Nestor Makhno
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Nestor Ivanovich Makhno (October 27, 1889 - July 25, 1934) was a Russian revolutionary who refused to align with the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution.
He was born into a poor peasant family in Hulyai Pole, Ukraine and participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905, after which he became an anarchist. As a result of his activism against the Tsar, in 1910 he was sent to prison. After the February Revolution in Russia, political prisoners were granted amnesty and Makhno was released. He joined the revolutionary movement in the Ukraine and helped organize against the landlords and capitalists.
In early 1918 the new Bolshevik government in Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk making peace with the Central Powers, but ceding large amounts of territory to them including the Ukraine. The people living in the Ukraine did not want to be ruled by the Central Powers, and so rebelled. Partisan units were formed that waged guerilla war against the Germans & Austrians. This rebellion turned into an anarchist revolution. Nestor Makhno was one of the main organizers of these partisan groups, who united into the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine, also called the Black Army (black being the color of anarchism), Makhnovists or Makhnovshchina (i.e., Makhnovism). The RIAU also battled against the Whites (counter-revolutionaries) and anti-semitic pogromists. In areas where the RIAU drove out opposing armies, villagers (and workers) sought to abolish capitalism and the state through organizing themselves into village assemblies, communes and free soviets. The land and factories were expropriated and self-management implemented.
The RIAU suceeded in defeating the Germans, Austrians, Ukrainian Nationalists and multiple regiments of the White Army. During the civil war they had made an alliance with the Bolsheviks against their common enemies and suceeded in a common victory. The Bolsheviks broke the alliance and, under the command of Mikhail Frunze, invaded the Ukraine, using their vastly superior rescources to conquer it and initiate a reign of terror there. Makhno fled Ukraine into exile, where he would remain the rest of his life. In the late 1920s he co-signed the Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, which put forth ideas as to how anarchists should organize based on his experience in revolutionary Ukraine and defeat at the hand of the Bolsheviks. He was cremated three days after his death, five hundred people attending his funeral.
[edit] Related
[edit] External links
- Nestor Makhno Archive
- The Makhno FAQ
- Nestor Makhno, 1889-1934 - a biography
- [http://libcom.org/library/nestor-makhno Nestor Makhno archive on libcom.org library
Russian Revolution archive on libcom.org library]
