Nestor Makhno

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Template:Anarchism Image:NestorMakhno.jpeg Nestor Ivanovich Makhno (October 27, 1889 – July 25, 1934) was an anarcho-communist Ukrainian revolutionary who refused to align with the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. He helped to organize an enormous experiment in anarchist values and practice, one which was cut short by the consolidation of Bolshevik power.

1 Early life and Ukranian Revolution
2 The Makhnovshchina (Anarchist Ukraine)
3 A White and Red counter-strike
4 Exile
5 Further reading
6 See also
7 External links

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Early life and Ukranian Revolution

Makhnno was born into a poor peasant family in Hulyai Pole, Ukraine and participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905, after which he became an anarchist. In 1910, as a result of his activism against the Tsar, he was sent to prison. After the February Revolution in Russia, political prisoners were granted amnesty and Makhno was released. He joined the revolutionary movement in Ukraine and helped organize expropriation of property from wealthy landlords and capitalists.

In early 1918, the new Bolshevik government in Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk making peace with the Central Powers, but ceding large amounts of territory to them, including Ukraine. The people living in Ukraine did not want to be ruled by the Central Powers, and so rebelled. Partisan units were formed that waged guerilla war against the Germans and Austrians. This rebellion turned into an anarchist revolution. Nestor Makhno was one of the main organizers of these partisan groups, who united into the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (RIAU), also called the Black Army (because they fought under the anarchist black flag), "Makhnovists" or "Makhnovshchina" (i.e., "Makhnovism"). The RIAU also battled against the Whites (counter-revolutionaries) and anti-semitic pogromists. In areas where the RIAU drove out opposing armies, villagers (and workers) sought to abolish capitalism and the state through organizing themselves into village assemblies, communes and free councils. The land and factories were expropriated and self-management implemented.

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The Makhnovshchina (Anarchist Ukraine)

Hetman Skoropadsky, head of a puppet Ukrainian State, had difficulty trying to occupy Ukraine as he was confronted by Makhno's Insurrectional Army. Thus, he was finally called back to Germany after the collapse of the German western front. In March 1918, the RIAU succeeded in defeating the Germans, Austrians, Ukrainian Nationalists, and multiple regiments of the White Army.

At this point, the military role Makhno had adopted in his early years shifted to an organizing one. The first congress of the Confederation of Anarchists Groups, under the name of Nabat ("the Bell"), issued five main points: suspicion of all political parties, rejection of all dictatorships (mainly those organizing over people), negation of any State concept, rejection of any "transitory period" or "proletarian dictature", self-management of all workers through free workers councils (soviets). These were in clear contrast to Bolshevik views.

From November 1918 to June 1919, an anarchist society developed in Ukraine which included peasants and workers. "The agricultural most part of these villages was composed of peasants, someone understood at the same time peasants and workers. They were founded first of all on equality and solidarity of his members. All, men and women, worked together with a perfect conscience that they should work on fields or that they should be used in housework... Working program was established in meetings where all participated. They knew then exactly what they had to make." (Makhno, Russian Revolution in Ukraine).

New relationships and values were generated by this new social paradigm, which lead Makhnovists to formalize the policy of free communities as the highest form of social justice. Education was organised on Francisco Ferrer's principles, and the economy was based upon free exchange between rural and urban communities, from crop and cattle to manufactured products, according to the theories of Kropotkin.

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A White and Red counter-strike

Makhno had resisted the White Army's attempts to invade Ukraine from the South-West for three months before the Bolshevik Red Army units joined the war effort of Makhnovschina. But even after joining forces with the Red Army, the anarchists maintained their main political structures (self-management, elections, voluntarism) and refused to accept Bolshevik-appointed political commissars. The Red Army temporarly accepted these conditions, but soon Bolsheviks ceased to provide the Makhnovists with basic supplies, such as cereals and coal. The Nabat paper was banned and the Third Congress (specifically Pavel Dybenko) declared the Makhnovschina outlaw and counter-revolutionary, in response to which the Anarchist congress publicly questioned, "[M]ight laws exist as made by few persons so-called revolutionaries, allowing these to declare the outlawing of an entire people which is more revolutionary than them?" (Archinoff, The Makhnovist Movement).

Their position set off a new campaign in the Communist press, which led Lenin to send Lev Kamenev to Ukraine, who conducted a seemingly cordial interview with Makhno. But when Kamenev left, Makhno intercepted two Bolshevik messages, the first an order to the Red Army to invade Ukraine, the second ordering a terrorist attack against Makhno. Soon after the Fourth Congress, Trotsky sent the clear order to arrest every congress member, then declared that "it's better to cede the entire Ukraine to Denikin (White Army) than to allow an expansion of Makhnovism" (quoted by Archinoff in The Makhnovist Movement). Trotsky then pulled the Bolshevik army out of Ukraine, declared Makhno responsible for the White Army's success, and issued an order to arrest him. Makhno's answer was to escape with his closest associates. Trotsky's forces suffered a disaster—they were soon beaten by Denikin and so forced to withdraw from Ukraine. Makhno decided to fight back, reformed his army and successfully attacked the White Army, saving the Revolution.

Image:Makhno group.jpg Having become powerful and popular, Makhnovshchina turned again to the self-organization of the country, and pursued anarchist principles by destroying prisons and guardhouses and by granting freedom of speech, conscience, association, and the press. But Makhno, sure of the support of the masses against Bolshevism, did not think to protect himself from another danger. When nearly a half of Makhno's troops was struck by typhus epidemic, Trotsky resumed his hostility.

There was a new truce between Makhno forces and the Red Army in October 1920 when both forces came close to the territories held by Wrangel's White army. Makhnovshchina still agreed to help the Red Army, but when the Whites were decisively eliminated in the Crimea, the communists turned on Makhno again. Makhno intercepted three messages from Lenin to Christian Rakovsky, the head of the Bolshevik government of Ukraine. Lenin's orders were to arrest all anarchist activists and to try them as common criminals.

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Exile

In August 1923, an exhausted Makhno was finally driven by the Bolsheviks into exile, fleeing to Romania; then Poland; and finally to Paris. In 1926, joining other Russian exiles in Paris as part of the group "Delo Truda" (Дело Труда, The Сause of Labour), Makhno co-wrote and co-published The Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, which put forward ideas on how anarchists should organize based on the experiences of revolutionary Ukraine and the defeat at the hand of the Bolsheviks. The document was initially rejected by most anarchists, but today has a wide following. It remains controversial to this day, continuing to inspire some anarchists because of the clarity and functionality of the structures it proposes, while drawing criticism from others (including, at the time of publication, Voline and Malatesta) who view its implications as too rigid and hierarchical.

Makhno died in exile in 1934, vindicated in his suspicion of the Bolsheviks by the show trials and purges that were very much on the rise. He was cremated three days after his death, with five hundred people attending his funeral.

In 1953, upon the death of Stalin, a vast insurrection took place in the concentration camps of Ukraine. The prisoners of the Norilsk camp, after seizing control, hoisted the flag of Makhnovist movement to the top of the mast.

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