The Russian Revolution in Ukraine (March 1917 — April 1918)

Part 2 - Chapter 19 : Counter-Revolution of the Ukrainian Central Rada
At the end of the Congress, the delegates dispersed to their homes. We, Comrade Mironov and I, went to the Anarchist Federation with the intention of finding some good propagandists we could take back with us to the countryside. The Federation was in a better state than when I visited it in August while attending the Provincial Congress of Peasants and Workers. At that time I visited its various sections (the club, etc.). The Federation was still rather weak — it was barely able to tend to the city and its adjacent settlements — Amur, Nizhne-Dneprovsk, and Kaidaki. And yet the Federation was rich in armaments: carbines, rifles, and cartridges. In view of the unusual situation holding sway in the city, the Bolshevik — Left-SR authorities had freely issued weapons to the Ekaterinoslav Federation of Anarchists, without any control whatsoever. The Bloc saw the Federation of Anarchists as true revolutionaries who spurned the Ukrainian nationalists, backed up a... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 2 - Chapter 30 : Egorov’s Urgent Summons; the Loss of Our Military Sector
It was a very tense moment. The Ukrainian nationalist organization seemed to be moribund. Its members didn’t say anything, they mostly just did what they were asked to do. The artillery and infantry were tuned up. We intended to advance but didn’t have panoramic sights for our cannon. We sent a telegram to Belenkevich: could he not provide us with new panoramic sights? We didn’t get an answer. At night Ukrainian SRs — the agronomist Dmitrenko and two youths — the fanatical nationalists P. Kovalenko and Mikita Konoplya — cut all the telegraph and telephone wires outside of Gulyai-Pole. This deprived me of connections with the staff of the Red Army command. I made sure all the peasants were informed about this evil deed. After a few hours connections were reestablished. I got word from Belenkevich that the panoramic sights and spare parts for the cannons and machine guns should be found in certain boxes in a certain railway car. Everything... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 2 - Chapter 29 : Consolidation of the Detachments; Formation of a Single Front with the Left Bloc
Things were happening fast. The German and Austro-Hungarian armies, led by General Eichorn, were already approaching Ekaterinoslav; from another direction shells were fired on Aleksandrovsk from near the Kichkass Bridge, about 80 kilometers from Gulyai-Pole. Opposing them were the Red Guard detachments commanded by General Egorov as well as numerous independent detachments which received weapons and ammunition from Egorov and the chief of the reserve Red Army of the “South of Russia” Belenkevich. These autonomous units acted at their own risk and peril — most often in sectors where there were no enemies. These forces were recalled urgently from Crimea to the region of Verkhnij Tokmak and Pologi. But there was no longer any question of disembarking these troops from their echelons. They had been withdrawn from the Front too soon, which had clearly influenced their fighting spirit. They now talked only of getting as far as possible from the Front, to branch... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 2 - Chapter 28 : The Successes of the German-Austrian Armies and the Ukrainian Central Rada Against the Revolution; Agents of the Counter-Revolution and the Struggle Against Them
In March, 1918 the city of Kiev and most of Right Bank Ukraine was occupied by expeditionary armies of the imperial German and Austro-Hungarian empires. After reaching an agreement with the Central Rada, directed by Ukrainian socialists under the presidency of the ancient SR Professor M. Hrushevsky, these armies entered Ukrainian territory and began a vile attack against the Revolution. With the direct assistance of the Central Rada and its agents, the German and Austro-Hungarian command extended a network of counter-revolutionary espionage over the whole Ukraine. While the expeditionary armies and the troops of the Central Rada were still on the right bank of the Dnepr, the Left Bank part of Ukraine was already infested with their numerous agents, spies, and provocateurs. During this period, not a day passed in Gulyai-Pole itself, or in its raion, without some meeting where there was an attempt to induce the toilers to repudiate the Revolution for the benefit of t... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 2 - Chapter 27 : The Agrarian Communes; Their Organization; Their Enemies
February — March, 1918. The moment had come to distribute the livestock and implements which had been seized from the pomeshchiks in the autumn of 1917 and to organize agrarian communes on the former estates. All the toilers of the raion understood the importance of decisive action at this moment, both for the construction of a new life, and for its defense. Under the direction of the Revkom, ex-soldiers from the Front began moving all the implements and livestock from the estates of the pomeshchiks and large farms to a central holding area. Their former owners were left with two pairs of horses, one or two cows (depending on the size of the family), one plow, one seeding machine, one mower, one winnowing machine, etc. Meanwhile the peasants went to the fields to finish the division of the land begun in the fall. At the same time some peasants and workers, previously organized into agrarian communes, left their villages and, with their whole families, took possession of the... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

How the Exchange of Goods Between City and Village was Organized and How we Struggled to Make it Work
From the beginning of its work in organizing the peasants, the Anarchist Communist Group had insisted on the necessity of carrying on this work in an anarchist manner. We needed to apply anarchist principles consistently in a various contexts. At first our tactics aroused protests from some members of the Group. Although entirely devoted to the cause, they were used to the old ways: negation of organization, of unity of action, of the possibility of remaining anarchists while applying its principles under a regime that was not anarchist, not even truly socialist. I was often told: “Comrade Nestor, apparently in prison you became imbued with statist ways of getting things done and now you are carried away with doing things that way and... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Provincial Soviet Makes Advances to Gulyai-Pole
While Comrade Antonov and myself were in Aleksandrovsk, the Executive Committee of the Ekaterinoslav Provincial Soviet of Workers’, Peasants’, and Soldiers’ Deputies began to direct serious attention towards Gulyai-Pole. This Committee, politically astute, did not have recourse to repressions as is normally the case with inconsiderate and foolish revolutionary and counter-revolutionary politicians. Instead it resorted to “political wisdom”: by-passing the uyezd level, it sent a proposal to the Gulyai-Pole Soviet to delegate its own permanent representative to the Provincial Executive Committee of Soviets. In the course of the discussion on this proposal, the Gulyai-Pole Soviet was astonished by the following ci... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

P.A. Kropotkin Arrives in Russia; Meeting with Ekaterinoslav Anarchists
Around this time we received news that P. A. Kropotkin was already in Petrograd. The local newspapers had written about this, but we, peasant-anarchists, not hearing his powerful appeal to anarchists and his detailed instructions about how the anarchists should begin to overcome the fragmentation in their own movement so we could take our rightful place in the Revolution, did not believe the newspapers. But now we received newspapers and letters directly from Petrograd indicating that P. A. Kropotkin had been taken ill on the journey from London to Russia but had safely arrived at the very heart of the revolution — Petrograd. We heard about how he had been greeted by the socialists in power, in particular by A. Kerensky. The joy in th... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Visit to the Factory Workers of Aleksandrovsk
In spite of the reaction which reigned in all the government institutions and in the workers’ Soviet of Aleksandrovsk towards the toilers of Gulyai-Pole raion, the delegates of the Gulyai-Pole Soviet and the Congress, namely Comrade Antonov and myself, left for Aleksandrovsk with the aim of presenting to the factory workers a report on “the Counter-Revolution in the city and uyezd of Aleksandrovsk”, because we were convinced that revolutionary Gulyai-Pole could have an impact in Aleksandrovsk. The authorities received us with hostility but didn’t dare hinder us from making an official tour of all the factories, plants, and workshops so we could let the workers know what the peasants were thinking and what measures th... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Struggle Against Rent
The month of June. The peasants of the Gulyai-Pole raion refused to pay the second installment of their land rent to the pomeshchiks and kulaks. They hoped that after the harvest they would seize the land themselves without entering into any negotiations with either the owners of the government which protected the owners. Then the peasants would divide the land between themselves and any factory workers who wished to cultivate it themselves. Several other uyezds and raions followed the example of Gulyai-Pole. In Aleksandrovsk there was alarm among the government authorities and their agents from the Socialist and Constitutional-Democratic Parties — the S-Rs, S-Ds, and Kadets. With the technical and financial assistance of the Public C... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)