Nestor Makhno

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Nestor Makhno

Born October 26, 1888
Hulyai Pole, Russian Empire (today Ukraine)
Died July 25, 1934
Paris, France
Occupation Anarcho-communist revolutionary, painter, stagehand
Religious beliefs Atheist
Spouse Agafya Kuzmenko
Children Yelena

Nestor Ivanovich Makhno (Ukrainian: Нестор Іванович Махно) October 26, 1888 – July 25, 1934) was an anarcho-communist revolutionary who refused to join the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution.

A commander of the peasant Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, Makhno led a guerrilla campaign during the Russian Civil War. He supported the Bolsheviks, the Ukrainian Directory, the Bolsheviks again, and then turned to organizing the Free Territory of Ukraine, an anarchist society, committed to resisting state authority, whether capitalist or state Communist.[1][2] This project was cut short by the consolidation of Bolshevik power. Makhno was described by anarchist theorist Emma Goldman as "an extraordinary figure" leading a revolutionary peasants' movement.[3] He is also credited as the inventor of the Tachanka.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Nestor Makhno in 1909
Nestor Makhno in 1909

Nestor Makhno was born into a poor peasant family in Hulyai Pole, Yekaterioslav Governorate in Novorossiya region of Russia (now Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine).[4][5] He was the youngest of five children. Church files show a birthdate of October 27, 1888, but Nestor Makhno's parents registered his date of birth as 1889 (possibly in an attempt to postpone conscription, or a later attempt to avoid execution after his arrest in 1910 for belonging to the anarchist group and for robberies).

His father died when he was ten months old.[6] Due to extreme poverty, he had to work as a shepherd at the age of seven.[6] He studied at the Second Hulyai Pole primary school in winter at the age of eight and worked for local landlords during the summer.[6] He left school at the age of twelve and employed as a farmhand on the estates of nobles and on the farms of wealthy peasants called kulaks.[6]

At the age of seventeen, he was employed in Hulyai Pole itself as an apprentice painter, then as a worker in a local iron foundry and, ultimately worked as a founder in the same organization.[6] During this time he became involved in revolutionary politics.[6] His involvement in revolutionary politics was based on his experiences of injustice at work and seeing the terror of the Tsarist regime during the 1905.[6] In 1906, Makhno joined the anarchist organization in Hulyai Pole.[4] He was arrested in 1906, tried, and acquitted. He was again arrested in 1907, but Makhno could not be incriminated, and the charges were dropped.[6] The third arrest came in 1908, when an infiltrator was able to testify against Makhno.[6] In 1910 Makhno was sentenced to death by hanging, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he was sent to Butyrskaya prison in Moscow.[6] In prison he came under the influence of intellectual cell mate Piotr Arshinov.[6][7][8] He was released from prison after the February Revolution in 1917.[7]

[edit] Organizing peasants' movement

After liberation from prison, Makhno organized a peasants' union.[8] It gave him a "Robin Hood" image and he expropriated large estates from landowners and distributed the land among the peasants.[8]

In March 1918, the new Bolshevik government in Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk concluding peace with the Central Powers, but ceding large amounts of territory, including Ukraine, to them. As the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) was unable to maintain order, a coup by former Tsarist general Pavlo Skoropadsky resulted in the establishment of the Hetmanate. Already dissatisfied by the UNR's failure to resolve the question of land ownership, much of the peasantry refused to support a conservative government administered by former imperial officials and supported by the Austro-Hungarian and German occupiers.[9] Peasant bands under various self-appointed otamany which had been counted on the rolls of the UNR's army now attacked the Germans, later going over to the Directory in summer 1918 or the Bolsheviks in late 1918–19, or home to protect local interests, in many cases changing allegiances, plundering so-called class enemies, and venting age-old resentments.[10] They finally dominated the countryside in mid 1919, the largest portion would follow either Socialist Revolutionary Matviy Hryhoriyiv or the anarchist flag of Nestor Makhno.[11]

In Yekaterinoslav province, this rebellion soon took on anarchist political overtones. Nestor Makhno joined one of such groups (headed by sailor-deserter Fedor Shuss) and eventually became a head of it. Due to impressive personality and charisma of Makhno, all gangs of armed peasents in the region was then known as "makhnovists" (Russian: махновцы). In areas where they drove out opposing armies, villagers (and workers) sought to abolish capitalism and the state by organizing themselves into village assemblies, communes and free councils. The land and factories were expropriated and put under nominal peasant/worker control, but mayors and many officials were drawn directly from the ranks of Makhno's military, rather than local toilers.

[edit] The Makhnovshchina

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Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, head of a criticized Ukrainian State—considered by some a puppet Republic—lost support of the Central Powers in the collapse of the German western front, saw his best forces evaporate, and was driven out of Kyiv by the Directory. In March 1918, the RIAU had successes against the Germans, Austrians, Ukrainian Nationalists of Symon Petlura, and multiple regiments of the White Army. The brilliant victory over a much larger Austrian force established Makhno's reputation as a military tactician and he became known as "Batko" (father) to his people.[8]

At this point, the military role Makhno had adopted in the previous year 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: rejection of all political parties, of all forms of dictatorships (in particular the Marxist dogma of "Dictatorship by Proletariat"), negation of any State concept, rejection of any "transitional period" that may necessitate some dictatorship, self-management of all workers through free workers' councils (soviets). While the Bolsheviks argued that their concept of "Dictatorship by Proletariat" meant precisely "rule by workers' councils," the Makhnovist platform opposed the "temporary" Bolshevik measure of "Party dictatorship."

From November 1918 to June 1919, the Makhnovists tried to create an anarchist society administered by the peasants' and workers' Councils.

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 led Makhnovists to formalize the policy of free communities as the highest form of social justice. Education was organized 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 science proposed by Peter Kropotkin.[citation needed]

Makhno called the Bolsheviks dictators and opposed the "Cheka [secret police]... and similar compulsory authoritative and disciplinary institutions" and called for "[f]reedom of speech, press, assembly, unions and the like".[12] In practice, the Makhnoists formed an overall government over the area they controlled, used forced conscription and summary executions([13], 121), banned all opposition parties[12]([13], 119), and had two secret police forces operating with no oversight: the Razedka and the Kommissiya Protivmakhnovskikh Del.([14]) The Bolsheviks considered allowing an independent area for Makhno's libertarian experiment[13], but after Makhno kept switching sides they viewed the Makhnoists as unreliable allies and took over after the Whites were defeated.


[edit] Allegations

Paul Robert Magocsi characterized Makhno's tenure as "military ravages"[15] and state that he is often considered by some as "inhuman monster" whose path is "literally drenched with blood."[16] On the other hand Makhno is characterized as a legendary leader of the peasant uprising[17] and is described as a "colourful personality".[18]

Like the White army, the Ukrainian National Republic and forces loyal to the Bolsheviks, Makhno's forces are also accused of conducting pogroms against Jews in Ukraine during the civil war.[19] But this claim is disputed. Paul Avrich writes, "Maknno's alleged anti-Semitism...Charges of Jew-baiting and of anti-Jewish pogroms have come from every quarter, left, right, and center. Without exception, however, they are based on hearsay, rumor, or intentional slander, and remain undocumented and unproved."[20]

During the height of Makhno's power in 1919, his bands attacked many German villages in the Katerynoslav oblast who supposdely represented "foreign capitalists", killing the inhabitants or forcing many to flee, eventually to Germany and North America. The larger rural landholdings of pacifist Mennonites were prominent targets.[21] The combination of Tsarist resettlement of Germans in WWI and peasant attacks during the civil war reduced the German population from 750,000 in 1914 to 514,000 in 1926.[22]

[edit] National issues

While the bulk of Makhno's forces consisted of ethnically Ukrainian peasants, his attitude to Ukrainian nationalism was explicitly negative.

[edit] 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 the Makhnovshchina. But even after joining forces with the Red Army, the anarchists maintained their main political structures and refused to hold soviet elections or accept Bolshevik-appointed political commissars.[citation needed] The Red Army temporarily 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). The justifications provided by the Bolshevik press for their break with the Anarchists were that Makhno's "anarchist state" was a warlord regime with civilian posts appointed (not elected) by Makhno and other military leaders, that Makhno himself had refused to provide food for Soviet railwaymen and telegraph operators, the "special section" of the anarchist constitution provided for secret executions and torture, that Makhno's forces had raided Red Army convoys for supplies, stolen an armored car from Briansk when asked to repair it, and that Nabat was responsible for deadly acts of terrorism in Russian cities.

Lenin soon sent Lev Kamenev to Ukraine, who conducted a cordial interview with Makhno. After Kamenev's departure, Makhno claimed to have intercepted two Bolshevik messages, the first an order to the Red Army to attack the Makhnovists, the second ordering Makhno's assassination. Soon after the Fourth Congress, Trotsky sent the clear order to arrest every congress member, then supposedly declared that "it's better to cede the entire Ukraine to Denikin (White Army) than to allow an expansion of Makhnovism" (quoted by Arshinov in his History of the The Makhnovist Movement). It is questionable that Trotsky would have preferred another White force to a non-aligned peasant army on the Ukrainian front, as the Reds were dealing with White and foreign invasions from all directions. Makhno's answer to the Red assault was to escape with his closest associates. Trotsky's forces were thereafter beaten by Denikin and so forced to withdraw from Ukraine. Makhno reformed his forces and pushed back Denikin's weakened White forces, saving the RIAU.

Makhno's group
Makhno's group

Having become powerful and popular, the 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.[citation needed] When nearly half[citation needed] of Makhno's troops were struck by a typhus epidemic, Trotsky resumed hostilities.

There was a new truce between Makhnovist forces and the Red Army in October 1920 when both forces came close to the territories held by Wrangel's White army. The 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 members of Makhno's organization and to try them as common criminals.

[edit] Exile

In August 1921, an exhausted Makhno was finally driven by the Bolsheviks into exile, fleeing to Romania, then Poland, Danzig, Berlin and finally to Paris. In 1926, joining other Russian exiles in Paris as part of the Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad (Группа Русских Анархистов Заграницей) who produced the monthly journal "Dielo Truda" (Дело Труда, The Сause of Labour), Makhno co-wrote and co-published the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (often referred to as 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 many anarchists, but today has a wide following. It remains controversial to this day, continuing to inspire some anarchists (notably the platformism tendency) because of the clarity and functionality of the structures it proposes, while drawing criticism from others (including, at the time of publication, Volin and Malatesta) who view its implications as too rigid and hierarchical.

At the end of his life Makhno lived in Paris and worked as a carpenter and stage-hand at the Paris Opera, at film-studios, and at the Renault factory. He died in Paris in 1934 from tuberculosis. He was cremated three days after his death, with five hundred people attending his funeral at the famous cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris. Makhno's widow and daughter, Yelena, were deported to Germany for forced labor at the end of the WW2. After the end of the war they were arrested by the NKVD and taken to Kiev for trial in 1946 and sentenced to eight years of hard labor. They lived in Kazakhstan after their release in 1953.

[edit] Personal life

In 1919, Nestor Maknho married Agafya (aka Halyna) Kuzmenko, a former elementary schoolteacher (1892-1978), who became his aide. They had one daughter, Yelena.

Halyna Kuzmenko personally carried out a death sentence of ataman Nikifor Grigoriev, a subordinate commander who committed a series of anti-semitic pogroms (according to other versions, Grigoriev was killed by Chubenko, a member of Makhno's staff or Makhno himself). Anarchists are opposed to anti-semitism, or any sort of hate crime. It is arguable whether she did that out of love for her husband, or out of her own conviction.

Two of Makhno's brothers were his active supporters and aides. They were captured in battle by the German occupation forces and executed by firing squad.

Makhno was a thoroughgoing anarchist and down-to-earth peasant.[7] He rejected metaphysical systems and abstract social theorizing.[7]

[edit] Cultural depictions

Makhno is featured as a fictional character in Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius series of novels. For example, at the outset of The Entropy Tango, Makhno's 'insurgent army' takes over parts of Canada.[23]

Russian anarchist punk-rock band Mongol Shuudan (Монгол Шуудан) draws much of its inspiration from the events and the legend of Makhno's life.[24]

A 12-part miniseries was made in Russia about Nestor Makhno called "The 9 Lives of Nestor Makhno".

Russian national patriotic pop group Lubeh (Любэ) has a song about Makhno called Bat'ka Makhno.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Yekelchyk 2007, p 80.
  2. ^ Charles Townshend, John Bourne, Jeremy Black (1997). The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War. Oxford University Press, p163. ISBN 0198204272. 
  3. ^ Emma Goldman (2003). My Disillusionment in Russia. Courier Dover Publications, p61. ISBN 048643270X. 
  4. ^ a b Paul Avrich (1988). Anarchist portraits. Princeton University Press, p111. ISBN 0691006091. 
  5. ^ Alexandre Skirda (2004). Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack. AK Press, p17. ISBN 1902593685. 
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Makhno, Nestor, 1889-1934 Libcom
  7. ^ a b c d Paul Avrich (1988). Anarchist portraits. Princeton University Press, p112. ISBN 0691006091. 
  8. ^ a b c d Edward R. Kantowicz (1999). The Rage of Nations. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, p173. ISBN 0802844553. 
  9. ^ Magocsi 1996, p 499.
  10. ^ Magocsi 1996, p 498–9, Subtelny 1988, p 360.
  11. ^ Magocsi 1996, p 498–9, Subtelny 1988, p 360.
  12. ^ a b [http://www.ditext.com/arshinov/appendix.html Declaration Of The Revolutionary Insurgent Army Of The Ukraine (Makhnovist)]. Peter Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918-1921), 1923. Black & Red, 1974
  13. ^ a b c Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Portraits, 1988 Princeton University Press
  14. ^ Footman, David. Civil War In Russia Frederick A.Praeger 1961, p287
  15. ^ Paul Robert Magocsi (1996). A History of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press, pp 508. ISBN 0802078206. 
  16. ^ Paul Robert Magocsi (1996). A History of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press, pp 509. ISBN 0802078206. 
  17. ^ Orest Subtelny (2000). Ukraine: A History. University of Toronto Press, pp 360. ISBN 0802083900. 
  18. ^ Serhy Yekelchyk (2007). Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation. Oxford University Press, pp 80. ISBN 0195305450. 
  19. ^ Paul Robert Magocsi (1996). A History of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press, pp 506-7. ISBN 0802078206. 
  20. ^ Paul Avrich (1988). Anarchist portraits. Princeton University Press, p122. ISBN 0691006091. 
  21. ^ Paul Robert Magocsi (1996). A History of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press, pp 508–10. ISBN 0802078206. 
  22. ^ Magocsi 1996, p 508.
  23. ^ Benjamin S. Beck (2006). Anarchism and science fiction. Retrieved on 2007-04-06.
  24. ^ Mongol Shuudan (2005). News Archive, October 2005. Retrieved on 2007-04-06.

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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Persondata
NAME Makhno, Nestor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Махно, Нестор Іванович
SHORT DESCRIPTION Revolutionary, anarchist
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Hulyai Pole, Ukraine
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1934
PLACE OF DEATH Paris, France