The key Leninist defence of the actions of the Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution is that they had no other choice. Complaints against the Bolshevik attacks on the gains of the revolution and the pro-revolutionary Left in Russia are met with a mantra involving the white terror, the primitive state of Russia and the reactionary peasantry, the invading imperialist armies (although the actual number can, and does, vary depending on who you are talking to) and other such "forces of nature" which we are to believe could only be met by a centralised authoritarian regime that would flinch at nothing in order to survive.
However, this is not the case. This is for three reasons.
Firstly, there is the slight problem that many of the attacks on the revolution (disbanding soviets, undermining the factory committees, repressing socialists and anarchists, and so on) started before the start of the civil war. As such, its difficult to blame the degeneration of the revolution on an event which had yet to happen (see section H.6.1 or the appendix "What caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution?" for details).
Secondly, Leninists like to portray their ideology as "realistic," that it recognises the problems facing a revolution and can provide the necessary solutions. Some even claim, flying in the face of the facts, that anarchists think the ruling class will just "disappear" (see section H.2.1) or that we think "full-blown" communism will appear "overnight" (see section H.2.5). Only Bolshevism, it is claimed, recognises that civil war is inevitable during a revolution and only it provides the necessary solution, namely a "workers state." Lenin himself argued that "[n]ot a single great revolution in history has taken place without civil war. And only a 'man in a muffler' can think that civil war is conceivable without an 'exceptionally complicated situation'." ["Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?", Collected Works, vol. 26, p. 119] As such, it is incredulous that modern day followers of Lenin blame the degeneration of the Russian Revolution on the very factors (civil war and exceptional circumstances) that they claim to recognise as inevitable.
Thirdly, and even more embarrassingly for the Leninists, numerous examples exist both from revolutionary Russia at the time and from earlier and later revolutions that suggest far from Bolshevik tactics being the most efficient way of defending the revolution other methods existed which looked to the massive creative energies of the working masses unleashed by the revolution.
During the Russian Revolution the biggest example of this is found in South-Eastern Ukraine. For much of the Civil War this area operated without a centralised state apparatus of the Bolshevik type and was, instead, based on the anarchist idea of Free Soviets. There "the insurgents raised the black flag of anarchism and set forth on the anti-authoritarian road of the free organisation of the workers." [Peter Arshinov, The History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 50] The region in which this happened was created by a partisan force that instead of using the "efficiency" of executions for desertion, tsarist officers appointed over the rank and file soldiers' wishes and saluting so loved by the Bolsheviks, operated as a volunteer army with elected officers and voluntary discipline. This movement was the Makhnovists, named after its leader, the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno. The Black Flag which floated over the lead wagon of the Insurgent Army was inscribed with the slogans "Liberty or Death" and "The Land to the Peasants, the Factories to the Workers." These slogans summarised what the Makhnovist were fighting for -- a libertarian socialist society. At its height in the autumn of 1919, the Makhnovists numbered around 40,000 and its extended area of influence corresponded to nearly one third of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, comprising a population of over seven million.
It is this that explains the importance of the Makhnovists. As historian Christopher Read notes, the "Bolsheviks' main claim to legitimacy rested on the argument that they were the only ones capable of preventing a similar disaster [counter-revolution] for the workers and peasants of Russia and that their harsh methods were necessary in the face of a ruthless and unrelenting enemy." However, Read argues that "the Makhno movement in the Ukraine suggests that there was more than one way to fight against the counter-revolution." [From Tsar to Soviets, pp. 258-9] This is why the Makhnovist movement is so important, why it shows that there was, and is, an alternative to the ideas of Bolshevism. Here we have a mass movement operating in the same "exceptional circumstances" as the Bolsheviks which did not implement the same policies. Indeed, rather than suppress soviet, workplace and military democracy in favour of centralised, top-down party power and modify their political line to justify their implementation of party dictatorship, the Makhnovists did all they could to implement and encourage working-class self-government.
As such, it is difficult to blame the development of Bolshevik policies towards state-capitalist and party-dictatorship on the problems caused during the revolution when the Makhnovists, facing similar conditions, did all they could to protect working-class autonomy and freedom. Indeed, it could be argued that the problems facing the Makhnovists were greater in many ways. The Ukraine probably saw more fighting in the Russian Civil War then any other area. Unlike the Bolsheviks, the Makhnovists lost the centre of their movement and had to re-liberate it. To do so they fought the Austrian and German armies, Ukrainian Nationalists, Bolsheviks and the White Armies of Denikin and then Wrangel. There were smaller skirmishes involving Cossacks returning to the Don and independent "Green" bands. The anarchists fought all these various armies over the four years their movement was in existence. This war was not only bloody but saw constant shifts of fronts, advances and retreats and changes from near conventional war to mobile partisan war. The consequences of this was that no area of the territory was a safe "rear" area for any period of time and so little constructive activity was possible. Section 4 presents a summary of the military campaigns of these years. A brief idea of the depth of fighting in these years can be seen by considering the town at the centre of the Makhnovists, Hulyai Pole which changed hands no less then 16 times in the period from 1917-1921.
Clearly, in terms of conflict (and the resulting disruption caused by it), the Makhnovists did not have the relative peace the Bolsheviks had (who never once lost their main bases of Petrograd or Moscow, although they came close). As such, the problems used to justify the repressive and dictatorial policies of the Bolsheviks also apply to the Makhnovists. Despite this, the activity of the Makhnovists in the Ukraine demonstrated that an alternative to the supposedly necessary methods of the Bolsheviks did exist. Where the Bolsheviks suppressed freedom of speech, assembly and press, the Makhnovists encouraged it. Where the Bolsheviks turned the soviets into mere cyphers of their government, undermining and marginalising them (when not dissolving them), the Makhnovists encouraged working-class participation and free soviets. As we discuss in section 7, the Makhnovists applied their ideas of working class self-management whenever and wherever they could.
Sadly, the Makhnovist movement is a relatively unknown. There are few non-anarchist accounts of it and the few histories which do mention it often simply slander it. However, as the Cohn-Bendit brothers correctly argue, the movement, "better perhaps than any other movement, shows that the Russian Revolution could have been a great liberating force." Equally, the reason why it has been almost totally ignored (or slandered, when mentioned) by Stalinist and Trotskyist writers is simple: "It shows the Bolsheviks stifling workers and peasants with lies and calumnies, and then crushing them in a bloody massacre." [Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative, p. 200]
This appendix of our FAQ will indicate the nature and history of this important social movement. As we will prove, "the Makhnovshchina . . . was a true popular movement of peasants and workers, and . . . its essential goal was to establish the freedom of workers by means of revolutionary self-activity on the part of the masses." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 209] They achieved this goal in extremely difficult circumstances and resisted all attempts to limit the freedom of the working class, no matter where it came from. As Makhno himself once noted:
"Our practice in the Ukraine showed clearly that the peasant problem had very different solutions from those imposed by Bolshevism. If our experience had spread to the rest of Russia, a pernicious division between country and city would not have been created. Years of famine would have been avoided and useless struggles between peasant and workers. And what is more important, the revolution would have grown and developed along very different lines . . . We were all fighters and workers. The popular assembly made the decisions. In military life it was the War Committee composed of delegates of all the guerrilla detachments which acted. To sum up, everyone took part in the collective work, to prevent the birth of a managing class which would monopolise power. And we were successful. Because we had succeeded and gave lie to Bolshevik bureaucratic practices, Trotsky, betraying the treaty between the Ukraine and the Bolshevik authorities, sent the Red Army to fight us. Bolshevism triumphed militarily over the Ukraine and at Kronstadt, but revolutionary history will acclaim us one day and condemn the victors as counter-revolutionary grave-diggers of the Russian Revolution." [quoted by Abel Paz, Durruti: The People Armed, p. 88-9]
Two distinct aspects of the anarchist movement existed in the Ukraine at this time, a political and non-military structure called the Nabat (Alarm) federation which operated through the soviets and collectives and a military command structure usually known after is commander Nestor Makhno as the Makhnovshchina (which means the "Makhno movement") although its proper name was the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine. We will cover both, although the Makhnovshchina will be the main focus.
For more information on the Makhnovist movement, consult the following books. Anarchist accounts of the movement can be found in two active members of the movement -- Peter Arshinov's excellent The History of the Makhnovist Movement and Voline's The Unknown Revolution (Voline's work is based on extensive quotes from Arshinov's work, but does contain useful additional material). Alexander Skirda's Nestor Makhno Anarchy's Cossack: The struggle for free soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921 is by far the best account of the movement available as it draws on a wide-range of sources. Also of note is Charlie Allison's No Harmless Power: The Life and Times of the Ukrainian Anarchist Nestor Makhno. Serge Cipko presents an excellent overview of works on the Makhnovists in his "Nestor Makhno: A Mini-Historiography of the Anarchist Revolution in Ukraine, 1917-1921" (The Raven, no. 13, January-March 1991] Alexander Skirda presents an overview of perestroika soviet accounts of Makhno in his essay "The Rehabilitation of Makhno" (The Raven, no. 8, October 1989]. Daniel Guerin includes a section on Makhno and the Makhnovist Movement in his anthology No Gods, No Masters. As well as extracts from Arshinov's book, it has various manifestos from the movement as well as Makhno's account of his meeting with Lenin. Makhno's memoirs, which cover the early years of the movement, are also available: The Russian Revolution in Ukraine (March 1917-April 1918), Under the Blows of the Counterrevolution (April-June 1918) and The Ukrainian Revolution (July-December 1918).
For non-anarchist accounts, Michael Malet's Nestor Makhno in the Russian Revolution is essential reading as it contains useful information on both the history of the movement, its social basis and political ideas. Malet considers his work as a supplement to Michael Palij's The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918-1921 which is primarily a military account of the movement but which does cover some of its social and political aspects. Unfortunately, both books are rare. Paul Avrich's The Russian Anarchists contains a short account of the movement and his Anarchist Portraits has a chapter on Nestor Makhno. Makhnovist source material is included in Avrich's The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution. Christopher Read's From Tsar to Soviets has an excellent section on the Makhnovists. David Footman has a chapter entitled "Makhno" in his book Civil War in Russia (published in 1961, it is somewhat dated now but still a useful resource and a pioneer in terms of recognising the importance of the Makhnovist movement).
It should be noted that no claim is being made that the Makhnovists were a perfect movement. As with any movement in the real world, it sometimes failed to live up to its principles and, like any army, its members undoubtedly acted cruelly and arbitrarily at times. This means that our evaluation of both the Bolsheviks and the Makhnovists is based not on idealist standards but rather the reality of the movement and whether it had benefited the working masses (in terms of increased liberty and equality as well as materially) and had potential for further development in that direction. As Emma Goldman put it:
"Friends whose opinion I value have been good enough to suggest that my quarrel with the Bolsheviki is due to my social philosophy rather than to the failure of the Bolshevik regime . . . these criticisms would be justified had I come to Russia expecting to find Anarchism realized, or if I were to maintain that revolutions can be made peacefully . . . I do not therefore expect Anarchism to follow in the immediate footsteps of centuries of despotism and submission . . . I did, however, hope to find in Russia at least the beginnings of the social changes for which the Revolution had been fought . . . Two years of earnest study, investigation, and research convinced me that the great benefits brought to the Russian people by Bolshevism exist only on paper . . . the revolutionary faith of the people [was] broken, the spirit of solidarity crushed, the meaning of comradeship and mutual helpfulness distorted. One must have lived in Russia, close to the everyday affairs of the people; one must have seen and felt their utter disillusionment and despair to appreciate fully the disintegrating effect of the Bolshevik principle and methods -- disintegrating all that was once the pride and the glory of revolutionary Russia." [My Disillusionment in Russia, pp. xlvii-xlviii]
So, just as the anarchist critique of Bolshevism is not based upon their failure to create an ideal socialist regime but rather that their policies and practice meant the destruction of socialist tendencies within the Revolution in favour of a bureaucratic state-capitalist dictatorship, the anarchist support for the Makhnovists is due to them protecting and encouraging libertarian socialist tendencies within the civil war. As such, Leninist attacks on the Makhnovists for their (inevitable but few) deviations from anarchist ideals miss the point and fail to acknowledge the far greater deviations of the Bolsheviks -- deviations (such as party dictatorship) they embedded into their ideology. Anarchists do not evaluate any regime or movement against impossible standards but rather whether it allows society to develop towards libertarian socialism or whether it hinders this and creates new forms of class rule, exploitation and oppression. On this criteria, the Bolshevik regime was counter-revolutionary whilst the Makhnovists -- flaws and all -- was revolutionary. The former has only negative lessons for today, the latter positive ones.
Lastly, a few words on names. There is a large variation on the spelling of names within the source material. For example, Makhno's home town has been translated as Gulyai Pole, Gulyai Polye, Huliai-Pole and Hulyai Pole. Similarly, with other place names. The bandit Grigor'ev has been also translated as Hryhor'iv and Hryhoriyiv. We generally take Michael Malet's translations of names as a basis (i.e. we use Hulyai Pole and Hryhoriyiv, for example). Quotes utilise whatever translations used by the author or their translator.
The Makhnovist movement was named after Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist who played a key role in the movement from the start. Indeed, Makhnoshchina literally means "Makhno movement" and his name is forever linked with the revolution in the South-East of the Ukraine. So who was Makhno?
Nestor Ivanovich Makhno was born on the 27th of October, 1889 in Hulyai Pole, which is situated in Katerynoslav province, in the south east of the Ukraine between the Dnieper River and the Sea of Azov. While it seems to be conventional for many historians to call Hulyai Pole a "village," it was in fact a town with a population of about 30,000 and boasted several factories and schools.
Makhno was the son of a poor peasant family. His father died when he was ten months old, leaving him and his four brothers in the care of their mother. Due to the extreme poverty of his family, he had to start work as a shepherd at the age of seven. At eight he started to attend the Second Hulyai Pole primary school in winter and worked for local landlords during the summer. He left school when he was twelve and took up full-time employment as a farmhand on the estates of nobles and on the farms of the German colonist kulaks (i.e., richer peasants who hired wage-workers) At the age of seventeen, he started to work in Hulyai Pole itself, first as an apprentice painter, then as an unskilled worker in a local iron foundry and, finally, as a foundryman in the same establishment.
It was when he was working in the iron foundry that he became involved in revolutionary politics. In the stormy years following the 1905 revolution, Makhno got involved in revolutionary politics. This decision was based on his experiences of injustice at work and seeing the terror of the Russian regime during the 1905 events (in Hulyai Pole there had been no serious disorder, yet the regime sent a detachment of mounted police to suppress gatherings and meetings in the town, terrorising the population by whipping those caught in the streets and beating prisoners with rifle butts). In 1906, Makhno decided to join the anarchist group in Hulyai Pole (which had been formed the previous year and consisted mainly of sons of poorer peasants).
At the end of 1906 and in 1907, Makhno was arrested and accused of political assassinations, but was released due to lack of evidence. In 1908, due to the denunciation of a police spy within the anarchist group, he was arrested and put in jail. In March, 1910, Makhno and thirteen others were tried by a military court and sentenced to death by hanging. Due to his youth and the efforts of his mother, the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour. He served his time at the Butyrka prison in Moscow, resisting the prison authorities by every means available to him. Due to this resistance, he spent much of his time in chains or in damp and freezing confinement. This experience ensured that Makhno developed an intense hatred of prisons (later, during the revolution, his first act in entering a town or city was to release all prisoners and destroy the prisons).
It was during his time in Butyrka that Makhno met Peter Arshinov, a fellow anarchist prisoner and later activist within, and historian of, the Makhnovist movement. Arshinov was born in 1887 in the Ukrainian industrial town of Katerinoslav. His father was a factory worker and he was a metal worker. Originally a Bolshevik, he had become an anarchist in 1906, taking a leading part in organising factory workers and actions against the regime. In 1907 he was arrested and sentenced to death, escaping to Western Europe. In 1909, he returned to Russia and was again arrested and again escaped. In 1910, he was arrested and placed in the Butyrka prison where he met Makhno. The two anarchists established a close personal and political friendship, with Arshinov helping Makhno develop and deepen his anarchist ideas.
On March 2nd, 1917, after eight years and eight months in prison, Makhno was released along with all other political prisoners as a result of the February Revolution. After spending three weeks with anarchists in Moscow, Makhno returned to Hulyai Pole. As the only political prisoner who was returned to his family by the revolution, Makhno became very well-respected in his home town. After years of imprisonment, suffering but learning, Makhno was no longer an inexperienced young activist, but a tested anarchist militant with both a powerful will and strong ideas about social conflict and revolutionary politics. Ideas which he immediately set about applying.
Once home in Hulyai Pole, Makhno immediately devoted himself to revolutionary work. Unsurprisingly, the remaining members of the anarchist group, as well as many peasants, came to visit him. After discussing ideas with them, Makhno proposed beginning organisational work immediately in order to strengthen links between the peasants in Hulyai Pole and its region with the anarchist group. On March 28-29, a Peasant Union was created with Makhno as its chairman. Subsequently, he organised similar unions in other villages and towns in the area. Makhno also played a large part in a successful strike by wood and metal workers at a factory owned by his old boss (this defeat led to the other bosses capitulating to the workers as well). At the same time, peasants refused to pay their rent to the landlords. [Michael Malet, Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War, p. 4] Regional assemblies of peasants were called, both at Hulyai Pole and elsewhere, and on August 5-7, the provincial congress at Katerinoslav decided to reorganise the Peasant Unions into Soviets of Peasants' and Workers' Deputies.
In this way, "Makhno and his associates brought socio-political issues into the daily life of the people, who in turn supported his efforts, hoping to expedite the expropriation of large estates." [Michael Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, p. 71] In Hulyai Pole, the revolution was moving faster than elsewhere (for example, while the Aleksandrovsk soviet supported the actions of the Provisional Government during the July days in Petrograd, a meeting in Hulyai Pole saluted the rebellious soldiers and workers). Peasants were drawn to Hulyai Pole for advice and help from the neighbouring volosts (administrative districts). The peasantry wanted to seize the land of the large landowners and the kulaks. Makhno presented this demand at the first sessions of the regional Soviet, which were held in Hulyai Pole. In August, Makhno called all the local landlords and kulaks together and all documents concerning ownership (of land, livestock and equipment) were taken from them. An inventory of this property was taken and reported to the session of the local soviet and then at a regional meeting. It was agreed that all land, livestock and equipment was to be divided equally, the division to include the former owners. This was the core of the agrarian program of the movement, namely the liquidation of the property of the landowners and kulaks. No-one could own more land than they could work with their own labour. All this was in defiance to the Provisional Government which was insisting that all such questions be left to the Constituent Assembly. Free communes were also created on ex-landlord estates.
Unsurprisingly, the implementation of these decisions was delayed because of the opposition of the landlords and kulaks, who organised themselves and appealed to the provisional authorities. When General Kornilov tried to march on Petrograd and take power, the Hulyai Pole soviet took the initiative and formed a local "Committee for the Salvation of the Revolution" headed by Makhno. The real aim was to disarm the potential local enemy -- the landlords, bourgeoisie, and kulaks -- as well as to expropriate their ownership of the people's wealth: the land, factories, plants, printing shops, theatres and so on. On 25 September a volost congress of Soviets and peasant organisations in Hulyai Pole proclaimed the confiscation of the landowners' land and its transformation into social property. Raids on the estates of landlords and rich peasants, including German colonists, began and the expropriation of the expropriators began.
Makhno's activities came to a halt the following spring when Lenin's government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This treaty gave sizeable parts of the Russian Empire, including the Ukraine, to Germany and Austria in return for peace. The Treaty saw the invasion of the Ukraine by large numbers of German and Austrian troops, who conquered the entire country in less than three months. Makhno succeeded in forming several military units, consisting of 1700 men, but could not stop Hulyai Pole being taken. After an anarchist congress at the end of April in Taganrog, it was decided to organise small combat units of five to ten peasants and workers, to collect arms from the enemy and to prepare for a general peasant uprising against the Austro-German troops and, finally, to send a small group to Soviet Russia to see at first hand what was happening there to both the revolution and to the anarchists under Bolshevik rule. Makhno was part of that group.
By June, Makhno had arrived in Moscow. He immediately visited a number of Russian anarchists (including his old friend Peter Arshinov). The anarchists in Moscow were cowed, due to a Cheka raid in April which broke the backbone of the movement, so ending a political threat to the Bolsheviks from the left. To Makhno, coming from an area where freedom of speech and organisation were taken for granted, the low level of activity came as a shock. Makhno also visited Peter Kropotkin, asking his advice on revolutionary work and the situation in the Ukraine. To Makhno, "Moscow appeared as 'the capital of the Paper Revolution,' a vast factory turning out empty resolutions and slogans while one political party, by means of force and fraud, elevated itself into the position of a ruling class." [David Footman, Civil War in Russia, p. 252]
While in Moscow, Makhno met with Lenin. This meeting came about by chance. Visiting the Kremlin to obtain a permit for free board and lodging, he met the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, Jakov M. Sverdlov, who arranged for Makhno to meet Lenin. Lenin asked Makhno, "How did the peasants of your region understand the slogan ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS IN THE VILLAGES?" Makhno states that Lenin "was astonished" at his reply: "The peasants understood this slogan in their own way. According to their interpretation, all power, in all areas of life, must be identified with the consciousness and will of the working people. The peasants understand that the soviets of workers and peasants of village, country and district are neither more nor less than the means of revolutionary organisation and economic self-management of working people in the struggle against the bourgeoisie and its lackeys, the Right socialists and their coalition government." To this Lenin replied: "Well, then, the peasants of your region are infected with anarchism!" [Nestor Makhno, My Visit to the Kremlin, p. 18] Later in the interview, Lenin asked: "Do the anarchists ever recognise their lack of realism in present-day life? Why, they don't even think of it." Makhno replied:
"But I must tell you, comrade Lenin, that your assertion that the anarchists don't understand 'the present' realistically, that they have no real connection with it and so forth, is fundamentally mistaken. The anarchist-communists in the Ukraine . . . the anarchist-communists, I say, have already given many proofs that they are firmly planted in 'the present.' The whole struggle of the revolutionary Ukrainian countryside against the Central Rada has been carried out under the ideological guidance of the anarchist-communists and also in part by the Socialist Revolutionaries . . . Your Bolsheviks have scarcely any presence in our villages. Where they have penetrated, their influence is minimal. Almost all the communes or peasant associations in the Ukraine were formed at the instigation of the anarchist-communists. The armed struggle of the working people against the counter-revolution in general and the Austro-German invasion in particular has been undertaken with the ideological and organic guidance of the anarchist-communists exclusively.
"Certainly it is not in your party's interest to give us credit for all this, but these are the facts and you can't dispute them. You know perfectly well, I assume, the effective force and the fighting capacity of the free, revolutionary forces of the Ukraine. It is not without reason that you have evoked the courage with which they have heroically defended the common revolutionary conquests. Among them, at least one half have fought under the anarchist banner. . .
"All this shows how mistaken you are, comrade Lenin, in alleging that we, the anarchist-communists, don't have our feet on the ground, that our attitude towards 'the present' is deplorable and that we are too fond of dreaming about the future. What I have said to you in the course of this interview cannot be questioned because it is the truth. The account which I have made to you contradicts the conclusions you expressed about us. Everyone can see we are firmly planted in 'the present,' that we are working and searching for the means to bring about the future we desire, and that we are in fact dealing very seriously with this problem."
Lenin replied: "Perhaps I am mistaken." [Makhno, Op. Cit., pp. 24-7]
The Bolsheviks helped Makhno to return to the Ukraine. The trip was accomplished with great difficulty. Once Makhno was almost killed. He was arrested by Austro-German troops and was carrying libertarian pamphlets at the time. A Jewish inhabitant of Hulyai Pole, who had know Makhno for some time, succeeded in saving him by paying a considerable sum of money for his liberation. Once back in Hulyai-Pole, he started to organise resistance to the occupying forces of the Austro-Germans and their puppet regime led by Hetman Skoropadsky. With this resistance, the Makhno movement can be said to have arisen (see section 2 on why it was named after Makhno). From July 1918 to August 1921, Makhno led the struggle for working class freedom against all oppressors, whether Bolshevik, White or Nationalist. During the course of this struggle, he proved himself to be "a guerrilla leader of quite outstanding ability." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 245] The military history of this movement is discussed in section 4, while other aspects of the movement are discussed in other sections.
After the defeat of the Makhnovist movement in 1921, Makhno was exiled in Western Europe. In 1925 he ended up in Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life. While there, he remained active in the anarchist movement, with the pen replacing the sabre (to use Alexander Skirda's colourful expression). Makhno contributed articles to various anarchist journals and in particular to Delo Truda, an anarchist-communist paper started in Paris by Peter Arshinov (many of these articles have been published in the book The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays). He remained active in the anarchist movement to the end.
In Paris, Makhno met the famous Spanish anarchists Buenaventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso in 1927. He argued that in Spain "conditions for a revolution with a strong anarchist content are better than in Russia" because not only was there "a proletariat and a peasantry with a revolutionary tradition whose political maturity is shown in its reactions," the Spanish anarchists had "a sense of organisation which we lacked in Russia. It is organisation which assures the success in depth of all revolutions." [quoted by Abel Paz, Durruti: The People Armed, p. 88] Makhno recounted the activities of the Hulyai Pole anarchist group and the events in revolutionary Ukraine:
"Our agrarian commune was at once the economic and political vital centre of our social system. These communities were not based on individual egoism but rested on principles of communal, local and regional solidarity. In the same way that the members of a community felt solidarity among themselves, the communities were federated with each other . . . It is said against our system that in the Ukraine, that it was able to last because it was based only on peasant foundations. It isn't true. Our communities were mixed, agricultural-industrial, and, even, some of them were only industrial. We were all fighters and workers. The popular assembly made the decisions. In military life it was the War Committee composed of delegates of all the guerrilla detachments which acted. To sum up, everyone took part in the collective work, to prevent the birth of a managing class which would monopolise power. And we were successful." [quoted by Paz, Op. Cit., p. 89]
As can be seen from the social revolution in Aragon, Durruti took Makhno's advice seriously (see section I.8 for more on the Spanish Revolution). Unsurprisingly, in 1936 a number of veterans of Makhno's Insurgent Army went to fight in the Durruti column. Sadly, Makhno's death in 1934 prevented his own concluding statement to the two Spaniards: "Makhno has never refused to fight. If I am alive when you start your struggle, I will be with you." [quoted by Paz, Op. Cit., p. 90]
Makhno's most famous activity in exile was his association with, and defence of, the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists (known as the "Platform"). As discussed in section J.3.3, the Platform was an attempt to analyse what had gone wrong in the Russian Revolution and suggested a much tighter anarchist organisation in future. This idea provoked intense debate after its publication, with the majority of anarchists rejecting it (for Makhno's discussion with Malatesta on this issue, see the collection of Malatesta's writings entitled The Anarchist Revolution). This debate often resulted in bitter polemics and left Makhno somewhat isolated. However, he remained an anarchist to his death.
Makhno died on the morning of July 25th, 1934, and was cremated three days later and his ashes placed in an urn within Pere Lachaise, the cemetery of the Paris Commune. Five hundred Russian, French, Spanish and Italian comrades attended the funeral, at which the French anarchist Benar and Voline spoke (the latter used the occasion to refute Bolshevik allegations of anti-Semitism). Makhno's wife, Halyna, was too overcome to speak.
So ended the life of one great fighters for working-class freedom. Little wonder Durruti's words to Makhno: "We have come to salute you, the symbol of all those revolutionaries who struggled for the realisation of Anarchist ideas in Russia. We also come to pay our respects to the rich experience of the Ukraine." [quoted by Paz, Op. Cit., p. 88]
For fuller details of Makhno's life, see the accounts by Peter Arshinov (The History of the Makhnovist Movement), Paul Avrich ("Nestor Makhno: The Man and the Myth," in Anarchist Portraits), Michael Palij, (The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno), Michael Malet (Nestor Makhno in the Russian Revolution) and Alexandre Skirda (Nestor Makhno Anarchy's Cossack: The struggle for free soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921).
Officially, the Makhnovist movement was called the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine. In practice, it was usually called the "Makhno movement" ("Makhnovshchina" in Russian) or the Makhnovists. Unsurprisingly, Trotsky placed great significance on this:
"The anti-popular character of the Makhno movement is most clearly revealed in the fact that the army of Hulyai Pole is actually called 'Makhno's Army'. There, armed men are united not around a programme, not around an ideological banner, but around a man." ["The Makhno Movement", How the Revolution Armed, vol. 2., p. 280]
Ignoring the irony of a self-proclaimed Marxist (and later Leninist and founder of Trotskyism) making such a comment, we can only indicate why the Makhnovists called themselves by that name:
"Because, first, in the terrible days of reaction in the Ukraine, we saw in our ranks an unfailing friend and leader, MAKHNO, whose voice of protest against any kind of coercion of the working people rang out in all the Ukraine, calling for a battle against all oppressors, pillagers and political charlatans who betray us; and who is now marching together with us in our common ranks unwavering toward the final goal: liberation of the working people from any kind of oppression." ["Who are the Makhnovists and what are they fighting for?", contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 272]
The two anarchists who took part in the movement and later wrote its history concur. Voline argues that the reason why the movement was known as the "Makhnovist movement" was because the "most important role in this work of unification [of the peasant masses] and in the general development of the revolutionary insurrection in the southern Ukraine was performed by the detachment of partisans guided by a peasant native to the region: Nestor Makhno." [The Unknown Revolution, p. 551] "From the first days of the movement," Arshinov notes, "up to its culminating point, when the peasants vanquished the landowners, Makhno played a preponderant and central role to such an extent that the whole insurgent region and the most heroic moments of the struggle are linked to his name. Later, when the insurrection had triumphed completely over the Skoropadsky counter-revolution and the region was threatened by Denikin, Makhno became the rallying point for millions of peasants in several regions." [Op. Cit., p. 50]
It must be stressed that Nestor Mahkno was not the boss of the Makhnovista. He was not their ruler or general. As such, the fact that the Makhnovists were (unofficially) named after Makhno does not imply that it was his personal fiefdom, nor that those involved followed him as an individual. Rather, the movement was named after him because he was universally respected within it as a leading militant. This fact also explains why Makhno was nicknamed "Batko" (see the next section).
This can be seen from how the movement was organised and was run. As we discuss in section 5, it was organised in a fundamentally democratic way, by means of mass assemblies of insurgents, elected officers, regular insurgent, peasant and worker congresses and an elected "Revolutionary Military Soviet." The driving force in the Makhnovist movement was not, therefore, Makhno but rather the anarchist ideas of self-management. As Trotsky himself was aware, the Makhnovists were influenced by anarchist ideas: "Makhno and his companions-in-arms are not non-party people at all. They are all of the Anarchist persuasion, and send out circulars and letters summoning Anarchists to Hulyai Pole so as to organise their own Anarchist power there." [Trotsky, Op. Cit., p. 278]
As part of this support for anarchist theory, the Makhnovists organised insurgent, peasant and worker conferences to discuss key issues in the revolution and the activities of the Makhno movement itself. Three such conferences had taken place before Trotsky wrote his diatribe The Makhno Movement on June 2nd, 1919. A fourth one was called for June 15th, which Trotsky promptly banned (on pain of death) on June 4th (see section 13 for full details). Unlike the Bolshevik dictatorship, the Makhnovists took every possibility of ensuring the participation of the working people they were fighting for in the revolution. The calling of congresses by the Makhnovists shows clearly that the movement did not, as Trotsky asserted, follow a man, but rather ideas.
As Voline argued, "the movement would have existed without Makhno, since the living forces, the living masses who created and developed the movement, and who brought Makhno forward merely as their talented military leader, would have existed without Makhno." Ultimately, the term "Makhnovshchina" is used "to describe a unique, completely original and independent revolutionary movement of the working class which gradually becomes conscious of itself and steps out on the broad arena of historical activity." ["Preface," Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 19]
Nestor Makhno was often called in the movement "Batko", which is Ukrainian for "father." Peter Arshinov explains how and in what circumstances Makhno was given this name:
"It was . . . in September 1918, that Makhno received the nickname Batko -- general leader of the revolutionary insurrection in the Ukraine. This took place in the following circumstances. Local pomeshchiks [landed gentry] in the major centres, the kulaks [rich peasants], and the German authorities [the Ukraine being occupied by them at the time], decided to eliminate Makhno and his detachment [of partisans] at any cost. The pomeshchiks created a special volunteer detachment consisting of their own sons and those of kulaks for the decisive struggle against Makhno. On the 30th of September this detachment, with the help of the Austro-Germans, corned Makhno in the region of Bol'shaya Mihhailovka, setting up strong military posts on all roads. At this time Makhno found himself with only 30 partisans and one machine gun. He was forced to make a fighting retreat, manoeuvring in the midst of numerous enemy forces. Arriving in the forest of Dibrivki, Makhno found himself in an extremely difficult situation. The paths of retreat were occupied by the enemy. It was impossible for the detachment to break through, and escaping individually was beneath their revolutionary dignity. No-one in the detachment would agree to abandon their leader so as to save himself. After some reflection, two days later, Makhno decided to return to the village of Bol'shaya Mikhailovka (Dibrivki). Leaving the forest the partisans met peasants who came to warn them that there were large enemy forces in Dibrivki and that they should make haste to go elsewhere. This information did not stop Makhno and his partisans . . . [and] they set out for Bol'shaya Mikhailovka. They approached the village guardedly. Makhno himself and a few of his comrades went on reconnaissance and saw a large enemy camp on the church square, dozens of machine guns, hundreds of saddle horses, and groups of cavalry. Peasants informed them that a battalion of Austrians and a special pomeshchik detachment were in the village. Retreat was impossible. Then Makhno, with his usual stubbornness and determination, said to his companions: 'Well, my friends! We should all be ready to die on this spot . . .' The moment was ominous, the men were firm and full of enthusiasm. All 30 saw only one path before them -- the path toward the enemy, who had about a thousand well-armed men, and they all realised that this meant certain death for them. All were moved, but none lost courage.
"It was at this movement that one of the partisans, Shchus', turned to Makhno and said:
"'From now on you will be Batko to all of us, and we vow to die with you in the ranks of the insurgents.'
"Then the whole detachment swore never to abandon the insurgent ranks, and to consider Makhno the general Batko of the entire revolutionary insurrection. Then they prepared to attack. Shchus' with five to seven men was assigned to attack the flank of the enemy. Makhno with the others attacked from the front. With a ferocious 'Hurrah!' the partisans threw themselves headlong against the enemy, smiting the very centre with sabres, rifles and revolvers. The attack had a shattering effect. The enemy, who were expecting nothing of the kind, were bowled over and began to flee in panic, saving themselves in groups and individually, abandoning arms, machine guns and horses. Without leaving them time to come to themselves, to become aware of the number of attacking forces, and to pass to a counter-attack, the insurgents chased them in separate groups, cutting them down in full gallop. A part of the pomeshchik detachment fled to the Volchya River, where they were drowned by peasants who had joined the battle. The enemy's defeat was complete.
"Local peasants and detachments of revolutionary insurgents came from all directions to triumphantly acclaim the heroes. They unanimously agreed to consider Makhno as Batko of the entire revolutionary insurrection in the Ukraine." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 59-60]
This was how Makhno acquired the nickname "Batko," which stuck to him thereafter.
It must be stressed that "Batko" was a nickname and did not signify any form of autocratic or hierarchical position within the movement:
"During the civil war, it signified the leadership and control of a specific area and its population in both civil and military fields. The central point of the use of the word, rather than 'leader' or 'dictator' is that the leadership is usually based on respect, as in Makhno's case, and always on intimate knowledge of the home territory." [Michael Malet, Op. Cit., p. 17]
That this was a nickname can be seen from the fact that "[a]fter 1920 he was usually called 'Malyi' ('Shorty'), a nickname referring to his short stature, which was introduced by chance by one of the insurgents." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 226] To attach significance to the fact that the peasants called Makhno "Batko" (as the Bolsheviks did) simply signifies an ignorance of the Makhnovist movement and its social environment.
Yes, here is a short overview of the Makhnovists from July 1918 (when Makhno returned to the Ukraine) to August 1921, when it was finally defeated by Bolshevik armed force. It will be primarily a military history, with the socio-political aspects of the movement discussed in sections 6 (its theory) and 7 (its practice). For details of the rise of influence of Makhno after his release from prison in 1917, see section 1.
The history of the Makhno movement can be broken into roughly four periods -- from July 1918 to February 1919, then the rest of 1919, then January to October 1920 and, finally, from October 1920 to August 1921. This section will give an overview of each period in turn.
By the time Makhno arrived back in the Ukraine in July, 1918, opposition to the German-backed Hetman's regime was mounting and was frequently met with brutal repression. Makhno was forced to live underground and on the move, secretly meeting with others, with the Austrians always close behind. Voline recounts Makhno's activities at this time:
"Back in Hulyai Pole, Makhno came to the decision to die or obtain victory for the peasants . . . He did not delay starting his mission openly among the great masses of peasants, speaking at improvised meetings, writing and distributing letters and tracts. By pen and mouth, he called on the peasants for a decisive struggle against the power of Skoropadsky and the landlords. He declared tirelessly that the workers should now take their fates into their own hands and not let their freedom to act be taken from them . . .
"Besides his appeals, Makhno proceeded immediately to direct action. His first concern was to form a revolutionary military unit, sufficiently strong to guarantee freedom of propaganda and action in the villages and towns and at the same time to begin guerrilla operations. This unit was quickly organised . . .
"His first unit undertook two urgent tasks, namely, pursuing energetically the work of propaganda and organisation among the peasants and carrying out a stubborn armed struggle against all their enemies. The guiding principle of this merciless struggle was as follows. No lord who persecuted the peasants, no policeman of the Hetman, no Russian or German officer who was an implacable enemy of the peasants, deserved any pity; he must be destroyed. All who participated in the oppression of the poor peasants and workers, all who sought to suppress their rights, to exploit their labour, should be executed.
"Within two or three weeks, the unit had already become the terror, not only of the local bourgeoisie, but also of the Austro-German authorities." [The Unknown Revolution, p. 558]
The night of 26 September saw Hulyai Pole briefly liberated from Hetman and Austrian troops by the actions of Makhno's troops in association with local people. On the retreat from this Makhno's small band grew when he met the partisan troops headed by Schus. When the Austrians cornered them, they launched a surprise counter attack and routed the opposition. This became known as the battle of Dibrivki and it is from this date, 5 October 1918, that Makhno is given the nickname 'Batko', meaning "father" (see section 3). For the next two months already-existing partisan groups sought out and joined the growing army.
In this period, Makhno, with portable printing equipment, was raiding the occupying garrisons and troop trains in the Southern Ukraine. Normal practice was to execute the officers and free the troops. In this period the morale of the occupying troops had crumbled and revolutionary propaganda had made inroads into many units. This was also affecting the nationalist troops and on 20 November the first nationalist unit defected to the Makhnovists. This encouraged them to return to Hulyai Pole on 27 December and there the insurrectionary Staff was formed, this body was to lead the army in the coming years and consisted initially of four old and trusted friends and three political comrades. The Makhnovist presence allowed the setting up of a local soviet and the re-opening of anarchist clubs. German forces started pulling back to the major cities and on December 14 the Hetman fled Kiyiv. In the resulting vacuum, the Makhnovists rapidly expanded taking in most of the South East Ukraine and setting up fronts against local whites. The Ukrainian nationalists had taken power in the rest of the Ukraine under Petliura and on the 15th December the Makhnovists agreed to make common cause with them against the Whites. In return for arms and ammunition they allowed the nationalists to mobilise in the Makhnovist area (while engaging in propaganda directed at the mobilised troops on their way by train to Katerynoslav).
This was a temporary and pragmatic arrangement directed against the greater enemy of the Whites. However, the nationalists were no friends of working-class autonomy. The nationalists banned elections to the Katerynoslav soviet on 6th of December and the provincial soviet at Kharkiv met with a similar fate on the 22nd. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 22] At the same time as their agreement with the nationalists, the Makhnovista had set up links with Bolshevik partisans to the south and before dawn on the 26th the Bolshevik and Makhnovista forces launched a joint attack on the nationalists at Katerynoslav. The city was taken but held only briefly when a nationalist attack on the 29th drove out all the insurgent forces with heavy losses. In the south, White reinforcements led to the insurgents being pushed North and losing Hulyai Pole.
The year 1919 opened with the Makhnovists organising a congress of front-unit delegates to discuss the progress of the struggle. Over forty delegates attended and a committee of five was elected, along with an operational staff to take charge of the southern front and its rear. It was agreed that local soviets were to be supported in every way, with no military violence directed towards them permitted. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 25]
By the end of January, white reinforcements were landing in the ports of the south. On January 22nd, a worker, peasant and insurgent congress was held at Velyka Mykhailivka. A resolution was passed urging an end to conflict between Makhnovists, Nationalists and Bolsheviks. An alliance was signed between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks in early February. This agreement ensured that the Partisan units entered the Red Army as distinct formations, with their internal organisation (including the election of commanders) intact, and the Red Army in the area formed a brigade to be known as "the third Transdnieper Batko Makhno brigade" with Makhno as commander. The Whites were repulsed and Hulyai Pole retaken and the front pushed some distance eastwards.
Thus the military situation had improved by the time of the second worker, peasant and insurgent congress held at Hulyai Pole on February 12th. This congress set up a "Revolutionary Military Soviet" to co-ordinate civilian affairs and execute its decisions. The congress resolved that "the land belongs to nobody" and should be cultivated without the use of hired labour. It also accepted a resolution opposing anti-Jewish pogroms. Also passed was a resolution which sharply attacked the Bolsheviks, caused by their behaviour since their arrival in the Ukraine. [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 154-5] A report by the commander of the 2nd Red Army, Skatchco, indicates the nature of this behaviour:
"Little local Chekas are undertaking a relentless campaign against the Makhnovists, even when they are shedding their blood at the front. They are hunting them down from the rear and persecuting them solely for belonging to the Makhnovist movement . . . It cannot continue like this: the activity of the local Chekas is deliberately ruining the front, reducing all military successes to nothing, and contributing to the creation of a counter-revolution that neither Denikin nor Krasnov [Hetman of the Don Cossacks] could have achieved" [quoted by Alexander Skirda, The Rehabilitation of Makhno, p. 346]
The peasants reacted negatively to the Bolshevik regime. Their "agricultural policy and terrorism" ensured that "by the middle of 1919, all peasants, rich and poor, distrusted the Bolsheviks." In April alone, there were 93 separate armed rebellions against the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine. The "more oppressive the Bolshevik policy, the more the peasants supported Makhno. Consequently, the Bolsheviks began to organise more systematically against the Makhno movement, both as an ideology and as a social movement." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 156 and p. 157]
In mid-March the Red Army attacked eastwards. In the course of this Dybenko, commander of the Trandneiper division, recommended one of Makhno's commanders for a medal. Then the Makhnovists attacked the Donbas (east) to relieve the pressure on the Soviet 8th Army caused by a White advance. They took Mariupol following a White incursion at the beginning of April. A White counter-offensive resulted in the Red 9th division panicking, allowing the Whites into Makhno's rear. Red Commander Dybenko refused orders to come to the Makhnovists aid as he was more interested in the Crimea. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 31]
This period saw the most sustained freedom for the region around Hulyai Pole. It had been free of enemy occupation since January, allowing constructive activity to restart. The inhabitants of the free region "created new forms of social organisation: free workers' communes and Soviets." [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 574] The Revolutionary Military Soviet (RMS) called a third regional worker, peasant and insurgent congresses had on April 10th to review progress and to look forward. This was the largest congress to date, with delegates from 72 volosts containing two million people. The Bolshevik military commander Dybenko tried to ban it. The Makhnovists, needless to say, ignored him and the RMS made a famous reply to his arrogance (see section 13).
It was during this period (late 1918 and early 1919), that the Nabat anarchist federation was organised. "Anarchist influence was reported from Aleksandrovsk and other centres," notes David Footman, "Anarchists were holding a conference in Kursk at about the same time and in one of their resolutions it was stated that 'the Ukrainian Revolution will have great chances of rapidly becoming Anarchist in its ideas.' The position called for renewed Bolshevik measures against the Anarchists. Nabat, the main Anarchist newspaper in the Ukraine, was suppressed, and its editorial board dispersed under threat of arrest." [Op. Cit., p. 270] Daniel Guerin has reproduced two documents from the Nabat federation in his anthology No Gods, No Masters.
The anarchist influence in and around Hulyai Pole also worried the Bolsheviks. They started a slander campaign against the Makhnovists, to the alarm of Antonov, the overall front commander, who replied in response to an article in the Kharkiv Izvestiya: "The article is the most perverted fiction and does not in the least correspond to the existing situation. The insurgents fighting the whites are on a level with the Red Army men, but are in a far worse condition for supplies." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 33] In a postscript, Antonov added that the press campaign had certainly helped turn Makhno anti-Soviet (i.e. anti-Bolshevik, as Makhno supported free soviets).
At the beginning of May, another partisan commander, Hryhoriyiv, revolted against the Bolsheviks in the central Ukraine. Hryhoriyiv, like the Makhnovists, had joined with the Bolsheviks when they had re-entered the Ukraine, however his social and political background was totally different. Hryhoriyiv was a former Tsarist officer, who had commanded numerous troops under the Petliurist authority and joined the Bolsheviks once that regime's armed forces had disintegrated. Arshinov notes that he had "never been a revolutionary" and that there had been a "great deal of adventurism in his joining the ranks of the Petliurists and then the ranks of the Red Army." His temperament was mixed, consisting of "a certain amount of sympathy for oppressed peasants, authoritarianism, the extravagance of a Cossack chieftain, nationalist sentiments and anti-Semitism." [Op. Cit., p. 110]
Hryhoriyov started his revolt by issuing a Universal, or declaration, to the Ukrainian people, which contained a virulent attack on the Bolsheviks as well as one explicit anti-Semitic reference, but without mention of Makhno. The height of the revolt was his appearance in the suburbs of Katerynoslav, which he was stopped from taking. He started a pogrom in Yelyzavethrad which claimed three thousand victims.
Once the Makhnovists had been informed of this rebellion, an enlarged staff and RMS meeting was held. A telegram was sent to the soldiers urging them to hold the front and another to the Bolsheviks with a similar message. A few days later, when more information had been received, a proclamation was issued against Hryhoriyov attacking him for seeking to impose a new authority on the working class, for encouraging toiling people to attack each other, and for inciting pogroms. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 112 and pp. 114-7]
While it took a fortnight for Red forces to contain Hryhoriyiv, this involved using all available reverses of all three Ukrainian armies. This left none for Makhno's hard-pressed forces at the front. In addition, Dybenko withdrew a front-line regiment from Makhno for use against the revolt and diverted reinforcements from the Crimea which were intended for Makhno. Despite this Makhno's forces (now numbering 20,000) were ordered to resume the attack on the whites. This was due to "unremitting pressure from Moscow to take Taganrog and Rostov." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 36] The Makhnovist advance stopped due to the non-fulfilment of an urgent order for ammunition.
On the 19th of May, a White counter-attack not only stopped the advance of the Red Army, it forced the 9th division (and then the Makhnovists) to retreat. On the 29th, the Whites launched a further offensive against the northern Donbas, opening a gap between the 13th and 8th Red Armies. Due to the gravity of the situation, the RSV summoned a fourth congress for June 15th. Trotsky not only banned this congress but took the lead in slandering the Makhnovists and calling for their elimination (see section 13). As well as "this deliberately false agitational campaign, the [Bolshevik] blockade of the region was carried to the limit . . . The provisioning of shells, cartridges and other indispensable equipment which was used up daily at the front, ceased completely." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 118] Palij confirms this, noting that "the supplies of arms and other war material to Makhno was stopped, thus weakening the Makhno forces vis-a-vis the Denikin troops." [Op. Cit., p. 175] David Footman also reports that the Bolshevik "hold-back of supplies for the Insurgents developed into a blockade of the area. Makhnovite units at the front ran short of ammunition." He also mentions that "[i]n the latter part of May the Cheka sent over two agents to assassinate Makhno." [Civil War in Russia, p. 271]
Needless to say, Trotsky blamed this White success on the Makhnovists, arguing it was retreating constantly before even the slightest attack by the Whites. However, this was not the case. Analysing these events in July 1919, Antonov (the commander of the Southern Front before Trotsky replaced him) wrote:
"Above all, the facts witness that the affirmations about the weakness of the most contaminated region -- that from Hulyai Pole to Berdiansk -- are without foundation . . . It is not because we ourselves have been better organised militarily, but because those troops were directly defending their native place . . . Makhno stayed at the front, in spite of the flight of the neighbouring 9th division, following by the whole of the 13th army . . . The reasons for the defeat on the southern front do not rest at all in the existence of 'Ukrainian partisans' . . . above all it must be attributed to the machinery of the southern front, in not keeping its fighting spirit and reinforcing its revolutionary discipline." [quoted by Alexander Skirda, The Rehabilitation of Makhno, p. 348]
This, incidentally, tallies with Arshinov's account that "hordes of Cossacks had overrun the region, not through the insurrectionary front but from the left flank where the Red Army was stationed." [Op. Cit., p. 126] For what it is worth, General Denikin himself concurs with this account of events, noting that by the 4th of June his forces "repulsed the routed and demoralised contingents of the Eight and Thirteenth Soviet Armies . . . The resistance of the Thirteenth Army being completely broken." He notes that an attempt by the Fourteenth Army (which Makhno's troops were part of) to attack on the flank came to nothing. He only mentions Makhno when he recounts that "General Shkuro's division routed Makhno at Hulyai Pole." [The White Armies, p. 272] With Whites broken through on their flank and with limited ammunition and other supplies (thanks to the Bolsheviks), the Makhnovists had no choice but to retreat.
It was around this time that Trotsky, in a public meeting in Kharkov, "announced that it were better to permit the Whites to remain in the Ukraine than to suffer Makhno. The presence of the Whites, he said, would influence the Ukrainian peasantry in favour of the Soviet Government, whereas Makhno and his povstantsi, would never make peace with the Bolsheviki; they would attempt to possess themselves of some territory and to practise their ideas, which would be a constant menace to the Communist Government." [Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 63]
Due to this Bolshevik betrayal, the Makhnovist sector was in very grave danger. At Hulyai Pole, a peasant regiment was scraped together in 24 hours in an attempt to save it. It encountered White Cossacks ten miles away from the town and was mown down. The Whites entered Hulyai Pole the next day (June 6th) and gave it a good going over. On the same day, the Bolsheviks issued an order for Makhno's arrest. Makhno was warned and put in his resignation, arguing that it was "an inviolable right of the workers and peasants, a right won by the revolution, to call congresses on their own account, to discuss their affairs." Combined with the "hostile attitude" of the Bolshevik authorities towards him, which would lead "unavoidably to the creation of a special internal front," Makhno believed it was his duty to do what he could to avert it, and so he left his post. [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 129] While Makhno escaped, his staff was not so lucky. Five of them were arrested the same day and shot as a result of Trotsky's order to ban the fourth congress.
Leaving his troops in the frontline, Makhno left with a small cavalry detachment. While leaving the rest under Red command, Makhno made a secret agreement with his regimental commanders to await a message from him to leave the Red Army and join up again with the partisans. On the 9th and 10th of June, Hulyai Pole was retaken by Bolshevik forces, who took the opportunity to attack and sack the Makhnovist communes. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 86f]
After intense fighting, the Whites finally split the Southern Front into three on June 21st. Needless to say, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks blamed this on the partisan forces (even stating that they had "opened the front" to the Whites). This was nonsense, as noted above.
After leaving the front, Makhno took refuge in the Chorno-Znamenski forest before continuing the retreat north and skirmishing with Red Army units. This brought him into the territory held by Hryhoriyiv and this, in turn, meant they had to proceed carefully. While the Makhnovists had made a public denunciation of Hryhoriyiv, Makhno was approaching the centre of Hryhoriyiv's remaining influence. Surrounded by enemies, he had little choice but to begin discussions with Hryhoriyiv. This was problematic to say the least. Hryhoriyiv's revolt had been tinged with anti-Semitism and had seen at least one major pogrom. Being faced with Hryhoriyov's anti-Semitism and his proposal for an alliance with the Whites against the Reds led the Makhnovists to plot his downfall at a meeting planned for the 27th July.
This meeting had originally been called to discuss the current tasks of the insurgents in the Ukraine and was attended by nearly 20,000 insurgents and local peasants. Hryhoriyiv spoke first, arguing that the most urgent task was to chase out the Bolsheviks and that they should ally themselves with any anti-Red forces available (a clear reference to the Whites under Denikin). The Makhnovist Chubenko spoke next, declaring that the "struggle against the Bolsheviks could be revolutionary only if it were carried out in the name of the social revolution. An alliance with the worst enemies of the people -- with generals -- could only be a counter-revolutionary and criminal adventure." Following him, Makhno "demanded before the entire congress" that Hryhoriyiv "immediately answer for the appalling pogrom of Jews he had organised in Elisavetgrad in May, 1919, as well as other anti-Semitic actions." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 136]
Seeing that things were going badly, Hryhoriyiv went for his revolver, but was shot by a Makhnovist. Makhno finished him off. Makhnovist guards disarmed the leading Hryhoriyivists. Then Makhno, Chubenko and others justified the killing before the mass meeting, which approved the act by passing a resolution that stated that Hryhoriyiv's death was "an historical and necessary fact, for his policy, acts and aims were counter-revolutionary and mainly directed to helping Denikin and other counter-revolutionaries, as is proved by his Jewish pogroms." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 42] The troops under Hryhoriyiv became part of the general Insurrectionary Army.
At the end of July, Makhno recalled the troops he had earlier left in the Red Army and by mid-August the forces met up, becoming an army of some 15,000. At Mykolaiv, the Red Army units were defecting to Makhno in large numbers due in part to the feeling that the Red Army was abandoning the defence of the Ukraine. This was the start of Denikin's massive push north and Petliura's push east. By the end of August, superior White forces pushed the Makhnovists further and further west, away from their home region. "Denikin," in Voline's words, "not only made war on the army as such, but also on the whole peasant population. In addition to the usual persecutions and beatings, the villages he occupied were burnt and wrecked. The greater part of the peasants' dwellings were looted and wrecked. Hundreds of peasants were shot. The women maltreated, and nearly all the Jewish women . . . were raped." This repression "obliged the inhabitants of the villages threatened by the approach of the Denikinists to abandon their hearths and flee. Thus the Makhnovist army was joined and followed in their retreat by thousands of peasant families in flight from their homes with their livestock and belongings. It was a veritable migration. An enormous mass of men, women and children trailed after the army in its slow retreat towards the west, a retreat which gradually extended over hundreds of kilometres." [Op. Cit., p. 607]
Meeting the Nationalists in mid-September, it was agreed on both sides that fighting would only aid the Whites and so the Makhnovists entered a non-aggression pact with Petliura. The Makhnovists continued their propaganda campaign against the Nationalists, however. By the 24th of September, intelligence reports suggested that White forces had appeared to the west of their current position (i.e. where the Nationalists where). The Makhnovists concluded that the only way this could have happened was if the Nationalists had allowed the Whites to cross their territory (the Nationalists disputed this, pointing to the fighting that had started two days before between them and the Whites).
This meant that the Makhnovists were forced to fight the numerically superior Whites. After two days of desperate fighting, the Whites were routed and two regiments were destroyed at the battle of Peregonovka village. Makhno's forces then conducted an incredibly rapid advance in three directions helped by their mobile cart-transported infantry, in three days smashing three reserve regiments and at the greatest point advancing 235 miles east. On the 6th October a drive to the south started which took key White ports and captured a huge quantity of equipment including 600 trucks of British-supplied ammunition and an aeroplane. This was disastrous for Denikin whose forces had reached the northernmost point on their advance on Moscow, for these ports were key for his supply routes. The advance continued, cutting the railway route and so stopping all shells reaching Denikin's Moscow front.
Denikin was forced to send some of his best troops from the Moscow front to drive back the Makhnovists and British boats were sent to towns on the coast where Makhno might retreat through. The key city of Katerinoslav was taken with the aid of a workers' uprising on November 9th and held for a month before the advancing Whites and a typhoid epidemic which was to devastate the Makhnovista ranks by the end of the year forced them out of the city. In December, the Red Army advance made possible by Makhno's devastation of Denikin's supply lines continued. Thus Voline:
"It is necessary to emphasise here the historic fact that the honour of having annihilated the Denikinist counter-revolution in the autumn of 1919, belongs entirely to the Makhnovist Insurrectionary Army. If the insurgents had not won the decisive victory of Peregonovka, and had not continued to sap the bases in Denikin's rear, destroying his supply service for artillery, food and ammunition, the Whites would probably have entered Moscow in December 1919 at the latest." [Op. Cit., p. 625]
In December the Red Army advance made possible by Makhno's devastation of Denikin's supply lines continued. By early January the Reds had split White forces into three and their troops had reached Katerynoslav. The attitude of the Bolsheviks to the Makhnovists had already been decided. On December 12th, 1919, Trotsky stated that when the two forces met, the Bolsheviks had "an order . . . from which we must not retreat one single step." While we discuss this secret order in more depth in section 13, we will note here that it gave partisans the option of becoming "fully subordinate to [Bolshevik] command" or "be subjected to ruthless punishment." [How the Revolution Armed, vol. II., pp. 110-1 and p. 442] Another secret order to the 45th division issued on January 4th instructed them to "annihilate Makhnovist bands" and "disarm the population." The 41st was sent "into reserve" to the Hulyai Pole region. This was "five days before Makhno was outlawed, and shows that the Bolshevik command had a clear view of Makhno's future, even if the latter did not." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 54]
Unaware of this, the Makhnovista put out propaganda leaflets directed at the Red Army rank and file, appealing to them as comrades. At Aleksandrovsk on December 5th talks occurred between a representative of the Makhnovists and the commander of the 45th division's 1st brigade. These broke down when Makhno was ordered to the Polish front, which the Makhnovists refused. On January 9th, Yegorov, commander of the Red Army southern front, used this pretext to outlaw Makhno. This outlawing was engineered deliberately by the Bolsheviks:
"The author of the order realised at that time there was no real war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks at that time and he also knew that Makhno would not abandon his region .. . . [He] explained that 'an appropriate reaction by Makhno to this order would give us the chance to have accurate grounds for our next steps' . . . [He] concluded: 'The order is a certain political manoeuvre and, at the very least, we expect positive results from Makhno's realisation of this.'" [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 210]
In addition, war with Poland did not break out until the end of April, over three months later.
Needless to say, the Makhnovists did realise the political motivations behind the order. As Arshinov notes, "[s]ending the insurrectionary army to the Polish front meant removing from the Ukraine the main nerve centre of the revolutionary insurrection. This was precisely what the Bolsheviks wanted: they would then be absolute masters of the rebellious region, and the Makhnovists were perfectly aware of this." Moreover, the Makhnovists considered the move "physically impossible" as "half the men, the entire staff and the commander himself were in hospital with typhus." [Op. Cit., p. 163]
This was the signal for nine months of bitter fighting between the Red Army and the Makhnovists. Military events in this period are confused, with the Red Army claiming victory again and again, only for the Makhnovists to appear somewhere else. Hulyai Pole changed hands on a couple of occasions. The Bolsheviks did not use local troops in this campaign, due to fear of fraternisation. In addition, they used "new tactics," and "attacked not only Makhno's partisans, but also the villages and towns in which the population was sympathetic toward Makhno. They shot ordinary soldiers as well as their commanders, destroying their houses, confiscating their properties and persecuting their families. Moreover the Bolsheviks conducted mass arrests of innocent peasants who were suspected of collaborating in some way with the partisans. It is impossible to determine the casualties involved." They also set up "Committees of the Poor" as part of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus, which acted as "informers helping the Bolshevik secret police in its persecution of the partisans, their families and supporters, even to the extent of hunting down and executing wounded partisans." [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 212-3]
In addition to this suffering, the Bolshevik decision to attack Makhno rather than push into the Crimea was also to prolong the civil war by nine more months. The Whites re-organised themselves under General Wrangel, who began a limited offensive in June. Indeed, the Bolshevik "policy of terror and exploitation turned almost all segments of Ukrainian society against the Bolsheviks, substantially strengthened the Makhno movement, and consequently facilitated the advance of the reorganised anti-Bolshevik force of General Wrangel from the Crimea into South Ukraine, the Makhno region." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214]
It was widely believed on the White side that Makhno was ready to co-operate with them and, desperate for men, Wrangel decided to appeal to the Makhnovists for an alliance. Their response was simple and direct, they decided to immediately execute his delegate and publish both his letter and a response in the Makhnovist paper "The Road to Freedom." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 60] Of course, this did not stop the Bolsheviks later claiming such an alliance existed.
At a general assembly of insurgents, it was decided that "the destruction of Wrangel" would "eliminate a threat to the revolution" and so free "all of Russia" from "the counter-revolutionary barrage." The mass of workers and peasants "urgently needed an end to all those wars" and so they proposed "to the Communists that hostilities between them and the Makhnovists be suspended in order that they might wipe out Wrangel. In July and August, 1920, telegrams to this effect were sent to Moscow and Kharkov." There was no reply and the Bolsheviks "continued their war against the Makhnovists, and they also continued their previous campaign of lies and calumnies against them." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 176]
In July and August the Makhnovists went on the offensive, raiding the Bolsheviks in three provinces and attacking the infrastructure of the Red Army. Wrangel began another offensive in September, driving the Red Army back again and again and threatening the Makhnovist area. Faced with Wrangel's success, the Bolsheviks started to rethink their position on Makhno, although on the 24th of September the Bolshevik commander-in-chief Kamenev was still declaring the need for "the final liquidation of the Makhno band." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 62] A few days later, the Bolsheviks changed their mind and negotiations began.
By October 1920 the success of the Wrangel offensive was again forcing the Bolsheviks and Makhnovists to put aside their differences and take on the common enemy. An agreement was reached and on October 2nd, Frunze, the new Red Army commander of the Southern Front, ordered a cessation of hostilities against the Makhnovists. A statement from the Soviet of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovists) explained the treaty as necessitated by the White offensive but also representing a victory over the "high-handed communists and commissars" in forcing them to recognise the "free insurrection." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 64]
The agreement was signed between October 10th and 15th. It consisted of two parts, a Political and a Military agreement (see section 13 for full details). The Political agreement simply gave the Makhnovists and anarchists the rights they should have had according to the Soviet Constitution. The Military agreement resulted in the Makhnovists becoming part of the Red Army, keeping their established internal structure and, significantly, stopped them from accepting into their ranks any Red Army detachments or deserters therefrom. According to Bolshevik sources, "there was never the slightest intention on the Bolshevik side of keeping to the agreement once its military value had passed." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 296]
Even before the agreement came into effect, the Makhnovists were fighting alongside the Bolsheviks and between October 4 and 17, Hulyai Pole was retaken by the Aleksandrovsk group, which included 10,000 Makhnovista. On October 22, Aleksandrovsk was taken with 4,000 white prisoners and from then to early November the Makhnovists cut through Wrangel's rear, hoping to cut off his retreat by seizing the Crimean passes. The Whites fought a skilful rearguard which together with the new White fortifications on the peninsula held up the advance. But by the 11th, his hold in the Crimea gone, Wrangel had no choice but to order a general retreat to the ports and an evacuation. Even the Bolsheviks had to acknowledge that the "Makhnovist units fulfilled their military tasks with no less heroism than the Red Army units." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 69]
On hearing this success on 16th November, the reaction of the Makhnovista still at Hulyai Pole was cynical but realistic: "It's the end of the agreement. I'll bet you anything that the Bolsheviks will be on us within the week." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 70] They were not wrong. Already Frunze, the Red Army commander, had ordered two cavalry armies to concentrate near Hulyai Pole at the same time as he ordered the Makhnovist forces to the Caucasus Front. By 24th November Frunze was preparing for the treachery to come, in Order 00149 (which was not sent to the Makhnovist units) saying if they had not departed to the Caucasus front by the 26th "the Red regiments of the front, who have now finished with Wrangel, will start speaking a different language to these Makhnovist youths." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 71]
Of course this treachery went right to the top, just before the 26th "deadline" (which Makhno, not having seen the orders, was unaware of), Lenin urged Rakovski, head of the Ukrainian government to "[k]eep a close watch on all anarchists and prepare documents of a criminal nature as soon as possible, on the basis of which charges can be preferred against them." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 71] Indeed, it later appeared the treachery had been prepared from at least 14th or 16th November, as prisoners captured later stated that was when they had received undated anti-Makhnovist proclamations. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 71]
At 3am on the 26th the attacks on the Makhnovists started. Makhnovist commanders were lured to a meeting by the Bolsheviks, seized and shot. Some Makhnovist forces managed to break through the encircling Bolsheviks but only after taking heavy losses -- of the 2,000 to 4,000 cavalry at Simferopol, only 250 escaped. By the 1st December, Rakovsi reported the imminent demise of the Makhnovists to the Kharkiv soviet only to have to eat his words when Makhno routed the 42nd division on the 6th, taking Hulyai Pole and 6,000 prisoners, of whom 2,000 joined his forces. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 72] Simultaneously with the attack on the Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks rounded up all known anarchists in the Ukraine (many of whom were in Kharkiv waiting for a legally organised Nabat conference to begin).
In the resulting struggle between the two forces, as Palij notes, the "support of the population was a significant advantage to Makhno, for they supplied the partisans with needed material, including horses and food, while the Red troops operated among a foreign and hostile people." The Bolsheviks found that the peasants not only refused to supply them with goods, they also refused to answer their questions or, at best, gave answers which were vague and confusing. "In contrast to the Bolsheviks, Makhno partisans received detailed, accurate information from the population at all times." [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 236-7]
Frunze brought in extra forces and ordered both the "annihilation of the Makhnovists" and total disarming of the region. Plagued by desertions, it was also ordered that all Makhnovist prisoners were to be shot, to discourage the local population and Red Army soldiers thinking of joining them. There is also evidence of unrest in the Azov fleet, with acts of sabotage being carried out by sailors to prevent their weapons being used against the Makhnovists. While it was common practice for the Bolsheviks to shoot all Makhnovist prisoners, the "existence of roundup detachments at the end of 1920, whose task was to re-collect prisoners freed by the Makhnovists" shows that the Makhnovists did not reciprocate in kind. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 73 and p. 129]
At the end of 1920, the Makhnovists had ten to fifteen thousand troops and the "growing strength of the Makhno army and its successes caused serious concern in the Bolshevik regime, so it was decided to increase the number of troops opposing Makhno." All the pressure exerted by the Bolsheviks was paying off. Although Makhno repeatedly broke through numerous mass encirclements and picked up deserters from the Red Army, his forces were being eroded by the far greater numbers employed against them. In addition, "the Red command worked out new plans to fight Makhno by stationing whole regiments, primarily cavalry, in the occupied villages, to terrorise the peasants and prevent them from supporting Makhno . . . Also the Cheka punitive units were constantly trailing the partisans, executing Makhno's sympathisers and the partisans' families." In spite of the difficult conditions, Makhno was still able to attract some Red Army soldiers and even whole units to his side. For example, "when the partisans were fighting Budenny's Fourth Cavalry Division, their First Brigade, commanded by Maslak, joined Makhno." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 237, p. 238 and p. 239]
Makhno was forced to leave his home areas of operations and flee east, then west again. By early January his forces had fought 24 battles in 24 days. This pattern continued throughout March and April into May. In June, the Bolsheviks changed their strategy to one of predicting where Makhno was heading and garrisoning troops in that area. In one battle on 15 June, Frunze himself was almost captured. Despite this, the insurgents were very weak and their peasant base was exhausted by years of war and civil war. In the most sympathetic areas, Red Army troops were garrisoned on the peasants. Thus Palij:
"[T]hrough combat losses, hardship, and sickness, the number of Makhno partisans was diminishing and they were cut off from their main sources of recruits and supplies. The Ukrainian peasants were tried of the endless terror caused by successive occupation of village after village by the Red troops and the Cheka. The continuous fighting and requisitions were leaving the peasants with little food and horses for the partisans. They could not live in a state of permanent revolution. Moreover, there was extreme drought and consequently a bad harvest in Ukraine, especially in the region of the Makhno movement." [Op. Cit., pp. 240-1]
The state terrorism and the summer drought caused Makhno to give up the struggle in mid-August and instead fight his way to the Dniester with the last of his forces and cross into Romania on August 26. Some of his forces which stayed behind were still active for a period.
For more details of the history of the movement, Michael Malet's Nestor Makhno in the Russian Revolution is an excellent summary. Michael Palij's The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno is also worth consulting, as are the anarchist histories of Voline and Arshinov.
Being influenced by anarchist ideas, the Makhnovists were organised along libertarian lines. This meant that in both civilian and military areas, self-management was practised. Here we discuss the military organisation, while the next section discusses the social aspect of the movement.
By practising self-management, the Makhnovists offered a completely different model of military organisation to that of the Red Army and the traditional military forces upon which the Red Army was modelled. While the army structure changed depending on its circumstances, the core ideas remained. These were as follows:
"The Makhnovist insurrectionary army was organised according to three fundamental principles: voluntary enlistment, the electoral principle, and self-discipline.
"Voluntary enlistment meant that the army was composed only of revolutionary fighters who entered it of their own free will.
"The electoral principle meant that the commanders of all units of the army, including the staff, as well as all the men who held other positions in the army, were either elected or accepted by the insurgents of the unit in question or by the whole army.
"Self-discipline meant that all the rules of discipline were drawn up by commissions of insurgents, then approved by general assemblies of the various units; once approved, they were rigorously observed on the individual responsibility of each insurgent and each commander." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 96]
Voline paints a similar picture. He also notes that the electoral principle was sometimes violated and commanders appointed "in urgent situations by the commander himself," although such people had to be "accepted without reservation" by "the insurgents of the unit in question or by the whole army." [Op. Cit., p. 584]
Thus the Makhnovist army, bar some deviation provoked by circumstances, was a fundamentally democratic organisation. The guerrillas elected the officers of their detachments, and, at mass assemblies and congresses, decided policy and discipline for the army. In the words of historian Michael Palij:
"As the Makhno army gradually grew, it assumed a more regular army organisation. Each tactical unit was composed of three subordinate units: a division consisted of three brigades; a brigade, of three regiments; a regiment, of three battalions. Theoretically commanders were elected; in practice, however, the top commanders were usually carefully selected by Makhno from among his close friends. As a rule, they were all equal and if several units fought together the top commanders commanded jointly. The army was nominally headed by a Revolutionary Military Council of about ten to twenty members . . . Like the commanders, the council members were elected, but some were appointed by Makhno . . . There also was an elected cultural section in the army. Its aim was to conduct political and ideological propaganda among the partisans and peasants." [Op. Cit., pp. 108-9]
The Revolutionary Military Council was elected and directly accountable to the regional workers, peasants and insurgent congresses. It was designed to co-ordinate the local soviets and execute the decisions of the regional congresses. Hence Voline:
"This council embraced the whole free region. It was supposed to carry out all the economic, political, social and military decisions made at the congress. It was thus, in a certain sense, the supreme executive of the whole movement. But it was not at all an authoritarian organ. Only strictly executive functions were assigned to it. It confined itself to carrying out the instructions and decisions of the congress. At any moment, it could be dissolved by the congress and cease to exist." [Op. Cit., p. 577]
As such, when Palij notes that this council "had no decisive voice in the army's actions," he misses the point of the council. [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 109] It did not determine the military affairs of the army, but rather the interaction of the military and civilians and made sure that the decisions of congresses were executed. Thus the whole army was nominally under the control of the regional congresses of workers, peasants and insurgents. At these congresses, delegates of the toiling people decided upon the policy to be pursued by the Makhnovist Army. The Revolutionary Military Soviet existed to oversee that decisions were implemented, not to determine the military activities of the troops.
It should also be noted that women not only supported the Makhnovists, they also "fought alongside the men." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 145] However, "the participation of women in the movement (by all accounts, quite substantial)" needs "further investigation." [Serge Cipko, "Nestor Makhno: A Mini-Historiography of the Anarchist Revolution in Ukraine, 1917-1921," pp. 57-75, The Raven, no. 13, p. 75]
At its height, the army was made up of infantry, cavalry, artillery, machine-gun units, and special branches, including a counter-intelligence service (the kontrrazvedka). The latter, as well as protecting the lives of leading Makhnovists from enemy assassins, had the following tasks: "(a) not to allow agents or enemy armies to infiltrate Makhnovist ranks (b) to be fully conversant with the enemy's deployments and military plans (c) to maintain ongoing liaison between the isolated detachments of the insurgent army: in times of military operations, its members participated in engagements alongside other insurgents." [Alexandre Skirda, Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack, p. 329] As the success of partisan warfare depends upon mobility, the army gradually mounted its infantry in light carts (called "tachanka") during 1918-19. As Michael Malet notes, this was a "novel tactic" and Makhno "could be described as the inventor of the motorised division before the car came into general use." [Op. Cit., p. 85] The tachanka was used to transport as many troops as possible, giving the Makhnovists mobile infantry which could keep up with the cavalry. In addition, a machine-gun was sometimes mounted in the rear (in autumn 1919, the 1st machine-gun regiment consisted of 120 guns, all mounted on tachanki).
For the most part the Makhnovist army was a volunteer army, unlike all others operating in the Russian Civil War. However, at times of crisis attempts were made to mobilise troops. For example, the Second regional congress agreed that a "general voluntary and equalitarian mobilisation" should take place. This meant that this appeal, "sanctioned by the moral authority of the congress, emphasised the need for fresh troops in the insurrectionary army, no-one was compelled to enlist." [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 577] The Congress itself passed a resolution after a long and passionate debate that stated it "rejected 'compulsory' mobilisation, opting for an 'obligatory' one; that is, each peasant who is able to carry arms, should recognise his obligation to enlist in the ranks of the partisans and to defend the interests of the entire toiling people of Ukraine." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 155] There were far more volunteers than arms, the opposite of what occurred to both the Reds and Whites during the Civil War. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 106]
The third Congress decided to conduct a voluntary mobilisation all those born between 1889 and 1898. This congress told them to assemble at certain points, organise themselves and elect their officers. Another mobilisation decided at the Aleksandrovsk congress never took place. How far the Makhnovists were forced to conscript troops is still a matter of debate. Paul Avrich, for example, states that "voluntary mobilisation" in reality "meant outright conscription, as all able-bodied men were required to serve." [Op. Cit., p. 114] On the other side, surviving leaflets from 1920 "are in the nature of appeals to join up, not instructions." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 105] Trotsky, ironically, noted that "Makhno does not have general mobilisations, and indeed these would be impossible, as he lacks the necessary apparatus." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 106] It is probably right to say that the Congresses desired that every able-bodied man join the Makhnovist army, but they simply did not have the means to enforce that desire and that the Makhnovists tried their best to avoid conscription by appealing to the peasants' revolutionary conscience, with some success. In addition, as Michael Malet noted: "It may rather be, as the Bolshevik historian Kubanin suggests, that Makhno was shrewd enough to realise that conscripts would stand a better chance of survival if taken prisoner by the Whites." [Op. Cit., p. 27]
As well as the military organisation, there was also an explicitly anarchist federation operating in the Ukraine at the same time. The first conference to organise a "Confederation of Anarchist Organisations of the Ukraine" was held between November 12th to 16th, 1918. The new federation was named Nabat (Alarm) and had a six-person Secretariat. Kharkiv was chosen as its headquarters, while it had groups in other major Ukrainian cities (including Kyiv, Odessa and Katerynoslav). The final organisation of the Nabat was accomplished at a conference held in April 2-7, 1919. The federation aimed to form a "united anarchism" and guaranteed a substantial degree of autonomy for every participating group and individual. A number of newspapers appeared in Ukrainian towns and cities (mostly entitled Nabat), as did leaflets and pamphlets. There was a main weekly paper (called Nabat) which was concerned largely with anarchist theory. This complemented the Makhnovist papers Road to Freedom (which was often daily, sometimes weekly, and dealt with libertarian ideas, everyday problems and information on partisan activities) and The Makhnovist Voice (which dealt primarily with the interests, problems, and tasks of the Makhnovist movement and its army). The Nabat organisation was also published a pamphlet dealing with the Makhnovist movement's problems, the economic organisation of the region, the free soviets, the social basis of the society that was to be built, and the problem of defence.
Unsurprisingly, the Nabat federation and the Makhnovists worked together closely, with Nabat members worked in the army (particularly its cultural section). Some of its members were also elected to the Makhnovist Revolutionary Military Soviet. It should be noted that the Nabat federation gained a number of experienced anarchists from Soviet Russia, who fled to the Ukraine to escape Bolshevik repression. The Nabat shared the fortunes of the Makhno movement. It carried on its work freely as long as the region was controlled by the Makhnovist Army, but when Bolshevik or White forces prevailed, the anarchists were forced underground. The movement was finally crushed in November 1920, when the Bolsheviks betrayed the Makhnovists.
As can be seen, the Makhnovists implemented to a large degree anarchist ideas of self-managed, horizontally federated associations (when possible, of course). Both the two major organisational layers to the Makhnovist structure (the army and the congresses) were federated horizontally and the "top" structure was essentially a mass peasant, worker and guerrilla decision-making coalition. In other words, the masses took decisions at the "top" level that the Revolutionary Military Soviet and the Makhnovist army were bound to follow. The army was answerable to the local Soviets and to the congresses of soviets and, as we discuss in section 7, the Makhnovists called working-people and insurgent congresses whenever they could.
The Makhnovist movement was, fundamentally, a working class movement. It was "one of the very few revolutionary movements to be led and controlled throughout by members of 'the toiling masses.'" [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 245] It applied its principles of working class autonomy and self-organisation as far as it could. Unlike the Red Army, it was predominantly organised from the bottom up, rejecting the use of Tsarist officers, appointed commanders, and other "top-down" ways of the Red Army (see section 14 for further discussion of the differences between the two forces).
The Makhnovist army was not by any means a perfect model of anarchist military organisation. However, compared to the Red Army, its violations of principle are small and hardly detract from their accomplishment of applying anarchist ideas in often extremely difficult circumstances.
Yes, they did. The Makhnovists spent a great deal of energy and effort in developing, propagating and explaining their ideas on how a free society should be created and run. As Michael Malet noted, the "leading Makhnovists had definite ideas about the ideal form of social organisation." [Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War, p. 107] Moreover, as we discuss in the next section, they also successfully applied these ideas when and where they could.
So what was their social programme? Being anarchists, it comprised two parts, namely political and economic aspects. The Makhnovists aimed for a true social revolution in which the working classes (both urban and rural) could actively manage their own affairs and society. As such, their social programme reflected the fact that oppression has its roots in both political and economic power and so aimed at eliminating both the state and private property. The core of their social ideas was the simple principle of working-class autonomy, the idea that the liberation of working-class people must be the task of the working-class people themselves. This vision is at the heart of anarchism and was expressed most elegantly by Makhno:
"Conquer or die -- such is the dilemma that faces the Ukrainian peasants and workers at this historic moment . . . But we will not conquer in order to repeat the errors of the past years, the error of putting our fate into the hands of new masters; we will conquer in order to take our destinies into our own hands, to conduct our lives according to our own will and our own conception of the truth." [quoted by Peter Arshinov, The History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 58]
As such, the Makhnovists were extremely hostile to the idea of state power, recognising it simply as a means by which the majority are ruled by the few. Equally, they were opposed to wage slavery (to private or state bosses), recognising that as long as the workers do not manage their own work, they can never be free. As they put it, their goals could only be achieved by an "implacable revolution and consistent struggle against all lies, arbitrariness and coercion, wherever they come from, a struggle to the death, a struggle for free speech, for the righteous cause, a struggle with weapons in hand. Only through the abolition of all rulers, through the destruction of the whole foundation of their lies, in state affairs as well as in political and economic affairs. And only through the social revolution can the genuine Worker-Peasant soviet system be realised and can we arrive at SOCIALISM." ["Who are the Makhnovists and what are they fighting for?", contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 273] They, like other anarchists and the Kronstadt rebels, termed this programme of working class self-management the "third revolution.". To quote the "Draft Declaration of the (Makhnovist) revolutionary insurgent army of Ukraine":
"In February-March 1917, Russia and Ukraine experienced the First Revolution, which led to the fall of Tsarist autocracy and brought about the advent of a State political power comprised at first of personages from the big industrial bourgeoisie and then of representatives of the small and medium bourgeoisie . . . these authorities which had nothing in common with the interests and aspirations of toilers . . . the necessity of a Second Revolution was apparent. This took place at the end of October and paved the way for seizure of State power by the Bolshevik Social Democrat party . . . it very quickly became apparent that this party ad this State power -- just like any party and all State power -- functioned only for themselves and turned out to be utterly powerless to achieve the great objectives of the social revolution: by virtue of that very fact they were a hindrance to the free creative activity of the. toiling masses who alone were capable of tackling this task. It is self-evident that in controlling the whole of economic and social life, any State power inevitably gives rise to new political and economic privileges and undermines the very foundations of social revolution . . . The Third Revolution stood against the attempt to restore the old regime . . . The unraveling of the revolution has convinced us beyond all question that no political party and no State authority is capable of resolving the great issues of our day, or of re-launching and organizing the country's devastated economy while stimulating and meeting the needs of the toiling masses . . . all the toiling classes will arrive at the same conclusion and that they themselves will see to the organizing of their professional, economic, social and cultural lives on the basis of free principles, dispensing with the oversight, pressure and dictatorship of any personage, party or power whatever.
"We declare that the popular insurgent movement presently developing in Ukraine represents the start of the great Third Revolution which will once and for all free the toiling masses of all oppression by State and Capital, be it private or statist . . . once toilers have the freedom required to determine their fate for themselves, they will naturally and inevitably, the vast majority of them, move towards realization of genuinely communist social principles. We reckon that only the toiling masses have the capacity to enact these principles, provided that they have access to the completest freedom of socio-economic creation" [contained in Alexandre Skirda, Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack, pp. 368-371]
We will discuss the political aspect of the Makhnovist programme first, then its economic one. However, the Makhnovists considered (correctly) that both aspects could not be separated. As they put it: "We will not lay down our arms until we have wiped out once and for all every political and economic oppression and until genuine equality and brotherhood is established in the land." ["A Word from the Makhnovists to the Laboring Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban", contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 281] We split the aspects simply to aid the presentation of their ideas.
At the core of their ideas was what they termed the "Free Soviet System" (or "free soviets" for short). It was this system which would allow the working class to create and run a new society. As they put it:
"once the Bolshevik tyrants are expelled, we have no intention of giving anyone whatsoever authority over us because we Makhnovists realise that the working people are no longer a flock of sheep to be ordered about by anyone. We consider the working people capable of building, on their own and without parties, commissars or generals, their own FREE SOVIET SYSTEM, in which those who are elected to the Soviet will not, as now [under the Bolsheviks], command and order us, but on the contrary, will be only the executors of the decisions made in our own workers' gatherings and conferences." ["A Word from the Makhnovists to the Laboring Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban", Op. Cit., pp. 280-1]
Thus the key idea advocated by the leading Makhnovista for social organisation and decision-making was the "free toilers' soviet of peasant and worker organisations." This meant they were to be independent of all central authority and composed of those who worked, and not political parties. They were to federate on a local, then regional and then national level, and power within the federation was to be horizontal and not vertical. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 107] Such a system was in opposition to the Bolshevik practice of Soviets defined and dominated by political parties with a vertical decision- making structure that reached its highest point in the Bolshevik Central Committee.
Thus, for the Makhnovists, the soviet system would be a "bottom-up" system, one designed not to empower a few party leaders at the centre but rather a means by which working people could manage their own affairs. As they put it, the "soviet system is not the power of the social-democratic Communist-Bolsheviks who now call themselves a soviet power; rather it is the supreme form of non-authoritarian anti-state socialism, which expresses itself in the organisation of a free, happy and independent system of social life for the working people." This would be based on the "principles of solidarity, friendship and equality." This meant that in the Makhnovist system of free soviets, the "working people themselves must freely choose their own soviets, which will carry out the will and desires of the working people themselves, that is to say, ADMINISTRATIVE, not ruling soviets." ["Who are the Makhnovists and what are they fighting for?", Op. Cit., pp. 272-3]
As David Footman summarises, Makhno's "ultimate aims were simple. All instruments of government were to be destroyed. All political parties were to be opposed, as all of them were working for some or other form of new government in which the party members would assume the role of a ruling class. All social and economic affairs were to be settled in friendly discussion between freely elected representatives of the toiling masses." [Op. Cit., p. 247]
Hence the Makhnovist social organisation was a federation of self-managed workers' and peasants' councils (soviets), which would carry out the decisions made by workers' conferences. In other words, an anarchist system based on mass assemblies and decision-making from the bottom up.
Economically, as is to be expected given anarchist ideas, the Makhnovists opposed private property, capitalism and wage-slavery. Their economic ideas were summarised in a Makhnovist declaration as follows:
"The lands of the service gentry, of the monasteries, of the princes and other enemies of the toiling masses, with all their livestock and goods, are passed on to the use of those peasants who support themselves solely through their own labour. This transfer will be carried out in an orderly fashion determined in common at peasant assemblies, which must remember in this matter not only each of their own personal interests, but also bear in mind the common interest of all the oppressed, working peasantry.
"Factories, workshops, mines and other tools and means of production become the property of the working class as a whole, which will run all enterprises themselves, through their trade unions, getting production under way and striving to tie together all industry in the country in a single, unitary organisation." ["Declaration of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovists)", contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 266]
They continually stressed that the "land, the factories, the workshops, the mines, the railroads and the other wealth of the people must belong to the working people themselves, to those who work in them, that is to say, they must be socialised." ["Who ae the Makhnovists and what are they fighting for?", Op. Cit., p. 273] This meant a system of use-rights, as "the land, the mines, the factories, the workshops, the railroads, and so on, will belong neither to individuals nor to the government, but solely to those who work with them." ["A Word from the Makhnovists to the laboring Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban", Op. Cit., p. 281]
In industry, such a system clearly meant worker's self-management within a system of federated factory committees or union branches. On the land, it meant the end of landlordism, with peasants being entitled to as much land and equipment as they could cultivate without the use of wage-labour. This, as Michael Malet stressed, was the "key factor", namely "that no peasant should have more land than he and his family could farm without the use of hired labour." [Op. Cit., p. 118] As a Makhnovist congress in 1919 resolved:
"The land question should be decided on a Ukraine-wide scale at an all-Ukrainian congress of peasants on the following basis: in the interests of socialism and the struggle against the bourgeoisie, all land should be transferred to the hands of the toiling peasants. According to the principle that 'the land belongs to nobody' and can be used only by those who care about it, who cultivate it, the land should be transferred to the toiling peasantry of Ukraine for their use without pay according to the norm of equal distribution." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 155]
In addition to advocating the abolition of private property in land and the end of wage labour by distributing land to those who worked it, the Makhnovists also supported the forming of communes. Like their policy of land distribution, it also aimed to "benefit the poor peasants rather than the rich". The commune was a voluntary association of rural workers who took over an expropriated estate and worked it in common, "organised from the bottom up, not the top down." [Malet, Op. Cit., pp. 120-1] The commune was managed by a general meeting of all its members and based on the liberty, equality and solidarity of its members.
So, in terms of their economic policies, the Makhnovists proposed a clear and viable alternative to both rural and urban capitalism, namely workers' self-management. Industry and land would be socialised, with the actual management of production resting in the hands of the workers themselves and co-ordinated by federated workers' organisations. On the land, as well as land reform to abolish wage-labour, they proposed the creation of voluntary communes which would enable the benefits of co-operative labour to be applied. Like their political ideas, their economic ideas were designed to ensure the freedom of working people and the end of hierarchy in all aspects of society.
In summary, the Makhnovist had a constructive social ideas which aimed to ensure the total economic and political emancipation of the working people. Their vision of a free society was based on a federation of free, self-managed soviets, the socialisation of the means of life and workers' self-management of production by a federation of labour unions or factory committees. As the black flags they carried into battle read, "Liberty or Death" and "The Land to the Peasants, the Factories to the Workers." [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 610]
Yes, the Makhnovists consistently applied their political and social ideas when they had the opportunity to do so. Unlike the Bolsheviks, who quickly turned away from their stated aims of soviet democracy and workers' control in favour of dictatorship by the Bolshevik party, the Makhnovists did all in their power to encourage, create and defend working-class freedom and self-management (see section 14 for further discussion). In the words of historian Christopher Read:
"there can be no question that the anarchists did everything they could to free the peasants and workers and give them the opportunity to develop their own forms of collective control over land and factories . . . [T]he Ukrainian anarchists fought under the slogan of land to the peasants, factories to the workers and power to the soviets. Wherever they had influence they supported the setting up of communes and soviets. They introduced safeguards intended to protect direct self-government from organised interference . . . They conducted relentless class war against landlords, officers, factory owners and the commercial classes could expect short shrift from Makhno and his men, especially if they had taken up arms against the people or, like the Whites . . ., had been responsible for looting, pogroms and vicious reprisals against unarmed peasants on a colossal scale." [From Tsar to Soviets, p. 263]
As we discussed in the last section, the core ideas which inspired the Makhnovists were working-class self-determination and self-management. They aimed at the creation of a "free soviet system" and the end of capitalism by rural and industrial self-management. It is to the credit of the Makhnovists that they applied these ideas in practice rather than talking about high principles and doing the exact opposite. Yet, ss Voline pointed out, one of the key disadvantages of the movement was the "almost continual necessity of fighting and defending itself against all kinds of enemies, without being able to concentrate on peaceful and truly positive works." [The Unknown Revolution, p. 571] However, in the disruption of the Civil War the Makhnovists applied their ideas when and where they could.
Within the army, as we discussed in section 5, the insurgent troops elected their own commanders and had regular mass assemblies to discuss policy and the agreed norms of conduct within it. In civilian matters, the Makhnovists from the start encouraged working-class self-organisation and self-government. By late 1917, in the area around Hulyai Pole "the toiling masses proceeded . . . to consolidate their revolution. The little factories functioned . . . under the control of the workers. The estates were split up . . . among the peasants . . . a certain number of agricultural communes were formed." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 248]
The aim of the Makhnovists was to "transfer all the lands owned by the gentry, monasteries, and the state into the hands of peasants or to organise, if they wished, peasant communes." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 70] By the autumn of 1917, all land, equipment and livestock around Hulyai Pole had been expropriated from the gentry and kulaks and placed in the hands of working peasants. Land reform had been achieved by the direct action of the peasantry. However, "many of the peasants understood that the task was not finished, that it was not enough to appropriate a plot of land and be content with it. From the hardships of their lives they learned that enemies were watching from all sides, and that they must stick together. In several places there were attempts to organise social life communally." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 86] So, in line with social anarchist theory, alongside land reform the Makhnovists tried to introduce collective forms of farming, called communes. Despite the difficult military situation communes were established, principally near Hulyai Pole, in the autumn of 1917. This activity was resumed in February to March of 1918. They re-appeared in early 1919, once the threat of counter-revolution had been (temporarily) defeated.
There were four of these communes within five miles of Hulyai Pole itself and many more further afield. According to Makhno, these agricultural communes "were in most cases organised by peasants, though sometimes their composition was a mixture of peasants and workmen [sic!]. Their organisation was based on equality and solidarity of the members. All members of these communes -- both men and women -- applied themselves willingly to their tasks, whether in the field or the household." Importantly, "any members of the commune who wanted to cook separately for themselves and their children, or to take food from the communal kitchens and eat it in their own quarters, met with no objection from the other members." The management of each commune "was conducted by a general meeting of all its members." [quoted by Paul Avrich, Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, pp. 131] In addition, the communes decided to introducing anarchist schooling based on the ideas of Franciso Ferrer (see section J.5.13 for details). Makhno himself worked on one for two days a week for a period.
They were set up on the former estates of landlords, and consisted of around 10 families (or 100 to 300 people) and although each had peasant anarchist members not all the members were anarchists. Makhno worked on Commune No. 1, which was on the estate of former landlord Klassen. When re-founded in 1919 this commune was named after Rosa Luxemburg, the Marxist revolutionary who had recently been murdered in the German revolution. It was a success, for by the spring sowing it had grown from nine families to 285 members working 340 acres of land. The communes represented a way that poor and middle peasants could pool resources to work estates that they could not have worked otherwise and, as Michael Malet points out, "they were organised from the bottom up, not the top down." [Op. Cit., p. 121]
However, as Makhno himself acknowledged, while the "majority of the toiling population saw in the organisation of rural communes the healthy germ of a new social life" which could provide a "model of a free and communal form of life," the "mass of people did not go over to it." They cited as their reasons "the advance of the German and Austrian armies, their own lack of organisation, and their inability to defend this order against the new 'revolutionary' [Bolshevik] and counter-revolutionary authorities. For this reason the toiling population of the district limited their revolutionary activity to supporting in every way those bold springs." [quoted by Avrich, Op. Cit., p. 132] Given that the communes were finally destroyed by White and Red forces in June 1919, their caution was justified. After this, peace did not return long enough for the experiment to be restarted.
As Michael Malet argues: "Very few peasant movements in history have been able to show in practice the sort of society and type of landholding they would like to see. The Makhnovist movement is proof that peasant revolutionaries can put forward positive, practical ideas." [Op. Cit., p. 121]
The Makhnovists also applied their ideas in any cities they liberated. Anarchist participant Yossif the Emigrant stated that it was "Makhno's custom upon taking a city or town to call the people together and announce to them that henceforth they are free to organise their lives as they think best for themselves. He always proclaims complete freedom of speech and press; he does not fill the prisons or begin executions, as the Communists do." He stressed it was "the expression of the toilers themselves" and "the first great mass movement that by its own efforts seeks to free itself from government and establish economic self-determination. In that sense it is thoroughly Anarchistic." [Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth, pp. 193-5] Arshinov paints a similar picture:"As soon as they entered a city, they declared that they did not represent any kind of authority, that their armed forces obliged no one to any sort of obligation and had no other aim than to protect the freedom of the working people. The freedom of the peasants and the workers, said the Makhnovists, resides in the peasants and workers themselves and may not be restricted. In all fields of their lives it is up to the workers and peasants themselves to construct whatever they consider necessary. As for the Makhnovists -- they can only assist them with advice, by putting at their disposal the intellectual or military forces they need, but under no circumstances can the Makhnovists prescribe for them in any manner." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 148]
In addition, the Makhnovists "fully applied the revolutionary principles of freedom of speech, of thought, of the press, and of political association. In all cities and towns occupied by the Makhnovists, they began by lifting all the prohibitions and repealing all the restrictions imposed on the press and on political organisations by one or another power." The "only restriction that the Makhnovists considered necessary to impose on the Bolsheviks, the left Socialist-Revolutionaries and other statists was a prohibition on the formation of those 'revolutionary committees' which sought to impose a dictatorship over the people." They also took the opportunity to destroy every prison they got their hands on, believing that free people "have no use for prisons" which are "always built only to subjugate the people, the workers and peasants." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 153, p. 154 and p. 153] In addition, the Makhnovists encouraged self-management. Looking at Aleksandrovsk:
"They immediately invited the working population to participate in a general conference of the workers of the city. When the conference met, a detailed report was given on the military situation in the region and it was proposed that the workers organise the life of the city and the functioning of the factories with their own forces and their own organisations, basing themselves on the principles of labour and equality. The workers enthusiastically acclaimed all these suggestions; but they hesitated to carry them out, troubled by their novelty, and troubled mainly by the nearness of the front, which made them fear that the situation of the town was uncertain and unstable. The first conference was followed by a second. The problems of organising life according to principles of self-management by workers were examined and discussed with animation by the masses of workers, who all welcomed these ideas with the greatest enthusiasm, but who only with difficulty succeeded in giving them concrete forms. Railroad workers took the first step in this direction. They formed a committee charged with organising the railway network of the region . . . From this point, the proletariat of Aleksandrovsk began to turn systematically to the problem of creating organs of self-management." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 149]
Voline was the chair of a conference in Alexandrovsk and he likewise recounted how the Makhnovists"invited the working population to participate in a general conference of the workers of the city" and "proposed that the workers organise the life of the liberated region themselves, that is to say reconstruct their organisation that had been destroyed by the reaction; get the factories and shops back into production as soon as possible, organise Consumers' Co-operatives, get together right away with the peasants of the surrounding countryside and establish direct and regular relations between the workers' and peasants' organisations for the purpose of exchanging products, etc." A second conference took place at which the "problems of organising life according to the principles of self-administration by the workers were examined and discussed with animation." A "Commission of Initiative" was formed, "composed of delegates of several active labour unions. The conference would give this Commission the task of working out a project for immediate action. Several members of the railway-men's and the shoemakers' unions declared that they were ready to organise immediately this Commission of Initiative which would proceed to create the indispensable workers' organs, to reactivate, as quickly as possible, the economic and social life of the region. The Commission went energetically to work. Soon the railway workers got the trains running again, several factories reopened their doors, several unions were re-established, etc." [Op. Cit., pp. 632-3]
Unfortunately, the Makhnovists occupied only two cities (Alexandrovsk for four weeks and Katerinoslav for two periods of one and five weeks respectively). As a rule the Makhnovist rank and file had little or no experience of life in the cities and this placed severe limits on their ability to understand the specific problems of the workers there. In addition, the cities did not have a large anarchist movement, meaning that the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks had more support then they did. Both parties were, at best, neutral to the Makhnovists and anarchists, so making it likely that they would influence the city workers against the movement. As Voline noted, the "absence of a vigorous organised workers' movement which could support the peasant insurgents" was a disadvantage. [Op. Cit., p. 571] However, as noted, there were minor successes in both cities. In Alexandrovsk, some trains were got running and a few factories reopened. In Katerinoslav (where the city was under a state of siege and constant bombardment by the Whites), the tobacco workers won a collective agreement that had long been refused and the bakers set themselves to preparing the socialisation of their industry and drawing up plans to feed both the army and the civilian population. Unsurprisingly, the bakers had long been under anarcho-syndicalist influence. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 124]
As well as implementing their economic ideas on workers' self-management, land reform and free communes, the Makhnovists also organised regional congresses as well as local soviets. Most of the activity happened in and around Hulyai Pole, the focal point of the movement. This was in accord with their vision of a "free soviet system." Needless to say, the congresses could only be called during periods of relative calm (i.e. the Makhnovist home area was not occupied by hostile forces) and so congresses of insurgents, peasants and workers were called in early 1919 and another in October of that year. The actual dates of the regional congresses were:
23 January 1919 at Velyka Mykhailivka
12 February 1919 at Hulyai Pole
10 April 1919 at Hulyai Pole
20 October 1919 at Aleksandrovsk
A congress for the fifteenth of June 1919 never met because Trotsky unilaterally banned it, under pain of death to anyone even discussing it, never mind calling for it or attending as a delegate. Unlike the third congress, which ignored a similar ban by Dybenko, the fourth congress could not go ahead due to a treacherous attack by the Red Army. Four Makhnovist commanders were executed by the Red Army for advertising this congress. Another congress planned for Aleksandrovsk in November 1920 was also prevented by Bolshevik betrayal, namely the attack after Wrangel had been defeated. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 108]
The reason for these regional congresses was simple, to co-ordinate the revolution. "It was indispensable," Arshinov notes, "to establish institutions which unified first a district composed of various villages, and then the districts and departments which composed the liberated region. It was indispensable to find general solutions for problems common to the entire region. It was indispensable to create organs suitable for these tasks. And the peasants did not fail to create them. These organs were the regional congresses of peasants and workers." [Op. Cit., pp. 87-8] These congresses "were composed of delegates of peasants, workers and of the insurgent army, and were intended to clarify and record the decisions of the toiling masses and to be regarded as the supreme authority for the liberated area." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 266]
The first congress, which was the smallest, discussed the strengthening of the front, the adoption of a common nomenclature for popular organisations (soviets and the like) and to send a delegation to convince the draftees in the Nationalist forces to return home. It was also decided to organise a second congress. The second congress was larger, having 245 delegates from 350 districts. This congress "was strongly anti-Bolshevik and favoured a democratic socio-political way of life." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 153] One delegate made the issue clear:
"No party has a right to usurp governmental power into its own hands . . . We want life, all problems, to be decided locally, not by order from any authority above; and all peasants and workers should decide their own fate, while those elected should only carry out the toilers' wish." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154]
A general resolution was passed, which acknowledged the fact that the Bolshevik party was "demanding a monopoly of the Revolution." It also stated that "[w]ith deep regret the Congress must also declare that apart from external enemies a perhaps even greater danger, arising from its internal shortcomings, threatens the Revolution of the Russian and Ukrainian peasants and workers. The Soviet Governments of Russia and of the Ukraine, by their orders and decrees, are making efforts to deprive local soviets of peasants and workers' deputies of their freedom and autonomy." [quoted by Footman, Op. Cit., p. 267]
As noted in section 5, the congress also decided to issue an "obligatory" mobilisation to gather troops for the Army. It also accepted a resolution on land reform, stating that the land "belongs to nobody" and could be used by anyone as long as they did not use wage labour. It accepted a resolution against plunder, violence, and pogroms, recognising anti-Semitism as an attempt by the Tsarist government to "turn the attention of all toiling people away from the real reason for their poverty," namely the Tsarist regime's oppression. [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 155] It also elected the Revolutionary Military Soviet of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents, which had "no powers to initiate policy but designed merely to implement the decisions of the periodic congresses." [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 267]
The third congress was the largest and most representative, with delegates from 72 volosts (in which two million people lived). This congress aimed to "clarify the situation and to consider the prospects for the future of the region." It decided to conduct a voluntary mobilisation of men to fight the Whites and "rejected, with the approval of both rich and poor peasants, the Bolshevik expropriations." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 158] Toward the end of the congress, it received a telegram from the Bolshevik commander Dybenko calling it "counter-revolutionary," its organisers "outlaws" and dissolving it by his order. The congress immediately voted an indignant resolution in rely. This corrected Dybenko's factual mistakes on who called it, informed him why it was called, gave him a history lesson on the Makhnovist region and asked him:
"Can there exist laws made by a few people who call themselves revolutionaries which permit them to outlaw a whole people who are more revolutionary than they are themselves? . . .
"Is it permissible, is it admissible, that they should come to the country to establish laws of violence, to subjugate a people who have just overthrown all lawmakers and all laws?
"Does there exist a law according to which a revolutionary has the right to apply the most severe penalties to a revolutionary mass, of which he calls himself the defender, simply because this mass has taken the good things which the revolution promised them, freedom and equality, without his permission?
"Should the mass of revolutionary people perhaps be silent when such a revolutionary takes away the freedom which they have just conquered?
"Do the laws of the revolution order the shooting of a delegate because he believes he ought to carry out the mandate given him by the revolutionary mass which elected him?
"Whose interests should the revolutionary defend; those of the Party or those of the people who set the revolution in motion with their blood?" [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 103]
The last congress was held between 20th and 26th of October in Aleksandrovsk. One delegate was to be elected per 3000 people and one delegate per military unit. This gave 270 mostly peasant delegates. Only 18 were workers, of which 6 were Mensheviks, who walked out after Makhno called them "lapdogs of the bourgeoisie" during the discussion on "free socio-economic organisations"! [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 109] The congress passed a number of resolutions, concentrating on the care of the wounded and the poorest part of the population, a voluntary mobilisation, voluntary peasant contributions to feed the army and forced levies on the bourgeoisie. According to Voline, the chairman, Makhnovist ideas were freely discussed:
"The idea of free Soviets, genuinely functioning in the interests of the working population; the question of direct relationships between peasants and city workers, based on mutual exchange of the products of their labour; the launching of a libertarian and egalitarian social organisation in the cities and the country; all these question were seriously and closely studied by the delegates themselves, with the assistance and co-operation of qualified comrades." [Op. Cit., p. 640]
He notes that the congress "decided that the workers, without any authority, would organise their economic, political and administrative life for themselves, by means of their own abilities, and through their own direct organs, united on a federative basis." [Op. Cit., p. 641]
It is significant to note that the congress also discussed the activities of the Makhnovists within the city itself. One delegate raised the issue of the activities of the Kontrrazvedka, the Makhnovist counter-intelligence unit. As noted in section 5, the Makhnovists, like all the armies in the Russian Civil War, had its counter-intelligence service. It combined a number of functions, such as military reconnaissance, arrest and holding of prisoners, counter-insurgency ("Originally it had a punitive function, but because of improper treatment of prisoners of war, it was deprived of its punitive function." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 300]). The delegate stated that this "counter-espionage service" was engaged in "arbitrary acts and uncontrolled actions -- of which some are very serious, rather like the Bolshevik Cheka." [quoted by Voline, Op. Cit., p. 643] Immediately a commission of several delegates was created to investigate the situation. Voline argues that "[s]uch an initiative on the part of workers' delegates would not have been possible under the Bolshevik regime. It was by activity of this kind that the congress gave a preview of the way in which a society should function from the beginning if it is based on a desire for progress and self-realisation." [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 643] Sadly, the commission could not complete its work due to the city being evacuated soon after the congress but the very fact it was agreed and set-up is significant and, as Voline indicates, contrasts with the unaccountable nature of the Cheka used by the Bolshevik dictatorship.
Another incident shows that under the Makhnovists the civilian population was in control. A delegate noted that Klein, the Makhnovist military commander in the city, had become publicly and riotously drunk after issuing proclamations against drunkenness. Klein was called before the congress, which accepted his apology and his request to be sent to the front, away from the boredom of desk work which had driven him to drink. This, according to Voline, showed that the workers and their congress were the masters and the army its servant. [Voline, Op. Cit., pp. 645-7]
Outside of the congresses, the work of local Soviets was to be co-ordinated through the Revolutionary Military Soviet (RMS), the first RMS was set up by the 2nd congress and consisted of one delegate for each of the 32 volsts the Makhnovista had liberated. The RMS was limited to implementing the decisions of congresses and answerable to them, but the difficult military situation meant the latter seldom happened (although it should be stressed that the 3rd Congress had no problems with its actions in the previous period). After the Aleksandrovsk congress, the RMS consisted of 22 delegates including three Bolsheviks and four known Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks considered the remaining delegates "all peasants - anarchists or anarchist sympathisers". [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 111] The military chaos of 1920 saw the RMS dissolved and replaced by the Soviet of Revolutionary Insurgents of the Ukraine, which consisted of seven members elected by the insurgent army. Its secretary was a left Social Revolutionary. Theses bodies, in addition to making decisions between Congresses, carried out propaganda work including the editing of the Makhnovist paper "The Road to Freedom" and collected and distributed money.
The various soviets and conferences under Makhnovist protection were made up of working people: "Only labourers who are contributing work necessary to the social economy should participate in the soviets. Representatives of political organisations have no place in worker-peasant soviets, since their participation in a workers' soviet will transform the latter into deputies of the party and can lead to the downfall of the soviet system." ["Declaration of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist)", contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 266] As we discuss in section 15, this position has been distorted by defenders of the Bolshevik regime to suggest that members of political parties were banned from participation. This is easily debunked by simply noting that the Makhnovist Revolutionary Military Soviet (RMS) created at the Aleksandrovsk congress in late 1919 had three Communists elected to it while the congress itself had 18 delegates from workers bodies of which 6 were Mensheviks and the remaining 12 included Bolsheviks [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 111 and p. 124] Left Social-Revolutionaries were also involved, with three elected to the RMS while the Second Regional Congress had Left-SRs at it. Thus ""the movement's political complexion was not confined to the black of Anarchy but also took in the whole spectrum of the far left of the day: Left Social Revolutionaries, Maximalists, Bolsheviks at odds with the party and even 'non-party,' all united on a basis of free soviets." Ironically, given later Leninist claims, the "Bolsheviks also bemoaned the growing influence of anarchists over the insurgent movement, and more so, the presence of a rather sizable group of Left SRs (who had been accepted by the insurgents only on the basis of the fight against the Whites and for the power of the free soviets)." [Skirda, p. 411, p. 365, p. 5 and pp. 90-1]
Clearly, members of political parties were elected to free soviets, congresses and other bodies. The claims otherwise, when not issued in bad faith, may be based on a lack of understanding of how the Russian soviets were structured and elected. Unlike the soviets from the 1905 revolution, those in 1917 allowed "various parties and other organisations to acquire voting representation in the soviet executive committees." Indeed, this was "often how high party leaders became voting delegates to" such bodies. It should "be underlined that these party delegates were selected by the leadership of each political organisation, and not by the soviet assembly itself. In other words, these executive committee members were not directly elected by the representatives of the producers" (never mind by the producers themselves). [Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, p. 31] Thus representatives of political parties rather than working people existed in the non-Makhnovist Soviets. Then there is the use of party-lists which ensured that non-workers were elected as so-called "delegates" from a workplace. This lead to the (farcical) situation of leading leading left-wing Menshevik Julius Martov defeating Lenin in a soviet election in a chemical factory in early 1920. [Israel Getzler, Martov, p. 202] Neither of these two party intellectuals could know and reflect the concerns and interests of the workers they were meant to be the delegate of. Rather, they would be representatives of their party. Originally, the soviets were the elected delegates of working people in a given workplace or village and this was what the Makhnovists wished to maintain. This did not, as can be seen, mean any such delegate could not be a member of a political party, simply that they had to work with the people who elected them.
Needless to say, such critics of the Makhnovists also fail to stress that the Bolshevik policy since at least 1919 was not in favour of free multi-party soviet elections but rather party dictatorship. Opposition parties were sometimes tolerated but the regime had long assured itself a monopoly of power by packing -- and when that failed, dissolving -- soviets while shifting power from the assemblies into executive bodies above them (see section H.6.1). The Makhnovists rejected this -- as shown by the words of Red Army soldiers who defeated to them in the summer of 1910: "Because they conduct an implacable fight against the wealthy and the lords; because they stand for free union and soviets among the workers and peasants, without the dictatorship of any party; because they fight so that the workshops, factories, and land may pass into the hands of the workers and peasants; because the Makhnovists fight for all these goals, we also find ourselves at their side because of these very same aspirations, we, yesterday's Red soldiers and today's free revolutionaries." [quoted by Skirda, Op. Cit., p. 183]
Clearly, whenever they could, the Makhnovists practised their stated goals of working-class self-management and supported the organisational structures to ensure the control of and participation in the social revolution by the toiling masses. Equally, when they liberated towns and cities they did not impose their own power upon the working-class population but rather urged it to organise itself by setting up soviets, unions and other forms of working-class power. They urged workers to organise self-management of industry. True to the anarchist vision of a free society, they advocated and practised freedom of assembly, speech and organisation. In the words of historian Christopher Read:
"Makhno's Insurgent Army . . . was the quintessence of a self-administered, people's revolutionary army. It arose from the peasants, it was composed of peasants, it handed power to the peasants. It encouraged the growth of communes, co-operatives and soviets but distrusted all permanent elites attempting to take hold within them. It would be foolish to think that Makhno was supported by every peasant or that he and his followers could not, on occasions, direct their cruelty towards dissidents within their own ranks, but, on the whole, the movement perhaps erred on the side of being too self-effacing, of handing too much authority to the population at key moments." [From Tsar to Soviets, p. 260]
As such, Makhnovist practice matched its theory. This can be said of few social movements and it is to their credit that this is the case.
According to Trotsky (and, of course, repeated by his followers), "Makhno created a cavalry of peasants who supplied their own horses. These were not the downtrodden village poor whom the October revolution first awakened, but the strong and well-fed peasants who were afraid of losing what they had. The anarchist ideas of Makhno (ignoring of the state, non-recognition of the central power) corresponded to the spirit of this kulak cavalry as nothing else could." He asserted that the Makhnovist struggle was not the anarchist struggle against the state and capitalism, but rather "a struggle of the infuriated petty property owner against the proletarian dictatorship." The Makhno movement, he stressed, was just an example of the "convulsions of the peasant petty bourgeoisie which desired, of course, to liberate itself from capital but at the same time did not consent to subordinate itself to the dictatorship of the proletariat." [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 80, p. 89 and pp. 89-90]
Unfortunately for those who use this kind of argument against the Makhnovists, it fails to stand up to any kind of scrutiny. Ignoring the sophistry of equating the Bolshevik party's dictatorship with the "dictatorship of the proletariat," we can easily refute Trotsky's somewhat spurious argument concerning the background of the Makhnovists.
Firstly, however, we should clarify what is meant by the term "kulak." According to one set of Trotskyist editors, it was "popularly used to refer to well-to-do peasants who owned land and hired poor peasants to work it." ["Glossary," Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 146] The term itself derives from the Russian for "fist," with appropriate overtones of grasping and meanness. In other words, a rural small-scale capitalist (employer of wage labour and often the renter of land and loaner of money as well) rather than a well-off peasant as such. Trotsky, however, muddies the water considerably by talking about the "peasant petty bourgeoisie" as well. Given that a peasant is "petty" (i.e. petit) bourgeois (i.e. own and use their own means of production), Trotsky is blurring the lines between rural capitalist (kulak) and the middle peasantry, as occurred so often under Bolshevik rule.
Secondly, we could just point to the eyewitness accounts of the anarchists Arshinov and Voline. Both stress that the Makhno movement was a mass revolutionary movement of the peasant and working poor in the Southern Ukraine. Arshinov states that after Denikin's troops had been broken in 1919, the Makhnovists "literally swept through villages, towns and cities like an enormous broom" and the "returned pomeshchiks [landlords], the kulaks , the police, the priests" were destroyed, so refuting the "the myth spread by the Bolsheviks about the so-called kulak character of the Makhnovshchina." Ironically, he states that "wherever the Makhnovist movement developed, the kulaks sought the protection of the Soviet authorities, and found it there." [Op. Cit., p. 145] Yossif the Emigrant, another anarchist active in the movement, said that while there was a "kulak" element within it, "the great majority are not of that type." [quoted by Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth, p. 187] According to Gallina Makhno (Makhno's wife), when entering a town or village it was "always Makhno's practice to compel the rich peasants, the kulaki , to give up their surplus wealth, which was then divided among the poor, Makhno keeping a share for his army. Then he would call a meeting of the villagers, address them on the purposes of the povstantsi [partisan] movement, and distribute his literature." [Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 149]
However, this would be replying to Trotsky's assertions with testimony which was obviously pro-Makhnovist. As such, we need to do more than this, we need to refute Trotsky's assertions in depth, drawing on as many non-anarchist sources and facts as possible.
The key to refuting Trotsky's argument that the Makhnovists were just kulaks is to understand the nature of rural life before and during 1917. Michael Malet estimates that by 1917, the peasantry could be divided into three broad categories. About 40 percent could no longer make a living off their land or had none, another 40 per cent who could make ends meet, except in a bad year, and 20 per cent who were relatively well off, with a fraction at the very top who were very well off. [Op. Cit., p. 117] Assuming that "kulak" simply meant "rich" or "well-off" peasant, then Trotsky is arguing that the Makhnovist movement represented and was based on this top 20 per cent -- figures which, we must stress, reflect the situation before the sweeping social and economic changes which took place during the revolution. However, if we take the term "kulak" to mean "small rural capitalist" (i.e. employer of wage labour) then this figure would be substantially smaller as few within this group would employ hired labour or rent land. In fact, the percentage of peasant households in Russia employing permanent wage-labour was 3.3% in 1917, falling to 1% in 1920. [Teodor Shanin, The Awkward Class, p. 171]
During 1917, the peasants all across the Russian Empire took back the land stolen by the landlords. This lead to two developments.
First, there was a "powerful levelling effect" in rural life. [Shanin, Op. Cit., p. 159] The Stalinist British economist Maurice Dobb recounted that as "an average for the whole country, the land in the use of the peasantry rose from 70 per cent. of the whole cultivated area to 96 per cent. In the Ukraine the increase was from 56 per cent. to 96 per cent., and in some regions the latter figure reached almost 100 per cent. . . . this land reform . . . cement[ed] the proletarian-peasant alliance in the November Revolution placed agricultural production under the almost complete control of small producers". The Kulaks "though influential were no more than a minority of the village population" while "the mass of the middle peasantry . . . constituted the majority in the countryside and . . . since the agrarian revolution formed the backbone of agricultural economy." [Maurice Dobb, Soviet economic development since 1917, p. 81 and p. 105] "Official statistics", Skirda notes, "offer the following figures for the distribution of land among the peasantry: In 1917, 71 percent of peasants worked less than four hectares, while 25 percent had between four and ten hectares, and just 3.7 percent owned more than ten hectares; by 1920, these same categories of peasants amounted respectively to 85 percent, 15 percent, and 0.5 percent of the whole.[187] So it is quite obvious that even in 1917 the number of well-off peasants - and that only comparatively and according to Bolshevik definitions - was quite small, while by 1920 it had become quite negligible." [Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack, p. 173] Given this, it is obvious that "Makhnovist support came from a wide spectrum of peasant opinion, but neither the mass support of 1918 and 1919, nor the continued military and provisioning sustenance of 1920 and 1921 could have come from as narrow a base as Trotski suggests, and he is but the earliest Soviet propagandist to put this view . . . the Makhnovist movement could hardly have lasted for four years supported by, at most, 20 per cent of the population". [Malet, Op. Cit., pp. 117-9]
Second, the peasants would only support those who supported their aspirations for land reform (which was why the Bolsheviks effectively stole the Socialist-Revolutionary land policy when they took power in 1917). The Ukraine was no different. In 1917 the class structure in the countryside changed when the Hulyai Pole peasants were amongst the first to seize the landlords' land. In August 1917 Makhno assembled all the landed gentry ("pomeshchiks") of the region "and made them give him all the documents relating to lands and buildings." After making an exact inventory of all this property and presenting a report to the local and then district congress of soviets, he "proceeded to equalise the rights of the pomeshchiks and kulaks with those of the poor peasant labourers in regard to the use of the land . . . the congress decided to let the pomeshchiks and kulaks have a share of the land, as well as tools and livestock, equal to that of the labourers." Several other peasant congresses nearby followed this example and adopted the same measure. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 53-4]
Most of this land, tools and livestock was distributed to poor peasants, the rest was used to set up voluntary communes where the peasants themselves (and not the state) self-managed the land. Thus the peasants' "economic conditions in the region of the Makhno movement were greatly improved at the expense of the landlords, the church, monasteries, and the richest peasants." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214] This redistribution was based on the principle that every peasant was entitled to as much land as their family could cultivate without the use of hired labour. In other words, the kulaks by the usual definition of hirers of wage-workers disappeared completely as a result of the social revolution which occurred across Russia. This did not mean complete equality in terms of income was achieved but it did mean the end of capitalist and feudal class social relations. The Bolshevik regime, in comparison, did not pursue income equality (they introduced varying levels of rations, ignoring the corruption associated with their ever-increasing bureaucracy) whilst maintaining bourgeois social-relations by means of imposing one-man management and turning workers into wage-workers of the state (state-capitalism).
Significantly, figures provided by a Bolshevik account indicates that "of 265 Makhnovist insurgents, 117 had no land at all, either because they had been farm laborers before the revolution or because they had been workers, or because the Reds had confiscated their land; 91 insurgents worked a plot of less than four hectares - an area regarded as the minimum necessary to support a household - and only 57 owned larger tracts.' Such evidence invalidates the description 'kulak' as applied to the movement by Trotsky and the official authorities and instead backs up Makhno’s claims about the poor peasant profile of the movement." [Skirda, Op. Cit., p. 310]
The Makhnovist policy of land reform based on the abolition of wage labour was, as we noted in section 7, the position agreed at the second regional congress called in 1919. The Makhnovists specifically argued with regards to the kulaks:
"We are sure that . . . the kulak elements of the village will be pushed to one side by the very course of events. The toiling peasantry will itself turn effortlessly on the kulaks, first by adopting the kulak's surplus land for general use, then naturally drawing the kulak elements into the social organisation." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., pp. 118-9]
As such, when Trotsky talks about the "downtrodden village poor whom the October revolution first awakened," he is wrong. In the area around Hulyai Pole it was not the October revolution which "first awakened" them into action, it was the activities of Makhno and the anarchists during the summer and autumn of 1917 which had done that (or, more correctly, it was their activities which aided this process as the poor peasants and landless workers needed no encouragement to expropriate their exploiters).
Needless to say, this land redistribution reinforced Makhno's popularity with the people and was essential for the army's later popularity and its ability to depend on the peasants for support. However, the landlords and richer kulaks did not appreciate it and, unsurprisingly, tried to crush the movement when they could. Once the Austro-Germans invaded, the local rich took the opportunity to roll back the social revolution and the local pomeshchiks and kulaks formed a "special volunteer detachment" to fight Makhno once he had returned from exile in July 1918. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 59]
This system of land reform did not seek to divide the village. Indeed, the Makhnovist approach is sometimes called the "united village" theory. Rather than provoke unnecessary and damaging conflict behind the frontlines, land reform would be placed in the hands of the village community, which would ensure that even the kulaks would have a fair stake in the post-revolutionary society as everyone would have as much land as they could till without using hired labour. The Bolshevik policy, as we will see, aimed at artificially imposing "class conflict" upon the villages from without and was a disaster as it was totally alien to the actual socio-economic situation. Unsurprisingly, peasant communities as a whole rose up against the Bolsheviks all across Russia. It should also never be forgotten that "Bolshevik land policy in 1919 and 1920 was a disaster" and "[e]ven if Makhnovist ideas had not appealed to the vast majority of the peasants, they would hardly have turned to the prejudiced and mistaken views of the Bolsheviks, let alone those of the Whites." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 117 and p. 118]
As such, the claim that the Makhnovists were simply "kulaks" (or "objectively kulak") is false as it fails to, firstly, acknowledge the actual pre-revolutionary composition of the peasantry and, secondly, to understand the social-revolution that had happened in the region of Hulyai Pole in and after 1917 and, thirdly, totally ignores the actual Makhnovist position on land reform. As Michael Malet argues, the Bolsheviks "totally misconstrued the nature of the Makhno movement. It was not a movement of kulaks, but of the broad mass of the peasants, especially the poor and middle peasants." [Op. Cit., p. 122]
This was sometimes acknowledged by Bolsheviks themselves, with one acknowledging in 1920 that in 1919 Makhno "was a real peasant idol, an expression of all peasant spontaneity against . . . Communists in the cities and simultaneously against city capitalists and landowners. In the Makhno movement it is difficult to distinguish where the poor peasant begins [and] the 'kulak' ends. It was a spontaneous peasant movement . . . In the village we had no foothold, there was not one element with which we could join that would be our ally in the struggle against the bandits [sic!]." According to a Soviet author present at the Makhnovist regional congresses on January 23 and February 12 "[i]n 1919 when I asked the chairman of the two Congresses (a Jewish farmer) whether the 'kulaks' were allowed to participate in the Congress, he angrily responded: 'When will you finally stop talking about kulaks? Now we have no kulaks among us: everybody is tilling as much land as he wishes and as much as he can.'" [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 157 and p. 293]
According to Christian Rakovskii, the Bolshevik ruler of Ukraine, "three-fourths of the membership of the [partisan] bands were poor peasants." He presented a highly original and inventive explanation of this fact by arguing that "rich peasants stayed in the village and paid poor ones to fight. Poor peasants were the hired army of the kulaks." [Vladimir N. Brovkin, Behind the Front the Lines of the Civil War, p. 112 and p. 328] Needless to say, few modern-day Leninists repeat this particular line these days.
Trotsky (himself the son of a rich peasant family) acknowledged the reality of the movement in 1919: "The liquidation of Makhno does not mean the end of the Makhnovschyna, which has its roots in the ignorant popular masses." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 122]
Ultimately, all sources (including Bolshevik ones) accept that in the autumn of 1919 (at the very least) Makhno's support was overwhelming and came from all sections of the population. The Makhnovist land policy reflected this mass support and was based on ensuring land was available to all who could work it by their own labour, without the hiring of wage-workers. If this is a "kulak" policy then so was the land policy decreed by the Bolsheviks after they seized power in 1917 (although, it should be noted that this "simply legally sanctioned the takeover of the land already carried out by the peasants. In no way did it reflect the actual policies of . . . the Bolsheviks" [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 133]).
Even ignoring the fact there was a social revolution and the eye-witness Bolshevik accounts which contradict Trotsky's assertions (including his own), Trotsky can be faulted for other reasons.
The most important issue is simply that the Makhnovist movement could not have survived four years if (at most) 20 per cent of the population supported it. As Christopher Read notes, when the Makhnovists were "in retreat they would abandon their weapons and merge with the local population. The fact that they were able to succeed shows how closely they were linked with the ordinary peasants because such tactics made Makhno's men very vulnerable to informers. There were very few examples of betrayal." [Op. Cit., p. 260] If Makhno's social base was as weak as claimed there would have been no need for the Bolsheviks to enter into alliances with him, particularly in the autumn of 1920 when the Makhnovists held no significant liberated area. Even after the defeat of Wrangel and the subsequent Bolshevik betrayal and repression, Makhno's mass base allowed him to remain active for months. Indeed, it was only when the peasants themselves had become exhausted in 1921, due to worsening economic conditions and state repression, were the Makhnovists finally forced into exile.
It could be argued that the Bolsheviks managed to maintain their regime in spite of lack of popular support. This is true but to do so they had to build a massive, centralised bureaucratic state and create special bodies of armed men, separate from the people, to do so. There is no record of Makhnovist forces putting down uprisings of peasants nor strikes by workers as the Bolsheviks repeatedly did (see section H.6.3 on Bolshevik repression of proletarian protest). Given this, unsurprisingly as regards Makhno, in the attempt to "eradicate his influence in the countryside" the Bolsheviks "by weight of numbers and consistent ruthlessness they achieved a partial success." This was done by state terrorism: "On the occupation of a village by the Red Army the Cheka would hunt out and hang all active Makhnovist supporters; an amenable Soviet would be set up; officials would be appointed or imported to organise the poor peasants . . . and three or four Red militia men left as armed support for the new village bosses." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 292]
Moreover, in these "military operations the Bolsheviks shot all prisoners. The Makhnovists shot all captured officers unless the Red rank and file strongly interceded for them. The rank and file were usually sent home, though a number volunteered for service with the Insurgents. Red Army reports complain of poor morale . . . The Reds used a number of Lettish and Chinese troops to decrease the risk of fraternisation." [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 293] If the Makhnovists were made up of kulaks, why would the Bolsheviks fear fraternisation? Equally, if the Makhnovists were "kulaks" then how could they have such an impact on Red Army troops (who were mostly poor peasants)? After all, Trotsky had been complaining that "Makhnovism" had been infecting nearby Red Army troops and in August 1919 was arguing that it was "still a poison which has infected backward units in the Ukrainian army." In December 1919, he noted that "disintegration takes place in unstable units of our army when they came into contact with Makhno's forces." It seems unlikely that a movement made up of "kulaks" could have such an impact. Moreover, as Trotsky noted, not all Makhnovists were anarchists, "some of them wrongly regard themselves as Communists." Again, why would people who regarded themselves as Communists join a movement of "kulaks"? [How the Revolution Armed, vol. II, p. 367, p. 110 and p. 137]
In addition, it seems highly unlikely (to say the least) that a movement which is alleged to be either made up of, or supported by, the kulaks could have had a land policy which emphasised and implemented an equal share for the poorest peasantry, not just of land but also of live and dead stock as well as opposing the hiring of labour. This fact is reinforced when we look at the peasant reaction to the Bolshevik (and, presumably, anti-kulak and pro-"downtrodden village poor") land policy. Simply put, their policies resulted in massive peasant unrest directed against the Bolsheviks.
The Bolshevik land decrees of the 5th and 11th of February, 1919, stated that large landlord holdings would become state farms and all stock was to be taken over by the Ministry of Agriculture, with only between one third and one half of the land being reserved for poor peasants. This was "largely irrelevant, since the peasantry had expected, and in some cases already controlled, all of it. To them, the government was taking away their land, and not seizing it from the landlords, then keeping some of it and handing the rest over to its rightful owners." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 134] Thus the land was to expropriated by the state, not by the peasants, so creating a rural form of the state-capitalism the Bolsheviks had imposed upon the industrial workers. The result of this policy soon became clear:
"The Bolsheviks expropriation policy was countervailed by the peasants' resistance based upon their assumption that 'the land belongs to nobody . . . it can be used only by those who care about it, who cultivate it.' Thus the peasants maintained that all the property of the former landlords was now by right their own. This attitude was shared not only by the rich and middle peasants but also the poor and landless, for they all wished to be independent farmers. The poorer the areas, the more dissatisfied were the peasants with the Bolshevik decrees.
"Thus Communist agricultural policy and terrorism brought about a strong reaction against the new Bolshevik regime. By the middle of 1919, all peasants, rich and poor, distrusted the Bolsheviks." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 156]
The Bolshevik inspired Poor Peasant Committees were "associated with this disastrous policy, were discredited, and their reintroduction would need the aid of troops." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 135] The Makhnovists, in contrast, did not impose themselves onto the villages, nor did they attempt to tell the peasants what to do and how to divide the land. Rather they advocated the formation of Free Soviets through which these decisions could be made. This, along with their support for land reform, helped them win and keep mass support.
After evacuating the Ukraine in mid-1919 due to the success of Denikin's counter-revolution, the Ukrainian Communists took time to mull over what had happened. The Central Committee's November 1919 resolution on the Ukraine "gave top priority to the middle peasant -- so often and so conveniently lumped in together with the kulak and dealt with accordingly -- the transfer of landlord land to the poor peasants with only minimum exceptions for state farms." These points were the basis of the new Ukrainian land law of 5th of February, 1920. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 135] This new law reflected long standing Makhnovist theory and practice. Therefore, the changing nature of Bolshevik land policy in the Ukraine indicates that Trotsky's claims are false. The very fact that the Bolsheviks had to adjust their policies in line with Makhnovist theory indicates that the later appealed to the middle and poor peasants.
Equally, it seems strange that the "kulaks" who allegedly dominated the movement should have let themselves be led by poor peasants and workers. Voline presents a list of some of the participants of the movement and the vast majority are either peasants or workers. [Op. Cit., pp. 688-91] As historian Michael Palij notes, "[a]lmost to a man, they [the Makhnovist leadership] were of poor peasant origin, with little formal education." [Op. Cit., p. 254] Exceptions to the general rule were usually workers. Most were Anarchists or Socialist-Revolutionaries. [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 254-62]
Of course, it can be argued that the leadership of a movement need not come from the class which it claims to lead. The leadership of the Bolsheviks, most pertinently, had very few actual proletarians within it. However, it seems unlikely that a class would select as its leaders members of the population it exploited. Equally, it seems as unlikely that poor peasants and workers would let themselves lead a movement of kulaks, whose aims would be alien to theirs. After all, poor peasants would seek land reform while kulaks would view this as a threat to their social position. As can be seen from the Makhnovist land policy, they argued for and implemented radical land reform, placing the land into the hands of peasants who worked it without hiring labour. This, in addition, reflected long standing anarchist and populist ideas as well as being the basis of the Bolshevik land policy announced after the October Revolution 1917 (albeit appropriated from the populists rather than reflecting previous Bolshevik ideology).
As regards Trotsky's argument that the Makhnovists had to be kulaks because they originally formed a cavalry unit, it is easy to refute. Makhno himself was the son of poor peasants, an agricultural labourer and a worker in a factory. He was able to ride a horse, so why could other poor peasants not do so? Ultimately, it simply shows that Trotsky knew very little of Ukrainian peasant life and society.
Given that the Bolshevik government was meant to be a "worker-peasant" power, it seems strange that Trotsky dismisses the concerns of the peasantry so. He should have remembered that peasant uprisings against the Bolshevik government occurred constantly, forcing them (eventually) to, first, recognise the false nature of their peasant policies in 1919 and, second, to introduce the NEP in 1921 (which, ironically, allowed hired labour and so ensuring the re-introduction of the kulaks). As such, it seems somewhat ironic for Trotsky to attack the Makhnovists for not following flawed Bolshevik ideology as regards the peasantry.
The Bolsheviks, as Marxists, saw the peasants as "petit bourgeoisie" and uninterested in the revolution except as a means to grab their own plot of land. Their idea of land collectivisation was limited to state ownership. The initial Bolshevik land strategy can be summed up as mobilising the poor peasantry against the rest on the one hand and mobilising the city worker against the peasants (through forced grain confiscation) on the other. The lack of knowledge of peasant life was the basis of this policy, which was abandoned in 1919 when it was soon proven to be totally wrong -- not least because rather than see wealth extremes rise, the 1917 revolution saw a general levelling.
So, as regards the peasantry, here as elsewhere the Bolsheviks claimed their strategy was the objectively necessary one in the circumstances. Here again the Makhnovists demonstrate this to be false, as the Bolsheviks themselves acknowledged in practice by changing their agricultural policies and bringing them closer to the Makhnovist position.
Clearly, both factually and logically, Trotsky's arguments are false. Ultimately, like most Bolsheviks, Trotsky uses the term "kulak" as a meaningless term of abuse, with no relation to the actual class structure of peasant life. It simply means a peasant opposed to the Bolsheviks rather than an actual social strata. Essentially, he is using the standard Leninist technique of specifying a person's class (or ideas) based on whether they subscribe to (or simply follow without question) Leninist ideology (see section H.2.12 for further discussion of this). This explains why the Makhnovists went from being heroic revolutionaries to kulak bandits (and back again) depending on whether their activity coincided with the needs of Bolshevik power or not. Expediency is not a sound base to build a critique, particularly one based simply on assertions like Trotsky's.
No, they were not. Anyone who claims that the Makhnovist movement was anti-Semitic or conducted pogroms against Jews simply shows ignorance or a desire to deceive. As we will show, the Makhnovists were both theoretically and practically opposed to anti-Semitism and pogroms.
Unsurprisingly, many Leninists slander the Makhnovists on this score. Trotsky, for example, asserted in 1937 that Makhno's followers expressed "a militant anti-Semitism." [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 80] Needless to say, the Trotskyist editors of the book in question did not indicate that Trotsky was wrong in the accusation. In this way a slander goes unchecked and becomes "accepted" as being true. As the charge of "militant anti-Semitism" is a serious one, so it is essential that we (unlike Trotsky) provide evidence to refute it.
To do so we will present a chronological overview of the evidence against it. This will result in some duplication as well as lengthy quotations, however it is unavoidable. We are sorry to labour this point, but this allegation is sadly commonplace and it is essential to refute it fully.
We begin with Jewish anarchist Alexander Berkman who addressed the issue in 1922 an article with the significant title "Some Bolshevik lies about the Russian Anarchists", written shortly after he had left Bolshevik Russia. He categorically rejects the claim that the Makhno or the Makhno movement were anti-Semitic or progomist:
"it is infamy to call Makhno a pogromstchik (attacking and murdering Jews). The Russian Bolsheviki themselves had repeatedly hailed Makhno as a true revolutionist and a great military hero - whenever their relations were friendly, of course. In October 1920, the Bolshevik Government made an official political and military agreement with Makhno and his army. Do the Communists of Europe and America mean to say that Lenin would enter into agreements with a pogromstchik? There were, indeed, isolated cases of pogroms made by some otryads (military detachments) of the Makhno army. Such things happen in every army. Was not the Red Army guilty of such incidents? Was it not a frequent practice of the famous cavalry of Budenny, of the Red Army, to make bloody pogroms upon Jews? Were not several regiments of Budenny's army cashiered, punished, and a number of his soldiers even shot for it, as late as March, 1921? Was not Melnichansky, a prominent Communist and former President of all the Labour Unions of the Moscow district, specially rushed South with a large party of other Communists to investigate the pogrom activities of the army of Budenny? This is known to everyone in Russia who kept in touch with events. I was friendly with Melnichansky, and he personally corroborated all the facts to me. But because every army necessarily has scoundrels, brutes, and Jew-baiters, there is no reason to blame the whole army for the evil deeds of some part of it. I should certainly not say that Trotsky is a pogromstchik because Budenny's army, or some other parts of the Red Army, were guilty of pogroms. Yet this is exactly what the Communists do when they call Makhno a pogromstchik. As a matter of fact, there were, as I have already stated, very few pogroms, and of very insignificant extent, committed by the otryade of Makhno. Many pogroms made in the Ukraina by the "Zeleny" and other counter-revolutionary bands were often ascribed to the Makhno army. But investigation proved in 99 cases out of every hundred that the Makhno army had not even been in the neighbourhood at the time. Makhno is an Anarchist, and it is a historic fact that he and his staff kept up a continuous propaganda and agitation against religious and nationalistic superstitions and prejudices. Jew-baiting was punished severely in his army. The punishment for pogroming was death by the sword, always. Thus, for instance, in the case of the pogrom in the Jewish Colony of Garkoy (Alexandrovsky uyezd), where on May 12th, 1919, several Jewish families were killed. The Makhno staff appointed a Commission of investigation, which found that the Jews were killed by certain peasants of the village Uspenovka. Though those peasants were not members of the Makhno army, they were sentenced to death for the pogrom. More such facts could be related which prove the attitude of Makhno and his army against pogroms. A significant case is on record, showing Makhno's personal feeling in the matter.
"It was on the 4th or 5th of May, 1919, when Makhno, accompanied by several members of the military staff, hurried from the front to Gulyai-Pole (generally the headquarters of the Makhno army), to meet in conference with L. Kameneff, the special representative of the Republic, and some members of the Bolshevik Government of Kharkov. At the station called Verkhny Takmak, Makhno suddenly noticed a big poster on the wall, which read: 'Kill the Jews! Save Russia! Long live Batka Makhno!' Makhno halted. He sent for the station-master, and found that the latter himself had put up the poster. The stationmaster proved to be a former povstanetz (peasant rebel) who had fought against Denikin. Makhno shot him on the spot.
"In my collection of Makhno posters, proclamations, handbills, etc., there are numerous appeals of Makhno to the Ukrainian peasantry to respect and protect the Jews against hooliganism. In the Makhno army itself there were Jews, and some of them were the close personal friends of Makhno, members of the Executive Committee of the Revolutionary Soviet, of the Educational Department, and so forth. In conclusion, on this point, it is enough to remember that everybody in Russia knows the story of Ataman Grigorieff, leader of a large army of povstantzi. Grigorieff wanted to add his forces to the Army of Makhno. A mass meeting was called, middle of July, 1919, in a village near the town of Alexandria, province of Kherson. Grigorieff, with a part of his army, was present, as well as the peasantry of the provinces of the neighbourhood. If was at the time of the zenith of Ataman Grigorieff's power, his army then amounting to 7,000 to 10,000 men. He had taken the cities of Alexandria, Snamenka, and Elisavetgrad, and was threatening Ekaterinoslav. At the mass meeting the main speakers to address the peasants were Grigorieff, Makhno, Tchubenko, and representatives of the local peasantry. Grigorieff spoke first. Makhno, following, accused Girigorieff of being counter-revolutionary, produced the proof of it in the letters and telegrams he had received from Grigorieff, and finally denounced him for the numerous pogroms Grigorieff and is army had committed in May, 1919. Makhno then and there declared Grigorieff an enemy of the Revolution and a disgrace to the revolutionary movement of the rebel peasants. Pausing in his speech, Makhno turned towards Grigorieff and shot him in view of the whole audience.
"So much for Nestor Makhno, the "pogromstchik." I hold no brief for Makhno, but in the interest of historic truth I considered it necessary to nail down some of the infamous lies spread about the Ukrainian movement of the peasants. I understand that in the near future there is to appear a complete history on the subject, so that those interested in Makhno and the Makhno movement may learn at first hand." ["Some Bolshevik lies about the Russian Anarchists", Freedom, April 1922]
As will be shown, Berkman's suggestion that a few Makhnovist troops committed pogroms has been disproven by later research but his account remains valid (needless to say, the Makhnovists cannot be held responsible for the actions of those claiming to be Makhnovists or wrongly thought to be such by their victims). That between December 1918 and December 1919, Red Army units committed 106 pogroms (9 percent of the total), killing 725 people (2.3 percent of the total), in the Ukraine does not mean that the Bolsheviks were anti-Semitic (no figures are given for the Makhnovists but Grigorieff's troops accounted for 4 percent of pogroms and 11.2 percent of murders, with the Ukrainian nationalists and Whites committing by far the most). [Oleg Budnitskii, Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920, p. 217] The book Berkman mentions is Peter Arshinov's account of the movement which was published the following year and this also takes on the allegations that the Makhnovists were anti-Semitic. He presents extensive evidence to show that the Makhnovists opposed anti-Semitism and pogroms. It is worth quoting him at length:
"In the Russian press as well as abroad, the Makhnovshchina was often pictured as a very restricted guerrilla movement, foreign to ideas of brotherhood and international solidarity, and even tainted with anti-Semitism. Nothing could be more criminal than such slanders. In order to shed light on this question, we will cite here certain documented facts which relate to this subject.
"An important role was played in the Makhnovist army by revolutionaries of Jewish origin, many of whom had been sentenced to forced labour for participation in the 1905 revolution, or else had been obliged to emigrate to Western Europe or America. Among others, we can mention:
"Kogan -- vice-president of the central organ of the movement, the Regional Revolutionary Military Council of Hulyai Pole. Kogan was a worker who, for reasons of principle, had left his factory well before the revolution of 1917, and had gone to do agricultural work in a poor Jewish agricultural colony. Wounded at the battle of Peregonovka, near Uman, against the Denikinists, he was seized by them at the hospital at Uman where he was being treated, and, according to witnesses, the Denikinists killed him with sabres.
"L. Zin'kovsky (Zadov) -- head of the army's counter espionage section, and later commander of a special cavalry regiment. A worker who before the 1917 revolution was condemned to ten years of forced labour for political activities. One of the most active militants of the revolutionary insurrection.
"Elena Keller -- secretary of the army's cultural and educational section. A worker who took part in the syndicalist movement in America. One of the organisers of the 'Nabat' Confederation.
"Iosif Emigrant (Gotman) -- Member of the army's cultural and educational section. A worker who took an active part in the Ukrainian anarchist movement. One of the organisers of the 'Nabat' Confederation, and later a member of its secretariat.
"Ya. Alyi (Sukhovol'sky) -- worker, and member of the army's cultural and educational section. In the Tsarist period he was condemned to forced labor for political activity. One of the organisers of the 'Nabat' Confederation and a member of its secretariat.
"We could add many more names to the long list of Jewish revolutionaries who took part in different areas of the Makhnovist movement, but we will not do this, because it would endanger their security.
"At the heart of the revolutionary insurrection, the Jewish working population was among brothers. The Jewish agricultural colonies scattered throughout the districts of Mariupol, Berdyansk, Aleksandrovsk and elsewhere, actively participated in the regional assemblies of peasants, workers and insurgents; they sent delegates there, and also to the regional Revolutionary Military Council.
"Following certain anti-Semitic incidents which occurred in the region in February, 1919, Makhno proposed to all the Jewish colonies that they organise their self-defence and he furnished the necessary guns and ammunition to all these colonies. At the same time Makhno organised a series of meetings in the region where he appealed to the masses to struggle against anti-Semitism.
"The Jewish working population, in turn, expressed profound solidarity and revolutionary brotherhood toward the revolutionary insurrection. In answer to the call made by the Revolutionary Military Council to furnish voluntary combatants to the Makhnovist insurgent army, the Jewish colonies sent from their midst a large number of volunteers.
"In the army of the Makhnovist insurgents there was an exclusively Jewish artillery battery which was covered by an infantry detachment, also made up of Jews. This battery, commanded by the Jewish insurgent Shneider, heroically defended Hulyai Pole from Denikin's troops in June, 1919, and the entire battery perished there, down to the last man and the last shell.
"In the extremely rapid succession of events after the uprising of 1918-19, there were obviously individuals who were hostile to Jews, but these individuals were not the products of the insurrection; they were products of Russian life. These individuals did not have any importance in the movement as a whole. If people of this type took part in acts directed against Jews, they were quickly and severely punished by the revolutionary insurgents.
"We described earlier the speed and determination with which the Makhnovists executed Hryhoriyiv and his staff, and we mentioned that one of the main reasons for this execution was their participation in pogroms of Jews.
"We can mention other events of this nature with which we are familiar.
"On May 12, 1919, several Jewish families - 20 people in all - were killed in the Jewish agricultural colony of Gor'kaya, near Aleksandrovsk. The Makhnovist staff immediately set up a special commission to investigate this event. This commission discovered that the murders had been committed by seven peasants of the neighbouring village of Uspenovka. These peasants were not part of the insurrectionary army. However, the Makhnovists felt it was impossible to leave this crime unpunished, and they shot the murderers. It was later established that this event and other attempts of this nature had been carried out at the instigation of Denikin's agents, who had managed to infiltrate the region and had sought by these means to prepare an atmosphere favourable for the entry of Denikin's troopsinto the Ukraine.
"On May 4th or 5th, 1919, Makhno and a few commanders hurriedly left the front and went to Hulyai Pole, where they were awaited by the Extraordinary Plenipotentiary of the Republic, L. Kamenev, who had arrived from Khar'kov with other representatives of the Soviet government. At the Verkhnii Tokmak station, Makhno saw a poster with the words: 'Death to Jews, Save the Revolution, Long Live Batko Makhno.'
"'Who put up that poster?' Makhno asked.
"He learned that the poster had been put up by an insurgent whom Makhno knew personally, a soldier who had taken part in the battle against Denikin's troops, a person who was in general decent. He presented himself immediately and was shot on the spot.
"Makhno continued the journey to Hulyai Pole. During the rest of the day and during his negotiations with the Plenipotentiary of the Republic, he could not free himself from the influence of this event. He realised that the insurgent had been cruelly dealt with, but he also knew that in conditions of war and in view of Denikin's advance, such posters could represent an enormous danger for the Jewish population and for the entire revolution if one did not oppose them quickly and resolutely.
"When the insurrectionary army retreated toward Uman in the summer of 1919, there were several cases when insurgents plundered Jewish homes. When the insurrectionary army examined these cases, it was learned that one group of four or five men was involved in all these incidents -- men who had earlier belonged to Hryhoriyiv's detachments and who had been incorporated into the Makhnovist army after Hryhoriyiv was shot. This group was disarmed and discharged immediately. Following this, all the combatants who had served under Hryhoriyiv were discharged from the Makhnovist army as an unreliable element whose re-education was not possible in view of the unfavorable conditions and the lack of time. Thus we see how the Makhnovists viewed anti-Semitism. Outbursts of anti-Semitism in various parts of the Ukraine had no relation to the Makhnovshchina.
"Wherever the Jewish population was in contact with the Makhnovists, it found in them its best protectors against anti-Semitic incidents. The Jewish population of Hulyai Pole, Aleksandrovsk, Berdyansk, Mariupol, as well as all the Jewish agricultural colonies scattered throughout the Donets region, can themselves corroborate the fact that they always found the Makhnovists to be true revolutionary friends, and that due to the severe and decisive measures of the Makhno visits, the anti-Semitic leanings of the counter-revolutionary forces in this region were promptly squashed.
"Anti-Semitism exists in Russia as well as in many other countries. In Russia, and to some extent in the Ukraine, it is not a result of the revolutionary epoch or of the insurrectionary movement, but is on the contrary a vestige of the past. The Makhnovists always fought it resolutely in words as well as deeds. During the entire period of the movement, they issued numerous publications calling on the masses to struggle against this evil. It can firmly be stated that in the struggle against anti-Semitism in the Ukraine and beyond its borders, their accomplishment was enormous." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 211-215]
Arshinov then goes on to quote an appeal published by Makhnovists together with anarchists referring to an anti-Semitic incident which took place in the spring of 1919. It is called WORKERS, PEASANTS AND INSURGENTS FOR THE OPPRESSED, AGAINST THE OPPRESSORS -- ALWAYS!:
"During the painful days of reaction, when the situation of the Ukrainian peasants was especially difficult and seemed hopeless, you were the first to rise as fearless and unconquerable fighters for the great cause of the liberation of the working masses . . . This was the most beautiful and joyful moment in the history of our revolution. You marched against the enemy with weapons in your hands as conscious revolutionaries, guided by the great idea of freedom and equality . . . But harmful and criminal elements succeeded in insinuating themselves into your ranks. And the revolutionary songs, songs of brotherhood and of the approaching liberation of the workers, began to be disrupted by the harrowing cries of poor Jews who were being tormented to death . . . On the clear and splendid foundation of the revolution appeared indelible dark blots caused by the parched blood of poor Jewish martyrs who now, as before, continue to be innocent victims of the criminal reaction, of the class struggle . . . Shameful acts are being carried out. Anti-Semitic pogroms are taking place.
"Peasants, workers and insurgents! You know that the workers of all nationalities -- Russians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Armenians, etc. -- are equally imprisoned in the abyss of poverty. You know that thousands of Jewish girls, daughters of the people, are sold and dishonoured by capital, the same as women of other nationalities. You know how many honest and valiant revolutionary Jewish fighters have given their lives for freedom in Russia during our whole liberation movement . . . The revolution and the honour of workers obliges all of us to declare as loudly as possible that we make war on the same enemies: on capital and authority, which oppress all workers equally, whether they be Russian, Polish, Jewish, etc. We must proclaim everywhere that our enemies are exploiters and oppressors of various nationalities: the Russian manufacturer, the German iron magnate, the Jewish banker, the Polish aristocrat . . . The bourgeoisie of all countries and all nationalities is united in a bitter struggle against the revolution, against the labouring masses of the whole world and of all nationalities.
"Peasants, workers and insurgents! At this moment when the international enemy -- the bourgeoisie of all countries -- hurries to the Russian revolution to create nationalist hatred among the mass of workers in order to distort the revolution and to shake the very foundation of our class struggle -- the solidarity and unity of all workers -- you must move against conscious and unconscious counter-revolutionaries who endanger the emancipation of the working people from capital and authority. Your revolutionary duty is to stifle all nationalist persecution by dealing ruthlessly with all instigators of anti-Semitic pogroms.
"The path toward the emancipation of the workers can be reached by the union of all the workers of the world." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 215-7]
Arshinov also quotes an order issued by Makhno to "all revolutionary insurgents without exception" which states, in part, that the "goal of our revolutionary army, and of every insurgent participating in it, is an honourable struggle for the full liberation of the Ukrainian workers from all oppression." This was "why every insurgent should constantly keep in mind that there is no place among us for those who, under the cover of the revolutionary insurrection, seek to satisfy their desires for personal profit, violence and plunder at the expense of the peaceful Jewish population." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 217-8]
Unsurprisingly, as an anarchist, Makhno presents a class analysis of the problem of racism, arguing as follows:
"Every revolutionary insurgent should remember that his personal enemies as well as the enemies of all the people are the rich bourgeoisie, regardless of whether they be Russian, or Jewish, or Ukrainian. The enemies of the working people are also those who protect the unjust bourgeois regime, i.e., the Soviet Commissars, the members of repressive expeditionary corps, the Extraordinary Commissions which go through the cities and villages torturing the working people who refuse to submit to their arbitrary dictatorship. Every insurgent should arrest and send to the army staff all representatives of such expeditionary corps, Extraordinary Commissions and other institutions which oppress and subjugate the people; if they resist, they should be shot on the spot. As for any violence done to peaceful workers of whatever nationality -- such acts are unworthy of any revolutionary insurgent, and the perpetrator of such acts will be punished by death." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 218]
It should also be noted that the chairmen of three Makhnovist regional congresses were Jewish. The first and second congresses had a Jewish chairman [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 293], while Voline was the chair for the fourth one held at Aleksandrovsk. Similarly, one of the heads of the army's counter-espionage section was Jewish. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 212]
The Jewish American anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman were also in Russia and the Ukraine during the revolution. Between 1920 and 1921, they were in contact with anarchists involved with the Makhnovists and were concerned to verify what they had heard about the movement from Bolshevik and other sources. Berkman recounts meeting the Jewish anarchist Yossif the Emigrant (shot by the Bolsheviks in late 1920). Yossif stated that "Nestor is merciless toward those guilty of Jew-baiting. Most of you have read his numerous proclamations against pogroms, and you know how severely he punishes such things." He stressed that any stories of atrocities and pogroms committed by the Makhnovists were "lies wilfully spread by the Bolsheviks" who "hate Nestor worse than they do Wrangel." For Yossif, "Makhno represents the real spirit of October." [quoted by Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth, pp. 187-9] Berkman also notes that Gallina Makhno, Nestor's wife, would "slightly raise her voice in indignation when reports of Jew-baiting by povstantsi [partisans] were mentioned. These stories were deliberately spread by the Bolsheviki, she averred. No-one could be more severe in punishing such excesses than Nestor. Some of his best comrades are Jews; there are a number of them in the Revolutionary Soviet and in other branches of the army. Few men are so loved and respected by the povstantsi as Yossif the Emigrant, who is a Jew, and Makhno's best friend." [Berkman, Op. Cit., pp. 238-9] Emma Goldman, likewise, denied the charges made against Makhno:
"I have been told by Zorin and other Communists that Makhno was a Jew-baiter and that his povstantsi were responsible for numerous brutal pogroms. My visitors emphatically denied the charges. Makhno bitterly fought pogroms, they stated; he had often issued proclamations against such outrages, and he had even with his own hand punished some of those guilty of assault on Jews. Hatred of the Hebrew was of course common in the Ukraina; it was not eradicated even among the Red soldiers. They, too, have assaulted, robbed, and outraged Jews; yet no one holds the Bolsheviki responsible for such isolated instances. The Ukraina is infested with armed bands who are often mistaken for Makhnovtsi and who have made pogroms. The Bolsheviki, aware of this, have exploited the confusion to discredit Makhno and his followers." [My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 66]
Goldman also recounts how Makhno "publicly accused Grigoriev of counter-revolution and produced evidence of numerous pogroms organized by him against the Jews. Declaring Grigoriev an enemy of the people and of the Revolution, Makhno and his staff condemned him and his aides to death, executing them on the spot." [Op. Cit., p. 64] Significantly, both Goldman and Berkman became friends with Makhno during his exile in Paris.
After his exile, Makhno himself spent time refuting allegations of anti-Semitism. Two articles on this subject are contained in The Struggle Against the State and other Essays, a collection of Makhno's exile writings. In the article "The Makhnovshchina and Anti-Semitism" he recounts various examples of the "uncompromising line on the anti-Semitism of pogromists" which the Makhnovists took "throughout its entire existence." This was "because it was a genuinely revolutionary toilers' movement in the Ukraine." He stressed that "[a]t no time did the movement make it its business to carry out pogroms against Jews nor did it ever encourage any." [The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays, p. 38 and p. 34] In another article (called "To the Jews of All Countries") he wrote:
"In my first 'Appeal to Jews, published in the French libertarian newspaper, Le Libertaire, I asked Jews in general, which is to say the bourgeois and the socialist ones as well as the 'anarchist' ones like Yanovsky, who have all spoken of me as a pogromist against Jews and labelled as anti-Semitic the liberation movement of the Ukrainian peasants and workers of which I was the leader, to detail to me the specific facts instead of blathering vacuously away: just where and just when did I or the aforementioned movement perpetrate such acts? . . . Thus far, no such evidence advanced by Jews has come to my attention. The only thing that has appeared thus far in the press generally, certain Jewish anarchist organs included, regarding myself and the insurgent movement I led, has been the product of the most shameless lies and of the vulgarity of certain political mavericks and their hirelings." [Op. Cit., p. 28]
It should be noted that Yanovsky, editor of the Yiddish language anarchist paper Freie Arbeiter Stimme later admitted that Makhno was right. Yanovsky originally believed the charges of anti-Semitism made against Makhno, going so far as ignoring Makhno's appeal to him out of hand. However, by the time of Makhno's death in 1934, Yanovsky had learned the truth:
"I am glad I recognised before he died that I did him and the Makhno movement a great injustice . . . I feel terribly guilty about Comrade Makhno, both that I ignored his appeal to me and that I should have believed he had taken part in a pogrom. So strongly biased was I against him at that time I did not think it necessary to find out whether my serious accusation was founded on any real facts during the period of his great fight for real freedom in Russia. Now I know that my accusations of anti-Semitism against Makhno were built entirely on the lies of the Bolsheviks and to the rest of their crimes must be added this great crime of killing his greatness and the purity of this fighter for freedom." ["Appendix: The ever-recurring lie", Nestor Makhno, My Visit to the Kremlin, pp. 36-7]
Due to this, Yanovsky could not forgive himself for "so misjudg[ing] a man merely on the basis of calumny by his bitter enemies who more than once shamefully betrayed him, and against whom he fought so heroically." He also notes that it had "become known to me that a great many Jewish comrades were heart and soul with Makhno and the whole Makhno movement. Amongst them was one whom I knew well personally, Joseph Zutman of Detroit, and I know that he would not have had anything to do with persons, or a movement, which possessed the slightest leaning towards anti-Semitism." [Op. Cit., p. 36 and p. 37]
However, by far the best source to refute claims of anti-Semitism is the work of the Jewish anarchist Voline. He summarises the extensive evidence against such claims:
"We could cover dozens of pages with extensive and irrefutable proofs of the falseness of these assertions. We could mention articles and proclamations by Makhno and the Council of Revolutionary Insurgents denouncing anti-Semitism. We could tell of spontaneous acts by Makhno himself and other insurgents against the slightest manifestation of the anti-Semitic spirit on the part of a few isolated and misguided unfortunates in the army and the population . . . One of the reasons for the execution of Grigoriev by the Makhnovists was his anti-Semitism and the immense pogrom he organised at Elizabethgrad . . .
"We could cite a whole series of similar facts, but we do not find it necessary . . . and will content ourselves with mentioning briefly the following essential facts:
"1. A fairly important part in the Makhnovist movement was played by revolutionists of Jewish origin.
"2. Several members of the Education and Propaganda Commission were Jewish.
"3. Besides many Jewish combatants in various units of the army, there was a battery composed entirely of Jewish artillery men and a Jewish infantry unit.
"4. Jewish colonies in the Ukraine furnished many volunteers to the Insurrectionary Army.
"5. In general the Jewish population, which was very numerous in the Ukraine, took an active part in all the activities of the movement. The Jewish agricultural colonies which were scattered throughout the districts of Mariupol, Berdiansk, Alexandrovsk, etc., participated in the regional assemblies of workers, peasants and partisans; they sent their delegates to the regional Revolutionary Military Council.
"6. Rich and reactionary Jews certainly had to suffer from the Makhnovist army, not as Jews, but just in the same way as non-Jewish counter-revolutionaries." [The Unknown Revolution, pp. 967-8]
However, it could be claimed that these accounts are from anarchists and so are biased. Ignoring the question of why so many Jewish anarchists should defend Makhno if he was, in fact, a pogromist or anti-Semite, we can turn to non-anarchist sources for confirmation of the fact that Makhno and the Makhnovist movement were not anti-Semites.
First, we note that Voline quotes the eminent Jewish writer and historian M. Tcherikover about the question of the Makhnovists and anti-Semitism. Tcherikover had, for a number of years, had specialised in research on the persecutions of the Jews in Russia:
"An army is always an army, and armies inevitably commit culpable and reprehensible acts, for it is materially impossible to control and supervise every individual making up these masses of men who are taken away from their healthy and normal lives, who are thrown into an existence and into surroundings which release their evil impulses, and who are authorized to use violence, very often with impunity. You certainly know this as well as I do. The Makhnovist army was no exception to this rule. It also committed some reprehensible acts now and then. But I am glad to be able to say with certainty that, on the whole, the behaviour of Makhno's army cannot be compared with that of the other armies which were operating in Russian during the events 1917-21. Two facts I can certify absolutely explicitly.
"1. It is undeniable that, of all these armies, including the Red Army, the Makhnovists behaved best with regard the civil population in general and the Jewish population in particular. I have numerous testimonies to this. The proportion of justified complaints against the Makhnovist army, in comparison with the others, is negligible.
"2. Do not speak of pogroms alleged to have been organised by Makhno himself. That is a slander or an error. Nothing of the sort occurred. As for the Makhnovist Army, I have had hints and precise denunciations on this subject. But, up to the present, every time I have tried to check the facts, I have been obliged to declare that on the day in question no Makhnovist unit could have been at the place indicated, the whole army being far away from there. Upon examining the evidence closely, I established this fact, every time, with absolute certainty, at the place and on the date of the pogrom, no Makhnovist unit was operating or even located in the vicinity. Not once have I been able to prove the existence of a Makhnovist unit at the place a pogrom against the Jews took place. Consequently, the pogroms in question could not have been the work of the Makhnovists." [quoted by Voline, Op. Cit., p. 699]
This conclusion is confirmed by later historians. Paul Avrich notes that "[c]harges of Jew-baiting and of anti-Jewish pogroms have come from every quarter, left, right, and centre. Without exception, however, they are based on hearsay, rumour, or intentional slander, and remain undocumented and unproved." He adds that the "Soviet propaganda machine was at particular pains to malign Makhno as a bandit and pogromist." Wishing to verify the conclusions of Tcherikover proved by Voline, Avrich examined several hundred photographs in the Tcherikover Collection, housed in the YIVO Library in New York and depicting anti-Jewish atrocities in the Ukraine during the Civil War. He found that "only one [was] labelled as being the work of the Makhnovists, though even here neither Makhno himself nor any of his recognisable subordinates are to be seen, nor is there any indication that Makhno had authorised the raid or, indeed, that the band involved was in fact affiliated with his Insurgent Army." Avrich then states that "there is evidence that Makhno did all in his power to counteract anti-Semitic tendencies among his followers" and that "a considerable number of Jews took part in the Makhnovist movement." He also points out that the Jewish anarchists Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Sholem Schwartzbard, Voline, Senya Fleshin, and Mollie Steimer did not criticise Makhno as an anti-Semite and in fact "defended him against the campaign of slander that persisted from all sides." [Anarchist Portraits, pp. 122-3] It should be noted that Schwartzbard assassinated the Ukrainian Nationalist leader Petliura in 1926 because he considered him responsible for pogroms conducted by Nationalist troops during the civil war. He shot Petliura the day after he, Makhno and Berkman had seen him at a Russian restaurant in Paris. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 189]
Michael Malet, in his account of the Makhnovists, states that "there is overwhelming evidence that Makhno himself was not anti-Semitic." He indicates that in the period January to September 1919, the Central Committee of Zionist Organisations in Russia listed the Nationalists as creating 15,000 victims of pogroms, then the Denikinists with 9,500 followed by Hryhoriyiv, Sokolovsky, Struk, Yatsenko and Soviet troops (500 victims). Makhno is not mentioned. Of the pogroms listed, almost all took place on the western Ukraine, where the local otamany (warlords) and the Ukrainian Nationalists were strong. Very few took place where Makhno's influence predominated, the nearest being in Katerinoslav town and Kherson province; none in the provinces of Katerinoslav or Tavria. It should also be noted that the period of January to June of that year was one of stability within the Makhnovist region, so allowing them the space to apply their ideas. Malet summarises: "Even granted the lower level of Jewish involvement in left-bank trade, the almost total lack of anti-Semitic manifestations would show that Makhno's appeals, at a time when anti-Semitism was fast becoming fashionable, did not go unheeded by the population. There were a number of Jewish colonies in the south-east Ukraine." [Op. Cit., [Op. Cit., pp. 168-9]
Unsurprisingly, Malet notes that apart from certain personal considerations (such as his friendship with a number of Jews, including Voline and Yossif the Emigrant), "the basis of Makhno's hostility to anti-Semitism was his anarchism. Anarchism has always been an international creed, explicitly condemning all forms of racial hatred as incompatible with the freedom of individuals and the society of equals." Like other serious historians, he points to "the continual participation in the movement of both intellectual Jews from outside, and Jews from the local colonies" as "further proof . . . of the low level of anti-Semitism within the Makhnovshchina." [Op. Cit., p. 171 and pp. 171-2]
Anarchist Serge Cipko summarises the literature by stating that the "scholarly literature that discusses Makhno's relationships with the Jewish population is of the same opinion [that the Makhnovists were not anti-Semitic] and concur that unlike the Whites, Bolsheviks and other competing groups in Ukraine during the Revolution, the Makhnovists did not engage in pogroms." ["Nestor Makhno: A Mini-Historiography of the Anarchist Revolution in Ukraine, 1917-1921," pp. 57-75, The Raven, no. 13, p. 62]
Historian Christopher Read concurs, noting that "Makhno actively opposed anti-Semitism . . . Not surprisingly, many Jews held prominent positions in the Insurgent movement and Jewish farmers and villagers staunchly supported Makhno in the face of the unrestrained anti-Semitism of Ukrainian nationalists like Grigoriev and of the Great Russian chauvinists like the Whites." [Op. Cit., pp. 263-4] Arthur E. Adams states that "Makhno protected Jews and in fact had many serving on his own staff." [Bolsheviks in the Ukraine, p. 402]
We apologise again for labouring this point, but the lie that Makhno and the Makhnovists were anti-Semitic is relatively commonplace in spite of the writings debunking such claims across the decades and needs to be refuted. As noted, Trotskyists repeat Trotsky's false assertions without correction. Others repeat the lie from other sources. It was essential, therefore, to spend time making the facts available and to nail the lie of Makhnovist anti-Semitism once and for all.
For some reason the Makhnovists have been portrayed as being against the city and even industry as such. For example, historian Bruce Lincoln states that Makhno "had studied the anarchist writings of Bakunin, whose condemnation of cities and large-scale industries fit so well with the anti-urban, anti-industrial feelings of the Ukrainian peasants, and his program was precisely the sort that struck responsive chords in peasant hearts." [Red Victory, p. 325] Lincoln fails to present any evidence for this claim. This is unsurprising as Makhno could not have read such condemnations in Bakunin's writings as they do not, in fact, exist. Similarly, the Makhnovist programme (like anarchism in general) was not "anti-urban" nor "anti-industrial" (see section I.3.8). Indeed, the "Draft Declaration of the (Makhnovist) revolutionary insurgent army of Ukraine" has a section on "The Labour Question" which is worth quoting:
"having scrupulously examined the idea and the results of state take-over (nationalization) of the means and instruments of worker production (the mines, communications, workshops, factories, etc) as well as of the workers’ organizations themselves (trades unions, factory and workshop committees, cooperatives, etc.), we can announce with certainty that there is one genuine and fair solution to the workers' question: the transfer of all the means, instruments and materials of labor, production and transportation, not to the complete disposal of the State -- this new boss and exploiter which uses wage-slavery and is no less oppressive of the workers than private entrepreneurs -- but to the workers' organizations and unions in natural and free association with one another and in liaison with peasant organizations through the good offices of their economic soviets.
"It is our conviction that only such a resolution of the labor issue will release the energy and activity of the worker masses, give a fresh boost to repair of the devastated industrial economy, render exploitation and oppression impossible, and put paid to speculation and swindling and bring to an end the artificial escalation of prices and runaway rise in the cost of living.
"We have come to the belief that only the workers, with the help of their free organizations and unions, will be able to secure their release from the yoke of State and Capital (private and state alike), take over the working of mineral and coal reserves, get workshops and factories back into operation, establish equitable exchanges of products between different regions, towns and countryside, get rail traffic moving again, in short, breathe life back into the moribund shell of our economic organization.
"No State authorities, no party, no system for direction and supervision of workers, commissars, officials, political activists and others can, we are thoroughly persuaded, meet the target set. The organization of work, production, transportation, distribution and exchange should be the task of free workers' unions, abetted by experienced and competent individuals, in a context of free labor in factories and workshops.
"In order to ensure that such organization is active and its development fruitful it is vital that, above all else, genuine worker congresses and conferences be prepared on free foundations, without pressures or dictatorship from parties or individuals. Only those free congresses and conferences will have the capacity to arrive at an effective resolution of all the urgent issues of worker life and of worker construction along necessary and purposeful lines." [contained in Skirda, Op. Cit., pp. 375-6]
However, Lincoln's inventions are mild compared to Trotsky's. According to Trotsky, "the followers of Makhno" were marked by "hatred for the city and the city worker." He later gives some more concrete examples of this "hostility to the city" which, as with the general peasant revolt, also "nourished the movement of Makhno, who seized and looted trains marked for the factories, the plants, and the Red Army; tore up railway tracks, shot Communists, etc." [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 80 and p. 89]
Unsurprisingly, Trotsky simply shows his bad faith -- or, at best, ignorance -- of the Makhno movement by these statements. To refute his claim we can simply point to how the Makhnovists acted once they occupied a city. As we discuss in section 7, the first thing the Makhnovists did was to call a conference of workers and urge them to organise their own affairs directly, using their own class organs of self-management (soviets, unions, etc.). Hardly the activity of a group of people who allegedly "hated" city workers.
We can also point to the fact that the Makhnovists arranged direct exchanges of goods between the towns and country. In early 1918, for example, corn was shipped directly to a Moscow factory in return for textiles (without state interference). In 1919, 1500 tons of grain (and a small amount of coal) was sent by train to Petrograd and Moscow where the commander of the train was to exchange it again for textiles. The initiative in both cases came from the Hulyai Pole peasants. Again, hardly the work of city-hating peasants.
Peter Arshinov indicates the underlying theory behind the Makhnovists as regards the relations between city and country:
"The Makhnovshchina . . . understands that the victory and consolidation of the revolution . . . cannot be realised without a close alliance between the working classes of the cities and those of the countryside. The peasants understand that without urban workers and powerful industrial enterprises they will be deprived of most of the benefits which the social revolution makes possible. Furthermore, they consider the urban workers to be their brothers, members of the same family of workers.
"There can be no doubt that, at the moment of the victory of the social revolution, the peasants will give their entire support to the workers. This will be voluntary and truly revolutionary support given directly to the urban proletariat. In the present-day situation [under the Bolsheviks], the bread taken by force from the peasants nourishes mainly the enormous governmental machine. The peasants see and understand perfectly that this expensive bureaucratic machine is not in any way needed by them or by the workers, and that in relation to the workers it plays the same role as that of a prison administration toward the inmates. This is why the peasants do not have the slightest desire to give their bread voluntarily to the State. This is why they are so hostile in their relations with the contemporary tax collectors -- the commissars and the various supply organs of the State.
"But the peasants always try to enter into direct relations with the urban workers. The question was raised more than once at peasant congresses, and the peasants always resolved it in a revolutionary and positive manner." [Op. Cit., p. 258]
Simply put, Trotsky misinterprets hostility to the repressive policies of the Bolshevik dictatorship with hostility to the city.
Moreover, ignoring the actual relationships of the Makhnovists with the city workers, we can fault Trotsky's arguments without recourse to such minor things as facts. This is because every one of his "examples" of "hatred for the city and the city worker" can be explained by more common sense arguments.
As regards the destruction of trains and railway tracks, a far simpler and more plausible explanation can be found than Trotsky's "hostility to the city." This is the fact that a civil war was taking place. Both the Reds and Whites used armoured trains to move troops and as bases of operations. To destroy the means by which your enemy attacks you is common sense. Equally, in the chaotic times of the war, resources were often in low supply and in order to survive the Makhnovists -- like other forces -- had to "loot" trains (needless to say, Trotsky does not explain how the Makhnovists knew the trains were "marked for the factories."). It should be noted that the Bolsheviks "looted" the countryside for food, can we surmise that the Bolsheviks simply expressed "hostility to the village"?
As regards the shooting of Communists, a far simpler and more plausible explanation also exists. Rather than show "hostility to the city," it shows "hostility" to the Communist Party and its authoritarian policies, operations and ideas. Given that the Bolsheviks had betrayed the Makhnovists on three occasions (see section 13) and attacked them, "hostility" to Communists seems a sensible position to take. The first Bolshevik attack on the Makhnovists occurred in mid-1919, when the Bolsheviks began justifying their party dictatorship as essential for the success of the revolution. The other two occurred in 1920, when the Bolsheviks were announcing to the whole world at the Communist International (to quote Zinoviev) that "the dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party." [Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress 1920, vol. 1, p. 152] Given this, perhaps the fact that the Makhnovists shot Communists can be explained in terms of defence against Bolshevik betrayal and opposition to the dictatorship of the Communist Party rather than "hostility to the city"? Needless to say, the Communists shot Makhnovists and anarchists. What does that suggest a "hostility" to by the Bolsheviks? Working-class autonomy and freedom?
Clearly, Trotsky was clutching at straws in his smearing of the Makhnovist movement as haters of the city worker. The "hostility" Trotsky speaks of can be far more easily explained in terms of the necessities imposed upon the Makhnovists by the civil war as well as the betrayals and policies of the Bolsheviks. As such, it would be fairer to state that the Makhnovists showed "hostility" or "hatred" to the city or city workers only if you equate both with the Bolshevik party dictatorship. In other words, the Makhnovists showed "hostility" to the new ruling class of the Communist Party hierarchy.
All this does not mean that there were not misunderstandings between the Makhno movement, a predominantly rural movement, and the workers in the cities. Far from it. Equally, it can be said that the Makhnovists did not understand the workings of an urban economy and society as well as they understood their own (looking at the bureaucracy, inefficiency and waste produced by the Bolshevik centralised economic system, the Bolsheviks clearly understood neither). However, they made no attempt to impose their world-view on the city workers (unlike the Bolsheviks, who did so on both urban and rural workers). However, ignorance of the city and its resulting misunderstandings do not constitute "hostility" or "hatred." The Makhnovists also undoubtedly knew of that they were somewhat ignorant of city life and this, as well as basic libertarian principles, explains why they called conferences of workers' delegates to discuss the current situation and to urge them to form soviets, unions and co-operatives in order to manage their own affairs directly.
Given that socialism is meant to be about workers' control can we surmise that it, too, expresses "hostility" to city workers? What does this say about Bolshevism for, in contrast to the Makhnovists, the first thing the Bolsheviks did in taking a city was to form a "revolutionary committee" to govern the town and impose Bolshevik policy. This, of course, reflects the then Bolshevik ideological commitment to party dictatorship. Then there is the imposing of one-man management within the workplace and the systematic undermining of independent trade unionism. We could go on but let us quote Trotsky on what the Bolshevik regime was offering workers in 1920:
"The only solution of economic difficulties that is correct from the point of view both of principle and of practice is to treat the population of the whole country as the reservoir of the necessary labour power -- an almost inexhaustible reservoir -- and to introduce strict order into the work of its registration, mobilisation, and utilisation. . . the course we have adopted is unquestionably the right one." [Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism, pp. 135–36]
Why principle? Perhaps because Marx and Engels had demanded "[e]stablishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture" in the Communist Manifesto along with calls to "centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State"? [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 490] This required a strong state:
"[T]he road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State . . . Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction . . . No organisation except the army has ever controlled man with such severe compulsion as does the State organisation of the working class in the most difficult period of transition. It is just for this reason that we speak of the militarisation of labour" [Trotsky, Op. Cit., pp. 169–70]
This militarisation of labour built upon the earlier imposition of one-man management within the workplace:
"It would consequently be a most crying error to confuse the question as to the supremacy of the proletariat with the question of boards of workers at the head of factories. The dictatorship of the proletariat is expressed in the abolition of private property in the means of production, in the supremacy over the whole Soviet mechanism of the collective will of the workers, and not at all in the form in which individual economic enterprises are administered . . . I consider if the civil war had not plundered our economic organs of all that was strongest, most independent, most endowed with initiative, we should undoubtedly have entered the path of one-man management in the sphere of economic administration much sooner and much less painfully." [Trotsky, Op. Cit., pp. 162–63]
It should go without saying that "the collective will of the workers" was a euphemism for the rule (dictatorship) of the party:
"We have more than once been accused of having substituted for the dictatorship of the Soviets the dictatorship of our party. Yet it can be said with complete justice that the dictatorship of the Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the party. It is thanks to the clarity of its theoretical vision and its strong revolutionary organisation that the party has afforded to the Soviets the possibility of becoming transformed from shapeless parliaments of labour into the apparatus of the supremacy of labour. In this 'substitution' of the power of the party for the power of the working class there is nothing accidental, and in reality there is no substitution at all. . . . The dictatorship of the proletariat, in its very essence, signifies the immediate supremacy of the revolutionary vanguard, which relies upon the heavy masses, and, where necessary, obliges the backward tail to dress by the head" [Trotsky, Op. Cit., pp. 109–10]
Rest assured, there is nothing to worry about:
"[T]he State and the trade unions . . . acquire new rights of some kind over the worker. The worker does not merely bargain with the Soviet State: no, he is subordinated to the Soviet State, under its orders in every direction -- for it is his State"
Ignoring the question of the vast and powerful state machine (bureaucracy) this needed, an obvious question is: Was it "his" state? Did workers run this "most ruthless form of State" to which they were "subordinated"? No, of course not -- as Trotsky himself made clear in theory and practice (see section H.6.3 on Bolshevik repression of strikes and other forms of working class protest).
It would take an ideologue to conclude that it was the Makhnovists who were expressing "hostility" to city workers rather than the Bolsheviks who had erected a centralised, bureaucratic, state-capitalist party dictatorship over them and the peasantry.
All in all, any claim that the Makhnovists hated city workers is simply false. While some Makhnovists may not have liked the city nor really understood the complexities of an urban economy, they did recognise the importance of encouraging working-class autonomy and self-organisation within them and building links between the rural and urban toilers. While the lack of a large-scale anarcho-syndicalist movement hindered any positive construction, the Makhnovists at least tried to promote urban self-management. Given Bolshevik authoritarianism and its various rationalisations, it would be fairer to say that it was the Bolsheviks who expressed "hostility" to the city workers by imposing their dictatorship upon them rather than supporting working-class self-management as the Makhnovists did.
Some books on the Makhnovist movement -- particularly Bolshevik ones -- try to present the Makhnovists as being Ukrainian nationalists. A few discuss the matter in order, perhaps, to increase the respectability of the Makhnovist movement by associating it with a more "serious" and "respectable" political theory than anarchism, namely (Ukrainian) Nationalism. Those who seriously investigate the issue come to the same conclusion, namely that neither Makhno nor the Makhnovist movement was nationalist.
So any claims that the Makhnovists were nationalists are incorrect. The Makhnovist movement was first and foremost an internationalist movement of working people. This is to be expected as anarchists have long argued that nationalism is a cross-class movement which aims to maintain the existing class system but without foreign domination (see section D.6 for details). As such, the Makhnovists were well aware that nationalism could not solve the social question and would simply replace a Russian ruling class and state with Ukrainian ones.
This meant that the aims of the Makhnovists went further than simply national liberation or self-determination. Anarchists aim for working-class self-liberation and self-determination, both as individuals and as groups, as well as politically, economically and socially. To quote Makhno's wire to Lenin in December 1918, the Makhnovist "aims are known and clear to all. They are fighting against the authority of all political governments and for liberty and independence of the working people." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 80]
From this class and anti-hierarchical perspective, it is not unsurprising that the Makhnovists were not nationalists. They did not seek Ukrainian independence but rather working-class autonomy. This, of necessity, meant they opposed all those who aimed to govern and exploit the working class. Hence Arshinov:
"Composed of the poorest peasants, who were united by the fact that they all worked with their own hands, the Makhnovist movement was founded on the deep feeling of fraternity which characterises only the most oppressed. During its entire history it did not for an instant appeal to national sentiments. The whole struggle of the Makhnovists against the Bolsheviks was conducted solely in the name of the rights and interests of the workers. Denikin's troops, the Austro-Germans, Petliura, the French troops in Berdyansk, Wrangel -- were all treated by the Makhnovists as enemies of the workers. Each one of these invasions represented for them essentially a threat to the workers, and the Makhnovists had no interest in the national flag under which they marched." [Op. Cit., p. 210]
He stressed that "national prejudices had no place in the Makhnovshchina. There was also no place in the movement for religious prejudices . . . Among modern social movements, the Makhnovshchina was one of the few in which an individual had absolutely no interest in his own or his neighbour's religion or nationality, in which he respected only the labour and the freedom of the worker." [Op. Cit., p. 211]
The Makhnovists made their position on nationalism clear in the "Draft Declaration of the (Makhnovist) revolutionary insurgent army of Ukraine", adopted on October 20, 1919, as regards "The national question":
"Clearly, each national group has a natural and indisputable entitlement to speak its language freely, live in accordance with its customs, retain its beliefs and rituals, draw up its school books and have its own managerial establishments and agencies: in short, to maintain and develop its national culture in every sphere. It is obvious that this clear and specific stance has absolutely nothing to do with narrow nationalism of the 'separatist' variety which pits nation against nation and substitutes an artificial and harmful separation for the struggle to achieve a natural social union of toilers in one shared social communion.
"In our view, national aspirations of a natural, wholesome character {language, customs, culture, etc.) can achieve full and fruitful satisfaction only in the union of nationalities rather than in their antagonism . . .
"The speedy construction of a new life on socialist foundations will ineluctably lead to development of the culture peculiar to each nationality. Whenever we Makhnovist, insurgents speak of independence of Ukraine, we ground it in the social and economic plane of the toilers. We proclaim the right of the Ukrainian people (and every other nation) to self-determination, not in the narrow, nationalist sense of a Petliura, but in the sense of the toilers' right to self-determination . . . To the very last drop of their blood they will wage a ferocious struggle against it, in defense of their entitlement to self-organization." [contained in Skirda, Op. Cit., pp. 377-8]
In other words, the Makhnovists "declared, that in their option Petlurovtchina [the Petliura movement, Petliura being the leader of the Ukrainian Nationalists] was a bourgeois nationalist movement whose road was entirely different from that of the revolutionary peasants, that the Ukraine should be organised on a basis of free labour and the independence of the peasants and the workers . . . and that nothing but struggle was possible between the Makhnovitchina , the movement of the workers, and the Petlurovtchina , the movement of the bourgeoisie." [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 572]
This does not mean that anarchists are indifferent to cultural and national domination and oppression. Far from it. As Bakunin argued, "Nationality is not a principle; it is a legitimate fact, just as individuality is. Every nationality, great or small, has the incontestable right to be itself, to live according to its own nature. This right is simply the corollary of the general principle of freedom." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 325] However, as discussion in section D.6, anarchists oppose nationalism based it aims at the creation of a new nation state and so places a new, local, ruling class into power. This means, as section D.7 details, that anarchists are against foreign domination and cultural imperialism, believing that every community or national group has the right to be itself and develop as it sees fit.
This means that anarchists seek to transform national liberation struggles into human liberation struggles, turning any struggle against foreign oppression and domination into a struggle against all forms of oppression and domination. As such, the Makhnovists, like anarchists in general, sought to defend local culture and language while opposing nationalism. As Frank Sysyn argues, it "would be a mistake . . . to label the Makhnivtsi as 'anti-Ukrainian.' Although they opposed the political goals of most 'svidomi ukraintsi' (nationally conscious Ukrainians), they accepted the existence of a Ukrainian nation and used the terms 'Ukraine' and 'Ukrainian.'" [Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian Revolution, p. 288] It should be noted that opponents of Ukrainian independence generally called it the "south of Russia" or "Little Russia" as well as being opposed to the use of the Ukrainian language and other expressions of Ukrainian culture.
Thus an opposition to nationalism did not imply a rejection or blindness to foreign domination and the need for free cultural expression. On the question of the language to be taught in schools, the Cultural-Educational Section of the Makhnovist Insurgent Army wrote the following in October, 1919:
"The cultural-educational section of the Makhnovist army constantly receives questions from school teachers asking about the language in which instruction should be given in the schools, now that Denikin's troops have been expelled.
"The revolutionary insurgents, holding to the principles of true socialism, cannot in any field or by any measure do violence to the natural desires and needs of the Ukrainian people. This is why the question of the language to be taught in the schools cannot be solved by our army, but can only be decided by the people themselves, by parents, teachers and students.
"It goes without saying that all the orders of Denikin's so-called 'Special Bureau' as well as General Mai-Maevsky's order No. 22, which forbids the use of the mother tongue in the schools, are null and void, having been forcibly imposed on the schools.
"In the interest of the greatest intellectual development of the people, the language of instruction should be that toward which the local population naturally tends, and this is why the population, the students, the teachers and the parents, and not authorities or the army, should freely and independently resolve this question." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 210-1]
They also printed a Ukrainian version of their paper ("The Road to Freedom").
Clearly their opposition to Ukrainian nationalism did not mean that the Makhnovists were indifferent to imperialism and foreign political or cultural domination. This explains why Makhno criticised his enemies for anti-Ukrainian actions and language. Michael Malet summarises, for the Makhnovists "Ukrainian culture was welcome, but political nationalism was highly suspect." [Op. Cit., p. 143]
Given anarchist support for federal organisation from below upwards, working-class self-determination and autonomy, plus a healthy respect for local culture, it is easy to see why some historians have fostered a nationalist perspective onto the Makhnovists where none existed. This means that when they agitated with the slogan "All to whom freedom and independence are dear should stay in the Ukraine and fight the Denikinists," it should be noted that "[n]owhere is nationalism openly advocated, and the line of argument put forward can more easily be interpreted as libertarian and, above all, anti-White." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 146]
In 1928, Makhno wrote a rebuttal to a Soviet historian's claim that he had become a Ukrainian Nationalist during the 1920-21 period. He "totally dismissed the charges" and argued that the historian "distorted anarchism's espousal of local autonomy so as to create trumped-up charges of nationalism." While Makhno "never became a nationalist, he did to a degree become a Ukrainian anarchist." [Sysyn, Op. Cit., p. 292 and p. 303]
So while neither Makhno nor the movement were nationalists, they were not blind to national and cultural oppression. They considered nationalism as too narrow a goal to satisfy the social aspirations of the working classes. As Makhno argued in exile, the Ukrainian toilers had "asserted their rights to use their own language and their entitlement to their own culture, which had been regarded before the revolution as anathema. They also asserted their right to conform in their lives to their own way of life and specific customs." However, "[i]n the aim of building an independent Ukrainian State, certain statist gentlemen would dearly love to arrogate to themselves all natural manifestations of Ukrainian reality." Yet the "healthy instincts of the Ukrainian toilers and their baleful life under the Bolshevik yoke has not made them oblivious of the State danger in general" and so they "shun the chauvinist trend and do not mix it up with their social aspirations, rather seeking their own road to emancipation." ["A Few Words on the National Question in the Ukraine", The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays, pp. 24-5]
In summary, the Makhnovists were opposed to nationalism but supported culture diversity and self-determination within a free federation of toiler communes and councils. They did not limit their aims to national liberation, but rather sought the self-liberation of the working classes from every oppression -- foreign or domestic, economic or political, cultural or social. This is to be expected, given that they were influenced by anarchist ideas.
See Frank Sysyn's essay Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian Revolution which discusses the issue of Makhno and the Makhnovists and Ukrainian nationalism in some detail.
No, they did not. However, propaganda by the Bolsheviks during the civil war stated they did. Victor Serge later wrote about the "strenuous calumnies put out by the Communist Party" against Makhno "which went so far as to accuse him of signing pacts with the Whites at the very moment when he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle against them." [Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 122]
According to Arshinov, "Soviet newspapers spread the false news of an alliance between Makhno and Wrangel" and in the summer of 1920, a representative of the Kharkov government "declared at the Plenary Session of the Ekaterinoslav Soviet, that Soviet authorities had written proof of the alliance between Makhno and Wrangel. This was obviously an intentional lie." Wrangel, believing these lies had some basis, sent a messenger to Makhno in July, 1920. "Wrangel's messenger was immediately executed" and the "entire incident was reported in the Makhnovist press. All this was perfectly clear to the Bolsheviks. They nevertheless continued to trumpet the alliance between Makhno and Wrangel. It was only after a military-political agreement had been concluded between the Makhnovists and the Soviet power that the Soviet Commissariat of War announced that there had never been an alliance between Makhno and Wrangel, that earlier Soviet assertions to this effect were an error." [Op. Cit., pp. 173-5]
Needless to say, while the Bolsheviks spread the rumour to discredit Makhno, the Whites spread it to win the confidence of the peasants. Thus when Trotsky stated that Wrangel had "united with the Ukrainian partisan Makhno," he was aiding the efforts of Wrangel to learn from previous White mistakes and build some kind of popular base. By October, Trotsky had retracted this statement by acknowledging that "Wrangel really tried to come into direct contact with Makhno's men and dispatched to Makhno's headquarters two representatives for negotiations . . . [However] Makhno's men not only did not enter into negotiations with the representatives of Wrangel, but publicly hanged them as soon as they arrived at the headquarters." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 220]
Trotsky, of course, still tried to blacken the Makhnovists. In the same article he argued that "[u]ndoubtedly Makhno actually co-operated with Wrangel, and also with the Polish szlachta, as he fought with them against the Red Army. However, there was no formal alliance between them. All the documents mentioning a formal alliance were fabricated by Wrangel . . . All this fabrication was made to deceive the protectors of Makhno, the French, and other imperialists." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 225]
It is hard to know where to start in this amazing piece of political story-telling. As we discuss in more detail in section 13, the Makhnovists were fighting the Red Army from January to September 1920 because the Bolsheviks had engineered their outlawing. As historian David Footman points out, the attempt by the Bolsheviks to transfer Makhno to Polish front was done for political reasons: "it is admitted on the Soviet side that this order was primarily 'dictated by the necessity' of liquidating Makhnovshchina as an independent movement. Only when he was far removed from his home country would it be possible to counteract his influence" [Op. Cit., p. 291]
Indeed, it could be argued that by attacking Makhno in January 1920, the Bolsheviks helped the Whites by giving them the time and space to regroup under Wrangel and return later in the year. Equally, it seems like a bad joke for Trotsky to blame the victim of Bolshevik intrigues for defending themselves. And the idea that Makhno had "protectors" in any imperialist nation is a joke, which deserves only laughter as a response.
It should be noted that it is "agreed that the initiative for joint action against Wrangel came from the Makhnovites." This was ignored by the Bolsheviks until after "Wrangel started his big offensive" in September 1920 [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 294 and p. 295]
So while the Bolsheviks claimed that the Makhnovists had made a pact with General Wrangel, the facts are that Makhnovists fought the Whites with all their energy. Indeed, they considered the Whites so great a threat to the revolution they even agreed to pursue a pact with the Bolsheviks, who had betrayed them twice already and had subjected both them and the peasantry to repression. As such, it could be argued that the Bolsheviks were the only counter-revolutionaries the Makhnovists can be accurately accused of collaborating with.
Every historian who has studied the movement has refuted claims that the Makhnovist movement made any alliance with the counter-revolutionary White forces. For example, Michael Palij notes that Denikin "was the main enemy that Makhno fought, stubbornly and uncompromising, from the end of 1918 to the end of 1919. Its social and anti-Ukrainian policies greatly antagonised all segments of Ukrainian society. The result of this was an increased resistance to the Volunteer Army and its regime and a substantial strengthening of the Makhno movement." He also notes that after several months of "hard fighting" Denikin's troops "came to regard Makhno's army as their most formidable enemy." Makhno's conflict with Wrangel was equally as fierce and "[a]lthough Makhno had fought both the Bolsheviks and Wrangel, his contribution to the final defeat of the latter was essential, as is proved by the efforts of both sides to have him as an ally." [Op. Cit., p. 177, p. 202 and p. 228] According to Footman, Makhno "remained to the end the implacable enemy of the Whites." [Op. Cit., p. 295] Malet just states the obvious: "The Makhnovists were totally opposed to the Whites." [Op. Cit., p. 140]
We will leave the last word to the considered judgement of the White General Denikin who, in exile, stated that the Makhno movement was "the most antagonistic to the idea of the White movement." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 140]
In summary, the Makhnovists fought the White counter-revolution with all their might, playing a key role in the struggle and defeat of both Denikin and Wrangel. Anyone who claims that they worked with the Whites is either ignorant or a liar.
The Makhnovists worked with the Bolsheviks in three periods. The first (and longest) was against Denikin after the Red Army had entered the Ukraine after the withdrawal of the Austro-Germans. The second was an informal agreement for a short period after Denikin had been defeated. The third was a formal political and military agreement between October and November 1920 in the struggle against Wrangel. Each period of co-operation ended with Bolshevik betrayal and conflict between the two forces.
As such, the relationship of the Bolsheviks to the Makhnovists was one of, at best, hostile co-operation against a common enemy. Usually, it was one of conflict. This was due, fundamentally, to two different concepts of social revolution. While the Makhnovists, as anarchists, believed in working-class self-management and autonomy, the Bolsheviks believed that only a centralised state structure (headed by themselves) could ensure the success of the revolution. By equating working-class power with Bolshevik party government (and from 1919 onwards, with the dictatorship of the Bolshevik party), they could not help viewing the Makhnovist movement as a threat to their power (see section 14 for a discussion of the political differences and the evolving nature of the Bolshevik's conception of party rule).
Michael Malet sums up the usual Bolshevik-Makhnovist relationship by arguing that it "will be apparent that the aim of the Soviet government from the spring of 1919 onwards was to destroy the Makhnovists as an independent force, preferably killing Makhno himself in the process . . . Given the disastrous nature of Bolshevik land policy . . . this was not only unsurprisingly, it was inevitable." He also adds that the "fact that Makhno had a socio-political philosophy to back up his arguments only made the Bolsheviks more determined to break his hold over the south-east Ukraine, as soon as they realised that Nestor would not surrender that hold voluntarily." [Op. Cit., p. 128 and p. 129]
Such a perspective ensured that the Bolsheviks would only co-operate with the Makhnovists during periods when the White threat seemed most dangerous (sometimes, ironically, a threat which was increased by the Bolshevik betrayals of the Makhnovists). As soon as the threat was defeated or they felt strong enough, the Bolsheviks turned on their allies. This section discusses each of the Bolshevik betrayals and the subsequent conflicts. As such, it is naturally broken up into three parts, reflecting each of the betrayals and their aftermath.
The first betrayal occurred in June 1919. The Makhnovists had been integrated with the Red Army in late January 1919, retaining their internal organisation (including the election of commanders) and their black flags. With the Red Army they fought against Denikin's Volunteer Army. Before the arrival of Red forces in their region and the subsequent pact, the Makhnovists had organised a successful regional insurgent, peasant and worker congress which had agreed to call a second for February 12th. This second congress set up a Revolutionary Military Soviet to implement the decisions of this and following congresses. This congress passed an anti-Bolshevik resolution, which urged "the peasants and workers to watch vigilantly the actions of the Bolshevik regime that cause a real danger to the worker-peasant revolution." Such actions included the monopolisation of the revolution, centralising power and overriding local soviets, repressing anarchists and Left Socialist Revolutionaries and "stifling any manifestation of revolutionary expression." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154]
This change from the recent welcome was simply a consequence of the behaviour of the Bolsheviks since their arrival in the area. The (unelected) Ukrainian Bolshevik government had tried to apply the same tactics as its Russian equivalent, particularly as regards the peasants. In addition, the Bolshevik land policy (as indicated in section 8) was a complete disaster, alien to the ideas and needs of the peasants and, combined with grain requisitioning, alienating them from the regime.
A third congress was held on the 10th of April. By this time, Communist agricultural policy and terrorism had alienated all the peasantry, who "rich and poor alike" were "united in their opposition" to the Bolsheviks. [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 269] Indeed, the "poorer the areas, the more dissatisfied were the peasants with the Bolshevik decrees." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 156] As we indicated in section 7, the third congress was informed that it was "counter-revolutionary" and banned by the Bolshevik commander Dybenko, provoking a famous reply which stressed the right of a revolutionary people to apply the gains of the revolution when and as they see fit. It is worth re-quoting the relevant section:
"Can there exist laws made by a few people who call themselves revolutionaries which permit them to outlaw a whole people who are more revolutionary than they are themselves? . . .
"Is it permissible, is it admissible, that they should come to the country to establish laws of violence, to subjugate a people who have just overthrown all lawmakers and all laws?
"Does there exist a law according to which a revolutionary has the right to apply the most severe penalties to a revolutionary mass, of which he calls himself the defender, simply because this mass has taken the good things which the revolution promised them, freedom and equality, without his permission?
"Should the mass of revolutionary people perhaps be silent when such a revolutionary takes away the freedom which they have just conquered?
"Do the laws of the revolution order the shooting of a delegate because he believes he ought to carry out the mandate given him by the revolutionary mass which elected him?
"Whose interests should the revolutionary defend; those of the Party or those of the people who set the revolution in motion with their blood?" [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 103]
After the 3rd congress, the Bolsheviks started to turn against Makhno: "It was now that favourable mention of Makhno ceased to appear in the Soviet Press; an increasingly critical note became apparent. Supplies failed to get through to Makhnovite units and areas." [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 271]
Lenin himself advised local Bolshevik leaders on Makhno, stating in early May that "temporarily, while Rostov is not yet captured, it is necessary to be diplomatic." Thus, as long as the Bolsheviks needed cannon fodder, Makhno was to be tolerated. Things changed when Trotsky arrived. On May 17th he promised a "radical and merciless liquidation of partisanshchina [the partisan movement], independence, hooliganism, and leftism." [quoted by Arthur E. Adams, Bolsheviks in the Ukraine, pp. 352-3 and p. 360] According to one historian, Trotsky "favoured a thorough-going annihilation of the partisan's ideological leaders as well as men like Hryhoriyov who wielded political power." [Adams, Op. Cit., p. 360] Unsurprisingly, given Trotsky's stated mission, Bolshevik hostility towards the Makhnovists became more than mere words. It took the form of both direct and indirect aggression. "In the latter part of May," states Footman, "the Cheka sent over two agents to assassinate Makhno." Around the same time, the Red "hold-back of supplies for the Insurgents developed into a blockade of the area. Makhnovite units at the front ran short of ammunition." [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 271 and p. 272] This, obviously, had a negative impact on the Makhnovists' ability to fight the Whites.
Due to the gravity of the military and political situations both at and behind the front, the Makhnovist Revolutionary Military Soviet decided to call an extraordinary congress of peasants, workers, insurgents and Red soldiers. This congress was to determine the immediate tasks and the practical measures to be taken by the workers to remedy the mortal danger represented by the Whites. On May 31st, a call was sent out which stated, in part, "that only the working masses themselves can find a solution [to the current problem], and not individuals or parties." The congress would be based on "elections of delegates of peasants and workers . . . at general assemblies of villages, towns, factories and workshops." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 121]
The Bolshevik reply came quickly, with Trotsky issuing his infamous Order no. 1824 on June 4th:
"This Congress is directed squarely against the Soviet Power in the Ukraine and against the organisation of the southern front, where Makhno's brigade is stationed. This congress can have no other result then to excite some new disgraceful revolt like that of Grigor'ev, and to open the front to the Whites, before whom Makhno's brigade can only retreat incessantly on account of the incompetence, criminal designs and treason of its commanders.
"1. By the present order this congress is forbidden, and will in no circumstances be allowed to take place.
"2. All the peasant and working class population shall be warned orally and in writing, that participation in the said congress will be considered an act of high treason against the Soviet Republic and the Soviet front.
"3. All delegates to the said Congress shall be arrested immediately and bought before the Revolutionary Military Tribunal of the 14th, formerly 2nd, Army of the Ukraine.
"4. The persons spreading the call of Makhno and the Hulyai Pole Executive Committee to the Congress shall likewise be arrested.
"5. The present order shall have the force of law as soon as it is telegraphed. It should be widely distributed, displayed in all public places, and sent to the representatives of the executive committees of towns and villages, as well as to all the representatives of Soviet authority, and to commanders and commissars of military units." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 122-3]
Arshinov rightly argues that this "document is truly classic" and "[w]hoever studies the Russian revolution should learn it by heart." He compares Trotsky's order to the reply the Makhnovists had sent to the Bolsheviks' attempt to ban the third congress. Clearly, Order No. 1824 shows that laws did exist "made by a few people who call themselves revolutionaries which permit them to outlaw a whole people who are more revolutionary than they are themselves". Equally, the order shows that "a revolutionary has the right to apply the most severe penalties to a revolutionary mass . . . simply because this mass has taken the good things which the revolution has promised them, freedom and equality, without his permission"! Little wonder Arshinov states that this order meant that the "entire peasant and labouring population are declared guilty of high treason if they dare to participate in their own free congress." [Op. Cit., p. 123]
According to Voline, in Alexandrovsk "all workers meetings planned for the purpose of discussing the call of the Council and the agenda of the Congress were forbidden under pain of death. Those which were organised in ignorance of the order were dispersed by armed force. In other cities and towns, the Bolsheviks acted in the same way. As for the peasants in the villages, they were treated with still less ceremony; in many places militants and even peasants 'suspected of acting in favour of the insurgents and the Congress' were seized and executed after a semblance of a trial. Many peasants carrying the call were arrested, 'tried' and shot, before they could even find out about Order No. 1824." [Op. Cit., pp. 599-600]
As Arshinov summarises: "This entire document represents such a crying usurpation of the rights of the workers that it is pointless to comment further on it." [Op. Cit., p. 124]
Trotsky continued his usurpation of the rights of the workers in a later order on the congress. In this, Trotsky called this openly announced workers, peasant and insurgent congress a "conspiracy against Soviet power" and a "congress of Anarchist-kulaks delegates for struggle against the Red Army and the Soviet power" (which explains why the congress organisers had asked that hotbed of kulakism, the Red Army troops, to send delegates). Trotsky indicated the fate of those workers and peasants who dared participate in their own revolution: "There can be only one penalty for these individuals: shooting." [How the Revolution Armed, vol. II, p. 293]
Trotsky also ordered the arrest of Makhno, who escaped but had asked his troops to remain under Bolshevik command to ensure that the front against Denikin was maintained. However, five members of his staff were shot for having distributed literature concerning the banned fourth congress. This order was the first step in the Bolshevik attempt to "liquidate the Makhnovist movement." This campaign saw Bolshevik regiments invade the insurgent area, shooting militants on the spot and destroying the free communes and other Makhnovist organisations. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 121] It should be noted that during the Spanish Revolution, the Stalinists acted in the same way, attacking rural collectives while the anarchist troops fought against Franco at the front.
Thus the precipitating event for the break between the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks was Trotsky's banning of the fourth regional congress. However, this was preceded by an intense press campaign against the Makhnovists as well as holding back of essential supplies from the frontline troops. Clearly the Bolsheviks considered that the soviet system was threatened if soviet conferences were called and that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was undermined if the proletariat took part in the revolutionary process.
With the Makhnovist front weakened, they could not hold against Denikin's attacks, particularly when Red Army troops retreated on their flank. Thus, the front which the Makhnovists themselves had formed and held for more than six months was finally broken. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 124] The Red Army was split into three and the Whites entered the Ukraine, which the Bolsheviks promptly abandoned to its fate. The Makhnovists, drawing stray Red Army and other forces to it, continued to fight the Whites, ultimately inflicting a decisive defeat on them at Peregonovka, subsequently destroying their supply lines and ensuring Denikin's defeat (see section 4).
The Red Army re-entered the Ukraine at the end of 1919. Bolshevik plans with regard to the Makhnovists had already been decided in a secret order written by Trotsky on December 11th. Red Army troops had to "be protected against infection by guerrilla-ism and Makhnovism" by various means, including "extensive agitation" which used "examples from the past to show the treacherous role played by the Makhnovites." A "considerable number of agents" would be sent "ahead" of the main forces to "join the guerrilla detachments" and would agitate against "guerrilla-ism." Once partisan forces meet with Red Army troops, the former "ceases to be a military unit after it has appeared on our side of the line . . . From that moment it becomes merely material for processing, and for that purpose is to be sent to our rear." To "secure complete subordination of the detachments," the Red forces "must make use of the agents previously set to these detachments." The aim, simply put, was to ensure that the partisans became "fully subordinate to our command." If the partisan army which had been fighting for revolution and against the Whites "refuses to submit to orders, displays unruliness and self-will," then it "must be subjected to ruthless punishment." Recognising the organic links the partisans had with the peasants, Trotsky argues that "in the Ukraine, guerrilla detachments appear and disappear with ease, dissolving themselves into the mass of the armed peasant population" and so "a fundamental condition for the success against guerrilla-ism is unconditional disarmament of the rural population, without exception." [Trotsky, How the Revolution Armed, vol. II, pp. 440-2] As events would show, the Bolsheviks implemented Trotsky's order to the letter.
On December 24th, Makhno's troops met with the Bolshevik 14th army and its commander "admitted Makhno's service in defeating Denikin." However, while "the Bolsheviks fraternised with the Makhno troops . . . they distrusted Makhno, fearing the popularity he had gained as a result of his successful fighting against Denikin." The Bolsheviks had "no intention of tolerating Makhno's independent policy, but hoped first to destroy his army by removing it from its own base. With this in mind, on January 8th, 1920, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Fourteenth Army ordered Makhno to move to the Polish Front . . . The author of the order realised that there was no real war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks at the time and he also knew that Makhno would not abandon his region . . . [Its author] explained that 'an appropriate reaction by Makhno to this order would give us the chance to have accurate grounds for our next steps' . . . [He] concluded: 'The order is a certain political manoeuvre and, at the very least, we expect positive results from Makhno's realisation of this.'" [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 209 and p. 210]
This is confirmed by an exchange of telegrams between Trotsky and Stalin whilst discussions with the Makhnovists over their move to the Polish border, Trotsky contacted the local Revolutionary Military Committee by means of Stalin: "Do you think it would be possible to encircle Makhno right away and carry out a complete liquidation? It would probably be possible to destroy his artillery base if we sent some entirely reliable people there posing as anarchists. Makhno uses hardly any security measures, so we could most probably destroy his ammunition stores." Stalin replied: "The encirclement of Makhno was started a few days ago and will be accomplished by the ninth. The order [for the Makhnovists] to move against the Poles was issued with the intention of collecting extra material against Makhno." [quoted by Dimitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary, p. 158] To state the obvious, this telegram exchange proves that Makhno's termination was being planned and executed while he was still an ally of the Red Army and that the demand to move to the Polish Front little more than a cynical concoction for public consumption.
As can be seen, these actions fit perfectly with Trotsky's secret order and with Bolshevik desire for a monopoly of power for itself (see next section).
As expected, the Makhnovists refused to leave their territory. They realised the political motivations behind the order. "Sending the insurrectionary army to the Polish front" Arshinov notes, "meant removing from the Ukraine the main nerve centre of the revolutionary insurrection. This was precisely what the Bolsheviks wanted: they would then be absolute masters of the rebellious region, and the Makhnovists were perfectly aware of this." [Op. Cit., p. 163] As well as political objections, the Makhnovists listed practical reasons for not going. Firstly, "the Insurrectionary Army was subordinate neither to the 14th Corps nor to any other unit of the Red Army. The Red commander had no authority to give orders to the Insurrectionary Army." Secondly, "it was materially impossible to carry it out, since half the men, as well as nearly all the commanders and staff, and Makhno himself, were sick" with typhus. Thirdly, "the fighting qualities and revolutionary usefulness of the Insurrectionary Army were certainly much greater on their own ground." [Voline, Op. Cit., pp. 650-1]
The Bolsheviks refused to discuss the issue and, on the 14th of January, they declared the Makhnovists outlawed. They then "made a great effort to destroy" Makhno. In summary, the Bolsheviks started the conflict in order to eliminate opposition to their power. This led to nine months of bitter fighting between the Red Army and the Makhnovists. To prevent fraternisation, the Bolsheviks did not use local troops and instead imported Latvian, Estonian and Chinese troops. They also used other "new tactics," and "attacked not only Makhno's partisans, but also the villages and towns in which the population was sympathetic toward Makhno. They shot ordinary soldiers as well as their commanders, destroying their houses, confiscating their properties and persecuting their families. Moreover the Bolsheviks conducted mass arrests of innocent peasants who were suspected of collaborating in some way with the partisans. It is impossible to determine the casualties involved." They also set up "Committees of the Poor" as part of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus, which acted as "informers helping the Bolshevik secret police in its persecution of the partisans, their families and supporters, even to the extent of hunting down and executing wounded partisans." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 210 and pp. 212-3]
This conflict undoubtedly gave time for the Whites to reorganise themselves and encouraged the Poles to invade the Ukraine, so prolonging the Civil War. The Makhnovists were threatened by both the Bolsheviks and Wrangel. By mid-1920, Wrangel appeared to be gaining the upper hand and the Makhnovists "could not remain indifferent to Wrangel's advance . . . Everything done to destroy him would in the last analysis benefit the revolution." This lead the Makhnovists to consider allying with the Bolsheviks as "the difference between the Communists and Wrangel was that the Communists had the support of the masses with faith in the revolution. It is true that these masses were cynically misled by the Communists, who exploited the revolutionary enthusiasm of the workers in the interests of Bolshevik power." With this in mind, the Makhnovists agreed at a mass assembly to make an alliance with the Bolsheviks against Wrangel as this would eliminate the White threat and end the civil war. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 176]
The Bolsheviks ignored the Makhnovist offer using mid-September, when "Wrangel's success caused the Bolsheviks leaders to reconsider." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 223] Sometime between the 10th and 15th of October the final agreement was signed:
"Part I -- Political Agreement.
"1. Immediate release of all Makhnovists and anarchists imprisoned or in exile in the territories of the Soviet Republic; cessation of all persecutions of Makhnovists or anarchists, except those who carry on armed conflict against the Soviet Government.
"2. Complete freedom in all forms of public expression and propaganda for all Makhnovists and anarchists, for their principles and ideas, in speech and the press, with the exception of anything that might call for the violent overthrow of the Soviet Government, and on condition that the requirements of military censorship be respected. For all kinds of publications, the Makhnovists and anarchists, as revolutionary organisations recognised by the Soviet Government may make use of the technical apparatus of the Soviet State, while naturally submitting to the technical rules for publication.
"3. Free participation in elections to the Soviets; and the right of Makhnovists and anarchists to be elected thereto. Free participation in the organisation of the forthcoming Fifth Pan-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets . . .
"Part II -- Military Agreement.
"1. The Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army (Makhnovist) will join the armed forces of the Republic as a partisan army, subordinate, in regard to operations, to the supreme command of the Red Army; it will retain its established internal structure, and does not have to adopt the bases and principles of the regular Red Army.
"2. When crossing Soviet territory at the front, or going between fronts, the Insurrectionary Army will not accept into its ranks neither any detachments of, nor deserters from, the Red Army . . .
"3. For the purpose of destroying the common enemy -- the White Army -- the Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army (Makhnovists) will inform the working masses that collaborate with it the agreement that has been concluded; it will call upon the people to cease all military actions hostile to the Soviet power; and for its part, the Soviet power will immediately publish the clauses of the agreement.
"4. The families of combatants of the Makhnovist Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army living in the territory of the Soviet Republic shall enjoy the same rights as those of soldiers of the Red Army . . ." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 178]
This was agreed by both sides, although the Bolsheviks immediately broke it by publishing the military agreement first, followed by the political agreement a week later, so obscuring the real meaning of the pact. As it stands, the political clause simply gave anarchists and Makhnovists the rights they should have already had, according to the constitution of the Soviet state. This shows how far the Bolsheviks had applied that constitution. It is highly significant as in itself it disproves many of the Bolsheviks slanders about the Makhnovists and it proves the suppression of the anarchist press to have been on political grounds.
However, the Makhnovists desired to add a fourth clause to the Political Agreement:
"Since one of the essential principles of the Makhnovist movement is the struggle for the self-management of the workers, the Insurrectionary Army (Makhnovist) believes it should insist on the following fourth point of the political agreement: in the region where the Makhnovist Army is operating, the population of workers and peasants will create its own institutions of economic and political self-management; these institutions will be autonomous and joined in federation, by means of agreement, with the government organs of the Soviet Republic," [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 179-80]
Unsurprisingly, the Bolsheviks refused to ratify this clause. As one Bolshevik historian pointed out, the "fourth point was fundamental to both sides, it meant the system of free Soviets, which was in total opposition to the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 108] At this time, and for nearly two years, the Bolsheviks had equated the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the dictatorship of their party and so working-class self-management could not be allowed. It should be noted that this fourth clause was probably cause of Lenin's and Trotsky's toying with the idea of allowing the Makhnovists south-eastern Ukraine as an anarchist experiment (as mentioned by both Victor Serge and Trotsky in later years).
Once Wrangel had been defeated by Makhnovist and Red Army units, the Bolsheviks turned on the movement. Makhno had "assumed that the coming conflict with the Bolsheviks could be limited to the realm of ideas, feeling that the strong revolutionary ideas and feelings of the peasants, together with their distrust of the foreign invaders, were the best guarantees for the movement's territory. Moreover, Makhno believed that the Bolsheviks would not attack his movement immediately. A respite of some three months would have allowed him to consolidate his power [sic!] and to win over much of the Bolshevik rank and file." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 231] From the wording of the second clause of the military agreement (namely, to refuse Red Army deserters or units), it is clear that the Bolsheviks were aware of the appeal of Makhnovist politics on the Red Army soldiers. As soon as Wrangel was defeated, the Red Army attacked. Makhnovist commanders were invited to meetings, arrested and then shot. The Red Army surrounded Makhnovist units and attacked them. At the same time, anarchists were arrested all across the Ukraine. Hulyai Pole itself was attacked (Makhno, despite overwhelming odds, escaped). [Malet, Op. Cit., pp. 71-2] In the words of Makhno:
"In this difficult and responsible revolutionary position the Makhno movement made one great mistake: alliance with the Bolsheviks against a common enemy, Wrangel and the Entente. In the period of this alliance that was morally right and of practical value for the revolution, the Makhno movement mistook Bolshevik revolutionism and failed to secure itself in advance against betrayal. The Bolsheviks and their experts treacherously circumvented it." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 234]
While the Bolsheviks continuously proclaimed the final defeat of the Makhnovists, they held out for nearly a year before being forced to leave the Ukraine in August 1921. Indeed, by the end of 1920 his troops numbered ten to fifteen thousand men and the "growing strength of the Makhno army and its successes caused serious concern in the Bolshevik regime." More Red troops were deployed, "stationing whole regiments, primarily cavalry, in the occupied villages to terrorise the peasants and prevent them from supporting Makhno. . . Cheka punitive units were constantly trailing the partisans, executing Makhno's sympathisers and the partisans' families." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 237 and p. 238] Combined with this state terrorism, economic conditions in the villages got worse. The countryside was exhausted and 1921 was a famine year. With his rural base itself barely surviving, the Makhnovists could not survive long.
It should be noted that during the periods after the Bolsheviks had turned on the Makhnovists, the latter appealed to rank-and-file Red Army troops not to attack them. As one of their leaflets put it: "Down with fratricidal war among the working people!" They urged the Red Army troops (with some success) to rebel against the commissars and appointed officers and join with the Makhnovists, who would "greet [them] as our own brothers and together we will create a free and just life for workers and peasants and will struggle against all tyrants and oppressors of the working people." [contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 276 and p. 283]
Even after the defeat of the Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks did not stop their campaign of lies. For example, Trotsky reported to the Ninth Congress of Soviets on December 26th, 1921, that the Makhnovists were "in Romania," where Makhno had "received a friendly welcome" and was "liv[ing] comfortably in Bucharest." The Makhnovists had picked Romania because it was, like Poland, "a country where they . . . felt secure" due to the way they treated "Russian counter-revolutionary bands." [How the Revolution Armed, vol. IV, p. 404] In reality, the "Romanian authorities put Makhno, his wife, and his followers in an internment camp." The Bolsheviks were not unaware of this, as they "sent a series of sharp diplomatic notes demanding Makhno's extradition." Makhno and his wife were expelled to Poland on April 11, 1922, and the Poles also interned them and, again, the Bolsheviks demanded Makhno's extradition "on the ground that he was a criminal and not entitled to political asylum." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 242]
This places later comments by Trotsky and Victor Serge into context. The former wrote "Lenin and I seriously considered at one time allotting certain territories to the Anarchists, naturally with the consent of the population, where they could conduct their stateless experiment. That project died in the discussion stage through no fault of ours. The Anarchist movement itself failed to pass the test of actual events on the proving ground of the Russian Revolution." [Stalin, vol. 2, pp. 139-40] Assuming that this related to Makhno (who Trotsky mentions on the previous page, then it is clearly the fault of the Bolsheviks given that they broke the agreements they made with the Makhnovists. Serge suggested that "Trotsky was, much later (in 1938, I think), to recount that Lenin and he had thought of recognising an autonomous region for the anarchist peasants of the Ukraine, whose military leader Makhno was. That arrangement would have been both just and diplomatic, and perhaps an outlook as generous as this would have spared the revolution from the tragedy towards which we were drifting". [Memoirs of a Revolutionary 1901-41, p. 119] Yes, indeed, it would have been just but precisely because it may have spared the revolution is precisely why it could not be pursued -- having a free socialist region within the Bolshevik regime would have been the threat of a good example, a stark contrast to Leninist dictatorship and state capitalism. In short, the Makhnovists passed the test of the Russian Revolution -- unlike the Bolsheviks who violated all their pre-Revolution positions (beyond the aim of party power).
As can be seen, the relationship of the Makhnovists to the Bolsheviks was one of constant betrayal of the former by the latter. Moreover, the Bolsheviks took every opportunity to slander the Makhnovists, with Trotsky going so far as to report Makhno was living well while he was rotting in a capitalist prison. This is to be expected, as the aims of the two groups were at such odds: while the Makhnovists did whatever they could to encourage working-class self-management and freedom, the Bolsheviks had evolved from advocating the government of their party as the expression of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" to stating that only the dictatorship of their party could ensure the success of a social revolution and so was "the dictatorship of the proletariat."
Like chalk and cheese.
Whereas the Bolsheviks talked about soviet power while exercising a party dictatorship, the Makhnovists not only talked about "free soviets," they also encouraged them with all their ability. Similarly, while Lenin stated that free speech was "a bourgeois notion" and that there could be "no free speech in a revolutionary period," the Makhnovists proclaimed and applied free speech for working people. [quoted by Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 33] While the Bolsheviks ended up arguing for the necessity of party dictatorship during a revolution, the Makhnovists introduced free soviets and organised peasant, worker and insurgent congresses to conduct the revolution. While the Bolsheviks imposed "dictatorial" (to use Lenin's word) one-man management, the Makhnovists urged workers to organise themselves and manage their own affairs.
We have discussed the Makhnovist ideas in both theory and practice in sections 5, 6 and 7. In spite of the chaos and difficulties imposed upon the movement by having to fight the counter-revolution, the Makhnovists applied their ideals constantly. The Makhnovists were a mass movement and its constructive efforts showed that there was an alternative route the Russian revolution could have followed other than the authoritarian dictatorship that Leninists, then and now, claimed was inevitable if the revolution was to be saved.
To see why, we must compare Bolshevik ideology and practice to that of the Makhnovists in three key areas. Firstly, on how a revolution should be defended. Secondly, on the role of the soviets and party in the revolution. Thirdly, on the question of working-class freedom.
Early in 1918, after the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty the Bolsheviks re-introduced Tsarist officers into the army alongside bourgeois military discipline. As Maurice Brinton correctly summarises:
"Trotsky, appointed Commissar of Military Affairs after Brest-Litovsk, had rapidly been reorganising the Red Army. The death penalty for disobedience under fire had been restored. So, more gradually, had saluting, special forms of address, separate living quarters and other privileges for officers. Democratic forms of organisation, including the election of officers, had been quickly dispensed with." [The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 37]
Officers were appointed rather then elected. They argued this had to be done to win the war. The "principle of election," stated Trotsky, "is politically purposeless and technically inexpedient and has been, in practice, abolished by decree." Thus the election of officers and the creation of soldiers' committees was abolished from the top downwards, replaced by appointed officers. Trotsky's rationale for this was simply that "political power is in the hands of the same working class from whose ranks the Army is recruited." ["Work, Discipline, Order", How the Revolution Armed, vol. 1, pp. 46-7] Yet the Bolshevik Party actually held power as power, not the working class. Trotsky tried to answer the obvious objection:
"Once we have established the Soviet regime, that is a system under which the government is headed by persons who have been directly elected by the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, there can be no antagonism between the government and the mass of the workers, just as there is no antagonism between the administration of the union and the general assembly of its members, and, therefore, there cannot be any grounds for fearing the appointment of members of the commanding staff by the organs of the Soviet Power." [Op. Cit., p. 47]
He repeated this argument in his 1919 diatribe against the Makhnovists:
"The Makhnovites shout raucously: 'Down with appointed commanders!' This they do only so as to delude the ignorant element among their own soldiers. One can speak of 'appointed' persons only under the bourgeois order, when Tsarist officials or bourgeois ministers appointed at their own discretion commanders who kept the soldier masses subject to the bourgeois classes. Today there is no authority in Russia but that which is elected by the whole working class and working peasantry. It follows that commanders appointed by the central Soviet Government are installed in their positions by the will of the working millions. But the Makhnovite commanders reflect the interests of a minute group of Anarchists who rely on the kulaks and the ignorant." ["The Makhno Movement", Op. Cit., p. 280]
Of course, most workers are well aware that the administration of a trade union usually works against them during periods of struggle. Indeed, so are most Trotskyists as they often denounce the betrayals by that administration. Thus Trotsky's own analogy indicates the fallacy of his argument. Equally, it was not "the will of the working millions" which appointed anyone, it was a handful of leaders of the Bolshevik party (which had manipulated, packed, gerrymandered and dissolved the soviets to remain in power -- see section H.6.1). Needless to say, this was a vast change from Lenin's comments in State and Revolution opposing appointment and calling for election of all officials.
Moreover, the explanation that "the ignorant" were to blame for Makhnovist opposition to appointed officers had a long legacy with Trotsky. In April 1918, when justifying Bolshevik introduction of appointed officers, he had argued that the "Soviet government is the same as the committee of a trade union. It is elected by the workers and peasants and you can at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, at any moment you like, dismiss that government and appoint another. But once you have appointed it, you must give it the right to choose the technical specialists." He stressed that this applied "in military affairs, in particular." Using the trade union analogy, he argued that the workers had "entrusted us [the Bolshevik leaders] with the direction of the union" and this meant that the Bolshevik leaders, not the workers, should decide things as "we are better able to judge in the matter" than them. The workers role was stated clearly: "if our way of conducting the business is bad, then throw us out and elect another committee!" In other words, like any bureaucrat, for Trotsky working-class participation in the affairs of the revolution was seen as irrelevant: the masses had voted and their role was now that of obeying those who "are better able to judge."
Using an argument the Tsar could have been proud of, Trotsky defended the elimination of soldier democracy: "How could soldiers who have just entered the army choose the chiefs! Have they any vote to go by? They have none. And therefore elections are impossible." [Leon Trotsky Speaks, p. 113] After all, how could workers and peasants who have just entered political or economic struggle in 1917 choose the chiefs? Had they any vote to go by? They had none. And therefore political and workplace elections are impossible. Unsurprisingly, Trotsky soon ended up applying this logic to politics as well, defending (like all the leaders of Bolshevism) the dictatorship of the party over working class.
Ironically, in 1936 the Stalinist Communist Party in Spain was to make very similar arguments about the need for a regular army and army discipline to win the war. As Irish anarchist Aileen O'Carroll argues:
"The conventional army structure evolved when feudal kings or capitalist governments required the working class to fight its wars for them. These had to be authoritarian institutions, because although propaganda and jingoism can play a part initially in encouraging enlistment, the horrors of war soon expose the futility of nationalism. A large part of military organisation is aimed at ensuring that soldiers remain fighting for causes they do not necessarily believe in. Military discipline attempts to create an unthinking, unquestioning body of soldiers, as fearful of their own side as of the other." ["Freedom and Revolution", Red & Black Revolution, no. 1, p. 22]
In short in both Russia and Spain the Bolsheviks wanted an army that would obey them regardless of whether the individual soldiers felt they were doing the correct thing, indeed who would obey through fear of their officers even when they knew what they were doing was wrong. Such a body would be essential for enforcing minority rule over the wishes of the workers. Would a self-managed army be inclined to repress workers' and peasants' strikes and protests? Of course not -- as we discuss in section H.6.3, this is what the Red Army did. As a Communard paper put it during the Paris Commune, a democratically organised militia "defends the citizens against power, instead of an army which defends the state from the citizens" [quoted by Donny Gluckstein, The Paris Commune: A Revolutionary Democracy, p. 51]
The Makhnovists show that another kind of revolutionary army was possible in the Russian Revolution and that the "ignorant" masses could choose their own officers. In other words, the latter-day justifications of the followers of Bolshevism are wrong when they assert that the creation of the top-down, hierarchical Red Army was a result of the "contradiction between the political consciousness and circumstantial coercion" and "a retreat" because "officers were appointed and not elected," it was a conscript army and "severe military discipline." [John Rees, "In Defence of October", pp. 3-82, International Socialism, no. 52, p. 46] As can be seen, Trotsky did not consider it as a retreat or caused by circumstances. Equally, the Makhnovists managed to organise themselves relatively democratically in the circumstances created by the same civil war.
As such, the differences between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks as regards the internal organisation of a revolutionary army are clear. The Bolsheviks applied top-down, bourgeois methods of internal organisation and discipline. The Makhnovists applied democratic internal organisation and discipline as far as possible. All this confirms Bakunin's argument that, based on the anarchist analysis of the State as "minority government, from the top downward, of a vast quantity of men," that even the so-called workers' State "cannot be sure of its own self-preservation without an armed force to defend it against its own internal enemies, against the discontent of its people." As we discuss in section H.2.1, like all anarchist he saw the necessity "to organize common defence against the enemies of the Revolution" by means of the people armed: "No federated country may retain a standing army or any institution setting soldier apart from citizen . . . Every able-bodied citizen must, if necessary, become a soldier in defence of his home or of liberty". [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 265, p. 179 and p. 75]]
From our discussion of the Bolshevik justifications for its system of appointed officers in the Red Army, it will come as no surprise that as regards the relationship of the soviets to the revolutionary organisation (party), the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks were (again) miles apart. While we discuss this in greater detail in section H, we will give a flavour of Bolshevik ideology on this subject here.
From the start, Lenin identified soviet (or working class) power with the power of their own party. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks were clear that the soviets would not have "all power." Rather, the first act of soviet sovereignty was to alienate it into the hands of a Bolshevik government. In response to a few leading Bolsheviks who called for a coalition government, the Bolshevik Central Committee stated that it was "impossible to refuse a purely Bolshevik government without treason to the slogan of the power of the Soviets, since a majority at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets . . . handed power over to this government." [quoted by Robert V. Daniels, A Documentary History of Communism, vol. 1, pp. 127-8] How can the "power of the Soviets" exist when said soviets immediately "handed power" over to another body? Thus the only "power" the soviets had was simply the "power" to abdicate and alienate that power.
The question of who held power, the soviets or the party, came into focus when the soviet elections resulted in non-Bolshevik majorities being elected. After taking power in 1917, the Bolsheviks had become increasingly alienated from the working class. The spring and summer of 1918 saw "great Bolshevik losses in the soviet elections" in all provincial city elections that data is available for. The Mensheviks were the main beneficiaries of these election swings (Socialist Revolutionaries also gained) The Bolsheviks forcibly disbanded such soviets. They continually postponed elections and "pack[ed] local soviets once they could no longer count on an electoral majority" by giving representation to the organisations they dominated which made workplace elections meaningless. [Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, pp. 22-4 and p. 33] In Petrograd, such packing swamped the actual number of workplace delegates, transforming the soviets and making elections irrelevant. Of the 700-plus deputies to the "new" soviet, over half were elected by Bolshevik dominated organisations so ensuring a solid Bolshevik majority even before the factory voting began. As discussed in section H.6.1, such activities occurred at every level of the so-called soviet regime -- including the national Congress which elected the government.
Thus, the regime remained "soviet" in name only. Faced with a defeat in the soviets, the Bolsheviks simply abolished them or changed them to ensure their position. This process, it should be noted, started before the outbreak of Civil War in late May 1918, implying that Bolshevik authoritarianism cannot be explained as reactions to difficult objective circumstances.
Unsurprisingly, Bolshevik ideology started to adjust to the position the party found itself in. As Samuel Farber argues, in the "period of March to June 1918, Lenin began to make frequent distinctions within the working class, singling out workers who could still be trusted, denouncing workers whom he accused of abandoning the working class and deserting to the side of the bourgeoisie, and complaining about how the working class had become 'infected with the disease of petty-bourgeois disintegration.'" [Op. Cit., p. 25] Combined with the vision of "working-class" or "soviet" power expressed by the power of his party, this laid the foundations for what came next. In 1919 Lenin fully and explicitly argued that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was, in fact, the dictatorship of the Bolshevik party: "we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party . . . we say, 'Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position . . . '" [Collected Works, vol. 29, p. 535]
This quickly become Bolshevik orthodoxy. Victor Serge later recounted "at the start of 1919 I was horrified to read an article by Zinoviev . . . on the monopoly of the party in power", although as a good party member he kept his horror to himself while publicly arguing the necessity of this monopoly in any revolution (see section H.1.2). [The Serge-Trotsky Papers, p. 188] Trotsky, as we noted in section 10 argued in 1920 that there was "no substitution at all" when "the dictatorship of the party" replaces "the power of the working class". [Terrorism and Communism, pp. 109-10]. Zinoviev argued this point at the Second Congress of the Communist International:
"Today, people like Kautsky come along and say that in Russia you do not have the dictatorship of the working class but the dictatorship of the party. They think this is a reproach against us. Not in the least! We have a dictatorship of the working class and that is precisely why we also have a dictatorship of the Communist Party. The dictatorship of the Communist Party is only a function, an attribute, an expression of the dictatorship of the working class . . . the dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party." [Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920, vol. 1, pp. 151-2]
Neither Lenin nor Trotsky disagreed -- quite the reverse, as he simply articulating Bolshevik orthodoxy. By the end of the civil war, Lenin was arguing that "the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts . . . that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard . . . the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation." [Collected Works, vol. 32, p. 21] Note well that this position is generalised to all countries and so all revolutions, indicating that it was considered a lesson, a lesson to be learned and applied elsewhere, produced by the experience of the Russian Revolution rather than a retreat or temporary makeshift produced by difficult circumstances as many modern-day Leninists like to suggest.
Needless to say, these arguments place Trotsky's comments on the Makhnovists and appointed officers as well as the Bolshevik betrayals of the Makhnovists in 1919 and 1920 into political context. It also explains the Bolshevik opposition to the proposed fourth clause of the 1920 political and military agreement (see last section). Simply put, the Bolsheviks had long equated the revolution with their own power and since at least the beginning of 1919, if not earlier, they had exercised a dictatorship and modified their ideology accordingly, As such, Makhnovist calls for soviet self-management threatened the "dictatorship of the proletariat" (i.e. dictatorship of the party) by encouraging working people to participate in the revolution and giving the radically false idea that working-class power could be exercised by working people and their own class organisations.
Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev held this position until their deaths. Trotsky, for example, was arguing in 1923 that "[i]f there is one question which basically not only does not require revision but does not so much as admit the thought of revision, it is the question of the dictatorship of the Party, and its leadership in all spheres of our work." [Leon Trotsky Speaks, p. 158] Even after the rise of Stalinism, he was still arguing for the "objective necessity" of the "revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party" in 1937. He stressed that the "revolutionary party (vanguard) which renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution . . . Abstractly speaking, it would be very well if the party dictatorship could be replaced by the 'dictatorship' of the whole toiling people without any party, but this presupposes such a high level of political development among the masses that it can never be achieved under capitalist conditions." [Trotsky, Writings 1936-37, pp. 513-4]
This suggests that the later Trotskyist argument that the Bolsheviks were forced by "objective factors" to replace the dictatorship of the proletariat by that of the party is false. At the time, and afterwards, the Bolsheviks did not argue in these terms. The end of soviet democracy was not considered a problem or a retreat for the revolution. The opposite was the case, with the elimination of democracy being raised to an ideological truism to be applied everywhere. Equally, the fact that the Makhnovists did all they could to promote soviet self-management and actually called regional congresses of workers, peasants and insurgents suggests that "objective factors" simply cannot explain Bolshevik actions. Simply put, like the Bolshevik betrayals of the Makhnovists, the Bolshevik elimination of soviet democracy by party dictatorship can only be fully understood by looking at Bolshevik ideology. Little wonder the Makhnovists argued as followed:
"Since the arrival of the Bolsheviks the dictatorship of their party has been established here. As a party of statists, the Bolshevik Party everywhere has set up state organs for the purpose of governing the revolutionary people. Everything has to be submitted to their authority and take place under their vigilant eye. All opposition, protest, or even independent initiative has been stifled by their Extraordinary Commissions [the secret police, the Cheka]. Furthermore, all these institutions are composed of people who are removed from labour and from revolution. In other words, what has been created is a situation in which the labouring and revolutionary people have fallen under the surveillance and rule of people who are alien to the working classes, people who are inclined to exercise arbitrariness and violence over the workers. Such is the dictatorship of the Bolshevik-Communist Party . . .
"We again remind the working people that they will liberate themselves from oppression, misery and violence only through their own efforts. No change in power will help them in this. Only by means of their own free worker-peasant organisations can the workers reach the summit of the social revolution -- complete freedom and real equality." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit. pp. 116-7]
Which brings us to the next issue, namely working-class freedom. For anarchists, the key point of a revolution is to increase working-class freedom. It means the end of hierarchy and the direct participation in the revolution by the working classes themselves. As Bakunin put it, "revolution is only sincere, honest and real in the hands of the masses, and that when it is concentrated in those of a few ruling individuals it inevitably and immediately becomes reaction." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 237] For this reason, the Makhnovists (like Bakunin) argued for a revolutionary society based on free federations of worker and peasant organisations (free soviets).
This means that actions which consolidated rule by a few cannot be revolutionary, even if the few are made up of the most revolutionary of the revolutionaries. Thus working class power cannot be equated to the power of a political party, no matter how "socialist" or "revolutionary" its ideas or rhetoric. This means that Bolshevik restrictions on working class freedom (of speech, assembly, press, organisation) struck at the heart of the revolution. It did not signify the defence of the revolution, but rather its defeat. Ultimately, as Emma Goldman recognised, what the Bolsheviks called "defence of the Revolution" was "really only the defence of [the] party in power." [My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 57]
Anarchists had long argued that, to quote Goldman again, there is "no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical." [Op. Cit., p. 260] The evolution of Bolshevik practice and theory reinforces this argument. The means used had an impact on the course of events, which in turn shaped the next set of means and the ideology used to justify it.
This explains the Makhnovist and Bolshevik differences in relationship to working-class freedom. For anarchists, only freedom or the struggle for freedom can teach people to be free (and so is genuinely revolutionary). This explains why the Makhnovists not only proclaimed freedom of election, speech, press, assembly and organisation for working people, which was an essential revolutionary position, they also implemented it. The Bolsheviks did the reverse, clamping down on the opposition at every occasion (including workers' strikes and protests). For the Makhnovists, working-class freedom was the key gain of the revolution, and so had to be introduced, practised and defended. Hence Makhno:
"I consider it an inviolable right of the workers and peasants, a right won by the revolution, to call congresses on their own account, to discuss their affairs. That is why the prohibitions of such congresses, and the declaration proclaiming them illegal . . . represent a direct and insolent violation of the rights of the workers." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 129]
For the Bolsheviks, working-class freedom was something to fear. In 1903, Lenin laid the groundwork for this by arguing that the "spontaneous development of the labour movement leads to it being subordinated to bourgeois ideology." He stressed that "the working class, exclusively by their own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness . . . the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labour movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of ideas among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia." This meant that "Social Democratic [i.e. socialist] consciousness . . . could only be brought to them from without." [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 82 and pp. 74-5] Clearly, if the workers turned against the party, then the workers were "being subordinated to bourgeois ideology." It was in their own interests, therefore, for the party to subordinate the workers and so soviet democracy became not an expression of working-class power but rather something which undermined it. Thus, as we discuss in section H.5, vanguardism cannot help undermine a socialist revolution as it is fundamentally anti-socialist in theory and practice.
This perspective can be seen when the Makhnovists liberated cities. In Alexandrovsk and Katerinoslav, the Bolsheviks proposed to the Makhnovists spheres of action - their Revkom (Revolutionary Committee) would handle political affairs and the Makhnovists military ones. Makhno advised them "to go and take up some honest trade instead of seeking to impose their will on the workers." Instead, the Makhnovists called upon "the working population to participate in a general conference .. . . and it was proposed that the workers organise the life of the city and the functioning of the factories with their own forces and their organisations." [Arshinov Op. Cit., p. 154 and p. 149] The differences between the Bolsheviks and Makhnovists could not be clearer.
Lastly, we should note that while Lenin and the leading Bolsheviks wholeheartedly opposed working-class economic self-management by factory committees and instead urged "efficient" top-down one-man management, the Makhnovists supported working-class self-management of production. Under the Bolsheviks, as Arshinov argued, the "nationalisation of industry, [while] removing the workers from the hands of individual capitalists, delivered them to the yet more rapacious hands of a single, ever-present capitalist boss, the State. The relations between the workers and this new boss are the same as earlier relations between labour and capital, with the sole difference that the Communist boss, the State, not only exploits the workers, but also punishes them himself . . . Wage labour has remained what it was before, except that it has taken on the character of an obligation to the State . . . It is clear that in all this we are dealing with a simple substitution of State capitalism for private capitalism." [Op. Cit., p. 71] As discussed in section H.6.2, the Bolshevik regime also spawned a massive bureaucracy marked by inefficiency, waste and corruption. The Makhnovists, in contrast, stressed the need for workers to socialise the means of production and place it under their direct management by their own class organs. In other words, the abolition of wage slavery (whether to bosses or bureaucrats) by workers' self-management of production.
Unsurprisingly, the Makhnovists supported the Kronstadt rebellion for soviet democracy (see the appendix "What was the Kronstadt uprising?"). Indeed, there is significant overlap between the Kronstadt demands and the ideas of the Makhnovist movement. For example, the Makhnovist idea of free soviets is almost identical to the first three points of the Kronstadt programme and their land policy the same as point 11 of the Kronstadt demands. The Kronstadt rebels also raised the idea of "free soviets" and the "third revolution", common Makhnovist slogans. As one Bolshevik writer notes, it is "characteristic that the anarchist-Makhnovists in the Ukraine reprinted the appeal of the Kronstadters, and in general did not hide their sympathy for them." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 108] Voline also noted that the "ideas and activities of the Makhnovist peasants were similar in all respects to those of the Kronstadt rebels in 1921." [Op. Cit., p. 575] As with the Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks crushed the revolt to maintain their rule.
In summary, the major difference between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks is that the former stuck by and introduced their stated aims of "soviet power" and working-class freedom while the latter rejected them once they clashed with Bolshevik party policies and power.
Modern-day supporters of Bolshevism, on the rare occasions when they do mention the Makhnovist movement, simply repeat the old Bolshevik slanders against them.
For example, this is what Joseph Seymour of the U.S. Spartacus League did. Their newspaper Workers Vanguard ran a series entitled "Marxism vs. Anarchism" and in part 7, during his discussion of the Russian Revolution, Seymour claimed that the "most significant counter-revolutionary force under the banner of anarchism was the Ukrainian peasant-based army of Nestor Makhno, which carried out pogroms against Jewish communities and collaborated with White armies against the Bolsheviks." [Workers Vanguard, 30th August 1996, p. 7] Seymour, needless to say, made these accusations without providing any references, and with good reason: for no evidence exists to support his claims. As we indicated in section 9, the Makhnovists opposed anti-Semitism and did not conduct pogroms while section 12 proves that the Makhnovists did not collaborate with the Whites in any way.
In UK, the Leninist Revolutionary Communist Group asserted in their paper that the Makhnovists "joined with counter-revolutionary White and imperialist armies against socialist Russia. This band of brigands also carried out pogroms against Jewish communities in the Ukraine." [Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, issue no. 174, p. 12] No evidence for such a claim was presented in the original review article. When an anarchist pointed out their assertion was "falling back on a long tradition of Stalinist lies" and asked for "any historical references" to support it, the paper replied by stating that while there were "several" references, it would give two: "E.H. Carr refers to it in his history of the civil war. Also the anarchist historian Paul Avrich mentions it in his work The anarchists in the Russian Revolution." [Op. Cit., no. 175, p. 15] Yet neither work says any such thing. Looking at the first (unnamed) one, assuming it is E.H. Carr's The Bolshevik Revolution there is no reference to pogroms carried out by the Makhnovists (looking in the index for "Makhno"). Which, perhaps, explains why the paper refused to provide a book title and page number. As far as the second reference goes, Avrich made no such claim in The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution. He did address the issue in an essay on Makhno included his Anarchist Portraits, concluding such charges were false.
And the name of the original article? Ironically, it was entitled "The anarchist school of falsification".
However, more sophisticated slanders, lies and distortions have been levelled at the Makhnovists by the supporters of Bolshevism. This is to be expected, as the experience of the Makhnovists effectively refutes the claim that the Bolsheviks had no choice but to act as they did when another mass revolutionary army, operating in the same environment, did not act in the same way. This means that the Makhnovists are strong evidence that Bolshevik politics played a key role in the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. Clearly such a conclusion is dangerous to Bolshevism and so the Makhnovist movement must be attacked, regardless of the facts.
An example of this is John Rees' essay "In Defence of October". Rees, a member of the UK Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) is at pains to downplay the role of Bolshevik ideology in the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. He argues that "objective factors" ensured that the Bolsheviks acted as they did. The "subjective factor" was simply a choice between defeat and defence against the Whites: "Within these limits Bolshevik policy was decisive." ["In Defence of October", pp. 3-82, International Socialism, no. 52 (Autumn 1991), p. 30] This explains his attack on the Makhnovist movement. Faced with the same "objective factors" as the Bolsheviks, the Makhnovists did not act in the same way. As such, the "subjective factor" amounts to more than Rees' stark choice and so objective conditions cannot explain everything.
Clearly, then, the Makhnovists undermine his basic thesis. As such, we would expect a less than honest account of the movement and Rees does not disappoint. He talks about the "muddled anarchism" of Makhno, dismissing the whole movement as offering no alternative to Bolshevism and being without "an articulated political programme." Ultimately, for Rees, Makhno's "anarchism was a thin veneer on peasant rebellion" and while "on paper" the Makhnovists "appeared to have a more democratic programme" they were "frauds." [Op. Cit., p. 57, p. 58, p. 61 and p. 70]
The reality of the situation is totally different. Ignoring the obvious contradiction (i.e. how can the Makhnovists have the appearance of a "democratic programme" and, simultaneously, not articulate it?) we shall analyse his account of the Makhnovist movement in order to show exactly how low the supporters of Bolshevism will go to distort the historical record for their own aims (see the appendix "What was the Kronstadt uprising?" for Rees' distortions about the Kronstadt revolt). Once the selective and edited quotations provided by Rees are corrected, the picture that clearly emerges is that rather than the Makhnovists being "frauds", it is Rees' account which is the fraud -- along with the political tradition which inspired it.
Rees presents two aspects of his critique of the Makhnovists. The first is a history of the movement and its relationships (or lack of them) with the Bolsheviks. The second is a discussion of the ideas which the Makhnovists tried to put into practice. Both aspects of his critique are extremely flawed. Indeed, the errors in his history of the movement are so fundamental (and, indeed, so at odds with his references) that it suggests that ideology overcame objectivity (to be polite). The best that can be said of his account is that at least he does not raise the totally discredited accusation that the Makhnovists were anti-Semitic or kulaks. However, he more than makes up for this by distorting the facts and references he uses (it would be no exaggeration to argue that the only information Rees gets correct about his sources is the page number).
Rees starts by setting the tone, stating that the "methods used by Makhno and Antonov [a leader of the "Greens" in Tambov] in their fight against the Red Army often mirrored those used by the Whites." [Op. Cit., p. 57] Strangely enough, while he lists some for Antonov, he fails to specify any against Makhno. However, the scene is set. His strongest piece of evidence as regards Makhno's "methods" against the Red Army come from mid-1920 after, it should be noted, the Bolsheviks had engineered the outlawing of the Makhnovist movement and needlessly started the very conflict Rees uses as evidence against Makhno. In other words, he is attacking the Makhnovists for defending themselves against Bolshevik aggression.
He quotes reports from the Ukrainian Front to blacken the Makhnovists, using them to confirm the picture he extracts from "the diary of Makhno's wife." These entries, from early 1920, he claims "betray the nature of the movement". [Op. Cit., p. 58] There are two issues with this. First, the entries are from the period after the Bolsheviks had engineered the outlawing of the Makhnovists so, to state the obvious, if that had not happened then there would have been no conflict between the two. Second, and far more importantly for Rees' case, this diary is a fake and has been known to be a fake since Arshinov wrote his classic account of the Makhnovists in 1923:
"After 1920, the Bolsheviks wrote a great deal about the personal defects of Makhno, basing their information on the diary of his so-called wife, a certain Fedora Gaenko . . . But Makhno's wife is Galina Andreevna Kuz'menko. She has lived with him since 1918. She never kept, and therefore never lost, a diary. Thus the documentation of the Soviet authorities is based on a fabrication, and the picture these authorities draw from such a diary is an ordinary lie." [Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 226f]
Ironically enough, Rees implicitly acknowledges this by lamely admitting (in an end note) that "Makhno seems to have had two 'wives'" [Op. Cit., p. 78] We should note that the source Rees uses for the fake diary entries (W.H. Chamberlin's The Russian Revolution) uses as his source the very Bolshevik documentation that Arshinov quite correctly denounced over 70 years before Rees put pen to paper. Little wonder Michael Palij, in his detailed account of the movement (The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918-1921), fails to use it. So, in summary, a major part of his account is based on falsehoods, falsehoods exposed as such decades ago. This indicates well the quality of his case against the Makhnovist movement.
As regards the "evidence" he extracts from this fake diary and Red Army reports, it simply shows that Bolsheviks were shot by Makhno's troops and Red Army troops died in combat. This went both ways, of course. In "military operations the Bolsheviks shot all prisoners. The Makhnovists shot all captured officers unless the Red rank and file strongly interceded for them. The rank and file were usually sent home, though a number volunteered for service with the Insurgents." Equally, "[o]n the occupation of a village by the Red Army the Cheka would hunt out and hang all active Makhnovite supporters; an amenable Soviet would be set up; officials would be appointed or imported to organise the poor peasants . . . and three or four Red militia men left as armed support for the new village bosses." [David Footman, Op. Cit., pp. 292-3] As such, Rees' account of Makhnovist violence against the Bolsheviks seems somewhat hypocritical. We can equally surmise that the methods used by the Bolsheviks against the Makhnovists also "often mirrored those used by the Whites". And Rees lambastes socialist Samuel Farber for mentioning the "Red Terror, but not the Green Terror" in Farber's discussion of the Tambov revolt. [Op. Cit., p. 57] All in all, pretty pathetic.
Rees' concern for the truth can be seen from the fact that he asserts that Makhno's "rebellion" was "smaller" than the Tambov uprising and distinguished from it "only by the muddled anarchism of its leader." [Op. Cit., p. 58] In fact, the Makhnovist movement was the bigger of the two. As Michael Malet notes:
"The differences between them explain why the Makhnovshchina lasted over four years, the Antonovshchina less than one year. The initial area of the Makhno movement was larger, and later expanded, whereas the Antonov region was restricted to the southern half of one province throughout its existence. The Makhno movement became established earlier, and was well-known before its break with the soviet regime. A crucial factor was the period of peace between the Bolsheviks and Makhno during the first half of 1919, something Antonov never had. It allowed for political and social development as well as military build-up. It followed from this that Makhno attracted much more support, which was increased and deepened by the positive ideology of Makhno and the anarchists who came to help him. This was not a matter of being anti-State and anti-town -- all the Greens, including Antonov, shared this view in a less sophisticated form -- but a positive land policy and a realisation of the need to link up with the towns on a federal basis in the post-revolutionary society." [Op. Cit., p. 155]
Even in terms of troops, the Makhno movement was larger. One historian notes that the Antonov rebellion had "a peak of around 20,000" troops whilst the Makhnovist peaked at around 30,000. [Read, Op. Cit., p. 268 and 264] Other historians suggest higher numbers for Makhno. Palij, for example, states a peak of about 40,000 in late 1919. Even by the end of 1920, a few months into the Tambov rebellion (it started in August of that year), the Makhnovists still had 10 to 15 thousand troops. [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 112 and p. 237]
In summary, the movement which lasted longer, covered a larger area and involved more troops is classed by Rees as the smaller of the two. Incredible -- but it does give a flavour of the scholarship involved in his essay. Perhaps by "smaller" Rees simply meant that Makhno was physically shorter than Antonov?
After getting such minor details as size wrong, Rees turns to the actual history of the movement. He looks at the relations between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks, accurately stating that they "were chequered." However, he is wrong when he tries to explain what happened by stating they "reflect[ed] the fast changing military situation in the Ukraine throughout the civil war." [Op. Cit., p. 58] In fact, as we will prove, the relationships between the two forces reflected the military situation refracted through the ideology and needs of Bolshevik power. To ignore the ideological factor in the Makhnovist-Bolshevik relationships cannot be justified as the military situation does not fully explain what happened.
The Makhnovists co-operated with the Red Army three times. Only two of these periods were formal alliances (the first and last). Discussing the first two pacts, Rees alleges that the Makhnovists broke with the Bolsheviks. The truth is the opposite -- the Bolsheviks turned on the Makhnovists and betrayed them in order to consolidate their power. These facts are hardly unknown to Rees as they are contained in the very books he quotes from as evidence for his rewritten history.
The first pact between the Makhnovists and the Red Army ended June 1918. According to Rees, "[c]o-operation continued until June 1919 when the Insurgent Army broke from the Red Army" and quotes Michael Palij's book The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno as follows: "as soon as Makhno left the front he and his associates began to organise new partisan detachments in the Bolsheviks' rear, which subsequently attacked strongholds, troops, police, trains and food collectors." [Op. Cit., p. 58] Rees is clearly implying that Makhno attacked the Bolsheviks, apparently for no reason. The truth is totally different. It is easy to show this -- all we need to do is look at the book he uses as evidence.
Rees quotes Palij on page 177. This page is from chapter 16, which is called "The Bolsheviks Break with Makhno." As this was not enough of a clue, Palij presents some necessary background for this Bolshevik break. He notes that before the break, "the Bolsheviks renewed their anti-Makhno propaganda. Trotsky, in particular, led a violent campaign against the Makhno movement." He also mentions that "[a]t the same time, the supplies of arms and other war materials to Makhno were stopped, thus weakening the Makhno forces vis-a-vis the Denikin troops." In this context, the Makhnovists Revolutionary Military Council "decided to call a fourth congress of peasants, workers, and partisans" for June 15th, 1919, which Trotsky promptly banned, warning the population that "participation in the Congress shall be considered an act of state treason against the Soviet Republic and the front." [Op. Cit., p. 175 and p. 176]
The Bolsheviks had, of course, tried to ban the third congress in April but had been ignored. This time, they made sure that they were not. Makhno and his staff were not informed of Trotsky's dictatorial order and learned of it three days later. On June 9th, Makhno sent a telegram informing the Bolsheviks that he was leaving his post as leader of the Makhnovists. He "handed over his command and left the front with a few of his close associates and a cavalry detachment" while calling upon the partisans to "remain at the front to hold off Denikin's forces." Trotsky ordered his arrest, but Makhno was warned in advance and escaped. On June 15-16th, members of Makhno's staff "were captured and executed the next day." Now Palij recounts how "[a]s soon as Makhno left the front he and his associates began to organise new partisan detachments in the Bolsheviks' rear, which subsequently attacked strongholds, troops, police, trains and food collectors." [Op. Cit., p. 177]
Palij "subsequently" refers to Makhno after Denikin's breakthrough and his occupation of the Ukraine. "The oppressive policy of the Denikin regime," he notes, "convinced the population that it was as bad as the Bolshevik regime, and brought a strong reaction that led able young men . . . to leave their homes and join Makhno and other partisan groups." [Op. Cit., p. 190] As Makhno put it: "When the Red Army in south Ukraine began to retreat . . . as if to straighten the front line, but in reality to evacuate Ukraine . . . only then did my staff and I decide to act." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 190] After trying to fight Denikin's troops, Makhno retreated and called upon his troops to leave the Red Army and rejoin the fight against Denikin. He "sent agents amongst the Red troops" to carry out propaganda urging them to stay and fight Denikin with the Makhnovists, which they did in large numbers. This propaganda was "combined with sabotage." Between these two events, Makhno had entered the territory of pogromist warlord Hryhoryiv (which did not contain Red troops as they were in conflict) and assassinated him. [Op. Cit., p. 191 and p. 173]
It should also be noted that Palij states that it was the Whites who "were the main enemy that Makhno fought, stubbornly and uncompromisingly, from the end of 1918 to the end of 1919." [Op. Cit., p. 177]
Clearly, Rees's summary leaves a lot to be desired. Rather than Makhno attacking the Bolsheviks, it was they who broke with him -- as Palij, Rees's source, makes clear. Indeed, Makhno made no attempt to undermine the Red Army's campaign against Denikin (after all, that would have placed his troops and region in danger). Rather, he waited until the Bolsheviks showed that they would not defend the Ukraine against the Whites before he acted. As such, Rees misuses his source material and used Palij as evidence for a viewpoint which is the exact opposite of the one he recounts. The dishonesty is obvious. But, then again, it is understandable, as Trotsky banning a worker, peasant and partisan congress would hardly fit into Rees' attempt to portray the Bolsheviks as democratic socialists overcome by objective circumstances. Given that the Makhnovists had successfully held three such congresses to discuss the war against reaction, how could objective circumstances be blamed for the dictatorial actions of Trotsky and other leading Red Army officers in the Ukraine? Better not to mention this and instead rewrite history by making Makhno break with the Bolsheviks and attack them for no reason.
Rees moves onto the period of co-operation between the insurgents and the Bolsheviks. His version of what happened is that "Denikin's advance against Makhno's territory in autumn 1919 quickly forced a renewal of the treaty with the Bolsheviks. Makhno harassed Denikin's troops from the rear, making their advance more difficult." [Op. Cit., p. 58]
A more accurate account of what happened would be that Makhno reorganised his troops after the Bolsheviks had retreated and evacuated the Ukraine. These troops included those that had been left in the Red Army in June, who now left to rejoin him (and brought a few Red Army units along too). After conducting quick and demoralising raids against Denikin's forces, the Makhnovists were forced to retreat to the West (followed by White forces). In late September, near Peregonovka, Makhno inflicted a major defeat against the following Whites and allowed the Makhnovists to attack across Denikin's supply lines (which stopped his attack on Moscow thus, ironically, saving the Bolshevik regime). Makhno's swift attack on the rear of the Whites ensured their defeat. As the correspondent of Le Temps observed:
"There is no doubt that Denikin's defeat is explained more by the uprising of the peasants who brandished Makhno's black flag, then by the success of Trotsky's regular army. The partisan bands of 'Batko' tipped the scales in favour of the Reds." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 208]
Palij argues that it was the "rapidly changing military situation [which] soon caused a change in the Bolsheviks' attitude toward Makhno." The two forces meet up on December 24th, 1919. However, "[a]lthough the Bolsheviks fraternised with the Makhno troops and the commander even offered co-operation, they distrusted Makhno, fearing the popularity he had gained as a result of his successful fight against Denikin." [Op. Cit., p. 209] It should also be stressed that no formal treaty was signed.
Again, Rees' summary leaves a lot to be desired.
This is not the end of it. Rees even attempts to blame the Makhnovists for the attack of General Wrangel. He argues that "by the end of 1919 the immediate White threat was removed. Makhno refused to move his troops to the Polish front to meet the imminent invasion andhostilities with the Red Army began again on an even more widespread scale." [Op. Cit., p. 58]
This, needless to say, is a total distortion of the facts. Firstly, it should be noted that the "imminent" invasion by Poland Rees mentions did not, in fact, occur until "the end of April" (the 26th, to be precise). The break with Makhno occurred as a result of an order issued in early January (the 8th, to be precise). [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 219 and p. 210] Clearly, the excuse of "imminent" invasion was a cover, as recognised by a source Rees himself uses, namely Palij's work:
"The author of the order realised at that time there was no real war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks at that time and he also knew that Makhno would not abandon his region . . . Uborevich [the author] explained that 'an appropriate reaction by Makhno to this order would give us the chance to have accurate grounds for our next steps' . . . [He] concluded: 'The order is a certain political manoeuvre and, at the very least, we expect positive results from Makhno's realisation of this.'" [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 210]
This is confirmed by Rees' other references. David Footman, whom Rees also uses for evidence against the Makhnovist movement, notes that while it was "true there were military reasons for reinforcing" the Polish frontier (although he also notes the significant fact that the war "was not to break out for another four months"), it was "admitted on the Soviet side that this order was primarily 'dictated by the necessity' of liquidating Makhnovshchina as an independent movement. Only when he was far removed from his home country would it be possible to counteract his influence, and to split up and integrate his partisans into various Red Army formations." He notes that there were "other occasions (notably in Siberia) of the Soviet authorities solving the problem of difficult partisan leaders by sending them off to fight on distant fronts" and, of course, that "Makhno and his staff . . . were perfectly aware of the underlying Soviet motives." Footman recounts how the Makhnovist staff sent a "reasoned reply" to the Bolsheviks, that there "was no immediate response" from them and in "mid-January the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party declared Makhno and his force to be outside the law, and the Red Army attacked." [The Russian Civil War, pp. 290-1]
In other words, according to the sources Rees himself selects, the Bolsheviks started the conflict in order to eliminate opposition to their power.
Needless to say, the Makhnovists did realise the political motivations behind the order. As Arshinov notes: "Sending the insurrectionary army to the Polish front meant removing from the Ukraine the main nerve centre of the revolutionary insurrection. This was precisely what the Bolsheviks wanted: they would then be absolute masters of the rebellious region, and the Makhnovists were perfectly aware of this." In addition, "neither the 14th Corps nor any other unit of the Red Army had any ties with the Makhnovist army; least of all were they in a position to give orders to the insurrectionary army." Nor does Rees mention that the Makhnovists considered the move "physically impossible" as "half the men, the entire staff and the commander himself were in hospital with typhus." [Op. Cit., p. 163]
Consider what Rees is (distortedly) accounting. The beginning of 1920 was a time of peace. The Civil War looked like it was over. The White Generals had been defeated. Now the Bolsheviks turn on their allies after issuing an ultimatum which they knew would never be obeyed. Under the circumstances, a stupider decision cannot be easily found! Moreover, the very logic of the order was a joke. Would be it wise to leave the Ukraine undefended? Of course not and if Red Army units were to stay to defend the region, why not the Makhnovists who actually came from the area in question? Why provoke a conflict when it was possible to transfer Red Army units to the Polish front? Simply put, Rees presents a distorted picture of what was happening in the Ukraine at the time simply so he can whitewash the Bolshevik regime and blacken the Makhnovists. As he himself later notes, the Bolshevik-Makhnovist conflict gave the White General Wrangel the space required to restart the Civil War. Thus the Bolshevik decision to attack the Makhnovists helped prolong the Civil War -- the very factor Rees blames the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and Bolshevik ideology and practice on.
It is now that Rees presents his evidence of Makhnovist violence against the Bolsheviks (the Red Army reports and entries from the fake diary of Makhno's wife). Arguing that the entries from the fake diary "betray the nature of the movement in this period," he tries to link them with Makhnovist theory. "These actions," he argues, "were consistent with an earlier resolution of the Insurgent Army which declared that it was 'the actions of the Bolshevik regime which cause a real danger to the worker-peasant revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 59]
Firstly, given a true account of the second break between the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks, it would be fair to conclude that the resolution was, in fact, correct. However, such facts are not mentioned by Rees, so the reader is left in ignorance.
Secondly, to correct another of Rees' causal mistakes, it should be noted that this resolution was not passed by the Insurgent Army. Rather it was passed at the Second Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents held at Hulyai Pole on February 12th, 1919. This congress had 245 delegates, representing 350 districts and was one of four organised by the Makhnovists. Unsurprisingly, these regional congresses are not even mentioned by Rees in his account. This is for obvious reasons -- if the Makhnovists could organise congresses of workers, peasants and insurgents to discuss the progress of the revolution, then why could the Bolsheviks not manage it? Equally, to mention them would also mean mentioning that the Bolsheviks tried to ban one and succeeded in banning another.
Thirdly, the tone of the congress was anti-Bolshevik simply because the Ukraine had had a taste of Bolshevik rule. As Rees himself acknowledges in a roundabout way, the Bolsheviks had managed to alienate the peasantry by their agricultural policies.
Fourthly, the Bolsheviks had engineered the outlawing of the Makhnovists. Thus the actions of the Makhnovists were not "consistent" with the earlier resolution. They were, in fact, "consistent" with self-defence against a repressive state which had attacked them first.
Looking at the congress where the resolution was passed, we find that the list of "real dangers" was, quite simply, sensible and, in fact, in line with Leninist rhetoric. The resolution acknowledged the fact that the Bolshevik party was "demanding a monopoly of the Revolution." As we discussed in section 14, it was during this period that the Bolsheviks explicitly started to argue that the "dictatorship of the party" was the "dictatorship of the proletariat." The resolution also stated:
"With deep regret the Congress must also declare that apart from external enemies a perhaps even greater danger, arising from its internal shortcomings, threatens the Revolution of the Russian and Ukrainian peasants and workers. The Soviet Governments of Russia and of the Ukraine, by their orders and decrees, are making efforts to deprive local soviets of peasants and workers' deputies of their freedom and autonomy." [quoted by Footman, Op. Cit., p. 267]
It also stated that "the political commissars are watching each step of the local soviets and dealing ruthlessly with those friends of peasants and workers who act in defence of peoples' freedom from the agency of the central government". The "Bolshevik regime arrested left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, closing their newspapers, stifling any manifestation of revolutionary expression." Delegates also complained that the Bolshevik government had not been elected, that it was "imposing upon us its party dictatorship" and "attempting to introduce its Bolshevik monopoly over the soviets." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154]
The resolution noted that the current situation was "characterised by the seizure of power by the political party of Communists-Bolsheviks who do not balk at anything in order to preserve and consolidate their political power by armed force acting from the centre. The party is conducting a criminal policy in regard to the social revolution and in regard to the labouring masses." [quoted by Vladimir N. Brovkin, Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War, p. 109] Its point number three read:
"We protest against the reactionary habits of Bolshevik rulers, commissars, and agents of the Cheka, who are shooting workers, peasants, and rebels, inventing all kinds of excuses . . . The Cheka which were supposed to struggle with counterrevolution . . . have turned in the Bolsheviks' hands into an instrument for the suppression of the will of the people. They have grown in some cases into detachments of several hundred armed men with a variety of arms. We demand that all these forces be dispatched to the front." [quoted by Brovkin, Op. Cit., p. 110]
We should also point out that Rees selectively quotes the resolution to distort its meaning. The resolution, in fact, "urges the peasants and workers to watch vigilantly the actions of the Bolshevik regime that cause a real danger to the worker-peasant revolution." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154] We have listed some of the actions of the Bolsheviks that the congress considered as a "real danger." Considering the truth of these complaints, only someone blinded by Bolshevik ideology would consider it strange that worker and peasant delegates should agree to "watch vigilantly" those actions of the Bolsheviks which were a "real danger" to their revolution.
Lenin (before taking power, of course) had argued that elections and recall to soviets were essential to ensure that the workers control the "workers' state" and that socialism required the elimination of "special bodies of armed men" by an armed population. To this day, his followers parrot his claims while, simultaneously, justifying the exact opposite in Lenin's Russia. Now, is Rees really arguing that the Bolshevik monopoly of power, the creation of a secret police and the clamping down on working people's freedom were not dangers to the Russian Revolution and should not be watched vigilantly? If so, then his conception of revolution includes the strange notion that dictatorship by a party does not threaten a revolution. Then again, neither did the Bolsheviks (indeed, they thought calling worker, peasant and partisan congresses to discuss the development of the revolution as the real danger to it). If not, then he cannot fault the regional congress resolution for pointing out the obvious. As such, Rees' misquoting of the resolution backfires on him.
Significantly, Rees fails to mention that during this period (the first half of 1920), the Bolsheviks "shot ordinary soldiers as well as their commanders, destroying their houses, confiscating their properties, and persecuting their families. Moreover the Bolsheviks conducted mass arrests of innocent peasants who were suspected of collaborating in some way with the partisans. It is impossible to determine the casualties involved." The hypocrisy is clear. While Rees presents information (some of it, we stress, from a fake source) on Makhnovist attacks against the Bolshevik dictatorship, he remains silent on the Bolshevik tactics, violence and state terrorism. Given that the Bolsheviks had attacked the Makhnovists, it seems strange that that Rees ignores the "merciless methods" of the Bolsheviks (to use Palij's phrase) and concentrates instead on the acts of self-defence forced onto the Makhnovists. Perhaps this is because it would provide too strong a "flavour" of the Bolshevik regime? [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 212-3 and p. 213]
Rees makes great play of the fact that White forces took advantage of the conflict between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks, as would be expected. However, it seems like an act of ideological faith to blame the victims of this conflict for it. In his attempts to demonise the Makhnovists, he argues that "[i]n fact it was Makhno's actions against the Red Army which made 'a brief return of the Whites possible.'" In defence of his claims, Rees quotes from W. Bruce Lincoln's Red Victory. However, looking at Lincoln's work we discover that Lincoln is well aware who is to blame for the return of the Whites. Unsurprisingly, it is not the Makhnovists:
"Once Trotsky's Red Army had crushed Iudenich and Kolchak and driven Deniken's forces back upon their bases in the Crimea and the Kuban, it turned upon Makhno's partisan forces with a vengeance . . . [I]n mid-January 1920, after a typhus epidemic had decimated his forces, a re-established Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party declared Makhno an outlaw. Yet the Bolsheviks could not free themselves from Makhno's grasp so easily, and it became one of the supreme ironies of the Russian Civil War that his attacks against the rear of the Red Army made it possible for the resurrected White armies . . . to return briefly to the southern Ukraine in 1920." [Red Victory, p. 327]
Ignoring the fact that Rees does not bother to give the correct quote (a problem that re-occurs frequently in his essay), it can be seen that he does paraphrase the last sentence of Lincoln's work correctly. Strange, then, that he ignores the rest of his account which clearly indicates that the Bolsheviks "turned upon" the Makhnovists and "declared Makhno an outlaw." Obviously such trivial facts as the initial Bolshevik attacks against the Makhnovists are unimportant to understanding what actually happened in this period. Informing his readers that it was the Bolsheviks' betrayal of the Makhnovists which provoked the resistance that "made it possible for . . . the White armies . . . to return briefly" would confuse them with facts and so it goes unmentioned.
So Lincoln, it must be stressed, concurs with Rees's other main sources (Palij and Footman) on the fact that the Bolsheviks betrayed the Makhnovists. Clearly, Rees has rewritten history and distorted all of his main references on the Makhnovist movement. After reading the same fact in three different sources, you would think that the Bolshevik betrayal of the Makhnovists which provoked their resistance against them would warrant some mention, but no. In true Stalinist fashion, Rees managed to turn a Bolshevik betrayal of the Makhnovists into a stick with which to beat them with. Truly amazing.
Simply put, if the Bolsheviks had not wanted to impose their rule over the Ukraine, then the conflict with the Makhnovists need not have taken place and Wrangel would not have been in a position to invade. Why did the Bolsheviks act in this way? There was no "objective factor" for this action and so we must turn to Bolshevik ideology.
As we proved in section 14, Bolshevik ideology by this time asserted that the Bolshevik party dictatorship was "the dictatorship of the proletariat." Does Rees really believe that such perspectives had no impact on how the Bolsheviks acted during the Revolution? The betrayal of the Makhnovists can only be understood in terms of the "subjective factor" Rees seeks to ignore. If you think, as the Bolsheviks clearly did, that the dictatorship of the proletariat equalled the dictatorship of the party (and vice versa) then anything which threatened the rule of the party had to be destroyed. Whether this was soviet democracy or the Makhnovists did not matter. The Makhnovist idea of worker and peasant self-management, like soviet democracy, could not be reconciled with the Bolshevik ideology. As such, Bolshevik policy explains the betrayals of the Makhnovists.
Not satisfied with distorting his source material to present the Makhnovists as the guilty party in the return of Wrangel, he decides to blame the initial success of Wrangel on them as well. He quotes Michael Palij as follows: "As Wrangel advanced . . . Makhno retreated north . . . leaving behind small partisan units in the villages and towns to carry out covert destruction of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus and supply bases." He again sources Palij's work on the "effective" nature of these groups, stating that White Colonel Noga reported to headquarters that Makhno was critical to Wrangel's advance. [Op. Cit., p. 59]
As regards the claims that Makhno was "critical" to Wrangel's advance, Colonel Noga actually states that it was "peasant uprisings under Makhno and many other partisan detachments" which gave "the Reds no rest." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214] However, what Rees fails to mention is that Palij argues that it was the Bolshevik "policy of terror and exploitation" which had "turned almost all segments of Ukrainian society against the Bolsheviks, substantially strengthened the Makhno movement, and consequently facilitated the advance of the reorganised anti-Bolshevik force of General Wrangel from the Crimea into South Ukraine, the Makhno region." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214] Again, Makhno is blamed for the inevitable results of Bolshevik policies and actions.
It should also be reported that Noga's comments are dated 25th March 1920, while Palij's summary of Makhno's activities retreating from Wrangel was about June 1920 -- 2 months later. As regards this advance by Wrangel, Palij argues that it was the "outbreak of the Polish-Bolshevik war at the end of April" which "benefited Wrangel" and "enabled him to launch an offensive against the Bolsheviks in Tavriia on June 6th." Indeed, it was after a "series of battles" that Wrangel "penetrated north, forcing a general Bolshevik retreat." Now, "[a]s Wrangel advanced deeper into the Left Bank, Makhno retreated north to the Kharkiv region, leaving behind small partisan units in the villages and towns to carry on covert destruction of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus and supply bases." [Op. Cit., p. 219] Again, Rees' account has little bearing to reality or the source material he uses.
Rees continues to re-write history by arguing that "Makhno did not fight with the Reds again until October 1920 when Wrangel advanced on Makhno's base." [Op. Cit., p. 59] In fact, it was the Makhnovists who contacted the Bolsheviks in July and August in 1920 with a view to suspending hostilities and co-operating in the fight against Wrangel. This decision was made at a mass assembly of insurgents. Sadly, the Bolsheviks made no response. Only in September, after Wrangel had occupied many towns, did the Bolsheviks enter into negotiations. [Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 176-7] This is confirmed by Footman, who states that it is "agreed that the initiative for joint action against Wrangel came from the Makhnovists". [Op. Cit., p. 294] Likewise, Palij notes that "Makhno was compelled to seek an understanding with the Bolsheviks" but "no reply was received." It was "Wrangel's success [which] caused the Bolshevik leaders to reconsider Makhno's earlier proposal." [Op. Cit., pp. 222-3] Obviously indicating that the Makhnovists placed the struggle against the White counter-revolution above their own politics would place the Bolsheviks in a bad light, and so Rees fails to give the details behind the agreement of joint action against Wrangel.
As regards this third and final break, Rees states that it was ("unsurprisingly") a "treaty of convenience on the part of both sides and as soon as Wrangel was defeated at the end of the year the Red Army fought Makhno until he gave up the struggle." [Op. Cit., p. 59] Which, as far as it goes, is true. Makhno, however, "assumed [that] the forthcoming conflict with the Bolsheviks could be limited to the realm of ideas" and that they "would not attack his movement immediately." He was wrong. Instead the Bolsheviks attacked the Makhnovists without warning and, unlike the other breaks, without pretext -- although that did not stop the Bolsheviks handing out leaflets to the Red Army stating that Makhno had "violat[ed] the agreement". [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 231 and p. 236]
The agreement which the Bolsheviks ripped up can be found in section 13. There were two parts, a military and a political one. The military one is pretty straight forward (although the clause on the Makhnovists refusing to accept Red Army detachments or deserters suggests that the Makhnovists' democratic army was seen by many Red Army soldiers as a better alternative to Trotsky's autocratic structure). The political agreement just gave the Makhnovists and anarchists the rights they should have had according to the Soviet Constitution. Significantly, the Bolsheviks delayed the publication of the political agreement until several days after the military one was published, "thus blurring its real meaning." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 225] Given this, it is little wonder the Bolsheviks ignored it -- they also ignored their own constitution.
However, it is the fourth point of the political agreement which gives the best insight into the nature of Bolshevism. This last point was never ratified by the Bolsheviks as it was "absolutely unacceptable to the dictatorship of the proletariat." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 225] This clause was:
"One of the basic principles of the Makhno movement being the struggle for the self-administration of the toilers, the Partisan Army brings up a fourth point: in the region of the Makhno movement, the worker and peasant population is to organise and maintain its own free institutions for economic and political self-administration; this region is subsequently federated with Soviet republics by means of agreements freely negotiated with the appropriate Soviet governmental organ." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 224]
Clearly, this idea of worker and peasant self-management, like soviet democracy, could not be reconciled with the Bolshevik support for party dictatorship as the expression of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" which had become a Bolshevik ideological truism by that time. Little wonder the Bolsheviks failed to ratify the fourth clause and violated the other agreements. Simply put, a libertarian alternative to Bolshevism would give the Russian and Ukrainian working masses hope of freedom and make them harder to control. It is unsurprising that Rees fails to discuss the treaty -- it would, yet again, undermine his case that the Bolsheviks were forced by objective circumstances to be dictatorial.
Let us not forget the circumstances in which this betrayal took place. The country was, as Rees reminds us, in a state of economic disruption and collapse. Indeed, Rees blames the anti-working class and dictatorial actions and policies of the Bolsheviks on the chaos caused by the civil war. Yet here are the Bolsheviks prolonging this very Civil War by turning (yet again) on their allies. After the defeat of the Whites, the Bolsheviks preferred to attack the Makhnovists rather than allow them the freedom they had been fighting for. Resources which could have been used to aid the economic rebuilding of Russia and the Ukraine were used to attack their former allies. The talents and energy of the Makhnovists were either killed or wasted in a pointless conflict. Should we be surprised? After all, the Bolsheviks had preferred to compound their foes during the Civil War (and, indirectly, aid the very Whites they were fighting) by betraying their Makhnovist allies on two previous occasions (once, because the Makhnovists had dared call a conference of working people to discuss the civil war being fought in their name). Clearly, Bolshevik politics and ideology played a key role in all these decisions. They were not driven by terrible objective circumstances, indeed, they made them worse.
Rees obviously distorted the truth about the first two agreements between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks. He portrayed the Makhnovists as the guilty party, "breaking" with the Bolsheviks when in fact it was (in both cases) the Bolsheviks who broke with and betrayed the Makhnovists. That explains why he fails to present any information on why the first break happened and why he distorts the events of the second. It cannot be said that he was unaware of these facts -- they are in the very books he himself references. As such, we have a clear and intended desire to deceive the reader. As regards the third agreement, while he makes no pretence that the Makhnovists were the guilty party however, he implies that the Bolsheviks had to act as they did before the Makhnovists turned on them. Little wonder, then, that he does not provide the details of the agreement made between the Bolsheviks and Makhnovists -- to do so would have been to expose the authoritarianism of the Bolsheviks. Simply put, Rees' distortions of the source material he uses comes as no surprise. It undermines his basic argument and so cannot be used in its original form. Hence the cherry-picking of quotations to support his case.
After distorting Makhnovist relations with the Bolsheviks, Rees moves on to distorting the socio-political ideas and practice of the Makhnovists. As would be expected from his hatchet-job on the military history of the movement, his account of its social ideas leaves much to be desired. However, both aspects of his critique have much in common. His account of its theoretical ideas and its attempts to apply them again abuse the source material in disgraceful ways.
For example, Rees states that under the Makhnovists "[p]apers could be published, but the Bolshevik and Left Socialist Revolutionary press were not allowed to call for revolution" and references Michael Palij's book. [Op. Cit., p. 60] Looking at the page in question, we discover a somewhat different account. According to Palij's work, what the Makhnovists actually "prohibited" was that these parties should "propagate armed uprisings against the Makhnovist movement." A clear rewriting of the source material and an indication of how low Leninists will sink. Significantly, Palij also notes that this "freedom of speech, press, assembly and association" was implemented "[i]n contrast to the Bolshevik regime" and its policy of crushing such liberties. [Op. Cit. pp. 152-3] Ironically, the military-political agreement of late 1920 between the Reds and Makhnovists included a similar clause, banning expression that "tended to a violent overthrow of the Soviet government." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 224] Which means, to use Rees' distorted terminology, that the Bolsheviks also banned calls for revolution.
However, this distortion of the source material does give us an insight into the mentality of Leninism. After all, according to Palij, when the Makhnovists entered a city or town they "immediately announced to the population that the army did not intend to exercise political authority." The workers and peasants were to set up soviets "that would carry out the will and orders of their constituents" as well as "organis[e] their own self-defence force against counter-revolution and banditry." These political changes were matched in the economic sphere as well, as the "holdings of the landlords, the monasteries and the state, including all livestocks and goods, were to be transferred to the peasants" and "all factories, plants, mines, and other means of production were to become property of all the workers under control of their professional unions." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 151]
In such an environment, a call for "revolution" (or, more correctly, "armed uprisings against the Makhno movement") could only mean a Bolshevik coup to install a party dictatorship. As the Makhnovists were clearly defending working-class and peasant self-government, then a Bolshevik call for "armed uprisings" against them also meant the end of such free soviets. Little wonder Rees distorts his source. Arshinov makes the situation clear:
"The only restriction that the Makhnovists considered necessary to impose on the Bolsheviks, the left Socialist Revolutionaries and other statists was a prohibition on the formation of those 'revolutionary committees' which sought to impose a dictatorship over the people. In Aleksandrovsk and Ekaterinoslav, right after the occupation of these cities by the Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks hastened to organise Revkoms (Revolutionary Committees ) seeking to organise their political power and govern the population . . . Makhno advised them to go and take up some honest trade instead of seeking to impose their will on the workers . . . In this context the Makhnovists' attitude was completely justified and consistent. To protect the full freedom of speech, press, and organisation, they had to take measures against formations which sought to stifle this freedom, to suppress other organisations, and to impose their will and dictatorial authority on the workers." [Op. Cit., p. 154]
Little wonder Rees distorts the issues and transforms a policy to defend the real revolution into one which banned a "call for revolution". We should be grateful that he distorted the Makhnovist message for it allows us to indicate the dictatorial nature of the regime and the politics Rees is defending.
All of which disproves Rees' assertion that "the movement never had any real support from the working class. Neither was it particularly interested in developing a programme which would appeal to the workers." [Op. Cit., p. 59] Now, Rees had obviously read Palij's summary of Makhnovist ideas. Is he claiming that workers' self-management and the socialisation of the means of production do not appeal to workers? After all, most Leninists pay lip-service to these ideas. Is Rees arguing that the Bolshevik policies of the time (namely one-man management and the militarisation of labour) appealed to the workers more than workers' self-management of production? Equally, the Makhnovists argued that the workers should form their own free soviets which would "carry out the will and orders of their constituents." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 151] Is Rees really arguing that the Bolshevik policy of party dictatorship appealed to the workers more than soviet democracy? If so, then heaven help us if the SWP or its like ever get into power.
As we show in section H.6.3, this was not the case as working-class resistance to Bolshevik policies was extremely widespread and was expressed by strikes -- and broken by state repression. It should be noted that the wave of strikes all across Russia which preceded the Kronstadt revolt also raised the demand for soviet democracy. The call for "free soviets" was raised by the Kronstadt revolt itself and during the "mini-Kronstadt" in Katerinoslav in June 1921 where the demands of the workers "were very similar in content with the resolutions of the Kronstadt rebels" and telegraph operators sent "messages throughout the Soviet Republic calling for 'free soviets.'" [Jonathan Aves, Workers Against Lenin, p. 172 and p. 173]
Clearly, the Makhnovists did create a "programme that would appeal to the workers." However, it is true that the Makhnovists did fail win over more than a minority of workers. This may have been due to the fact that the Makhnovists only freed two cities, both for short periods of time. As Paul Avrich notes, "he found little time to implement his economic programs." [Anarchist Portraits, p. 121] Given how Rees bends over backwards to justify Bolshevik policies in terms of "objective factors," it is significant that in his discussion of the Makhnovists such "objective factors" as time fail to get a mention.
Thus Rees's attempt to paint the Makhnovists as anti-working class fails. While this is the core of his dismissal of them as a possible "libertarian alternative to the Bolsheviks," the facts do not support his assertions. He gives the example of Makhno's advice to railway workers in Aleksandrovsk "who had not been paid for many weeks" that they should "simply charge passengers a fair price and so generate their own wages." He states that this "advice aimed at reproducing the petit-bourgeois patterns of the countryside." [Op. Cit., p. 59] Three points can be raised against this argument.
Firstly, we should highlight the Bolshevik (and so, presumably, "proletarian") patterns imposed on the railway workers. Trotsky simply "plac[ed] the railwaymen and the personnel of the repair workshops under martial law" and "summarily ousted" the leaders of the railwaymen's trade union when they objected." The Central Administrative Body of Railways (Tsektran) he created was run by him "along strictly military and bureaucratic lines." In other words, he applied his ideas on the "militarisation of labour" in full. [M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 67] Compared to the Bolshevik pattern, only an ideologue could suggest that Makhno's advice (and it was advice, not a decree imposed from above, as was Trotsky's) can be considered worse. Indeed, by being based on workers' self-management it was infinitely more socialist than the militarised Bolshevik state-capitalist system.
Secondly, the Bolsheviks pursued a policy of paying workers state rations (whether in kind or in money, usually the former as hyper-inflation had made money almost worthless). This policy meant reproducing bourgeois patterns, with the bureaucrat replacing the boss while the worker remained a wage-worker carrying out their orders. Needless to say, this gave the Bolsheviks significant advantage in repressing working class protest for they would simply deny strikers or other insufficiently obedient workers their rations. As Arshinov argues: "It is clear that in all this we are dealing with a simple substitution of State capitalism for private capitalism. The Communist nationalization of industry represents a new type of production relations in which economic slavery, the economic dependence of the working class, is concentrated in a single fist, the State. In essence this in no way improves the situation of the working class. Obligatory labor (for workers, naturally) and the militarization of labor are the spirit of the nationalized factory." [Op. Cit., p. 71]
Thirdly, Rees fails to understand the nature of anarchism. Anarchism argues that it is up to working-class people to organise their own activities. This meant that, ultimately, it was up to the railway workers themselves (in association with other workers) to organise their own work and industry. Rather than being imposed by a few leaders, real socialism can only come from below, built by working people, through their own efforts and own class organisations. Anarchists can suggest ideas and solutions, but ultimately it is up to workers (and peasants) to organise their own affairs. Thus, rather than being a source of condemnation, Makhno's comments should be considered as praiseworthy as they were made in a spirit of equality and were based on encouraging workers' self-management.
Ultimately, the best reply to Rees is simply the fact that after holding a "general conference of the workers of the city" at which it was "proposed that the workers organise the life of the city and the functioning of the factories with their own forces and their own organisations" based on "the principles of self-management," the "[r]ailroad workers took the first step in this direction" by "form[ing] a committee charged with organising the railway network of the region." [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 149]
Even more amazing (if that is possible) is Rees' account of the revolution in the countryside. Rees argues that the "real basis of Makhno's support was not his anarchism, but his opposition to grain requisitioning and his determination not to disturb the peasant economy". [Op. Cit., p. 59] He then quotes Palij: "Makhno had not put an end to the agricultural inequalities. His aim was to avoid conflicts within the villages and to maintain a sort of united front of the entire peasantry." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214] Here is the context of the quote:
"Peasants' economic conditions in the region of the Makhno movement were greatly improved at the expense of the estates of the landlords, the church, monasteries, and the richest peasants, but Makhno had not put an end to the agricultural inequalities. His aim was to avoid conflicts within the villages and to maintain a sort of united front of the entire peasantry." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 214]
Rees has distorted the source material, conveniently missing out the information that Makhno had most definitely "disturbed" the peasant economy at the expense of the landlords and the rich. And, we are sure that Rees would have a fit if it were suggested that the real basis of Bolshevik support was not their socialism, but their opposition to the war and the Whites.
Amazingly, Rees also somehow manages to forget to mention the peasant revolution which had started in 1917 in his attack against Makhno:
"Makhno and his associates brought socio-political issues into the daily life of the people, who in turn supported the expropriation of large estates . . . On the eve of open conflict [in late 1917], Makhno assembled all the landowners and rich peasants (kulaks) of the area and took from them all official documents relating to their land, livestock, and equipment. Subsequently an inventory of this property was taken and reported to the people at the session of the local soviet, and then at the regional meeting, It was decided to allow the landlords to share the land, livestock, and tools equally with the peasants." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 71]
Obviously, Rees considers the expropriating of the landlords and kulaks as an act which "did not disturb the age-old class structure of the countryside".
Let us not forget that the official Makhnovist position was that the "holdings of the landlords, the monasteries, and the state, including all livestock and goods, were to be transferred to the peasants." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 151] At the second congress of workers, peasants and insurgents held in February, 1919, it was resolved that "all land be transferred to the hands of toiling peasants . . . according to the norm of equal distribution." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 155] This meant that every peasant family had as much land as they could cultivate without the use of hired labour. The Makhnovists argued with regards to the kulaks:
"We are sure that . . . the kulak elements of the village will be pushed to one side by the very course of events. The toiling peasantry will itself turn effortlessly on the kulaks, first by adopting the kulak's surplus land for general use, then naturally drawing the kulak elements into the social organisation." [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., pp. 118-9]
Thus, just to stress the point, the Makhnovists did "disturb" the "age-old class structure of the countryside."
Clearly, Rees is simply talking nonsense. When he states that Makhnovist land policies "did not disturb the age-old class structure of the countryside," he is simply showing his utter and total disregard for the truth. As the Bolsheviks themselves found out, no mass movement could possibly exist among the peasants without having a positive and levelling land policy. The Makhnovists were no exception.
Rees then states that "[i]n 1919 the local Bolshevik authorities made mistakes which played into Makhno's hands." Unsurprisingly enough, he argues that this was because they "tried to carry through the socialisation of the land, rather than handing it over to the peasants." [Op. Cit., p. 60] In fact, the Bolsheviks did not try to implement the "socialisation" of land. Rather, they tried to nationalise the land and place it under state control -- a radically different concept. Indeed, it was the Makhnovists who argued that the "land, the factories, the workshops, the mines, the railroads and the other wealth of the people must belong to the working people themselves, to those who work in them, that is to say, they must be socialised." ["Who are the Makhnovists and what are they fighting for?", contained in Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 273] The Bolsheviks, in contrast, initially "decreed that all lands formerly belonging to the landlords should be expropriated and transformed into state farms." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 156] The peasants quite rightly thought that this just replaced one set of landlords with another (the state), stealing the land which rightfully belonged to them.
After distorting the source material by selective quoting, Rees does it again when he argues that "by the spring of 1920 [the Bolsheviks] had reversed the policy towards the peasants and instituted Committees of Poor Peasants, these 'hurt Makhno . . . his heart hardened and he sometimes ordered executions.' This policy helped the Bolshevik ascendancy." [Op. Cit., p. 60] Rees quotes Palij as evidence. To refute his claims we need simply quote the same pages:
"Although they [the Bolsheviks] modified their agricultural policy by introducing on February 5, 1920, a new land law, distributing the former landlords', state and church lands among the peasants, they did not succeed in placating them because of the requisitions, which the peasants considered outright robbery . . . Subsequently the Bolsheviks decided to introduce class warfare into the villages. A decree was issued on May 19, 1920, establishing 'Committees of the Poor' . . . Authority in the villages was delegated to the committees, which assisted the Bolsheviks in seizing the surplus grain . . . The establishment of Committees of the Poor was painful to Makhno because they became not only part of the Bolshevik administrative apparatus the peasants opposed, but also informers helping the Bolshevik secret police in its persecution of the partisans, their families and supporters, even to the extent of hunting down and executing wounded partisans . . . Consequently, Makhno's 'heart hardened and he sometimes ordered executions where some generosity would have bestowed more credit upon him and his movement. That the Bolsheviks preceded him with the bad example was no excuse. For he claimed to be fighting for a better cause.' Although the committees in time gave the Bolsheviks a hold on every village, their abuse of power disorganised and slowed down agricultural life . . . This policy of terror and exploitation turned almost all segments of Ukrainian society against the Bolsheviks, substantially strengthened the Makhno movement, and consequently facilitated the advance of the reorganised anti-Bolshevik force of General Wrangel from the Crimea into South Ukraine, the Makhno region." [Palij, Op. Cit., pp. 213-4]
Amazing what a ". . ." can hide, is it not? Rees turns an account which clearly shows the Bolshevik policy was based on informers, secret police and the murder of rebels as well as being a total disaster into a victory. Moreover, he also transforms it so that the victims are portrayed as the villains. Words cannot do this re-writing of history justice. Yes, indeed, an organisation of informers to the secret police in every village can aid the "ascendancy" of a one-party dictatorship (aided, of course, by overwhelming military force), but it cannot aid the ascendancy of freedom, equality and socialism.
Given the actual record of the Bolsheviks' attempts to break up what they considered the "age-old class structure" of the villages with the "Committees of the Poor," it is clear why Rees distorts his source.
It does seem ironic that Rees attacks the Makhnovists for not pursuing Bolshevik peasant policies. Considering the absolute failure of those policies, the fact that Makhno did not follow them is hardly cause for condemnation. Indeed, given the numerous anti-Bolshevik uprisings and large-scale state repression they provoked, attacking the Makhnovists for not pursuing such insane policies is equally insane. After all, who, in the middle of a Civil War, makes matters worse for themselves by creating more enemies? Only the insane -- or the Bolsheviks.
That Makhnovist land policy was correct and the Bolshevik one wrong can be seen from the fact that the latter changed their policies and brought them into line with the former. As Palij notes, the Bolsheviks "modified their agricultural policy by introducing on February 5, 1920, a new land law, distributing the formers landlords', state, and church lands among the peasants." This, of course, was a vindication of Makhnovist policy (which dated from 1917). Makhno"initiated the peasants' movement, confiscating and distributing landlords' land and goods" (and, unlike the Bolsheviks, "encouraging the workers to take over factories and workshops"). As regards the Bolsheviks attempts to break up what they considered the "age-old class structure" of the villages with the "Committees of the Poor," it was a complete disaster and counter-productive. [Op. Cit., p. 213 and p. 250] All in all, the Makhnovist policies were clearly the most successful as regards the peasantry. They broke up the class system in the countryside by expropriating the ruling class and did not create new conflicts by artificially imposing themselves onto the villages.
Lastly, we must also wonder just how sensible it is to "disturb" the economy that produces the food you eat. Given that Rees, in part, blames Bolshevik tyranny on the disruption of the economy, it seems incredible that he faults Makhno for not adding to the chaos by failing to "disrupt the peasant economy". Why let logic get in the way of a good rant!
As well as ignoring the wealth of information on Makhnovist land policy, Rees turns to their attempts to form free agrarian communes. He argues that Makhno's attempts "to go beyond the traditional peasant economy were doomed" and quotes Makhno's memoirs which state "the mass of the people did not go over" to his peasant communes, which only involved a few hundred families. [Op. Cit., p. 59]
Looking at Makhno's memoirs a somewhat different picture appears. Firstly, Makhno states that there were "four such agricultural communes within a three- or four-mile radius of Hulyai-Pole," but in the whole district "there were many" in 1918 (the period being discussed in his memoirs). Makhno recounts how each "commune consisted of ten families of peasants and workers, totalling a hundred, two hundred or three hundred members" and the "management of each commune was conducted by a general meeting of all its members." He does state that "the mass of people did not go over to it" but, significantly, he argues that this was because of "the advance of the German and Austrian armies, their own lack of organisation, and their inability to defend this order against the new 'revolutionary' and counter-revolutionary authorities. For this reason the toiling population of the district limited their real revolutionary activity to supporting in every way those bold spirits among them who had settled on the old estates [of the landlords] and organised their personal and economic life on free communal lines." [quoted by Paul Avrich, The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, pp. 130-2]
Of course, failing to mention the time period Makhno was recounting does distort the success of the communes. The Bolsheviks were evacuating the Ukraine as part of their treaty with German and Austrian Imperialism when the communes were being set up. This left them in a dangerous position, needless to say. By July, 1918, the area was occupied by Austrian troops and it was early 1919 before the situation was stable enough to allow their reintroduction. One commune was named "Rosa Luxemburg" (after the Marxist revolutionary martyr) and was mostly destroyed by the Bolsheviks in June 1919 and completely destroyed by the Whites a few days later. In such circumstances, can it be surprising that only a minority of peasants got involved in them? Rather than praise the Makhnovists for positive social experimentation in difficult circumstances, Rees shows his ignorance of the objective conditions facing the revolution. Perhaps if the peasants did not have to worry about the Bolsheviks as well as the Whites, they would have had more members?
All in all, Rees account of Makhnovist ideas on the peasant economy are, to put it mildly, incorrect. They paint a radically different picture of the reality of both Makhnovist ideas and practice as regards the peasantry. Ironically, the soundness of Makhnovist policy in this area can be seen from the fact that the Bolsheviks changed their land policy to bring it into line with it. Not, of course, that you would know that from Rees' account. Nor would you know what the facts of the Bolsheviks' land policy were either. Indeed, Rees uses Michael Palij's book to create a picture of events which is the exact opposite of that contained in it.
Intent on driving the final nail into the coffin, he tries to apply "class analysis" to the Makhnovists. Rees actually states that "given this social base [i.e. the Makhnovists' peasant base] . . . much of Makhno's libertarianism amounted to little more than paper decrees." [Op. Cit., p. 60]
Ironically enough, the list of "paper decrees" Rees presents (when not false or distorted) are also failings associated with the Bolsheviks (and taken to even more extreme measures by the Bolsheviks). As such, his lambasting of the Makhnovists seems deeply hypocritical. Moreover, his attempt to ground the few deviations that exist between Makhnovist practice and Makhnovist theory in the peasant base of the army seems an abuse of class analysis. After all, these deviations were also shared by the Bolsheviks so how can Rees justify the Bolshevik deviations from socialist theory in terms of "objective factors" yet blame Makhnovist ones on their "social base"? Do "objective factors" only afflict Leninists?
Take for example his first "paper" decree, namely the election of commanders. He states that "in practice the most senior commanders were appointed by Makhno." In other words, the Makhnovists applied this principle extensively but not completely. The Bolsheviks abolished it by decree (and did not blame it on "exceptional circumstances" nor consider it as a "retreat", as Rees asserts). Now, if Rees' "class analysis" of the limitations of the Makhnovists were true, does this mean that an army of a regime with a proletarian base (as he considers the Bolshevik regime) cannot have elected commanders? This is the logical conclusion of his argument.
Equally, his attempt to "give a flavour of the movement" by quoting one of the resolutions adopted by a mass meeting of partisans also backfires (namely, "to obey the orders of the commanders if the commanders are sober enough to give them"). Firstly, it should be noted that this was, originally, from a Red Army source. Secondly, drunkenness was a big problem during the civil war (as in any war). It was one of the easiest ways of forgetting reality at a time when life was often unpleasant and sometimes short. As such, the "objective factor" of civil war explains this resolution rather than the social base of the movement. Thirdly, Rees himself quotes a Central Committee member's comment to the Eighth Party Congress that there were so many "horrifying facts about drunkenness, debauchery, corruption, robbery and irresponsible behaviour of many party members that one's hair stands on end." [Op. Cit., p. 66] The Eighth Congress was in 1919. Does this comment give a "flavour" of the Bolshevik regime under Lenin for Rees? Obviously not, for he defends it and blames this list of horrors on the objective factors facing the Bolsheviks. Why does the drunkenness of the Makhnovists come from their "social base" while that of the Bolsheviks from "objective factors"? Simply put, Rees is insulting the intelligence of his readers.
The Makhnovist resolution was passed by a mass assembly of partisans, suggesting a fundamentally democratic organisation. Rees argues that the civil war resulted in the Bolshevik vices becoming institutionalised in the power of the bureaucracy. However, as can be seen, the Makhnovists practised democracy during the civil war, suggesting that the objective factors Rees tries to blame for the Bolshevik vices simply cannot explain everything. As such, his own example (yet again) backfires on his argument.
Rees claims that "Makhno held elections, but no parties were allowed to participate in them." [Op. Cit., p. 60] This is probably derived from Palij's comment that the free soviets would "carry out the will and orders of their constituents" and "[o]nly working people, not representatives of political parties, might join the soviets." [Op. Cit., p. 151] This, in turn, seems to derive from a Makhnovist proclamation from January 1920 which stated:
"Only labourers who are contributing work necessary to the social economy should participate in the soviets. Representatives of political organisations have no place in worker-peasant soviets, since their participation in a workers' soviet will transform the latter into deputies of the party and can lead to the downfall of the soviet system." ["Declaration of the revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist)", contained in Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 266]
Rees' comments indicate that he is not familiar with the make-up of the Russian Soviets of 1917. Unlike the soviets from the 1905 revolution, those in 1917 allowed "various parties and other organisations to acquire voting representation in the soviet executive committees." Indeed, this was "often how high party leaders became voting delegates to" such bodies. It should "be underlined that these party delegates were selected by the leadership of each political organisation, and not by the soviet assembly itself. In other words, these executive committee members were not directly elected by the representatives of the producers" (never mind by the producers themselves). [Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, p. 31]
In addition, Russian Anarchists had often attacked the use of "party lists" in soviet elections, which turned the soviets from working-class organs into talking-shops. [Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, p. 190] This use of party lists meant that soviet delegates could be anyone. For example, the leading left-wing Menshevik Julius Martov recounted that in early 1920 a chemical factory "put up Lenin against me as a candidate [to the Moscow soviet]. I received seventy-six votes he -- eight (in an open vote)." [quoted by Israel Getzler, Martov, p. 202] How would either of these two intellectuals actually know and reflect the concerns and interests of the workers they would be "delegates" of? If the soviets were meant to be the delegates of working people, then why should non-working class members of political parties be elected to a soviet?
Given that the people elected to the free soviets would be delegates and not representatives, this would mean that they would reflect the wishes of their workmates rather than the decisions of the party's central committee. As such, if a worker who was a member of a political party could convince their workmates of their ideas, the delegate would reflect the decisions of the mass assembly. As such, the input of political parties would not be undermined in any way (although their domination would be).
As such, the Makhnovist ideas on soviets did not, in fact, mean that workers and peasants could not elect or send delegates who were members of political parties. They had no problems as such with delegates who happened to be working-class party members. They did have problems with delegates representing only political parties, delegates who were not workers and soviets being mere ciphers covering party rule.
That this was the case can be seen from a few facts. Firstly, the February 1919 congress resolution "was written by the anarchists, left Socialist Revolutionaries, and the chairman." [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 155] Similarly, the Makhnovist Revolutionary Military Soviet created at the Aleksandrovsk congress in late 1919 had three Communists elected to it. There were 18 delegates from workers at that congress, six were Mensheviks and the remaining twelve included Communists [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 111 and p. 124] Clearly, members of political parties were elected to both the congresses and the Revolutionary Military Soviet. As such, the idea that free soviets excluded members of political parties is false -- they simply were not dominated by them (for example, having executives made up of members of a single party or delegating their power to a government as per the national soviet in Russia). This could, of course, change. In the words of the Makhnovist reply to Bolshevik attempts to ban one of their congresses:
"The Revolutionary Military Council . . . holds itself above the pressure and influence of all parties and only recognises the people who elected it. Its duty is to accomplish what the people have instructed it to do, and to create no obstacles to any left socialist party in the propagation of ideas. Consequently, if one day the Bolshevik idea succeeds among the workers, the Revolutionary Military Council . . . will necessarily be replaced by another organisation, 'more revolutionary' and more Bolshevik." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., pp. 103-4]
As such, the Makhnovists supported the right of working-class self-determination, as expressed by one delegate to Hulyai Pole conference in February 1919:
"No party has a right to usurp governmental power into its hands . . . We want life, all problems, to be decided locally, not by order from any authority above; and all peasants and workers should decide their own fate, while those elected should only carry out the toilers' wish." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154]
Thus, Rees fails to present an accurate account of Makhnovist theory and practice as regards "free soviets." Rather than oppose party participation within their soviets and congresses, the Makhnovists opposed the domination of soviets and congresses by political parties, a radically different concept. Like the Kronstadt rebels, they argued for all power to the soviets and not to parties.
Lastly, Rees attacks the Makhnovists for having two security forces, the Cheka-like razvedka and the Punitive Commission. How this is an expression of the Makhnovist "social base" is hard to explain, as both the Bolsheviks and Whites also had their security forces and counter-intelligence agencies.
While Rees quotes Footman's statement that "we can safely assume [!] these services were responsible for frequent injustices and atrocities," he fails to mention that Footman does not provide any examples (hence his comment that we can "assume" they occurred). Footman himself notes that "[o]f the Makhnovite security services . . . we know very little." [David Footman, Op. Cit., p. 288] Rees himself only lists one, namely the summary shooting of a Bolshevik cell discovered in the Army. Given the bloody record of the Bolshevik Cheka (which, again, Rees defends as necessary to defend against the Whites), this suggests that the crimes of the Makhnovist counter-intelligence pale in comparison.
Rees also quotes the historian Chamberlin that "Makhno's private Cheka . . . quickly disposed of anyone who was suspected of plotting against his life." [Op. Cit., 60] Strangely enough, Rees fails to mention the Bolshevik attempts to assassinate Makhno, including the one in the latter part of May 1919 when, it should be noted, the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks were meant to be in alliance. Nor does he mention that the Cheka "would hunt out and hang all active Makhnovites." [Footman, Civil War in Russia, p. 271 and p. 293]
As regards the last conflict with the Red Army, it should be noted that while "generalised accusations of Makhnovist atrocities are common" the facts are it was "the Makhnovists who stood to gain by liberating prisoners, the Bolsheviks by shooting them." This was because "the Red Army soldiers had been conscripted from elsewhere to do work they neither liked nor understood" and the "insurgents had their own homes to defend." [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 130] Thus, while Rees quotes Footman's opinion that "Makhno's later campaigns [were] among the most bloody and vindictive," these facts suggest that we cannot "safely assume that these [security] services were responsible for frequent injustices and atrocities." Clearly, if the Makhnovists were releasing Red Army prisoners (and many of whom were joining Makhno), the picture of an atrocity inflicting army can hardly be a valid one.
It should be stressed that Bolshevik terror and violence against the Makhnovists is strangely absent from Rees's account.
Rees presents just one concrete example of Makhnovist "Cheka-like" violence, namely, the execution of a Bolshevik cell in December, 1919. It should be noted that the Bolsheviks had been explicitly arguing for Party dictatorship for some time by then. The reason why the Bolsheviks had been "denied an open trial" was because they had already been shot. Unfortunately, Makhno gave two contradictory reasons why the Bolsheviks had been killed. This led to the Makhnovist Revolutionary Military Soviet setting up a commission of three to investigate the issue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the commission exonerated Makhno although Voline, out of the members, seemed to have been genuinely embarrassed by the affair. [Malet, Op. Cit., pp. 51-2] Needless to say, Rees fails to comment on the Bolshevik summary killing of Makhnovist staff in June 1919 or, indeed, any other summary executions conducted by the Bolsheviks against the Makhnovists (including the shooting of prisoners).
Given the summary justice handed out by the Bolshevik Cheka, it seems strange that Rees dismisses the Makhnovist movement on assumptions and one event, yet he does. Obviously, the large-scale and continuous Bolshevik killings of political enemies (including Makhnovists) is irrelevant compared to this one event.
All in all, Rees' attempts to blame the few deviations the Makhnovists had from anarchist theory on the "social base" of the movement are a joke. While justifying the far more extreme deviations of Bolshevik theory and practice in terms of "objective factors," he refuses to consider this possibility for the Makhnovists. The hypocrisy is clear, if not unexpected.
One last point. Taking Rees' "class analysis" of the Makhnovists seriously, the logical conclusion of his argument is clear. For Rees, a movement which compromises slightly with its principles in the face of extreme "objective factors" is "petty bourgeois." However, a movement which compromises totally (indeed introduces and justifies the exact opposite of its original claims) in face of the same "objective factors" is "proletarian". As such, his pathetic attempt at "class analysis" of the Makhnovists simply shows up the authoritarian nature of the Bolsheviks. If trying to live up to libertarian and democratic ideals but not totally succeeding signifies being "petty-bourgeois" while dismissing those ideals totally in favour of top-down, autocratic hierarchies is "proletarian" then sane people would happily be labelled "petty-bourgeois"!
Yet Rees states that "[n]either Makhno's social programme nor his political regime could provide an alternative to the Bolsheviks". [Op. Cit., p. 60] Little wonder he distorts that social programme and political regime -- an honest account of both would prove that Rees is wrong. The Makhnovist movement clearly shows that not only did Bolshevik policies have a decisive impact on the development of the Russian Revolution, there was a clear alternative to Bolshevik state capitalism and party dictatorship.
In summary, Rees' attack on the Makhnovists fails. It can be faulted on both factual and logical grounds. His article is riddled with errors, selective quoting and downright lies, as is his attempt to attack the Makhnovist political theory and practice is equally factually incorrect. His attempt to explain the deviations of Makhnovist practice from its theory in terms of the "social base" is simply an insult to the intelligence of the reader and an abuse of class analysis.
A far more compelling analysis would recognise that the Makhnovists were not a perfect social movement but that the deviations of its practice from its theory can be explained by the objective factors it faced. Equally, the example of the Makhnovists shows the weakness of Rees' main argument, namely that the objective factors that Bolshevism faced can solely explain its authoritarian politics. That the Makhnovists, facing the same objective factors, did not act in the same manner as the Bolsheviks shows that Bolshevik ideology played a key role in the failure of the revolution. This explains Rees' clumsy attempts to rewrite the history and theory of the Makhnovshchina.
Much the same can be said of Alp Altinors' article "The Makhno Movement and Bolshevism". This account is written by a Leninist for Leninists for he repeats without question all the assumptions of Leninism as if they were true by definition yet it claims to be "an opportunity for the comparative study of these two models in practical application" and asks: "Was Makhno a pioneer of 'libertarian' anarchism . . . ? Or was he, as Trotsky suggests, leader of an 'anarcho-kulak movement' that represented the interests of rich peasants?" ["The Makhno Movement and Bolshevism", pp. 31–47, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2023), p. 31, pp. 31-2]
Altinors repeats most of the claims made by Rees. Thus he asserts that the free soviets were without parties, raises the advice Makhno gave to the railway workers, stresses that they did not always apply their principles, sometimes acted in brutal ways, and so on. His adds to this by asserting that the Makhnovists where objectively kulaks and created a new state in contradiction to anarchist theory. He also makes various claims about the Bolshevik regime contradicted by the evidence and completely ignores certain of its relevant features. Suffice to say, when not simply inaccurate, he shows the usual Marxist ignorance of anarchism and, ironically, the Bolshevik regime. He also shows a willingness to jettison key aspects of Marxism to achieve his goal of demonising an alternative which shows the importance of Leninist ideology on the failure of the Russian Revolution -- failure in the sense of creating the beginnings of socialism not in the sense of the Bolsheviks retaining power.
As such, discussing it and its failures gives an opportunity to better understand the limitations of Leninism for the problem he has, like all Leninists commentators on the subject, is that the Makhnovist movement is objectively more socialist than the Bolshevik regime. This means that he has to do substantial harm to the facts (when he bothers to present any), to logic and to his own ideology in order to attack it.
What of the claim of being a kulak movement? He is at pains to stress that it is "not [to] be inferred . . . that we share Trotsky's description" as this "was a rather superficial and simplistic definition". Yet as "much as it was not a kulak movement in subjective terms, in objective terms it is also a fact that it remained in the sphere of influence of the kulaks. Just as the orientation of the united mass of the Ukrainian peasantry was directed by the kulak class on the basis of its economic power, so too was the Makhno movement". [Op. Cit., p. 37 and p. 38]
In other words, the deep and sophisticated definition is that the Makhnovist movement was objectively kulak simply because there were some peasants richer than others and these, by assumption, carried most weight in rural affairs: "After the fragmentation of the estates, the new ruling class of the Ukraine and Crimea became the kulaks. Though outnumbered, thanks to their economic power and wide connections, the kulaks also had the ability to drag the rural working poor peasantry after them." Unsurprisingly, nothing is presented to support this claim -- but it does have a political utility as it allows the admission that the "majority of the Black Army was made up of small, middle, and poor peasants" whilst at the same time proclaiming it (objectively) a kulak movement. [Op. Cit., p. 34 and p. 39]
Before discussing these claims, we need to define what is meant by kulak. For Altinors, it is "the rich peasant class (kulaks)". [Op. Cit., p. 33] What is striking about this definition is its lack of mention of the means of production, who owns it and who does not. A ruling class owns and controls the means of production, so allowing it to exploit the classes which do not. Compare this to Lenin, who defined the kulaks as "rich peasants who exploit the labour of others, either hiring them for work, or lending money at interest, and so forth. This group supports the landowners and capitalists, the enemies of the Soviet power." ["Reply to a Peasant's Question", Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 501] Instead of a Marxist (or anarchist, for that matter) definition, we get a sociological definition based on income.
These differing definitions matter. It is acknowledged that there was "a social revolution in Huliaipole . . . Landlords and the bourgeoisie were dispossessed." This resulted in the "same gains as the October Revolution . . . the dispossession of the landlords and the bourgeoisie". [Altinors, Op. Cit., pp. 33-4] Yet, if we take Altinors' claims seriously, then we also have to logically conclude that the outcome of the October revolution was the creation of a kulak ruling class in the countryside. Perhaps for all too obvious reasons, this is not a position many -- if any -- other Leninists take.
The question arises as to whether Altinors is correct in his claims. If the kulaks were the new ruling class, we would expect that the wealth of the richest peasants would increase or, at least, remain steady. This did not happen: "Landless peasants and peasant smallholders profited most, and sometimes improved their relative positions dramatically" for "[i]ncreasing the holdings of the lowest strata of the peasantry, in part at the expense of the upper strata, led to a flattening of the social pyramid" and "resulted in a substantial leveling of rural society." Between 1917 and 1919, the percentage of peasants with no land fell from 11.5% to 6.6%, those with between 4 and 9 desiatins fell from 25.8% to 19.7% and those with over 10 desiatins also fell from 5.1% to 1.5%. Those with 1 to 4 desiatins of land increased from 57.6% to 72.2%. By 1919, "96.8 percent of all agricultural land was in the hands of peasant cultivators. Over 3 million landless peasants had received allotments". By 1919, the number of landless peasants "dropped by 1919 to less than half of the figure for 1917" while the highest strata (with holdings above 10 desiations) "was cut to a quarter of its former size". In short, there was "an egalitarian redistribution of land" and the redistribution of land "seriously weakened the position of the better-off peasants." [Dorothy Atkinson, The End of the Russian Land Commune, 1905–1930, pp. 182-4] It should also be noted that "the remaining larger farms . . . tended to belong to households with larger numbers of members." [Read, Op. Cit., p. 230]
Based on such statistics, another historian notes that "the redistribution of the land, stock, and inventory in the years 1917-20 resulted in considerable social levelling and an aggregate downward shift among the peasantry . . . The levelling was primarily the result of the egalitarian tendencies within the commune in these years, which clearly prevailed over the tendency of the richer peasants to dominate the affairs of the mir so as to enhance their own economic position." [Carmen Sirianni, Workers' Control and Socialist Democracy, pp. 177-8] According to later Soviet estimates, "kulaks lost to their less well-endowed neighbours over 60 per cent of the pre-revolutionary holdings. The effect of nationalisation and redistribution was, in Lenin's terminology, to 'mediumise' the countryside -- to make the middle peasants the largest and most important group of those who had land at all." [Harry Willetts, "Lenin and the Peasants", pp. 211-234, Leonard Schapiro and Peter Reddaway (eds.), Lenin: The man, The theorist, The leader, p. 224]
If these experts do not convince, then let us turn to Lenin who, when announcing the NEP in March 1921, belatedly admitted that there "are far more middle peasants now than before, the antagonisms have been smoothed out, the land has been distributed for use far more equally, the kulak's position has been undermined and he has been in considerable measure expropriated". The "statistics show quite definitely that there has been a levelling out, an equalisation, in the village, that is, the old sharp division into kulaks and cropless peasants has disappeared. Everything has become more equable, the peasantry in general has acquired the status of the middle peasant." [The Lenin Anthology, p. 505] Given that this situation had arisen in the period 1917-18, it suggests that the Bolshevik peasant policy up to this stage had been informed -- like Altinors' account -- by ideology rather than an understanding of the facts of rural life which suggest that "the real 'kulaks' had either been eliminated as early as 1917–1918 or reduced to more modest circumstances". [Skirda, Op. Cit., p. 83]
So much for the assertion that the kulaks "had the largest share of land in this distribution" of landlord land. [Altinors, Op. Cit., p. 36]
This exposes the ideological rather than factual nature of Altinors' claims -- after all, this increase in the size of the middle peasantry and decrease of the wealthier strata gives the lie to the attempts to portray the kulaks as a new ruling class or even having predominant influence within the peasantry. Simply put, if the kulaks had the influence that Altinors asserts then they would hardly have allowed their wealth to be eroded in such a fashion. Still, perhaps it could be argued that the Makhnovist region was somehow an exception to this general flattening but Altinors provides no evidence to suggest it was. As such, the claim that "[i]n practice, this meant that the kulaks determined the agricultural order" is baseless assertion, ideological rather than factual in nature. [Op. Cit., p. 42]
So Altinors appears to be in contradiction to the usual Leninist claims about the October Revolution, namely that it improved the situation of the bulk of the peasantry. The summary of a British Stalinist economist can be taken as typical: "the Land Reform of 1917-18 had achieved, not only the break-up of the large estates, but an equalisation of peasant holdings themselves . . . The equalisation of peasant holdings themselves was shown in an increase in the importance of the seredniak, or middle peasant, type of holding, with a corresponding decrease in the importance alike of the large holding and of the smallest type of holding (of the bedniak)". The "character of the agrarian revolution of 1917" was that the "number and size of kulak farms had . . . declined . . . Land was more equally distributed . . . The village . . . more egalitarian than formerly." [Dobb, Op. Cit., pp. 208-9 and p. 216]
Still, it could be suggested that Bolshevik policies lead to the erosion of kulak wealth along with the abolition of landlordism. Yet this was not the case for the activities of the "Committees of poor peasants" (kombedy) "provoked considerable resistance . . . and not just by kulaks, as Lenin held, but by the peasantry as a whole. And no wonder. Since Lenin's estimate of the size of the kulak class (about 13 per cent of the peasantry) was far overblow, it was inevitable that middle and even poor peasants would become targets of the kombedy". [Sirianni, Op. Cit., p. 180] Ironically, Altinors ignores that social revolution that took place across the Russian Empire in 1917 -- the peasants did not wait for the Bolsheviks to expropriate the landlords nor did they ignore the other inequalities that afflicted their villages and they acted to reduce them. True, there was indeed a "gap between the theoretical egalitarianism of the commune and the actual (albeit limited) stratification within it" but this was far less than before, a situation difficult to square with the kulaks being the new rural ruling class after the October Revolution. [Atkinson, Op. Cit., p. 196] The role of the village commune (mir) was significant in this transformation both during and after 1917, with redistributions continuing throughout the civil war along with the commune's autonomy in managing its own internal land affairs.
No evidence is presented to suggest that, somehow, the Hulyai Pole region was an exception to this mass peasant revolt, that, somehow, the kulaks remained in possession of more land than they could work without wage-labour and, somehow, gained the support and protection of the other peasants whose labour they exploited as well as anarchists whose theory was based upon their expropriation. This is unsurprising, for the reasons indicated.
As can be seen, land redistribution occurred across the whole of the Russian Empire as the peasants took the opportunity of the collapse of Tzarism to implement the long awaited Chornyi Peredel (Black Repartition, the "black" referring to "black soil" or "commoners"). The peasants did so under their own initiative although years of populist and anarchist propaganda played a part along with activists from various groups and parties, particularly those who would become the Left-SRs in 1917. The anarchist groups in and around Hulyai Pole likewise played a role, encouraging this direct action as well as widening it to include workplaces in line with long-standing anarchist theory as expropriation "is the guiding word of the coming revolution, without which it will fail in its historic mission: the complete expropriation of all those who have the means of exploiting human beings; the return to the community of the nation of everything that in the hands of anyone can be used to exploit others." As regards land, an anarchist revolution "would take care not to touch the holding of the peasant who cultivates it himself . . . without wage labour. But we would expropriate all land that was not cultivated by the hands of those who at present possess the land." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, pp. 207-8 and p. 214] This, as can be seen, was reflected in peasant self-activity across Russia while "Makhno and his associates brought sociopolitical issues into the daily life of the people, who in turn supported his efforts, hoping to expedite the expropriation of large estates". [Palij, Op. Cit., p. 71] This explains the influence of anarchism in the region.
Altinors is keen to portray the Makhnovists as kulaks as he argues that the Bolsheviks had to seize surplus food from the peasants due to the economic problems facing the regime, the kulaks having this surplus. Yet a soviet source suggests that the data show "only 2 percent of the peasants at this time can be classified as 'clearly kulaks'" [Atkinson, Op. Cit., p. 191] The notion that urban Russia (or at least that part under Bolshevik rule) could be fed by the surplus produced by a small fraction of the peasantry is, to say the least, an interesting one which, sadly, is not developed. While kulaks hoarding grain became the scapegoat for the Bolsheviks for their food supply difficulties, other factors were involved. These included general economic difficulties (some inherited from the previous regime, some caused by the civil war, some caused or made worse by Bolshevik policies), disruption of the transport network caused by the civil war, the economic blockade by the imperialist powers, food-surplus areas being behind enemy lines, bureaucratic inefficiency and waste, local soviets seizing food, looting and so on as well as a lack of products to exchange for food. Also, ironically, the impact of the revolution meant that the larger farms (whether landlord or kulak) had their land redistributed by the mir, so leading to a reduction in surpluses (these farms were the most orientated towards the market before 1917 and their land was now farmed in traditional ways). Blaming kulaks allows all these factors to be ignored or downplayed in spite of their importance, particularly those related to the socio-economic regime the Bolsheviks imposed. Likewise, all peasants disliked having their crops seized, not just kulaks, and the food requisitioning parties did not take the time to differentiate between categories of peasants nor what was a surplus from what was essential for survival as well as needed for future planting. Subjective factors (such as ideology, politics and policy) had an impact along with objective ones and so focusing on kulaks is understandable for Leninists as it allows a host of issues and questions to be avoided.
Then there is the claim that after "the power of the landlords was destroyed by the February Revolution, all the remaining classes of the village (kulaks, middle-small peasantry, poor peasantry, landless peasantry) united in confiscating their land." [Op. Cit., p. 34] It is shocking to see a Marxist defining classes primarily in terms of income rather than in terms of ownership of the means of production. Looking at Altinors' "remaining classes", there were in fact only two -- peasants ("kulaks, middle-small peasantry, poor peasantry") and proletarians ("landless peasantry"). Needless to say, he does not indicate relative numbers nor the impact of the land seizure in terms of the numbers of these strata beyond an assertion that the kulaks took the largest share, for the obvious reason the kulaks were far fewer in number than Bolsheviks (then and now) assumed and peasants without land effectively disappeared. As regards the differences in wealth amongst the peasantry, these no more produce classes than the fact that there are, say, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled proletarians. Yes, there will be conflicts and tensions between different strata of the same class but these do not produces classes in a socialist sense as they are not a product of owning or not-owning the means of production.
In short, to talk of "a union of democratic will was born between the bourgeois and working classes of the village" simply shows an utter lack of awareness of the rural revolution and, ironically, of Marxist class analysis. [Op. Cit., p. 34] Yes, rural inequalities of wealth remained but these had been significantly reduced and wage-labour essentially abolished, so there was no village bourgeois in the Marxist sense (those termed kulaks worked their own land without hired labour, at least until Lenin introduced the NEP). As Arshinov summarised: "workers got rid of the owners of factories and transferred the management of production to their class organs: trade unions, factory committees or workers' commissions specially created for this purpose. The peasants took over the land of the pomeshchiks (gentry) and of the kulaks (wealthy peasants) and reserved the produce strictly for the workers themselves, thus sketching a new type of agrarian economy." [Op. Cit., p. 45] This is what is reflected in the statistics, which confirm our arguments in section 8, that the Makhnovists was not a kulak movement (objectively or otherwise).
It should be noted that both the "superficial and simplistic definition" and the presumably deep and sophisticated definition both rest on the same amount of evidence, namely none.
All this does raise a problem for Altinors (beyond lack of evidence), namely that the only way to end kulak influence in the countryside would be to eliminate the kulaks (or the "liquidation of the Kulaks as a class", to use a Stalinist term). Consider this claim: "In the same place where he describes the communes, Makhno mentions the peasant masses who, not having been liberated from dependence on the kulaks, remain outside the communes. This is also a clear statement that agricultural production in the Ukrainian countryside was under the sway of the kulaks. Small and middle peasants were economically dependent on the rich peasantry." [Op. Cit., p. 35] No reference is given, but suffice to say that Makhno did not suggest that small size of the communes was the result of any dependence on the kulaks. Rather, as the Bolsheviks discovered time and time again, most peasants -- regardless of wealth -- were interested in working the land individually and would only be convinced to embrace collectivisation if its benefits were shown by voluntary example. This is ignored by Altinors who bemoans that by "not developing the class struggle and in this way not spreading the communes to all the villages, maintaining reconciliation with the kulaks to the end, Makhno’s was a peasant movement of a petty bourgeois class character." [Op. Cit., p. 38] Ignoring the awkward fact that previously the kulaks were described as the bourgeois of the villages, it should be noted that the agricultural communes created by the Makhnovists were voluntary and so "spreading" them could only mean forced collectivisation, a policy which non-Stalinist Leninists usually say they oppose. However, his own analysis leaves him with no alternative. Still, suggesting that the Makhnovists should be criticised for not implementing forced collectivisation of the peasantry is not one which would gain many adherents which is why it is not explicitly stated.
In short, Altinors is complaining that Makhno followed the same policy as that advocated by Lenin: "All the teachers of socialism have always recognised that the workers will have to overthrow the landowners and the capitalists in order to build socialism, but that with the middle peasants an agreement is possible and essential . . . No Bolshevik, no Communist, no intelligent socialist has ever entertained the idea of violence against the middle peasants. All socialists have always spoken of agreement with them and of their gradual and voluntary transition to socialism." [Op. Cit., p. 501] That Lenin was stating this whilst sending troops to seize food from all the peasantry does not invalidate the point being made. It should also be noted that no mention is made of the Bolsheviks destroying the Makhnovist communes in 1919 "during their general campaign against the Makhnovist region". [Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 86] This is understandable for, using Altinors' logic, this would mean the Red Army was objectively pro-kulak if not under kulak influence.
As the discussion so far indicates, the lack of evidence is impressive, with most comments being made without any attempt to root them in anything as trivial as a source. This means checking the claims are difficult as is determining whether they come from sources which may be biased (such as Bolshevik ones). Instead Altinors' readers are subjected to assertions rooted in Leninist ideology -- albeit a sanitised version of it along with a sanitised account of the Bolshevik regime -- which will appeal to fellow Leninists while being nearly unintelligible to others.
For example, he ends by asserting that "[w]ith the birth of the NEP, the worker peasant alliance was reestablished under new conditions following the civil war. The working class gave the peasantry an important concession" [Op. Cit., p. 46] In reality, the NEP was pronounced by the Central Committee of the Communist Party at its 10th Congress to great surprise (that it was not first raised and discussed at a soviet congress or in a soviet organ says it all). The only role working class people played in its "birth" was by the mass protests and general strikes across Russia which forced the party dictatorship to change course. As such, the notion that "the working class" gave a concession is simply nonsense, a claim which may make sense in Leninist ideology (where the party is equated to the class) but does not reflect reality. Also, it would be remiss not to point out that Leninists, as noted in section H.6.3, justify the Bolshevik dictatorship by arguing that the proletariat at this time was "declassed", "atomised" or -- as Lenin put it -- "disappeared" yet, for Altinors, it exists and makes major policy decisions. In reality, whilst the proletariat existed (albeit in smaller numbers) it had been politically and economically expropriated by the Bolshevik dictatorship, only influencing policy like any oppressed and exploited class by means of resistance (protests, strikes, uprisings, etc.) like the peasantry. If, as Lenin stated in 1919, that "the organisation of the communist activity of the proletariat and the entire policy of the Communists have now acquired a final, lasting form" then the proletariat, like the peasantry, disagreed. [Op. Cit., Vol. 30, p. 144]
This points to a key issue with Altinors' account, namely the refusal to acknowledge the reality of the Bolshevik regime. At no stage does he mention that "dictatorship of the party" was both practice and ideology at the time. Rather, he complains that the Makhnovists "did not recognize the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) elected by the General Congress of the Soviets" and suggests that "the local Soviets of Ukraine also depended on the decisions of the Soviet General Congress, which consisted of delegates of their own choice". [Op. Cit., p. 39] As we show in section H.6.1, the Bolsheviks had been packing (and, if this failed, disbanding) soviets for some time, including the Fifth General (i.e., All-Russian) Congress. Reflecting this practice, the party had been openly proclaiming its dictatorship and monopoly of power since at least early 1919. Likewise, Altinors takes an executive above the soviets as a given, in spite of Lenin's State and Revolution suggesting otherwise (see section H.1.7). Needless to say, in practice these executive bodies held power and the soviets were marginalised, a fig-leaf for party power. Given this, to suggest there was a functioning soviet democracy suggests either utter ignorance of the Russian Revolution or a desire to deceive.
The same can be said of the economic regime imposed by the Bolsheviks. After stating that Soviet industry "had bottomed out" and that grain had to be seized from the peasants because there was nothing to exchange for it, it is then claimed "socialist production managed to feed all the cities under Soviet power (albeit at an inadequate level)." Victory in the Civil War is likewise considered "a clear victory of central planning and socialized production". [Op. Cit., p. 36 and p. 41] In reality, as discussed in section H.6.2, there was a vast, inefficient, wasteful, privileged and corrupt bureaucracy which helped deepen the economic crisis facing the revolution. Emma Goldman gives a typical example:
"In Kharkoff I saw the demonstration of the inefficiency of the centralised bureaucratic machine. In a, large factory warehouse there lay huge stacks of agricultural machinery. Moscow had ordered them made 'within two weeks, in pain of punishment for sabotage.' They were made, and six months already had passed without the 'central authorities' making any effort to distribute the machines to the peasantry, which kept Glamouring for them in their great need. It was one of the countless examples of the manner in which the Moscow system 'Worked,' or, rather, did not work." ["The crushing of the Russian revolution", Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, To Remain Silent is Impossible, p. 40]
This refutes the claim that Makhnovist control over the railway line from Mariupol "prevented the implementation of production and circulation within the framework of the Soviet order and throughout the country". [Op. Cit., p. 41] In reality, the bureaucratic machine the Bolsheviks created prevented that. Moreover, if this claim is taken seriously then it is a damning indictment of Bolshevism -- for if a single railway line could have that impact, it would mean that the Bolshevik system could not adjust to unexpected or undesired events. So if the Bolshevik dictatorship did survive the civil war then it was despite rather than because of its economic policies.
To proclaim the Bolshevik regime as "a clear victory of central planning and socialized production" stands very much at odds with the admission that "as industrial production had bottomed out due to the Civil War, Soviet power was also in no position to pay the peasants for grain as a product." So not only did the regime not produce food, it had to seize it because it produced so few industrial goods to exchange with the peasantry for their crops. That this system was flawed can be seen from the admission that the cities were fed "at an inadequate level" which was hardly helped by the numerous barriers the Bolsheviks placed to stop what they termed "speculation" but was mostly peasants or workers seeking to make petty trades in order to survive the inadequate rations provided by the state (which contradicts his claims that "the peasant classes did not want to send grain to the cities, wanting to keep the surplus grain for themselves"). [Op. Cit., p. 36] It took repeated peasant uprisings and the mass strikes of early 1921 to end the system which Altinors seems to consider as a vindication of Bolshevism in spite of his own acknowledgement of its reality.
So the lack of awareness of the realities of the Bolshevik regime is staggering. A rose-tinted account of the economic system implemented by the Bolsheviks is given, presumably based on the Marxist assumption (i.e., prejudice) that centralism is always more efficient. Still, we are assured that "[u]nlike the Bolsheviks, Makhno did not have the goal of a more advanced society that transcended and transformed the existing economic social order." [Op. Cit., pp. 44-5] Apparently an economy based on socialised property and federations of self-managed workplaces is not considered as being more advanced than capitalism. This claim is a repeated one:
"In contrast to the Bolsheviks, who envisioned a more advanced economic and social order, they did not build up new economic structures to replace that which they distributed. They attempted to conceal their lack of ability to establish a more advanced order in economic and social terms by glorifying the spontaneity of the masses." [Op. Cit., p. 41]
Two points. First, it was not the task of the Makhnovists or anarchists to build up new economic structures. It is the task of those involved in production -- anarchists will contribute to this process in-so-far as they are workers. Who else can do it if not the working class? Socialism will, must, be created by the working class itself or else something else will be established, namely state-capitalism. The Bolsheviks confirmed that position. Second, as noted in section H.3.12, Lenin repeatedly argued that the more advanced economic and social order he aimed for was state-capitalism: "socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly . . . socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly." [Collected Works, vol. 25, p. 358] The Bolshevik regime showed that this merely served the interests of a new ruling class, the party-state bureaucracy and its appointed one-man managers, officer class and a host of other authorities. Altinors seems unaware that this new class was created by the economic and social structures he praises but strangely does not define.
Still, we are assured that "[i]n economic problems, when you scrape away all manner of discourse that rejects the role of will and glorifies spontaneity, underneath you will find nothing more than the continuation of the established order. Spontaneity, or denial of conscious, willful regulation of the economy, means that the current established functioning is maintained behind the curtain of supreme freedom. The economic liberation of the proletariat can not be achieved by spontaneity, but by regulating the economy by human will." [Op. Cit., p. 42] As noted in section H.5.1, Lenin's opposition to spontaneity leads to anti-socialist politics, the substitution of the class by the party, the party by the leadership (as happened during the Russian Revolution). The same applies to the economy, with the bureaucracy of a state capitalist regime substituting itself for the working classes with predictable (and predicted) results:
"With so many and scattered small local factories and workshops to administer . . . the central Glavki became congested with the work of handling a growing number of medium-sized concerns with which they had slender contacts and about which their information was meagre and sometimes virtually non-existent. When the directives they issued to the local Gubsovnarhozy did not correspond with the local situation (which was more apt to be the case than not), the Gubsovnarhoz became the stage for a prolonged struggle between local bodies and the centre . . . economic administration was increasingly disorganised by a conflict between centre and localities . . . 'The information possessed at the centre about all the numerous enterprises united under one Glavka was very meagre and in most cases bore a purely formal character; the technical and productive characteristics of the enterprise were usually lacking; detailed inventories of property were not even thought of . . . To keep an eye on the course of production were [sic!] also extremely difficult, especially if enterprises were dispersed in distant regions.' . . . many Glavki not only 'do not know what goods and in what amounts are kept in the warehouses under their control, but are actually ignorant even of the number of such warehouses'. The storing, receiving and delivery of goods were quite unsystematised; inventories of current stocks were the exception rather than the rule . . . in 1920 . . . the programme of Narcomprod was so little based on actualities that the department utilised only half of the cargo space assigned to it by the railways, with the result that in June there were 35,000 wagons and 300 precious locomotives lying idle; and in the first five months of the year Narcomprod was unable to fulfil more than 97 per cent. of its programme of supplies to the army, 70 per cent. to transport and 40 per cent. to factories and workshops . . . Meanwhile the number of officials concerned with central administration was swollen. In July, 1920, one out of every four adults in Petrograd was said to be an official; and in industry the ratio of administrative employees to the total workers employed had doubled. The localities were in no less confusion than the centre. Since the latter was not au fait with the local situation, the orders sent out by it 'did not correspond with the actual situation in the districts, or arrived late and caused only confusion' . . .
"The administrative chaos and delays which resulted from the passing of so many decisions about matters of detail through a few central bottlenecks had their reaction in what came to be known as the 'shock' system . . . [t]o by-pass the administrative congestion when its economic results became alarming, certain enterprises of special importance . . . were given top priority in the supply of fuel and materials and food rations for their workers, and the best organisers available were assigned to their administration . . . as soon as it had come to be applied at all widely, it tended in many cases to increase rather than to lessen the economic confusion . . .
"The general result was a negation of the essential principles of economic planning . . . the data for estimating demand were frequently not available to the controlling authorities . . . In the distribution of materials and components to factories confusion frequently prevailed, with paralysing results where the productive needs for different things had a joint character (as they so largely did) . . . " [Dobb, Op. Cit., pp. 112-5]
Given that this is an account by a British Stalinist, we can consider it as an understatement but it does confirm the account of Emma Goldman and other anarchist eye-witnesses of the inefficient, wasteful, bureaucratic economic regime Altinors considers as essential and the only alternative to both (private) capitalism and the Makhnovists. A self-managed socialist economy does not deny the role of "human will", quite the reverse as it is based on the knowledge and decisions of those involved as it is organised from the bottom-up and co-ordinated in a federal manner. So the question is not whether a socio-economic organisation is needed but rather what kind, how it is constructed, how it is run and by whom. In this the Makhnovists were right as a socialist system can only be built from below upwards by the masses themselves in freedom ("supreme" or not). As Kropotkin argued:
"[It is] necessary to break the old organisation, smash the State and rebuild a new organisation starting with the very foundations of society -- the liberated village commune, federalism, groupings from simple to complex, the free workers union . . . become the instrument, the framework, to germinate a new life, to establish freedom and equality on economic foundations, to eradicate monopolies, to awaken society and march to the conquest of a future of freedom and equality . . .
"To give full scope to socialism involves rebuilding from the bottom to the top a society currently based on the narrow individualism of the shopkeeper. It is a question . . . of completely reconstructing all relationships, from those which exist today between each individual . . . to those which exist between crafts, hamlets, cities and regions. In every street and hamlet, in every group of men gathered around a factory or along a railway line, it is necessary to awaken the creative, constructive, organisational spirit in order to rebuild all [aspects of] life -- in the factory, in the village, in the shop, in production, in distribution. All the relations between individuals and human agglomerations must be rebuilt, from the very day, from the very moment when we lay hands on the current commercial or administrative organisation . . . this immense task . . . requires the free exercise of the popular genius". ["The State: Its Historic Role", Modern Science and Anarchy, p. 275]
As such, while Altinors complains the Makhnovists "took no steps to organize production in a new style" he fails to recognise that they believed that workers should organise production themselves -- for who else could? [Altinors, Op. Cit., p. 41] Needless to say, no attempt is made to explain how a predominantly peasant army would know how to organise industry -- or at the very least, organise it better than those who know it best, the workers themselves. This is the only way that the current economic system can be replaced by a better system -- if this is not done, then it will simply be replaced by a new class system as the Bolsheviks proved.
It would be impossible to comment upon every claim. For no point is too petty for Altinors. For example, he notes that the Makhnovists did not produce their own weapons as if it were their fault they were no weapons factories in their region. He talks of the "theoretically strong anarchist circles in Moscow" without explaining how this was determined (no anarchist source suggests this) so it appears to be an assertion to show "the lack of effectiveness of anarchist theory in the 1917 revolution". While noting Makhno "met face-to-face with these circles when he visited Moscow in 1918", he fails to mention that this was after the Bolshevik attack in April 1918 which, of course, impacted on its effectiveness and was undoubtedly done due to rising anarchist influence within the masses (although justified on other grounds). Still, the notion that "the anarchist leaders . . . congregated in Moscow and Petersburg after the February Revolution" shows that Altinors does not understand the anarchist movement and is imposing Leninist notions upon it. [Op. Cit., pp. 32-3] Makhno, like others in the region and elsewhere, did not need distant urban anarchists to tell them what to do. Needless to say, he fails to mention that Makhno, like other Russian anarchists, drew the conclusion that the 1917 movement was not something to be copied and that the actions of the anarchist groups in the Hulyai Pole region better reflected anarchist theory as expounded by the likes of Bakunin and Kropotkin.
Bizarre comment follows bizarre comment. For example, we are informed that "the intensification of class warfare in the village [by the Bolshevik attempts to impose Committees of Poor Peasants] forced Makhno, once again, to make a pact with the Red Army against General Wrangel’s White Army." [Op. Cit., p. 45] In reality, it was the successes of Wrangel's armies that made the Makhnovists seek an alliance with the Bolsheviks, seeing them as the lesser evil. Bolshevik peasant policies had nothing to do with it -- needless to say, no evidence is provided to substantiate a claim no serious investigator of the movement has ever suggested. Then we read that "the power of the landlords was destroyed by the February Revolution" and that the kulaks, middle-small peasantry, poor peasantry, landless peasantry "united in confiscating their land" but also that the "landlords confiscated the estates of the nobility and divided them among the peasants." [Op Cit., p. 33] In reality, the peasants themselves confiscated and divided the estates of the landlords.
Some of the claims have some basis in fact, others not. So we are informed correctly of the Makhnovist policy of allowing all currencies to circulation (unlike the Reds and Whites who banned all other money than their own) but this fact is proclaimed as being "in the interest of the peasants, who had money in all of these currencies on hand" as if urban workers were not in the same situation (this does not stop him later attacking the Makhnovists by proclaiming that "industrial workers needed money to avoid starvation"). Other claims are simply invented, as when we are informed that the Makhnovists "raised the slogan of 'Soviets without Parties', or more concretely 'Soviets without Bolsheviks'". [Op. Cit., p. 39, p. 41 and p. 39] Significantly, no evidence is provided to back this assertion -- which raises the question, which source are these quotes from? Neither Arshinov or Voline suggest these were Makhnovist slogans and Makhnovist practice, as indicated, showed that members of political parties could be, and were, elected to soviets and conferences within Makhnovist protected areas. In short, it is an invention by Altinors used to support a wider argument:
"the imperialist West also adopted and used the slogan 'Soviets without Bolsheviks'. The counter-revolutionary Ataman Grigoryev also said that 'the Soviets are fighting for their real power against the commissars' (ibid., 85) because Soviets without Bolsheviks would be like a lion without teeth, would be destroyed in a few months, and the White Army generals would enter Moscow on horseback. Thus, in the context of the civil war, the slogan 'Soviets without Bolsheviks' was synonymous with abandoning Soviet power." [Op. Cit., p. 40]
Surprisingly, he does not proclaim with other Leninists that the Kronstadt rebels also raised this slogan -- but, then, they did not raise it either. [Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1921, p. 181] Before discussing why this argument raises problems for Leninists, it is worth noting that Altinors gets the quote wrong. He is apparently quoting a Makhnovist proclamation exposing and denouncing Grigoryev as a traitor, dictator and pogromist but it actually reads "Grigor'ev says that he is fighting against the commissars for the true power of the Soviets." [quoted by Arshinov, Op. Cit., p. 115] This may seem like a trivial point to note, but it does indicate the poor level of scholarship involved.
Given that this is a commonplace Leninist argument, its implications are worth highlighting for these invented slogans expose the counter-revolutionary nature of the ideology. The issue is obvious enough: what happens if the proletariat decides to elect others to the soviets? In other words, what if soviet democracy produces the outcome of "Soviets without Bolsheviks"? If the revolution does produce a genuine soviet democracy, if "Soviet power" actually exists rather than being simply a fig-leaf for a party dictatorship, then the possibility exists that workers and peasants could elect non-Bolsheviks to the soviets. Yet, according to Altinors, this would be "synonymous with abandoning Soviet power." This is no academic question for, as one soviet historian noted with regards the 1921 popular revolt that forced the Bolsheviks to introduce the NEP, "taking account of the mood of the workers, the demand for free elections to the soviets meant the implementation in practice of the infamous slogan of soviets without communists." [quoted by Jonathan Aves, Workers Against Lenin, p. 123] Thus actual power for soviets -- soviet democracy -- means abandoning Soviet power, an interesting paradox and one the Bolsheviks resolved by simply packing, gerrymandering and dissolving soviets and imposing their own dictatorship. Little wonder they ended up proclaiming that the "dictatorship of the party" was the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and vice versa. As Trotsky put it in early 1921:
"The Workers' Opposition has come out with dangerous slogans, making a fetish of democratic principles! They place the workers' right to elect representatives above the Party, as if the party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy. It is necessary to create amongst us the awareness of the revolutionary birthright of the party. which is obliged to maintain its dictatorship, regardless of temporary wavering even in the working classes. This awareness is for us the indispensable element. The dictatorship does not base itself at every given moment on the formal principle of a workers' democracy." [quoted by Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, p. 209]
Unsurprisingly, this position did not end at the end of the civil war, neither in practice nor in ideology. The best that can be said is that at least the Bolsheviks admitted it unlike their modern-day followers who echo the logic but cannot bring themselves to utter the conclusion.
In short, in his rush to demonise the Makhnovists he implicitly argues for the necessity of a benevolent (party) dictatorship which suppresses soviet democracy in the interests of "soviet power" -- which, of course, requires special bodies of armed men which executes the will of a political power above the population and represses the protests of those subject to it. This is what anarchist theory predicted would happen and which Bolshevik practice confirmed.
He complains that the "presence of the Red Army was also prohibited . . . The Cheka, the main apparatus that kept Soviet power afloat in the Civil War, was banned." [Op. Cit., p. 39] Yes, indeed, the Makhnovists prohibited the "special bodies of armed men" (to use Lenin's words) used by the Bolshevik dictatorship to impose its will upon the population -- how else were the Makhnovists to defend the self-government of the masses? -- and so showed that such bodies were not needed to defend the revolution from the counter-revolution (whether White or Red). Needless to say, Altinors tries to equate the Black and Red Armies as well as the Cheka (secret police) and the Makhnovist military counter-intelligence bodies, denying their differences in structure and role in relation to the general population. After all, of the 17,000 camp detainees on whom statistical information was available on 1 November 1920, peasants and workers constituted the largest groups, at 39% and 34% respectively. Similarly, of the 40,913 prisoners held in December 1921 (of whom 44% had been committed by the Cheka) nearly 84% were illiterate or minimally educated, clearly, therefore, either peasants of workers. [George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police, p. 178]
Yes, of course, there were similarities between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks -- both the Red and Black armies had cavalry and artillery units, for example -- but the differences are what count. It is precisely these differences which are ignored:
"Makhno also did not shy away from building similar institutions to those Soviet ones he had banned under his own Black Flag. The Red Army was forbidden, but he had his Black Army. The Bolshevik Party was forbidden, but in areas ruled by Makhno, power was invested in his anarchist organization. Although he might not have declared a party and did not appear as the leader of such before the masses, the organized political power of the Makhnovist anarchist movement was the only political movement in all 'free' Soviets. The Cheka was forbidden, but Makhno had set up his own secret service under the label of 'counter-intelligence'. Makhno’s Intelligence Department also did everything that the Cheka did (prosecution, imprisonment, trial, executions)." [Op. Cit., p. 40]
The notion of "areas ruled Makhno" is belied by the fact that in the Makhnovist protected areas various class organisations were encouraged and operated, including unions, co-operatives, soviets and their conferences. Likewise, the Bolshevik Party was not "forbidden", only its dictatorship and its organs -- such as the Cheka and the Red Army -- so it appears resisting the armed forces of a dictatorship is considered to be authoritarian. There is also confusion as to what counts as "Soviet" institutions. The Red Army had no elected councils (Trotsky simply decreed these as abolished) and reflected the old Tzarist regime, not the soviets of 1917. The Bolsheviks were a specific political party which predated the soviets and whose members could be elected to them, like any party in theory (at least initially), and is no more a soviet institution than any other political party -- and if an invented banning of the Bolshevik party is an attack on a soviet institution, what about the actual banning by the Bolsheviks of numerous parties which supported the soviets but rejected the Bolshevik dictatorship?
Facts are twisted to make them appear worse than they were. Thus, we read that the Makhnovists "regulated the press and instituted censorship of the news, particularly with regard to military matters" when, in reality, they -- unlike the Bolsheviks -- defended freedom of the press, only asking that reports on military matters come via the Makhnovist press and that no calls to impose a party regime be made. Given that the Makhnovists were in open conflict with the Whites, asking the press to not aid the enemy is hardly controversial and no more authoritarian than resisting the attempts of the Whites to impose their rule onto the workers and peasants. Likewise, rather than denounce the Makhnovists for "censorship", perhaps it would be better to ask why the socialist parties were seeking to impose party-rule? Likewise, it is proclaimed that "Soviet power in the cities was replaced by the administration of military chiefs attached to the council." [Op. Cit., p. 43] In reality, once the Red or White dictatorship had been removed, the Makhnovists called for workers to elect delegates to attend a conference to discuss how they wished to run their city. The "military chiefs" restricted themselves to military affairs as Arshinov notes: "In certain cities the Makhnovists appointed a commander. His function consisted only of serving as a contact man between the troops and the population, and of informing the population about measures taken by the army which might have repercussions on the life of the inhabitants and which the military command felt it opportune to take. These commanders had no authority over the population and did not interfere in any way with their civil life." [Op. Cit., p. 148]
It does seem ironic that the Makhnovists far better position on freedom of the press is being used against them. If censorship of the news is a reason to reject a movement, then why does the Bolshevik dictatorship warrant support? Presumably, the issue is not press freedom but rather that the Makhnovists acted in an "authoritarian" manner but then we are left with the conclusion that if you act to stop someone seizing power over you then you are just as authoritarian (if not more so) as the would be dictator. It is a strange way to interpret anarchist ideas, to say the least. Yet this confusion permeates the whole article:
"the establishment of revolutionary committees and the activities of revolutionary organising in general were prohibited: 'In allowing all political parties and organizations full and complete freedom to propagate their ideas, the Makhnovist insurgent army wishes to inform all the parties that any attempt to prepare, organize and impose political authority over the working people will not be permitted by the revolutionary insurgents, such an act having nothing in common with the free dissemination of ideas.' (Arshinov . . .) In short, this was the 'freedom' that the Makhnovist Army 'recognised'. By destroying all the legal and administrative structures that existed in the cities it captured, the Makhnovists also forcefully suppressed the attempts of revolutionary parties to organise civil and social life." [Op. Cit., p. 43]
Arshinov's words are clear, so it is hard to understand why they are quoted to support a claim which does not reflect their meaning. The Makhnovists would stop attempts at creating a party dictatorship, not "the activities of revolutionary organising in general". Imposing a party dictatorship is not "organis[ing] civil and social life", quite the reverse. Again, we have the notion that stopping the imposing of a dictatorship is just as authoritarian as imposing one. Needless to say, no mention is made of the conferences called by the Makhnovists in the cities to get the workers "to organise civil and social life". These conferences included delegates who were also members of political parties, so clearly their "activities of revolutionary organising in general" were not "prohibited", as indicated in the very words quoted. Unfortunately Altinors does not explain why he considers it the task of "revolutionary parties to organise civil and social life" rather than "the workers themselves, grouped . . . in their own class organizations (productive workers' unions, factory committees, co-operatives, et cetera) on the basis of concrete action and self-government, helped, but not governed by revolutionaries working in the very midst of, and not above the mass". [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 197]
This confusion appears again and again: "Makhno also banned the institutions of Soviet power in the areas he dominated. The organization of the Bolshevik Party (or any party) was forbidden: 'the existence of the Cheka, party committees and similar compulsory authoritative and disciplinary institutions is intolerable in the midst of free peasants and workers.'" [Op. Cit., p. 38] Ignoring the awkward fact that no political parties were banned (Left-SRs, for example, were active in the Makhnovists while Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were elected to conferences), what can be said of this other than to note, again, the author's utter inability to comprehend the clear meaning of the words quoted -- unless, of course, it is a case of recognising that the Bolshevik party could maintain its position purely by coercive means? As Arshinov makes clear, while parties could, and did, exist and function, a party dictatorship and its organs of repression could not. That Altinors cannot see the difference speaks volumes.
The Makhnovists called regular conferences at which a Revolutionary Military Council was elected which sought to implement any decisions made at them. This was an executant rather than executive body, administrative rather than governmental. Such an arrangement marks most, if not all, significant libertarian organisations -- syndicalist unions, for example, hold regular conferences and congresses at various levels, with committees elected to manage affairs. Yet, for Altinors "it was a regional government" and "it was at least as authoritarian as Soviet power". [Op. Cit., p. 44] Yet the list provided makes it clear that it was far from being "as authoritarian as Soviet power" and, indeed, not a government at all.
Of the list of so-called government functions, self-defence most obviously is not a state function. That the state has monopolised force does not mean it is -- after all, non-state societies have seen conflicts and have resisted attempts to conquer them. The resistance of tribal people against colonialism does not somehow transform their classless and stateless societies into class and state ones. Likewise, resisting party dictatorship does not turn your society into a state.
There is a confusion between social organisation and decision making with the state. Thus we read the Makhnovists "distributed land in accordance with laws that they wrote", "held local legislative conferences" and "health standards were implemented in order to suppress epidemics." [Op. Cit., p. 43] Ignoring the awkward fact that this debunks his own assertion about "areas ruled Makhno", this claim strikes at the heart of Marxism. What is being described is soviet conferences made up of elected, mandated and recallable delegates at which common affairs are discussed and decisions made. If this constitutes a state then the state will never "wither away" as Marxists like to claim. After all, if Marxist communism is stateless does that mean there will no longer be any collective decision making? That a collective response to, say, an epidemic would be impossible? Both are doubtful but this is the logic of this criticism. This position would, of course, make any organisation a "government" and, crucially, hide any distinction of types of social organisation under a blanket definition lacking any scientific merit. Engels once noted that the Iroquois Confederacy had all the features which Altinors lists as showing the Makhnovist region was a state -- self-defence, communal self-government, a federal council -- but was "the organisation of a society which as yet knows no state". [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p. 516] If these features exist in the higher, stateless, stage of Marxist communism then their existence within the Makhnovist protected region does not mean a state exists.
Now, according to Marxist ideology for a given social organisation to count as a state then it must be separate and above the population, a feature required to maintain the rule of an economically dominant class, the class who owns the means of production, over the working class, the class whose labour is exploited to enrich the owning class. The Iroquois Confederacy was a classless society, what of the Makhnovist region? Altinors admits that there was a social revolution in 1917 which saw the former ruling class, the landlords, expropriated by the peasants. As he puts it, "the Makhnovists established not the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, but the authority of the peasant classes, including the kulaks." [Op. Cit., p. 45] The notion that the Bolshevik regime was "the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" is self-evidently nonsense -- it was a party dictatorship imposing its authority upon the proletariat and the peasant class by means of a state with the features of all previous states. As for the notion of "the authority of the peasant classes, including the kulaks", the question arises of over whom the peasants were exerting their "authority". Given that the local ruling classes -- landlords and bourgeoisie -- had been expropriated in 1917, the self-liberated peasants and workers of the region were hardly imposing their "authority" upon them -- unless it is a case of stopping someone seeking to enslave you being the same as imposing your authority upon them, which would be a strange way of looking at it. In that case, by resisting the Bolshevik party dictatorship were the Makhnovists imposing their "authority" upon them too?
Which raises an obvious question -- which class was the peasanty exercising authority over? Not the landlords, as these had been expropriated and so those who had not fled were no longer landlords. The proletariat? No, as the Makhnovists encouraged them to organise their own affairs by means of the own class organisations (soviets, unions, etc.). So does that mean that the peasants were exercising "authority" over the whites by resisting their attempts to impose their actual dictatorship and ensure the return of the former landlords? If so, then the term -- like "the dictatorship of the proletariat" -- is a meaningless one better replaced with defending a revolution (or freedom).
So the "authority" of the peasants was over themselves. The land and workplaces were socialised and worked by those who used them, so there was no non-labouring classes. The peasants did not rule the workers -- as shown by Altinors bemoaning the Makhnovist policy of encouraging workers' control. There was not complete equality within the region in terms of income, but in terms of the relationship to the means of production there was. So if we take Marxist ideology seriously, the conclusion seems obvious -- the Makhnovist protected region was no more a state than the Iroquois Confederacy (even when it was fighting attempts to conquer and rule it). That Altinors reaches a different conclusion suggests that Marxist ideology is being rejected in his attempts to demonise the Makhnovists and dismiss anarchism.
It is proclaimed that the successes of the Makhnovists "were clearly achieved in defiance of anarchist theory." [Op. Cit., p. 44] Which raises the obvious question: what does anarchist theory actually advocate? According to Bakunin, the aim was to create a "federal organisation, from below upward, of workers' associations, groups, communes, districts, and ultimately, regions and nations", a "a popular federation with it based on emancipated labour and collective property." This could not be considered as the same as "centralised states" and was "contrary to their essence." The end of "sham popular sovereignty" would create "real as opposed to fictitious freedom." Needless to say, "the sole means of opposing the reactionary forces of the state" was the "organising of the revolutionary force of the people." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 13, p. 22 and p. 156] Being unaware of anarchist theory in this matter, Altinors repeats his discovery:
"Once again, social practice demonstrated the invalidity of the anarchist theory, which predicted that the state, the source of all ills, would be destroyed and swept away in the immediate aftermath of the social revolution. The experience of Makhno himself confirmed the necessity of a new state for the suppression of counter-revolution and the establishment of a new order." [Op. Cit., p. 45]
Of course, we are not provided with any evidence to support the claim that anarchists consider the state to be "the source of all ills". Those familiar with anarchist theory would know that anarchists have opposed other institutions which create hierarchical social relations, not least private property. The state is stressed because this is the institution which defends the other social hierarchies, particularly the economic ones but anarchists have always argued that capitalism must be destroyed along with the state (see section H.2.4). They would also know that anarchists do not consider the defence of freedom as necessitating a state nor do we equate all social organisations with a state. Reading, say, Bakunin, it becomes clear that he argued that a social revolution required both a popular militia and a federation of workers' organisations and communes. This is what the Makhnovists did, so the "experience of Makhno himself confirmed" anarchist theory -- see, for example, section H.2.1 (on defending a social revolution) and section H.1.4 (on a federation of worker and peasant organisations). Significantly, Alexander Berkman later pointed to the Makhnovists as an example of how a social revolution would defend itself in his classic introduction to anarchism:
"Anarchism is opposed to any interference with your liberty, be it by force and violence or by any other means. It is against all invasion and compulsion. But if any one attacks you, then it is he who is invading you, he who is employing violence against you. You have a right co-defend yourself. More than that, it is your duty, as an Anarchist, to protect your liberty, to resist coercion and compulsion. Otherwise you are a slave, not a free man. . . . The armed workers and peasants are the only effective defense of the revolution . . . In the Ukraine the volunteer peasant armies -- known as povstantsi -- saved the Revolution from numerous counter-revolutionary generals . . . The military defense of the revolution may demand a supreme command, coordination of activities, discipline, and obedience to orders. But these must proceed from the devotion of the workers and peasants, and must be based on their voluntary cooperation through their own local, regional, and federal organizations. In the matter of defense against foreign attack, as in all other problems of the social revolution, the active interest of the masses, their autonomy and self-determination are the best guarantee of success." [What is Anarchism?, pp. 231-3]
Given that the Makhnovists encouraged the federal organisation of worker and peasant associations, communes and so forth as well as protected them by means of a revolutionary force of the armed people, it is hard to say how they acted in "defiance of anarchist theory". Likewise, the reality of the Bolshevik regime confirmed anarchist theory for it confirmed our predictions that the so-called new state would be like the old one and any new order it established would be a new class system in which the working classes remained in their old social position of being oppressed and exploited albeit by a new ruling class of party-state bureaucrats.
Moreover, while Leninists pay lip-service to soviet democracy, the ending of standing armies and a host of other things the Bolsheviks did not apply, it would be true to say it was the Bolsheviks who acted in defiance of Marxist theory. As, incredibly, Altinors admits:
"In fact, on the level of principle, there is not the slightest difference between communists and anarchists in terms of being against the regular army, compulsory military service, and military hierarchy. But in a civil war environment, these principles can never be applied, or their implementation will do nothing but serve the victory of the counter-revolutionary armies." [Op. Cit., p. 44]
In other words, "communist" principle and theory cannot be applied in a revolution. This is a significant admission and it is telling that its author did not recognise that he completely destroys his own ideology in his keenness to defend it. So much for the claim that "[n]o matter how many sweet sounding anarchist concepts existed up until the outbreak of the revolution, they all shattered in the face of revolutionary times, [and] could not be applied". [Op. Cit., p. 32] Here we have the admission that no matter how many sweet sounding Marxist concepts exist in Lenin's State and Revolution, they all shattered in the face of revolutionary times and cannot be applied.
Explicitly referencing Engels' essay "On Authority", Altinors makes the same mistakes (see section H.4.7). He repeatedly confuses the organisations needed to impose authority, oppression and exploitation with those needed to oppose and end them. He confuses an army formed for the defence of freedom with one formed for the defence of authority. It appears that for Marxism resisting a dictatorship is just as authoritarian (if not more so!) as imposing one, a strange position to reach. As Malatesta put it in the 1890s:
"let us admit that . . . unemancipated countries were to want to, and could, attempt to reduce free people to a state of slavery once again. Would this people require a government to defend itself? To wage war men are needed who have the necessary geographical and mechanical knowledge, and above all large masses of the population willing to go and fight. A government can neither increase the abilities of the former nor the will and courage of the latter. And the experience of history teaches us that a people who really want to defend their own country are invincible . . . before the corps of volunteers (anarchist formations) thrones topple . . . Many suppose that if there were no carabineers, policemen and judges, everyone would be free to kill, to ravish, to harm others as the mood took one; and that anarchists, in the name of their principles, would wish to see that strange liberty respected which violates and destroys the freedom and life of others. They seem almost to believe that after having brought down government and private property we would allow both to be quietly built up again, because of a respect for the freedom of those who might feel the need to be rulers and property owners. A truly curious way of interpreting our ideas!" [Anarchy, p. 43]
Marxists had rejected the anarchist critique of their ideology, that the "new state" would become a new class system, with a dictatorship over the proletariat rather a dictatorship of the proletariat. The experience of the Bolsheviks confirmed that, yet Altinors is in denial of this, at no time admitting that he is defending the dictatorship of the party. As such, it is just nonsense to proclaim that "the Red Army . . . represented the Soviet power of all Russia and the revolutionary power of the proletariat". [Op. Cit., p. 45] Rather it imposed the Bolshevik dictatorship and was used to suppress the revolutionary power of the proletariat as expressed in the protests and strikes of actual workers against it, or in the dissolving of any soviet elected with a non-Bolshevik majority. It was, then, a state in the normal sense, for it imposed the rule of a (minority) new class of state bureaucrats who in practice owned the means of production and who lived off the toil of the working classes, the proletariat and peasantry, which they controlled.
Of course, many Marxists use the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" simply to mean "defence of the revolution" or "workers' democracy". As such, they seem genuinely bewildered by anarchism and so assert that anarchists think the ruling class will just disappear or are opposed to creating a new social-economic organisation to replace the old, class, one. Some Leninists even proclaim with a straight face that it is just "the armed workers" (if it were, then the Bolshevik regime was no "dictatorship of the proletariat"). Some of this confusion can be seen in Altinors' article although the actual reason for anarchist opposition to the concept does filter through in his repeated assumption that "soviet power" was the power of the party and so the so-called workers' state actually empowers a few rulers at the top like every other state that has existed. Even if it did not, even if it were the mass of the proletariat (or, more correctly, former proletariat) managing social affairs, then this excluded the peasantry and artisans who made up the vast majority of the working masses at the time across the (former) Russian Empire. In short, it would be rule by a minority (the party leaders) over a minority (the proletariat) over the vast majority (peasants and artisans). Instead, anarchists urged a social revolution in which the workers and peasants seize and socialise their means of production, federate their class organs together and defend their new won freedom and equality by arming themselves and organising their forces. The notion that stopping members of the former ruling class from re-imposing their authority is somehow "dictating" to them is just silly.
To conclude, it is clear that Leninists are prepared to sacrifice their rhetoric if needs be to meet the threat posed by the example of the Makhnovists. Altinors is willing to jettison much of Marxism in his rush to demonise the Makhnovists, including its class analysis, its theory of the state, its proclaimed support for workers democracy and self-liberation, its notion that the dictatorship of the proletariat is simply the armed workers. Yet we can be sure that he still recommends such classics of Marxism as Marx's The Civil War in France and Lenin's State and Revolution if asked what Marxism really stands for in spite of admitting that their principles are simply not applicable during a revolution.
Of course, anarchism may be wrong. It is possible that the mass participation of the working classes in the revolution, the formation of federated bodies for socio-economic self-management and defence of the revolution organised from the bottom-up may fail. It is possible that only a party dictatorship and a centralised state-capitalist economic regime will be victorious against any counter-revolution by the former ruling classes. If so, then Marxists should openly proclaim it rather than hide it behind a host of euphemisms -- but they will not, because they know that this would be unappealing and unconvincing to anyone who rightly questions that a benevolent dictatorship can exist. Yes, such a regime may be able to defeat the counter-revolution but only at the cost of the social revolution and the creation of a new ruling class -- as the Bolshevik regime showed. So, yes, following the Makhnovist experience may lead to the defeat of a social revolution but following the Bolshevik one will ensure its destruction even if a red flag flutters over its ruins.
The Makhnovist movement was one of the most important events of the Russian Revolution. It was a mass movement of working people who tried and succeeded to implement libertarian ideas in extremely difficult circumstances.
As such, the most important lesson gained from the experience of the Makhno movement is simply that "objective factors" cannot and do not explain the degeneration of the Russian Revolution or Bolshevik authoritarianism. Here was a movement which faced the same terrible circumstances as the Bolsheviks faced (White counter-revolution, economic disruption, and so on) and yet did not act in the same manner as the Bolsheviks. Where the Bolsheviks completely abolished army democracy, the Makhnovists extensively applied it. Where the Bolsheviks implemented party dictatorship over the soviets, the Makhnovists encouraged and practised soviet self-management. While the Bolsheviks eliminated freedom of speech, press, assembly, the Makhnovists defended and implemented them. While the Bolsheviks imposed on-man management and a centralised, bureaucratic economic regime, the Makhnovists encouraged federalised workers' control of production. The list is long (see section 14).
This means that one of the key defences of the Bolshevik Myth, namely that the Bolsheviks had no choice but to act as they did due to "objective factors" or "circumstances" is totally undermined. As such, it points to the obvious conclusion: Bolshevik ideology influenced the practice of the party, as did their position within the "workers' state," and so influenced the outcome of the Revolution. This means that to down play Bolshevik ideology or practice in favour of "objective factors", fails to understand that the actions and ideas generated during the revolution were not "objectively" determined but were themselves important and sometimes decisive factors in the outcome.
Take, for example, the Bolshevik decision to betray the Makhnovists in 1920. Neither betrayal was "objectively determined" before-hand. However, it did make perfect sense from a perspective which equated the revolution with the "dictatorship of the party." That the first betrayal undoubtedly extended the length of the Civil War by allowing the Whites the space to reorganise under Wrangel also had its impact on Bolshevik theory and practice as well as the "objective factors" it had to face.
As such, the Makhnovists give a counter-example to the common pro-Bolshevik argument that the horrors of the Civil War were responsible for the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party and the revolution. In the words of one historian:
"[The] Insurgent Army . . . was organised on a voluntary basis and respected the principle of election of commanders and staff. The regulations governing conduct were drawn up by commissions of soldiers and approved by general meetings of the units concerned. In other words, it embodied the principles of the soldiers' movement of 1917, principles rejected by the Bolsheviks when they set up the Red Army, supposedly because of their harmful effects on fighting efficiency, a characteristic of them discovered by the Bolsheviks only after they had come to power on the basis of promoting them. But the Insurgent Army, given its size and equipment, was very effective. Some have even credited it with greater responsibility than the Red Army for the defeat of Denikin. It took enormous efforts by the Bolsheviks, including the arrest or shooting of thousands of people, in order to pacify the region . . . even after the Insurgent Army was militarily broken, it took six months to mop up the remnants . . . Within its area of operations, which consisted of only two to three per cent of the total population of European Russia, the Insurgent Army was undoubtedly highly effective. While one can never know how history might have turned out had things been different, the Insurgent Army gives plenty of grounds for thinking that a people's revolutionary war of the kind it represented might have been at least as effective on a national scale with nationwide resources at its disposal as Trotsky and the Red Army's ruthless centralisation. It would not, however, have been compatible with the imposition from above of the Bolshevik leadership's vision of revolution. When the Insurgent Army drove the enemy out of an area they encouraged the local population to solve their own problems. Where the Red Army took over, the Cheka quickly followed. The Bolsheviks themselves were energetically snuffing out the ideals of 1917.
"Given such considerations it may be, though it cannot be logically proven one way or the other, that the Bolsheviks' deeply rooted authoritarianism rather than the civil war itself led to the construction of a highly centralised system that aimed at 'complete control' over political and many other aspects of social life. It could even be argued, though it is equally unprovable, that the tendency to authoritarianism, far from ensuring victory, nearly led to catastrophe. For one thing, it helped alienate many workers who felt cheated by the outcome of the revolution, and support for the regime was . . . far from even in this core group . . . [It] may, indeed, have been becoming more alienated as a result of Bolshevik measures depriving it of the means of expression of its growing catalogue of grievances. . . Far from being 'necessary' or even functional, the Bolshevik leadership's obsession with externally imposed discipline and authority might even have made the task of victory in the war more difficult and more costly. If the counter-example of Makhno is anything to go by then it certainly did." [Christopher Read, From Tsar to Soviets, pp. 264-5]
As such, another key lesson to be learned from the Makhno movement is the importance of practising during a revolution the ideas you preach before it. Means and ends are linked, with the means shaping the ends and the ends inspiring the means. As such, if you argue for working-class power and freedom, you cannot dump these aims during a revolution without ensuring that they are never applied after it. As the Makhnovist movement showed, even the most difficult situations need not hinder the application of revolutionary ideas.
The importance of encouraging working-class autonomy also shines through the Makhnovist experience. The problems facing a social revolution are many, as are the problems involved in constructing a new society. The solutions to these problems cannot be found without the active and full participation of the working class. As the Makhnovist congresses and soviets show, free debate and meaningful meetings are the only means, firstly, to ensure that working-class people are "the masters of their own lives," that "they themselves are making the revolution," that they "have gained freedom." "Take that faith away," stressed Alexander Berkman, "deprive the people of power by setting up some authority over them, be it a political party or military organisation, and you have dealt a fatal blow to the revolution. You will have robbed it of its main source of strength, the masses." [What is Anarchism?, pp. 231-2]
It ensures the participation of all in solving the problems of the revolution and of constructing the new society. Without this input, real socialism cannot be created and, at best, some form of oppressive state capitalist regime would be created (as Bolshevism shows). A new society needs the freedom of experimentation, to adapt freely to the problems it faces, to adjust to the needs and hopes of those making it. Without working-class freedom and autonomy, public life becomes impoverished, miserable and rigid as the affairs of all are handed over to a few leaders at the top of a social hierarchy, who cannot possibility understand, let alone solve, the problems affecting society. Freedom allows the working class to take an active part in the revolution. Restricting working-class freedom means the bureaucratisation of the revolution as a few party leaders cannot hope to direct and rule the lives of millions without a strong state apparatus. Simply put, the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself. Either working class people create socialism (and that needs workers' autonomy and freedom as its basis), or some clique will and the result will not be a socialist society.
As the experience of the Makhnovist movement shows, working-class freedom can be applied during a revolution and when it is faced with the danger of counter-revolution.
Another key lesson from the Makhnovist movement is that of the need for effective anarchist organisation. The Makhnovists did not become anarchist-influenced by chance. The hard effort by the local anarchists in Hulyai Pole before and during 1917 paid off in terms of political influence afterwards. Therefore, anarchists need to take a leading role in the struggles of working people (as we indicated in section I.8.2, this was how the Spanish anarchists gained influence as well). As Voline noted, one of the advantages the Makhnovist movement had was "the activity of . . . libertarian elements in the region" and the "rapidity with which the peasant masses and the insurgents, despite unfavourable circumstances, became acquainted with libertarian ideas and sought to apply them." [Op. Cit., p. 570]
Arshinov expands on this issue in a chapter of his history ("The Makhnovshchina and Anarchism"), arguing that many Russian anarchists "suffered from the disease of disorganisation," which led to "impoverished ideas and futile practice." Moreover, most did not join the Makhnovist movement, "remained in their circles and slept through a mass movement of paramount importance." [Op. Cit., p. 244 and p. 242]
Indeed, it was only in May 1919 that the Nabat Ukrainian anarchist confederation was organised. This federation worked closely with the Makhnovists and gained influence in the villages, towns and cities within and around the Makhnovist region. In such circumstances, the anarchists were at a disadvantage compared to the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had been organised far longer and so had more influence with workers in the larger towns and cities.
While many anarchists did participate effectively and organisationally within many areas of Russia and the Ukraine (gaining influence in Moscow and Petrograd, for example), they were much weaker than the Bolsheviks. This meant that the Bolshevik idea of revolution gained influence (by, it should be noted, "advocat[ing] Anarchist methods and tactics, pretending of course that they were their own." [Berkman, Op. Cit., p. 117]). Once in power, the Bolsheviks turned against their rivals, using state repression to effectively destroy the anarchist movement in Russia in April 1918. This, incidentally, led to many anarchists coming to the Ukraine to escape repression and many joined the Makhnovists. As Arshinov notes, the Bolsheviks "knew perfectly well that . . . anarchism in Russia, lacking any contact with a mass movement as important as the Makhnovshchina, did not have a base and could not threaten nor endanger them." [Op. Cit., p. 248] Waiting till after a revolution starts to build such a base is a dangerous tactic, as the experience of the Russian anarchists shows. Significantly, the Moscow anarchists were active in the bakers' union and organised working-class support ensured that their influence survived until 1921, when -- with the civil war finished -- the Bolsheviks ended all opposition both within and outwith the party (such as Menshevik influence in the printers and chemical workers unions).
This lesson was recognised by the anarchists most associated with the Makhnovists. In exile, Voline argued for the need to build a "synthesis" anarchist federation (see section J.3.2) while Arshinov and Makhno both advocated the Platform (see section J.3.3).
Another key lesson is the need to combine rural and urban organisation. As Voline argued, the "absence of a vigorous organised workers' movement which could support that of the peasant insurgents" was a major disadvantage for the Makhno movement. [Voline, Op. Cit., p. 571] If there had been a workers' movement influenced by libertarian ideas within the Ukrainian towns during the Russian Revolution, the possibilities of constructive work would have been increased immensely. Take the example of when the Makhnovists liberated Aleksandrovsk and organised two workers' conferences. It was only at the insurgents' insistence that the unions agreed to send delegates, but for information only. This was undoubtedly due to the fact that Mensheviks had some influence in the unions and Bolshevik influence was increasing. Both parties may have preferred the Makhnovists to the Whites, but neither accepted anarchist ideas of workers' self-management and so constructive work was limited to the railway workers and a few other workplaces. In contrast, when Katerinoslav was liberated, the bakers set themselves to preparing the socialisation of their industry and drawing up plans to feed both the army and the civilian population. Unsurprisingly, the bakers had long been under anarcho-syndicalist influence. [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 123 and p. 124]
As the Makhnovists themselves realised, their movement had to be complemented by urban working-class self-activity and self-organisation. While they did all they could to encourage it, they lacked a base within the workers' movement and so their ideas had to overcome the twin barriers of workers' unfamiliarity with both them and their ideas as well as Marxist influence. With a strong working-class movement influenced by anarchist ideas, the possibilities for constructive work between city and village would have been helped immensely (this can be seen from the example of the Spanish Revolution of 1936, where rural and urban collectives and unions made direct links with each other).
Lastly, there is the lesson to be gained from Makhnovist co-operation with the Bolsheviks. Simply put, the experience shows the importance of being wary towards Bolshevism. As Voline put it, another disadvantage of the Makhnovists was a "certain casualness, a lack of necessary distrust, towards the Communists." [Op. Cit., p. 571] The Makhnovists were betrayed three times by the Bolsheviks, who continually placed maintaining their own power above the needs of the revolution. The anarchists were simply used as cannon fodder against the Whites and once their utility had ended, the Bolsheviks turned their guns on them.
Thus a lesson to be learned is that co-operation between anarchists and Bolsheviks is fraught with danger. As many activists are aware, modern-day supporters of Bolshevism constantly urge everyone to unite "against the common enemy" and not to be "sectarian" (somehow this appeal to non-sectarianism does not stop them printing lying accounts of anarchism). The Makhnovists took them at their word in early 1919 and soon found out that "unity" meant "follow our orders." When the Makhnovists continued to apply their ideas of working-class self-management, the Bolsheviks turned on them. Similarly, in early 1920 the Bolsheviks outlawed the Makhnovists in order to break their influence in the Ukraine and their contribution to the defeat of Denikin (the common enemy) was ignored. Lastly, in mid-1920 the Makhnovists placed the need of the revolution first and suggested an alliance to defeat the common enemy of Wrangel. Once Wrangel had been defeated, the Bolsheviks ripped up the agreement they had signed and, yet again, turned on the Makhnovists. Simply put, the Bolsheviks continually placed their own interests before that of the revolution and their allies. This is to be expected from an ideology based on vanguardism (see section H.5 for further discussion).
This does not mean that anarchists and Leninists should not work together within social movements (if it did, it would in practice mean not taking part in such movements and such self-isolation would be a serious mistake). In some circumstances, co-operation may be essential. However, it would be wise to learn from history and not ignore it and, as such, modern activists should be wary when doing so. Ultimately, for Leninists, social movements are simply a means to their end (the seizing of state power by them on behalf of the working class) and anarchists should never forget it.
Thus the lessons of the Makhnovist movement are exceedingly rich. Simply put, the Makhnovshchina show that anarchism is a viable form of revolutionary ideas and can be applied successfully in extremely difficult circumstances. They show that social revolutions need not consist of changing one set of bosses for another.