The Decadent Worker

A sense for the potential of… leadership among the ranks of anarchist/Left SR forces arrayed against Bolshevism can be found where the Cheka had little influence. One of the peasant revolts during this period that was more than a mere revolt occurred in the Ukraine under the leadership of the anarchist, Nestor Makhno. The Ukraine had been ceded as an independent national territory by the Brest-Litovak treaty and the Ukrainian Nabat Confederation organized as an independent government for the region, its first proclamation being the redistribution of landed estates by the peasantry. The German/Central Powers occupation of the Ukraine until November 1918 served to foster both the ‘White’ counterrevolution of Denikin and Mahkno’s anarchist insurgents….

Return of the Ukraine to Russia with the nullification of Brest-Litovak did not prevent Makhno from militarily securing a broad area in the southern Ukraine within which the peasants were encouraged to form libertarian communist communes. The Bolsheviks were not outlawed, but their commissars were stripped of all their powers. Denikin’s ‘White’ armies soon threatened. From March to December of 1919 Mahkno fought Denikin, finally defeating the ‘White’ general with superb guerrilla tactics. His forces mixed extreme democracy with a tight-fisted discipline by Makhno and his personal commanders. Burying arms in strategic locations, his troops would disguise themselves as peasants to move freely through enemy lines to rearm and regroup. He used horse carts to transport guerrilla infantry for lightning attacks. Makhno’s anarchist conception of partisan peasant guerrilla warfare and peasant communism in many ways foreshadowed much of early Mao’s revolutionary experiences.

Makhno did not permit his forces to pillage, loot or rape. He respected the Ukrainian peasantry highly and did not force grain from them in an anarchist requisition. The peasantry supported Makhno’s army, and his army in turn protected the peasantry, neither censoring the peasantry’s political expression nor obstructing their political organization. Makhno forbade anti-seminitism from the ranks of his forces, but Makhno’s army could not be eveywhere at once. Pogroms occurred against the Jews by Ukrainian peasants during this period, though Makhno’s army intervened and protected Jewish communities where possible. The Bolsheviks, who were allied with Makhno in the fight against Denikin, at first considered him a partisan worthy of leading an autonomous Ukrainian national region within an overall Russian socialist revolution. Lenin and Trotsky realized by the middle of spring, 1919 that Makhno would not accept his strategy or his orders from the Red Army command, that he would continue to ignore or abolish the political power of Bolshevik Commissars in the Ukraine and worst of all that he would have the full support of the Ukrainian peasantry in doing so.

Trotsky took the opportunity of a lull in the fight against Denikin to raid Makhno’s headquarters and send Cheka agents to assassinate him, only to renew the alliance with Makhno in the summer of 1919 when Denikin once more became a threat. Makhno defeated Denikin, Trotsky ordered Makhno to the Polish Front as… an independent unit of the Red Army, Makhno refused, and Trotsky ordered the imprisonment of Makhno and his anarchist army in December, 1919. Makhno reslated the Bolshevik Red Army militariliy for nine months until Wrangel’s invasion in October, 1920. The Bolsheviks made another alliance with Makhno, promising the release of anarchist prisoners and freedom of propaganda, and Makhno’s anarchist army was instrumental in defeating Wrangel in November, 1920.

Makhno’s personal military commanders were then invited to a victory conference in the Crimea. All except an escaping cavalry unit were arrested or shot by the Bolsheviks. — Socialism: A Brief History, UCSD, pp. 40-1

Bookmark to: