Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921. Colin Darch
Mikhailovka, also known as Bol’shaia Mikhailovka), where Makhno encountered Fedor Shchus’, a former petty officer in the Imperial Navy, now leading a small band.113 Shchus’ agreed to join forces,114 and later became a valued commander.115 Meetings were held to discuss the successes of Denikin’s Volunteer Army in the Kuban and the Caucasus: Makhno warned that this force might prove to be their most dangerous enemy.116 While the partisans met, the Austrians and haidamaki were preparing to attack. On 30 September they set up roadblocks around Dibrovka, isolating Makhno in the forest with a group of 30 men and a machine-gun. According to one account the Austrians had a battalion of about 500 men in the village, reinforced by 200 haidamaki and auxiliaries, with reinforcements on the way.117
The makhnovtsy attempted a surprise counter-attack. Some partisans approached the main square undetected, and Shchus’ led a machine-gun detachment to the far side of the town. The Austrians, surprised, allegedly fled in panic when the insurgents opened fire from both sides of the square – but archival sources indicate that they had already departed, and ‘the gang of the anarchist Makhno terrorised the population … engaging in battle with the Warta’. The booty was insignificant, just ‘the armament of a small Warta squad’.118 Nonetheless, it was at this point that Makhno earned the honorific Bat’ko,119 a moment that Golovanov argues acquired a ‘sacred meaning’ that is ‘undoubtedly a key to the whole mythology of Makhno’.120 While the historical status of the engagement at Dibrovka as a military operation against Austro-Hungarian units is therefore questionable, its symbolic importance as a personal victory for Makhno – who escaped the encirclement and gained the loyalty of his followers – remains undeniable.121
The German general staff were annoyed by the unrest, and the Commander-in-Chief in Kiev ordered that Makhno’s band should be eliminated.122 On 5 October the Austrians bombarded Dibrovka with artillery, wounding both Makhno and Shchus’ and forcing out both the insurgents and many residents. The remaining peasants were abandoned to the swift reprisals of the Austrians and the haidamaki, who burned their houses down. The next night, when the partisans were a day’s march away, they saw a glow in the sky from the blaze.123 Later, in what rapidly became a ‘devastating vendetta’, the makhnovtsy took revenge on the Mennonite colonists who had collaborated with the Germans and the Hetmanate. Later, monetary and other indemnities were imposed on them; horses, carts, food and weapons were seized for military purposes.124
By the autumn of 1918 the Central Powers were losing the war on the Western Front, and their grip on Ukraine loosened. In October the Austro-Hungarians left Guliaipole, and the insurgents marched in.125 Makhno’s power in the area now seemed secure, and he tested his strength by sending a message to the Hetmanate’s commander in Aleksandrovsk, demanding the immediate release of five Guliaipole prisoners, including his brother Ssava. The authorities refused, but assured Makhno that no harm would come to the prisoners.126
Makhno believed that an organised army was necessary to defend political gains, but as an anarchist, he also believed that no person had the right to command another. At an extraordinary conference held in late 1918 in Guliaipole he proposed a solution: the reorganisation of the various partisan bands as ‘federal’ units of a standing army with its headquarters in Guliaipole. Through such a reorganisation, and by maintaining a tight cohesion among the units and the staff, argued Makhno, the federal principle could be guaranteed, and they could organise effective common defence.127 He envisaged units of combined cavalry and tachanki that could cover large areas at speed. Some insurgents argued against these ideas, on the grounds that there were no professional commanders in the movement with the experience necessary to conduct operations on a large scale.128 The command staff consisted of Makhno himself as commander-in-chief, Viktor Belash as chief of staff and, additionally, a Bolshevik and a Left SR.129 Makhno began to conduct conventional operations and in late October led a raid to the right bank of the Dnepr, collecting large supplies of arms.
He established three fronts; at the railway junctions of Chaplino-Grishino to the north, from Tsarekonstantinovka to Pologi in Mariupol’ region, and at Orekhov in the Tauride. Pologi was an important railway junction between Chaplino and Berdiansk, connecting Aleksandrovsk and Ekaterinoslav to the Sea of Azov. The railways had continued to function, transporting troops and military cargo, as well as metal ores, coal and other commodities. From October onwards, the makhnovtsy began to raid the trains for booty. The departure of the Germans and Austrians created a surge of refugees, including former collaborators, along the lines of rail. One memoir tells of Makhno himself appearing at Pologi station in November:
The railway station was brightly illuminated, and soldiers paced up and down on patrol … Makhno himself was strolling about among the refugees and observing the crowd … people recognised him and pointed him out … [but] no-one even thought of delivering him to the Austrians.130
Eventually the refugees were allowed to depart for Berdiansk unharmed.131
Without German support, Skoropadskii’s position was deemed untenable. Symon Petliura, Volodymyr Vynnychenko and other former members of the Rada had been forming a new, radical nationalist government, the Directory, since late summer, and they triggered a revolt in November. Their army entered Kiev on 14 December 1918.132 Makhno had doubts: Vynnychenko might indeed be creating a new government in Ukraine, he told his supporters,
… but I ask you, comrades, where among the toilers in the revolutionary towns and villages of Ukraine are to be found such fools as to believe in the ‘socialism’ of this Petliurist-Vynnychenkovist Ukrainian government … ?’133
Despite this, the makhnovtsy adopted, with reservations, a policy of armed neutrality towards the Directory. Makhno believed that it had compromised itself politically by including Petliura, who had collaborated with the Central Powers during the invasion. Vynnychenko’s democratic socialism might have made a military alliance acceptable to the anarchists, but the Directory’s opportunism and lack of a mandate were deal-breakers: politically the makhnovtsy believed that the Directory was worse than the Rada.134 While not seeking a fight, the makhnovtsy were ready should the need arise.135
On 26 December the Directory abolished the Hetmanate’s police system (the Warta), and recognised trade unions and the right to strike.136 It declared itself to be the Revolutionary Provisional Government of Ukraine, accusing the bourgeoisie and the landowners of bringing ruin on the country.137 However, it struggled to control its Galician military units and could not compete effectively with a rival Bolshevik ‘provisional government-in-exile’, set up in Moscow in November 1918 under Georgii Piatakov, ‘to mask the intervention and the split in the Ukrainian [communist] movement’.138
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It is unclear how strong Makhno’s forces actually were in late 1918. One source indicates that he commanded 300–400 infantry and 150 cavalry, with another 2,000 armed partisans in reserve. Timoshchuk argues that this is an underestimate, citing Denikin’s estimate of five to six thousand fighters, and a report in a Ekaterinoslav newspaper that ‘10,000 well-armed and equipped makhnovtsy’ had helped to restore Soviet power in Pavlograd and Guliaipole. Moreover, he comments, the higher number ‘seems more likely, since at the end of December the makhnovtsy played a major role in the capture of Ekaterinoslav’.139
In late December the Red Army,140 under the command of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, began to advance into Ukraine from the north.141 Antonov’s superior officer, the Latvian commander-in-chief of the Red Army, Ioakim Vatsetis (Latvian: Jukums Vācietis) was more concerned with the threat of P. N. Krasnov’s Don Army, to the southeast of Voronezh, and too close to Moscow for comfort. He refused to give Antonov more than the minimum of troops and weapons, and ordered him to attack behind Krasnov’s lines to the southeast, away from Ukraine.142 Nevertheless, Antonov’s offensive from the north gathered momentum. His forces consisted of two ill-disciplined, under-manned and badly armed divisions of fewer than 4,000 men.143 Antonov devised a strategy hinging upon the