevik land

4291

policy (as indicated in

4292

<a href="append46.html#app8">section 8</a>) was a complete

4293

disaster, alien to the ideas and needs of the peasants

4294

and, combined with grain requisitioning, alienating them.

4295

4296

The third congress was held on the 10th of April. By

4297

this time, Communist agricultural policy and terrorism

4298

had alienated all the peasantry, who "rich and poor alike"

4299

were "united in their opposition" to the Bolsheviks.

4300

[Footman, Op. Cit., p. 269] Indeed, the "poorer the

4301

areas, the more dissatisfied were the peasants with the

4302

Bolshevik decrees." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 156]

4303

As we indicated in

4304

<a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>,

4305

the third congress was informed that it was

4306

"counter-revolutionary" and banned by the Bolshevik

4307

commander Dybenko, provoking a famous reply which stressed

4308

the right of a revolutionary people to apply the gains

4309

of that revolution when they see fit. It is worth re-quoting

4310

the relevant section:

4311

4312

"Can there exist laws made by a few people who call

4313

themselves revolutionaries which permit them to

4314

outlaw a whole people who are more revolutionary

4315

than they are themselves? . . .

4316

4317

"Is it permissible, is it admissible, that they should

4318

come to the country to establish laws of violence,

4319

to subjugate a people who have just overthrown all

4320

lawmakers and all laws?

4321

4322

"Does there exist a law according to which a revolutionary

4323

has the right to apply the most severe penalties to a

4324

revolutionary mass, of which he calls himself the

4325

defender, simply because this mass has taken the good

4326

things which the revolution promised them, freedom

4327

and equality, without his permission?

4328

4329

"Should the mass of revolutionary people perhaps be

4330

silent when such a revolutionary takes away the

4331

freedom which they have just conquered?

4332

4333

"Do the laws of the revolution order the shooting of

4334

a delegate because he believes he ought to carry out

4335

the mandate given him by the revolutionary mass

4336

which elected him?

4337

4338

"Whose interests should the revolutionary defend;

4339

those of the Party or those of the people who set

4340

the revolution in motion with their blood?" [quoted

4341

by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 103]

4342

</blockquote>

4343

After the 3rd congress, the Bolsheviks started to turn

4344

against Makhno:

4345

4346

"It was now that favourable mention of Makhno ceased to

4347

appear in the Soviet Press; an increasingly critical

4348

note became apparent. Supplies failed to get through to

4349

Makhnovite units and areas." [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 271]

4350

</blockquote>

4351

Lenin himself advised local Bolshevik leaders on Makhno,

4352

stating in early May that "temporarily, while Rostov is

4353

not yet captured, it is necessary to be diplomatic."

4354

[quoted by Arthur E. Adams, Bolsheviks in the Ukraine,

4355

pp. 352-3] Thus, as long as the Bolsheviks needed cannon

4356

fodder, Makhno was to be tolerated. Things changed when

4357

Trotsky arrived. On May 17th he promised a "radical and

4358

merciless liquidation of partisanshchina [the partisan

4359

movement], independence, hooliganism, and leftism."

4360

[quoted by Adams, Op. Cit., p. 360] According to one

4361

historian, Trotsky "favoured a thorough-going annihilation

4362

of the partisan's ideological leaders as well as men like

4363

Hryhoriyov who wielded political power." [Adams, Op. Cit.,

4364

p. 360] Unsurprisingly, given Trotsky's stated mission,

4365

Bolshevik hostility towards the Makhnovists became more

4366

than mere words. It took the form of both direct and

4367

indirect aggression. "In the latter part of May," states

4368

Footman, "the Cheka sent over two agents to assassinate

4369

Makhno." Around the same time, the Red "hold-back of supplies

4370

for the Insurgents developed into a blockade of the area.

4371

Makhnovite units at the front ran short of ammunition."

4372

[Op. Cit., p. 271 and p. 272] This, obviously, had a

4373

negative impact the Makhnovists' ability to fight the

4374

Whites.

4375

4376

Due to the gravity of the military and political situations both

4377

at and behind the front, the Makhnovist Revolutionary Military

4378

Soviet decided to call an extraordinary congress of peasants,

4379

workers, insurgents and Red soldiers. This congress was to

4380

determine the immediate tasks and the practical measures to

4381

be taken by the workers to remedy the mortal danger represented

4382

by the Whites. On May 31st, a call was sent out which stated,

4383

in part, "that only the working masses themselves can find a

4384

solution [to the current problem], and not individuals or

4385

parties." The congress would be based as follows: "elections of

4386

delegates of peasants and workers will take place at general

4387

assemblies of villages, towns, factories and workshops."

4388

[quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 121]

4389

4390

The Bolshevik reply came quickly, with Trotsky issuing his

4391

infamous Order no. 1824 on June 4th:

4392

4393

"This Congress is directed squarely against the Soviet Power

4394

in the Ukraine and against the organisation of the southern

4395

front, where Makhno's brigade is stationed. This congress can

4396

have no other result then to excite some new disgraceful revolt

4397

like that of Grigor'ev, and to open the front to the Whites,

4398

before whom Makhno's brigade can only retreat incessantly on

4399

account of the incompetence, criminal designs and treason of

4400

its commanders.

4401

4402

"1. By the present order this congress is forbidden, and will

4403

in no circumstances be allowed to take place.

4404

4405

"2. All the peasant and working class population shall be warned.

4406

orally and in writing, that participation in the said congress

4407

will be considered an act of high treason against the Soviet

4408

Republic and the Soviet front.

4409

4410

"3. All delegates to the said Congress shall be arrested

4411

immediately and bought before the Revolutionary Military

4412

Tribunal of the 14th, formerly 2nd, Army of the Ukraine.

4413

4414

"4. The persons spreading the call of Makhno and the Hulyai

4415

Pole Executive Committee to the Congress shall likewise be

4416

arrested.

4417

4418

"5. The present order shall have the force of law as soon as

4419

it is telegraphed. It should be widely distributed, displayed

4420

in all public places, and sent to the representatives of the

4421

executive committees of towns and villages, as well as to all

4422

the representatives of Soviet authority, and to commanders and

4423

commissars of military units." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit.,

4424

pp. 122-3]

4425

</blockquote>

4426

Arshinov argues that this "document is truly classic" and

4427

"[w]hoever studies the Russian revolution should learn it by

4428

heart." He compares Trotsky's order to the reply the Makhnovists

4429

had sent to the Bolsheviks' attempt to ban the third congress.

4430

Clearly, Order No. 1824 shows that laws did exist "made by a

4431

a few people who call themselves revolutionaries which permit

4432

them to outlaw a whole people who are more revolutionary than

4433

they are themselves"! Equally, the order shows that "a

4434

revolutionary has the right to apply the most severe penalties

4435

to a revolutionary mass . . . simply because this mass has

4436

taken the good things which the revolution has promised them,

4437

freedom and equality, without his permission"! Little wonder

4438

Arshinov states that this order meant that the "entire peasant

4439

and labouring population are declared guilty of high treason

4440

if they dare to participate in their own free congress."

4441

[Op. Cit., p. 123]

4442

4443

According to Voline, in Alexandrovsk "all workers meetings

4444

planned for the purpose of discussing the call of the

4445

Council and the agenda of the Congress were forbidden under

4446

pain of death. Those which were organised in ignorance of

4447

the order were dispersed by armed force. In other cities

4448

and towns, the Bolsheviks acted in the same way. As for

4449

the peasants in the villages, they were treated with still

4450

less ceremony; in many places militants and even peasants

4451

'suspected of acting in favour of the insurgents and the

4452

Congress' were seized and executed after a semblance of

4453

a trial. Many peasants carrying the call were arrested,

4454

'tried' and shot, before they could even find out about

4455

Order No. 1824." [Op. Cit., pp. 599-600]

4456

4457

As Arshinov summarises:

4458

4459

"This entire document represents such a crying usurpation of

4460

the rights of the workers that it is pointless to comment

4461

further on it." [Op. Cit., p. 124]

4462

</blockquote>

4463

Trotsky continued his usurpation of the rights of the workers

4464

in a later order on the congress. In this, Trotsky called

4465

this openly announced workers, peasant and insurgent congress

4466

a "conspiracy against Soviet power" and a "congress of

4467

Anarchist-kulaks delegates for struggle against the Red

4468

Army and the Soviet power" (which explains why the congress

4469

organisers had asked that hotbed of kulakism, the Red Army

4470

troops, to send delegates!). Trotsky indicated the fate of

4471

those workers and peasants who dared participate in their

4472

own revolution: "There can be only one penalty for these

4473

individuals: shooting." [How the Revolution Armed,

4474

vol. II, p. 293]

4475

4476

Trotsky also ordered the arrest of Makhno, who escaped but who

4477

ordered his troops to remain under Bolshevik command to ensure

4478

that the front against Denikin was maintained. However, five

4479

members of his staff were shot for having distributed literature

4480

concerning the banned fourth congress. This order was the first

4481

step in the Bolshevik attempt to "liquidate the Makhnovist

4482

movement." This campaign saw Bolshevik regiments invade the

4483

insurgent area, shooting militants on the spot and destroying

4484

the free communes and other Makhnovist organisations. [Arshinov,

4485

Op. Cit., p. 121] It should be noted that during the Spanish

4486

Revolution, the Stalinists acted in the same way, attacking

4487

rural collectives while the anarchist troops fought against

4488

Franco at the front.

4489

4490

Thus the participating event for the break between the

4491

Makhnovists and Bolsheviks was Trotsky's banning of the

4492

fourth regional congress. However, this was preceded by

4493

an intense press campaign against the Makhnovists as well

4494

as holding back of essential supplies from the frontline

4495

troops. Clearly the Bolsheviks considered that the soviet

4496

system was threatened if soviet conferences were called

4497

and that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was undermined

4498

if the proletariat took part in the revolutionary process!

4499

4500

With the Makhnovist front weakened, they could not hold against

4501

Denikin's attacks, particularly when Red Army troops retreated on

4502

their flank. Thus, the front which the Makhnovists themselves had

4503

formed and held for more than six months was finally broken.

4504

[Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 124] The Red Army was split into three

4505

and the Whites entered the Ukraine, which the Bolsheviks promptly

4506

abandoned to its fate. The Makhnovists, drawing stray Red Army

4507

and other forces to it, continued to fight the Whites, ultimately

4508

inflicting a decisive defeat on them at Peregonovka, subsequently

4509

destroying their supply lines and ensuring Denikin's defeat

4510

(see <a href="append46.html#app4">section 4</a>).

4511

4512

The Red Army re-entered the Ukraine at the end of 1919.

4513

Bolshevik plans with regard to the Makhnovists had already

4514

been decided in a secret order written by Trotsky on

4515

December 11th. Red Army troops had to "be protected

4516

against infection by guerrilla-ism and Makhnovism" by

4517

various means, including "extensive agitation" which

4518

used "examples from the past to show the treacherous role

4519

played by the Makhnovites." A "considerable number of

4520

agents" would be sent "ahead" of the main forces

4521

to "join the

4522

guerrilla detachments" and would agitate against "guerrilla-ism."

4523

Once partisan forces meet with Red Army troops, the former

4524

"ceases to be a military unit after it has appeared on our

4525

side of the line . . . From that moment it becomes merely

4526

material for processing, and for that purpose is to be sent

4527

to our rear." To "secure complete subordination of the

4528

detachments," the Red forces "must make use of the agents

4529

previously set to these detachments." The aim, simply put,

4530

was to ensure that the partisans became "fully subordinate

4531

to our command." If the partisans who had been fighting for

4532

revolution and against the Whites opposed becoming "material

4533

for processing" (i.e cannon fodder), "refuses to submit to

4534

orders, displays unruliness and self-will," then it "must

4535

be subjected to ruthless punishment." Recognising the

4536

organic links the partisans had with the peasants, Trotsky

4537

argues that "in the Ukraine, guerrilla detachments appear

4538

and disappear with ease, dissolving themselves into the

4539

mass of the armed peasant population" and so "a fundamental

4540

condition for the success against guerrilla-ism is

4541

unconditional disarmament of the rural population,

4542

without exception." [Trotsky, How the Revolution Armed,

4543

vol. II, pp. 440-2] As events would show, the Bolsheviks

4544

implemented Trotsky's order to the letter.

4545

4546

On December 24th, Makhno's troops met with the Bolshevik 14th

4547

army and its commander "admitted Makhno's service in defeating

4548

Denikin." However, while "the Bolsheviks fraternised with the

4549

Makhno troops . . . they distrusted Makhno, fearing the

4550

popularity he had gained as a result of his successful

4551

fighting against Denikin." The Bolsheviks had "no intention

4552

of tolerating Makhno's independent policy, but hoped first to

4553

destroy his army by removing it from its own base. With this

4554

in mind, on January 8th, 1920, the Revolutionary Military

4555

Council of the Fourteenth Army ordered Makhno to move to the

4556

Polish Front . . . The author of the order realised that there

4557

was no real war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks at the

4558

time and he also knew that Makhno would not abandon his region.

4559

.. . . Uborevich [the author] explained that 'an appropriate

4560

reaction by Makhno to this order would give us the chance

4561

to have accurate grounds for our next steps' . . . [He]

4562

concluded: 'The order is a certain political manoeuvre and,

4563

at the very least, we expect positive results from Makhno's

4564

realisation of this.'" [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 209 and p. 210]

4565

As can be seen, these actions fit perfectly with Trotsky's

4566

secret order and with Bolshevik desire for a monopoly of

4567

power for itself (see

4568

<a href="append46.html#app14">next section</a>).

4569

4570

As expected, the Makhnovists refused to leave their territory.

4571

They realised the political motivations behind the order. As

4572

Arshinov notes, "[s]ending the insurrectionary army to the

4573

Polish front meant removing from the Ukraine the main nerve

4574

centre of the revolutionary insurrection. This was precisely

4575

what the Bolsheviks wanted: they would then be absolute masters

4576

of the rebellious region, and the Makhnovists were perfectly

4577

aware of this." [Op. Cit., p. 163] As well as political

4578

objections, the Makhnovists listed practical reasons for

4579

not going. Firstly, "the Insurrectionary Army was subordinate

4580

neither to the 14th Corps nor to any other unit of the Red Army.

4581

The Red commander had no authority to give orders to the

4582

Insurrectionary Army." Secondly, "it was materially impossible

4583

to carry it out, since half the men, as well as nearly all

4584

the commanders and staff, and Makhno himself, were sick

4585

[with typhus]." Thirdly, "the fighting qualities and

4586

revolutionary usefulness of the Insurrectionary Army were

4587

certainly much greater on their own ground." [Voline, Op.

4588

Cit., pp. 650-1]

4589

4590

The Bolsheviks refused to discuss the issue and on the 14th

4591

of January, they declared the Makhnovists outlawed. They

4592

then "made a great effort to destroy" Makhno. [Palij,

4593

Op. Cit., p. 210] In summary, the Bolsheviks started the

4594

conflict in order to eliminate opposition to their power.

4595

This led to nine months of bitter fighting between the

4596

Red Army and the Makhnovists. To prevent fraternisation,

4597

the Bolsheviks did not use local troops and instead imported

4598

Latvian, Estonian and Chinese troops. They also used other

4599

"new tactics," and "attacked not only Makhno's partisans,

4600

but also the villages and towns in which the population

4601

was sympathetic toward Makhno. They shot ordinary soldiers

4602

as well as their commanders, destroying their houses,

4603

confiscating their properties and persecuting their families.

4604

Moreover the Bolsheviks conducted mass arrests of innocent

4605

peasants who were suspected of collaborating in some way

4606

with the partisans. It is impossible to determine the

4607

casualties involved." They also set up "Committees of

4608

the Poor" as part of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus,

4609

which acted as "informers helping the Bolshevik secret police

4610

in its persecution of the partisans, their families and

4611

supporters, even to the extent of hunting down and executing

4612

wounded partisans." [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 212-3]

4613

4614

This conflict undoubtedly gave time for the Whites to

4615

reorganise themselves and encouraged the Poles to invade

4616

the Ukraine, so prolonging the Civil War. The Makhnovists

4617

were threatened by both the Bolsheviks and Wrangel. By

4618

mid-1920, Wrangel appeared to be gaining the upper hand

4619

and the Makhnovists "could not remain indifferent to

4620

Wrangel's advance . . . Everything done to destroy him

4621

would in the last analysis benefit the revolution." This

4622

lead the Makhnovists to consider allying with the Bolsheviks

4623

as "the difference between the Communists and Wrangel

4624

was that the Communists had the support of the masses

4625

with faith in the revolution. It is true that these masses

4626

were cynically misled by the Communists, who exploited

4627

the revolutionary enthusiasm of the workers in the interests

4628

of Bolshevik power." With this in mind, the Makhnovists

4629

agreed at a mass assembly to make an alliance with the

4630

Bolsheviks against Wrangel as this would eliminate the

4631

White threat and end the civil war. [Arshinov, Op. Cit.,

4632

p. 176]

4633

4634

The Bolsheviks ignored the Makhnovist offer using

4635

mid-September, when "Wrangel's success caused the Bolsheviks

4636

leaders to reconsider." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 223] Sometime

4637

between the 10th and 15th of October the final agreement was

4638

signed:

4639

4640

"Part I -- Political Agreement.

4641

4642

"1. Immediate release of all Makhnovists and anarchists imprisoned

4643

or in exile in the territories of the Soviet Republic; cessation

4644

of all persecutions of Makhnovists or anarchists, except those

4645

who carry on armed conflict against the Soviet Government.

4646

4647

"2. Complete freedom in all forms of public expression and

4648

propaganda for all Makhnovists and anarchists, for their

4649

principles and ideas, in speech and the press, with the

4650

exception of anything that might call for the violent

4651

overthrow of the Soviet Government, and on condition that

4652

the requirements of military censorship be respected. For

4653

all kinds of publications, the Makhnovists and anarchists,

4654

as revolutionary organisations recognised by the Soviet

4655

Government may make use of the technical apparatus of the

4656

Soviet State, while naturally submitting to the technical

4657

rules for publication.

4658

4659

"3. Free participation in elections to the Soviets; and the

4660

right of Makhnovists and anarchists to be elected thereto.

4661

Free participation in the organisation of the forthcoming

4662

Fifth Pan-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets . . .

4663

4664

"Part II -- Military Agreement.

4665

4666

"1. The Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army (Makhnovist)

4667

will join the armed forces of the Republic as a partisan army,

4668

subordinate, in regard to operations, to the supreme command of

4669

the Red Army; it will retain its established internal structure,

4670

and does not have to adopt the bases and principles of the

4671

regular Red Army.

4672

4673

"2. When crossing Soviet territory at the front, or going between

4674

fronts, the Insurrectionary Army will not accept into its ranks

4675

neither any detachments of, nor deserters from, the Red Army . . .

4676

4677

"3. For the purpose of destroying the common enemy -- the White

4678

Army -- the Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army

4679

(Makhnovists) will inform the working masses that collaborate

4680

with it the agreement that has been concluded; it will call upon

4681

the people to cease all military actions hostile to the Soviet

4682

power; and for its part, the Soviet power will immediately

4683

publish the clauses of the agreement.

4684

4685

"4. The families of combatants of the Makhnovist Revolutionary

4686

Insurrectionary Army living in the territory of the Soviet

4687

Republic shall enjoy the same rights as those of soldiers of

4688

the Red Army . . ." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 178]

4689

</blockquote>

4690

This agreement was agreed by both sides, although the Bolsheviks

4691

immediately broke it by publishing the military agreement first,

4692

followed by the political agreement a week later, so obscuring

4693

the real meaning of the pact. As it stands, the political clause

4694

simply gave anarchists and Makhnovists the rights they should

4695

have already had, according to the constitution of the Soviet

4696

state. This shows how far the Bolsheviks had applied that

4697

constitution.

4698

4699

The agreement is highly significant as in itself it disproves

4700

many of the Bolsheviks slanders about the Makhnovists and it

4701

proves the suppression of the anarchist press to have been on

4702

political grounds.

4703

4704

However, the Makhnovists desired to add a fourth clause to

4705

the Political Agreement:

4706

4707

"Since one of the essential principles of the Makhnovist movement

4708

is the struggle for the self-management of the workers, the

4709

Insurrectionary Army (Makhnovist) believes it should insist on

4710

the following fourth point of the political agreement: in the

4711

region where the Makhnovist Army is operating, the population

4712

of workers and peasants will create its own institutions of

4713

economic and political self-management; these institutions will

4714

be autonomous and joined in federation, by means of agreement,

4715

with the government organs of the Soviet Republic," [quoted by

4716

Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 179-80]

4717

</blockquote>

4718

Unsurprisingly, the Bolsheviks refused to ratify this clause.

4719

As one Bolshevik historian pointed out, the "fourth point was

4720

fundamental to both sides, it meant the system of free Soviets,

4721

which was in total opposition to the idea of the dictatorship

4722

of the proletariat." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 108] As

4723

we discuss in the

4724

<a href="append46.html#app14">next section</a>,

4725

the Bolsheviks had equated

4726

the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the dictatorship

4727

of their party and so working-class self-management could not

4728

be allowed. It should be noted that this fourth clause was the

4729

cause of Lenin and Trotsky's toying with the idea of allowing

4730

the Makhnovists south-eastern Ukraine as an anarchist

4731

experiment (as mentioned by both Victor Serge and Trotsky in

4732

later years).

4733

4734

Once Wrangel had been defeated by Makhnovist and Red Army

4735

units, the Bolsheviks turned on the movement. Makhno had

4736

"assumed that the coming conflict with the Bolsheviks could

4737

be limited to the realm of ideas, feeling that the strong

4738

revolutionary ideas and feelings of the peasants, together

4739

with their distrust of the foreign invaders, were the best

4740

guarantees for the movement's territory. Moreover, Makhno

4741

believed that the Bolsheviks would not attack his movement

4742

immediately. A respite of some three months would have

4743

allowed him to consolidate his power [sic!] and to win

4744

over much of the Bolshevik rank and file." [Palij,

4745

Op. Cit., p. 231] From the wording of the second clause

4746

of the military agreement (namely, to refuse Red Army

4747

deserters or units), it is clear that the Bolsheviks were

4748

aware of the appeal of Makhnovist politics on the Red

4749

Army soldiers. As soon as Wrangel was defeated, the Red

4750

Army attacked. Makhnovist commanders were invited to

4751

meetings, arrested and then shot. The Red Army surrounded

4752

Makhnovist units and attacked them. At the same time,

4753

anarchists were arrested all across the Ukraine. Hulyai

4754

Pole itself was attacked (Makhno, despite overwhelming

4755

odds, broke out). [Malet, Op. Cit., pp. 71-2]

4756

4757

In the words of Makhno:

4758

4759

"In this difficult and responsible revolutionary position

4760

the Makhno movement made one great mistake: alliance with

4761

the Bolsheviks against a common enemy, Wrangel and the

4762

Entente. In the period of this alliance that was morally

4763

right and of practical value for the revolution, the Makhno

4764

movement mistook Bolshevik revolutionism and failed to

4765

secure itself in advance against betrayal. The Bolsheviks

4766

and their experts treacherously circumvented it." [quoted

4767

by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 234]

4768

</blockquote>

4769

While the Bolsheviks continuously proclaimed the final defeat

4770

of the Makhnovists, they held out for nearly a year before

4771

being forced to leave the Ukraine in August 1921. Indeed,

4772

by the end of 1920 his troops number ten to fifteen thousand

4773

men and the "growing strength of the Makhno army and its

4774

successes caused serious concern in the Bolshevik regime."

4775

More Red troops were deployed, "stationing whole regiments,

4776

primarily cavalry, in the occupied villages to terrorise

4777

the peasants and prevent them from supporting Makhno. . .

4778

Cheka punitive units were constantly trailing the partisans,

4779

executing Makhno's sympathisers and the partisans' families."

4780

[Palij, Op. Cit., p. 237 and p. 238] Combined with this

4781

state terrorism, economic conditions in the villages got

4782

worse. The countryside was exhausted and 1921 was a famine

4783

year. With his rural base itself barely surviving, the

4784

Makhnovists could not survive long.

4785

4786

It should be noted that during the periods after the Bolsheviks

4787

had turned on the Makhnovists, the latter appealed to rank-and-file

4788

Red Army troops not to attack them. As one of their leaflets

4789

put it: "Down with fratricidal war among the working people!"

4790

They urged the Red Army troops (with some success) to rebel

4791

against the commissars and appointed officers and join with

4792

the Makhnovists, who would "greet [them] as our own brothers

4793

and together we will create a free and just life for workers

4794

and peasants and will struggle against all tyrants and

4795

oppressors of the working people." [contained in Arshinov,

4796

Op. Cit., p. 276 and p. 283]

4797

4798

Even after the defeat of the Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks did not

4799

stop their campaign of lies. For example, Trotsky reported to

4800

the Ninth Congress of Soviets on December 26th, 1921, that

4801

the Makhnovists were "in Romania," where Makhno had "received

4802

a friendly welcome" and was "liv[ing] comfortably in Bucharest."

4803

The Makhnovists had picked Romania because it was, like Poland,

4804

"a country where they . . . felt secure" due to the way they

4805

treated "Russian counter-revolutionary bands." [How the

4806

Revolution Armed, vol. IV, p. 404] In reality, the "Romanian

4807

authorities put Makhno, his wife, and his followers in an

4808

internment camp." The Bolsheviks were not unaware of this,

4809

as they "sent a series of sharp diplomatic notes demanding

4810

Makhno's extradiction." They expelled Makhno and his wife

4811

to Poland on April 11, 1922. The Poles also interned them

4812

and, again, the Bolsheviks demanded Makhno's extradition

4813

"on the ground that he was a criminal and not entitled to

4814

political asylum." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 242] Trotsky's lies

4815

come as no surprise, given his and his party's track record

4816

on slandering anarchists.

4817

4818

As can be seen, the relationship of the Makhnovists to the

4819

Bolsheviks was one of constant betrayal of the former by the

4820

latter. Moreover, the Bolsheviks took every opportunity to

4821

slander the Makhnovists, with Trotsky going so far as to

4822

report Makhno was living well while he was rotting in a

4823

capitalist prison. This is to be expected, as the aims of the

4824

two groups were at such odds. As we discuss in the

4825

<a href="append46.html#app14">next section</a>,

4826

while the Makhnovists did whatever they could to encourage

4827

working-class self-management and freedom, the Bolsheviks had

4828

evolved from advocating the government of their party as the

4829

expression of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" to stating

4830

that only the dictatorship of their party could ensure the success of

4831

a social revolution and so was "the dictatorship of the

4832

proletariat." As the Makhnovist movement shows, if need be,

4833

the party would happily exercise its dictatorship over the

4834

proletariat (and peasantry) if that was needed to retain its

4835

power.

4836

4837

<a name="app14"><h2>14 How did the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks differ?</h2>

4838

4839

Like chalk and cheese.

4840

4841

Whereas the Bolsheviks talked about soviet democracy while

4842

exercising a party dictatorship, the Makhnovists not only

4843

talked about "free soviets," they also encouraged them with

4844

all their ability. Similarly, while Lenin stated that

4845

free speech was "a bourgeois notion" and that there could

4846

be "no free speech in a revolutionary period," the Makhnovists

4847

proclaimed free speech for working people. [Lenin quoted by

4848

Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 33] While the

4849

Bolsheviks ended up arguing for the necessity of party

4850

dictatorship during a revolution, the Makhnovists introduced

4851

free soviets and organised peasant, worker and insurgent

4852

congresses to conduct the revolution.

4853

4854

We have discussed the Makhnovist ideas in both theory and

4855

practice in sections

4856

<a href="append46.html#app5">5</a>,

4857

<a href="append46.html#app6">6</a> and

4858

<a href="append46.html#app7">7</a>. In spite of

4859

the chaos and difficulties imposed upon the movement by

4860

having to fight the counter-revolution, the Makhnovists

4861

applied their ideals constantly. The Makhnovists were a mass

4862

movement and its constructive efforts showed that there was

4863

an alternative route the Russian revolution could have followed

4864

other than the authoritarian dictatorship that Leninists, then

4865

and now, claimed was inevitable if the revolution was to be saved.

4866

4867

To see why, we must compare Bolshevik ideology and practice

4868

to that of the Makhnovists in three key areas. Firstly, on

4869

how a revolution should be defended. Secondly, on the role of

4870

the soviets and party in the revolution. Thirdly, on the question

4871

of working-class freedom.

4872

4873

Early in 1918, after the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty the

4874

Bolsheviks re-introduced Tsarist officers into the army alongside

4875

bourgeois military discipline. As Maurice Brinton correctly

4876

summarises:

4877

4878

"Trotsky, appointed Commissar of Military Affairs after

4879

Brest-Litovsk, had rapidly been reorganising the Red Army. The

4880

death penalty for disobedience under fire had been restored. So,

4881

more gradually, had saluting, special forms of address, separate

4882

living quarters and other privileges for officers. Democratic

4883

forms of organisation, including the election of officers, had

4884

been quickly dispensed with." [The Bolsheviks and Workers'

4885

Control, p. 37]

4886

</blockquote>

4887

Officers were appointed rather then elected. They argued this had to

4888

be done to win the war. The "principle of election," stated Trotsky,

4889

"is politically purposeless and technically inexpedient and has been,

4890

in practice, abolished by decree." Thus the election of officers

4891

and the creation of soldiers' committees was abolished from the top,

4892

replaced by appointed officers. Trotsky's rationale for this was

4893

simply that "political power is in the hands of the same working

4894

class from whose ranks the Army is recruited." In other words, the

4895

Bolshevik Party held power as power was actually held by it, not

4896

the working class. Trotsky tried to answer the obvious objection:

4897

4898

"Once we have established the Soviet regime, that is a system

4899

under which the government is headed by persons who have been

4900

directly elected by the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and

4901

Soldiers' Deputies, there can be no antagonism between the

4902

government and the mass of the workers, just as there is no

4903

antagonism between the administration of the union and the

4904

general assembly of its members, and, therefore, there cannot

4905

be any grounds for fearing the appointment of members of the

4906

commanding staff by the organs of the Soviet Power." [Work,

4907

Discipline, Order]

4908

</blockquote>

4909

He repeated this argument in his 1919 diatribe against the

4910

Makhnovists:

4911

4912

"The Makhnovites shout raucously: 'Down with appointed commanders!'

4913

This they do only so as to delude the ignorant element among their

4914

own soldiers. One can speak of 'appointed' persons only under the

4915

bourgeois order, when Tsarist officials or bourgeois ministers

4916

appointed at their own discretion commanders who kept the soldier

4917

masses subject to the bourgeois classes. Today there is no authority

4918

in Russia but that which is elected by the whole working class and

4919

working peasantry. It follows that commanders appointed by the

4920

central Soviet Government are installed in their positions by the

4921

will of the working millions. But the Makhnovite commanders reflect

4922

the interests of a minute group of Anarchists who rely on the kulaks

4923

and the ignorant." [The Makhno Movement]

4924

</blockquote>

4925

Of course, most workers are well aware that the administration

4926

of a trade union usually works against them during periods of struggle.

4927

Indeed, so are most Trotskyists as they often denounce the betrayals

4928

by that administration. Thus Trotsky's own analogy indicates the

4929

fallacy of his argument. Equally, it was not "the will of the working

4930

millions" which appointed anyone, it was a handful of leaders of the

4931

Bolshevik party (which had manipulated the soviets to remain in

4932

power). Needless to say, this was a vast change from Lenin's

4933

comments in State and Revolution opposing appointment and calling

4934

for election of all officials!

4935

4936

Moreover, the explanation that "the ignorant" were to blame for

4937

Makhnovist opposition to appointed officers had a long legacy

4938

with Trotsky. In April 1918, when justifying Bolshevik introduction

4939

of appointed officers, he had argued that the "Soviet government

4940

is the same as the committee of a trade union. It is elected by

4941

the workers and peasants and you can at the All-Russian Congress

4942

of Soviets, at any moment you like, dismiss that government and

4943

appoint another. But once you have appointed it, you must give

4944

it the right to choose the technical specialists." He stressed

4945

that this applied "in military affairs, in particular." Using the

4946

trade union analogy, he argued that the workers had "entrusted

4947

us [the Bolshevik leaders] with the direction of the union" and

4948

this meant that the Bolshevik leaders, not the workers, should

4949

decide things as "we are better able to judge in the matter" than

4950

them! The workers role was stated clearly: "if our way of conducting

4951

the business is bad, then throw us out and elect another committee!"

4952

[Leon Trotsky Speaks, p. 113] In other words, like any bureaucrat,

4953

for Trotsky working-class participation in the affairs of the

4954

revolution was seen as irrelevant: the masses had voted and

4955

their role was now that of obeying those who "are better able to

4956

judge."

4957

4958

Using an argument the Tsar could have been proud of, Trotsky defended

4959

the elimination of soldier democracy:

4960

4961

"How could soldiers who have just entered the army choose the

4962

chiefs! Have they any vote to go by? They have none. And therefore

4963

elections are impossible." [Ibid.]

4964

</blockquote>

4965

Equally, how could workers and peasants who have just entered

4966

political or economic struggle in 1917 choose the chiefs? Had

4967

they any vote to go by? They had none. And therefore political

4968

and workplace elections are impossible. Unsurprisingly, Trotsky

4969

soon ended up applying this logic to politics as well, defending

4970

(like all the leaders of Bolshevism) the dictatorship of the

4971

party over working class. How could the "ignorant" workers

4972

be expected to elect the best "chiefs" never mind manage their

4973

own affairs!

4974

4975

Ironically, in 1936 the Stalinist Communist Party in Spain was

4976

to make very similar arguments about the need for a regular army

4977

and army discipline to win the war. As Aileen O'Carroll in her

4978

essay "Freedom and Revolution" argues:

4979

4980

"The conventional army structure evolved when feudal kings or

4981

capitalist governments required the working class to fight its

4982

wars for them. These had to be authoritarian institutions, because

4983

although propaganda and jingoism can play a part initially in

4984

encouraging enlistment, the horrors of war soon expose the futility

4985

of nationalism. A large part of military organisation is aimed at

4986

ensuring that soldiers remain fighting for causes they do not

4987

necessarily believe in. Military discipline attempts to create an

4988

unthinking, unquestioning body of soldiers, as fearful of their

4989

own side as of the other." [Red & Black Revolution, no. 1]

4990

</blockquote>

4991

In short in both Russia and Spain the Bolsheviks wanted an army

4992

that would obey them regardless of whether the individual soldiers

4993

felt they were doing the correct thing, indeed who would obey

4994

through fear of their officers even when they knew what they were

4995

doing was wrong. Such a body would be essential for enforcing

4996

minority rule over the wishes of the workers. Would a self-managed

4997

army be inclined to repress workers' and peasants' strikes and

4998

protests? Of course not.

4999

5000

The Makhnovists show that another kind of revolutionary army

5001

was possible in the Russian Revolution and that the "ignorant"

5002

masses could choose their own officers. In other words, the

5003

latter-day justifications of the followers of Bolshevism are

5004

wrong when they assert that the creation of the top-down,

5005

hierarchical Red Army was a result of the "contradiction

5006

between the political consciousness and circumstantial

5007

coercion" and "a retreat" because "officers were appointed

5008

and not elected," it was a conscript army and "severe

5009

military discipline." [John Rees, "In Defence of October",

5010

International Socialism, no. 52, pp. 3-82, p. 46] As can

5011

be seen, Trotsky did not consider it as a "retreat" or caused

5012

by "circumstances." Equally, the Makhnovists managed to

5013

organise themselves relatively democratically in the

5014

circumstances created by the same civil war.

5015

5016

As such, the differences between the Makhnovists and the

5017

Bolsheviks as regards the internal organisation of a

5018

revolutionary army are clear. The Bolsheviks applied

5019

top-down, bourgeois methods of internal organisation and

5020

discipline. The Makhnovists applied democratic internal

5021

organisation and discipline as far as possible.

5022

5023

From our discussion of the Bolshevik justifications for its

5024

system of appointed officers in the Red Army, it will come

5025

as no surprise that as regards the relationship of the

5026

soviets to the revolutionary organisation (party) the

5027

Makhnovists and Bolsheviks were (again) miles apart. While

5028

we discuss this in greater detail in <a href="append41.html#app14">section 14</a> of the appendix <a href="append41.html">"What happened during the Russian Revolution?"</a>, we will give a flavour of Bolshevik ideology on this subject here.

5029

5030

From the start, Lenin identified soviet (or working class)

5031

power with the power of their own party. In October 1917,

5032

Lenin was equating party and class: "the power of the

5033

Bolsheviks -- that is, the power of the proletariat."

5034

[Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?, p. 102] After the

5035

October Revolution, the Bolsheviks were clear that the

5036

soviets would not have "all power." Rather, the first act

5037

of soviet sovereignty was to alienate it into the hands of

5038

a Bolshevik government. In response to a few leading

5039

Bolsheviks who called for a coalition government, the

5040

Bolshevik Central Committee stated that it was "impossible

5041

to refuse a purely Bolshevik government without treason

5042

to the slogan of the power of the Soviets, since a majority

5043

at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets . . .

5044

handed power over to this government." [quoted by

5045

Robery V. Daniels, A Documentary History of Communism,

5046

vol. 1, pp. 127-8] How can the "power of the Soviets"

5047

exist when said soviets immediately "handed power" over

5048

to another body? Thus the only "power" the soviets had

5049

was simply the "power" to determine who actually held

5050

political power.

5051

5052

The question of who held power, the soviets or the party,

5053

came into focus when the soviet elections resulted

5054

in non-Bolshevik majorities being elected. After the

5055

initial honeymoon period, soviet elections started to go

5056

badly for the Bolsheviks. Ever since taking power in 1917,

5057

the Bolsheviks had become increasingly alienated from the

5058

working class. The spring and summer of 1918 saw "great

5059

Bolshevik losses in the soviet elections" in all provincial

5060

city elections that data is available for. The Mensheviks were

5061

the main beneficiaries of these election swings (Socialist

5062

Revolutionaries also gained) The Bolsheviks forcibly

5063

disbanded such soviets. They continually postponed elections

5064

and "pack[ed] local soviets once they could no longer count

5065

on an electoral majority" by giving representation to the

5066

organisations they dominated which made workplace elections

5067

meaningless. [Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, pp. 22-4

5068

and p. 33] In Petrograd, such packing swamped the actual

5069

number of workplace delegates, transforming the soviets and

5070

making elections irrelevant. Of the 700-plus deputies to the

5071

"new" soviet, over half were elected by Bolshevik dominated

5072

organisations so ensuring a solid Bolshevik majority even

5073

before the factory voting began.

5074

5075

Thus, the regime remained "soviet" in name only. Faced with a

5076

defeat in the soviets, the Bolsheviks simply abolished them

5077

or changed them to ensure their position. This process, it

5078

should be noted, started before the outbreak of Civil War

5079

in late May 1918, implying that Bolshevik authoritarianism

5080

cannot be explained as reactions to difficult objective

5081

circumstances.

5082

5083

Unsurprisingly, Bolshevik ideology started to adjust to the

5084

position the party found itself in. As Samuel Farber argues,

5085

in the "period of March to June 1918, Lenin began to make

5086

frequent distinctions within the working class, singling

5087

out workers who could still be trusted, denouncing workers

5088

whom he accused of abandoning the working class and

5089

deserting to the side of the bourgeoisie, and complaining

5090

about how the working class had become 'infected with the

5091

disease of petty-bourgeois disintegration.'" [Op. Cit.,

5092

p. 25] Combined with the vision of "working-class" or

5093

"soviet" power expressed by the power of his party, this

5094

laid the foundations for what came next. In 1919 Lenin

5095

fully and explicitly argued that the "dictatorship of

5096

the proletariat" was, in fact, the dictatorship of the

5097

Bolshevik party:

5098

5099

"we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of

5100

one party . . . we say, 'Yes, it is a dictatorship of one

5101

party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift

5102

from that position . . . '" [Collected Works, vol. 29,

5103

p. 535]

5104

</blockquote>

5105

This quickly become Bolshevik orthodoxy. Trotsky argued in

5106

his infamous work Terrorism and Communism that there was

5107

"no substitution at all" when "the power of the party"

5108

replaces "the power of the working class." Zinoviev argued

5109

this point at the Second Congress of the Communist International.

5110

As he put it:

5111

5112

"Today, people like Kautsky come along and say that in Russia

5113

you do not have the dictatorship of the working class but the

5114

dictatorship of the party. They think this is a reproach against

5115

us. Not in the least! We have a dictatorship of the working

5116

class and that is precisely why we also have a dictatorship of

5117

the Communist Party. The dictatorship of the Communist Party

5118

is only a function, an attribute, an expression of the

5119

dictatorship of the working class . . . [T]he dictatorship

5120

of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of

5121

the Communist Party." [Proceedings and Documents of the

5122

Second Congress, 1920, vol. 1, pp. 151-2]

5123

</blockquote>

5124

Neither Lenin nor Trotsky disagreed. By the end of the civil

5125

war, Lenin was arguing that "the dictatorship of the proletariat

5126

cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole

5127

of the class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only

5128

over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still

5129

so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts . . . that

5130

an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly

5131

exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by

5132

a vanguard . . . the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be

5133

exercised by a mass proletarian organisation." [Collected Works,

5134

vol. 32, p. 21]

5135

5136

This places the Bolshevik betrayals of the Makhnovists in 1919

5137

and 1920 into political context. It also explains the Bolshevik

5138

opposition to the proposed fourth clause of the 1920 political

5139

and military agreement (see

5140

<a href="append46.html#app13">last section</a>). Simply put, at the

5141

time (and long afterwards) the Bolsheviks equated the revolution

5142

with their own power. As such, Makhnovist calls for soviet

5143

self-management threatened the "dictatorship of the proletariat"

5144

(i.e. dictatorship of the party) by encouraging working people

5145

to participate in the revolution and giving the radically false

5146

idea that working-class power could be exercised by working

5147

people and their own class organisations.

5148

5149

Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev held this position until their deaths.

5150

Trotsky, for example, was arguing in 1923 that "[i]f there is one

5151

question which basically not only does not require revision but

5152

does not so much as admit the thought of revision, it is the

5153

question of the dictatorship of the Party, and its leadership

5154

in all spheres of our work." [Leon Trotsky Speaks, p. 158]

5155

Even after the rise of Stalinism, he was still arguing for the

5156

"objective necessity" of the "revolutionary dictatorship of a

5157

proletarian party" in 1937. He stressed that the "revolutionary

5158

party (vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship surrenders

5159

the masses to the counter-revolution . . . Abstractly speaking,

5160

it would be very well if the party dictatorship could be replaced

5161

by the 'dictatorship' of the whole toiling people without any

5162

party, but this presupposes such a high level of political

5163

development among the masses that it can never be achieved

5164

under capitalist conditions." [Trotsky, Writings 1936-37,

5165

pp. 513-4]

5166

5167

This suggests that the later Trotskyist argument that the Bolsheviks

5168

were forced by "objective factors" to replace the dictatorship of

5169

the proletariat by that of the party is false. At the time, and

5170

afterwards, the Bolsheviks did not argue in these terms. The

5171

end of soviet democracy was not considered a problem or a retreat

5172

for the revolution. The opposite was the case, with the elimination

5173

of democracy being raised to an ideological truism to be applied

5174

everywhere. Equally, the fact that the Makhnovists did all they

5175

could to promote soviet self-management and actually called

5176

regional congresses of workers, peasants and insurgents suggests

5177

that "objective factors" simply cannot explain Bolshevik actions.

5178

Simply put, like the Bolshevik betrayals of the Makhnovists, the

5179

Bolshevik elimination of soviet democracy by party dictatorship

5180

can only be fully understood by looking at Bolshevik ideology.

5181

5182

Little wonder the Makhnovists argued as followed:

5183

5184

"Since the arrival of the Bolsheviks the dictatorship of their

5185

party has been established here. As a party of statists, the

5186

Bolshevik Party everywhere has set up state organs for the

5187

purpose of governing the revolutionary people. Everything has

5188

to be submitted to their authority and take place under their

5189

vigilant eye. All opposition, protest, or even independent

5190

initiative has been stifled by their Extraordinary Commissions

5191

[the secret police, the Cheka]. Furthermore, all these

5192

institutions are composed of people who are removed from

5193

labour and from revolution. In other words, what has been

5194

created is a situation in which the labouring and

5195

revolutionary people have fallen under the surveillance

5196

and rule of people who are alien to the working classes,

5197

people who are inclined to exercise arbitrariness and

5198

violence over the workers. Such is the dictatorship of the

5199

Bolshevik-Communist Party . . .

5200

5201

"We again remind the working people that they will liberate

5202

themselves from oppression, misery and violence only

5203

through their own efforts. No change in power will help

5204

them in this. Only by means of their own free worker-peasant

5205

organisations can the workers reach the summit of the

5206

social revolution -- complete freedom and real equality."

5207

[quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit. pp. 116-7]

5208

</blockquote>

5209

Which brings us to the next issue, namely working-class

5210

freedom. For anarchists, the key point of a revolution is

5211

to increase working-class freedom. It means the end of

5212

hierarchy and the direct participation in the revolution

5213

by the working classes themselves. As Bakunin put it,

5214

"revolution is only sincere, honest and real in the hands

5215

of the masses, and that when it is concentrated in those

5216

of a few ruling individuals it inevitably and immediately

5217

becomes reaction." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings,

5218

p. 237] For this reason, the Makhnovists (like Bakunin)

5219

argued for a revolutionary society based on free federations

5220

of worker and peasant organisations (free soviets).

5221

5222

This means that actions which consolidated rule by a few

5223

cannot be revolutionary, even if the few are made up of

5224

the most revolutionary of the revolutionaries. Thus working

5225

class power cannot be equated to the power of a political

5226

party, no matter how "socialist" or "revolutionary" its

5227

ideas or rhetoric. This means that Bolshevik restrictions

5228

on working class freedom (of speech, assembly, press,

5229

organisation) struck at the heart of the revolution. It

5230

did not signify the defence of the revolution, but rather

5231

its defeat. Ultimately, as Emma Goldman quickly recognised,

5232

what the Bolsheviks called "defence of the Revolution"

5233

was "really only the defence of [the] party in power."

5234

[My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 57]

5235

5236

Anarchists had long argued that, to quote Goldman again,

5237

there is "no greater fallacy than the belief that aims

5238

and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics

5239

are another. This conception is a potent menace to social

5240

regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods

5241

and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim.

5242

The means employed become, through individual practice,

5243

part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it,

5244

modify it, and presently the aims and means become

5245

identical." [Op. Cit., p. 260] The evolution of Bolshevik

5246

practice and theory reinforces this argument. The means

5247

used had an impact on the course of events, which in turn

5248

shaped the next set of means and the ideology used to

5249

justify it.

5250

5251

This explains the Makhnovist and Bolshevik differences in

5252

relationship to working-class freedom. For anarchists, only

5253

freedom or the struggle for freedom can teach people to be

5254

free (and so is genuinely revolutionary). This explains why

5255

the Makhnovists not only proclaimed freedom of election, speech,

5256

press, assembly and organisation for working people, which

5257

was an essential revolutionary position, they also implemented

5258

it (see

5259

<a href="append46.html#app7">section 7</a>). The Bolsheviks did the reverse, clamping

5260

down on the opposition at every occasion (including workers'

5261

strikes and protests). For the Makhnovists, working-class freedom

5262

was the key gain of the revolution, and so had to be introduced,

5263

practised and defended. Hence Makhno:

5264

5265

"I consider it an inviolable right of the workers and peasants,

5266

a right won by the revolution, to call congresses on their

5267

own account, to discuss their affairs. That is why the

5268

prohibitions of such congresses, and the declaration

5269

proclaiming them illegal . . . , represent a direct and

5270

insolent violation of the rights of the workers." [quoted

5271

by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 129]

5272

</blockquote>

5273

For the Bolsheviks, working-class freedom was something to

5274

fear. Back in 1903, Lenin laid the groundwork for this by

5275

arguing that the "spontaneous development of the labour

5276

movement leads to it being subordinated to bourgeois ideology."

5277

He stressed that "the working class, exclusively by their own

5278

effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness . . .

5279

the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose quite

5280

independently of the spontaneous growth of the labour movement;

5281

it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of ideas among the

5282

revolutionary socialist intelligentsia." This meant that "Social

5283

Democratic [i.e. socialist] consciousness . . . could only be

5284

brought to them from without." [Essential Works of Lenin,

5285

p. 82 and pp. 74-5] Clearly, if the workers turned against

5286

the party, then the workers were "being subordinated to

5287

bourgeois ideology." It was in their own interests, therefore,

5288

for the party to subordinate the workers and so soviet

5289

democracy became not an expression of working-class power

5290

but rather something which undermined it!

5291

5292

This perspective can be seen when the Makhnovists liberated

5293

cities. In Alexandrovsk and Katerinoslav, the Bolsheviks

5294

proposed to the Makhnovists spheres of action - their Revkom

5295

(Revolutionary Committee) would handle political affairs and

5296

the Makhnovists military ones. Makhno advised them "to go and

5297

take up some honest trade instead of seeking to impose their

5298

will on the workers." Instead, the Makhnovists called upon

5299

"the working population to participate in a general conference

5300

.. . . and it was proposed that the workers organise the life

5301

of the city and the functioning of the factories with their

5302

own forced and their organisations." [Arshinov Op. Cit., p. 154

5303

and p. 149] The differences between the Bolsheviks and

5304

Makhnovists could not be clearer.

5305

5306

Lastly, we should note that while Lenin and the leading

5307

Bolsheviks wholeheartedly opposed working-class economic

5308

self-management by factory committees and instead urged

5309

"efficient" top-down one-man management, the Makhnovists

5310

supported working-class self-management of production.

5311

Under the Bolsheviks, as Arshinov argued, the

5312

"nationalisation of industry, [while] removing the

5313

workers from the hands of individual capitalists,

5314

delivered them to the yet more rapacious hands of a

5315

single, ever-present capitalist boss, the State. The

5316

relations between the workers and this new boss are

5317

the same as earlier relations between labour and capital,

5318

with the sole difference that the Communist boss, the

5319

State, not only exploits the workers, but also punishes

5320

them himself . . . Wage labour has remained what it was

5321

before, except that it has taken on the character of an

5322

obligation to the State . . . It is clear that in all this

5323

we are dealing with a simple substitution of State

5324

capitalism for private capitalism." [Op. Cit., p. 71]

5325

The Makhnovist propaganda, in contrast, stressed the

5326

need for workers to socialise the means of production

5327

and place it under their direct management by their own

5328

class organs. In other words, the abolition of wage

5329

slavery by workers' self-management of production.

5330

5331

Unsurprisingly, the Makhnovists supported the Kronstadt rebellion

5332

(see the appendix

5333

<a href="append42.html">"What was the Kronstadt uprising?"</a>

5334

for more on Kronstadt). Indeed, there is

5335

significant overlap between the Kronstadt demands and the

5336

ideas of the Makhnovist movement. For example, the Makhnovist

5337

idea of free soviets is almost identical to the first three

5338

points of the Kronstadt programme and their land policy the

5339

same as point 11 of the Kronstadt demands. The Kronstadt

5340

rebels also raised the idea of "free soviets" and the "third

5341

revolution," common Makhnovist slogans (see

5342

<a href="append42.html#app3">section 3</a> of the

5343

appendix <a href="append42.html">"What was the Kronstadt uprising?"</a>

5344

for details). As one Bolshevik writer notes, it is "characteristic

5345

that the anarchist-Makhnovists in the Ukraine reprinted the appeal

5346

of the Kronstadters, and in general did not hide their sympathy

5347

for them." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 108] Voline also

5348

noted that the "ideas and activities of the Makhnovist peasants

5349

were similar in all respects to those of the Kronstadt rebels

5350

in 1921." [Op. Cit., p. 575]

5351

5352

In summary, the major difference between the Makhnovists and

5353

the Bolsheviks is that the former stuck by and introduced their

5354

stated aims of "soviet power" and working-class freedom while

5355

the latter rejected them once they clashed with Bolshevik party

5356

policies.

5357

5358

<a name="app15"><h2>15 How do the modern followers of Bolshevism slander the Makhnovists?</h2>

5359

5360

Many modern-day supporters of Bolshevism, on the rare occasions

5361

when they do mention the Makhnovist movement, simply repeat the

5362

old Bolshevik (and Stalinist) slanders against them.

5363

5364

For example, this is what Joseph Seymour of the U.S. Spartacus

5365

League did. Their newspaper Workers Vanguard ran a series

5366

entitled "Marxism vs. Anarchism" and in part 7, during his

5367

discussion of the Russian Revolution, Seymour claimed:

5368

5369

"The most significant counter-revolutionary force under the banner

5370

of anarchism was the Ukrainian peasant-based army of Nestor Makhno,

5371

which carried out pogroms against Jewish communities and collaborated

5372

with White armies against the Bolsheviks." [Workers Vanguard,

5373

8/30/1996, p. 7]

5374

</blockquote>

5375

Seymour, needless to say, made these accusations without providing

5376

any documentation, and with good reason, for outside of Stalinist

5377

hagiographies, no evidence exists to support his claims. As we

5378

indicated in

5379

<a href="append46.html#app9">section 9</a>,

5380

the Makhnovists opposed anti-Semitism

5381

and did not conduct pogroms. Equally,

5382

<a href="append46.html#app12">section 12</a> proves

5383

that the Makhnovists did not collaborate with the Whites in

5384

any way (although this did not stop the Bolshevik press deliberately

5385

spreading the lie that they had).

5386

5387

More recently, the UK Leninist Revolutionary Communist Group

5388

asserted in their paper that the Makhnovists "joined with

5389

counter-revolutionary White and imperialist armies against

5390

socialist Russia. This band of brigands also carried out

5391

pogroms against Jewish communities in the Ukraine." [Fight

5392

Racism! Fight Imperialism!, issue no. 174, p. 12] No evidence

5393

for such a claim was presented in the original review article.

5394

When an anarchist pointed out their assertion was "falling

5395

back on a long tradition of Stalinist lies" and asked

5396

for "any historical references" to support it, the

5397

paper replied by stating that while there were "several"

5398

references, it would

5399

give two: "E.H. Carr refers to it in his history of the

5400

civil war. Also the anarchist historian Paul Avrich mentions

5401

it in his work The anarchists in the Russian Revolution."

5402

[Op. Cit., no. 175, p. 15]

5403

5404

In reality, neither work says any such thing. Looking at the

5405

first (unnamed) one, assuming it is E.H. Carr's The Bolshevik

5406

Revolution there is no reference to pogroms carried out by the

5407

Makhnovists (looking in the index for "Makhno"). Which, perhaps,

5408

explains why the paper refused to provide a book title and

5409

page number. As far as the second reference goes, Avrich made

5410

no such claim in The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution.

5411

He did address the issue in his Anarchist Portraits,

5412

concluding such charges are false.

5413

5414

And the name of the original article? Ironically, it was entitled

5415

"The anarchist school of falsification"!

5416

5417

However, more sophisticated slanders, lies and distortions have

5418

been levelled at the Makhnovists by the supporters of Bolshevism.

5419

This is to be expected, as the experience of the Makhnovists

5420

effectively refute the claim that the Bolsheviks had no choice

5421

but to act as they did. It is hard to maintain a position that

5422

"objective conditions" made the Bolsheviks act as they did

5423

when another mass revolutionary army, operating in the same

5424

environment, did not act in the same way. This means that the

5425

Makhnovists are strong evidence that Bolshevik politics played

5426

a key role in the degeneration of the Russian Revolution.

5427

Clearly such a conclusion is dangerous to Bolshevism and so

5428

the Maknovist movement must be attacked, regardless of the

5429

facts.

5430

5431

A recent example of this is John Rees' essay "In Defence of

5432

October" (International Socialism, no. 52, pp. 3-82). Rees,

5433

a member of the UK Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) is at

5434

pains to downplay the role of Bolshevik ideology in the

5435

degeneration of the Russian Revolution. He argues that

5436

"objective factors" ensured that the Bolsheviks acted

5437

as they did. The "subjective factor" was simply a choice

5438

between defeat and defence against the Whites: "Within

5439

these limits Bolshevik policy was decisive." [Op. Cit.,

5440

p. 30] This explains his attack on the Makhnovist movement.

5441

Faced with the same "objective factors" as the Bolsheviks,

5442

the Makhnovists did not act in the same way. As such, the

5443

"subjective factor" amounts to more than Rees' stark

5444

choice and so objective conditions cannot explain everything.

5445

5446

Clearly, then, the Makhnovists undermine his basic thesis.

5447

As such, we would expect a less than honest account of the

5448

movement and Rees does not disappoint. He talks about the

5449

"muddled anarchism" of Makhno, dismissing the whole movement

5450

as offering no alternative to Bolshevism and being without

5451

"an articulated political programme." Ultimately, for Rees,

5452

Makhno's "anarchism was a thin veneer on peasant rebellion"

5453

and while "on paper" the Makhnovists "appeared to have a more

5454

democratic programme" there were "frauds." [p. 57, p. 58, p. 61

5455

and p. 70]

5456

5457

The reality of the situation is totally different. Ignoring

5458

the obvious contradiction (i.e. how can the Makhnovists have

5459

the appearance of a "democratic programme" and, simultaneously,

5460

not articulate it?) we shall analyse his account of the

5461

Makhnovist movement in order to show exactly how low the

5462

supporters of Bolshevism will go to distort the historical

5463

record for their own aims (see

5464

the appendix <a href="append42.html">"What was the Kronstadt

5465

uprising?"</a> for Rees's

5466

distortions about the Kronstadt revolt). Once the selective

5467

and edited quotations provided by Rees are corrected, the

5468

picture that clearly emerges is that rather than the

5469

Makhnovists being "frauds," it is Rees' account which

5470

is the fraud (along with the political tradition which

5471

inspired it).

5472

5473

Rees presents two aspects of his critique of the Makhnovists.

5474

The first is a history of the movement and its relationships

5475

(or lack of them) with the Bolsheviks. The second is a

5476

discussion of the ideas which the Makhnovists tried to put

5477

into practice. Both aspects of his critique are extremely

5478

flawed. Indeed, the errors in his history of the movement

5479

are so fundamental (and, indeed, so at odds with his

5480

references) that it suggests that ideology overcame objectivity

5481

(to be polite). The best that can be said of his account is that

5482

at least he does not raise the totally discredited accusation

5483

that the Makhnovists were anti-Semitic or "kulaks." However,

5484

he more than makes up for this by distorting the facts and

5485

references he uses (it would be no exaggeration to argue

5486

that the only information Rees gets correct about his sources

5487

is the page number).

5488

5489

Rees starts by setting the tone, stating that the "methods used

5490

by Makhno and Antonov [a leader of the "Greens" in Tambov]

5491

in their fight against the Red Army often mirrored those

5492

used by the Whites." [Op. Cit., p. 57] Strangely enough,

5493

while he lists some for Antonov, he fails to specify any

5494

against Makhno. However, the scene is set. His strongest

5495

piece of evidence as regards Makhno's "methods" against

5496

the Red Army come from mid-1920 after, it should be noted,

5497

the Bolsheviks had engineered the outlawing of the

5498

Makhnovist movement and needlessly started the very conflict

5499

Rees uses as evidence against Makhno. In other words, he

5500

is attacking the Makhnovists for defending themselves

5501

against Bolshevik aggression!

5502

5503

He quotes reports from the Ukrainian Front to blacken the

5504

Makhnovists, using them to confirm the picture he extracts

5505

from "the diary of Makhno's wife." These entries, from

5506

early 1920, he claims "betray the nature of the movement"

5507

(i.e. after, as we shall see, the Bolsheviks had engineered

5508

the outlawing of the Makhnovists). [Op. Cit., p. 58] The

5509

major problem for Rees' case is the fact that this diary

5510

is a fake and has been known to be a fake since Arshinov

5511

wrote his classic account of the Makhnovists in 1923:

5512

5513

"After 1920, the Bolsheviks wrote a great deal about the

5514

personal defects of Makhno, basing their information on

5515

the diary of his so-called wife, a certain Fedora Gaenko

5516

.. . . But Makhno's wife is Galina Andreevna Kuz'menko. She

5517

has lived with him since 1918. She never kept, and therefore

5518

never lost, a diary. Thus the documentation of the Soviet

5519

authorities is based on a fabrication, and the picture

5520

these authorities draw from such a diary is an ordinary

5521

lie." [Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement,

5522

p. 226f]

5523

</blockquote>

5524

Ironically enough, Rees implicitly acknowledges this by lamely

5525

admitting (in an end note) that "Makhno seems to have had two

5526

'wives'" [Op. Cit., p. 78] And we should note that the source

5527

Rees uses for the fake diary entries (W.H. Chamberlin's The

5528

Russian Revolution) uses as his source the very Bolshevik

5529

documentation that Arshinov quite correctly denounced over

5530

70 years before Rees put pen to paper. Little wonder Michael

5531

Palij, in his detailed account of the movement (The Anarchism

5532

of Nestor Makhno, 1918-1921), fails to use it. So, in summary,

5533

a major part of his account is based on falsehoods, falsehoods

5534

exposed as such decades ago. This indicates well the quality

5535

of his case against the Makhnovist movement.

5536

5537

As regards the "evidence" he extracts from this fake diary

5538

and Red Army reports, it simply shows that Bolsheviks were

5539

shot by Makhno's troops and Red Army troops died in combat.

5540

This went both ways, of course. In "military operations the

5541

Bolsheviks shot all prisoners. The Makhnovists shot all

5542

captured officers unless the Red rank and file strongly

5543

interceded for them. The rank and file were usually sent

5544

home, though a number volunteered for service with the

5545

Insurgents." Equally, "[o]n the occupation of a village by

5546

the Red Army the Cheka would hunt out and hang all active

5547

Makhnovite supporters; an amenable Soviet would be set up;

5548

officials would be appointed or imported to organise the

5549

poor peasants . . . and three or four Red militia men left

5550

as armed support for the new village bosses." [David Footman,

5551

Op. Cit., pp. 292-3] As such, Rees' account of Makhnovist

5552

"terror" against the Bolsheviks seems somewhat hypocritical.

5553

We can equally surmise that the methods used by the Bolsheviks

5554

against the Makhnovists also "often mirrored those used by the

5555

Whites"! And Rees lambastes socialist Samuel Farber for

5556

mentioning the "Red Terror, but not the Green Terror" in

5557

Farber's discussion of the Tambov revolt! All in all, pretty

5558

pathetic.

5559

5560

Rees' concern for the truth can be seen from the fact that

5561

he asserts that Makhno's "rebellion" was "smaller" than

5562

the Tambov uprising and distinguished from it "only by

5563

the muddled anarchism of its leader." [Op. Cit., p. 58]

5564

In fact, the Makhnovist movement was the bigger of the

5565

two. As Michael Malet notes:

5566

5567

"The differences between them explain why the Makhnovshchina

5568

lasted over four years, the Antonovshchina less than one

5569

year. The initial area of the Makhno movement was larger,

5570

and later expanded, whereas the Antonov region was restricted

5571

to the southern half of one province throughout its existence.

5572

The Makhno movement became established earlier, and was

5573

well-known before its break with the soviet regime. A

5574

crucial factor was the period of peace between the Bolsheviks

5575

and Makhno during the first half of 1919, something Antonov

5576

never had. It allowed for political and social development

5577

as well as military build-up. It followed from this that

5578

Makhno attracted much more support, which was increased

5579

and deepened by the positive ideology of Makhno and the

5580

anarchists who came to help him. This was not a matter of

5581

being anti-State and anti-town -- all the Greens, including

5582

Antonov, shared this view in a less sophisticated form --

5583

but a positive land policy and a realisation of the need

5584

to link up with the towns on a federal basis in the

5585

post-revolutionary society." [Op. Cit., p. 155]

5586

</blockquote>

5587

Even in terms of troops, the Makhno movement was larger.

5588

The Antonov rebellion had "a peak of around 20,000" troops.

5589

[Read, Op. Cit., p. 268] Makhno, in comparison, had a peak

5590

of about 40,000 in late 1919 [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 112] (Read

5591

states a peak of around 30,000 [Op. Cit., p. 264]). Even by

5592

the end of 1920, a few months into the Tambov rebellion

5593

(it started in August of that year), the Makhnovists still

5594

had 10 to 15 thousand troops. [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 237]

5595

5596

In summary, the movement which lasted longer, covered a

5597

larger area and involved more troops is classed by Rees

5598

as the smaller of the two! Incredible -- but it does give

5599

a flavour of the scholarship involved in his essay. Perhaps

5600

by "smaller" Rees simply meant that Makhno was physically

5601

shorter than Antonov?

5602

5603

After getting such minor details as size wrong, Rees

5604

turns to the actual history of the movement. He looks at

5605

the relations between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks,

5606

accurately stating that they "were chequered." However,

5607

he is wrong when he tries to explain what happened by

5608

stating they "reflect[ed] the fast changing military

5609

situation in the Ukraine throughout the civil war."

5610

[Op. Cit., p. 58] In fact, as we will prove, the

5611

relationships between the two forces reflected the

5612

military situation refracted through the ideology and

5613

needs of Bolshevik power. To ignore the ideological

5614

factor in the Makhnovist-Bolshevik relationships cannot

5615

be justified as the military situation does not fully

5616

explain what happened.

5617

5618

The Makhnovists co-operated with the Red Army three times.

5619

Only two of these periods were formal alliances (the first

5620

and last). Discussing the first two pacts, Rees alleges that

5621

the Makhnovists broke with the Bolsheviks. The truth is the

5622

opposite -- the Bolsheviks turned on the Makhnovists and

5623

betrayed them in order to consolidate their power. These

5624

facts are hardly unknown to Rees as they are contained in

5625

the very books he quotes from as evidence for his rewritten

5626

history.

5627

5628

The first pact between the Makhnovists and the Red Army

5629

ended June 1918. According to Rees, "[c]o-operation

5630

continued until June 1919 when the Insurgent Army broke

5631

from the Red Army" and quotes Michael Palij's book The

5632

Anarchism of Nestor Makhno as follows: "as soon as Makhno

5633

left the front he and his associates began to organise new

5634

partisan detachments in the Bolsheviks' rear, which

5635

subsequently attacked strongholds, troops, police, trains

5636

and food collectors." [Op. Cit., p. 58] Rees is clearly

5637

implying that Makhno attacked the Bolsheviks, apparently

5638

for no reason. The truth is totally different. It is easy

5639

to show this -- all we need to do is look at the book he

5640

uses as evidence.

5641

5642

Rees quotes Palij on page 177. This page is from chapter

5643

16, which is called "The Bolsheviks Break with Makhno."

5644

As this was not enough of a clue, Palij presents some

5645

necessary background for this Bolshevik break. He notes

5646

that before the break, "the Bolsheviks renewed their

5647

anti-Makhno propaganda. Trotsky, in particular, led a

5648

violent campaign against the Makhno movement." He also

5649

mentions that "[a]t the same time, the supplies of arms

5650

and other war materials to Makhno were stopped, thus

5651

weakening the Makhno forces vis-a-vis the Denikin troops."

5652

In this context, the Makhnovists Revolutionary Military

5653

Council "decided to call a fourth congress of peasants,

5654

workers, and partisans" for June 15th, 1919, which Trotsky

5655

promptly banned, warning the population that "participation

5656

in the Congress shall be considered an act of state treason

5657

against the Soviet Republic and the front." [Op. Cit., p. 175

5658

and p. 176]

5659

5660

The Bolsheviks had, of course, tried to ban the third

5661

congress in April but had been ignored. This time, they

5662

made sure that they were not. Makhno and his staff

5663

were not informed of Trotsky's dictatorial order and

5664

learned of it three days later. On June 9th, Makhno

5665

sent a telegram informing the Bolsheviks that he was

5666

leaving his post as leader of the Makhnovists. He

5667

"handed over his command and left the front with a

5668

few of his close associates and a cavalry detachment"

5669

while calling upon the partisans to "remain at the

5670

front to hold off Denikin's forces." Trotsky ordered

5671

his arrest, but Makhno was warned in advance and

5672

escaped. On June 15-16th, members of Makhno's staff

5673

"were captured and executed the next day." Now Palij

5674

recounts how "[a]s soon as Makhno left the front he

5675

and his associates began to organise new partisan

5676

detachments in the Bolsheviks' rear, which

5677

subsequently attacked strongholds, troops, police,

5678

trains and food collectors." [Op. Cit., p. 177]

5679

5680

Palij "subsequently" refers to Makhno after Denikin's

5681

breakthrough and his occupation of the Ukraine. "The

5682

oppressive policy of the Denikin regime," he notes,

5683

"convinced the population that it was as bad as the

5684

Bolshevik regime, and brought a strong reaction that

5685

led able young men . . . to leave their homes and join

5686

Makhno and other partisan groups." [Op. Cit., p. 190]

5687

As Makhno put it, "[w]hen the Red Army in south Ukraine

5688

began to retreat . . . as if to straighten the front

5689

line, but in reality to evacuate Ukraine . . . only

5690

then did my staff and I decide to act." [quoted by

5691

Palij, Op. Cit., p. 190] After trying to fight Denikin's

5692

troops, Makhno retreated and called upon his troops to leave

5693

the Red Army and rejoin the fight against Denikin. He "sent

5694

agents amongst the Red troops" to carry out propaganda

5695

urging them to stay and fight Denikin with the Makhnovists,

5696

which they did in large numbers. This propaganda was

5697

"combined with sabotage." Between these two events,

5698

Makhno had entered the territory of pogromist warlord

5699

Hryhoryiv (which did not contain Red troops as they

5700

were in conflict) and assassinated him. [Op. Cit., p. 191

5701

and p. 173]

5702

5703

It should also be noted that Palij states that it was the

5704

Whites who "were the main enemy that Makhno fought, stubbornly

5705

and uncompromisingly, from the end of 1918 to the end of 1919."

5706

[Op. Cit., p. 177]

5707

5708

Clearly, Rees's summary leaves a lot to be desired! Rather

5709

than Makhno attacking the Bolsheviks, it was they who broke

5710

with him -- as Palij, Rees's source, makes clear. Indeed,

5711

Makhno made no attempt to undermine the Red Army's campaign

5712

against Denikin (after all, that would have placed his troops

5713

and region in danger). Rather, he waited until the Bolsheviks

5714

showed that they would not defend the Ukraine against the

5715

Whites before he acted. As such, Rees misuses his source

5716

material and used Palij as evidence for a viewpoint which is

5717

the exact opposite of the one he recounts. The dishonesty is

5718

obvious. But, then again, it is understandable, as Trotsky

5719

banning a worker, peasant and partisan congress would

5720

hardly fit into Rees' attempt to portray the Bolsheviks

5721

as democratic socialists overcome by objective circumstances!

5722

Given that the Makhnovists had successfully held three such

5723

congresses to discuss the war against reaction, how could

5724

objective circumstances be blamed for the dictatorial

5725

actions of Trotsky and other leading Red Army officers in

5726

the Ukraine? Better not to mention this and instead rewrite

5727

history by making Makhno break with the Bolsheviks and attack

5728

them for no reason!

5729

5730

Rees moves onto the period of co-operation between the

5731

insurgents and the Bolsheviks. His version of what happened

5732

is that "Denikin's advance against Makhno's territory in

5733

autumn 1919 quickly forced a renewal of the treaty with the

5734

Bolsheviks. Makhno harassed Denikin's troops from the

5735

rear, making their advance more difficult." [Op. Cit.,

5736

p. 58]

5737

5738

A more accurate account of what happened would be that

5739

Makhno reorganised his troops after the Bolsheviks had

5740

retreated and evacuated the Ukraine. These troops included

5741

those that had been left in the Red Army in June, who now

5742

left to rejoin him (and brought a few Red Army units along

5743

too). After conducting quick and demoralising raids against

5744

Denikin's forces, the Makhnovists were forced to retreat to

5745

the West (followed by White forces). In late September, near

5746

Peregonovka, Makhno inflicted a major defeat against the

5747

following Whites and allowed the Makhnovists to attack

5748

across Denikin's supply lines (which stopped his attack

5749

on Moscow thus, ironically, saving the Bolshevik regime).

5750

Makhno's swift attack on the rear of the Whites ensured

5751

their defeat. As the correspondent of Le Temps observed:

5752

5753

"There is no doubt that Denikin's defeat is explained

5754

more by the uprising of the peasants who brandished

5755

Makhno's black flag, then by the success of Trotsky's

5756

regular army. The partisan bands of 'Batko' tipped

5757

the scales in favour of the Reds." [quoted by Palij,

5758

Op. Cit., p. 208]

5759

</blockquote>

5760

Palij argues that it was the "rapidly changing military

5761

situation [which] soon caused a change in the Bolsheviks'

5762

attitude toward Makhno." The two forces meet up on

5763

December 24th, 1919. However, "[a]lthough the Bolsheviks

5764

fraternised with the Makhno troops and the commander

5765

even offered co-operation, they distrusted Makhno,

5766

fearing the popularity he had gained as a result of

5767

his successful fight against Denikin." [Op. Cit., p. 209]

5768

It should also be stressed that no formal treaty

5769

was signed.

5770

5771

Clearly, Rees' summary leaves a lot to be desired!

5772

5773

This is not the end of it. Rees even attempts to blame

5774

the Makhnovists for the attack of General Wrangel. He

5775

argues that "by the end of 1919 the immediate White

5776

threat was removed. Makhno refused to move his troops to

5777

the Polish front to meet the imminent invasion and

5778

hostilities with the Red Army began again on an even

5779

more widespread scale." [Op. Cit., p. 58]

5780

5781

This, needless to say, is a total distortion of the facts.

5782

Firstly, it should be noted that the "imminent" invasion

5783

by Poland Rees mentions did not, in fact, occur until

5784

"the end of April" (the 26th, to be precise). The break

5785

with Makhno occurred as a result of an order issued in

5786

early January (the 8th, to be precise). [Michael Palij,

5787

Op. Cit., p. 219 and p. 210] Clearly, the excuse of

5788

"imminent" invasion was a cover, as recognised by a

5789

source Rees himself uses, namely Palij's work:

5790

5791

"The author of the order realised at that time there was no

5792

real war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks at that time

5793

and he also knew that Makhno would not abandon his region

5794

.. . . Uborevich [the author] explained that 'an appropriate

5795

reaction by Makhno to this order would give us the chance

5796

to have accurate grounds for our next steps' . . . [He]

5797

concluded: 'The order is a certain political manoeuvre and,

5798

at the very least, we expect positive results from Makhno's

5799

realisation of this.'" [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 210]

5800

</blockquote>

5801

This is confirmed by Rees' other references. David Footman,

5802

whom Rees also uses for evidence against the Makhnovist

5803

movement, notes that while it was "true there were military

5804

reasons for reinforcing" the Polish frontier (although he

5805

also notes the significant fact that the war "was not to

5806

break out for another four months"), it was "admitted on

5807

the Soviet side that this order was primarily 'dictated

5808

by the necessity' of liquidating Makhnovshchina as an

5809

independent movement. Only when he was far removed from

5810

his home country would it be possible to counteract his

5811

influence, and to split up and integrate his partisans

5812

into various Red Army formations." He notes that there

5813

were "other occasions (notably in Siberia) of the Soviet

5814

authorities solving the problem of difficult partisan

5815

leaders by sending them off to fight on distant fronts"

5816

and, of course, that "Makhno and his staff . . . were

5817

perfectly aware of the underlying Soviet motives." Footman

5818

recounts how the Makhnovist staff sent a "reasoned reply" to

5819

the Bolsheviks, that there "was no immediate response" from

5820

them and in "mid-January the Central Committee of the

5821

Ukrainian Communist Party declared Makhno and his force

5822

to be outside the law, and the Red Army attacked." [The

5823

Russian Civil War, pp. 290-1]

5824

5825

In other words, according to the sources Rees himself

5826

selects, the Bolsheviks started the conflict in order

5827

to eliminate opposition to their power!

5828

5829

Needless to say, the Makhnovists did realise the political

5830

motivations behind the order. As Arshinov notes, "[s]ending

5831

the insurrectionary army to the Polish front meant removing

5832

from the Ukraine the main nerve centre of the revolutionary

5833

insurrection. This was precisely what the Bolsheviks wanted:

5834

they would then be absolute masters of the rebellious region,

5835

and the Makhnovists were perfectly aware of this." In addition,

5836

"neither the 14th Corps nor any other unit of the Red Army

5837

had any ties with the Makhnovist army; least of all were

5838

they in a position to give orders to the insurrectionary

5839

army." Nor does Rees mention that the Makhnovists considered

5840

the move "physically impossible" as "half the men, the entire

5841

staff and the commander himself were in hospital with typhus."

5842

[Op. Cit., p. 163]

5843

5844

Consider what Rees is (distortedly) accounting. The beginning

5845

of 1920 was a time of peace. The Civil War looked like it was

5846

over. The White Generals had been defeated. Now the Bolsheviks

5847

turn on their allies after issuing an ultimatum which they

5848

knew would never be obeyed. Under the circumstances, a stupider

5849

decision cannot be easily found! Moreover, the very logic of

5850

the order was a joke. Would be it wise to leave the Ukraine

5851

undefended? Of course not and if Red Army units were to stay

5852

to defend the region, why not the Makhnovists who actually

5853

came from the area in question? Why provoke a conflict when

5854

it was possible to transfer Red Army units to the Polish

5855

front? Simply put, Rees presents a distorted picture of

5856

what was happening in the Ukraine at the time simply so he

5857

can whitewash the Bolshevik regime and blacken the Makhnovists.

5858

As he himself later notes, the Bolshevik-Makhnovist conflict

5859

gave the White General Wrangel the space required to restart

5860

the Civil War. Thus the Bolshevik decision to attack the

5861

Makhnovists helped prolong the Civil War -- the very factor

5862

Rees blames the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and

5863

Bolshevik ideology and practice on!

5864

5865

It is now that Rees presents his evidence of Makhnovist

5866

violence against the Bolsheviks (the Red Army reports and

5867

entries from the fake diary of Makhno's wife). Arguing

5868

that the entries from the fake diary "betray the nature

5869

of the movement in this period," he tries to link them

5870

with Makhnovist theory. "These actions," he argues, "were

5871

consistent with an earlier resolution of the Insurgent

5872

Army which declared that it was 'the actions of the

5873

Bolshevik regime which cause a real danger to the

5874

worker-peasant revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 59]

5875

5876

Firstly, given a true account of the second break between the

5877

Makhnovists and Bolsheviks, it would be fair to conclude that

5878

the resolution was, in fact, correct! However, such facts

5879

are not mentioned by Rees, so the reader is left in ignorance.

5880

5881

Secondly, to correct another of Rees' causal mistakes, it

5882

should be noted that this resolution was not passed by

5883

the Insurgent Army. Rather it was passed at the Second

5884

Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents held

5885

at Hulyai Pole on February 12th, 1919. This congress had

5886

245 delegates, representing 350 districts and was one of

5887

four organised by the Makhnovists. Unsurprisingly, these

5888

regional congresses are not even mentioned by Rees in his

5889

account. This is for obvious reasons -- if the Makhnovists

5890

could organise congresses of workers, peasants and

5891

insurgents to discuss the progress of the revolution, then

5892

why could the Bolsheviks not manage it? Equally, to mention

5893

them would also mean mentioning that the Bolsheviks tried to

5894

ban one and succeeded in banning another.

5895

5896

Thirdly, the tone of the congress was anti-Bolshevik simply

5897

because the Ukraine had had a taste of Bolshevik rule. As Rees

5898

himself acknowledges in a roundabout way, the Bolsheviks

5899

had managed to alienate the peasantry by their agricultural

5900

policies.

5901

5902

Fourthly, the Bolsheviks had engineered the outlawing of

5903

the Makhnovists. Thus the actions of the Makhnovists were

5904

not "consistent" with the earlier resolution. They were,

5905

in fact, "consistent" with self-defence against a repressive

5906

state which had attacked them first!

5907

5908

Looking at the congress where the resolution was passed,

5909

we find that the list of "real dangers" was, quite

5910

simply, sensible and, in fact, in line with Leninist

5911

rhetoric. The resolution acknowledged the fact that

5912

the Bolshevik party was "demanding a monopoly of the

5913

Revolution." As we discussed in

5914

<a href="append46.html#app14">section 14</a>, it

5915

was during this period that the Bolsheviks explicitly

5916

started to argue that the "dictatorship of the party"

5917

was the "dictatorship of the proletariat." The

5918

resolution also stated:

5919

5920

"With deep regret the Congress must also declare that

5921

apart from external enemies a perhaps even greater danger,

5922

arising from its internal shortcomings, threatens the

5923

Revolution of the Russian and Ukrainian peasants and

5924

workers. The Soviet Governments of Russia and of the

5925

Ukraine, by their orders and decrees, are making efforts

5926

to deprive local soviets of peasants and workers'

5927

deputies of their freedom and autonomy." [quoted by

5928

Footman, Op. Cit., p. 267]

5929

</blockquote>

5930

It also stated:

5931

5932

"the political commissars are watching each step of the

5933

local soviets and dealing ruthlessly with those friends

5934

of peasants and workers who act in defence of peoples'

5935

freedom from the agency of the central government . . .

5936

The Bolshevik regime arrested left Socialist Revolutionaries

5937

and anarchists, closing their newspapers, stifling any

5938

manifestation of revolutionary expression."

5939

</blockquote>

5940

Delegates also complained that the Bolshevik government

5941

had not been elected, that it was "imposing upon us its

5942

party dictatorship" and "attempting to introduce its

5943

Bolshevik monopoly over the soviets." [quoted by Palij,

5944

[Op. Cit., p. 154]

5945

5946

The resolution noted that the current situation was

5947

"characterised by the seizure of power by the political

5948

party of Communists-Bolsheviks who do not balk at anything

5949

in order to preserve and consolidate their political power

5950

by armed force acting from the centre. The party is

5951

conducting a criminal policy in regard to the social

5952

revolution and in regard to the labouring masses." To

5953

top it off, point number three read:

5954

5955

"We protest against the reactionary habits of Bolshevik

5956

rulers, commissars, and agents of the Cheka, who are

5957

shooting workers, peasants, and rebels, inventing all

5958

kinds of excuses . . . The Cheka which were supposed to

5959

struggle with counterrevolution . . . have turned in the

5960

Bolsheviks' hands into an instrument for the suppression

5961

of the will of the people. They have grown in some cases

5962

into detachments of several hundred armed men with a

5963

variety of arms. We demand that all these forces be

5964

dispatched to the front." [quoted by Vladimir N. Brovkin,

5965

Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War, pp. 109-10]

5966

</blockquote>

5967

We should also point out that Rees selectively quotes the

5968

resolution to distort its meaning. The resolution, in fact,

5969

"urges the peasants and workers to watch vigilantly the

5970

actions of the Bolshevik regime that cause a real danger

5971

to the worker-peasant revolution." [quoted by Palij, Op.

5972

Cit., p. 154] We have listed some of the actions of the

5973

Bolsheviks that the congress considered as a "real danger."

5974

Considering the truth of these complaints, only someone

5975

blinded by Bolshevik ideology would consider it strange

5976

that worker and peasant delegates should agree to "watch

5977

vigilantly" those actions of the Bolsheviks which were

5978

a "real danger" to their revolution!

5979

5980

Lenin (before taking power, of course) had argued that

5981

elections and recall to soviets were essential to ensure

5982

that the workers control the "workers' state" and that

5983

socialism required the elimination of "special bodies of

5984

armed men" by an armed population. To this day, his followers

5985

parrot his claims (while, simultaneously, justifying the exact

5986

opposite in Lenin's Russia). Now, is Rees really arguing

5987

that the Bolshevik monopoly of power, the creation of a

5988

secret police and the clamping down on working people's

5989

freedom were not dangers to the Russian Revolution

5990

and should not be watched "vigilantly"? If so, then his

5991

conception of revolution includes the strange notion that

5992

dictatorship by a party does not threaten a revolution!

5993

Then again, neither did the Bolsheviks (indeed, they

5994

thought calling worker, peasant and partisan congresses

5995

to discuss the development of the revolution as the real

5996

danger to it!). If not, then he cannot fault the regional

5997

congress resolution for pointing out the obvious. As such,

5998

Rees' misquoting of the resolution backfires on him.

5999

6000

Significantly, Rees fails to mention that during this period

6001

(the first half of 1920), the Bolsheviks "shot ordinary

6002

soldiers as well as their commanders, destroying their houses,

6003

confiscating their properties, and persecuting their families.

6004

Moreover the Bolsheviks conducted mass arrests of innocent

6005

peasants who were suspected of collaborating in some way

6006

with the partisans. It is impossible to determine the

6007

casualties involved." The hypocrisy is clear. While Rees

6008

presents information (some of it, we stress, from a fake

6009

source) on Makhnovist attacks against the Bolshevik

6010

dictatorship, he remains silent on the Bolshevik tactics,

6011

violence and state terrorism. Given that the Bolsheviks had

6012

attacked the Makhnovists, it seems strange that that Rees

6013

ignores the "merciless methods" of the Bolsheviks (to use

6014

Palij's phrase) and concentrates instead on the acts of

6015

self-defence forced onto the Makhnovists. Perhaps this

6016

is because it would provide too strong a "flavour" of

6017

the Bolshevik regime? [Op. Cit., pp. 212-3 and p. 213]

6018

6019

Rees makes great play of the fact that White forces took

6020

advantage of the conflict between the Makhnovists and the

6021

Bolsheviks, as would be expected. However, it seems like

6022

an act of ideological faith to blame the victims of this

6023

conflict for it! In his attempts to demonise the Makhnovists,

6024

he argues that "[i]n fact it was Makhno's actions against

6025

the Red Army which made 'a brief return of the Whites possible.'"

6026

In defence of his claims, Rees quotes from W. Bruce Lincoln's

6027

Red Victory. However, looking at Lincoln's work we discover

6028

that Lincoln is well aware who is to blame for the return

6029

of the Whites. Unsurprisingly, it is not the Makhnovists:

6030

6031

"Once Trotsky's Red Army had crushed Iudenich and Kolchak and

6032

driven Deniken's forces back upon their bases in the Crimea

6033

and the Kuban, it turned upon Makhno's partisan forces with

6034

a vengeance . . . [I]n mid-January 1920, after a typhus

6035

epidemic had decimated his forces, a re-established Central

6036

Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party declared Makhno

6037

an outlaw. Yet the Bolsheviks could not free themselves

6038

from Makhno's grasp so easily, and it became one of the

6039

supreme ironies of the Russian Civil War that his attacks

6040

against the rear of the Red Army made it possible for the

6041

resurrected White armies . . . to return briefly to the

6042

southern Ukraine in 1920." [Red Victory, p. 327]

6043

</blockquote>

6044

Ignoring the fact that Rees does not bother to give the

6045

correct quote (a problem that re-occurs frequently in his

6046

essay), it can be seen that he does paraphrase the last

6047

sentence of Lincoln's work correctly. Strange, then, that

6048

he ignores the rest of his account which clearly indicates

6049

that the Bolsheviks "turned upon" the Makhnovists and

6050

"declared Makhno an outlaw." Obviously such trivial facts

6051

as the initial Bolshevik attacks against the Makhnovists

6052

are unimportant to understanding what actually happened in

6053

this period. Informing his readers that it was the Bolsheviks'

6054

betrayal of the Makhnovists which provoked the resistance

6055

that "made it possible for . . . the White armies . . . to

6056

return briefly" would confuse them with facts and so it

6057

goes unmentioned.

6058

6059

Lincoln, it must be stressed, concurs with Rees's other main

6060

sources (Palij and Footman) on the fact that the Bolsheviks

6061

betrayed the Makhnovists! Clearly, Rees has rewritten history

6062

and distorted all of his main references on the Makhnovist

6063

movement. After reading the same fact in three different

6064

sources, you would think that the Bolshevik betrayal of the

6065

Makhnovists which provoked their resistance against them would

6066

warrant some mention, but no! In true Stalinist fashion,

6067

Rees managed to turn a Bolshevik betrayal of the Makhnovists

6068

into a stick with which to beat them with! Truly amazing.

6069

6070

Simply put, if the Bolsheviks had not wanted to impose their

6071

rule over the Ukraine, then the conflict with the Makhnovists

6072

need not have taken place and Wrangel would not have been in a

6073

position to invade the Ukraine. Why did the Bolsheviks act

6074

in this way? There was no "objective factor" for this action

6075

and so we must turn to Bolshevik ideology.

6076

6077

As we proved in

6078

<a href="append46.html#app14">section 14</a>,

6079

Bolshevik ideology by this time

6080

identified Bolshevik party dictatorship as the only expression

6081

of "the dictatorship of the proletariat." Does Rees really

6082

believe that such perspectives had no impact on how the Bolsheviks

6083

acted during the Revolution? The betrayal of the Makhnovists can

6084

only be understood in terms of the "subjective factor" Rees seeks

6085

to ignore. If you think, as the Bolsheviks clearly did, that the

6086

dictatorship of the proletariat equalled the dictatorship of

6087

the party (and vice versa) then anything which threatened the

6088

rule of the party had to be destroyed. Whether this was soviet

6089

democracy or the Makhnovists did not matter. The Makhnovist idea

6090

of worker and peasant self-management, like soviet democracy,

6091

could not be reconciled with the Bolshevik ideology. As such,

6092

Bolshevik policy explains the betrayals of the Makhnovists.

6093

6094

Not satisfied with distorting his source material to present

6095

the Makhnovists as the guilty party in the return of Wrangel,

6096

he decides to blame the initial success of Wrangel on them

6097

as well. He quotes Michael Palij as follows: "As Wrangel

6098

advanced . . . Makhno retreated north . . . leaving behind

6099

small partisan units in the villages and towns to carry out

6100

covert destruction of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus

6101

and supply bases." [Op. Cit., p. 59] He again sources Palij's

6102

work on the "effective" nature of these groups, stating

6103

that White Colonel Noga reported to headquarters that

6104

Makhno was critical to Wrangel's advance.

6105

6106

As regards the claims that Makhno was "critical" to Wrangel's

6107

advance, Colonal Noga actually states that it was "peasant

6108

uprisings under Makhno and many other partisan detachments"

6109

which gave "the Reds no rest." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit.,

6110

p. 214] However, what Rees fails to mention is that Palij

6111

argues that it was the Bolshevik "policy of terror and

6112

exploitation" which had "turned almost all segments of

6113

Ukrainian society against the Bolsheviks, substantially

6114

strengthened the Makhno movement, and consequently

6115

facilitated the advance of the reorganised anti-Bolshevik

6116

force of General Wrangel from the Crimea into South Ukraine,

6117

the Makhno region." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214] Again, Makhno

6118

is blamed for the inevitable results of Bolshevik policies

6119

and actions!

6120

6121

It should also be reported that Noga's comments are dated

6122

25th March 1920, while Palij's summary of Makhno's activities

6123

retreating from Wrangel was about June 1920 -- 2 months

6124

later! As regards this advance by Wrangel, Palij argues

6125

that it was the "outbreak of the Polish-Bolshevik war

6126

at the end of April" which "benefited Wrangel" and

6127

"enabled him to launch an offensive against the Bolsheviks

6128

in Tavriia on June 6th." Indeed, it was after a "series

6129

of battles" that Wrangel "penetrated north, forcing a

6130

general Bolshevik retreat." Now, "[a]s Wrangel advanced

6131

deeper into the Left Bank, Makhno retreated north to

6132

the Kharkiv region, leaving behind small partisan units

6133

in the villages and towns to carry on covert destruction

6134

of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus and supply

6135

bases." [Op. Cit., p. 219] Again, Rees' account has

6136

little bearing to reality or the source material he

6137

uses.

6138

6139

Rees continues to re-write history by arguing that "Makhno did

6140

not fight with the Reds again until October 1920 when Wrangel

6141

advanced on Makhno's base." [Op. Cit., p. 59] In fact, it

6142

was the Makhnovists who contacted the Bolsheviks in July

6143

and August in 1920 with a view to suspending hostilities

6144

and co-operating in the fight against Wrangel. This decision

6145

was made at a mass assembly of insurgents. Sadly, the

6146

Bolsheviks made no response. Only in September, after

6147

Wrangel had occupied many towns, did the Bolsheviks

6148

enter into negotiations. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 176-7]

6149

This is confirmed by Footman, who states that it is "agreed

6150

that the initiative for joint action against Wrangel came

6151

from the Makhnovists" [Op. Cit., p. 294], as well as by Palij,

6152

who notes that "Makhno was compelled to seek an understanding

6153

with the Bolsheviks" but "no reply was received." It was

6154

"Wrangel's success [which] caused the Bolshevik leaders to

6155

reconsider Makhno's earlier proposal." [Op. Cit., pp. 222-3]

6156

Obviously indicating that the Makhnovists placed the struggle

6157

against the White counter-revolution above their own politics

6158

would place the Bolsheviks in a bad light, and so Rees fails

6159

to give the details behind the agreement of joint action

6160

against Wrangel.

6161

6162

As regards this third and final break, Rees states that it was

6163

("unsurprisingly") a "treaty of convenience on the part of both

6164

sides and as soon as Wrangel was defeated at the end of the

6165

year the Red Army fought Makhno until he have up the struggle."

6166

[Op. Cit., p. 59] Which, as far as it goes, is true. Makhno,

6167

however, "assumed [that] the forthcoming conflict with the

6168

Bolsheviks could be limited to the realm of ideas" and that

6169

they "would not attack his movement immediately." [Palij,

6170

Op. Cit., p. 231] He was wrong. Instead the Bolsheviks

6171

attacked the Makhnovists without warning and, unlike the

6172

other breaks, without pretext (although leaflets handed

6173

out to the Red Army stated that Makhno had "violat[ed]

6174

the agreement"! [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 236]).

6175

6176

It would be a good idea to reproduce the agreement which the

6177

Bolsheviks ripped up. There were two parts, a military and a

6178

political one. The military one is pretty straight forward

6179

(although the clause on the Makhnovists refusing to accept

6180

Red Army detachments or deserters suggests that the

6181

Makhnovists' democratic army was seen by many Red Army

6182

soldiers as a better alternative to Trotsky's autocratic

6183

structure). The political agreement was as follows:

6184

6185

"1. Immediate release, and an end to the persecution of

6186

all Makhno men and anarchists in the territories of the

6187

Soviet Republics, except those who carry on armed

6188

resistance against Soviet authorities.

6189

6190

"2. Makhno men and anarchists were to have complete

6191

freedom of expression of their ideas and principles,

6192

by speech and the press, provided that nothing was

6193

expressed that tended to a violent overthrow of

6194

Soviet government, and on condition that military

6195

censorship be respected. . .

6196

6197

"3. Makhno men and anarchists were to enjoy full rights

6198

of participation in elections to the soviets, including

6199

the right to be elected, and free participation in the

6200

organisation of the forthcoming Fifth All-Ukrainian

6201

Congress of Soviets . . ." [cited by Palij, Op. Cit.,

6202

p. 224]

6203

</blockquote>

6204

Needless to say, the Bolsheviks delayed the publication

6205

of the political agreement several until several days

6206

after the military one was published -- "thus blurring

6207

its real meaning." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 225] Clearly,

6208

as it stands, the agreement just gave the Makhnovists

6209

and anarchists the rights they should have had according

6210

to the Soviet Constitution! Little wonder the Bolsheviks

6211

ignored it -- they also ignored their own constitution.

6212

However, it is the fourth point of the political agreement

6213

which gives the best insight into the nature of Bolshevism.

6214

This last point was never ratified by the Bolsheviks as

6215

it was "absolutely unacceptable to the dictatorship of

6216

the proletariat." [quoted by Palij, Ibid.] This clause

6217

was:

6218

6219

"One of the basic principles of the Makhno movement

6220

being the struggle for the self-administration of the

6221

toilers, the Partisan Army brings up a fourth point:

6222

in the region of the Makhno movement, the worker and

6223

peasant population is to organise and maintain its

6224

own free institutions for economic and political

6225

self-administration; this region is subsequently

6226

federated with Soviet republics by means of agreements

6227

freely negotiated with the appropriate Soviet

6228

governmental organ." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit.,

6229

p. 224]

6230

</blockquote>

6231

Clearly, this idea of worker and peasant self-management,

6232

like soviet democracy, could not be reconciled with the

6233

Bolshevik support for party dictatorship as the expression

6234

of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" which had become

6235

a Bolshevik ideological truism by that time. Little wonder

6236

the Bolsheviks failed to ratify the fourth clause and

6237

violated the other agreements. Simply put, a libertarian

6238

alternative to Bolshevism would give the Russian and

6239

Ukrainian working masses hope of freedom and make them

6240

harder to control. It is unsurprising that Rees fails to

6241

discuss the treaty -- it would, yet again, undermine his case

6242

that the Bolsheviks were forced by objective circumstances

6243

to be dictatorial.

6244

6245

And, of course, let us not forget the circumstances in

6246

which this betrayal took place. The country was, as Rees

6247

reminds us, in a state of economic disruption and collapse.

6248

Indeed, Rees blames the anti-working class and dictatorial

6249

actions and policies of the Bolsheviks on the chaos caused

6250

by the civil war. Yet here are the Bolsheviks prolonging

6251

this very Civil War by turning (yet again!) on their allies.

6252

After the defeat of the Whites, the Bolsheviks preferred

6253

to attack the Makhnovists rather than allow them the freedom

6254

they had been fighting for. Resources which could have been

6255

used to aid the economic rebuilding of Russia and the Ukraine

6256

were used to attack their former allies. The talents and

6257

energy of the Makhnovists were either killed or wasted in a

6258

pointless conflict. Should we be surprised? After all, the

6259

Bolsheviks had preferred to compound their foes during the

6260

Civil War (and, indirectly, aid the very Whites they were

6261

fighting) by betraying their Makhnovist allies on two

6262

previous occasions (once, because the Makhnovists had

6263

dared call a conference of working people to discuss the

6264

civil war being fought in their name). Clearly, Bolshevik

6265

politics and ideology played a key role in all these

6266

decisions. They were not driven by terrible objective

6267

circumstances (indeed, they made them worse).

6268

6269

Rees obviously distorted the truth about the first two

6270

agreements between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks. He

6271

portrayed the Makhnovists as the guilty party, "breaking"

6272

with the Bolsheviks when in fact it was (in both cases)

6273

the Bolsheviks who broke with and betrayed the Makhnovists.

6274

That explains why he fails to present any information on

6275

why the first break happened and why he distorts the

6276

events of the second. It cannot be said that he was unaware

6277

of these facts -- they are in the very books he himself

6278

references! As such, we have a clear and intended desire

6279

to deceive the reader. As regards the third agreement,

6280

while he makes no pretence that the Makhnovists were the

6281

guilty party however, he implies that the Bolsheviks had

6282

to act as they did before the Makhnovists turned on them.

6283

Little wonder, then, that he does not provide the details

6284

of the agreement made between the Bolsheviks and Makhnovists

6285

-- to do so would have been to expose the authoritarianism

6286

of the Bolsheviks. Simply put, Rees'distortions of the

6287

source material he uses comes as no surprise. It undermines

6288

his basic argument and so cannot be used in its original

6289

form. Hence the cherry-picking of quotations to support his

6290

case.

6291

6292

After distorting Makhnovist relations with the Bolsheviks,

6293

Rees moves on to distorting the socio-political ideas and

6294

practice of the Makhnovists. As would be expected from his

6295

hatchet-job on the military history of the movement, his

6296

account of its social ideas leaves much to be desired.

6297

However, both aspects of his critique have much in common.

6298

His account of its theoretical ideas and its attempts to

6299

apply them again abuse the source material in disgraceful

6300

ways.

6301

6302

For example, Rees states that under the Makhnovists

6303

"[p]apers could be published, but the Bolshevik and Left

6304

Socialist Revolutionary press were not allowed to call for

6305

revolution" and references Michael Palij's book. [Op. Cit.,

6306

p. 60] Looking at the page in question, we discover a somewhat

6307

different account. According to Palij's work, what the

6308

Makhnovists actually "prohibited" was that these parties

6309

should "propagate armed uprisings against the Makhnovist

6310

movement." A clear rewriting of the source material and an

6311

indication of how low Leninists will sink. Significantly,

6312

Palij also notes that this "freedom of speech, press, assembly

6313

and association" was implemented "[i]n contrast to the Bolshevik

6314

regime" and its policy of crushing such liberties. [Op. Cit.

6315

pp. 152-3] Ironically, the military-political agreement of

6316

late 1920 between the Reds and Makhnovists included a similar

6317

clause, banning expression that "tended to a violent overthrow

6318

of the Soviet government." [quoted by Palij, OP. Cit., p. 224]

6319

Which means, to use Rees' distorted terminology, that the

6320

Bolsheviks banned calls for revolution!

6321

6322

However, this distortion of the source material does give

6323

us an insight into the mentality of Leninism. After all,

6324

according to Palij, when the Makhnovists entered a city

6325

or town they "immediately announced to the population that

6326

the army did not intend to exercise political authority."

6327

The workers and peasants were to set up soviets "that would

6328

carry out the will and orders of their constituents" as well

6329

as "organis[e] their own self-defence force against

6330

counter-revolution and banditry." These political changes

6331

were matched in the economic sphere as well, as the

6332

"holdings of the landlords, the monasteries and the state,

6333

including all livestocks and goods, were to be transferred

6334

to the peasants" and "all factories, plants, mines, and other

6335

means of production were to become property of all the workers

6336

under control of their professional unions." [Op. Cit.,

6337

p. 151]

6338

6339

In such an environment, a call for "revolution" (or, more

6340

correctly, "armed uprisings against the Makhno movement")

6341

could only mean a Bolshevik coup to install a Bolshevik party

6342

dictatorship. As the Makhnovists were clearly defending working-

6343

class and peasant self-government, then a Bolshevik call for

6344

"armed uprisings" against them also meant the end of such free

6345

soviets and their replacement with party dictatorship. Little

6346

wonder Rees distorts his source! Arshinov makes the situation

6347

clear:

6348

6349

"The only restriction that the Makhnovists considered

6350

necessary to impose on the Bolsheviks, the left

6351

Socialist Revolutionaries and other statists was a

6352

prohibition on the formation of those 'revolutionary

6353

committees' which sought to impose a dictatorship over

6354

the people. In Aleksandrovsk and Ekaterinoslav, right

6355

after the occupation of these cities by the Makhnovists,

6356

the Bolsheviks hastened to organise Revkoms

6357

(Revolutionary Committees ) seeking to organise their

6358

political power and govern the population . . .

6359

Makhno advised them to go and take up some honest trade

6360

instead of seeking to impose their will on the

6361

workers . . . In this context the Makhnovists' attitude

6362

was completely justified and consistent. To protect the

6363

full freedom of speech, press, and organisation, they

6364

had to take measures against formations which sought to

6365

stifle this freedom, to suppress other organisations,

6366

and to impose their will and dictatorial authority on

6367

the workers." [Op. Cit., p. 154]

6368

</blockquote>

6369

Little wonder Rees distorts the issues and transforms

6370

a policy to defend the real revolution into one which

6371

banned a "call for revolution"! We should be grateful

6372

that he distorted the Makhnovist message for it allows

6373

us to indicate the dictatorial nature of the regime

6374

and politics Rees is defending.

6375

6376

All of which disproves Rees' assertion that "the movement

6377

never had any real support from the working class. Neither

6378

was it particularly interested in developing a programme

6379

which would appeal to the workers." [Op. Cit., p. 59] Now,

6380

Rees had obviously read Palij's summary of Makhnovist ideas.

6381

Is he claiming that workers' self-management and the

6382

socialisation of the means of production do not "appeal"

6383

to workers? After all, most Leninists pay lip-service to

6384

these ideas. Is Rees arguing that the Bolshevik policies

6385

of the time (namely one-man management and the militarisation

6386

of labour) "appealed" to the workers more than workers'

6387

self-management of production? Equally, the Makhnovists

6388

argued that the workers should form their own free soviets

6389

which would "carry out the will and orders of their

6390

constituents." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 151] Is Rees really

6391

arguing that the Bolshevik policy of party dictatorship

6392

"appealed" to the workers more than soviet democracy?

6393

If so, then heaven help us if the SWP ever get into power!

6394

6395

Luckily, as Jonathan Aves' book Workers Against Lenin proves,

6396

this was not the case. Working-class resistance to Bolshevik

6397

policies was extremely widespread and was expressed by strikes.

6398

It should be noted that the wave of strikes all across Russia

6399

which preceded the Kronstadt revolt also raised the demand

6400

for soviet democracy. The call for "free soviets" was raised

6401

by the Kronstadt revolt itself and during the "mini-Kronstadt"

6402

in Katerinoslav in June 1921 where the demands of the workers

6403

"were very similar in content with the resolutions of the

6404

Kronstadt rebels" and telegraph operators sent "messages

6405

throughout the Soviet Republic calling for 'free soviets.'"

6406

[Jonathan Aves, Workers Against Lenin, p. 172 and p. 173]

6407

6408

Clearly, the Makhnovists did create a "programme that would

6409

appeal to the workers." However, it is true that the Makhnovists

6410

did fail win over more than a minority of workers. This may

6411

have been due to the fact that the Makhnovists only freed two

6412

cities, both for short periods of time. As Paul Avrich notes,

6413

"he found little time to implement his economic programs."

6414

[Anarchist Portraits, p. 121] Given how Rees bends over

6415

backwards to justify Bolshevik policies in terms of "objective

6416

factors," it is significant that in his discussion of the

6417

Makhnovists such "objective factors" as time fail to get a

6418

mention!

6419

6420

Thus Rees's attempt to paint the Makhnovists as anti-working

6421

class fails. While this is the core of his dismissal of them

6422

as a possible "libertarian alternative to the Bolsheviks,"

6423

the facts do not support his assertions. He gives the example

6424

of Makhno's advice to railway workers in Aleksandrovsk "who

6425

had not been paid for many weeks" that they should "simply

6426

charge passengers a fair price and so generate their own

6427

wages." He states that this "advice aimed at reproducing

6428

the petit-bourgeois patterns of the countryside." [Op. Cit.,

6429

p. 59] Two points can be raised to this argument.

6430

6431

Firstly, we should highlight the Bolshevik (and so,

6432

presumably, "proletarian") patterns imposed on the

6433

railway workers. Trotsky simply "plac[ed] the railwaymen

6434

and the personnel of the repair workshops under martial

6435

law" and "summarily ousted" the leaders of the railwaymen's

6436

trade union when they objected." The Central Administrative

6437

Body of Railways (Tsektran) he created was run by him

6438

"along strictly military and bureaucratic lines." In other

6439

words, he applied his ideas on the "militarisation of

6440

labour" in full. [M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers'

6441

Control, p. 67] Compared to the Bolshevik pattern, only

6442

an ideologue could suggest that Makhno's advice (and it

6443

was advice, not a decree imposed from above, as was

6444

Trotsky's) can be considered worse. Indeed, by being

6445

based on workers' self-management it was infinitely

6446

more socialist than the militarised Bolshevik state

6447

capitalist system.

6448

6449

Secondly, Rees fails to understand the nature of

6450

anarchism. Anarchism argues that it is up to working

6451

class people to organise their own activities. This

6452

meant that, ultimately, it was up to the railway

6453

workers themselves (in association with other

6454

workers) to organise their own work and industry.

6455

Rather than being imposed by a few leaders, real

6456

socialism can only come from below, built by working

6457

people, through their own efforts and own class

6458

organisations. Anarchists can suggest ideas and solutions,

6459

but ultimately its up to workers (and peasants) to organise

6460

their own affairs. Thus, rather than being a source of

6461

condemnation, Makhno's comments should be considered as

6462

praiseworthy as they were made in a spirit of equality

6463

and were based on encouraging workers' self-management.

6464

6465

Ultimately, the best reply to Rees is simply the fact

6466

that after holding a "general conference of the workers

6467

of the city" at which it was "proposed that the workers

6468

organise the life of the city and the functioning of the

6469

factories with their own forces and their own organisations"

6470

based on "the principles of self-management," the "[r]ailroad

6471

workers took the first step in this direction" by "form[ing]

6472

a committee charged with organising the railway network of

6473

the region." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 149]

6474

6475

Even more amazing (if that is possible) is Rees' account of

6476

the revolution in the countryside. Rees argues that the "real

6477

basis of Makhno's support was not his anarchism, but his

6478

opposition to grain requisitioning and his determination not

6479

to disturb the peasant economy" [Op. Cit., p. 59] and quotes

6480

Palij as follows:

6481

6482

"Makhno had not put an end to the agricultural inequalities.

6483

His aim was to avoid conflicts with the villages and to

6484

maintain a sort of united front of the entire peasantry."

6485

[M. Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214]

6486

</blockquote>

6487

However, here is the actual context of the (corrected) quote:

6488

6489

"Peasants' economic conditions in the region of the Makhno

6490

movement were greatly improved at the expense of the estates

6491

of the landlords, the church, monasteries, and the richest

6492

peasants, but Makhno had not put an end to the agricultural

6493

inequalities. His aim was to avoid conflicts within the

6494

villages and to maintain a sort of united front of the

6495

entire peasantry." [M. Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214]

6496

</blockquote>

6497

Clearly, Rees has distorted the source material, conveniently

6498

missing out the information that Makhno had most definitely

6499

"disturbed" the peasant economy at the expense of the rich!

6500

And, we are sure that Rees would have a fit if it were suggested

6501

that the real basis of Bolshevik support was not their socialism,

6502

but their opposition to the war and the Whites!

6503

6504

Amazingly, Rees also somehow manages to forget to mention the

6505

peasant revolution which had started in 1917 in his attack

6506

against Makhno:

6507

6508

"Makhno and his associates brought socio-political issues

6509

into the daily life of the people, who in turn supported the

6510

expropriation of large estates . . . On the eve of open

6511

conflict [in late 1917], Makhno assembled all the landowners

6512

and rich peasants (kulaks) of the area and took from them

6513

all official documents relating to their land, livestock,

6514

and equipment. Subsequently an inventory of this property

6515

was taken and reported to the people at the session of

6516

the local soviet, and then at the regional meeting, It

6517

was decided to allow the landlords to share the land,

6518

livestock, and tools equally with the peasants." [Palij,

6519

Op. Cit., p. 71]

6520

</blockquote>

6521

Obviously, Rees considers the expropriating of the

6522

landlords and kulaks as an act which "did not disturb

6523

the age-old class structure of the countryside"!

6524

6525

Let us not forget that the official Makhnovist position was

6526

that the "holdings of the landlords, the monasteries, and

6527

the state, including all livestock and goods, were to be

6528

transferred to the peasants." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 151]

6529

At the second congress of workers, peasants and insurgents

6530

held in February, 1919, it was resolved that "all land be

6531

transferred to the hands of toiling peasants . . . according

6532

to the norm of equal distribution." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit.,

6533

p. 155] This meant that every peasant family had as much

6534

land as they could cultivate without the use of hired labour.

6535

The Makhnovists argued with regards to the kulaks:

6536

6537

"We are sure that . . . the kulak elements of the village

6538

will be pushed to one side by the very course of events.

6539

The toiling peasantry will itself turn effortlessly on the

6540

kulaks, first by adopting the kulak's surplus land for

6541

general use, then naturally drawing the kulak elements

6542

into the social organisation." [cited by Michael Malet,

6543

Op. Cit., pp. 118-9]

6544

</blockquote>

6545

Thus, just to stress the point, the Makhnovists did

6546

"disturb" the "age-old class structure of the countryside."

6547

6548

Clearly, Rees is simply taking nonsense. When he states that

6549

Makhnovist land policies "did not disturb the age-old class

6550

structure of the countryside," he is simply showing his utter

6551

and total disregard for the truth. As the Bolsheviks themselves

6552

found out, no mass movement could possibly exist among the

6553

peasants without having a positive and levelling land policy.

6554

The Makhnovists were no exception.

6555

6556

Rees then states that "[i]n 1919 the local Bolshevik

6557

authorities made mistakes which played into Makhno's hands."

6558

Unsurprisingly enough, he argues that this was because

6559

they "tried to carry through the socialisation of the

6560

land, rather than handing it over to the peasants."

6561

[Op. Cit., p. 60] In fact, the Bolsheviks did not try

6562

to implement the "socialisation" of land. Rather, they

6563

tried to nationalise the land and place it under state

6564

control -- a radically different concept. Indeed, it was

6565

the Makhnovists who argued that the "land, the factories,

6566

the workshops, the mines, the railroads and the other

6567

wealth of the people must belong to the working people

6568

themselves, to those who work in them, that is to say,

6569

they must be socialised." [contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit.,

6570

p. 273] The Bolsheviks, in contrast, initially "decreed

6571

that all lands formerly belonging to the landlords should

6572

be expropriated and transformed into state farms." [Palij,

6573

Op. Cit., p. 156] The peasants quite rightly thought that

6574

this just replaced one set of landlords with another,

6575

stealing the land which rightfully belonged to them.

6576

6577

After distorting the source material by selective quoting,

6578

Rees does it again when he argues that "by the spring of 1920

6579

they [the Bolsheviks] had reversed the policy towards the

6580

peasants and instituted Committees of Poor Peasants, these

6581

'hurt Makhno . . . his heart hardened and he sometimes ordered

6582

executions.' This policy helped the Bolshevik ascendancy."

6583

[Op. Cit., p. 60]

6584

6585

Rees quotes Palij as evidence. To refute his argument we need

6586

simply quote the same pages:

6587

6588

"Although they [the Bolsheviks] modified their agricultural

6589

policy by introducing on February 5, 1920, a new land law,

6590

distributing the former landlords', state and church lands

6591

among the peasants, they did not succeed in placating them

6592

because of the requisitions, which the peasants considered

6593

outright robbery . . . Subsequently the Bolsheviks decided

6594

to introduce class warfare into the villages. A decree was

6595

issued on May 19, 1920, establishing 'Committees of the

6596

Poor' . . . Authority in the villages was delegated to the

6597

committees, which assisted the Bolsheviks in seizing the

6598

surplus grain . . . The establishment of Committees of the

6599

Poor was painful to Makhno because they became not only

6600

part of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus the

6601

peasants opposed, but also informers helping the Bolshevik

6602

secret police in its persecution of the partisans, their

6603

families and supporters, even to the extent of hunting

6604

down and executing wounded partisans . . . Consequently,

6605

Makhno's 'heart hardened and he sometimes ordered

6606

executions where some generosity would have bestowed

6607

more credit upon him and his movement. That the Bolsheviks

6608

preceded him with the bad example was no excuse. For he

6609

claimed to be fighting for a better cause.' Although the

6610

committees in time gave the Bolsheviks a hold on every

6611

village, their abuse of power disorganised and slowed

6612

down agricultural life . . . This policy of terror and

6613

exploitation turned almost all segments of Ukrainian

6614

society against the Bolsheviks, substantially strengthened

6615

the Makhno movement, and consequently facilitated the

6616

advance of the reorganised anti-Bolshevik force of General

6617

Wrangel from the Crimea into South Ukraine, the Makhno

6618

region." [M. Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 213-4]

6619

</blockquote>

6620

Amazing what a ". . ." can hide, is it not! Rees turns

6621

an account which clearly shows the Bolshevik policy was

6622

based on informers, secret police and the murder of

6623

rebels as well as being a total disaster into a victory.

6624

Moreover, he also transforms it so that the victims are

6625

portrayed as the villains. Words cannot do this re-writing

6626

of history justice. Yes, indeed, an organisation of

6627

informers to the secret police in every village can aid

6628

the "ascendancy" of a one-party dictatorship (aided,

6629

of course, by overwhelming military force), but it

6630

cannot aid the ascendancy of freedom, equality and

6631

socialism.

6632

6633

Given the actual record of the Bolsheviks' attempts to break

6634

up what they considered the "age-old class structure" of the

6635

villages with the "Committees of the Poor," it is clear why

6636

Rees distorts his source.

6637

6638

It does seem ironic that Rees attacks the Makhnovists for not

6639

pursuing Bolshevik peasant policies. Considering the absolute

6640

failure of those policies, the fact that Makhno did not follow

6641

them is hardly cause for condemnation! Indeed, given the numerous

6642

anti-Bolshevik uprisings and large-scale state repression they

6643

provoked, attacking the Makhnovists for not pursuing such insane

6644

policies is equally insane. After all, who, in the middle of a

6645

Civil War, makes matters worse for themselves by creating more

6646

enemies? Only the insane -- or the Bolsheviks!

6647

6648

That Makhnovist land policy was correct and the Bolshevik

6649

one wrong can be seen from the fact that the latter

6650

changed their policies and brought them into line with

6651

the Makhnovist ones. As Palij notes, the Bolsheviks

6652

"modified their agricultural policy by introducing on

6653

February 5, 1920, a new land law, distributing the

6654

formers landlords', state, and church lands among the

6655

peasants." This, of course, was a vindication of

6656

Makhnovist policy (which dated from 1917!). Makhno

6657

"initiated the peasants' movement, confiscating and

6658

distributing landlords' land and goods" (and, unlike

6659

the Bolsheviks, "encouraging the workers to take over

6660

factories and workshops"). As regards the Bolsheviks

6661

attempts to break up what they considered the "age-

6662

old class structure" of the villages with the "Committees

6663

of the Poor," it was, as noted above, a complete

6664

disaster and counter-productive. [Op. Cit., p. 213

6665

and p. 250] All in all, the Makhnovist policies were

6666

clearly the most successful as regards the peasantry.

6667

They broke up the class system in the countryside

6668

by expropriating the ruling class and did not create

6669

new conflicts by artificially imposing themselves

6670

onto the villages.

6671

6672

Lastly, we must also wonder just how sensible it is to

6673

"disturb" the economy that produces the food you eat.

6674

Given that Rees, in part, blames Bolshevik tyranny on

6675

the disruption of the economy, it seems incredible that

6676

he faults Makhno for not adding to the chaos by failing

6677

to "disrupt the peasant economy"! However, why let logic

6678

get in the way of a good rant!

6679

6680

As well as ignoring the wealth of information on Makhnovist

6681

land policy, Rees turns to their attempts to form free agrarian

6682

communes. He argues that Makhno's attempts "to go beyond the

6683

traditional peasant economy were doomed" and quotes Makhno's

6684

memoirs which state "the mass of the people did not go over"

6685

to his peasant communes, which only involved a few hundred

6686

families. [Op. Cit., p. 59]

6687

6688

Looking at Makhno's memoirs a somewhat different picture appears.

6689

Firstly, Makhno states that there were "four such agricultural

6690

communes within a three- or four-mile radius of Hulyai-Pole,"

6691

but in the whole district "there were many" in 1918 (the period

6692

being discussed in his memoirs). Makhno recounts how each "commune

6693

consisted of ten families of peasants and workers, totalling a

6694

hundred, two hundred or three hundred members" and the "management

6695

of each commune was conducted by a general meeting of all its

6696

members." He does state that "the mass of people did not go over

6697

to it" but, significantly, he argues that this was because of

6698

"the advance of the German and Austrian armies, their own lack

6699

of organisation, and their inability to defend this order against

6700

the new 'revolutionary' and counter-revolutionary authorities.

6701

For this reason the toiling population of the district limited

6702

their real revolutionary activity to supporting in every way

6703

those bold spirits among them who had settled on the old estates

6704

[of the landlords] and organised their personal and economic life

6705

on free communal lines." [quoted by Paul Avrich, The Anarchists

6706

in the Russian Revolution, pp. 130-2]

6707

6708

Of course, failing to mention the time period Makhno was

6709

recounting does distort the success of the communes. The

6710

Bolsheviks were evacuating the Ukraine as part of their

6711

treaty with German and Austrian Imperialism when the

6712

communes were being set up. This left them in a dangerous

6713

position, needless to say. By July, 1918, the area was

6714

occupied by Austrian troops and it was early 1919 before

6715

the situation was stable enough to allow their

6716

reintroduction. One commune was named "Rosa Luxemburg"

6717

(after the Marxist revolutionary martyr) and was

6718

mostly destroyed by the Bolsheviks in June 1919 and

6719

completely destroyed by the Whites a few days later.

6720

In such circumstances, can it be surprising that only

6721

a minority of peasants got involved in them? Rather

6722

than praise the Makhnovists for positive social

6723

experimentation in difficult circumstances, Rees shows

6724

his ignorance of the objective conditions facing the

6725

revolution. Perhaps if the peasants did not have to

6726

worry about the Bolsheviks as well as the Whites,

6727

they would have had more members?

6728

6729

All in all, Rees account of Makhnovist ideas on the peasant

6730

economy are, to put it mildly, incorrect. They paint a

6731

radically different picture of the reality of both Makhnovist

6732

ideas and practice as regards the peasantry. Ironically, the

6733

soundness of Makhnovist policy in this area can be seen from

6734

the fact that the Bolsheviks changed their land policy to

6735

bring it into line with it. Not, of course, that you would know

6736

that from Rees' account. Nor would you know what the facts

6737

of the Bolsheviks' land policy were either. Indeed, Rees

6738

uses Michael Palij's book to create a picture of events

6739

which is the exact opposite of that contained in it! Very

6740

impressive!

6741

6742

Intent on driving the final nail into the coffin, he tries

6743

to apply "class analysis" to the Makhnovists. Rees actually

6744

states that "given this social base [i.e the Makhnovists'

6745

peasant base] . . . much of Makhno's libertarianism amounted

6746

to little more than paper decrees." [Op. Cit., p. 60]

6747

6748

Ironically enough, the list of "paper decrees" Rees presents

6749

(when not false or distorted) are also failings associated with

6750

the Bolsheviks (and taken to even more extreme measures by the

6751

Bolsheviks)! As such, his lambasting of the Makhnovists seems

6752

deeply hypocritical. Moreover, his attempt to ground the few

6753

deviations that exist between Makhnovist practice and Makhnovist

6754

theory in the peasant base of the army seems an abuse of class

6755

analysis. After all, these deviations were also shared by the

6756

Bolsheviks. As such, how can Rees justify the Bolshevik deviations

6757

from socialist theory in terms of "objective factors" yet

6758

blame Makhnovist ones on their "social base"? Do "objective

6759

factors" only afflict Leninists?

6760

6761

Take for example his first "paper" decree, namely the election

6762

of commanders. He states that "in practice the most senior

6763

commanders were appointed by Makhno." In other words, the

6764

Makhnovists applied this principle extensively but not

6765

completely. The Bolsheviks abolished it by decree (and did

6766

not blame it on "exceptional circumstances" nor consider it

6767

as a "retreat", as Rees asserts). Now, if Rees' "class analysis"

6768

of the limitations of the Makhnovists were true, does this mean

6769

that an army of a regime with a proletarian base (as he considers

6770

the Bolshevik regime) cannot have elected commanders? This

6771

is the logical conclusion of his argument.

6772

6773

Equally, his attempt to "give a flavour of the movement" by

6774

quoting one of the resolutions adopted by a mass meeting of

6775

partisans also backfires (namely, "to obey the orders of

6776

the commanders if the commanders are sober enough to give

6777

them"). Firstly, it should be noted that this was, originally,

6778

from a Red Army source. Secondly, drunkenness was a big

6779

problem during the civil war (as in any war). It was one of

6780

the easiest ways of forgetting reality at a time when life

6781

was often unpleasant and sometimes short. As such, the

6782

"objective factor" of civil war explains this resolution

6783

rather than the social base of the movement! Thirdly, Rees

6784

himself quotes a Central Committee member's comment to the

6785

Eighth Party Congress that there were so many "horrifying

6786

facts about drunkenness, debauchery, corruption, robbery

6787

and irresponsible behaviour of many party members that

6788

one's hair stands on end." [Op. Cit., p. 66] The Eighth

6789

Congress was in 1919. Does this comment give a "flavour"

6790

of the Bolshevik regime under Lenin? Obviously not, as Rees

6791

defends it and blames this list of horrors on the objective

6792

factors facing the Bolsheviks. Why does the drunkenness of

6793

the Makhnovists come from their "social base" while that of

6794

the Bolsheviks from "objective factors"? Simply put, Rees is

6795

insulting the intelligence of his readers.

6796

6797

The Makhnovist resolution was passed by a mass assembly

6798

of partisans, suggesting a fundamentally democratic

6799

organisation. Rees argues that the civil war resulted in

6800

the Bolshevik vices becoming institutionalised in the power

6801

of the bureaucracy. However, as can be seen, the Makhnovists

6802

practised democracy during the civil war, suggesting that

6803

the objective factors Rees tries to blame for the Bolshevik

6804

vices simply cannot explain everything. As such, his own

6805

example (yet again) backfires on his argument.

6806

6807

Rees claims that "Makhno held elections, but no parties

6808

were allowed to participate in them." [Op. Cit., p. 60]

6809

This is probably derived from Palij's comment that the

6810

free soviets would "carry out the will and orders of their

6811

constituents" and "[o]nly working people, not representatives

6812

of political parties, might join the soviets." [Op. Cit.,

6813

p. 151] This, in turn, derives from a Makhnovist proclamation

6814

from January 1920 which stated:

6815

6816

"Only labourers who are contributing work necessary to

6817

the social economy should participate in the soviets.

6818

Representatives of political organisations have no place

6819

in worker-peasant soviets, since their participation in

6820

a workers' soviet will transform the latter into deputies

6821

of the party and can lead to the downfall of the soviet

6822

system." [contained in Peter Arshinov's History of the

6823

Makhnovist Movement, p. 266]

6824

</blockquote>

6825

Rees' comments indicate that he is not familiar with the

6826

make-up of the Russian Soviets of 1917. Unlike the soviets

6827

from the 1905 revolution, those in 1917 allowed "various

6828

parties and other organisations to acquire voting

6829

representation in the soviet executive committees."

6830

Indeed, this was "often how high party leaders became

6831

voting delegates to" such bodies. It should "be

6832

underlined that these party delegates were selected

6833

by the leadership of each political organisation, and

6834

not by the soviet assembly itself. In other words, these

6835

executive committee members were not directly elected by

6836

the representatives of the producers" (never mind by the

6837

producers themselves). [Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism,

6838

p. 31]

6839

6840

In addition, Russian Anarchists had often attacked the

6841

use of "party lists" in soviet elections, which turned

6842

the soviets from working-class organs into talking-shops.

6843

[Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, p. 190] This use

6844

of party lists meant that soviet delegates could be anyone.

6845

For example, the leading left-wing Menshevik Martov recounts

6846

that in early 1920 a chemical factory "put up Lenin against

6847

me as a candidate [to the Moscow soviet]. I received seventy-six

6848

votes he-eight (in an open vote)." [quoted by Israel Getzler,

6849

Martov, p. 202] How would either of these two intellectuals

6850

actually know and reflect the concerns and interests of the

6851

workers they would be "delegates" of? If the soviets were

6852

meant to be the delegates of working people, then why should

6853

non-working class members of political parties be elected

6854

to a soviet?

6855

6856

Given that the people elected to the free soviets would be

6857

delegates and not representatives, this would mean that

6858

they would reflect the wishes of their workmates rather

6859

than the decisions of the party's central committee. As

6860

such, if a worker who was a member of a political party

6861

could convince their workmates of their ideas, the delegate

6862

would reflect the decisions of the mass assembly. As such,

6863

the input of political parties would not be undermined in any

6864

way (although their domination would be!).

6865

6866

As such, the Makhnovist ideas on soviets did not, in fact,

6867

mean that workers and peasants could not elect or send

6868

delegates who were members of political parties. They had

6869

no problems as such with delegates who happened to be working-

6870

class party members. They did have problems with delegates

6871

representing only political parties, delegates who were not

6872

workers and soviets being mere ciphers covering party rule.

6873

6874

That this was the case can be seen from a few facts.

6875

Firstly, the February 1919 congress resolution "was

6876

written by the anarchists, left Socialist Revolutionaries,

6877

and the chairman." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 155] Similarly,

6878

the Makhnovist Revolutionary Military Soviet created

6879

at the Aleksandrovsk congress in late 1919 had three

6880

Communists elected to it. There were 18 delegates

6881

from workers at that congress, six were Mensheviks

6882

and the remaining 12 included Communists [Malet,

6883

Op. Cit., p. 111, p. 124] Clearly, members of political

6884

parties were elected to both the congresses and

6885

the Revolutionary Military Soviet. As such, the idea

6886

that free soviets excluded members of political

6887

parties is false -- they simply were not dominated

6888

by them (for example, having executives made up of

6889

members of a single party or delegating their power

6890

to a government as per the national soviet in Russia).

6891

This could, of course, change. In the words of the

6892

Makhnovist reply to Bolshevik attempts to ban one of

6893

their congresses:

6894

6895

"The Revolutionary Military Council . . . holds itself

6896

above the pressure and influence of all parties and only

6897

recognises the people who elected it. Its duty is to

6898

accomplish what the people have instructed it to do,

6899

and to create no obstacles to any left socialist party

6900

in the propagation of ideas. Consequently, if one day

6901

the Bolshevik idea succeeds among the workers, the

6902

Revolutionary Military Council . . . will necessarily

6903

be replaced by another organisation, 'more revolutionary'

6904

and more Bolshevik." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit.,

6905

pp. 103-4]

6906

</blockquote>

6907

As such, the Makhnovists supported the right of working-

6908

class self-determination, as expressed by one delegate

6909

to Hulyai Pole conference in February 1919:

6910

6911

"No party has a right to usurp governmental power

6912

into its hands . . . We want life, all problems,

6913

to be decided locally, not by order from any

6914

authority above; and all peasants and workers

6915

should decide their own fate, while those elected

6916

should only carry out the toilers' wish." [quoted

6917

by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154]

6918

</blockquote>

6919

Thus, Rees fails to present an accurate account of Makhnovist

6920

theory and practice as regards "free soviets." Rather than

6921

oppose party participation within their soviets and congresses,

6922

the Makhnovists opposed the domination of soviets and

6923

congresses by political parties, a radically different

6924

concept. Like the Kronstadt rebels, they argued for all

6925

power to the soviets and not to parties.

6926

6927

Lastly, Rees attacks the Makhnovists for having two security

6928

forces, the Cheka-like razvedka and the Punitive Commission.

6929

How this is an expression of the Makhnovist "social base"

6930

is hard to explain, as both the Bolsheviks and Whites also

6931

had their security forces and counter-intelligence agencies.

6932

6933

While Rees quotes Footman's statement that "we can safely

6934

assume [!] these services were responsible for frequent

6935

injustices and atrocities," he fails to mention that

6936

Footman does not provide any examples (hence his comment

6937

that we can "assume" they occurred!). Footman himself

6938

notes that "[o]f the Makhnovite security services . . .

6939

we know very little." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 288]

6940

Rees himself only lists one, namely the summary shooting

6941

of a Bolshevik cell discovered in the Army. Given the

6942

bloody record of the Bolshevik Cheka (which, again, Rees

6943

defends as necessary to defend against the Whites!), this

6944

suggests that the crimes of the Makhnovist counter-intelligence

6945

pale in comparison.

6946

6947

Rees also quotes the historian Chamberlin that "Makhno's

6948

private Cheka . . . quickly disposed of anyone who was

6949

suspected of plotting against his life." [Op. Cit., 60]

6950

Strangely enough, Rees fails to mention the Bolshevik

6951

attempts to assassinate Makhno, including the one in the

6952

latter part of May 1919 when, it should be noted, the

6953

Makhnovists and Bolsheviks were meant to be in alliance.

6954

Nor does he mention that the Cheka "would hunt out and

6955

hang all active Makhnovites." [David Footman, Civil War

6956

in Russia, p. 271 and p. 293]

6957

6958

As regards the last conflict with the Red Army, it should

6959

be noted that while "generalised accusations of Makhnovist

6960

atrocities are common" the facts are it was "the Makhnovists

6961

who stood to gain by liberating prisoners, the Bolsheviks by

6962

shooting them." This was because "the Red Army soldiers had

6963

been conscripted from elsewhere to do work they neither liked

6964

nor understood" and the "insurgents had their own homes to

6965

defend." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 130] Thus, while Rees quotes

6966

Footman's opinion that "Makhno's later campaigns [were]

6967

among the most bloody and vindictive," these facts suggest

6968

that we cannot "safely assume that these [security] services

6969

were responsible for frequent injustices and atrocities."

6970

Clearly, if the Makhnovists were releasing Red Army prisoners

6971

(and many of whom were joining Makhno), the picture of an

6972

atrocity inflicting army can hardly be a valid picture.

6973

6974

And it should be stressed that Bolshevik terror and violence

6975

against the Makhnovists is strangely absent from Rees's account.

6976

6977

Rees presents just one concrete example of Makhnovist

6978

"Cheka-like" violence, namely, the execution of a

6979

Bolshevik cell in December, 1919. It should be noted

6980

that the Bolsheviks had been explicitly arguing for

6981

Party dictatorship for some time by then. The reason why

6982

the Bolsheviks had been "denied an open trial" was because

6983

they had already been shot. Unfortunately, Makhno gave two

6984

contradictory reasons why the Bolsheviks had been killed.

6985

This led to the Makhnovist Revolutionary Military Soviet

6986

setting up a commission of three to investigate the issue.

6987

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the commission exonerated Makhno

6988

although Voline, out of the members, seemed to have been

6989

genuinely embarrassed by the affair. [Malet, Op. Cit.,

6990

pp. 51-2] Needless to say, Rees fails to comment on the

6991

Bolshevik summary killing of Makhnovist staff in June

6992

1919 or, indeed, any other summary executions conducted

6993

by the Bolsheviks against the Makhnovists (including the

6994

shooting of prisoners).

6995

6996

Given the summary justice handed out by the Bolshevik Cheka,

6997

it seems strange that Rees dismisses the Makhnovist movement

6998

on assumptions and one event, yet he does. Obviously, the

6999

large-scale and continuous Bolshevik killings of political

7000

enemies (including Makhnovists) is irrelevant compared to

7001

this one event.

7002

7003

All in all, Rees' attempts to blame the few deviations

7004

the Makhnovists had from anarchist theory on the "social

7005

base" of the movement are a joke. While justifying the

7006

far more extreme deviations of Bolshevik theory and practice

7007

in terms of "objective factors," he refuses to consider this

7008

possibility for the Makhnovists. The hypocrisy is clear, if

7009

not unexpected.

7010

7011

One last point. Taking Rees' "class analysis" of the Makhnovists

7012

seriously, the logical conclusion of his argument is clear.

7013

For Rees, a movement which compromises slightly with its

7014

principles in the face of extreme "objective factors" is

7015

"petty bourgeois." However, a movement which compromises

7016

totally (indeed introduces and justifies the exact opposite

7017

of its original claims) in face of the same "objective

7018

factors" is "proletarian." As such, his pathetic attempt

7019

at "class analysis" of the Makhnovists simply shows up

7020

the dictatorial nature of the Bolsheviks. If trying to

7021

live up to libertarian/democratic ideals but not totally

7022

succeeding signifies being "petty-bourgeois" while dismissing

7023

those ideals totally in favour of top-down, autocratic

7024

hierarchies is "proletarian" then sane people would

7025

happily be labelled "petty-bourgeois"!

7026

7027

And Rees states that "[n]either Makhno's social programme

7028

nor his political regime could provide an alternative

7029

to the Bolsheviks"! [Op. Cit., p. 60] Little wonder he

7030

distorts that social programme and political regime -- an

7031

honest account of both would see that Rees is wrong. The

7032

Makhnovist movement clearly shows that not only did Bolshevik

7033

policies have a decisive impact on the development of the

7034

Russian Revolution, there was a clear alternative to

7035

Bolshevik authoritarianism and party dictatorship.

7036

7037

In summary, Rees' attack on the Makhnovists fails. It can

7038

be faulted on both factual and logical grounds. His article

7039

is so riddled with errors, selective quoting and downright

7040

lies that it is factually unreliable. Similarly, his attempt

7041

to attack the Makhnovist political theory and practice is

7042

equally factually incorrect. His attempt to explain the

7043

deviations of Makhnovist practice from its theory in terms

7044

of the "social base" is simply an insult to the intelligence

7045

of the reader and an abuse of class analysis.

7046

7047

A far more compelling analysis would recognise that the

7048

Makhnovists were not a perfect social movement but that

7049

the deviations of its practice from its theory can be

7050

explained by the objective factors it faced. Equally, the

7051

example of the Makhnovists shows the weakness of Rees'

7052

main argument, namely that the objective factors that

7053

Bolshevism faced can solely explain its authoritarian

7054

politics. That the Makhnovists, facing the same objective

7055

factors, did not act in the same manner as the Bolsheviks

7056

shows that Bolshevik ideology played a key role in the

7057

failure of the revolution. This explains Rees' clumsy

7058

attempts to rewrite the history and theory of the

7059

Makhnovshchina.

7060

7061

<a name="app16"><h2>16 What lessons can be learned from the Makhnovists?</h2>

7062

7063

The Makhnovist movement was one of the most important

7064

events of the Russian Revolution. It was a mass movement

7065

of working people who tried and succeeded to implement

7066

libertarian ideas in extremely difficult circumstances.

7067

7068

As such, the most important lesson gained from the experience

7069

of the Makhno movement is simply that "objective factors" cannot

7070

and do not explain the degeneration of the Russian Revolution or

7071

Bolshevik authoritarianism. Here was a movement which

7072

faced the same terrible circumstances as the Bolsheviks faced

7073

(White counter-revolution, economic disruption, and so on)

7074

and yet did not act in the same manner as the Bolsheviks.

7075

Where the Bolsheviks completely abolished army democracy,

7076

the Makhnovists extensively applied it. Where the Bolsheviks

7077

implemented party dictatorship over the soviets, the Makhnovists

7078

encouraged and practised soviet self-management. While the

7079

Bolsheviks eliminated freedom of speech, press, assembly, the

7080

Makhnovists defended and implemented them. The list is endless

7081

(see <a href="append46.html#app14">section 14</a>).

7082

7083

This means that one of the key defences of the Bolshevik Myth,

7084

namely that the Bolsheviks had no choice but to act as they

7085

did due to "objective factors" or "circumstances" is totally

7086

undermined. As such, it points to the obvious conclusion:

7087

Bolshevik ideology influenced the practice of the party,

7088

as did their position within the "workers' state," and so

7089

influenced the outcome of the Revolution. This means that to

7090

play down Bolshevik ideology or practice in favour of "objective

7091

factors", one fails to understand that the actions and ideas

7092

generated during the revolution were not "objectively"

7093

determined but were themselves important and sometimes

7094

decisive factors in the outcome.

7095

7096

Take, for example, the Bolshevik decision to betray the Makhnovists

7097

in 1920. Neither betrayal was "objectively determined" before-

7098

hand. However, it did make perfect sense from a perspective

7099

which equated the revolution with the "dictatorship of the

7100

party." That the first betrayal undoubtedly extended the length

7101

of the Civil War by allowing the Whites the space to reorganise

7102

under Wrangel also had its impact on Bolshevik theory and

7103

practice as well as the "objective factors" it had to face.

7104

7105

As such, the Makhnovists give a counter-example to the common

7106

pro-Bolshevik argument that the horrors of the Civil War

7107

were responsible for the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party

7108

and the revolution. In the words of one historian:

7109

7110

"[The] Insurgent Army . . . was organised on a voluntary basis

7111

and respected the principle of election of commanders and

7112

staff. The regulations governing conduct were drawn up by

7113

commissions of soldiers and approved by general meetings of

7114

the units concerned. In other words, it embodied the principles

7115

of the soldiers' movement of 1917, principles rejected by

7116

the Bolsheviks when they set up the Red Army, supposedly

7117

because of their harmful effects on fighting efficiency, a

7118

characteristic of them discovered by the Bolsheviks only

7119

after they had come to power on the basis of promoting them.

7120

But the Insurgent Army, given its size and equipment, was

7121

very effective. Some have even credited it with greater

7122

responsibility than the Red Army for the defeat of Denikin.

7123

It took enormous efforts by the Bolsheviks, including the

7124

arrest or shooting of thousands of people, in order to

7125

pacify the region . . . even after the Insurgent Army

7126

was militarily broken, it took six months to mop up the

7127

remnants. . . Within its area of operations, which consisted

7128

of only two to three per cent of the total population of

7129

European Russia, the Insurgent Army was undoubtedly highly

7130

effective. While one can never know how history might have

7131

turned out had things been different, the Insurgent Army

7132

gives plenty of grounds for thinking that a people's

7133

revolutionary war of the kind it represented might have

7134

been at least as effective on a national scale with

7135

nationwide resources at its disposal as Trotsky and the

7136

Red Army's ruthless centralisation. It would not, however,

7137

have been compatible with the imposition from above of

7138

the Bolshevik leadership's vision of revolution. When

7139

the Insurgent Army drove the enemy out of an area they

7140

encouraged the local population to solve their own

7141

problems. Where the Red Army took over, the Cheka quickly

7142

followed. The Bolsheviks themselves were energetically

7143

snuffing out the ideals of 1917.

7144

7145

"Given such considerations it may be, though it cannot be

7146

logically proven one way or the other, that the Bolsheviks'

7147

deeply rooted authoritarianism rather than the civil war

7148

itself led to the construction of a highly centralised

7149

system that aimed at 'complete control' over political and

7150

many other aspects of social life. It could even be argued,

7151

though it is equally unprovable, that the tendency to

7152

authoritarianism, far from ensuring victory, nearly led

7153

to catastrophe. For one thing, it helped alienate many

7154

workers who felt cheated by the outcome of the revolution,

7155

and support for the regime was . . . far from even in this

7156

core group . . . [It] may, indeed, have been becoming

7157

more alienated as a result of Bolshevik measures depriving

7158

it of the means of expression of its growing catalogue of

7159

grievances. . . Far from being 'necessary' or even functional,

7160

the Bolshevik leadership's obsession with externally imposed

7161

discipline and authority might even have made the task of

7162

victory in the war more difficult and more costly. If the

7163

counter-example of Makhno is anything to go by then it

7164

certainly did." [Christopher Read, From Tsar to Soviets,

7165

pp. 264-5]

7166

</blockquote>

7167

As such, another key lesson to be learned from the Makhno

7168

movement is the importance of practising during a

7169

revolution the ideas you preach before it. Means and ends

7170

are linked, with the means shaping the ends and the ends

7171

inspiring the means. As such, if you argue for working-class

7172

power and freedom, you cannot dump these aims during a

7173

revolution without ensuring that they are never applied

7174

after it. As the Makhnovist movement showed, even the most

7175

difficult situations need not hinder the application of

7176

revolutionary ideas.

7177

7178

The importance of encouraging working-class autonomy also

7179

shines through the Makhnovist experience. The problems

7180

facing a social revolution are many, as are the problems

7181

involved in constructing a new society. The solutions to

7182

these problems cannot be found without the active and full

7183

participation of the working class. As the Makhnovist

7184

congresses and soviets show, free debate and meaningful

7185

meetings are the only means, firstly, to ensure that

7186

working-class people are "the masters of their own lives,"

7187

that "they themselves are making the revolution," that

7188

they "have gained freedom." "Take that faith away,"

7189

stressed Alexander Berkman, "deprive the people of power

7190

by setting up some authority over them, be it a political

7191

party or military organisation, and you have dealt a fatal

7192

blow to the revolution. You will have robbed it of its

7193

main source of strength, the masses." [ABC of Anarchism,

7194

p. 82]

7195

7196

Secondly, it allows the participation of all in solving

7197

the problems of the revolution and of constructing

7198

the new society. Without this input, real socialism

7199

cannot be created and, at best, some form of oppressive

7200

state capitalist regime would be created (as Bolshevism

7201

shows). A new society needs the freedom of experimentation,

7202

to adapt freely to the problems it faces, to adjust to the

7203

needs and hopes of those making it. Without working-class

7204

freedom and autonomy, public life becomes impoverished,

7205

miserable and rigid as the affairs of all are handed over

7206

to a few leaders at the top of a social hierarchy, who cannot

7207

possibility understand, let alone solve, the problems affecting

7208

society. Freedom allows the working class to take an active

7209

part in the revolution. Restricting working-class freedom

7210

means the bureaucratisation of the revolution as a few

7211

party leaders cannot hope to direct and rule the lives of

7212

millions without a strong state apparatus. Simply put,

7213

the emancipation of the working class is the task of the

7214

working class itself. Either working class people create

7215

socialism (and that needs workers' autonomy and freedom

7216

as its basis), or some clique will and the result will

7217

not be a socialist society.

7218

7219

As the experience of the Makhnovist movement shows, working-

7220

class freedom can be applied during a revolution and when

7221

it is faced with the danger of counter-revolution.

7222

7223

Another key lesson from the Makhnovist movement is that of

7224

the need for effective anarchist organisation. The Makhnovists

7225

did not become anarchist-influenced by chance. The hard

7226

effort by the local anarchists in Hulyai Pole before and

7227

during 1917 paid off in terms of political influence

7228

afterwards. Therefore, anarchists need to take a leading

7229

role in the struggles of working people (as we indicated

7230

in

7231

<a href="secI8.html#seci82">section I.8.2</a>,

7232

this was how the Spanish anarchists gained

7233

influence as well). As Voline noted, one of the advantages

7234

the Makhnovist movement had was "the activity of . . .

7235

libertarian elements in the region . . . [and the] rapidity

7236

with which the peasant masses and the insurgents, despite

7237

unfavourable circumstances, became acquainted with libertarian

7238

ideas and sought to apply them." [Op. Cit., p. 570]

7239

7240

Arshinov expands on this issue in a chapter of his history

7241

("The Makhnovshchina and Anarchism"), arguing that many

7242

Russian anarchists "suffered from the disease of

7243

disorganisation," which led to "impoverished ideas and

7244

futile practice." Moreover, most did not join the

7245

Makhnovist movement, "remained in their circles and

7246

slept through a mass movement of paramount importance."

7247

[Op. Cit., p. 244 and p. 242]

7248

7249

Indeed, it was only in May 1919 that the "Nabat" Ukrainian

7250

anarchist confederation was organised. This federation

7251

worked closely with the Makhnovists and gained influence

7252

in the villages, towns and cities within and around the

7253

Makhnovist region. In such circumstances, the anarchists

7254

were at a disadvantage compared to the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks

7255

and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had been organised far

7256

longer and so had more influence within the urban workers.

7257

7258

While many anarchists did participate effectively and

7259

organisationally within many areas of Russia and the

7260

Ukraine (gaining influence in Moscow and Petrograd, for

7261

example), they were much weaker than the Bolsheviks. This

7262

meant that the Bolshevik idea of revolution gained influence

7263

(by, it should be noted, appropriating anarchist slogans and

7264

tactics). Once in power, the Bolsheviks turned against their

7265

rivals, using state repression to effectively destroy the

7266

anarchist movement in Russia in April 1918 (see <a href="append41.html#app24">section 24</a> of the

7267

appendix <a href="append41.html">"What happened during the Russian Revolution?"</a> for details). This, incidentally, led to many anarchists

7268

coming to the Ukraine to escape repression and many joined

7269

the Makhnovists. As Arshinov notes, the Bolsheviks "knew

7270

perfectly well that . . . anarchism in Russia, lacking any

7271

contact with a mass movement as important as the

7272

Makhnovshchina, did not have a base and could not threaten

7273

nor endanger them." [Op. Cit., p. 248] Waiting till after

7274

a revolution starts to build such a base is a dangerous

7275

tactic, as the experience of the Russian anarchists shows.

7276

As the experience of the Moscow anarchists active in the

7277

bakers' union shows, organised working-class support can

7278

be an effective deterrent to state repression (the Moscow

7279

bakers' union continued to have anarchists active in it

7280

until 1921).

7281

7282

It should be noted that this lesson was recognised by the main

7283

anarchists associated with the Makhnovists. In exile, Voline

7284

argued for the need to build a "synthesis" anarchist federation

7285

(see

7286

<a href="secJ3.html#secj32">section J.3.2</a>)

7287

while Arshinov and Makhno both associated

7288

themselves with the Platform (see

7289

<a href="secJ3.html#secj33">section J.3.3</a>).

7290

7291

Another key lesson is the need to combine rural and urban

7292

organisation. As Voline argued, the "absence of a vigorous

7293

organised workers' movement which could support that of the

7294

peasant insurgents" was a major disadvantage for the Makhno

7295

movement. [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 571] If there had been a

7296

workers' movement influenced by anarchist or syndicalist

7297

ideas within the Ukrainian towns during the Russian

7298

Revolution, the possibilities of constructive work would

7299

have been increased immensely. Take the example of when the

7300

Makhnovists liberated Aleksandrovsk and organised two

7301

workers' conferences. It was only at the insurgents'

7302

insistence that the unions agreed to send delegates, but

7303

for information only. This was undoubtedly due to the fact

7304

that Mensheviks had some influence in the unions and

7305

Bolshevik influence was increasing. Both parties may have

7306

preferred the Makhnovists to the Whites, but neither

7307

accepted anarchist ideas of workers' self-management and

7308

so constructive work was limited to the railway workers.

7309

In contrast, when Katerinoslav was liberated, the bakers

7310

set themselves to preparing the socialisation of their

7311

industry and drawing up plans to feed both the army

7312

and the civilian population. Unsurprisingly, the bakers

7313

had long been under anarcho-syndicalist influence.

7314

[Malet, Op. Cit., p. 123 and p. 124]

7315

7316

As the Makhnovists themselves realised, their movement

7317

had to be complemented by urban working-class self-activity

7318

and self-organisations. While they did all they could

7319

to encourage it, they lacked a base within the workers'

7320

movement and so their ideas had to overcome the twin

7321

barriers of workers' unfamiliarity with both them and

7322

their ideas and Marxist influence. With a strong working-

7323

class movement influenced by anarchist ideas, the possibilities

7324

for constructive work between city and village would have

7325

been helped immensely (this can be seen from the example

7326

of the Spanish Revolution of 1936, where rural and urban

7327

collectives and unions made direct links with each other).

7328

7329

Lastly, there is the lesson to be gained from Makhnovist

7330

co-operation with the Bolsheviks. Simply put, the experience

7331

shows the importance of being wary towards Bolshevism.

7332

As Voline put it, another disadvantage of the Makhnovists

7333

was a "certain casualness, a lack of necessary distrust,

7334

towards the Communists." [Op. Cit., p. 571] The Makhnovists

7335

were betrayed three times by the Bolsheviks, who continually

7336

placed maintaining their own power above the needs of the

7337

revolution. The anarchists were simply used as cannon fodder

7338

against the Whites and once their utility had ended, the

7339

Bolsheviks turned their guns on them.

7340

7341

Thus a lesson to be learned is that co-operation between

7342

anarchists and Bolsheviks is fraught with danger. As many

7343

activists are aware, modern-day supporters of Bolshevism

7344

constantly urge everyone to unite "against the common

7345

enemy" and not to be "sectarian" (although, somehow this

7346

appeal to non-sectarianism does not stop them printing

7347

lying accounts of anarchism!). The Makhnovists took them at

7348

their word in early 1919 and soon found out that "unity"

7349

meant "follow our orders." When the Makhnovists continued

7350

to apply their ideas of working-class self-management, the

7351

Bolsheviks turned on them. Similarly, in early 1920 the

7352

Bolsheviks outlawed the Makhnovists in order to break their

7353

influence in the Ukraine. The Makhnovist contribution to

7354

the defeat of Denikin (the common enemy) was ignored.

7355

Lastly, in mid-1920 the Makhnovists placed the need of the

7356

revolution first and suggested an alliance to defeat the

7357

common enemy of Wrangel. Once Wrangel had been defeated,

7358

the Bolsheviks ripped up the agreement they had signed

7359

and, yet again, turned on the Makhnovists. Simply put,

7360

the Bolsheviks continually placed their own interests

7361

before that of the revolution and their allies. This is

7362

to be expected from an ideology based on vanguardism

7363

(see

7364

<a href="secH5.html">section H.5</a> for further discussion).

7365

7366

This does not mean that anarchists and Leninists should not

7367

work together. In some circumstances and in some social

7368

movements, this may be essential. However, it would be wise

7369

to learn from history and not ignore it and, as such, modern

7370

activists should be wary when conducting such co-operation.

7371

Ultimately, for Leninists, social movements are simply a means

7372

to their end (the seizing of state power by them on behalf of

7373

the working class) and anarchists should never forget it.

7374

7375

Thus the lessons of the Makhnovist movement are exceedingly

7376

rich. Simply put, the Makhnovshchina show that anarchism is

7377

a viable form of revolutionary ideas and can be applied

7378

successfully in extremely difficult circumstances. They show

7379

that social revolutions need not consist of changing one set

7380

of bosses for another. The Makhnovist movement clearly shows

7381

that libertarian ideas can be successfully applied in a

7382

revolutionary situation.

7383

7384

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7385

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