Michael Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918-1921: An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution, 1976.

14. Makhno and the Bolsheviks

After the occupation of Katerynoslav and Kyiv, the Bolshevik armies advanced against the Ukrainian troops of the Directory, intending to cut them off from the ports of the Black Sea and subsequently to destroy them. Then they intended to attack the Allied forces in southern Ukraine and advance to Hungary through Romania to assist the Hungarian Communists. Besides the Ukrainian and Allied forces, the Bolsheviks were facing the Denikin troops; for this they sought explicit support from leftist partisan leaders, including Makhno.

The Red Army representative Dybenko and Makhno's representative Chubenko met at Nyzhniedniprovs'k on January 26, 1919, where they agreed to unite their forces against the "counterrevolution" on the following terms: (a) all the Makhno detachments would be incorporated into the Red Army as the "Third Trans-Dnieper Brigade"; (b) this unit would receive military supplies, food, and financing from the Red Army and be responsible to it; (c) it would retain its internal organization intact with an elective commanding body and regulate the interrelation of the regiments by the staff; (d) Makhno would remain commander of the Brigade, but it would receive political commissars down to the regimental level appointed by the Bolshevik authorities, whose duties would be political indoctrination for the units and overseeing the execution of orders from the center; (e) detachments would be transformed into regular regiments; (f) it would be subordinate to the commanders of the Division and of the front in operational and administrative matters; (g) it could not be removed from the front against Denikin; and (h) it would retain its name of Revolutionary Partisan Army and its black flags.

There was no mention of civil administration of the territory of the Makhno movement. The agreement with Makhno and other partisan leaders marked the beginning of a number of Bolshevik successes in South Ukraine. Makhno partisans operated against the Volunteers in two directions, south from Oleksandrivs'k and southeast toward Mariupil', where they encountered formidable Denikin forces.

As early as December 19, 1918, Denikin transferred General Vladimir I. Mai-Maevskii's Third Division, with armored trains, cars, and airplane units, from the Kuban to the region of IUzivka-Mariupil'-Berdians'k-Synel'nikove, aiming to cover the Donets Basin, and secure the left flank of the Don Army. However, according to Denikin:

Mai-Maevskii got into a very complicated military and political situation in the region where the partisan groups of Makhno, Zubkiv, Ivan'ko, and other Petliura otamans, Bolshevik troops of Kozhevnikov's group, and the German soldiers from the troop trains mixed together. The Kuban separatists raised strong protests against "invading Ukrainian territory"; the Don Otaman persistently demanded an advance to Kharkiv, which was occupied by the Bolsheviks on January 3, and deployment along the northern borders of Ukraine. For two months Mai-Maevskii and his 2,500 men (later 4,500) strenuously and persistently defended themselves against Makhno, Petliura, and two Bolshevik divisions.^

At the end of January 1919, Denikin dispatched reinforcements, two cadres" of officers and volunteers from the Ninth Cavalry Division. They formed a Composite Regiment against Makhno, who was opposing Mai-Maevskii's advance to the Donets Basin. According to reports of February 16 and 18, the partisans took Orikhiv, Novoukrainka, Novo-selytsia, Velykyi Tokmak, Tsarekostiantynivka, and Polohy, capturing armored trains, field guns, machine guns, rifles, and other materials.4 When in mid-March Makhno threatened Mariupil', General Elchaninov, the commander of the city garrison, dispatched the Composite Regiment, consisting of over four hundred men, plus detachments of the Second Cavalry of General Drozdovskii's regiment, the Smolensk Ulan Regiment, mobilized officers living in the city, and a battery of two guns.

Toward the end of March Makhno defeated the Denikin troops at Manhush whence they retreated eighteen versts east to Mariupil'. With most of the troop commanders wounded, all available forces gathered to defend the city. However, after ten days of fighting Makhno occupied it, driving the enemy into the sea. Subsequently Makhno seized a number of railway stations along the Sea of Azov, including Berdians'k, and was threatening to take Matviiv-Kurhan, to cut the Denikin forces off from their large military stores at Taganrog to the south.5

In mid-April the Third Cavalry Corps, under General Andrei Grigor'evich Shkuro, jointly with the Composite Regiment drove Makhno from MariupiP and the area including Huliai-Pole, with the aim of isolating Makhno from his allies, the Bolsheviks, and destroying him. During the spring and summer bitter fighting between them developed in the south of Left Bank Ukraine. According to Arshinov: "During this period Makhno's men advanced at least five or six times almost to the walls of Taganrog." Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the civilian population suffered more, not only from military activities, but from reprisals and robberies by the Denikin troops. Thus from the beginning of 1919, an anti-Denikin front was firmly established, extending along the Sea of Azov west of Taganrog via MariupiP-Berdians'k to Melitopil', and north to Oleksandrivs'k-Synel'nikove and Novomos-kovs'ke.7

As an anti-Denikin front was established and the region was secured from Denikin's troops, Makhno faced the problem of organizing the region. The Makhno movement, however, was a military one, not political in nature. Fighting took up most of its time; that preoccupation and the tumultuous conditions caused by the civil war in the region were most unfavorable for domestic policies. With many enemies and forced to move constantly, Makhno could not control a large populated territory long enough to introduce a sound civil administration. Moreover, he had no adequate administrative apparatus for this purpose, for even anarchists from the Nabat group were ideologically opposed to serving in administrative units.8 From the summer of 1918 to the beginning of 1919, the Makhno movement was essentially a peripatetic one, lacking territorial control. This situation changed when the Ukrainian troops withdrew from the Left Bank in the winter of 1919, and Makhno found himself in the region south and east of Katerynoslav between the Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik Russian forces.

Thus when the Bolsheviks and Makhno had reached an agreement on January 26, 1919, one important question remained unsettled, the political status of the territory under Makhno's control. The Bolsheviks apparently thought either of recognizing autonomy for the region of the Makhno movement,9 or they considered making agreements with Makhno concerning military matters, while the civil question would be their prerogative after the occupation of the region. As they advanced into the region, the Bolsheviks preceeded cautiously in order not to offend their allies to the point of precipitating an anti-Bolshevik reaction. According to an eyewitness, a commander of a Bolshevik regiment that was dispatched to the southern front warned his Soldiers in a speech that "in the territory occupied by Makhno we have to be especially vigilant and flexible; not for a single moment should we forget either the peculiarities of the condition confronting us or the hopes entrusted to us by the command of the Soviet army."10

Makhno, on the other hand, took it for granted that the political autonomy of his region would not be touched and that the population would be allowed to live without Bolshevik interference. Hence, Makhno and his staff continued the military and sociopolitical organization of the territory that the partisans dominated from the end of January to June of 1919, and then from October to the end of the year. During 1920 and 1921, Makhno's territorial control was substantially limited in duration and space.

When Makhno detachments entered a certain city or town, they immediately announced to the population that the army did not intend to exercise political authority. In the army's judgment, "it is up to the workers and peasants themselves to act, to organize themselves, to reach mutual understanding in all fields of their lives, insofar as they desire it, and in whatever way they may think right." Simultaneously, Makhno's command issued a proclamation to the people dealing with basic questions. All orders of the Denikin and the Bolshevik authorities were abolished.

The most important question to the peasants was that of land. Therefore, according to the proclamation, the holdings of the landlords, the monasteries, and the state, including all livestock and goods, were to be transferred to the peasants. This transfer, however, was to be implemented in an orderly way and dictated through decisions made in general meetings where the interests of all peasants would be considered. The same situation applied to the workers, since all factories, plants, mines, and other means of production were to become property of all of the workers under the control of their professional unions. The free exchange of manufactured and agrarian commodities was allowed until workers and peasants formed professional organizations to control such exchange.

According to the proclamation, workers and peasants were to establish free non-Bolshevik Soviets that would carry out the will and orders of their constituents. Only working people, and not representatives of political parties, might join the Soviets. The existence of compulsory and authoritative institutions was prohibited; the state guard and police force were also abolished. Instead, the workers and peasants were to organize their own self-defense force against counterrevolution and banditry.12

In contrast to the Bolshevik regime, freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association were proclaimed as an inseparable right of each working man. Several newspapers of various political orientations including Bolshevik, left Socialist Revolutionaries, and right Socialist Revolutionaries, appeared in the territory under Makhno's control. However, it was prohibited for them to propagate armed uprisings against the Makhno movement.

Also, in contrast to the Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik Russian forces that annulled each other's currencies whenever they occupied the same territory, Makhno annulled none. He recognized currencies of all forces occupying the region, including Ukrainian, Denikin, Don, and Bolshevik. Moreover, Makhno allowed money from the tsarist and Provisional Government regimes. Makhno's financial policy was determined by his knowledge that the working people had accumulated currencies from different sources and feared their discontinuation. The businessmen and bankers accepted Makhno's program. Makhno, however, never issued currency of his own.

Although war conditions made the organization of schools difficult, plans were made, especially in Huliai-Pole. A school commission of peasants, workers, and teachers was assigned the task of devising an educational plan, including the establishment of schools and their economic support. The commission's plan was to employ the educational ideas of the Spanish anarchist, Francisco Ferrer. Schools were to belong to the working people themselves and to be entirely independent of the state and the church. Religion, however, was to be taught in the schools. Teachers were to receive their livelihood from the communities they served.15 Courses were organized for illiterate and partly literate partisans. Some courses in political matters were offered for partisans, including history, political economy, theory and practice of anarchism and socialism, history of the French Revolution (according to Kropot-kin), and history of the revolutionary partisan movement. Special attention was given to the organization of a theater that performed for the partisans and civilian population, and which would serve both as entertainment and propaganda.

As the sociopolitical organization of his region developed, Makhno and his staff had to devote special attention to the organization of a partisan army to meet the threatening military situation. As early as January 3, 1919, Makhno called a partisan conference of forty delegates at Polohy station, the primary concern of which was the unification of all partisan groups of the region under one command, their reorganization, the obtaining of arms and ammunition, and the organization of a defensive front. The delegates resolved to form an operational staff that would be the highest military organ of the partisan army. Its tasks were the reorganization of the partisan groups into regiments, provision of supply bases, distribution of arms, planning combat operations, organization of new detachments, and disarming of all nonsubordinate units. Although the conference dealt primarily with military organization and defense of the territory, it devoted some attention to the civil problems and resolved to support the local Soviets and prevent military control of them. All the estates in the region controlled by Makhno were to be transferred to the disposition of the workers and to be defended by organized local armed detachments until the meeting of a general peasant congress. Those armed detachments should be at the disposition of the local Soviets, supporting their authority and assisting them in combating banditry.1

Subsequently, on January 4, Viktor Bilash, head of the operational staff, presented a reorganizational plan that he had formulated for the front. To make the partisans' operations more effective, some of the less cooperative commanders of the formerly independent groups were summoned to operational staff headquarters where they were kept occupied with operational matters. The southern front against Denikin, which extended 225 versts, was defended by five regiments.

At the beginning of 1919, two congresses were held that dealt with military and sociopolitical organization. Those two congresses formed the beginning of what might be called the political government of the Makhno movement; they were composed of delegates of peasants, workers, and partisans and were considered as the supreme authority of the region. The first congress, held on January 23, 1919, at Dibrivka, was limited in size and scope. It was composed of one hundred delegates under the chairmanship of K. Holovko. Its main object was to strengthen defense, especially against the growing threat of the Volunteer Army. To regulate the manpower problem the delegates resolved to mobilize men who were willing and able to carry arms (especially those who served in the army during the war) to defend the Revolution. The second congress, which was held on February 12, 1919, at Huliai-Pole, had 245 delegates representing 350 districts. Its chairman was Veretel'nyk and Makhno was chosen to be honorary chairman.18

The consensus of the congress was strongly anti-Bolshevik and favored a democratic sociopolitical way of life. Most of the delegates were against the Bolsheviks and their commissars. One delegate complained:

Who elected the Provisional Ukrainian Bolshevik Government: the people or the Bolshevik party? We see Bolshevik dictatorship over the left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists. Why do they send us commissars? We can live without them. If we needed commissars we would elect them from among ourselves. 19

The delegate from Novopavlivka volost, complained:

A new government has appeared somewhere in Ukraine that is composed of Bolshevik-Communists; this government is already attempting to introduce its Bolshevik monopoly over the Soviets.

He pointed out that at the time when

you peasants, workers, [and] partisans were enduring the pressure of all the counterrevolutionary forces the Provisional] Govern[ment] of Ukraine was sitting . . . in Moscow, in Kursk, waiting until the workers and peasants of Ukraine liberated the territory from the enemies. Now . . . the enemy is defeated ... a Bolshevik government is coming to us and is imposing upon us its party dictatorship. Is this admissible? . . . We nonparty partisans who rose against all our oppressors will not permit new enslavement no matter from which party it comes.20

The delegate from Kherson province, Cherniak, spoke in the same vein: "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."21

Makhno concluded his speech with:

If our Bolshevik friends are coming from Great Russia into Ukraine to help us in the hard struggle against the counterrevolution, we will say to them: "Thank you, dear brothers." If, however, they are coming with the aim of monopolizing Ukraine, we will say to them: "Hands off." Without their help we will raise ourselves to the point of liberating the working peasantry; without their help [we] will organize a new life in which there will be neither landlords nor slaves, neither oppressed nor oppressors.22

Thus the congress warned the peasants and workers 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 defense 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.

Therefore, the congress "urges the peasants and workers to watch vigilantly the actions of the Bolshevik regime that cause a real danger to the worker-peasant revolution." This anti-Bolshevik attitude was also shared by the anarchist Nikiforova who came from her visit in Moscow to attend the congress. She delivered a speech condemning the Bolsheviks for their use of terror against the anarchists in Russia.23

The congress also devoted its attention to the problem of mobilization. Although the Makhno partisan army at this time numbered some thirty thousand men,24 the Bolshevik policy of violence to the peoples' freedom and the Denikin threat demanded greater strength. After a long and passionate debate, the "Congress rejected 'compulsory' mobilization, opting for an 'obligatory' one; that is, each peasant who is able to carry arms, should recognize his obligation to enlist in the ranks of the partisans and to defend the interests of the entire toiling people of Ukraine."25

The main contribution to civil administration was the establishment of a Regional Revolutionary Military Council of Peasants, Workers, and Partisans, a permanent body consisting of representatives of thirty-two volosti of Katerynoslav and Tavriia provinces and partisan units. The council's task was to ensure the execution of the resolutions of the congresses, which were to be held at regular intervals: however, it had no authority to take any political or military initiative.

The congress accepted a resolution

. . . against plunder, violence, and anti-Jewish pogroms committed by various obscure individuals disguising themselves under the name of honest partisans. . . . In some places national antagonism assumed the form of Jewish pogroms—a result of the old outlived dictatorial regime. The tsarist government was poisoning the irresponsible masses against the Jews, hoping to hurl down all its own evils and crimes upon the poor Jews and thus turn the attention of all toiling people away from the real reason for their poverty—the tsarist dictatorship's oppression and its freebooters.27

On the land question the congress resolved that:

The land question should be decided on a Ukraine-wide scale at an all-Ukrainian congress of peasants on the following bases: 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.28

The resolution of the congress, which was written by the anarchists, left Socialist Revolutionaries, and the chairmanship, was accepted 150 to 29, with 20 abstentions. It was also approved by Makhno.29

The conflict of the Bolshevik authorities with the population also included the Makhno partisans. Makhno's aim was to fight the more dangerous enemy, the Volunteer Army, but he misjudged the Bolsheviks' strength and aims. He assumed that the coming conflict with the Bolsheviks could be confined to the realm of ideas, feeling that the strong revolutionary ideas of the peasants together with their distrust of the foreign invaders were the best guarantees of the territory of the Makhno movement. But, by making an agreement with Makhno, the Bolsheviks hoped not only to use the partisans to their own ends but to absorb them into the ranks of the Red Army and subsequently to neutralize them. This would free the hands of the Bolshevik authorities to pacify the populace and to reduce it to obedience.

The Bolsheviks, however, soon found that their hope was in vain. Although they had success on the front, their attempts to establish control in the newly occupied territories only antagonized the population. In Katerynoslav, five days after the occupation of the city the Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) began to arrest "counterrevolutionaries," who were imprisoned or shot without trial. At the same time the city was surrounded by military guards who mercilessly seized the produce that peasants attempted to bring to the market. The city's stores of food were monopolized and forwarded as supplies to Moscow, subjecting the people of the city to terror and famine. It was the agricultural policy, however, that set the peasants against the Bolsheviks. The Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine decreed that all lands formerly belonging to the landlords should be expropriated and transformed into state farms. Sugar refineries and distilleries, with all properties belonging to them since 1913, would also be expropriated by the state.

The Bolshevik 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 by 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. On March 27, in the area of Orikhiv, Tavriia province, a former Makhno detachment, consisting of some two thousand men, two guns, and eight machine guns, arose against the Communists.32 Three hundred Bolshevik cavalrymen were promptly sent from Oleksandrivs'k to fight the partisans, but instead they joined them and began to move toward Oleksandrivs'k.

Because of apprehension that the uprisings might spread to the entire area occupied by Makhno troops, it was decided "to take extraordinary measures ... to suppress the uprisings [however] it was necessary to dispatch only Russian or international units; local troops were unsuitable for this purpose." Accordingly a regiment of internationalists was dispatched from the front against the partisans. Subsequently more uprisings took place in other areas. According to a report on April 4, partisan bands had destroyed railway and a reparation train in Ol'shanytsia, Poltava province, while another detachment of 150 men from Lubni district moved against the Communists at Zolotonosha, Poltava province.

The anti-Communist attitude of the rural population was shared by some of the troops. Strong propaganda was conducted in the army against the "Moscovites" and the "present authority." Anti-Communist feeling was particularly evident in the First and Second Divisions that were organized in the Neutral Zone in 1918, and consisted partially of Ukrainian refugees. At one regimental meeting, some soldiers called for an uprising against the Communists and at the same time glorified Makhno. One of the Communists, IAkovlev, in a speech in 1920, complained that at that time (1919):

[Makhno] was a real peasant idol, an expression of all peasant spontaneity struggling 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.36 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.37

The more oppressive the Bolshevik policy, the more the peasants supported Makhno. Consequently, the Bolsheviks began to organize more systematically against the Makhno movement, both as an ideology and as a social movement. The campaign was waged in the press, speeches, and orders of the central authorities. Makhno and his movement were described as "kulak . . . counterrevolutionary," and his activities were condemned as harmful to the revolution. Meanwhile the flow of arms, ammunition, and other supplies for the Makhno partisans was substantially reduced.38

At this point, the Revolutionary Military Council called a Third Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers, and Partisans at Huliai-Pole on April 10, 1919. It was composed of delegates from seventy-two districts representing over two million people. Its aim was to clarify the situation and to consider the prospects for the future of the region. The congress decided to conduct a voluntary mobilization of men born in the ten years from 1889 to 1898, beginning on April 27, and rejected, with the approval of both rich and poor peasants, the Bolshevik expro-pnations.

The activity of the congress irked the Bolshevik authorities. Dy-benko dispatched a telegram to the congress declaring it "counterrevolutionary" and branding its organizers as "outlaws," in response to which the delegates voted an indignant protest. Later the council sent Dybenko a lengthy sarcastic reply: " 'Comrade' Dybenko, you are still, it seems, rather new in the revolutionary movement of Ukraine, and we shall have to tell you about its very beginnings." It denounced the Bolsheviks who, it said, came to "establish laws of violence to subjugate a people who have just overthrown all lawmakers and all laws ... if one day the Bolshevik idea succeeds among the workers, the Revolutionary Military Council . . . will be necessarily replaced by another organization 'more revolutionary' and Bolshevik. But meanwhile, do not interfere with us."40

Although the conflict did not break Makhno's military cooperation, it embittered the Bolshevik authorities because they lost their hope for easy integration of the region of the Makhno movement with its difficulties created by the partisans. The Bolshevik agents in the area reported that "in the Makhno region there is presently no possibility for the activities of the Communists, who are secretly killed."41

Apart from the Bolsheviks' objections to the congresses, which Makhno encouraged and protected, direct difficulties between Makhno and the Bolsheviks also developed. When Makhno's troops occupied the city of MariupiP on March 27, large stacks of coal and grain were found that the Bolshevik leaders wanted to send to Russia. Makhno, however, refused to deliver the commodities save in exchange for manufactured goods. These conflicts convinced the Bolsheviks that they had to overcome the Makhno movement by force. The anti-Makhno campaign, especially in the press, was intensified, denouncing the partisans as "anarcho-bandits" and "kulaks."

Meanwhile Trotsky, who had arrived in Ukraine to lead the forthcoming offensive, advised Lenin:

To obtain bread and coal from the Mariupil' area and discipline Makhno's anarchist bands, we must organize a large detachment, consisting of a reliable Cheka battalion, several hundred Baltic Fleet sailors who have an interest in obtaining coal and bread, a supply detachment of Moscow or Ivano-Voznesenske workers, and some thirty serious Party workers. Only on these conditions will an advance in the Mariupil'-Taganrog direction become possible.42

Other Bolshevik leaders, however, undertook a number of investigative visits to Makhno, attempting to improve the situation by criticism and friendly persuasion. On April 29, Antonov-Ovseenko paid a visit to Makhno at Huliai-Pole to inspect his front and to find out the mood of the partisans.43 On May 4—5 Lev B. Kamenev (Rozenfeld), deputy chairman of the Politburo, visited Makhno at Huliai-Pole, on the authorization of the All-Russian Council of Defense, to assure Makhno's cooperation. Although during his visit Kamenev tried to display a friendly attitude toward the partisans and peasants, calling them heroes for fighting bravely against their enemies, when he spoke about the Bolsheviks' policy of supporting poor peasants, they protested, maintaining that "we are all poor." In his official meeting with Makhno and his staff, Kamenev became less friendly, complaining about transportation difficulties, persecution of the Communists in the area of Makhno's operations, and about the independent mobilization by the Revolutionary Military Council, which he suggested should be dissolved. Makhno's answer was that the council was elected by the people and could be dissolved only by them.44 He also spoke of the population's resentment of the Communist commissars sent from Russia and of the Cheka's activities.

The visit had no material effect on relations between the Bolsheviks and Makhno, nor did it change the opinions of either party. However, later Kamenev assured Dybenko that "all rumors of separatist or anti-Soviet plans on the part of the brigade and its commander, Makhno, are baseless. I saw in Makhno an honest and brave fighter who is fighting the Whites and foreign conquerors under difficult conditions.

Soon, however, the whole military situation changed when Otaman Hryhor'iv, the main commander on the southwestern front, staged an uprising against the Bolsheviks that soon spread across three provinces and collapsed the southwestern front. This uprising subsequently affected Makhno's relationships with the Bolsheviks, who feared a similar occurrence on the southeastern front, and with Hryhor'iv himself.


Notes

1. Kapustians'kyi, Pokhid ukrains'kykh armii, 1:30.

2. Belash, "Makhnovshchina," p. 225; Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, p. 94; Voline, Unknown Revolution, pp. 114—15; Footman, Civil War in Russia, p. 98.

3. Denikin, Ocherki, 4:73. According to Denikin: "On January 23 (O. S.) the Ninth Boy Scout Battalion (the Taman) came from Kerch to Perekop to fight against the Bolshevik and Makhno bands who were concentrated in the north Tavriia. It refused to carry out the order, left the front, and moved back to the Kuban. The spokesmen of the battalion declared that this campaign was against Ukraine and until they received orders from the State Rada the boy scouts would not fight against the 'Petliura men' " (Ocherki, 4:57; see also Bulavenko, "Kuban' na perelomi," p. 93).

4. VI. Vygran, "Vospominaniia o bor'be s makhnovtsami," p. 1; A. G. Shkuro, Zapiski belogo partizana, p. 204; Kornilovskii udarnyi polk, p. 116; Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski, 3:199.

5. Vygran, "Vospominaniia," pp. 2—4; Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, p. 92; Vinogradov, "Chemu ia byl svidietelem," pp. 9—10; Antonov-Ovseenko, "V borot'bi za Radians'ku Ukrainu," no. 3, pp. 115—16; Shkuro, Zapiski, p. 205.

6. Shkuro, Zapiski, p. 213; Vinogradov, "Chemu ia byl svidietelem," p. 11; Denikin, Ocherki, 5:76—77; Bulavenko, "Kuban' u pershii polovyni," p. 135; Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, p. 92.

7. Shkuro, Zapiski, p. 214; Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, p. 91; Vygran, "Vospominaniia," p. 14; Vinogradov, "Chemu ia byl svidietelem," pp. 11-12, 17.

8. Erde, "Politychna prohrama anarkho-makhnovshchymy," pp. 45—46.

9. Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 119.

10. Kiselev, Agitpoezd, p. 24.

11. Voline, Unknown Revolution, p. 158.

12. Rossum, "Proclamations of the Makhno Movement, 1920," pp. 253—54; iubanin, Makhnovshchina, p. 103.

13. Voline, Unknown Revolution, pp. 160—61; Gutman, "Pod vlastiu anar-chistov," p. 66; Rossum, "Proclamations of the Makhno movement, 1920," p. 254; V\. Miroshevskii, "Vol'nyi Ekaterinoslav," pp. 199, 204.

14. Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, pp. 99—100; Gutman, "Pod vlastiu anar-khistov," p. 66; Rossum, "Proclamations of the Makhno Movement, 1920," p. 254; 3. 71.

15. Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, pp. 176—77; Footman, Civil War in Russia, p. 111; James J oil, The Anarchists, p. 186; Teper, Makhno, pp. 38, 110.

16. Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, pp. 177—79; Wojna, "Nestor Machno," p. 70.

17. Belash, "Makhnovshchina," pp. 218—19; Dubrovs'kyi, Bat'ko Nestor Makhno, p. 8.

18. Dubrovs'kyi, Bat'ko Nestor Makhno, p. 8; Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo ivizheniia, pp. 86—87; Footman, "Nestor Makhno," p. 96; Voline, Unknown Revolution, pp. 107—8; Struve, "Istoricheskie materialy i dokumenty," p. 226; Rudnev, Makhnovshchina, p. 31.

19. Rudnev, Makhnovshchina, pp. 31—32.

20. Struve, "Istoricheskie materialy i dokumenty," p. 227.

21. Ibid., pp. 228-29.

22. Rudnev, Makhnovshchina, p. 32; see also Struve, "Istoricheskie materialy i dokumenty," p. 228.

23. Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, pp. 46, 53; see also Struve, "Istoricheskie materialy i documenty," p. 230.

24. Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, p. 87.

25. Struve, "Istoricheskie materialy i dokumenty," p. 231; Rudnev, Makhnovshchina, pp. 34—35.

26. Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, pp. 88—89; Rudnev, Makhnovshchina, p. 35; Footman, "Nestor Makhno," p. 96.

27. Struve, "Istoricheskie materialy i dokumenty," p. 231.

28. Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, p. 55; see also Struve, "Istoricheskie materialy i dokumenty," p. 231.

29. Struve, "Istoricheskie materialy i dokumenty," pp. 229—30.

30. Igrenev, "Ekaterinoslavskii vospominaniia," p. 240.

31. Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, pp. 54—56.

32. Antonov-Ovseenko, "V borot'bi za Radians'ku Ukrainu," no. 5, p. 113.

33. Arkhiv Krasnoi armii, delo no. 30701, shtab Ukrfronta, oper. otdelen., "Banditsk vosst. v Aleksandrovskom U.," as quoted in Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, p. 47. Within the Red Army invading Ukraine were a number of units consisting of Chinese, Latvians, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, and others (Lazurenko, "Povstannia proty Het'mana," no. 41, p. 8).

34. Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, pp. 47—48.

35. Ibid., pp. 50-51.

36. According to a Soviet author present at the congresses of peasants, workers, and partisans on January 23 and February 12: "In 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' " (Teper, Makhno, p. 63).

37. Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, p. 61.

38. Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, pp. 96—97.

39. Dubrovs'kyi, Bat'ko Nestor Makhno, p. 10; Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, p. 97; Antonov-Ovseenko, "V borot'bi za Radians'ku Ukrainu," no. 5, p. 118; "O dobrovol'noi mobilizatsii," Put k svobode, no. 2 (May 24, 1919), p. 1; Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, p. 59.

40. Voline, Unknown Revolution, pp. 120—22.

41. Antonov-Ovseenko, "V borot'bi za Radians'ku Ukrainu," no. 5, p. 114.

42. Trotskii, Trotsky Papers, 1:458.

43. Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, p. 104.

44. V. S., "Ekspeditsiia L. B. Kameneva dlia prodvizheniia prodgruzov k Moskve v 1919 godu," Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 6 (41) (1925), pp. 137—38; Arshinov, Istoriia makhnovskogo dvizheniia, pp. 104—5.

45. V. S., "Ekspeditsiia L. B. Kameneva," pp. 137-38.