Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921. Colin Darch
cells of five to ten fighters for a terrorist campaign against German officers and pomeshchiki. In the meantime, Makhno would travel around Russia to assess the situation and contact Russian anarchist groups.55
Heading east towards Rostov-on-Don, Makhno set off on a two-month journey that would take him as far as Moscow and – reputedly – to a meeting with Lenin. Rostov was under pressure from the Whites along the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov, and from the Germans and Austrians in the west. The local anarchists had all but disappeared, and as soon as he could, Makhno moved on to Tsaritsyn, 400 kilometres northeast and far away from both Whites and Germans. He was able to ride a train with some Red Guards, as there was still some rapport between anarchists and Bolsheviks in the field, and indeed some Red Guard commanders were anarchists.56 But even with Red Guards, travelling was risky: north of Rostov, Makhno was arrested while helping to requisition food. Fortunately, he had documents proving he had been chair of the Revolutionary Committee in Guliaipole.57 In Tsaritsyn, Makhno unwisely intervened in a local dispute,58 and then, at the beginning of May, fled on a riverboat, travelling up the Volga to Saratov, 400 kilometres further north.59
As in Tsaritsyn, in Saratov the anarchist movement was in bad shape. News finally reached Makhno that the Rada had been replaced by the pseudomonarchical Hetmanate, supported by Germans and landowners. For Makhno, the news confirmed that while the Bolsheviks were responsible for Brest-Litovsk, the Left SRs shared responsibility ‘for not breaking their coalition with Lenin’s government … [and] for not ordering armed struggle … against the occupation of Ukraine’.60 Gangs of sailors roamed the town and an anarchist ‘Detachment of Odessa Terrorists’ was refusing to be disarmed.61 Again Makhno decided to move on, and set off southwards towards Astrakhan. Here the local Soviet was strong and confident, preaching Bolshevism to the Muslim population of the Volga Valley.62 Makhno got a job with the Soviet, hiding his anarchist affiliation, and was assigned to an agitation section. Meanwhile he secretly contacted the local anarchist group, which printed one of his poems in their newspaper under his prison nickname, Skromnyi, which some anarchists still remembered.63 It was his first publication.
The libertarian content of his agitation work aroused suspicion, and yet again he was compelled to move on, doubling back through Tsaritsyn and Saratov, sailing up the Volga by steamboat.64 Makhno read newspaper stories about the repressive and brutal hetman regime, and decided it was not yet time to return home. He got a ticket to Moscow by producing his identity card as chair of the Guliaipole revkom, and set off by train. The journey was slow, and all kinds of rumours were circulating. There was a delay of over 24 hours in Tambov65 before the train reached Moscow.66 Makhno’s arrival went unnoticed; he had published no theoretical articles and had been working far from the capital.
In June 1918 Bolshevik fortunes were at a low ebb. The Reds were threatened by the Germans in the west and the south, the Whites in the Caucasus and the Czech Legion and the Whites across the Urals. The Mensheviks and Right SRs had been expelled from VTsIK on 14 June, primarily because of their involvement in the so-called ‘democratic counter-revolution’. The Bolsheviks lacked an effective army and were running short of food. The railway workers in Moscow were restless, and on 19 June shooting broke out at a union meeting. A split with the Left SRs over the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was imminent. The 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened in Moscow on 4 July and the SRs, outnumbered three to one by the Bolsheviks, demonstrated noisily against the German occupation: two days later SRs disguised as Chekists assassinated the German ambassador in Moscow.67 In Kiev on 30 July, a Left SR assassinated General von Eichhorn, commander-in-chief of German forces in Ukraine. The SRs then turned against the Bolsheviks themselves, killing two leaders in Petrograd and seriously wounding Lenin in Moscow in August. The regime reacted by unleashing a campaign of terror in the autumn, allowing the unarmed and disorganised urban anarchists no room for manoeuvre. The Cheka’s role was not to judge but to strike: all types of anarchist were crushed.68
Makhno, arriving in Moscow as the crisis was peaking, was shocked by anarchist attitudes, quibbling over points of theory while the Bolsheviks entrenched themselves. Moscow was ‘the capital of the paper revolution’, producing only slogans and manifestos.69
Map 2.2Makhno’s Journey to Moscow and Back, 1918
Makhno’s journey to Moscow by train, riverboat, and in places on foot, led him all over the south between April and June, and allegedly culminated in a meeting with Lenin himself. (Cartographer: Jenny Sandler)
He visited leading anarchists and found them demoralised – even Arshinov was not interested in returning to Ukraine, and others, such as the poet Lev Chernyi, were actively cooperating with the regime. For three weeks Makhno spent his time at meetings, reading and making contacts. He attended the All-Russian Congress of Textile Unions, as well as gatherings of Left SRs.70 He was especially eager to meet Kropotkin, the elder statesman of Russian anarchism, then aged 75.71 He had been bitterly disappointed when Kropotkin supported the war in 1914, but still admired the old man. In 1917, when the anarchists of Guliaipole received news of Kropotkin’s return from 40 years in exile, ‘an indescribable joy’ had seized the group and they had sent off a letter asking for practical advice.72 Later, when Kropotkin was in need, the makhnovtsy sent some food to him in Dmitrov.73 Makhno went to see Kropotkin in Moscow in a reverent frame of mind, expecting answers to questions; however, when the two met, the outcome was inconclusive. Kropotkin, the ideinye anarchist, insisted that only Makhno could solve his own problems, remarking ‘one must bear in mind, dear comrade, that there is no sentimentality in our struggle – selflessness and strength of heart on the path to the goal one has chosen will conquer everything’. Makhno later wrote that this comment stayed in his mind and sustained him through his long struggle.74
In the posthumously-published second volume of his memoirs, Makhno describes meetings with both Sverdlov and Lenin while he was in Moscow, probably sometime between 14 and 29 June 1918.75 Makhno’s account is the only known evidence for these encounters,76 but as Louis Fischer wrote in the 1960s, Lenin often talked to peasants as a way of ‘taking the pulse’.77 Aleksandr Shubin, writing more recently, agrees: ‘the description of the conversation in Makhno’s memoirs is quite plausible’.78 Nevertheless, some caution is required; there are other errors in the volume.79 As the English translator observes, in writing the memoirs
Makhno was not interested … in serving the needs of professional historians … He portrays … himself as a supporter of some form of Ukrainian autonomy … [but] the emphasis on his nationality may be a later interpolation.80
According to Makhno, he wandered into the Kremlin complex, and managed to find the building he was looking for, where he was directed to Sverdlov’s office.81 The conversations, reconstructed from memory years later, are stilted and formulaic, exchanges of pleasantries followed by obvious questions about the class character of the Ukrainian peasantry. Lenin asked Makhno what he understood by the slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’ – the role of the soviets was a key point of difference between anarchists and Bolsheviks. Shubin has written that ‘while soldiers went to their deaths for Power to the Soviets, singing the International under the red flag, Soviet Power was becoming stronger behind them. It became clear that they were not the same thing’.82 The peasants, said Makhno, took the slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’ to mean that power over their affairs must rest with the workers themselves at the local level. The other main bone of contention was the Bolsheviks’ general lack of interest in the peasantry. Makhno claimed that Lenin told him that if there were other anarchists like him, the Bolsheviks might be willing to work with them to set up ‘free producer’s organisations’.83
On 29 June 1918 Makhno left Moscow on a slow train for the south, with a false passport and disguised as a Ukrainian officer. Arshinov was at the station to see him off.84 The trip was a risky one, and at one point he was arrested by the Austrians; he walked the last 25 kilometres to