Chapter 9 : Makhnovist Pact With the Soviet Government. Third Bolshevik Assault

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No one among the Makhnovists believed in either the solidity or the permanence of the agreement with the Bolsheviks. On the basis of previous experience, everyone expected the Bolsheviks to find a pretext for a new attack on the Makhnovshchina. But the political conditions of the time led people to expect the agreement to last at least two or three months. This period would have been extremely important for the dissemination of extensive propaganda in the region; the need for such activity was enormous, and the Makhnovists devoted a great deal of energy to it. The demands of their situation had forced the Makhnovists to abandon this type of activity almost completely. They hoped that on the basis of this agreement there would be ample opportunity to demonstrate to the workers the essence of the disagreement between the Bolsheviks and the Makhnovists, the reason for the violent opposition between them. This was in fact fully realized. The fourth clause of the political agreement — the clause in which the Makhnovists demanded that the Bolsheviks recognize the workers’ and peasants’ right to economic and social self-management — turned out to be completely unacceptable to the Soviet Government. The representatives of the Makhnovshchina demanded that the Soviet authorities choose between two possibilities: either sign the clause in question, or explain why they were against it. The Makhnovists submitted this clause to public evaluation by the masses. In Khar’kov, Makhnovists and anarchists discussed this theme at public meetings. At Gulyai-Polye and its surroundings, leaflets which dealt with this question were widely distributed. By the middle of November this fourth clause, which was stated in five or six lines, became the center of attention of the masses.

At about this time, Wrangel’s expedition was completely destroyed. For the uninitiated, this circumstance would not appear to affect the agreement between the Makhnovists and the Soviet Government. But the Makhnovists saw in this circumstance the beginning of the end of the agreement. As soon as Simon Karetnik’s dispatch — announcing that he was with the insurrectionary troops in the Crimea and marching on Simferopol’ — arrived in Gulyai-Polye, Grigory Vasilevsky, Makhno’s aide, exclaimed: “This is the end of the agreement! I wager that in a week the Bolsheviks will be on our backs.” This was said on November 16, and on November 26^th the Bolsheviks treacherously attacked the Makhnovist staff and troops in the Crimea and in Gulyai-Polye; they seized the Makhnovist representatives in Khar’kov, destroyed all the recently established anarchist organizations and imprisoned all the anarchists. They proceeded the same way all over the Ukraine.

The Soviet authorities were not slow to explain their treachery by means of their favorite argument: the Makhnovists and the anarchists were preparing an insurrection against the Soviet Government, and point 4 of the political agreement was the call for this insurrection; even the time and placeof this insurrection had been determined. Furthermore, they accused Makhno of having refused to go to the Caucasian front and of having started to mobilize troops from among the peasants in order to form an army against the Soviet authorities; instead of fighting Wrangel in the Crimea, the Makhnovists had been sniping at the rearguard of the Red Army, etc.

It goes without saying that all of these explanations were complete fabrications. We fortunately possess all the documents needed to expose these lies and establish the truth.

First of all, on November 23, 1920, in Pologi and Gulyai-Polye, the Makhnovists arrested nine Bolshevik spies belonging to the 42^nd Infantry Division of the Red Army, who confessed that they had been sent to Gulyai-Polye by the chief of the counter-espionage service to obtain information about the location of the houses of Makhno, the members of his staff, the commanders of the insurrectionary army and the members of the Council. After this, they were supposed to remain in Gulyai-Polye to wait for the arrival of the Red Army, and then point out where the persons in question were to be found. In case the unexpected arrival of the Red Army forced these persons to flee into hiding, the spies were supposed to shadow them and not lose sight of them. The spies declared that there was going to be an attack on Gulyai-Polye by November 24^th or 25^th.

On the basis of this, the Council of the revolutionary insurgents and the commander of the army sent to Rakovsky and to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front a detailed communication about this plot, demanding: 1) the immediate arrest and arraignment before the military tribunal of the Commander of the 42^nd Division, the Chief of Staff of the Division, and other persons involved in the plot, and 2) the prohibition of Red units traveling through Gulyai-Polye, Pologi, Malaya Takmachka and Turkenovka, in order to forestall any unpleasant incidents.

The response of the Soviet Government in Khar’kov was as follows: the so-called plot is nothing but a simple misunderstanding; nevertheless the Soviet authorities, desiring to clear up the matter, are putting it in the hands of a special commission and propose that the staff of the Makhnovist army delegate two members to take part in the work of this commission. This response was sent from Khar’kov by direct wire on November 25. The following morning, P. Rybin, secretary of the Council of revolutionary insurgents, again discussed this question with Khar’kov by direct wire; the Bolsheviks assured him that the affair of the 42^nd Division would certainly be resolved to the complete satisfaction of the Makhnovists, and added that the 4^th clause of the political agreement was also about to be settled in a satisfactory manner. This discussion took place on November 26^th at 9 a.m. However, six hours earlier, at 3 a.m., the Makhnovist representatives at Khar’kov had been seized, and all the anarchists in Khar’kov and in the rest of the Ukraine were arrested. Exactly two hours after Rybin’s conversation by direct wire, Gulyai-Polye was surrounded on all sides by Red troops and subjected to furious bombardment. On the same day and at the same hour, the Makhnovist army in the Crimea was attacked; by means of a ruse the Bolsheviks succeeded in capturing all members of the Makhnovist staff as well as its commander, Simon Karetnik, and executed every single one of them.

It is obvious that this vast operation had been carefully prepared and that its elaboration must have taken at least ten or fifteen days.

We see here not only a treacherous attack of the Soviet Government against the Makhnovists, but also the metic-ulousness with which they organized this plot and the efforts with which they dulled the vigilance of the Makhnovists by verbal assurances of their security in order to surround and destroy their forces.

Secondly, on November 27, the day after the attack on Gulyai-Polye, the Makhnovists found on the Red Army prisoners whom they captured undated proclamations entitled “Forward against Makhno!” “Death to Makhnovism! “ published by the political section of the 4^th Army. The prisoners said they had received these proclamations on November 15^th and 16^th; they contained a call to action against Makhno, who was accused of having violated the clauses of the political and military agreement, of having refused to go to the Caucasian front, of having planned an uprising against the Soviet power, etc. This proves that all these accusations were fabricated and sent to the press even while the insurrectionary army was still in the process of beating a path across the Crimea and occupying Simferopol’, and while the Makhnovist representatives were peacefully working with the Soviet authorities at Khar’kov.

Thirdly, during the months of October and November, 1920, namely while the military and political agreement between the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks was being negotiated and after it had just been concluded, two Bolshevik plots to assassinate Makhno at Gulyai-Polye were uncovered.

We should add that the central staff of the Makhnovist army in Gulyai-Polye did not receive a single order to report to the Caucasian front. At this time Makhno was suffering from a serious leg wound and did not concern himself at all with paper work, which was handled by the chief of staff, Belash, and by the Council secretary, P. Rybin, who made daily reports to the Council on all the documents received by the staff.

We should remember the manner in which the Bolsheviks delayed the publication of the text of the military-political agreement, which we described earlier. It now becomes clear why they stubbornly kept postponing the publication of this text. For the Bolsheviks this agreement was nothing more than a military and strategic step calculated to last at most a month or two — the time needed to defeat Wrangel. Once this was accomplished, they were determined to resume slandering the Makhnovists as bandits and counter-revolutionaries, and under this pretext to make war on them. This is why it was not in their interest to publish the political agreement with the Makhnovists and to present it to the judgment of the masses. They would in fact have preferred to hide the very existence of this agreement from the masses in order to continue the war against the Makhnovists under the pretext of a struggle against banditry and counter-revolution, on the very day after Wrangel’s defeat, and as if nothing had happened between the Bolsheviks and the Makhnovists.

Such are the facts concerning the breaking of the military-political pact between the Makhnovists and the Soviet power.

It is necessary to examine closely the text of this agreement. It clearly distinguishes the two opposed tendencies: the statist tendency which defends the usual privileges and prerogatives of authority; and the popular and revolutionary tendency which defends the demands of the subjugated masses against the wielders of power. It is extremely significant that the first part of the agreement, concerning the political rights of the workers, contains only Makhnovist theses. In this matter, the Soviet authorities had the classic attitude of all tyrannies: they sought to limit the demands formulated by the Makhnovists, bargained on all points, and did everything possible to reduce the rights of the working people — rights which were inalienable from and indispensable to their real freedom

We should also point out that the Makhnovists, because of their anarchist conception of struggle, were always opposed to political conspiracies. They engaged in revolutionary struggle openly, in the midst of the broad working masses, convinced that only a struggle of the revolutionary masses could lead the workers to victory; whereas conspiracies could only lead to a change of authority — an event which contradicted the very nature of the Makhnovshchina.

Thus the agreement between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks was doomed from the very beginning and could not have lasted after the defeat of Wrangel.

This is also clear from certain documents of the Soviet authorities themselves, for example, the order issued by Frunze, who was at the time commander of the southern front, a document which clearly exposes the treachery of the Bolshevik attack against the Makhnovists and reduces to nothing all their fabrications about the anarchists and the Makhnovists.

ORDER TO COMRADE MAKHNO, COMMANDER OF THE INSURRECTIONARY ARMY.

COPIES TO THE COMMANDERS OF THE ARMIES ON THE SOUTHERN FRONT. NO. 00149.

ISSUED AT GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, MELITOPOL’. NOVEMBER 23, 1920.

By reason of the cessation of hostilities against Wrangel, and in view of his complete defeat, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front considers that the task of the partisan army is completed. It therefore proposes to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Insurrectionary Army that it immediately begin transforming the insurrectionary partisan units into regular military units of the Red Army.

There is no longer any reason for the Insurrectionary Army to continue to exist as such. On the contrary, the existence, alongside of the Red Army, of these units with a special organization, pursuing special tasks, produces absolutely unacceptable results...[24] That is why the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front orders the Revolutionary Military Council of the Insurrectionary Army to do the following: 1) All units of the Insurrectionary Army formations, at present in the Crimea, should be immediately incorporated into the Fourth Army; the Revolutionary Military Council should take charge of this transfer. 2) The military formations at Gulyai-Polye should be liquidated. The combatants will be distributed among the reserve detachments, according to the instructions of the commander of that part of the Army. 3) The Revolutionary Military Council of the Insurrectionary Army shall take all necessary measures to explain to the combatants the need for these measures.

(Signed)

M. Frunze, Commander in Chief of the Southern Front;

Smil’ga, member of the Revolutionary Military Council;

Karatygin, Chief of Staff.

The reader should recall the history of the agreement between the Soviet Government and the Makhnovists.

As was said earlier, the conclusion of the agreement was preceded by negotiations between the Makhnovist plenipotentiaries and the Bolshevik delegation headed by the Communist Ivanov, which came to the Makhnovist camp at Starobel’sk especially for this purpose. These negotiations were continued at Khar’kov, where the Makhnovist representatives worked for three weeks with the Bolsheviks to conclude the pact satisfactorily. Each article was carefully examined and debated by the two parties.

The final version of this agreement was approved by the two parties, i.e., by the Soviet Government and the Revolutionary Insurgent Region represented by the Council of Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurgents, and was signed by the respective plenipotentiaries of these two sides.

According to the very nature of this agreement, none of the articles could be suspended or modified without prior agreement of the Soviet Government and the Council of Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurgents if the agreement had not been broken either by one side or by the other.

Article 1 of Part II of the agreement reads: “The Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army (Makhnovist) will join the armed forces of the Republic as a partisan army, subordinate, in regard to operations, to the supreme command of the Red Army; it will retain its established internal structure, and does not have to adopt the bases and principles of the regular Red Army.”

Frunze’s Order No. 00149 of November 23, 1920, demands that the army of the Makhnovist insurgents be liquidated, that the combatants be incorporated into the Red Army, and that “by reason of the cessation of hostilities against Wrangel and in view of his complete defeat” the Soviet power “considers that the task of the partisan army is completed.”

This order annihilates not only the above-cited first article of the military agreement, but the entire military-political agreement.

The fact that, instead of proposing a revision of, or an amendment to, the existing agreement, the Bolsheviks proceeded by way of an urgent military order enforced by arms, clearly shows that they considered the agreement to be nothing more than a trap designed to mislead the Makhnovists.

At the same time that the Makhnovists received Order No. 00149, the Fourth Red Army in the Crimea received an order to act against the Makhnovists with all the means at its disposal and to use all its military forces in case the insurgents refused to obey.

Frunze’s order is so clear that no commentary is needed in order to depict the true situation. Frunze orders the Makhnovists to liquidate their army, to become a regular division of the Red Army: he thus orders the Makhnovshchi-na to commit suicide. Such naivete would be surprising, if it had only been naivete.

In actual fact, behind this naivete there was a carefully worked-out plan, calculated to completely destroy the Makhnovshchina. Wrangel had been beaten. The Makhnovists had been put to good use. The time had come to wipe them out. Consequently, the Bolsheviks had to put an end to their existence. This is the meaning of the order.

But in spite of its brutal straightforwardness, Frunze’s order was also deceitful. Neither the staff of the insurrectionary army, stationed at Gulyai-Polye, nor the Makhnovist delegation in Khar’kov, in fact received Frunze’s order. The Makhnovists only learned about it three or four weeks after the Bolshevik attack, through some newspapers which fell into their hands. The explanation for this is simple. The Bolsheviks, who were preparing secretly for a surprise attack on the Makhnovists, could not afford to put them on their guard by sending them this order in advance, since the planned attack would then have been repulsed. This is why they kept the secret until the last moment. Frunze’s order was published in the papers only after the attack, after the break had become an accomplished fact. It appeared for the first time on December 15, 1920, in the Khar’kov newspaper Kommunist, and was given the date November 23. All these machinations had the objective of surprising the Makhnovists, of destroying them, and of explaining this action afterwards by means of “legal evidence.”

The assault on the Makhnovists was accompanied by mass arrests of anarchists. The purpose of these arrests was not only the total destruction of all anarchist thought and activity, but also the stifling of any possibility of protest, of any attempt to explain to the people the real meaning of what was happening. Not only anarchists, but also their friends and acquaintances, and those who were interested in anarchist literature, were arrested. At Elisavetgrad fifteen youths between 15 and 18 years old were arrested. Although the district authorities in Nikolaev were dissatisfied with this capture, saying that they wanted “real” anarchists and not children, none of these children were released.

In Khar’kov the pursuit of anarchists assumed proportions unheard of in Russia in past years. Snares and ambushes were organized at the homes of all local anarchists. A trap of this kind was set up in the “Vol’noe bratstvo” (“Free Brotherhood”) bookshop. Anyone who came to buy a book was seized and sent to the Cheka. They even imprisoned people who stopped to read the newspaper Nabat which had appeared legally and was posted on the wall of the bookshop. When one of the Khar’kov anarchists, Grigory Tsesnik, escaped arrest, the Bolsheviks threw his wife, who had no political interests of any kind, into prison. She started a hunger strike, demanding her immediate release. The Bolsheviks then told her that if Tsesnik wanted to obtain her release, he had only to give himself up to the Cheka. Tsesnik, though ill with tuberculosis, gave himself up and was imprisoned.

We have already mentioned that the staff of the Makhnovist army in the Crimea had been treacherously seized. The commander of the cavalry, Marchenko, although surrounded and fiercely attacked by numerous units of the Bolshevik 4^th Army, managed to escape and break a passage through the natural obstacles and barricades of the fortified Perekop Isthmus. Leading his men, or rather the remnants of his men, by forced marches during the day and night, he succeeded in rejoining Makhno in the little village of Kermen-chik, inhabited by Greeks. On December 7^th, a horseman arrived to announce that Marchenko’s troops would be there in a few hours. The Makhnovists at Kermenchik came out excitedly to meet the heroes. Their anguish can be imagined when they finally saw the small group of horsemen; instead of the powerful cavalry of 1500 men, a small detachment of 250 men returned. At their head were Marchenko and Taranovski.

“I have the honor of announcing to you — the return of the Crimean army,” said Marchenko with bitter irony. Everyone smiled sadly. “Yes, brothers,” continued Marchenko. “Now we know what the Communists are.” Makhno was somber. The sight of the broken and nearly destroyed famous cavalry shocked him. He was silent, seeking to control his emotions. A general assembly took place on the spot. The story of the events in the Crimea was retold: how the commander of the army, Karetnik, sent by the Bolshevik staff to Gulyai-Polye, ostensibly to attend a military council, was treacherously arrested on the way; how Gavrilenko, chief of staff of the Crimean army, as well as all his aides and several of the unit commanders, were deceived with a similar pretext. All those who were caught were shot immediately. The cultural-educational section, at Simferopol’, was arrested without recourse to any military ruse.