19231923
People :
Author : Peter Arshinov
Text :
Anarchism embraces two worlds: the world of philosophy, of ideas, and the world of practice, of activity. The two are intimately linked. The struggling working class stands mainly on the concrete, practical side of anarchism. The essential and fundamental principle of this side is the principle of the revolutionary initiative of workers and their self-liberation. From this naturally flows the further principle of statelessness and self-management of the workers in the new society. But until the present, the history of the proletarian struggle does not contain a massive anarchist movement in its pure, strictly principled form. All of the workers’ and peasants’ movements which have taken place until today have been movements within the limits of the capitalist regime, and have been more or less tinged with anarchism. This is perfectly natural and understandable. The working classes do not act within a world of wishes, but in the real world where they are daily subjected to the physical and psychological blows of hostile forces. Outside of the world of anarchist ideas, which have not been greatly disseminated, the workers continually feel the influence of all the real conditions of the capitalist regime and of intermediate groups.
The conditions of contemporary life encircle the workers on all sides, surround them, like water surrounds fish in the sea. The workers are not able to escape from these conditions. Consequently it is natural that the struggle which they undertake inevitably carries the stamp of various conditions and characteristics of contemporary society. The struggle can never be born in the finished and perfected anarchist form which would correspond to all the requirements of the ideal. Such a perfect form is possible only in narrow political circles, and even there not in practice, but in plans, in programs. When the popular masses engage in a struggle of large dimensions, they inevitably start by committing errors, they allow contradictions and deviations, and only through the process of this struggle do they direct their efforts in the direction of the ideal for which they are struggling.
It has always been so. And it will always be so. No matter how carefully we have prepared the organizations and foreseen the position of the working class in advance, during times of peace, from the first day of the decisive struggle of the masses, their real activity is very different from what was expected in the plan. In some cases the very fact of widespread mass activity may upset certain expectations. In other cases, the deviations and blows of the masses will require the definition of new positions. And only gradually will the immense movement of the masses engage itself on the well-defined and principled path which leads toward the goal.
This, obviously, does not mean that preliminary organization of the forces and positions of the working class is not necessary. On the contrary, preparatory work of this nature is a necessary condition for the victory of the workers. But in this context we must constantly remember that this is not the end of the task, and that even if it is done, the movement will still need insight at every moment, it will have to know how to orient itself quickly in newly created situations — in a word, it will still need a revolutionary class strategy on which the outcome will largely depend.
The anarchist ideal is large and rich in its diversity. Nevertheless, the role of anarchists in the social struggle of the masses is extremely modest. Their task is to help the masses take the right road in the struggle and in the construction of the new society. If the mass movement has not entered the stage of decisive collision, their duty is to help the masses clarify the significance, the tasks and the goals, of the struggle ahead; their duty is to help the masses make the necessary military preparations and organize their forces. If the movement has already entered the stage of decisive collision, anarchists should join the movement without losing an instant; they should help the masses free themselves from erroneous deviations, support their first creative efforts, assist them intellectually, always striving to help the movement remain on the path which leads toward the essential goals of the workers. This is the basic and, in fact, the only task of anarchists in the first phase of the revolution. The working class, once it has mastered the struggle and begins its social construction, will no longer surrender to anyone the initiative in creative work. The working class will then direct itself by its own thought; it will create its society according to its own plans. Whether or not this will be an anarchist plan, the plan as well as the society based on it will emerge from the depths of emancipated labor, shaped and framed by its thought and its will.
When we examine the Makhnovshchina, we are immediately aware of two basic aspects of this movement:
its truly proletarian origins as a popular movement of the lowest strata of society: the movement sprang up from below, and from beginning to end it was the popular masses themselves who supported, developed, and directed it;
it deliberately leaned on certain incontestably anarchist principles from the very beginning:
the right of workers to full initiative,
the right of workers to economic and social self-management,
the principle of statelessness in social construction.
During the course of its entire development the movement stubbornly and consistently maintained these principles. For their sake the movement lost from 200 to 300 thousand of the best sons of the people, turned down alliances with any and all statist powers, and for three years, in unimaginably difficult conditions and with a heroism rare in human history, it held high the black flag of oppressed humanity, the banner which proclaims the real freedom of the workers, true equality in the new society.
In the Makhnovshchina we have an anarchist movement of the working masses — not completely realized, not entirely crystallized, but striving toward the anarchist ideal and moving along the anarchist path.
But precisely because this movement grew out of the depths of the masses, it did not have the necessary theoretical forces, the powers of generalization indispensable to any widespread social movement. This shortcoming manifested itself in the fact that the movement, in the face of the general situation, did not succeed in developing its ideas and its slogans, or in elaborating its concrete and practical forms. This is why the movement developed slowly and painfully, especially in view of the numerous enemy forces which attacked it from all sides.
One would have thought that the anarchists — who had always talked so much about a revolutionary movement of the masses, who had waited for such a movement for many years the way some people wait for the arrival of the Messiah — would have hastened to join this movement, to merge with it, to give their whole being to it. But in practice this did not take place.
The majority of Russian anarchists who had passed through the theoretical school of anarchism remained in their isolated circles, which were of no use to anyone. They stood aside, asking what kind of a movement this was, why they should relate to it, and without moving they consoled themselves with the thought that the movement did not seem to be purely anarchist.
And yet, their contribution to the movement, especially in the period before Bolshevism blocked its normal development, would have been invaluable. The masses urgently needed militants who could have formulated and developed their ideas, helped them realize these ideas in the grand arena of life, and elaborated the forms and the direction of the movement. The anarchists did not want, or did not know how, to be such militants. As a result, they inflicted a great injury on the movement and on themselves. They injured the movement by failing to devote their organizational and cultural forces to it in time, forcing the movement to develop slowly and painfully with the meager theoretical forces which the poorest of peasants themselves possessed. They injured themselves by remaining outside of living history, thereby condemning themselves to inactivity and sterility.
We are obliged to state that Russian anarchists remained in their circles and slept through a mass movement of paramount importance, a movement which is unique in the present revolution for having undertaken to realize the historic tasks of oppressed humanity.
But at the same time, we discover that this deplorable situation is not accidental, but that it has very specific causes, which we will now consider.
The majority of our anarchist theorists have their origins in the intelligentsia. This circumstance is very significant. While standing under the banner of anarchism, many of them are not able to break altogether with the psychological context from which they emerged. They concentrate on anarchist theory more than other comrades; and they gradually come to consider themselves leaders of the anarchist world; they come to believe that the anarchist movement begins with them, and that it depends on their direct participation. But the movement began far away from them, in a distant province and, furthermore, among the lowest sectors of contemporary society. Very few among the isolated anarchist theorists found in themselves the necessary sensitivity and courage to recognize that this movement was in fact the one which anarchism had been anticipating for many years, and they rushed to help it. It would be even more accurate to say that of all the intelligent and educated anarchist theorists, only Voline firmly joined the movement, putting at its service all his abilities, powers and knowledge. All the other anarchist theorists stayed away from the movement. This is not a reflection on the Makhnovshchina or on anarchism, but only on the anarchist individuals and organizations who were so narrow, passive and helpless during the historical social movement of workers and peasants, and who either did not dare or did not want to take part in their own project when it appeared in flesh and blood and called to its camp all those to whom the freedom of labor and the ideas of anarchism were dear.
An even more important aspect of the helplessness and inactivity of the anarchists is the confusion in anarchist theory and the organizational chaos in anarchist ranks.
Although the ideal of anarchism is powerful, positive and self-evident, it contains a number of gaps, obscurities, and digressions into fields that have no relation to the workers’ social movement. This creates a foundation for all types of distorted interpretations of the goals of anarchism and its practical program.
Thus many anarchists devote their energies to the question of whether the problem of anarchism is the liberation of classes, of humanity, or of the personality. The question is empty, but it is based on some unclear anarchist positions and provides a broad field for abuses of anarchist thought and anarchist practice.
An even greater field for abuse is created by the unclear anarchist theory of individual freedom. Obviously active people with determined wills and well developed revolutionary instincts understand the anarchist idea of individual freedom as an idea of anarchist relations towards all other individuals, as an idea of the continual struggle for the anarchist freedom of the masses. But those who do not know the passion of the revolution, who are most concerned with the manifestations of their “I”, understand this idea in their own fashion. Whenever the question of practical anarchist organization or the question of organization with a serious intent is posed, they hang on to the anarchist theory of individual liberty and, using this as a basis, oppose all organization and escape from all responsibility. Each one of them runs to his own garden, does his own thing and preaches his own anarchism. The ideas and actions of anarchists are thus pulverized to the point of derangement.
As a result of all this, we find a large number of practical systems advocated by Russian anarchists. From 1904 to 1907 we saw the practical programs of the Beznachal’tsi (Without Authority) and the Chernoznamentsi (Black Flag), which preached partial expropriation and unmotivated terror as methods of anarchist struggle. It is easy to see that these programs were nothing more than the arbitrary inclinations of people who were accidentally anarchists, and such programs could be suggested in the context of anarchism only because of an underdeveloped sense of responsibility toward the people and their revolution. Most recently we saw a large number of theories, some of which express sympathy for state authority or the wielding of power over the masses, while others reject all principles of organization and preach the absolute freedom of the personality; yet others are exclusively concerned with the “universal” tasks of anarchism and in practice escape from the urgent needs of the moment.
For dozens of years the Russian anarchists have suffered from the disease of disorganization. This disease destroyed their ability to think concretely and condemned them to historical inactivity at the moment of the revolution. Disorganization is the twin sister of irresponsibility, and together they lead to impoverished ideas and futile practice.
Thus when the mass movement, in the form of the Makhnovshchina, rose from the depths of the people, the anarchists showed themselves completely unprepared, spineless and weak.
In our opinion this is temporary. It can be explained by the lack of crystallization and organization among Russian anarchists. They will have to organize themselves, to establish links among all those who strive for anarchism and are genuinely devoted to the working class. The disruptive and arbitrary elements in anarchism will then be eliminated.
Anarchism is not mysticism; it is not a discourse on beauty; it is not a cry of despair. Its greatness is due, above all, to its devotion to the cause of oppressed humanity. It carries within itself the truth, the heroism and the aspirations of the masses, and it is today the only social doctrine which the masses can count on in their struggle. But to justify this confidence, it is not enough for anarchism to be a great idea and for anarchists to be its Platonic spokesmen. Anarchists have to participate continually and directly in the revolutionary movement of the masses. Only then will the movement breathe the fullness of the anarchist ideal. But nothing will come out of nothing. Every achievement requires continual effort and sacrifice. Anarchism needs to find unity of will and unity of action to define its historic role accurately. Anarchism must go to the masses and merge with them.
Although the Makhnovshchina came into being and developed independently, without the influence of anarchist organizations, the fate of the Makhnovshchina and that of anarchism were intimately linked during the Russian revolution. The very essence of the Makhnovshchina glowed with the light of anarchism and unintentionally drew anarchism to itself. The mass of insurgents embraced only anarchism from among all social doctrines. A large number of insurgents called themselves anarchists and did not renounce this name even in the face of death. And at the same time, anarchism gave the Makhnovshchina several outstanding militants who passionately and devotedly gave all their forces and knowledge to this movement. However small the number of these militants, they succeeded in contributing a great deal to the movement, and they linked anarchism to the tragic fate of the Makhnovshchina.
This coupling of the destinies of anarchism and the Makhnovshchina began in the middle of 1919. It was consolidated in the Ukraine in the summer of 1920 by the Bolsheviks’ simultaneous attack against the Makhnovists and the anarchists, and it was strikingly underlined in October, 1920, at the time of the military and political agreement between the Makhnovists and the Soviet authority, when the Makhnovists demanded, as a first condition of this agreement, that all the Makhnovists and anarchists be released from prison in the Ukraine and in Great Russia, and that they be given the right to freely profess and disseminate their ideas and theories.
We will describe the participation of anarchists in the Makhnovist movement in chronological order.
During the first days of the 1917 revolution, a group of anarchist-communists was organized in Gulyai-Polye; this group carried out significant revolutionary work in the region. Out of this group emerged several remarkable participants and guides of the Makhnovshchina: N. Makhno, S. Karetnik, Marchenko, Kalashnikov, Lyutyi, Grigory Makhno and others. This group retained close links with the Makhnovist movement from its very origin.
Toward the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919, other anarchist groups were organized in the region of the Makhnovshchina, and tried to relate to it. However, some of these groups, for example in Berdyansk and some other places, did not live up to their name and offered nothing but obstacles to the movement. Fortunately the movement was healthy enough to do without them.
At the beginning of 1919 there were in Gulyai-Polye not only local peasant anarchists like Makhno, Karetnik, Marchenko, Vasilevsky and others, but also anarchists who came from organizations in other cities: Burbyga, Mikhalev-Pavlenko and others. They worked exclusively among the insurrectionary troops at the front or at the rear.
In the spring of 1919 some comrades arrived in Gulyai-Polye with the intention of organizing cultural and educational activity in the region: they created the newspaper Put’ k Svobode — the principal organ of the Makhnovists — and organized the Gulyai-Polye Anarchist Federation, which worked with the army as well as among the peasants.
At that time, an anarchist group linked to the “Nabat” Confederation was organized in Gulyai-Polye. This group worked closely with the Makhnovists, especially in the field of culture, and published a local newspaper, Nabat. Soon this organization merged with the Gulyai-Polye Anarchist Federation.
In May, 36 anarchist workers came to Gulyai-Polye from Ivanovo-Voznesensk. Among them were the fairly well-known anarchists, Chernyakov and Makeev. Some of these people settled in a commune about four miles from Gulyai-Polye, some engaged in cultural work in the region, and the rest joined the army.
It was also in May, 1919, that the Confederation of Anarchist Organizations of the Ukraine, “Nabat,” the most active and effective of all the anarchist organizations in Russia, began to see that the pulse of the revolutionary life of the masses was beating in the liberated insurrectionary region. “Nabat” decided to direct its forces toward this region. At the beginning of June, 1919, they sent to Gulyai-Polye several militants, including Voline, Mrachnyi and losif Emigrant. They were going to transfer the central organs of the Confederation to Gulyai-Polye immediately after the congress of workers and peasants called for June 15 by the Revolutionary Military Council. But the simultaneous attacks on the region by the Bolsheviks and the Denikinists kept this plan from being carried out. Mrachnyi was the only one who reached Gulyai-Polye, but in view of the general retreat he was obliged to return after one or two days. Voline and others were not able to leave Ekaterinoslav, and it was only in August, 1919, that they were able to join the retreating Makhnovist army near Odessa.
Thus the anarchists came to the movement very late, after its normal development had already been interrupted, after it had been thrown out of the context of social construction and forced by the pressure of circumstances into primarily military activity.
From the end of 1918 to June 1919 the conditions for positive work in the region had been extremely favorable: the front was about 200 miles away, near Taganrog, and the enormous population scattered throughout eight to ten districts was left to itself.
Later the anarchists could only work in conditions of military activity, under continual fire from all sides, and were obliged to move daily from place to place. The anarchists who joined the army did everything they could do in these conditions of constant warfare. Some of them, like Makeev and Kogan, took part in military activity; most of them did cultural work among the insurgents and in the villages which the Makhnovist army traversed. But this was not creative and constructive work among the masses in the fullest meaning of those words. Conditions of constant warfare limited this activity largely to superficial propaganda. It was impossible to dream of creative, positive work. Only in a few rare cases, for example after the occupation of Aleksandrovsk, Berdyansk, Melitopol’ and other cities and districts, could the anarchists and Makhnovists lay the foundations for more extensive and profound activity. But another wave of war appeared from one side or the other, removing all traces of their work, and once again they were reduced to superficial agitation and propaganda among the insurgents and the peasants. The time was hostile to large-scale creative work among the masses.
On the basis of this period, some individuals who did not take part in the movement or who participated very briefly, drew the erroneous conclusion that the Makhnov-shchina was excessively military, that it devoted too much attention to military aspects and not enough attention to positive work among the masses. But in actual fact, the military period in its history did not in any way grow out of the Makhnovshchina, but rather out of the conditions which surrounded it after the middle of 1919.
The Bolshevik statists were perfectly aware of the significance of the Makhnovist movement and of the position of anarchism in Russia. They knew perfectly well that, at present, anarchism in Russia, lacking any contact with a mass movement as important as the Makhnovshchina, did not have a base and could neither threaten nor endanger them. And conversely, by their calculations, anarchism was the only conception on which the Makhnovshchina could depend in its relentless struggle against Bolshevism. This is why they spared no effort to keep the two apart. And, in justice to them, it should be pointed out that they stubbornly carried this out: they declared the Makhnovshchina to be outside of all human law. And as prudent men of affairs, they acted, in Russia and especially abroad, as if the outlawing of the Makhnovshchina was self-explanatory to everyone, as if this could not possibly give rise to any doubts, and that only those who are blind or who are completely unfamiliar with Russia would fail to recognize their measures as just and reasonable.
The Bolsheviks did not officially outlaw the anarchist idea, but they gave the name “Makhnovist” to any revolutionary gesture, any sincere act in which anarchists engaged — and with perfect innocence, as if this was as clear as the light of day to everyone, they threw anarchists in jail, shot them, beheaded them. In the last analysis, the Makhnovshchina and anarchism, because they did not cringe before the Bolsheviks, were treated in the same way.
The history just narrated does not nearly give an exhaustive picture of the movement in its entirety. We have merely traced — very briefly — the story of a single, though central, current of this movement, the current that arose in the Gulyai-Polye region. This current was only a part of a much greater whole. As a social movement of Ukrainian workers, the Makhnovshchina was much more extensive than the picture we were able to draw of it. Its spirit and its slogans echoed throughout the Ukraine. There was social and psychological agitation among the peasants and the workers of almost every government of the Ukraine; everywhere the working masses made attempts to realize their independence in the sense which the Makhnovshchina gave to it; everywhere people heard calls to social revolution and attempted to engage in revolutionary struggle and massive revolutionary creative activity. And if we could have followed the movement in all its ramifications throughout the whole Ukraine, if we could have traced the history of each of the currents and then linked them together and illuminated them in the light of the whole, we could have obtained a great tableau of several million people in revolt, struggling under the flag of the Makhnovshchina for the fundamental ideas of the revolution — freedom and equality. But it is unfortunately impossible to carry out such a work in the conditions of contemporary Bolshevik life, even if one is willing to tolerate all sorts of hardships.
Even the present work, which deals with only one current of the movement, has been drastically condensed. Due to the absence of a large amount of documentary and factual material, this work is unintentionally abridged, both in form and in content.
We firmly hope that a more complete history of the Makhnovist movement will be written one day.
In addition to the flaws we have just mentioned, the present work may also suffer from the fact that the negative aspects of the movement were not sufficiently examined.
No social movement of historical importance, no matter how lofty its aspirations, can avoid errors, serious shortcomings, negative aspects. These were obviously present in the Makhnovshchina. But we must always remember that the Makhnovshchina did not have the opportunity to carry out social experiments, and consequently could not err in this field. The Makhnovshchina is only a powerful movement of the masses, their selfless effort to overcome the reaction and save the cause of the revolution. Consequently, it is in this field that we must look for the shortcomings of the movement.
The basic shortcoming of the movement resides in the fact that during its last two years it concentrated mainly on military activities. This was not an organic flaw of the movement itself, but rather its misfortune — it was imposed on the movement by the situation in the Ukraine.
Three years of uninterrupted civil wars made the southern Ukraine a permanent battlefield. Numerous armies of various parties traversed it in every direction, wreaking material, social and moral destruction on the peasants. This exhausted the peasants. It destroyed their first experiments in the field of workers’ self-management. Their spirit of social creativity was crushed. These conditions tore the Makhnovshchina away from its healthy foundation, away from socially creative work among the masses, and forced it to concentrate on war — revolutionary war, it is true, but war nevertheless.
Even today the enemies of freedom are devoting all their forces to the task of preventing the insurrection from leaving the arduous path of military operations. This is the great tragedy of the Makhnovshchina. It suffered from this for more than two years, and judging by the state of things in Russia, this tragedy will continue.
These facts themselves provide an answer to those anarchists who, on the basis of third- or fourth-hand accounts — distorted at that — reproach the Makhnovshchina for its martial character, and for this reason stand aloof from it. The military character was imposed on the movement. Furthermore, all the authorities who appeared in the Ukraine, and mainly the Communists, made extraordinary efforts to drive the Makhnovshchina into a blind alley with only one outlet: banditism. The Soviet government’s entire strategy in its struggle against the Makhnovshchina during the past three years was devised for this purpose. Can these Bolshevik machinations be considered flaws of the Makhnovshchina? Obviously not. When speaking about the military character of the movement, we should not begin with the fact that the Makhnovists devoted a great deal of time to artillery and cavalry combats; we should rather ask how the Makhnovists began, what goals they pursued, and what means they had to realize them.
We know that they began by chasing the Hetman’s authorities out of the country, and by proclaiming that all the land and all industry belong to the working people. Their goal was the construction of a free life based on the complete social and economic independence of the working classes. Their means were social revolution and free workers’ councils.
As active revolutionaries they obviously did not limit themselves to chasing out the Hetman and proclaiming their rights. To destroy the bourgeoisie thoroughly, to secure their rights and revolutionary gains, they organized armed self-defense, thus demonstrating their profound understanding of their role in the social revolution. The positive program of the revolution can be successfully realized only on condition that the workers destroy the military power of the bourgeois state at the right time.
Due to the fact that, as an active and offensive force, the movement was not general but was limited to a few governments, it was encircled by hostile forces: statist-Petliurists, statist Bolsheviks, and Denikin’s enormous armed forces, all of which assaulted it from all sides with colossal military force. The movement obviously had to undergo great changes in its strategy, in its ways and means of action, and was forced to devote a large part of its forces to the military side of the struggle for freedom. But as we said, this was not its fault, but its misfortune.
The conditions of warfare which constantly surrounded the Makhnovists engendered among them many characteristics which were due to their exceptional situation: strict discipline in the army and extreme -severity toward their enemies. In spite of these characteristics, the Makhnovists remained first of all revolutionaries. When they occupied Ekaterinoslav in October, 1919, the Makhnovists did not in any way disturb the soldiers of Denikin’s or of other armies who were being treated in the hospitals of the city, whether they were plain soldiers or officers. And these same Makhnovists shot their own commanders, Bogdanov and Lashkevich, for infractions of discipline and revolutionary honor.[36]
In Chapter 8 we mentioned certain errors and shortcomings of the movement. Other faults and defects of the movement are so trivial and unimportant that there is no reason to dwell on them.[37]
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The question is — what next?
During the past year and a half, the struggle of the Makhnovists against the Communist power had an exclusively military character. Neither organizational nor educational work among the peasants and workers was possible. There was no room for free socialist construction. What is the point of continuing such a struggle? What hopes could sustain it?
It is obvious that at the present moment, when a cult of militarism has been implanted throughout the Russian State, when the popular masses of the Ukraine and of Great Russia are completely subjugated, when the entire country is infected by an epidemic of denunciations and unjust trials, the situation of the Makhnovshchina is critical, and any further struggle seems hopeless. But this seems to be so only if the question is considered from a narrow, statist point of view.
We are living in a revolutionary epoch full of massive revolutionary movements of workers and peasants, movements which alternate with reactionary attempts of various authorities to become masters of the movements and to establish their dictatorship. The mass movement which took place in February-March, 1917, gave way to the government of the Duma. The agrarian-industrial mass movement of the summer of 1917 called to life, as a counterweight to itself, the bourgeois-socialist coalition government. And on the crest of the powerful October movement of workers and peasants surfaced the Communist government.
The fact that the Communist power has succeeded in maintaining itself for a long period in revolutionary Russia has made many people think that this system is the product of the Russian revolution and its natural form. But this is profoundly untrue. The Russian revolution and the Communist authority are two antipodes, two opposites. Throughout the Russian revolution, the Communist power has only been the shrewdest, the most flexible and at the same time the most tenacious form of reaction. It struggled against the Russian revolution from the day it began. In this struggle the working masses of Russia have already lost the main achievements of their revolution: freedom of organization, of speech, of the press, the inviolability of life, etc. This struggle spread throughout the expanse of Russia, affecting every village and every factory; its highest point was the revolutionary insurrection in the Ukraine; it re-appeared in several governments in Great Russia, and in February-March, 1921, it reverberated again in the uprising of Kronstadt.
Today Russia is undergoing a phase of acute reaction. It is impossible to predict if the revolutionary movement of workers and peasants will be victorious, or if the reaction will succeed in maintaining itself and consolidating its power. But one thing is clear: the revolutionary epoch which began in Russia is by no means over; enormous revolutionary energy is stored up in the workers and peasants; they still have gunpowder in their powder-flasks, and they may yet engage in massive revolutionary actions in the near future.
Three circumstances might give rise to the resumption of revolutionary activity. First of all, it could arise from the direct struggle of the masses against the Bolshevik reaction. Secondly, it could be caused by the attack of a foreign bourgeoisie against the Russian revolution. And thirdly, it could be stimulated if a power overturned during the course of the revolution attempted to change its course. At first sight it would seem that the latter two circumstances — counter-revolution from without and from within — would not add anything new to the existing Communist counter-revolution. But this is not the case. As new forces they could detonate the masses, who might then break through the reactionary Communist shell which envelops them, and continue the further development of the revolution.
The Makhnovshchina lives from these revolutionary forces of the masses temporarily suppressed by the counterrevolution. It is through them that the Makhnovshchina realized brilliant revolutionary achievements for which the Soviet authority falsely takes credit. It was the Makhnovshchina that buried the Hetman’s government, that demolished Petliura’s enterprise, that defended the revolution against Denikin, and that contributed significantly to the final defeat of Wrangel.
It might seem paradoxical, but it is nevertheless unquestionable, that the Communist authority implanted and consolidated its power in Russia because of the extraordinary struggle of the Makhnovists against the numerous counterrevolutions.
And in the future, whenever the revolutionary flame is kindled in the masses, the Makhnovshchina will be on the field of revolutionary struggle.
At the present moment it is forced to devote all its efforts to the task of surviving through this period of acute reaction. This is a revolutionary tactic, a strategic maneuver on its part, and it might have to be continued for several years. The next five or ten years will decide the fate of the Makhnovshchina and of the entire Russian revolution.
The Russian revolution can only be saved by its liberation from the chains of statism and by the creation of a social regime founded on the principles of social self-direction of the peasants and workers. And when a thrust in this direction appears among the working masses, the Makhnovshchina will be the center of their general revolutionary unification. It will be the standard and the rallying point for all who are brave, daring, and firmly devoted to the workers. It is then that the Makhnovshchina’s devotion to the masses, its experience and its military genius, will serve to protect the truly proletarian social revolution. This is why it continues to carry on the seemingly hopeless struggle against the Communist dictatorship. This is why it continues to disturb the peace and quiet of the Communists.
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Yet another question arises.
The Makhnovist movement is primarily a movement of the poorest sectors of the Ukrainian peasantry. The triumph of the Makhnovshchina will mean the triumph of these poor peasants. But will this mean the triumph of the idea of the Makhnovshchina, the triumph of the social revolution?
The day after the triumph of such a revolution the peasants will have to provide foodstuffs to support the urban workers. Assuming that industrial activity in the cities is disorganized and is hardly geared to the needs of the countryside, the workers will not be able to pay the peasants with the products of their own labor. Consequently, in the beginning the peasants will voluntarily and without remuneration have to undertake to support the urban proletariat. Will they be capable of such generosity, of such a revolutionary act? The Communists consistently depict the peasants as a reactionary force imbued with narrow proprietary instincts. Will they be dominated by this proprietary instinct, this spirit of avarice? Will they turn their backs on the cities and abandon them without providing the needed assistance?
We are convinced that this will not happen.
The Makhnovshchina understands the social revolution in its true sense. It understands that the victory and consolidation of the revolution, the development of the well being which can flow from it, cannot be realized without a close alliance between the working classes of the cities and those of the countryside. The peasants understand that without urban workers and powerful industrial enterprises they will be deprived of most of the benefits which the social revolution makes possible. Furthermore, they consider the urban workers to be their brothers, members of the same family of workers.
There can be no doubt that, at the moment of the victory of the social revolution, the peasants will give their entire support to the workers. This will be voluntary and truly revolutionary support given directly to the urban proletariat. In the present-day situation, the bread taken by force from the peasants nourishes mainly the enormous governmental machine. The peasants see and understand perfectly that this expensive bureaucratic machine is not in any way needed by them or by the workers, and that in relation to the workers it plays the same role as that of a prison administration toward the inmates. This is why the peasants do not have the slightest desire to give their bread voluntarily to the State. This is why they are so hostile in their relations with the contemporary tax collectors — the commissars and the various supply organs of the State.
But the peasants always try to enter into direct relations with the urban workers. This question was raised more than once at peasant congresses, and the peasants always resolved it in a revolutionary and positive manner. At the time of the social revolution, when the masses of urban proletarians become truly independent and relate directly to the peasants through their own organizations, the peasants will furnish the indispensable foodstuffs and raw materials, knowing that in the near future the workers will place the entire gigantic power of industry at the service of the needs of the workers of the city and the countryside.
* * *
The Makhnovshchina sheds light on only one corner of contemporary Russia. There is no doubt that, with the passage of time, people will come who will expose this Russia from every corner, subjecting all its aspects to the light of truth. And then the role of Bolshevism in the Russian revolution will be clear to everyone.
Already today, in the domain which we examined, we can see its true face. The history of the Makhnovist movement, during which the popular masses tried for years to realize an independence which is better than any known to us, making enormous sacrifices for its sake, definitively unmasks Bolshevism and completely demolishes the legend about its pretended revolutionary and proletarian character.
Throughout the Russian revolution, whenever workers tried to act on their own, the Bolsheviks crushed them. Their reactionary spirit did not even hesitate when it became clear to all, including the Bolsheviks, that the Russian revolution was being killed by their murderous dictatorship. They did not for an instant abandon the insane and morbid desire to forcibly hold the entire revolution within the vise of their program.
It was still altogether possible to rescue the Russian revolution in 1919 and 1920. This is still possible today. What can save it is the revolutionary spirit of the masses, the self-activity of the workers’ and peasants’ organizations, their independence in thought and action. The revolution would recover its confidence and its will; it would again arouse the great enthusiasm of the masses, stimulating them to heroic struggles and great deeds, curing all the wounds of the social and economic organism.
Statists lie when they claim that the masses are capable only of destroying the old, that they are great and heroic only when they engage in destruction, and that in creative work they are inert and vulgar.
In the realm of creative activity, in the realm of daily work, the masses are capable of great deeds and of heroism. But they must feel a solid foundation under their feet; they must feel truly free; they must know that the work they do is their own; they must see in every social measure which is adopted the manifestation of their will, their hopes and their aspirations. In short, the masses must direct themselves in the largest meaning of those words.
But the Bolsheviks habitually seek only the support and obedience of the masses, and never their revolutionary spirit.
It is a historically established fact that, from 1918 on, Ukrainian peasants and workers were continually engaged in revolutionary uprisings, against Skoropadsky, the Austro-Germans, Petliura, Denikin, etc. These uprisings played an enormous role in the destiny of the entire Russian revolution: they created and sustained a situation of permanent revolution in the country which decisively turned the attention of the workers toward the solution of the essential problems of the revolution.
This situation of permament revolution in the country was not broken by the counter-revolution of the bourgeoisie or of the Czarist generals, but by that of the Communist power. In the name of the dictatorship of their Party, the Communists militarily crushed all the attempts of workers to realize their own self-direction — the basic goal of the Russian revolution — and thus crushed the revolutionary ferment in the country.
Their morbid faith in their own dictatorship led the Bolsheviks to become so callous, so ossified and rigid, that the needs and the sufferings of the revolution became totally foreign to them; they preferred to see the revolution dead rather than make any concessions to it. Their role in the entire Russian revolution was fatal. They killed the revolutionary initiative and the self-activity of the masses and shattered the greatest revolutionary possibilities that the workers had ever had in all history. And for this the proletarians of the whole world will forever nail them to the pillory.
However, one should not make the mistake of thinking that only the Bolsheviks are responsible for the defeat of the Russian revolution. Bolshevism merely put into practice what had been elaborated by decades of socialist science. Its entire program of action is based on the theories of scientific socialism. We can see how hypocritically this same scientific socialism treats the workers in other European States, shackling them to the bourgeois dictatorship.
When the world’s working class looks for those who are responsible for the shameful and extraordinarily difficult situation of Russian peasants and workers under the socialist dictatorship, it will have to blame socialism in its entirety, and condemn it.
The bloody tragedy of the Russian peasants and workers cannot pass without leaving traces. The practice of socialism in Russia has demonstrated better than anything else that the working classes have no friends, but only enemies who seek to take away the fruits of their labor. Socialism has amply demonstrated that it belongs among these enemies. From year to year, this idea is being implanted more firmly in the consciousness of the masses of the people.
Proletarians of the world, look into the depths of your own beings, seek out the truth and realize it yourselves: you will find it nowhere else.
Such is the watchword of the Russian revolution.
* * *
At the time of their third assault on the insurrectionary region, the Soviet power did everything possible to deal the death blow to the Makhnovshchina. Due to their numerous troops freed from military operations in the Crimea and to their superiority in armaments, they succeeded in defeating the insurrectionary army in the summer of 1921, and in forcing the central core of this army, headed by Nestor Makhno, to retreat to Roumanian territory. After this the Red Army occupied the entire insurrectionary region, and the revolutionary masses were violently subjected to the dictatorship of Bolshevism.
* * *
The Makhnovshchina is now in a new situation, and it faces a new stage in the struggle for the social revolution.
What sort of struggle will this be?
Life itself will determine its character and its forms. But one thing is certain: until the last day the movement will remain true to oppressed humanity; until the last day it will struggle and be prepared to die for the great ideals of labor-freedom and equality.
The Makhnovshchina is steadfast and immortal.
Wherever the working masses do not let themselves be subjugated, wherever they cultivate the love of independence, wherever they concentrate their class will, they will always create their own historical social movement, they will act on their own. This is the essence of the Makhnovshchina.
January-June, 1921.
Russia.
The following proclamations of the Makhnovist movement, from the archive of the Italian anarchist Ugo Fedeli, are in the custody of the Internationaal Instituut voor Socia/e Geschiedenis (in Amsterdam). It is not known how the proclamations came into Fedeli’s possession. They were all written in Russian. Paper out of an account book was used for one, wrapping paper from a candy factory for another, indicating that they were printed in difficult circumstances. [The translation is by Ann Allen.]
* * *
DECLARATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY INSURGENT ARMY OF THE UKRAINE (MAKHNOVIST)
To all the peasants and workers of the Ukraine. To be sent by telegraph, telephone or post to all villages, rural districts, and governments of the Ukraine. To be read at peasant gatherings, in factories and in workshops.
Fellow workers! The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist) was called into existence as a protest against the oppression of the workers and peasants by the bourgeois-landlord authority on the one hand and the Bolshevik-Communist dictatorship on the other.
Setting for itself one goal — the battle for total liberation of the working people of the Ukraine from the oppression of various authorities and the creation of a TRUE SOVIET SOCIALIST ORDER, the insurgent Makhnovist army fought stubbornly on several fronts for the achievement of these goals and at the present time is bringing to a victorious conclusion the struggle against the Denikinist army, liberating region after region, in which every coercive power and every coercive organization is in the process of being removed.
Many peasants and workers are asking: What will happen now? What is to be done? How shall we treat the decrees of the exiled authorities, etc.
All of these questions will be answered finally and in detail at the All-Ukrainian worker-peasant Congress, which must convene immediately, as soon as there is an opportunity for the workers and peasants to come together. This congress will map out and decide all the urgent questions of peasant-worker life.
In view of the fact that the congress will be convened at an indefinite time, the insurgent Makhnovist army finds it necessary to put up the following announcement concerning worker-peasant life:
1. All decrees of the Denikin (volunteer) authority are abolished. Those decrees of the Communist authority which conflict with the interests of the peasants and workers are also repealed.
Note: Which decrees of the Communist authority are harmful to the working people must be decided by the working people themselves — the peasants in assemblies, the workers in their factories and workshops.
2. The lands of the service gentry, of the monasteries, of the princes and other enemies of the toiling masses, with all their live stock and goods, are passed on to the use of those peasants who support themselves solely through their own labor. This transfer will be carried out in an orderly fashion determined in common at peasant assemblies, which must remember in this matter not only each of their own personal interests, but also bear in mind the common interest of all the oppressed, working peasantry.
3. Factories, workshops, mines and other tools and means of production become the property of the working class as a whole, which will run all enterprises themselves, through their trade unions, getting production under way and striving to tie together all industry in the country in a single, unitary organization.
4. It is being proposed that all peasant and worker organizations start the construction of free worker-peasant Soviets. Only laborers who are contributing work necessary to the social economy should participate in the Soviets. Representatives of political organizations have no place in worker-peasant Soviets, since their participation in a workers’ soviet will transform the latter into deputies of the party and can lead to the downfall of the soviet system.
5. The existence of the Cheka, of party committees and similar compulsory authoritative and disciplinary institutions is intolerable in the midst of free peasants and workers.
6. Freedom of speech, press, assembly, unions and the like are inalienable rights of every worker and any restriction on them is a counter-revolutionary act.
7. State militia, policemen and armies are abolished. Instead of them the people will organize their own self-defense. Self-defense can be organized only by workers and peasants.
8. The worker-peasant Soviets, the self-defense groups of workers and peasants and also every peasant and worker must not permit any counter-revolutionary manifestation whatsoever by the bourgeoisie and officers. Nor should they tolerate the appearance of banditry. Everyone convicted of counter-revolution or banditry will be shot on the spot.
9. Soviet and Ukrainian money must be accepted equally with other monies. Those guilty of violation of this are subject to revolutionary punishment.
10. The exchange of work proclucts and goods will remain free; for the time being this activity will not be taken over by the worker-peasant organizations. But at the same time, it is proposed that the exchange of work products take place chiefly BETWEEN WORKING PEOPLE.
11. All individuals deliberately obstructing the distribution of this declaration will be considered counterrevolutionary.
Revolutionary Military Soviet and Command Staff of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist)
January 7, 1920.
* * *
COMRADE PEASANTS!
For many years the working peasantry of the Ukraine has been struggling with its ancient enemies and oppressors. Thousands of the best Sons of the Revolution have fallen in the battle for the complete liberation of the Working People from every oppression. Through the heroic efforts of the peasant Insurgent Army of the Ukraine, the hangman Denikin was dealt a fatal blow. The insurgent Peasants, with their leader — Batko Makhno — at their head, remaining for long months in the home front of the white guard, surrounded ten times by a strong enemy, exhausted by the worst disease — typhus, which took from action a hundred of our best fighters daily, frequently lacking amunition, together attacked the enemy with bare hands and under their powerful blow the best Denikinist forces — the detachments of generals Shkuro and Mamontov — fled. Through incredible efforts and the blood of the best fighters the insurgent peasants smashed the Denikinist front and opened the gates for their northern brothers — for Peasants and Workers; comrades of the red army came to take the place of the Denikinist hordes in the Ukraine — workers and peasants of the North. Before the Working Peasantry of the Ukraine a question now arose, apart from the common Task — struggle with the white guard — the Building of a Truly Soviet System, under which the Soviets, elected by the Working People, would be servants of the People, implementors of those laws, of those orders, which the Working People themselves will write at the All-Ukrainian Working Congress. But the leadership of the Communist Party, which has made out of the Red Army a blind, obedient tool for the defense of the com-missarocracy, smearing with filth and vile slanders the best of the insurgent leaders, decided “to root out the splinter” — to do away with the Revolutionary insurgency, which is preventing the Lord Commissars from wielding power over the Working People of the Ukraine. The Commissarocrats wish to see in the Working People only “human materiel” as Trotsky called them at the congress, only cannon fodder to be hurled against anyone, but to whom it is on no account possible to give any rights whatsoever. Working activity and order will be established without the help of the Communists.
Comrade Peasants! The Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist) came from your midst. Your sons, brothers, and fathers filled up our ranks. The Insurgent Army is Your army, Your blood, Your flesh. Making tens of thousands of sacrifices the Insurgent Army fought for the right of the working people themselves to build their own order, to dispose of their own wealth themselves, and not for the transfer of everything to the hands of the Commissars. The Insurgent Army fought and is fighting for the true Soviets, and not for the Cheka and the Commissarocracy. In the time of the hangman Hetman, the Germans and the Denikinists, the insurrection stood up staunchly against the oppressors in defense of the Working People. And now the Insurgent Army considers its sacred task to be the defense of the interests of the Working Peasantry against the attempts of the Lord Commissars to harness to their collar the working peasantry of the Ukraine. The Insurgent Army well knows and remembers the last commissar — “liberator”. The Autocrat Trotsky ordered the Insurgent Army of the Ukraine, which was created by the peasants themselves, to disarm, for he well knows that while the peasants have their own army, defending their interests, he will never succeed in forcing the Ukrainian working people to dance to his tune. The Insurgent Army, not wishing to spill fraternal blood, avoiding clashes with Red Army people, but subject only to the will of the Working People, will stand guard over the interests of the working people and lay down arms only by command of the free working All-Ukrainian Congress, in which the working people themselves will express their will. The Insurgent Army, the sword in the hands of the working people, calls You, comrade peasants, to convene quickly your working-men’s congress and to take into your own hands both the long-range building of your own fortune and your own working peoples’ wealth; true, the power-loving commissars will without a doubt take every measure to ban the free working congress; therefore, it is in the interests of the working people themselves not to allow the commissars to suppress their working congress; that is why the congress must be secret and in a secret place.
Comrade Peasants, Prepare for your Congress!
Hasten to Work for Your Cause!
The Enemy Does Not Sleep
And You Must Not Sleep,
In This is the Guarantee of Victory!
Long live the Regional Free Working Congress! Down With the Commissarocracy! Long Live the Peasant Insurgent Army!
Staff of the Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist)
February 8, 1920.
* * *
A WORD TO THE PEASANTS AND WORKERS OF THE UKRAINE
Brother peasants and workers! For more than three years you have been engaged in a struggle with capitalism and thanks to Your efforts. Your steadfastness and energy, You have brought this struggle nearly to a close. The enemies of the revolution have been exhausted by Your blows and You, anticipating victory, got ready to celebrate. You believed that Your unceasing, often unequal, struggle with the enemies of the revolution, would give You a chance to put into practice the free soviet system for which we all were striving. But, brothers, You see who celebrates in Your place. The uninvited rulers are celebrating, the Communist hangmen, who came here in readiness and along open roads which had been cleared with Your blood, the blood of your sons and brothers who make up the revolutionary insurrection. They seized the wealth of the country. Not You, but they, are in charge. You, the peasants and workers, are a support for them in name only; without You they could not call themselves a worker-peasant government, could not be national murderers and hangmen, could not arbitrarily, in the name of party supremacy, tyrannize the people. The name of the people gives them this right in everything. And it is only for this that they need You, peasants and workers.
In every other instance You are nothing to them and they certainly do not take Your opinion into consideration. They enthralled, draft, command and rule You. They are destroying You. And You, oppressed, patiently bear all the horrors of execution, violence and tyranny committed by the Communist hangmen and which can be eliminated only by Your revolutionary justice, only by Your joint protest — a revolutionary uprising. To this You are called by Your brothers, peasants and workers who, like You, are dying from the bullets of the Red murderers who confiscate cattle, grain and other products by force and send [them] to Russia. They — Your close brothers — , bidding farewell to their own lives, to the whole bright future for which we all strive, urge You to save the revolution, freedom and independence. Remember, brother peasants and workers, that if you do not personally experience total freedom and independence now, You will henceforth be incapable of settling your own fate, you will not forge your own happiness. You will not be masters of the wealth of Your country or the fruits of Your labor.
All this the uninvited rulers — the Communist-Bolshevik newcomers — will do for You. In order to deliver themselves from these uninvited masters and rulers, all the peasantry and all their finest energies must be devoted to the work of convening secret, rural and regional peasant congresses, at which must be arranged and settled the burning questions of the moment, which are raised by the irresponsibility and dictatorship of these bandits. In the interests of the country, in the interests of the working people of the Ukraine, let us not permit the country to be totally devastated by these uninvited masters and rulers. There must be no place in the Ukraine for them or their hireling-Red murderers, tyrannizers of the people. All the peasants, losing not one day, must organize themselves through their regional congresses. Let us organize in each village and hamlet regional fighting units; let us create a leading battle organ.
Once and for all refuse any help to the Communist hangmen and their base hirelings, refuse both fodder and grain and bread. Workers in their turn, both in the cities and in villages, must refrain from joining the Communist Party, the Chekas, or the food requisitioning detachments; must renounce all participation in Communist institutions. The people of the Ukraine must tell the whole world by word and deed: away with murderers and hangmen both white and red! We are moving towards universal good, light and truth, and your violence will not be tolerated.
Long live the international Worker-Peasant Social Revolution!
Death to all white guards and commissars. Death to all hangmen!
Long live the free soviet system!
Staff of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist)
[March-April, 1920]
* * *
WHO ARE THE MAKHNOVISTS AND WHAT ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR?
1. The Makhnovists are peasants and workers who rose as early as 1918 against the coercion of the German-Magyar, Austrian and Hetman bourgeois authority in the Ukraine. The Makhnovists are those working people who raised the battle standard against the Denikinists and any kind of oppression, violence and lies, wherever they originated. The Makhnovists are the very workers by whose labor the bourgeoisie in general and now the Soviet bourgeoisie in particular rules and grows rich and fat.
2.WHY DO WE CALL OURSELVES MAKHNOVISTS?
Because, first, in the terrible days of reaction in the Ukraine, we saw in our ranks an unfailing friend and leader, MAKHNO, whose voice of protest against any kind of coercion of the working people rang out in all the Ukraine, calling for a battle against all oppressors, pillagers and political charlatans who betray us; and who [Makhno] is now marching together with us in our common ranks unwaveringly toward the final goal: liberation of the working people from any kind of oppression.
3.WHAT DO WE SEE AS THE BASIS OF LIBERATION?
The overthrow of the monarchist, coalition, republican and social-democratic Communist-Bolshevik Party governments. In their place must be substituted the free and completely independent soviet system of working people without authorities and their arbitrary laws. The soviet system is not the power of the social-democratic Communist-Bolsheviks who now call themselves a soviet power; rather it is the supreme form of non-authoritarian, anti-state socialism, which expresses itself in the organization of a free, happy and independent system of social life for the working people; in which each worker taken , separately, and society as a whole, will be able to build td without assistance his own happiness and well-being according to the principles of solidarity, friendship and equality.
4. HOW DO THE MAKHNOVISTS UNDERSTAND THE SOVIET SYSTEM?
The working people themselves must freely choose their own Soviets, which will carry out the will and desires of the working people themselves, that is to say, ADMINISTRATIVE, not ruling, Soviets.
The land, the factories, the workshops, the mines, the railroads and the other wealth of the people must belong to the working people themselves, to those who work in them, that is to say, they must be socialized.
5. WHAT ROAD LEADS TO THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MAKHNOVIST GOALS?
An implacable revolution and consistent struggle against all lies, arbitrariness and coercion, wherever they come from, a struggle to the death, a struggle for free speech, for the righteous cause, a struggle with weapons in hand. Only through the abolition of all rulers, through the destruction of the whole foundation of their lies, in state affairs as well as in political and economic affairs. And only through the destruction of the state by means of a social revolution can the genuine Worker-Peasant soviet system be realized and can we arrive at SOCIALISM.
Cultural-Educational Section of the Insurgent Army (Makhnovist).
April 27, 1920.
* * *
COMRADES IN THE RED ARMY ON THE FRONT LINE AND IN THE HOME GUARD!
The people of the Ukraine, oppressed by Your commanders and commissars, and sometimes even directly by You under the leadership of these Commanders and Commissars, protest against such coercion: they waited for You as the liberators of the working masses from the yoke of the Denikinist gang of hangmen; but after Your arrival in the Ukraine the groans, weeping and wails of the suffering people grew still louder. Executions everywhere, the burning of peasants’ huts and even villages, everywhere pillage and violence.
The people have been exhausted and have no more strength to endure such arbitrariness; giving advance notice, they are asking You: will you stop in the face of these nightmares and realize whom, under the leadership of Your commanders and commissars, You are shooting? Who are you packing into the prisons and cellars? Is it not Your brothers, fathers and children? Of course it is. You do this oblivious to how the officers and generals of the old regime, profiting by their freedom and Your blindness, recline in soft easy chairs and order You to mock the poor people. And You, comrades, without a moment’s hesitation, blindly carry out these orders. Is it possible you do not notice that they are setting you on the poor people, calling them counter-revolutionary because they protest the dictatorship of Trotsky’s masters and his gang of communist accomplices who are smothering the revolution in the name of party power? Is it possible you do not see that the Ukrainian peasant cannot tolerate his yoke and, in spite of executions, is standing up for himself, destroying every obstacle and hurrying to lead the project of liberation to a conclusion? And he believes that among You, who are in the Red Army, the majority are his brothers, peasants the same as he, who are oppressed the same as he, and who, in the final reckoning, will take up his protest and join with him against the common enemy: the Denikinist gangs of the right as well as the commissarocracy of the left which clothes itself in the name of the people.
Comrades, see for yourselves, they are creating Chekas and punitive detachments in Belorussia and particularly in the Ukraine. And who is helping them? You, Red Army men, and only You. Is it possible that your hearts do not bleed upon hearing the groans and cries of Your brothers, fathers, mothers and children? Is it possible that those illusory political freedoms have deceived you to such an extent that you are too weak to overcome the authority of the commissars and join with the peasants and workers in freeing themselves and all the people from oppression and violence? Is it possible You do not. notice in Your ranks those who, owing to Your blood and lives, have risen over You, have taken power for themselves and thus really disgracefully tyrannize the people? Is it possible your hearts are not wrung when, under the command of these tyrants, You go to the villages and hamlets to punish the working people who are protesting the domination of your leaders? We believe that You will come to your senses and catch up, that Your shame is in silence. You will raise a protest against the violence and oppression of the poor people. You will not permit Your commissars and commanders to burn the villages and hamlets and to shoot the peasants who rose for their rights. Let the peasants arrange their lives themselves, as they wish, and You continue to crush the Denikinist gangs, and along with them the commissar-rulers. Do not leave the front; continue the battle against those who wear the gold shoulder straps; do away with your commissars on the spot.
The revolutionary peasants and workers are wiping out the loafers in their ranks in the rear, those who are burdening and enslaving them. The revolutionary peasants and workers will not forget You and the day will come when they will all, as one, close ranks with You, and woe to all parasites and their helpers, all those who weigh upon them from without as well as those who arbitrarily rule over them in the rear.
Remember comrades, the people have recognized the deceit of the government being maintained by You. The people will rise against it and no army will withstand the masses who have consciously risen, who are fighting for total liberation. Join with them; they invite you as their own brothers. Remember that among those who have risen are Your brother-peasants and workers and upon meeting them do not perpetrate a slaughter. Let the commissars and commanders face the rebels themselves.
Let them stain themselves with the blood of the peasants and workers; all the guilt is on them and they will pay dearly for it.
Down with the gold-shoulder-strap gang! Down with their godfathers the commissarocrats! Down with man-made laws and the power of man over man!
Long live the unification of all the working people of the Red Army and the rebellious peasants and workers! Death to all who wear the gold shoulder straps! Death to all commissars and hangmen!
Long live the Social Revolution!
Long live the genuine, free soviet system!
Staff of the Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist).
May 9, 1920.
* * *
DOWN WITH FRATRICIDE!
Brothers in the Red Army! The stooges of Nicholas kept you in the dark and ordered you to fratricidal war with the Japanese and then with the Germans and with many other peoples for the sake of increasing their own wealth; to your lot fell death at the front and complete ruin at home.
But the storm cloud and the fog, through which You could see nothing, lifted; the sun began to shine; You understood and were finished with fratricidal war. But it was the calm before a new storm. Now once again you are being sent to fight, against us, “insurgent Makhnovists,” in the name, supposedly, of a “worker-peasant” authority, which is once again dispensing chains and slavery to You and riches and joys to this horde of a million bureaucratic parasites, created with Your blood. Is it possible that in the course of three years of fratricidal war you have still to this day failed to understand this? Is it possible that even now You will shed your blood for the newly made bourgeoisie and for all the half-baked commissars who send You to war like cattle?
Is it possible that you still, to this day, have failed to understand that we, the “insurgent Makhnovists,” are fighting for TOTAL ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL EMANCIPATION OF THE WORKING PEOPLE, for a free life without any of these authoritarian commissars, chekists, etc.?
Let day break in Your camp and show You the path which leads to the abolition of fratricidal wars between working peoples. By this path you will reach us and in our ranks you will continue to fight for a better future, for a free life. Before each encounter with us, in order to avoid shedding brotherly blood, send us a delegate for negotiations; but if this does not work and the commissars force You to fight after all, throw down the rifles and come to our brotherly embrace!
Down with fratricidal war among the working people!
Long live peace and the brotherly union of the working peoples of all countries and nationalities!
Insurgent Makhnovists
[May, 1920]
* * *
TO ALL WORKERS OF THE PLOW AND THE HAMMER!
Brothers! A new and mortal danger is approaching all working people. All the dark forces that served the bloody Nicholas have united with the help of the Polish landlords, the French instructors and the traitors of the Petliurist movement in the Ukraine in order to establish an autocracy over us, to burden us with landlords, capitalists, Zemstvo leaders, policemen and other hangmen of the peasants and workers.
Comrades! The commissars and bosses of the Communist-Bolsheviks are good fighters only against the poor and oppressed. Their punitive detachments and Chekas can splendidly shoot peasants and workers and burn down villages and hamlets. But against the true enemies of the revolution, before the Denikinists and other gangs, they flee shamefully, like miserable cowards.
You, comrades, have not yet forgotten how last year the gold shoulder straps came close to entering Moscow and if it were not for the insurgents, the three-colored flag of the autocracy would long since have waved over Revolutionary Russia.
So also now, comrades! The Red Army, which is being sold out every step of the way by its own generals and cowardly commissars, is fleeing the front in panic and surrendering region after region to the Polish landlords. Zhitomir, Kiev and Zhmerinka have long been occupied by the Poles; the white guard front is approaching Poltava and Kherson. And, in the Crimea, the Denikinists have been waiting for the last three months for an opportune moment to once again occupy our own territory.
Brothers! Is it possible you will quietly await the approach of the whites and, crossing your arms, hand over yourselves, your wives and children, to be torn apart by the generals and landlords?
No, this must not happen.
All, as one, in arms and in the ranks of the insurgents.
Together with us, the Insurgent Makhnovists, rise against all tyrants. In every hamlet set up detachments and join with us. Together we are driving out the commissars and the Chekas and together with the comrade Red Army men we will build an iron battle front against Denikin, Petliura and the Polish landlords.
Comrades! Time does not wait; put your detachments together immediately.
For the cause!
Death and destruction to all tyrants and landlords!
Let us begin the last and final battle for a genuine, free soviet system where there will be neither landlords nor masters!
To arms, Brothers!
Cultural-Educational Section of the Revolutionary Insurgents of the Ukraine (Makhnovist)
May, 1920.
* * *
TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE
Why, comrades, are you sitting at home? Why are you not in our ranks?
Or are you waiting for the arrival of the commissars with punitive detachments to draft you by force? Don’t fool yourselves that they won’t find you, that you will hide, escape. The Bolshevik authority has already shown that it will stop at nothing: they will arrest your family and relatives, they will take hostages, if necessary, they will fire upon the entire village with artillery — and in some way or another, you and your comrades, who are presently still at liberty, will sooner or later be drafted by the government.
And then they will send you, with weapons in hand, to kill your brother peasants and workers — the revolutionary insurgent Makhnovists.
We, Makhnovist insurgents, are not sitting at home, although each one of us also has a family and relatives and loved ones from whom we do not wish to be separated. But we are revolutionaries. It is not possible for us to look on indifferently as the working people are once again thrown into slavery, as new despots lord it over us, unchecked, under the mask of the socialist-communists, under the banner of worker-peasant authority. Three years of revolution have clearly shown that every authority is counter-revolutionary, without exception, whether it be the authority of Bloody Nicholas or of the Bolshevik-Communists. We Makhnovists raise the banner of revolt for a total socialist revolution, against every authority, against every oppressor; we are fighting for the free Soviets of the working people.
Follow us, comrades! Let the fainthearted self-seeker and coward remain at home near someone’s skirts — we do not need sissies. But you, honest peasants and workers, your place is with us, among the revolutionary insurgent Makhnovists. We will take no one by force. But remember: the Bolshevik government, through its own brutal violence to the Makhnovists, compels us also to merciless battle.
And so, decide, comrades! Drafted by the commissars, you will be sent against us, and we will be compelled to treat you as hostile and an enemy of the revolution. With us or against us — choose!
Insurgent Makhnovists
June, 1920.
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A WORD FROM THE MAKHNOVISTS TO THE LABORING COSSACKS OF THE DON AND THE KUBAN
Comrade laboring Cossacks! For two years you languished under the oppression of the Czarist general Denikin. For two years your deadly enemies, the pomeshchiks and barons, forced you to defend the interests of the rich, the oppressors of the working people. For two successive years you were forced to knuckle under, and by your own sweat and blood the rich made themselves richer, feasted and led depraved lives. For two years in the region of the Don and the Kuban the tears and blood of the workers of the plow and hammer flowed. For two successive years, laboring cossacks, the revolution was stifled in your land.
But through your efforts, comrades, the yoke of Denikin and his commanders was thrown off and in the Don and the Kuban the revolution triumphed once again.
However, comrades, before you had time to recover from the nightmarish experience of Denikin, a new oppressor appeared in your land. The Communist-Bolshevik Party, seizing power, sent their own commissars and chekas to your villages; they ridicule you, laboring cossacks, as much as the Czarist thugs did.
As in the time of Denikin, punitive detachments of the Bolshevik authority take away your bread and cattle and pick up your sons; and if you try to protest the violence perpetrated upon you, they flog you, imprison you, and even shoot you.
Is this the reason, comrade laboring cossacks, that you rose against Denikin, to take on a new yoke now in the form of the Communist-Bolsheviks? Is this what you shed your blood for, to permit the commissars and lovers of power to rule over you now, to suppress and coerce you?
Listen well, brothers, to what we, the revolutionary peasant-Makhnovists, tell you. We were also oppressed after the revolution by a whole series of authorities and parties. First the Austrian and German authority, along with the Hetman, tried to rule over us, then the adventurist Petliura, then the Communist-Bolsheviks, and also General Denikin. But we very quickly discouraged them in order to continue our own project and, as you probably heard, as early as the summer of 1918, under the leadership of the Gulyai-Polye peasants and other working people, and of the anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno, whom the Czarist authority imprisoned for over ten years for his love of the working people, we rose and drove off the Austro-German bands, and after that, for the last two years we have continued to fight against all oppressors of the working people. We are now engaged in a merciless battle against the agents and commissars of the Bolshevik authority, killing them and driving these tyrants from our regions.
The ranks of our revolutionary insurgent detachments are growing daily. All the oppressed and aggrieved are joining our ranks and the time is near when all the working people in our region will rise and expel the authority of the Bolshevik political charlatans, just as they expelled Denikin.
However, once the Bolshevik tyrants are expelled, we have no intention of giving anyone whatsoever authority over us because we Makhnovists realize that the working people are no longer a flock of sheep to be ordered about by anyone. We consider the working people capable of building, on their own and without parties, commissars or generals, their own FREE SOVIET SYSTEM, in which those who are elected to the Soviet will not, as now, command and order us, but on the contrary, will be only the executors of the decisions made in our workers’ gatherings and conferences. We will strive for this, so that all the wealth of the country, that is, the land, the mines, the factories, the workshops, the railroads, and so on, will belong neither to individuals nor to the government, but solely to those who work with them. We will not lay down our arms until we have wiped out once and for all every political and economic oppression and until genuine equality and brotherhood is established in the land.
This, comrades, is what we are fighting for and what we are asking you, the laboring cossacks of the Don and Kuban, to fight for.
In our insurgent army there were quite a few cossacks of the Don and Kuban; they formed two cavalry regiments which bravely and selflessly fought together with us against the Denikinists. Now we are calling you, the laboring cossacks, to our insurgent ranks for the joint struggle against the tyrants and Red hangmen, Trotsky and Lenin. The slaves have obeyed and suffered long enough the yoke of those who call themselves the worker-peasant authority. To arms and into the ranks of the revolutionary insurgents and then we will quickly put an end to the plans of those who wanted to oppress and burden us.
Comrades, do not believe the rumor that says we are bandits and a small group. It is a lie spread by the commissars solely to confuse the worker-peasant folk; the working people know that the Makhnovists are honest laborers who, not wanting to carry a burden, rose in order to liberate themselves once and for all from every oppression. Do not believe the Bolshevik papers, which write nearly every day that Batko Makhno is dead and we Makhnovists smashed. It is not true. Batko Makhno lives and together with us daily defeats regiments and punitive detachments of the commissar authority and causes a mortal panic in the Red oppressors.
Rise, laboring cossacks, against the oppression and coercion of the commissars. Do not tolerate them in your villages. Do not pay taxes to them. Do not give them bread. Do not give your sons to be soldiers. Organize your own insurgent detachments. Kill the oppressors. Unite with us. We will give you every possible assistance.
The slaves have endured enough! It is enough that we have been mocked in every possible manner!
Long live the rising for a genuine worker-peasant soviet system!
Long live the free Don and Kuban!
Long live the brotherly union of the working people of all countries and nationalities!
Long live the socialist revolution!
Council of the Revolutionary Insurgents of the Ukraine (Makhnovist)
June, 1920.
* * *
COMRADES IN THE RED ARMY!
Your commanders and commissars are frightening and convincing you that we Makhnovists are murdering captured Red Army men.
Comrades! This infamous lie has been concocted by your leaders only so that you, like slaves, would defend the interests of the commissars, so that you would not let yourselves be taken prisoner by us Makhnovists and so you would not learn the truth about our worker-peasant Makhnovist movement.
We, comrades, have risen against the oppression of all tyrants. For three years our blood has been flowing on all fronts. We drove out the Austro-German tyrants, smashed the Denikinist hangmen, fought against Petliura; now we are fighting the domination of the commissar authority, the dictatorship of the Bolshevik-Communist Party: it has laid its iron hand on the entire life of the working people; the peasants and workers of the Ukraine are groaning under its yoke. We will also mercilessly exterminate the Polish landlords who come to stifle our revolution and to deprive us of its achievements.
We are fighting against all authority and oppression, no matter what its origin. Our deadly, implacable enemies are the landlords and capitalists of all nationalities, the Denikin-ist generals and officers, the Polish landlords and Bolshevik commissars. We are punishing and killing them all mercilessly as enemies of the revolution of the working people.
But we consider you, comrades in the Red Army, our blood brothers, together with whom we would like to carry on the struggle for genuine liberation, for the true soviet system without the pressure of parties or authorities.
Captured Red Army men are immediately set free wherever they choose, or we invite them into our ranks if they consent to this.
We have already freed thousands of Red Army men captured in numerous battles and many of the prisoners are now selflessly fighting in our ranks.
So do not believe, comrade Red Army men, your commanders’ cock and bull stories that the Makhnovists are murdering Red Army men. It’s an infamous lie.
When they send you to fight against the Makhnovists, do not steep your hands, comrades of the Red Army, in fraternal blood. When the fight begins, kill your leaders yourselves and, without using your weapons, come over to us. We will greet you as our own brothers and together we will create a free and just life for the workers and peasants and will struggle against all tyrants and oppressors of the working people.
Long live the Brotherly union of the Revolutionary Insurgent Makhnovists with the Peasant and Worker Red Army Men!
Insurgent Makhnovists
June, 1920.
* * *
PAUSE! READ! CONSIDER!
Comrade in the Red Army! You were sent by your commissars and commanders to capture the insurgent Makhnovists. Following orders from your chiefs, you will destroy peaceful villages, search, arrest and kill people you don’t know but whom they have pointed out to you as enemies of the people. They tell you that the Makhnovists are bandits and counter-revolutionaries.
They tell you; they order you; they do not ask you; they send you; and, like obedient slaves of your leaders, you go to capture and kill. Whom? For what? Why?
Think about it, comrade Red Army Man! Think about it you toiling peasant and worker, taken by force into the cabal of the new masters, who claim the stirring title of worker-peasant authority.
We, the revolutionary insurgent Makhnovists, are also peasants and workers like our brothers in the Red Army. We rose against oppression; we are fighting for a better and brighter life. Our frank ideal is the achievement of a non-authoritarian laborers’ society without parasites and without commissar-bureaucrats. Our immediate goal is the establishment of the free soviet order, without the authority of the Bolsheviks, without pressure from any party whatsoever. For this the government of the Bolshevik-Communists sends punitive expeditions upon us. They hurry to make peace with Denikin, with the Polish landlords, and other white guard scum, in order to crush more easily the popular movement of revolutionary insurgents, who are rising for the oppressed against the yoke of any authority.
The threats of the white-red high command do not scare us.
WE WILL ANSWER VIOLENCE WITH VIOLENCE.
When necessary, we, a small handful, will put to flight the legions of the bureaucratic Red Army. For we are freedom-loving revolutionary insurgents and the cause we defend is a just cause.
Comrade! Think about it, who are you with and who are you against?
Don’t be a slave — be a man.
Insurgent Makhnovists
[June, 1920.]
* * * * *
From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.
Chronology :
November 30, 1922 : Chapter 12 -- Publication.
September 18, 2021 : Chapter 12 -- Added.
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