Nestor
Makhno, the son of peasants, was born in Hulyai-Pole, Ukraine, in
1889. At the age of 18 he joined an Anarchist
group and became involved in terrorist activities.
In 1910
he was arrested and sentenced to death but was reprieved because of
his youth and imprisoned in Moscow. When Makhno was released in 1917
he returned to the Ukraine where he became one of the leaders of the
Russian Revolution in the area.
When the
Central Powers occupied the Ukraine in
1918 he was chosen by Vladimir Lenin to
lead the revolutionary army in the area. Over the next few years he
fought against the Austro-Hungarian Army,
the German Army and the White
Army.
During
the Civil War Makhno played an important
role in the defeat of General Anton Denikin
in 1919 and General Peter Wrangel in
1920.
Makhno's
decision to set up an Anarchist society
in the Ukraine resulted in him being attacked by the Red
Army. In August, 1921, he was forced to leave Russia. After periods
of imprisonment in Romania, Poland and Danzig, he settled in France.
Nestor Makhno died in poverty in 1935.
(1)
Victor Serge, Year One of
the Revolution (1930)
An Anarchist schoolmaster and former political prisoner,
named Nestor Makhno, opened up guerrilla warfare at Gulai-Polye, with
fifteen men at his side; these attacked German sentries to obtain
weapons. Later on, Makhno was to form whole armies. The Germans repressed
these movements with the utmost vigour, executing prisoners en masse
and burning down villages; but it was all too much for them.
(2)
Peter
Wrangel,
Memoirs of Genera Wrangel (1929)
After dinner I had two hours with Denikin. In his opinion
everything was going splendidly. The possibility of a sudden change
in our luck seemed to him to be out of the question. He thought the
taking of Moscow was only a question of time, and that the demoralized
and weakened enemy could not make a stand against us.
At this
point his aide-de-camp brought him a telegram: "It is from General
Dragomirov," said Denikin when he had read it. "He says
that the General Staff of the Red Army which he had been attacking
want to surrender. But General Dragomirov is demanding that this Army
should first attack the flank of the other Red Army which is stationed
close by."
I drew
his attention to the movements of the brigand Makhno and his rebels,
for they were threatening our rear.
"Oh,
that is not serious! We will finish him off in the twinkling of an
eye."
As I listened
to him talking, my mind filled with doubt and apprehension.
(3)
Victor Serge,
Memoirs of a Revolutionary (1945)
Nestor
Makhno, boozing, swashbuckling, disorderly and idealistic, proved
himself to be a born strategist of unsurpassed ability. The number
of soldiers under his command ran at times into several tens of thousands.
His arms he took from the enemy. Sometimes his insurgents marched
into battle with one rifle for every two or three men: a rifle which,
if any soldier fell, would pass at once from his still-dying hands
into those of his alive and waiting neighbour.
(4)
In March, 1937, Leon Trotsky, wrote an
article, Amoralism and Kronstadt , where he replied to charges
made by Wendelin Thomas, that Bolshevism and Stalinism were closely
linked. Thomas used the example of how Trotsky and Vladimir
Lenin, dealt with opponents such as the Mensheviks,
the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Kronstadt
Rebellion.
Your evaluation
of te Kronstadt Uprising of 1921 is basically incorrect. The best,
most sacrificing sailors were completely withdrawn from Kronstadt
and played an important role at the fronts and in the local Soviets
throughout the country. What remained was the grey mass with big pretensions,
but without political education and unprepared for revolutionary sacrifice.
The country was starving. The Kronstadters demanded privileges. The
uprising was dictated by a desire to get privileged food rations.
No less
erroneous is your estimate of Makhno. In himself he was a mixture
of fanatic and adventurer. He became the concentration of the very
tendencies which brought about the Kronstadt Uprising. Makhno created
a cavalry of peasants who supplied their own horses. They were not
downtrodden village poor whom the October Revolution first awakened,
but the strong and well-fed peasants who were afraid of losing what
they had.
The anarchist
ideas of Makhno (the ignoring of the State, non-recognition of the
central power) corresponded to the spirit of the kulak cavalry as
nothing else could. I should add that the hatred of the city and the
city worker on the part of the followers of Makhno was complemented
by the militant anti-Semitism.
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