Читать книгу Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921 - Colin Darch - Страница 10

During the period of relative peace after the fall of the Tsar, Makhno and his comrades had an opportunity to put anarchist ideas into practice. This moment ended in February and March 1918 when the Germans and Austrians invaded Ukraine. There was never to be another prolonged period with such potential: makhnovshchina was to be transformed into a militarised insurgency, and Makhno to become a partisan guerrilla leader. In mid-1918 he was forced to flee Guliaipole, making a journey around Russia that ‘played a crucial role in shaping [his] views’.¹ It was a turning point: the locally-based anarchist project to establish democratic behaviours, through which peasants and workers could decide their own lives, was overwhelmed by the immediate need to organise armed resistance against foreign occupiers. In the longer term, struggles against other, later threats to local autonomy were continuously to consume the anarchists’ energy.

The Ukrainian republic that emerged in 1917 sued the Central Powers for peace in February 1918, ending the state of war – and reducing the country to a mere ‘nation-building project approved by the Germans’.² The German army moved into Ukraine on 18 February, and quickly drove the Bolsheviks out.³ One senior officer wrote later that

… it is the strangest war … they put a handful of infantrymen with machine guns and a cannon on the [railway] track and head off for the next station, which they capture, then arrest the Bolsheviks, bring in more troops by rail, and then set off again.⁴

By 1 March they had occupied Kiev and reinstated the Rada.⁵ The Austrians – latecomers who needed food supplies more than the Germans – insisted on control of specific areas, such as the port city of Odessa. The army commands eventually agreed on a demarcation of zones of influence on 28 March, with Germany allotted the lion’s share of territory. Austria gained control of half of Volhynia, Podolia, Kherson and Makhno’s province of Ekaterinoslav,⁶ although it was the Germans who controlled the collection and distribution of resources.⁷

In March, the Bolshevik government in Moscow signed a peace treaty withdrawing Russia from the war.⁸ Survival depended on ending the fighting, but the price was high. Russia lost Finland, Poland, the Baltic countries, Bessarabia – and Ukraine was already gone.⁹ Although resources provided to Germany and Austria were denied to Russia, Lenin and Trotsky nonetheless needed to secure a workable peace with the Central Powers.

With only 20,000 troops at the Bolsheviks’ disposal, they were heavily outnumbered in Ukraine – and their soldiers were more interested in land than in war. The Bolshevik insistence on defending Ukraine against overwhelming odds fed anti-communist feeling, but in the end the resistance to German occupation amounted only to a series of holding actions by demoralised communist troops.¹⁰ The south-eastern periphery of the Russian empire fragmented into a patchwork of autonomous Soviet republics – the Don, the Crimea, the Kuban, Odessa – over which there was no effective unified military command. Furthermore, the Ukrainian Bolshevik movement split into factions over its relationship to the Russian party.¹¹

The Rada succeeded in isolating Ukraine from Bolshevik rule, but at the price of exposing the population to military occupation.¹² Indeed its power ‘rested chiefly on German bayonets’.¹³ On 15 March the Rada asked the Germans to ‘liberate’ eastern Ukraine – the provinces of Khar’kov, Ekaterinoslav, Tauride, Poltava and Kherson, which were still under Bolshevik control. The Germans seized their chance and pushed on towards the Black Sea coast and the Donbas, meeting with only sporadic resistance from Red Guards.¹⁴ Central authority had disappeared, and neither the Rada nor the Bolsheviks had established effective, centralised administration. The countryside was parcelled up into fiefdoms run by local atamany or by spontaneously emerging local popular structures, anarchist in character if not in ideology.¹⁵ The Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies that had nominally been running Khar’kov province – for instance – had issued proclamations against land seizures, but they continued unabated nonetheless.¹⁶ A rapid and uncontrollable process of devolution of power to the local level was taking place.¹⁷

Even in these chaotic conditions, by the end of April Ukraine was fully under foreign military occupation and was forced to supply the Central Powers with the huge quantities of grain, animals and poultry that they demanded.¹⁸ German estimates foretold large wheat surpluses in the next harvest in June and July;¹⁹ they were not unduly concerned about the possibility of peasant resistance to the expropriation of food supplies.²⁰

Anarchists were active not just in Guliaipole but also in Ekaterinoslav, driving around in armoured cars in front of the Red Guards. German accounts, unsympathetic and disapproving, describe a situation of chaotic criminality. The soldiers found an ordinary town with inns, hotels, parks, schools, museums and white-painted churches – but with its middle-class inhabitants disguised as workers, unshaven and wearing caps and overalls, fearful of Bolsheviks and anarchists.²¹ The anarchists had opened the jail and released the inmates.²² While the Bolsheviks looted shops and emptied banks, the anarchists visited the bourgeoisie in their homes and tortured them until they revealed where their wealth was hidden. In such a narrative, apart from the cruelty, there was little difference between revolutionaries and burglars.²³

Map 2.1 The Occupation of Ukraine by Germany and Austro-Hungary, 1918

The area occupied by the Germans stretched all the way north to the Baltic Sea. (Cartographer: Jenny Sandler)

The ‘southern anarchists’ issued a declaration in March, urging their comrades to fight the Germans, not in defence of some ideal ‘fatherland’ but rather for a ‘world federation of free communes’.²⁴ In Guliaipole, the anarchists expressed contempt for the Rada and for nationalists in general, ‘chauvinists in cahoots with the anti-revolutionary bourgeoisie’, part of a nation-wide network of ‘informers, spies and provocateurs’.²⁵ Local SR leaders, petty landowners and former army officers generally regarded the anarchists as thieves and brigands, and pointed to other regions where land redistribution had taken place in an orderly fashion, and where anarchists had not seized control. While the parties squabbled, the Germans reached Aleksandrovsk, about 85 kilometres from Guliaipole, meeting limited opposition from Red Guards and Left SRs. All the same, the ease with which the Germans drove back revolutionary forces demoralised even the most optimistic of the anarchists.

Discussions took place in Guliaipole between various local structures – the Revolutionary Committee, the Soviet of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the trade unions and the anarchist group. Makhno insisted that a joint communiqué be issued explaining the gravity of the situation to the workers, and appealing for volunteers to defend the revolution. He later wrote that young and old alike ‘poured into’ the local soviet to enlist.²⁶ Guliaipole raised six companies of 220 men each, one apparently recruited entirely from the Jewish community. The anarchist group formed a detachment of a few hundred men armed with rifles, revolvers and sabres. About half had horses. A local doctor began to organise a field hospital and medical teams. Makhno asked for weapons from a nearby Red Guard reserve commander, taking him on a tour of one of the communes. Apparently impressed, the commander allotted some artillery, 3,000 rifles and several carloads of ammunition to the makhnovtsy,²⁷ but the anarchists discovered that the artillery pieces lacked automatic sights.²⁸

The Guliaipole detachments seemed battle ready. Makhno tried unsuccessfully to contact Bolshevik headquarters to obtain the needed gunsights, but the SRs had cut the telephone lines. Shortly afterwards, the SRs issued a proclamation calling on the peasants to welcome and help the ‘fraternal armies’ of Germany, Austria and the Central Rada. Rumours were reaching Guliaipole confirming that the advancing armies were destroying villages whose inhabitants resisted, but were providing those who cooperated with sugar, textiles and even shoes. The faint-hearted among the townspeople of Guliaipole began to weaken, and Makhno heard another rumour that a delegation had gone out to try to appease the advancing Germans. He responded with a proclamation dramatically headlined ‘The traitor’s soul and the tyrant’s conscience are as black as a winter’s night’.²⁹ The anarchists launched a campaign (aimed at the SRs) against the persecution of ‘anarchism or its anonymous defenders’, summarily shooting one of the fiercest critics, a military officer called Pavel Semeniuta-Riabko.³⁰ At the same time Makhno was conciliatory, continuing to negotiate with the SRs. His anarchist comrades were unconvinced, and Makhno consoled himself with the thought that this showed independent thinking.³¹

Makhno was then summoned to meet Aleksandr Egorov, the commander of the Southern Front, but in the confusion could not find him.³² He was then diverted by a summons to one of the communes, where drunken sailors were terrorising the inhabitants. After dealing with the problem, he caught the train for Verkhnii Tokmak to find Egorov. As we have already noted, Makhno tended to deal with every small crisis in person and single-handedly.³³ This trait had near-catastrophic consequences, when his undisciplined supporters were facing an approaching German army, and local landowners were mounting vigorous opposition to the anarchists. It was precisely at this crucial moment that Makhno left the front-line on what turned out to be a fool’s errand.³⁴ Mid-journey Makhno heard that the headquarters had moved: even the commander of the Bolshevik reserves had lost contact. He considered returning to Guliaipole, but decided to continue his journey, chasing the elusive headquarters eastwards and trying to keep in touch with Guliaipole by telegraph. On 15 April he received a message from his comrade Boris Veretel’nikov urging him to return.³⁵ There was great confusion, and suspicion that an attempt was to be made on his life, and the Germans were expected hourly. Makhno immediately turned around and set off homewards.³⁶

Things were falling apart, and the journey was difficult; when he reached the village of Tsarekonstantinovka he received a desperate appeal from Veretel’nikov:

On the night of 1st April, on a forged instruction bearing your signature, the anarchists’ detachment was recalled from Chaplain and disarmed … The wretched traitors, by a subterfuge, forced the Jews to perform this ignominious task … come quickly … rescue us.³⁷

The Rada’s troops had occupied Guliaipole without resistance and disarmed the anarchists. One former anarchist comrade ‘strode in at the head of the haidamaky’, ripped the anarchist banner from the wall and trampled on the portraits of Kropotkin and Bakunin.³⁸

Makhno and Marusia Nikiforova (atamansha of the Aleksandrovsk anarchists)³⁹ tried to recruit retreating Red Guards for a counter-attack on Guliaipole.⁴⁰ Although two armoured cars were available, the Bolsheviks were unwilling, and all that could be rallied was a detachment of mixed cavalry and infantry from Siberia. Makhno and Nikiforova planned an operation to rescue the imprisoned anarchists and recover their weapons. Then a third message from Veretel’nikov arrived: pressure from the peasantry had resulted in the release of the anarchists. The bourgeoisie and most Jews had fled. The anarchists were preparing to go underground, and Veretel’nikov now advised Makhno not to return.⁴¹ Makhno heeded this advice and decided to call off the counter-attack. He had been distracted, events had overtaken him, and he had lost touch with the centre and source of his power, Guliaipole. Reluctantly he joined the general eastward movement towards Taganrog, in the hope of collecting any followers that he could find along the way.⁴²

The Germans were losing patience with the Rada: on 24 April a senior official wrote that ‘… cooperation with the current government … is impossible … The Ukrainian government must not interfere with the military and economic activities of the German authorities …’⁴³ There followed a list of demands that the Rada would clearly never accept. On 26 April the German commander, General Hermann von Eichhorn, placed Kiev under martial law,⁴⁴ and two days later Pavlo Skoropadskii was proclaimed Hetman of Ukraine, reviving an eighteenth-century military title.⁴⁵ Skoropadskii – a wealthy, conservative officer – consented to German demands: to recognise Brest-Litovsk; to form a Ukrainian puppet army; to dissolve the soviets and land committees; to adopt legislation on the compulsory delivery of grain; and to sign a free-trade agreement with Germany. He agreed to restore property rights, permit private ownership of land, and preserve the large estates ‘in the interests of agriculture’.⁴⁶ The Hetmanate relied upon the professional administrators of the old Tsarist state apparatus: its police force, the Dershavna Warta or State Guards, were noted for their brutality. General Erich Ludendorff commented that ‘we [had] found a man with whom it was very easy to get along’,⁴⁷ and German officials began planning a puppet Ukraine modelled on British dominions, with a government of dependable local notables.⁴⁸

In Taganrog, crowded with refugees and deserters, the authorities were trying to control anarchist activity. Nikiforova was arrested for her activities in Elisavetgrad and Aleksandrovsk, but an investigating commission acquitted her.⁴⁹ The Bolshevik military commander Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko even endorsed her revolutionary spirit.⁵⁰ But hers was not an isolated case: the Cheka moved against anarchists in other towns and cities such as Petrograd and Samara,⁵¹ charging that these fierce critics of Brest-Litovsk were hooligans and thieves. Lenin commented in Pravda on 28 April that anarchists opposed both socialism and communism and that ‘to put [them] down … requires an iron hand’.⁵²

Late in the month, Makhno and his band held an impromptu conference in Taganrog and discussed the disaster at Guliaipole. Makhno was worried that Jews would be blamed for the fall of the town, but the meeting agreed that the Jewish company was not to blame.⁵³ The German occupiers were largely indifferent to both the peasants’ feeling for the land and the intellectuals’ feeling for the nation, but it was only as resistance grew that the makhnovtsy began to be carried along on a wave of dissatisfaction not especially of their own making.⁵⁴ The meeting agreed to wait for the harvest in June and July before attempting any armed resistance: it would then be easier to mingle with the peasants in the fields. They planned to collect weapons and organise cells of five to ten fighters for a terrorist campaign against German officers and pomeshchiki. In the meantime, Makhno would travel around Russia to assess the situation and contact Russian anarchist groups.⁵⁵

Heading east towards Rostov-on-Don, Makhno set off on a two-month journey that would take him as far as Moscow and – reputedly – to a meeting with Lenin. Rostov was under pressure from the Whites along the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov, and from the Germans and Austrians in the west. The local anarchists had all but disappeared, and as soon as he could, Makhno moved on to Tsaritsyn, 400 kilometres northeast and far away from both Whites and Germans. He was able to ride a train with some Red Guards, as there was still some rapport between anarchists and Bolsheviks in the field, and indeed some Red Guard commanders were anarchists.⁵⁶ But even with Red Guards, travelling was risky: north of Rostov, Makhno was arrested while helping to requisition food. Fortunately, he had documents proving he had been chair of the Revolutionary Committee in Guliaipole.⁵⁷ In Tsaritsyn, Makhno unwisely intervened in a local dispute,⁵⁸ and then, at the beginning of May, fled on a riverboat, travelling up the Volga to Saratov, 400 kilometres further north.⁵⁹

As in Tsaritsyn, in Saratov the anarchist movement was in bad shape. News finally reached Makhno that the Rada had been replaced by the pseudomonarchical Hetmanate, supported by Germans and landowners. For Makhno, the news confirmed that while the Bolsheviks were responsible for Brest-Litovsk, the Left SRs shared responsibility ‘for not breaking their coalition with Lenin’s government … [and] for not ordering armed struggle … against the occupation of Ukraine’.⁶⁰ Gangs of sailors roamed the town and an anarchist ‘Detachment of Odessa Terrorists’ was refusing to be disarmed.⁶¹ Again Makhno decided to move on, and set off southwards towards Astrakhan. Here the local Soviet was strong and confident, preaching Bolshevism to the Muslim population of the Volga Valley.⁶² Makhno got a job with the Soviet, hiding his anarchist affiliation, and was assigned to an agitation section. Meanwhile he secretly contacted the local anarchist group, which printed one of his poems in their newspaper under his prison nickname, Skromnyi, which some anarchists still remembered.⁶³ It was his first publication.

The libertarian content of his agitation work aroused suspicion, and yet again he was compelled to move on, doubling back through Tsaritsyn and Saratov, sailing up the Volga by steamboat.⁶⁴ Makhno read newspaper stories about the repressive and brutal hetman regime, and decided it was not yet time to return home. He got a ticket to Moscow by producing his identity card as chair of the Guliaipole revkom, and set off by train. The journey was slow, and all kinds of rumours were circulating. There was a delay of over 24 hours in Tambov⁶⁵ before the train reached Moscow.⁶⁶ Makhno’s arrival went unnoticed; he had published no theoretical articles and had been working far from the capital.

In June 1918 Bolshevik fortunes were at a low ebb. The Reds were threatened by the Germans in the west and the south, the Whites in the Caucasus and the Czech Legion and the Whites across the Urals. The Mensheviks and Right SRs had been expelled from VTsIK on 14 June, primarily because of their involvement in the so-called ‘democratic counter-revolution’. The Bolsheviks lacked an effective army and were running short of food. The railway workers in Moscow were restless, and on 19 June shooting broke out at a union meeting. A split with the Left SRs over the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was imminent. The 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened in Moscow on 4 July and the SRs, outnumbered three to one by the Bolsheviks, demonstrated noisily against the German occupation: two days later SRs disguised as Chekists assassinated the German ambassador in Moscow.⁶⁷ In Kiev on 30 July, a Left SR assassinated General von Eichhorn, commander-in-chief of German forces in Ukraine. The SRs then turned against the Bolsheviks themselves, killing two leaders in Petrograd and seriously wounding Lenin in Moscow in August. The regime reacted by unleashing a campaign of terror in the autumn, allowing the unarmed and disorganised urban anarchists no room for manoeuvre. The Cheka’s role was not to judge but to strike: all types of anarchist were crushed.⁶⁸

Makhno, arriving in Moscow as the crisis was peaking, was shocked by anarchist attitudes, quibbling over points of theory while the Bolsheviks entrenched themselves. Moscow was ‘the capital of the paper revolution’, producing only slogans and manifestos.⁶⁹

Map 2.2Makhno’s Journey to Moscow and Back, 1918

Makhno’s journey to Moscow by train, riverboat, and in places on foot, led him all over the south between April and June, and allegedly culminated in a meeting with Lenin himself. (Cartographer: Jenny Sandler)

He visited leading anarchists and found them demoralised – even Arshinov was not interested in returning to Ukraine, and others, such as the poet Lev Chernyi, were actively cooperating with the regime. For three weeks Makhno spent his time at meetings, reading and making contacts. He attended the All-Russian Congress of Textile Unions, as well as gatherings of Left SRs.⁷⁰ He was especially eager to meet Kropotkin, the elder statesman of Russian anarchism, then aged 75.⁷¹ He had been bitterly disappointed when Kropotkin supported the war in 1914, but still admired the old man. In 1917, when the anarchists of Guliaipole received news of Kropotkin’s return from 40 years in exile, ‘an indescribable joy’ had seized the group and they had sent off a letter asking for practical advice.⁷² Later, when Kropotkin was in need, the makhnovtsy sent some food to him in Dmitrov.⁷³ Makhno went to see Kropotkin in Moscow in a reverent frame of mind, expecting answers to questions; however, when the two met, the outcome was inconclusive. Kropotkin, the ideinye anarchist, insisted that only Makhno could solve his own problems, remarking ‘one must bear in mind, dear comrade, that there is no sentimentality in our struggle – selflessness and strength of heart on the path to the goal one has chosen will conquer everything’. Makhno later wrote that this comment stayed in his mind and sustained him through his long struggle.⁷⁴

In the posthumously-published second volume of his memoirs, Makhno describes meetings with both Sverdlov and Lenin while he was in Moscow, probably sometime between 14 and 29 June 1918.⁷⁵ Makhno’s account is the only known evidence for these encounters,⁷⁶ but as Louis Fischer wrote in the 1960s, Lenin often talked to peasants as a way of ‘taking the pulse’.⁷⁷ Aleksandr Shubin, writing more recently, agrees: ‘the description of the conversation in Makhno’s memoirs is quite plausible’.⁷⁸ Nevertheless, some caution is required; there are other errors in the volume.⁷⁹ As the English translator observes, in writing the memoirs

Makhno was not interested … in serving the needs of professional historians … He portrays … himself as a supporter of some form of Ukrainian autonomy … [but] the emphasis on his nationality may be a later interpolation.⁸⁰

According to Makhno, he wandered into the Kremlin complex, and managed to find the building he was looking for, where he was directed to Sverdlov’s office.⁸¹ The conversations, reconstructed from memory years later, are stilted and formulaic, exchanges of pleasantries followed by obvious questions about the class character of the Ukrainian peasantry. Lenin asked Makhno what he understood by the slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’ – the role of the soviets was a key point of difference between anarchists and Bolsheviks. Shubin has written that ‘while soldiers went to their deaths for Power to the Soviets, singing the International under the red flag, Soviet Power was becoming stronger behind them. It became clear that they were not the same thing’.⁸² The peasants, said Makhno, took the slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’ to mean that power over their affairs must rest with the workers themselves at the local level. The other main bone of contention was the Bolsheviks’ general lack of interest in the peasantry. Makhno claimed that Lenin told him that if there were other anarchists like him, the Bolsheviks might be willing to work with them to set up ‘free producer’s organisations’.⁸³

On 29 June 1918 Makhno left Moscow on a slow train for the south, with a false passport and disguised as a Ukrainian officer. Arshinov was at the station to see him off.⁸⁴ The trip was a risky one, and at one point he was arrested by the Austrians; he walked the last 25 kilometres to Guliaipole.⁸⁵

The Hetmanate’s policy of restoring estates to the landlords was an important driver of peasant discontent, but recent research has shown that ‘most of peasants’ complaints … focused on the actions not of returning landlords, but of the occupying soldiers’.⁸⁶ The Germans and Austrians continued to requisition foodstuffs and livestock without compensation. For example, at a horse fair in June, a German detachment took whichever animal seized their fancy, and when the peasants resisted, imposed a fine of 75,000 roubles on the host village for attacking a German officer.⁸⁷ There were many other incidents. Commissions set up to assess damage to the seized estates forced the peasantry to pay compensation to their former landlords, and each community was responsible for payments by individual members.⁸⁸ As repression intensified, peasant opposition to the Germans and Skoropadskii moved from the passing of congress resolutions to armed insurrection.⁸⁹ The first armed detachments were formed in Kursk, Kiev and Chernigov provinces in early May, and attracted vigorous and brutal repressive action from the occupying forces. The scale of these guerrilla actions escalated quickly, especially in Podolia, Khar’kov and Ekaterinoslav.⁹⁰

Among minority victims of the widening violence were both Germans and Jews. Many German colonists in Ukraine were Mennonites, commercial farmers who had arrived in the Russian Empire in the late-eighteenth century, settling in religious communities in Ekaterinoslav, Tauride and Kherson. They initially welcomed the arrival of the German and Austrian troops, and before the invaders withdrew in the autumn of 1918, set up self-defence (Selbstschutz) units to resist the makhnovtsy and other partisan groups. This was a political error, creating popular hostility towards the Mennonites, and a violation of their non-violent principles.⁹¹ The makhnovtsy were responsible for attacks on Mennonite communities from late 1918 onwards, of which the most savage occurred in Eichenfeld in November 1919. Mennonite memoirs of the period typically list the names of martyrs and enumerate pillaged villages, farms and settlements.⁹² However, as Sean Patterson has argued, pointing to the ‘resentment associated with land hunger and poverty’, such a Mennonite meta-narrative fails to engage with

… the breakdown of neighbourly relations between Mennonites and Ukrainians where roots of the conflict may be glimpsed. This was a process that began before the arrival of Makhno … and even before the German occupation … With the collapse of order in the countryside the situation escalated …⁹³

Mennonites were not the only victims. Peasant units were often anti-Semitic and would plunder Jewish houses, while leaving other homes intact. They also collected taxes.⁹⁴

Makhno’s return from Russia went unnoticed. He slipped into the village of Rozhdestvenka, 20 kilometres from Guliaipole, and went into hiding.⁹⁵ Many comrades were under arrest, and the Austrians had burned his mother’s home and shot his brother Emel’ian, a wounded veteran.⁹⁶ On 4 July he issued a ‘proclamation’, couched in broad terms, exhorting the peasants to expel the invaders and establish a free society. Cautiously, he made ten copies, and circulated them to known sympathisers in the Guliaipole region.⁹⁷ The response was disappointing: he received a note telling him not to come back, adding that ‘the Jews’ were hunting out revolutionaries, just as they had ‘betrayed the revolution’ to the Austrians in April. Makhno sent back a warning against anti-Semitism, but the reply repeated the same accusations.⁹⁸

The dominant narrative recounted here describes the embryonic insurgency in the period from April 1918 to the end of the year, before Makhno became a major protagonist in the Ukrainian struggle. However, it derives principally from a sequence of mutually-reinforcing sources: primarily chapters 3, 4, and part of 5 of Arshinov’s 1923 book; the second and third volumes of Makhno’s own memoirs, edited by Volin and published posthumously in the 1930s; and Viktor Belash’s text, as edited by his son in the 1990s. There are identifiable errors in Makhno’s text, and there is still relatively little published primary documentation.⁹⁹

Makhno planned to organise Guliaipole into zones, each with a nucleus of committed revolutionaries, who would gather their most energetic and fearless neighbours into guerrilla squads. These would selectively ambush Austrian patrols – and landowners – in isolated areas. Such ‘rapid and unexpected blows’ would eventually demoralise the occupying forces sufficiently to permit an assault on the garrison at Guliaipole. Unfortunately, his followers launched several feeble attacks, which the Austrians and Hetmanite authorities easily repulsed. The disorganised raids precipitated a wave of arrests and house searches. Makhno’s presence was revealed, and he beat a hasty retreat to Ternovka, 80 kilometres away, using the false passport issued to him in Moscow.¹⁰⁰ In Ternovka – for whatever reason – Makhno found the fighting spirit that Guliaipole’s inhabitants had lacked. He set about organising platoons, and warned of the dangers of launching attacks too early.¹⁰¹ The Red Guards had abandoned some weapons during their retreat in the spring, and the tiny squad was adequately armed.

Reconnoitring Guliaipole, Makhno found that Austrian punitive detachments were requisitioning grain, and fighting had broken out. In general, the Germans failed to restrain the Austrians and pomeshchiki from demanding land, grain and ‘compensation’ all at once, and the landlords were beating and imprisoning the same peasants who had driven them from their estates only months before. The Germans saw the supply of raw materials from Ukraine as essential: ‘we are justified to use our troops there’ wrote Ludendorff, ‘it would be a mistake to do otherwise’.¹⁰² But many local men had returned from the front carrying arms, and the Germans had little understanding of the political forces at play. They lacked a clear policy and failed to exploit Ukraine’s resources effectively. The rivalry with the Austrians was an irritant, and even the German Foreign Office and the Supreme Army Command were unable to agree on policy matters.¹⁰³ As late as September a German officer, Lt.-Col. Bach, wrote that ‘the bands of partisans [are] not political organisations, but only gangster bands, people too lazy to work’.¹⁰⁴

In Ternovka, Makhno began to raid country estates, and the Austrians sent a punitive detachment, forcing Makhno to flee westwards towards the Dnepr, where he recruited some demobilised Ukrainians.¹⁰⁵ He then set off back to Guliaipole to resume operations. The evidence for this period is sparse and, in Timoshchuk’s words, ‘of a romantic and legendary character’. These ‘terrorist actions of Makhno’ can be seen as ‘ordinary armed robberies’, which were reported as having been ‘decisively suppressed’ by the Warta and the military.¹⁰⁶

Makhno’s return coincided with the arrival of various anarchist intellectuals who attached themselves to the movement and subtly changed its character. One outcome of anarchist emigration to Ukraine was the establishment in Khar’kov in autumn 1918 of the ‘Nabat’ Confederation of Anarchist Organisations.¹⁰⁷ With a network of branches in Ukrainian cities, it was dominated by Volin (V. M. Eikhenbaum), Petr Arshinov and Aron Baron, and attempted to bring anarcho-syndicalists, anarchist-communists and individualists together, while simultaneously allowing them considerable autonomy.¹⁰⁸ The newly-arrived comrades started telling Makhno how to conduct his affairs, arguing that an uprising was impractical and he should wait for Bolshevik help. But Makhno was afraid of losing the initiative if he delayed.¹⁰⁹ He had recruited about 100 followers, but still lacked the strength to raid Guliaipole itself; he had already attempted unsuccessfully to blow up the Austrian headquarters.¹¹⁰

It was mid-September before he had built up sufficient military strength to move closer to Guliaipole. His campaign opened with a stroke of good fortune: on the way to Guliaipole he disarmed a troop of haidamaki, capturing horses, uniforms and weapons. Disguised, his men then came upon and routed a militia detachment.¹¹¹ Guliaipole itself was garrisoned by Austrian troops and in a state of alert. The Austrians took brutal reprisals against anyone who helped the partisans, shooting some and exacting fines on others. The repression, together with Makhno’s growing popular reputation gained him more recruits, some with weapons. Eventually, he attacked the Austrian garrison with 400 fighters, capturing the post office and the railway station. It turned out that most of the Austrians were out on patrol at the time: nonetheless, the raid was a morale-booster.¹¹²

The makhnovtsy knew that they could not defend the town against Austrian regular troops and withdrew north-westwards when they heard that two troop trains were approaching. They gathered in a wooded area near Dibrovka (Velikaia Mikhailovka, also known as Bol’shaia Mikhailovka), where Makhno encountered Fedor Shchus’, a former petty officer in the Imperial Navy, now leading a small band.¹¹³ Shchus’ agreed to join forces,¹¹⁴ and later became a valued commander.¹¹⁵ Meetings were held to discuss the successes of Denikin’s Volunteer Army in the Kuban and the Caucasus: Makhno warned that this force might prove to be their most dangerous enemy.¹¹⁶ While the partisans met, the Austrians and haidamaki were preparing to attack. On 30 September they set up roadblocks around Dibrovka, isolating Makhno in the forest with a group of 30 men and a machine-gun. According to one account the Austrians had a battalion of about 500 men in the village, reinforced by 200 haidamaki and auxiliaries, with reinforcements on the way.¹¹⁷

The makhnovtsy attempted a surprise counter-attack. Some partisans approached the main square undetected, and Shchus’ led a machine-gun detachment to the far side of the town. The Austrians, surprised, allegedly fled in panic when the insurgents opened fire from both sides of the square – but archival sources indicate that they had already departed, and ‘the gang of the anarchist Makhno terrorised the population … engaging in battle with the Warta’. The booty was insignificant, just ‘the armament of a small Warta squad’.¹¹⁸ Nonetheless, it was at this point that Makhno earned the honorific Bat’ko,¹¹⁹ a moment that Golovanov argues acquired a ‘sacred meaning’ that is ‘undoubtedly a key to the whole mythology of Makhno’.¹²⁰ While the historical status of the engagement at Dibrovka as a military operation against Austro-Hungarian units is therefore questionable, its symbolic importance as a personal victory for Makhno – who escaped the encirclement and gained the loyalty of his followers – remains undeniable.¹²¹

The German general staff were annoyed by the unrest, and the Commander-in-Chief in Kiev ordered that Makhno’s band should be eliminated.¹²² On 5 October the Austrians bombarded Dibrovka with artillery, wounding both Makhno and Shchus’ and forcing out both the insurgents and many residents. The remaining peasants were abandoned to the swift reprisals of the Austrians and the haidamaki, who burned their houses down. The next night, when the partisans were a day’s march away, they saw a glow in the sky from the blaze.¹²³ Later, in what rapidly became a ‘devastating vendetta’, the makhnovtsy took revenge on the Mennonite colonists who had collaborated with the Germans and the Hetmanate. Later, monetary and other indemnities were imposed on them; horses, carts, food and weapons were seized for military purposes.¹²⁴

By the autumn of 1918 the Central Powers were losing the war on the Western Front, and their grip on Ukraine loosened. In October the Austro-Hungarians left Guliaipole, and the insurgents marched in.¹²⁵ Makhno’s power in the area now seemed secure, and he tested his strength by sending a message to the Hetmanate’s commander in Aleksandrovsk, demanding the immediate release of five Guliaipole prisoners, including his brother Ssava. The authorities refused, but assured Makhno that no harm would come to the prisoners.¹²⁶

Makhno believed that an organised army was necessary to defend political gains, but as an anarchist, he also believed that no person had the right to command another. At an extraordinary conference held in late 1918 in Guliaipole he proposed a solution: the reorganisation of the various partisan bands as ‘federal’ units of a standing army with its headquarters in Guliaipole. Through such a reorganisation, and by maintaining a tight cohesion among the units and the staff, argued Makhno, the federal principle could be guaranteed, and they could organise effective common defence.¹²⁷ He envisaged units of combined cavalry and tachanki that could cover large areas at speed. Some insurgents argued against these ideas, on the grounds that there were no professional commanders in the movement with the experience necessary to conduct operations on a large scale.¹²⁸ The command staff consisted of Makhno himself as commander-in-chief, Viktor Belash as chief of staff and, additionally, a Bolshevik and a Left SR.¹²⁹ Makhno began to conduct conventional operations and in late October led a raid to the right bank of the Dnepr, collecting large supplies of arms.

He established three fronts; at the railway junctions of Chaplino-Grishino to the north, from Tsarekonstantinovka to Pologi in Mariupol’ region, and at Orekhov in the Tauride. Pologi was an important railway junction between Chaplino and Berdiansk, connecting Aleksandrovsk and Ekaterinoslav to the Sea of Azov. The railways had continued to function, transporting troops and military cargo, as well as metal ores, coal and other commodities. From October onwards, the makhnovtsy began to raid the trains for booty. The departure of the Germans and Austrians created a surge of refugees, including former collaborators, along the lines of rail. One memoir tells of Makhno himself appearing at Pologi station in November:

The railway station was brightly illuminated, and soldiers paced up and down on patrol … Makhno himself was strolling about among the refugees and observing the crowd … people recognised him and pointed him out … [but] no-one even thought of delivering him to the Austrians.¹³⁰

Eventually the refugees were allowed to depart for Berdiansk unharmed.¹³¹

Without German support, Skoropadskii’s position was deemed untenable. Symon Petliura, Volodymyr Vynnychenko and other former members of the Rada had been forming a new, radical nationalist government, the Directory, since late summer, and they triggered a revolt in November. Their army entered Kiev on 14 December 1918.¹³² Makhno had doubts: Vynnychenko might indeed be creating a new government in Ukraine, he told his supporters,

… but I ask you, comrades, where among the toilers in the revolutionary towns and villages of Ukraine are to be found such fools as to believe in the ‘socialism’ of this Petliurist-Vynnychenkovist Ukrainian government … ?’¹³³

Despite this, the makhnovtsy adopted, with reservations, a policy of armed neutrality towards the Directory. Makhno believed that it had compromised itself politically by including Petliura, who had collaborated with the Central Powers during the invasion. Vynnychenko’s democratic socialism might have made a military alliance acceptable to the anarchists, but the Directory’s opportunism and lack of a mandate were deal-breakers: politically the makhnovtsy believed that the Directory was worse than the Rada.¹³⁴ While not seeking a fight, the makhnovtsy were ready should the need arise.¹³⁵

On 26 December the Directory abolished the Hetmanate’s police system (the Warta), and recognised trade unions and the right to strike.¹³⁶ It declared itself to be the Revolutionary Provisional Government of Ukraine, accusing the bourgeoisie and the landowners of bringing ruin on the country.¹³⁷ However, it struggled to control its Galician military units and could not compete effectively with a rival Bolshevik ‘provisional government-in-exile’, set up in Moscow in November 1918 under Georgii Piatakov, ‘to mask the intervention and the split in the Ukrainian [communist] movement’.¹³⁸

* * *

It is unclear how strong Makhno’s forces actually were in late 1918. One source indicates that he commanded 300–400 infantry and 150 cavalry, with another 2,000 armed partisans in reserve. Timoshchuk argues that this is an underestimate, citing Denikin’s estimate of five to six thousand fighters, and a report in a Ekaterinoslav newspaper that ‘10,000 well-armed and equipped makhnovtsy’ had helped to restore Soviet power in Pavlograd and Guliaipole. Moreover, he comments, the higher number ‘seems more likely, since at the end of December the makhnovtsy played a major role in the capture of Ekaterinoslav’.¹³⁹

In late December the Red Army,¹⁴⁰ under the command of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, began to advance into Ukraine from the north.¹⁴¹ Antonov’s superior officer, the Latvian commander-in-chief of the Red Army, Ioakim Vatsetis (Latvian: Jukums Vācietis) was more concerned with the threat of P. N. Krasnov’s Don Army, to the southeast of Voronezh, and too close to Moscow for comfort. He refused to give Antonov more than the minimum of troops and weapons, and ordered him to attack behind Krasnov’s lines to the southeast, away from Ukraine.¹⁴² Nevertheless, Antonov’s offensive from the north gathered momentum. His forces consisted of two ill-disciplined, under-manned and badly armed divisions of fewer than 4,000 men.¹⁴³ Antonov devised a strategy hinging upon the capture of three key cities: Khar’kov, key to the Donbass; Kiev, capital of Ukraine and the seat of nationalism; and Odessa, a port city crucial to the expected Anglo–French intervention. These were towns with an industrial working class sympathetic to the communist cause.

Antonov was desperate for men and began to recruit partisan groups with a record of anti-German or anti-White activity. He ordered these bands to foment rebellion and to organise themselves in readiness for the expected Allied intervention.¹⁴⁴ After the formation of the Ukrainian Soviet Government at Kursk on 28 November Antonov’s position seemed stronger, as he was now, at least technically, working for the Ukrainians. Early in December he assumed real command of the two partisan divisions that had been assigned to him. Both units were under strength, disorganised and demoralised. Antonov energetically set about building his army, a task that required considerable resourcefulness. Throughout December he moved his troops forward into Ukraine, into position for the attack on Khar’kov. He was determined that Vatsetis should not deny him the opportunity to establish Soviet power in the south.

Oddly enough, Makhno had sent a message early in December to local Bolsheviks offering to cooperate against the Directory, but his offer had been refused, ostensibly because his forces were mere anarchist bandits.¹⁴⁵ The makhnovtsy were now turning westwards towards Ekaterinoslav, a move that brought them into contact with the forces of the Directory.¹⁴⁶ To the nationalists, the makhnovtsy were just another peasant gang that might possibly be usefully recruited. Ignorant of Makhno’s politics, they interrogated him; what did he think of the Directory? What was his idea of Ukraine’s political future? Would an alliance not be in the interests of both groups?¹⁴⁷ Makhno was uncompromising, and despite having no allies he refused to have anything to do with the Directory. Ukraine could only be free if the peasants and workers were free. Between the workers’ movement and the movement of the bourgeoisie only an armed struggle was possible.¹⁴⁸

After the negotiations broke down, the makhnovtsy moved onto the offensive against Ekaterinoslav. The town had fallen to the nationalists early in December and a week or so later they moved against the local soviet and dispersed it, arresting some Left SRs and communists.¹⁴⁹ There were Bolshevik detachments in the suburb of Nizhnedneprovsk on the left bank of the river, and they demanded that their comrades be released.¹⁵⁰ The Nizhnedneprovsk committee offered Makhno the command of their workers’ detachments for an attack on the city, with a total of about 15,000 men.¹⁵¹

On 27 December Makhno launched his attack, employing a ruse of the kind that came to be considered typical of his style of warfare. There are various stories of makhnovtsy disguised in wedding dresses, or hiding in coffins at funerals, which are unverifiable and quite possibly fictional.¹⁵² Workers were still riding in and out of the city from the suburbs by train, uninspected. The makhnovtsy, with their guns tucked under their greatcoats, boarded an early morning train for the centre of Ekaterinoslav. The trick succeeded, and the insurgents quickly captured the railway station, while fierce fighting broke out in the city.¹⁵³ The communists captured the bridge into Ekaterinoslav with the loss of only six men. An unexpected bonus came with the defection of a Petliurist artillery officer and his guns and gun-teams to the insurgents’ side.¹⁵⁴ The fighting continued in great confusion for three days, until the partisans were in control of most of the city. Makhno opened the jail and released all the prisoners; he also formed a governing soviet and issued a decree against looting.¹⁵⁵ As Danilov and Shanin have pointed out, Soviet historiography represented the makhnovtsy as ‘engaged exclusively in looting captured cities … and passenger trains’ while the evidence shows that all the armies – whether German or Austro-Hungarian, Ukrainian nationalists, Bolsheviks and Whites, or peasant insurgencies – needed to survive, and so all robbed and plundered.¹⁵⁶ There are other stories of the makhnovtsy engaging in wanton acts of destruction, burning libraries and archives, and deliberately shelling a city’s buildings with cannon.¹⁵⁷ However, Makhno was aware that such conduct was incompatible with maintaining popular support and consistently punished it.

The troops of the Directory recaptured Ekaterinoslav after only a day. The insurgents withdrew eastwards across the Dnepr back to the area around Sinel’nikovo, where they dug in.¹⁵⁸ A period of cautious non-belligerence followed. Neither side was strong enough to mount a full-scale attack on the other, although intermittent clashes over supplies continued to occur in other areas. Meanwhile, the arrival of Antonov’s army, theoretically under the orders of the Ukrainian Soviet government, split the Directory into a nationalist faction and one (including Vynnychenko) that supported a proletarian revolution as well as a Ukrainian state.

At the end of 1918 Ukraine was like a beehive that had been disturbed.¹⁵⁹ Nevertheless, it was a period of relative freedom in the interior of the area under the control of the makhnovtsy. They reached an agreement on a modus vivendi with the Bolsheviks: Antonov was more interested in seizing cities and towns in northern Ukraine. The communists were concentrating on urgent military and political problems rather than local administration – so for a few months the peasants of Guliaipole and its environs again had an opportunity to govern themselves. They returned to the system of communes that they had adopted in 1917–18. Anarchist commentators are careful to distinguish these working communes, or free communes, from other types such as the Bolshevik exemplary communes. These sympathetic accounts are obviously open to charges of bias: according to Volin, for example, the Makhnovite partisans exerted no pressure on the peasants, but confined themselves to propaganda in favour of free communes.¹⁶⁰ Arshinov asserts that ‘these were real working communes of peasants who, themselves accustomed to work, valued work in themselves and in others’. But his account provides little detail:

The peasants worked in these communes … to provide their daily bread … The principles of brotherhood and equality permeated the communes. Everyone – men, women and children – worked according to his or her abilities. Organisational work was assigned to one or two comrades who, after finishing it, took up the remaining tasks together with the other members of the commune. It is evident that these communes had these traits because they grew out of a working milieu and that their development followed a natural course.¹⁶¹

One commune near Prokovskoe was named after Rosa Luxemburg. It grew from a few dozen members to over 300, but the Bolsheviks broke it up in June 1919, after the split between Makhno and Trotsky.¹⁶² Another, ‘Commune no. 1’, was located about seven kilometres away. Similar communes clustered close to Guliaipole, in a radius of about 20 kilometres. A pamphlet entitled Osnovye polozheniia o vol’nom trudovom Sovet (proekt) (Basic Statute on the Free Worker’s Soviet: Draft) outlined the role of the soviets, which were to be independent of political parties.¹⁶³ They were to operate within a socioeconomic system based on real equality, consisting only of workers, and could not delegate executive power to any member.¹⁶⁴ Even if the anarchist communes were truly voluntary, one difference distinguished the earlier period from the later. Makhno had learned the lesson of the Austro-German invasion. He knew that if the revolution in his area was to remain in peasant control, he needed an army to protect it. He had also learned to choose his enemies. He could distinguish between those to whom he could ally himself (the Bolsheviks), those he could ignore or take advantage of (the Petliurists) and those against whom he should struggle uncompromisingly (the Whites of General Denikin).

Meanwhile, aided by strikes that closed down public utilities, and by the panic which seized the defending nationalists, the Bolsheviks captured Khar’kov in January. Antonov, who had been agitating for the creation of a separate Ukrainian Front for some time, at last got his way. On 12 January the Bolsheviks reached Chernigov in the west, and by the 20th they controlled Poltava. On 16 January, the Directory declared war on Soviet Russia, hoping in vain for assistance from French forces in Odessa, and two days later communist troops led by the sailor Pavel Dybenko attacked Ekaterinoslav, eventually driving the nationalists out for a second time on 27 January. By 5 February Kiev had been abandoned to the Bolsheviks. For civilians, these latest occupiers represented a marked improvement. ‘Compared not only to the makhnovtsy but even to the Petliurists,’ wrote one citizen, ‘the men of the Red Army created an extraordinarily disciplined impression’.¹⁶⁵