October 26, 1888 — July 6, 1934
Description : Nestor Makhno was the leader of a libertarian peasant and worker army and insurrection in the Ukraine which successfully fought Ukrainian nationalists, the Whites, the Bolsheviks and the bourgeoisie and put anarchism into practice in the years following the Russian Revolution. (From : Intro to Struggle Against the State)
Tags : anarchist, russian civil war, anarcho-communist, revolutionary, ukrainian, anti-bolshevik, militia, commander, guerrilla.
Quotes :
"The more a man becomes aware, through reflection, of his servile condition, the more indignant he becomes, the more the anarchist spirit of freedom, determination and action waxes inside him. That is true of every individual, man or woman, even though they may never have heard the word 'anarchism' before." (From : "The ABC of the Revolutionary Anarchist," by Nestor Makhno, Probuzdeniye, No. 18, Jan. 1931.)
"As an individual, man gets back to his authentic personality when he rejects false thinking about life and reduces it to ashes, thereby recovering his real rights. It is through this dual operation of rejection and affirmation that the individual becomes a revolutionary anarchist and a conscious communist." (From : "The ABC of the Revolutionary Anarchist," by Nestor Makhno, Probuzdeniye, No. 18, Jan. 1931.)
"Arrest all governors for as long as need be, tear up and burn their laws! Tear down the prisons, once you have annilihated the executioners and eradicated all State power!" (From : "The ABC of the Revolutionary Anarchist," by Nestor Makhno, Probuzdeniye, No. 18, Jan. 1931.)
"The free man, on the other hand, has thrown away the trammels of the past together with its lies and brutality. He has buried the rotten corpse of slavery and the notion that the past is better. Man has already partially liberated himself from the fog of lies and brutality, which enslaved him from the day of his birth, from the worship of the bayonet, money, legality, and hypocritical science." (From : "The Anarchist Revolution," by Nestor Makhno.)
"Burn their laws and destroy their prisons, kill the hangmen, the bane of mankind. Smash authority!" (From : "The Anarchist Revolution," by Nestor Makhno.)
"The first of May is the symbol of a new era in the life and struggle of the toilers, an era that each year offers the toilers fresh, increasingly tough and decisive battles against the bourgeoisie, for the freedom and independence wrested from them, for their social ideal." (From : "The First of May," by Nestor Makhno, First Published: May 1, 1928.)
"I take revolutionary discipline to mean the self-discipline of the individual, set in the context of a strictly-prescribed collective activity equally incumbent upon all." (From : "On Revolutionary Discipline," Dyelo Truda, No. 7-8, December 1925-January 1926.)
"Long live the fratenal and shared hopes of all Anarchist militants that they may see the realization of that grand undertaking -- the endeavor of our movement and of the social revolution for which we struggle!" (From : "On the History of the Spanish Revolution of 1931," France 1931.)
"...any State, whether bourgeois or proletarian, tends, by its very nature, simply to exploit and oppress man, to destroy in each and every one of us all the natural qualities of the human spirit that strive for equality and for the solidarity that underpins it." (From : "Paths of 'Proletarian' Power," Probuzdeniye, No. 18, January 1932.)
"'Soviet' power is a power no better and no worse than any other. Currently, it is every bit as wobbly and absurd as any State power in general." (From : "'Soviet' Power -- Its Present and Its Future," Bor'ba (The Struggle), Paris, No. 19-20.)
Biography :
Nestor Makhno was the leader of a libertarian peasant and worker army and insurrection in the Ukraine which successfully fought Ukrainian nationalists, the Whites, the Bolsheviks and the bourgeoisie and put anarchism into practice in the years following the Russian Revolution.Makhno was a committed anarchist who had spent years in Russian prisons for his political activities. Released from jail by the February revolution he returned to his village of Gulai-Polye and threw himself into organizing unions, communes and soviets.
During the Russian civil-war he proved himself to be a brilliant military commander, whose partisans saved the Red Army from crushing military defeat at the hands of the Whites. When the White threat had been removed, the Bolshevik State turned on the Machnovshchina and eventually defeated them and their revolutionary achievements.
The history of the Machnovshchina has been consistently distorted by the Soviet state and its apologists.
Nestor Makhno was born in 1888 and was brought up by his mother only. His father died in his early years. He went to school from ages 8-11. He worked partially as a shepherd from age 7 to 12, and from age 12-15 as an agricultural worker. From age 15 to 17 he worked in a local casting factory. He was part of the Revolutionary effort of 1905. He was sent to jail for murdering a police officer, and during his nine-year term is where he learned and first encountered anarchism. He studied anarchism in jail with Peter Arshinov. Prison was like school to him. He spent a whole lot of time in solitary confinement. He was condemned to death at age 17 but was given a long sentence because of his age.
From : Anarchy Archives.
Works :
Author of Exchange Between Malatesta and Makhno on the Platform (November 30, 1929)
Author of The ABC of the Revolutionary Anarchist (November 30, 1931)
Author of The Anarchist Revolution (January 01, 1970)
Author of Letter to the Spanish Anarchists (April 29, 1931)
Author of In Memory of the Kronstadt Revolt (February 28, 1926)
Author of The First of May (May 01, 1928)
Author of My Visit To The Kremlin (November 30, 1978)
Author of On the History of the Spanish Revolution of 1931 and the Part Played by the Left and Right-Wing Socialists and the Anarchists (November 30, 1932)
Author of Summons (November 30, 1906)
Author of The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays (November 30, 1925)
Author of To the Jews of All Countries (March 31, 1927)
Author of Great October in the Ukraine (November 30, 1926)
Author of The Manifesto of The Makhnovists (November 30, 1917)
Author of The Russian Revolution in Ukraine (March 1917 — April 1918) (November 30, 1925)
Author of To All Peasants and Workers of the Ukraine (January 01, 1970)
Author of Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists (January 01, 1970)
Author of Over the Fresh Grave of Comrade N. Rogdaev (January 21, 1933)
Author of Anarchism and Our Times (August 31, 1925)
Author of Our Organization (October 31, 1925)
Author of On Revolutionary Discipline (January 01, 1970)
Author of The Problem of Organization and the Notion of Synthesis (February 28, 1926)
Author of Supplement to the Organizational Platform (Questions and Answers) (November 02, 1926)
Author of Reply to Invitation to Join the Anarchist Communist International (February 12, 1927)
Author of On Defense of the Revolution (January 01, 1970)
Author of Reply to Anarchism's Confusionists (August 18, 1927)
Author of Anarchist Communist Manifesto (January 01, 1970)
Author of The Idea of Equality and the Bolsheviks (January 31, 1926)
Author of The Makhnovshchina and Anti-Semitism (October 31, 1927)
Author of On the 10th Anniversary of the Makhnovist Insurgent Movement in the Ukraine (December 31, 1927)
Author of A Few Words on the National Question in the Ukraine (November 30, 1928)
Author of "Soviet" Power (October 25, 1931)
Author of The Paths of "Proletarian" Power (January 01, 1970)
Author of Declaration of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist) (January 07, 1920)
Author of Comrade Peasants! (February 08, 1920)
Author of A Word to the Peasants and Workers of the Ukraine (February 29, 1920)
Author of Manifesto of the Insurgent Army (April 27, 1920)
Author of Comrades in the Red Army, on the Front Line and in the Home Guard! (May 09, 1920)
Author of Down with Fratricide! (April 30, 1920)
Author of To all Workers of the Plough and the Hammer! (April 30, 1920)
Author of Summons to the 4th Extraordinary Congress (May 31, 1919)
Author of To the Young People (May 31, 1920)
Author of A Word from the Makhnovists to the Laboring Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban (May 31, 1920)
Author of Comrades in the Red Army! (May 31, 1920)
Author of Pause! Read! Consider! (May 31, 1920)
Chronology :
October 26, 1888 : Nestor Makhno's Birth Day.
July 06, 1934 : Nestor Makhno's Death Day.
November 15, 2016 : Nestor Makhno's Added.
January 09, 2022 : Nestor Makhno's Updated.
Links :
• Anarchy Archives: Nestor Makhno Archive
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/makhno/Makhno.html
• Anarchist Library: Nestor Makhno
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/nestor-makhno
• Wikipedia: Nestor Makhno
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Makhno
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