Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921. Colin Darch

difficult idea to swallow for the Bolsheviks was that of ‘freely accepted discipline’. At least theoretically, the troops voted on every regulation, and if passed, each rule was rigorously enforced ‘on the individual responsibility of each insurgent and each commander’.²⁷ However, direct orders were to be obeyed immediately: a few years later, during his trial in Poland, Makhno angrily insisted that his men would ‘unhesitatingly’ carry out their orders.²⁸ Bolshevik military policy, on the other hand, had evolved from a position based primarily on political considerations, to one in which the problems of fighting to defend the revolution were of first importance. During the war against the Central Powers the Bolsheviks had denounced the militarism of the Tsarist regime. They had urged the peasant soldiers to rebel against the authority of their officers, who belonged to the class enemy. This tactic successfully undermined the Imperial Army, a weapon in the hands of the autocracy. The Bolsheviks infected it with revolutionary defeatism, both by agitation among the troops and by exploiting the soldiers’ concrete experience of their commanders’ cynical incompetence. By March 1918, when Trotsky became People’s Commissar for War (Narkomvoen), all that remained of the Imperial Army was Vatsetis’ division of Latvian riflemen.²⁹ The sentiments of the masses were a mixture of an emotional belief in pacifism and their trust in the Red Guards and the partisan detachments. For example, whether anarchist, SR, or Bolshevik, most revolutionaries believed that officers should be chosen by their troops. Trotsky abandoned these democratic and anti-authoritarian ideas in favour of centralisation and tough discipline. There were good reasons for the reversal, but it gave partisans like Makhno the advantage of appearing more consistent and more faithful to the Russian revolutionary tradition. The makhnovtsy made maximum use of this point in their propaganda.³⁰

      Trotsky believed that the peasants were the least reliable members of the Red Army. They deserted in droves, and their morale was often fragile. ‘The chaos of irregular warfare expressed the peasant element that lay beneath the revolution’, he wrote in 1929, ‘whereas the struggle against it was also a struggle in favor of the proletarian state organization as opposed to the elemental, petty-bourgeois anarchy that was undermining it’.³¹ However, Trotsky was quite prepared to recruit former Imperial officers for their military expertise, so long as the army contained a core of proletarians on whose support the Bolsheviks could politically depend.³² He placed political commissars alongside the officers, from company level up to the commander-in-chief. Orders were valid only if both officer and commissar agreed. Thus, the Bolshevik leadership, with the support of small numbers of worker-soldiers, hoped to provide an example of dedication and enthusiasm, combined with iron discipline – the certainty of death in the rear – to hold the new army together. But the incorporation of units such as Makhno’s into the Red Army as regular troops presented difficult practical problems, and there were regular clashes. When the first commissars arrived in the Makhnovite regiments they discovered a general lack of organisation and discipline. The 3rd Brigade’s commissar reported from Guliaipole that, ‘the headquarters as such do not exist. There were a few men, headed by the Brigade commander, who ran the whole brigade […] everything was in a state of uncertainty and chaos’.³³

      Meanwhile, Makhno continued to consolidate his political base. A second regional congress was held in Guliaipole from 12–16 February³⁴ at which Makhno refused his nomination as presiding chair, citing the pressure of military events at the front.³⁵ Both Nabat and the Left SRs were represented, and speeches were made condemning attempts by the Bolsheviks to monopolise the soviets.³⁶ Importantly, the congress established a Military-Revolutionary Soviet (Voenno-Revoliutsionnaia Sovet or VRS) with ten members, of whom seven were anarchists, as its executive arm.³⁷ The congress retained, at least in theory, the right to dissolve the VRS.³⁸ After heated debate, the congress also resolved that a ‘general voluntary and egalitarian mobilisation’ should be called, which placated anarchist objections to enforced conscription, and also had the effect of creating a militia force with a centralised command structure, recruited village by village.³⁹ Makhno’s comrade Petr Arshinov claimed that the decision resulted in a greater influx of volunteers, but he admits that most of them were turned away because there were no guns for them.⁴⁰ Indeed, by May, the troop strength had reportedly grown to as many as 55,000 men, of whom only about 20,000 or so were actually armed.⁴¹

      On 19 February the order creating the Trans-Dnepr Division out of Makhno’s, Dybenko’s and Grigor’ev’s units was finally issued. Makhno’s troops – the 3rd Brigade – consisted of the 7th, 8th and 9th Rifle Regiments, and the 19th and 20th regiments.⁴² The immediate benefit for Makhno was that he received several thousand Italian rifles, ammunition and funds to pay his soldiers.⁴³ Nevertheless, conditions for the Reds remained precarious: one political commissar reported that his troops had no equipment or uniforms, there were no billets, there were no medical staff even though a typhoid epidemic was raging, and nobody had been paid for months.⁴⁴ At the time Makhno was skirmishing to the southwest of Guliaipole, and he received orders to make contact with the Donbass units to his left.⁴⁵ The Red Army’s primary military task in the south was to consolidate its advanced positions, and to destroy the White forces in the Donbass.⁴⁶

      In general, the spring of 1919 was a period of moderate success for the Red Army, as it pushed the Whites eastwards out of the Donbass. In March, Makhno’s brigade was ordered to cut off the White forces in the Berdiansk sector, as well as those operating further west from Melitopol’.⁴⁷ The makhnovtsy had already moved to secure the key railway junction at Pologi, on the line connecting Berdiansk to its hinterland. The station was defended by a White force of 500 men, with another 1,500 covering the approaches. The fighting, with artillery and armoured trains deployed, lasted for six days at the beginning of February and ended with a pincer movement executed by the makhnovtsy and Red Army detachments.⁴⁸ The defenders did not combine well, and were later even accused of cowardice,⁴⁹ but in any event, the insurgents captured significant amounts of weaponry and materiel.⁵⁰ The Red commander Pavel Dybenko commended Makhno’s ‘brilliant leadership’ in personally leading the attack.⁵¹ The subsequent advance towards Berdiansk was slowed by White resistance at the railway station of Velikii Tokmak, southeast of Aleksandrovsk, but the insurgents finally captured it on 10 March.⁵²

      For the time being at least the anarchist forces were popular with the Soviet authorities on military, if not on political grounds. Antonov issued an order emphasising the need to ‘maximize on Makhno’s success’ in making contact with the enemy and driving them from the Berdiansk and Mariupol’ area. He ordered the movement of troops and arms from the Crimea to reinforce Makhno’s group for the assault.⁵³ The 3rd Brigade launched a ‘decisive and energetic attack’ that carried them as far as the junction of the Mariupol’-Platanovka railway, where they quickly destroyed the defending force.⁵⁴ The commissars noticed the effect of the partisans’ success on the morale of other units. The political inspector of one Trans-Dnepr regiment reported that there was a glut of volunteers, but – again – no weapons for them. He suspected that they were motivated by the prospect of easy loot; ‘all are drawn to Makhno, whose popularity is inconceivable’. He suggested that the political situation could be corrected after the military one was more firmly under control.⁵⁵

      The insurgents continued their advance towards Berdiansk. On 16 March Pravda reported that ‘our forces’ – that is to say, the insurgents – were moving south, and Izvestiia reported around the same time that the insurgent forces were driving back some of the best regiments of the former Imperial Guard.⁵⁶ Berdiansk was defended by the local Krims’ko-Azovs’ka Dobrovol’cha Armiia (Crimea-Azov Volunteer Army, or KADA) which, according to a local memoir, dismissed the Makhno threat as inconsequential – since they were just bandits, while KADA was made up of ‘proper soldiers’.⁵⁷ But their confidence was misplaced: Makhno’s advance began to create an atmosphere of panic in Berdiansk town, which at that time had a population of around 30,000, mainly made up of Russians, but with Greeks, Jews, Italians, Bulgarians and Turks as well.⁵⁸ Ticket prices on departing steamships were sold for highly speculative prices as ‘bankers, merchants, homeowners, and the staff of foreign consulates’ tried to secure passage to safety.⁵⁹