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{{Infobox_character|name = Nestor Makhno|image = NestorMakhnocolour.JPG|imagecaption = Nestor Makhno, colourised by Klimbim|aliases = Bat'ko|birthDate = 7th of November, 1888|birthPlace = Huliaipole, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire|deathDate = 25th of July, 1934 (age 45)|deathPlace = Paris, France}}'''Nestor Ivanovich Makhno''' or '''Bat'ko '''(1889 - 1934) was an [[Anarcho-Communism|anarcho-communist]] revolutionary, commander of the [[Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine|Black Army]] (and considered a military genius) during the [[Russian Civil War]] (which defended the [[Free Territory of Ukraine]]) and one of the ideological founders of [[Platformism]].
'''Nestor Ivanovich Makhno''' or '''Bat'ko '''(1889 - 1934) was an [[Anarcho-Communism|anarcho-"communist"]] warlord, commander of the gang of anti-Bolshevik thugs and bandits known as the [[Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine|Black Army]] (and considered a "military genius", if you count never winning a battle to be genius) during the [[Russian Civil War]] (which defended the [[Free Territory of Ukraine]]) and one of the ideological founders of [[Platformism]].


== Born ==
== Born ==


=== Childhood ===
=== Childhood ===
Born to a poor [[Peasants|peasant]] family in Gulyai-Polye to a family of six boys, his father died before he turned a year old. He began working [[Agriculture|tending cows and sheep]] for the local peasantry, later working as a farm laborer and in a [[factory]].  
Born to a poor [[Peasants|peasant]] family in Gulyai-Polye, Ukraine to a family of six boys, his father died before he turned a year old. He began working [[Agriculture|tending cows and sheep]] for the local peasantry, later working as a farm laborer and in a [[factory]].  


=== Imprisonment ===
=== Imprisonment ===
Line 15: Line 15:


=== Black Army ===
=== Black Army ===
Nestor returned to Gulyai-Polye in July 1918, and the area was occupied by Austrian troops and by the militia of their Ukrainian puppet, Hetman Skoropadsky. Organising the [[Black Army (Ukraine)|Black Army]], Makhno launched a series of raids against the Austrians and Hetmanites and against the manors of the nobility. He used tachnakas and horses in several battles between the Dnieper river and the Sea of Azov, swelling into a small army as they went and inspiring terror in their adversaries.
Nestor returned to Gulyai-Polye in July 1918, and the area was occupied by Austrian troops and by the militia of their Ukrainian puppet, Hetman Skoropadsky. Organising the [[Black Army (Ukraine)|Black Army]], Makhno launched a series of raids against the Austrians and Hetmanites and against the manors of the nobility. He used tachnakas and horses in several battles between the Dnieper river and the Sea of Azov, attracting independent bands of guerillas, villagers and anarchists. He became incredibly popular among [[peasants]], often freely providing his army with fresh food and horses, allowing them to travel up to 80 kilometers a day with little difficulty.


Previously
The Black Army would launch successful hit-and-run attacks on noble manors and military garrisons and quickly disappear into the steppes. They often stole uniforms of the enemy army and disguised themselves as such to spy and perform quick sneak attacks. If cornered, they would bury their weapons, walk to a nearby village and work in the fields, resembling ordinary peasants. Several defeats of Austrian and German soldiers and his humour led to the nickname "Bat'ko" (little father) by his soldiers.  
<nowiki> </nowiki>independent guerrilla bands accepted Makhno's command and rallied
behind his black banner. Villagers provided food and fresh horses,
enabling the Makhnovists to travel forty or fifty miles a day with
little difficulty. Turning up quite suddenly where least expected, they
would attack the gentry and military garrisons, then vanish as quickly  
as they had come. In captured uniforms they infiltrated the enemy's
ranks to learn their plans or to open fire at point-blank range. On one
occasion, Makhno and his retinue, masquerading as Hetmanite guardsmen,
gained entry to a landowner's ball and fell upon the guests in the midst
<nowiki> </nowiki>of their festivities. When cornered, the Makhnovists would bury their  
weapons, make their way singly back to their villages, and take up work  
in the fields, awaiting a signal to unearth a new cache of arms and  
spring up again in an unexpected quarter. For Isaac Babel, in Red
Cavalry Tales, Makhno was "as protean as nature herself. Haycarts
deployed in battle array take towns, a wedding procession approaching
the headquarters of a district executive committee suddenly opens a
concentrated fire, a little priest, waving above him the black flag of
anarchy, orders the authorities to serve up the bourgeoisie, the
proletariat, wine and music. An army of tachankas possesses undreamed-of
<nowiki> </nowiki>possibilities of maneuver."<sup>3</sup>


Small, agile, well-knit, Makhno was a resourceful leader who combined an
The Austrians and Germans left Ukraine as [[World War I]] came to an end, leading to the Black Army using their abandoned guns, tools, food, clothing and vehicles for themselves. He took the city of Ekaterinoslav by hiding himself and his troops on a train in ordinary clothing and attacking nationalists in the city by surprise. But had to flee across the Dnieper river to Gulyai-Polye after reinforcements came. He oversaw many congresses of [[Democratic Assembly|village assemblies]] and workers' councils in Gulyai-Polye and formed an alliance with the Bolsheviks, who worked together to destroy much of the White Army in Ukraine.
<nowiki> </nowiki>iron will with a sense of humor, winning the unswerving devotion of his
<nowiki> </nowiki>followers. In September 1918, after defeating a superior force of
Austrians at the village of Dibrivki, his men gave him the affectionate
title of bat'ko, their "little father." Two months later, the end of the
<nowiki> </nowiki>First World War led to the withdrawal of Austrian and German troops
from Russian territory. Makhno managed to seize some of
[114]
their arms and equipment. He next turned his wrath upon the followers of
<nowiki> </nowiki>the Ukrainian nationalist leader Petliura. At the end of December, he
succeeded in dislodging the Petliurist garrison from Ekaterinoslav. His
troops, with their weapons concealed inside their clothing, rode into
the central railway station on an ordinary passenger train, took the  
nationalists by surprise, and drove them from the city. The next day,
however, the enemy reappeared with reinforcements, and Makhno was
compelled to flee across the Dnieper and return to his base in
Gulyai-Polye. The Petliurists, in turn, were evicted by the Red Army
shortly afterwards.
 
During the first five months of 1919, the Gulyai-Polye region was
virtually free of political authority. The Austrians, Hetmanites, and
Petliurists had all been driven away, and neither the Reds nor the
Whites were strong enough to fill the void. Makhno took advantage of
this lull to attempt to reconstruct society on libertarian lines. In
January, February, and April, the Makhnovists held a series of Regional
Congresses of Peasants, Workers, and Insurgents to discuss economic and
military matters and to supervise the task of reconstruction.
 
The question which dominated the Regional Congresses was that of
defending the area from those who might seek to establish their control
over it. The Second Congress, meeting on February 12, 1919, voted in
favor of "voluntary mobilization," which in reality meant outright
conscription, as all able-bodied men were required to serve when called
up. The delegates also elected a Regional Military Revolutionary Council
<nowiki> </nowiki>of Peasants, Workers, and Insurgents to carry out the decisions of the
periodic congresses. The new council encouraged the election of "free"
Soviets in the towns and villages -- that is, Soviets from which members
<nowiki> </nowiki>of political parties were excluded. Although Makhno's aim in setting up
<nowiki> </nowiki>these bodies was to do away with political authority, the Military
Revolutionary Council, acting in conjunction with the Regional
Congresses and the local Soviets, in effect formed a loose-knit
government in the territory surrounding Gulyai-Polye.
 
Like the Military Revolutionary Council, the Insurgent Army of the
Ukraine, as the Makhnovist forces were called, was in theory subject to
the supervision of the Regional Congresses. In practice, however, the
reins of authority rested with Makhno and his staff. Despite his efforts
<nowiki> </nowiki>to avoid anything that smacked of regimentation, Makhno appointed his
key officers (the rest were elected by the men themselves) and subjected
<nowiki> </nowiki>his troops to the stern military discipline traditional among the
Cossack legions of the nearby Zaporozhian region. Yet the Insurgent Army
<nowiki> </nowiki>never lost its plebeian character. All its officers were peasants or,
in a few cases, factory or shop workers. One looks in vain
[115]
for a commander who sprang from the upper or middle classes, or even
from the radical intelligentsia.
 
For a time, Makhno's dealings with the Bolsheviks remained friendly, and
<nowiki> </nowiki>the Soviet press extolled him as a "courageous partisan" and
revolutionary leader. Relations were at their best in March 1919, when
Makhno and the Communists concluded a pact for joint military action
against the Volunteer Army of General Denikin. According to the
agreement, the Insurgent Army of the Ukraine became a division of the
Red Army, subject to the orders of the Bolshevik supreme command but
retaining its own officers and internal structure, as well as its name
and black banner.


=== Tensions with the Bolsheviks ===
Such gestures, however, could not conceal the underlying hostility  
Such gestures, however, could not conceal the underlying hostility  
between the two groups. The Communists had little taste for the  
between the two groups. The Communists had little taste for the  
Line 175: Line 91:
exhausted and suffering from unhealed wounds, crossed the Dniester River
exhausted and suffering from unhealed wounds, crossed the Dniester River
<nowiki> </nowiki>into Rumania and eventually found his way to Paris.
<nowiki> </nowiki>into Rumania and eventually found his way to Paris.
Given his colorful personality and the rich drama of his career, it is
small wonder that Makhno should be the subject of a growing literature.
Until recently, however, accounts of his movement, with few exceptions,
consisted of mixtures of fact and fiction, of hostile, sometimes vicious
<nowiki> </nowiki>polemics, of sensationalist journalism or uncritical, romanticized
portraits verging on hagiography. Perhaps it is inevitable that a
glamorous and controversial figure of Makhno's stamp should
[117]
lend himself to such treatment. To a degree, the problem stems from
incomplete source material. The journals and manifestoes of the Makhno
movement are hard to come by, having been in great part lost or
destroyed in the turmoil of the Civil War. What is more, the relevant
documents in Soviet archives remain inaccessible to Western specialists.
<nowiki> </nowiki>Nor, to my knowledge, have the archives of Makhno's associate Volin
(held by his sons in Paris) been made available to the scholar, though
they are bound to include important material. Yet, for all these
limitations, the sources are considerable and remain to be exhaustively
tapped.
What do these sources include? To begin with, we have Makhno's personal
memoirs through December 1918, published in a three-volume edition
between 1929 and 1937, the last two volumes edited with prefaces and
notes by Volin.<sup>5</sup> In addition, eleven Makhnovist proclamations
<nowiki> </nowiki>were preserved by Ugo Fedeli, an Italian anarchist who obtained them in
<nowiki> </nowiki>the 1920s during visits to Moscow, Berlin, and Paris, where he became
personally acquainted with Makhno. These proclamations have been
published in the original Russian and are also included in the English
edition of Peter Arshinov's history of the Makhnovist movement.<sup>6</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>Further archival materials, to be mentioned again later, are to be
found in the Tcherikower Collection of the YIVO Institute for Jewish
Research in New York. Moreover, Soviet histories and documentary
collections, though invariably hostile and of limited worth, contain
useful information, as do articles on Makhno in Soviet academic
journals. Beyond this, additional documents and photographs remain in
the hands of Makhno's surviving comrades in France and other countries.
There are also the scattered files of Makhnovist newspapers in Western
libraries, interviews with participants in the Insurgent Army and with
people who knew Makhno in exile, the eyewitness histories of Arshinov
and Volin, and the secondary accounts by David Footman, Michael Palij,
and others.
To date, however, there has been no comprehensive study of Makhno based
on the full range of available sources. As a result, a number of
questions persist. Was Makhno a military dictator, as his detractors
maintain? A bandit and counterrevolutionary, as Soviet writers describe
him? A "primitive rebel," in Eric Hobsbawm's phrase?<sup>7</sup> Was he
an incurable drunkard? An anti-intellectual? An anti-Semite? A
pogromist? How critical were his military efforts in saving the
Revolution from the Whites? Did his unsophisticated equipment and
tactics doom him to defeat before a centralized professional army? How
successful were his attempts to establish local self-management in the
villages and towns of the Ukraine? What do we really know
[118]
about him? How much is myth and fantasy, how much incontrovertible fact?
To answer these questions, one must come to grips with the underlying
question of Makhno's anarchism. According to Emma Goldman, Makhno's
object was to establish a libertarian society in the south that would
serve as a model for the whole of Russia. Interestingly, Trotsky once
noted that he and Lenin had toyed with the idea of allotting a piece of
territory to Makhno for this purpose,<sup>8</sup> but the project foundered when fighting broke out between the anarchist guerrillas and the Bolshevik forces in the Ukraine.
But was Makhno in fact an anarchist, or merely another "primitive" rebel
<nowiki> </nowiki>from the southern frontier, harking back to Razin and Pugachev with
their vision of Cossack federalism and rough-and-ready democracy? The
answer is that he was both. Nor is there any contradiction, for the
Cossack-peasant rebellions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
possessed a strong egalitarian and antistatist character, their
participants mounting an all-out attack upon the nobility and
bureaucracy and detesting the state as an evil tyranny which trampled on
<nowiki> </nowiki>popular freedoms. Makhno's anarchism was compatible with these
sentiments and with peasant aspirations in general. The peasants wanted
the land, and then to be left alone by gentry, officials, tax
collectors, recruiting sergeants, and all external agents of authority.
These were to be replaced by a society of "free toilers" who, as Makhno
expressed it, would "set to work to the tune of free and joyous songs
which reflected the spirit of the revolution."<sup>9</sup>
In this sense, Makhno was the very incarnation of peasant anarchism, the
<nowiki> </nowiki>partisan leader in closest touch with the most cherished hopes and
feelings of the village. He was, in George Woodcock's description, "an
anarchist Robin Hood,"<sup>10</sup> a familiar figure in other peasant
and artisan societies, notably in Spain and in Italy, where anarchism
struck deep and lasting roots. (In Mexico, too, he had his counterparts
in Emiliano Zapata and Ricardo Flores Magon.) To his supporters he was a
<nowiki> </nowiki>modern Razin or Pugachev, come to rescue the poor from their oppressors
<nowiki> </nowiki>and to grant them land and liberty. As in the past, his movement arose
in the southern borderlands and was directed against the wealthy and
powerful. Makhno, wrote Alexander Berkman, became "the avenging angel of
<nowiki> </nowiki>the lowly, and presently he was looked upon as the great liberator,
whose coming had been prophesied by Pugachev in his dying moments."<sup>11</sup>
Following the example of his predecessors, Makhno expropriated the
landlords, removed the officials, inaugurated a Cossack-style "republic"
<nowiki> </nowiki>on the steppe, and was revered by his followers as their good
[119]
father. He called on the peasants to rise against the "golden
epaulettes" of Wrangel and Denikin and to fight for free Soviets and
communes. At the same time he opposed the "Communists and commissars,"
just as Razin and Pugachev had opposed the "boyars and officials." The
Bolsheviks, for their part, denounced him as a brigand, the epithet with
<nowiki> </nowiki>which Moscow had maligned its guerrilla opponents since the seventeenth
<nowiki> </nowiki>century. Furthermore, the same legends arose about Makhno as about
Razin and Pugachev. As his wife told Emma Goldman, "there grew up among
the country folk the belief that Makhno was invincible because he had
never been wounded during all the years of warfare in spite of his
practice of always personally leading every charge."<sup>12</sup>
There was, however, an important difference. Unlike Razin and Pugachev,
and unlike his contemporary "atamans" in the Ukraine, Makhno was
motivated by a specific anarchist ideology. Throughout his life he
proudly wore the anarchist label as a mark of his opposition to
authority. As early as 1906, it has been noted, he joined an anarchist
group in Gulyai-Polye. His understanding of anarchism matured during his
<nowiki> </nowiki>years in prison, under the tutelage of Arshinov, and was deepened by
his contact with Volin, Aaron Baron, and other anarchist intellectuals
who joined his movement during the Civil War. Of the older theorists,
his main source of inspiration was Kropotkin, to whom he made a
pilgrimage in 1918, as mentioned above, but he also strongly admired
Bakunin, calling him a "great" and "tireless" rebel, and the stream of
leaflets that issued from his camp often bore a Bakuninist flavor.
Makhno's anarchism, however, was not confined to verbal propaganda,
important though this was to win new adherents. On the contrary, Makhno
was a man of action who, even while occupied with military campaigns,
sought to put his anarchist theories into practice. His first act on
entering a town -- after throwing open the prisons --  was to dispel any
<nowiki> </nowiki>impression that he had come to introduce a new form of political rule.
Announcements were posted informing the inhabitants that they were now
free to organize their lives as they saw fit, that his Insurgent Army
would not "dictate to them or order them to do anything." Free speech,
press, and assembly were proclaimed, although Makhno would not
countenance organizations that sought to impose political authority, and
<nowiki> </nowiki>he accordingly dissolved the Bolshevik revolutionary committees,
instructing their members to "take up some honest trade."''13''
Makhno's aim was to throw off domination of every type and to encourage
economic and social self-determination. "It is up to the workers and
peasants," said one of his proclamations in 1919, "to organize
[120]
themselves and reach mutual understanding in all areas of their lives
and in whatever manner they think right." With his active support,
anarchistic communes were organized in Ekaterinoslav province, each with
<nowiki> </nowiki>about a dozen households totaling one hundred to three hundred members.
<nowiki> </nowiki>There were four such communes in the immediate vicinity of
Gulyai-Polye, Makhno's base of operations, and a number of others were
formed in the surrounding districts. (Makhno himself, when time
permitted, labored in one of the Gulyai-Polye communes.)
Each commune was provided with as much land as its members were able to
cultivate without hiring additional labor. The land, as well as the
tools and livestock, was allotted by decision of the Regional Congresses
<nowiki> </nowiki>of Peasants, Workers, and Insurgents, and the management of the commune
<nowiki> </nowiki>was conducted by a general meeting of its members. The land was held in
<nowiki> </nowiki>common, and kitchen and dining rooms were also communal, though members
<nowiki> </nowiki>who wished to cook separately or to take food from the kitchen and eat
it in their own quarters were allowed to do so. Though only a few
members actually considered themselves anarchists, the peasants operated
<nowiki> </nowiki>the communes on the basis of full equality ("from each according to his
<nowiki> </nowiki>ability, to each according to his need") and accepted Kropotkin's
principle of mutual aid as their fundamental tenet. It is interesting to
<nowiki> </nowiki>note that the first such commune, near the village of Pokrovskoye, was
named in honor of Rosa Luxemburg, not an anarchist but a Marxist and
recent martyr in the German revolution, a reflection of Makhno's
undoctrinaire approach to revolutionary theory and practice.
In his efforts to reconstruct society along libertarian lines, Makhno
also encouraged experiments in workers' self-management whenever the
occasion offered. For example, when the railway workers of Aleksandrovsk
<nowiki> </nowiki>complained that they had not been paid for many weeks, he advised them
to take control of the railroad and charge the users what seemed a fair
price for their services. Such projects, though they call for a closer
examination by historians, were of limited success. They failed to win
over more than a minority of workers, for, unlike the farmers and
artisans of the village, who were independent producers accustomed to
managing their own affairs, factory hands and miners operated as
interdependent parts of a complicated industrial machine and floundered
without the guidance of technical specialists. Furthermore, the peasants
<nowiki> </nowiki>and artisans could barter the products of their labor, whereas the
workers depended on wages for their survival. Makhno, moreover,
compounded the confusion when he recognized all paper money issued by
his predecessors -- Ukrainian nationalists, Whites, and Bolsheviks
alike. He never understood the complexities of
[121]
an urban economy, nor did he care to understand them. In any event, he
found little time to implement his economic programs. He was forever on
the move. His army was a "republic on tachanki," as Volin described it,
and "the instability of the situation prevented positive work."<sup>14</sup>
In the Ukraine in 1918-1920, as in Spain in 1936-1939, the libertarian
experiment was conducted amid conditions of civil strife, economic
dislocation, and political and military repression. It was therefore
unable to endure. But not for want of trying, nor from any lack of
devotion to anarchism. Through all Makhno's campaigns a large black
flag, the classic symbol of anarchy, floated at the head of his army,
embroidered with the slogans "Liberty or Death" and "The Land to the
Peasants, the Factories to the Workers." The Cultural-Educational
Commission, including Volin, Arshinov, and Baron, edited anarchist
journals, issued anarchist leaflets, and delivered lectures on anarchism
<nowiki> </nowiki>to the troops. Beyond this, the commission founded an anarchist theater
<nowiki> </nowiki>and planned to open anarchist schools modeled on Francisco Ferrer's
Escuela Moderna in Spain.
In one area, however, Makhno made a significant compromise with his
libertarian principles. As a military leader, it has been noted, he was
compelled to inaugurate a form of conscription in order to replenish his
<nowiki> </nowiki>forces; and he is known on occasion to have imposed strict measures of
military discipline, including summary executions. His violent
tendencies, some maintain, were accentuated by bouts with alcohol. Volin
<nowiki> </nowiki>underscores Makhno's drinking and carousing nature, and Victor Serge
describes him as "boozing, swashbuckling, disorderly and idealistic."<sup>15</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>Hostile observers have compared him to a Chinese warlord, insisting
that his army was libertarian only in name. This, however, is not a true
<nowiki> </nowiki>picture. Although military considerations inevitably clashed with
Makhno's anarchistic doctrines, his army was more popular both in
organization and social composition than any other fighting force of his
<nowiki> </nowiki>day.
By all accounts, Makhno was a military leader of outstanding ability and
<nowiki> </nowiki>courage. His achievement in organizing an army and conducting an
effective and prolonged campaign is, apart from some of the successes of
<nowiki> </nowiki>the Spanish anarchists in the 1930s, unique in the history of
anarchism. He inherited a good deal of the Cossack tradition of
independent military communities in the south and of their resentment of
<nowiki> </nowiki>government encroachments. His guerrilla tactics of ambush and surprise
were both a throwback to the Russian rebels of the past and an
anticipation of the methods of combat later employed in China, Cuba, and
<nowiki> </nowiki>Vietnam. But how critical were his efforts in saving the Revolution
[122]
from the Whites? Volin flatly asserts that "the honor of having
annihilated the Denikinist counter-revolution in the autumn of 1919
belongs entirely to the Makhnovist Insurgent Army." David Footman writes
<nowiki> </nowiki>more modestly that "there is some justification for the claim that
Peregonovka was one of the decisive battles of the Civil War in the
south."<sup>16</sup> In any case, the importance of the battle is beyond dispute.
Makhno, in short, was a thoroughgoing anarchist, who practiced what he
preached insofar as conditions permitted. A down-to-earth peasant, he
was not a man of words, not a phrasemaker or orator, but a lover of
action who rejected metaphysical systems and abstract social theorizing.
<nowiki> </nowiki>When he came to Moscow in 1918, he was disturbed by the atmosphere of
"paper revolution" among the anarchists as well as the Bolsheviks.<sup>17</sup>
<nowiki> </nowiki>Anarchist intellectuals struck him, in the main, as men of books rather
<nowiki> </nowiki>than deeds, mesmerized by their own words and lacking the will to fight
<nowiki> </nowiki>for their ideals. Nevertheless, he respected them for their learning
and idealism and later sought their assistance in teaching his peasant
followers the fundamentals of anarchist doctrine.
Makhno's anti-intellectual streak was shared by his mentor Arshinov, a
self-educated workman from the Ukraine like his pupil. Arshinov,
however, went further. In his ''History of the Makhnovist Movement''
he not only criticizes the Bolsheviks as a new ruling class of
intellectuals, a theory first put forward by Bakunin (speaking of Marx
and his associates), developed by Machajski, and restated during the
Revolution by Maximoff and other anarchist writers; he expresses
contempt for anarchist intellectuals as well, calling them mere
theorists who seldom acted but who "slept through" events of
unparalleled historical significance and abandoned the field to the
authoritarians.<sup>18</sup> This goes far to explain his ''Organizational Platform'' of 1926, endorsed by Makhno, which castigates do-nothing intellectuals and calls for effective organization and action.<sup>19</sup>
This brings us to the vexed question of Makhno's alleged anti-Semitism,
which future biographers must subject to careful scrutiny. Charges of
Jew-baiting and of anti-Jewish pogroms have come from every quarter,
left, right, and center. Without exception, however, they are based on
hearsay, rumor, or intentional slander, and remain undocumented and
unproved.<sup>20</sup> The Soviet propaganda machine was at particular
pains to malign Makhno as a bandit and pogromist. But after meticulous
research, Elias Tcherikower, an eminent Jewish historian and authority
on anti-Semitism in the Ukraine, concluded that the number of
anti-Jewish acts committed by the Makhnovists was
[123]
"negligible" in comparison with those committed by other combatants in
the Civil War, the Red Army not excepted.<sup>21</sup>
To verify this, I have examined several hundred photographs in the
Tcherikower Collection, housed in the YIVO Library in New York and
depicting anti-Jewish atrocities in the Ukraine during the Civil War. A
great many of these photographs document acts perpetrated by the
adherents of Denikin, Petliura, Grigoriev, and other self-styled
"atamans," but only one is labeled as being the work of the Makhnovists,
<nowiki> </nowiki>though even here neither Makhno himself nor any of his recognizable
subordinates are to be seen, nor is there any indication that Makhno had
<nowiki> </nowiki>authorized the raid or, indeed, that the band involved was in fact
affiliated with his Insurgent Army.
On the other hand, there is evidence that Makhno did all in his power to
<nowiki> </nowiki>counteract anti-Semitic tendencies among his followers. Moreover, a
considerable number of Jews took part in the Makhnovist movement. Some,
like Volin and Baron, were intellectuals who served on the
Cultural-Educational Commission, wrote his manifestoes, and edited his
journals, but the great majority fought in the ranks of the Insurgent
Army, either in special detachments of Jewish artillery and infantry or
else within the regular partisan units, alongside peasants and workers
of Ukrainian, Russian, and other ethnic origin.
Makhno personally condemned discrimination of any sort, and punishments
for anti-Semitic acts were swift and severe: one troop commander was
summarily shot after raiding a Jewish town, and a soldier met the same
fate merely for displaying a poster with the stock anti-Semitic formula,
<nowiki> </nowiki>"Beat the Jews, Save Russia!" Makhno denounced Ataman Grigoriev for his
<nowiki> </nowiki>pogroms and had him shot. Had Makhno been guilty of the accusations
against him, surely the Jewish anarchists in his camp would have broken
with his movement and raised their voices in protest. The same is true
of Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, and others who were in Russia at the
<nowiki> </nowiki>time, and of Sholem Schwartzbard, Volin, Senya Fleshin, and Mollie
Steimer in Paris during the 1920s. Far from criticizing Makhno as an
anti-Semite, they defended him against the campaign of slander that
persisted from all sides.


Finally, the last years of Makhno's life deserve fuller treatment than  
Finally, the last years of Makhno's life deserve fuller treatment than  
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financial assistance when Makhno lay mortally ill with tuberculosis.
financial assistance when Makhno lay mortally ill with tuberculosis.


Makhno's final moments have been movingly conjured by Malcolm Menzies.<sup>26</sup>
=== Death ===
<nowiki> </nowiki>In July 1934, Makhno, forty-four years old, is lying at death's door in
Nestor died as a result of complications from tuberculosis at age 45. His body was cremated, the ashes buried in the Pere-La-chaise cemetery in Paris, near the mass grave of the [[Paris Commune|Communards]] who were murdered in the [[Bloody Week (Paris)|Bloody Week]].[[Category:AnarWiki]]
<nowiki> </nowiki>a Paris hospital. Overcome by fever, he lapses into semiconsciousness
and dreams his last dream, a dream of his beloved countryside, of the
open steppe covered with snow, a bright sun in an azure sky, and Nestor  
Ivanovich seated on his horse, moving in slow motion towards a cluster
of mounted comrades waiting in the distance, who touch their caps in
greeting at his approach. Time passes, the seasons change, spring
arrives -- Germinal! -- the rebirth of hope, a landscape of green, the
smell of fresh earth, a murmuring stream, and a fleeting, all too
fleeting, glimpse of freedom. And then eternal silence. Makhno's body  
was cremated and the ashes interred in the Pere-La-chaise Cemetery, not
far from the mass grave of Paris Communards who were massacred there in  
1871.[[Category:Libertarian Socialist Wiki]]
[[Category:Libertarian Socialism]]
[[Category:Libertarian Socialism]]
[[Category:Libertarian Socialists]]
[[Category:Anarchists]]
[[Category:Anarchists]]
[[Category:Anarchists]]
[[Category:Anarchism]]
[[Category:Anarchism]]

Latest revision as of 18:56, 3 April 2024

Nestor Ivanovich Makhno or Bat'ko (1889 - 1934) was an anarcho-"communist" warlord, commander of the gang of anti-Bolshevik thugs and bandits known as the Black Army (and considered a "military genius", if you count never winning a battle to be genius) during the Russian Civil War (which defended the Free Territory of Ukraine) and one of the ideological founders of Platformism.

Born

Childhood

Born to a poor peasant family in Gulyai-Polye, Ukraine to a family of six boys, his father died before he turned a year old. He began working tending cows and sheep for the local peasantry, later working as a farm laborer and in a factory.

Imprisonment

In 1906, a year after the failed Russian Revolution, he joined an anarchist group in Gulyai-Polye at age 17, and was arrested and imprisoned to years later for involvement around the murder of a police officer. He was originally sentenced to death, but was instead changed to life in prison in Butyrki prison in Moscow because of his youth. He hated life in prison and was unable to accept the strict discipline, leading to him frequently being placed in solidarity confinement and tortured. But he shared a prison cell with the older anarchist Peter Arshinov who taught him about Bakunin and Kropotkin. He was released from prison in 1917, as the February Revolution gave amnesty to political prisoners.

Return

He returned to his native village and helped organize a trade union for farm laborers. He was also elected chairman of the local union of carpenters and metalworkers and the Gulyai-Polye Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies. In August 1917, he recruited several armed peasants and began forcefully expropriating land from the wealthy in the area and redistributing it to the peasantry, making him a hero, compared to Stenka Razin and Yemelyan Pugachev.

The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (ceding much of Ukraine to the German and Austrian empires) led to him going into hiding as soldiers began to occupy towns, and he escaped to Moscow, arriving in June 1918. He arranged a meeting with Peter Kropotkin and later one at the Kremlin with Vladimir Lenin, where he argued that anarchists were a realistic and effective group, and Lenin helped offer him to return to Ukraine.

Black Army

Nestor returned to Gulyai-Polye in July 1918, and the area was occupied by Austrian troops and by the militia of their Ukrainian puppet, Hetman Skoropadsky. Organising the Black Army, Makhno launched a series of raids against the Austrians and Hetmanites and against the manors of the nobility. He used tachnakas and horses in several battles between the Dnieper river and the Sea of Azov, attracting independent bands of guerillas, villagers and anarchists. He became incredibly popular among peasants, often freely providing his army with fresh food and horses, allowing them to travel up to 80 kilometers a day with little difficulty.

The Black Army would launch successful hit-and-run attacks on noble manors and military garrisons and quickly disappear into the steppes. They often stole uniforms of the enemy army and disguised themselves as such to spy and perform quick sneak attacks. If cornered, they would bury their weapons, walk to a nearby village and work in the fields, resembling ordinary peasants. Several defeats of Austrian and German soldiers and his humour led to the nickname "Bat'ko" (little father) by his soldiers.

The Austrians and Germans left Ukraine as World War I came to an end, leading to the Black Army using their abandoned guns, tools, food, clothing and vehicles for themselves. He took the city of Ekaterinoslav by hiding himself and his troops on a train in ordinary clothing and attacking nationalists in the city by surprise. But had to flee across the Dnieper river to Gulyai-Polye after reinforcements came. He oversaw many congresses of village assemblies and workers' councils in Gulyai-Polye and formed an alliance with the Bolsheviks, who worked together to destroy much of the White Army in Ukraine.

Tensions with the Bolsheviks

Such gestures, however, could not conceal the underlying hostility between the two groups. The Communists had little taste for the autonomous status of the Insurgent Army or for the powerful attraction it exerted on their own peasant recruits. The Makhnovists, on their side, feared that sooner or later the Red Army would attempt to bring their movement to heel. As friction increased, the Soviet newspapers abandoned their eulogies of the Makhnovists and began to attack them as "bandits." In April 1919 the Third Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers, and Insurgents met in defiance of a ban placed on it by the Soviet authorities. In May two Cheka agents sent to assassinate Makhno were caught and executed. The final breach occurred when the Makhnovists called a Fourth Regional Congress for June 15 and invited the soldiers of the Red Army to send representatives. Trotsky, commander in chief of the Bolshevik forces, was furious. On June 4 he banned the congress and outlawed Makhno. Communist troops carried out a lightning raid on Gulyai-Polye and dissolved the agricultural communes set up by the Makhnovists. A few days later. Denikin's forces arrived and completed the job, liquidating the local Soviets as well.

The shaky alliance was hastily resumed that summer, when Denikin's drive towards Moscow sent both the Communists and the Makhnovists reeling. During August and September Makhno's guerrillas were pushed back towards the western borders of the Ukraine. On September 26, however, Makhno launched a successful counterattack at the village of Peregonovka, near Uman, cutting the White general's supply lines and creating panic and disorder in his rear. This was Denikin's first serious reverse in his advance into the Russian heartland and an important factor in halting his drive towards the Bolshevik capital. By the end of the year, a counteroffensive by the Red Army had forced Denikin to beat a retreat to the shores of the Black Sea.

At the end of 1919, Makhno received instructions from the Red [116] command to transfer his troops to the Polish front. The order was plainly designed to draw the Insurgent Army away from its home territory, leaving it open to the establishment of Bolshevik rule. Makhno refused to budge. Trotsky, he said, wanted to replace Denikin's forces with the Red Army and the dispossessed landlords with political commissars. Having vowed to cleanse Russia of anarchism "with an iron broom,"4 Trotsky replied by again outlawing the Makhnovists. There ensued eight months of bitter struggle, with losses heavy on both sides. A severe typhus epidemic augmented the toll of victims. Badly outnumbered, Makhno's partisans avoided pitched battles and relied on the guerrilla tactics they had perfected in more than two years of civil war.

Hostilities were broken off in October 1920, when Baron Wrangel, Denikin's successor in the south, launched a major offensive, striking northwards from the Crimea. Once more the Red Army enlisted Makhno's aid, in return for which the Communists agreed to an amnesty for all anarchists in Russian prisons and guaranteed the anarchists freedom of propaganda on condition that they refrain from calling for the overthrow of the Soviet government.

Barely a month later, however, the Red Army had made sufficient gains to ensure victory in the Civil War, and the Soviet leaders tore up their agreement with Makhno. Not only had the Makhnovists outlived their usefulness as a military partner, but as long as the bat'ko was at large the spirit of anarchism and the danger of a peasant rising would remain to haunt the Bolshevik regime. On November 25, 1920, Makhno's commanders in the Crimea, fresh from their victory over Wrangel, were seized by the Red Army and shot. The next day, Trotsky ordered an attack on Makhno's headquarters in Gulyai-Polye, during which Makhno's staff were captured and imprisoned or shot on the spot. The bat'ko himself, however, together with a remnant of an army that had once numbered in the tens of thousands, managed to elude his pursuers. After wandering over the Ukraine for the better part of a year, the guerrilla leader, exhausted and suffering from unhealed wounds, crossed the Dniester River into Rumania and eventually found his way to Paris.

Finally, the last years of Makhno's life deserve fuller treatment than they have received from historians. Of all the writers to date, Malcolm Menzies and Alexandre Skirda have provided the most satisfactory accounts of this period.22 Yet even they have not told the full and dramatic story of Makhno's escape across the Dniester, his internment in Rumania, his escape to Poland, his arrest, trial, and acquittal, his flight to Danzig, renewed imprisonment and final escape (aided by Berkman [124] and other comrades in Europe),23 and his ultimate sanctuary in Paris, where he lived his remaining years in obscurity, poverty, and disease, an Antaeus cut off from the soil that might have replenished his strength. According to Berkman, Makhno in Paris dreamed of returning to his native land and "taking up again the struggle for liberty and social justice."24 He had always hated the "poison" of big cities, cherishing the natural environment in which he was born. How ironic that he should have ended his days in a great foreign capital, working in an automobile factory, a restless consumptive for whom drink provided meager relief.

Yet he never lost his passion for anarchism, never abandoned the movement to which he had dedicated his life. He attended anarchist meetings (frequenting, among others, the Jewish Autodidact Club), defended the Organizational Platform of his old comrade Arshinov, and mingled with anarchists from all over the world, including a group of Chinese students and also Durruti and Ascaso from Spain, whom he regaled with his adventures in the Ukraine and offered his help when the moment for their own struggle should arrive. Though death intervened to prevent this, it is of interest that a number of veterans of his Insurgent Army did in fact go to fight in the Durruti column in 1936.25 How fitting, then, that the Spanish comrades should have provided financial assistance when Makhno lay mortally ill with tuberculosis.

Death

Nestor died as a result of complications from tuberculosis at age 45. His body was cremated, the ashes buried in the Pere-La-chaise cemetery in Paris, near the mass grave of the Communards who were murdered in the Bloody Week.

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