Nestor Makhno

"Makhno" redirects here. For other uses, see Makhno (disambiguation).

Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (Ukrainian: Не́стор Івáнович Махно́, [ˈnɛstor iˈwɑnowɪtʃ mɐxˈnɔ]; November 8 [O.S. October 27] 1888 – July 25, 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno (Ukrainian: Бáтько Махно́; [ˈbɑtʲko mɐxˈnɔ], "Father Makhno"), was a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of an independent anarchist army in Ukraine from 1917 to 1921.

Bat'ko Nestor Makhno
Не́стор Івáнович Махно́
Personal details
Born	Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (1888-11-08)November 8, 1888 Huliaipole, Yekaterinoslav, Russian Empire
Died	July 25, 1934(1934-07-25) (aged 45) Paris, France
Resting place	Père Lachaise Cemetery, Columbarium niche 6685
Spouse(s)	Halyna Kouzmenko
Children	Yelena
Military service
Allegiance	Free Territory
Service	Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine
Years of service	1918–1921
Battles/wars	Ukrainian War of Independence

Makhno was the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, commonly referred to as the Makhnovshchina (loosely translated as "Makhno movement"). The Makhnovshchina was a predominantly peasant phenomenon that grew into a mass social movement. It was initially centered around Makhno's hometown Huliaipole but over the course of the Russian Civil War came to exert a strong influence over large areas of southern Ukraine. Makhno and the movement's leadership were anarcho-communists and attempted to guide the movement along these ideological lines. Makhno was aggressively opposed to all factions that sought to impose their authority over southern Ukraine, battling in succession the forces of the Ukrainian National Republic, the Central Powers of Germany and Austro-Hungary, the Hetmanate state, the White Army, the Bolshevik Red Army, and other smaller forces led by various Ukrainian atamans. He is also credited as the inventor of the tachanka—a horse-drawn carriage with a mounted heavy machine gun. Makhno and his supporters attempted to reorganize social and economic life along anarchist lines, including the establishment of communes on former landed estates, the requisition and egalitarian redistribution of land to the peasants, and the organization of free elections to local soviets (councils) and regional congresses. However, the disruption of the civil war precluded a stable territorial base for any long-term social experiments.

Although Makhno considered the Bolsheviks a threat to the development of an anarchist Free Territory within Ukraine, he entered into formal military alliances twice with the Red Army to defeat the White Army. In the aftermath of the White Army's defeat in Crimea in November 1920, the Bolsheviks initiated a military campaign against Makhno. After an extended period of open resistance against the Red Army, Makhno fled across the Romanian border in August 1921. In exile, Makhno settled in Paris with his wife Halyna and daughter Yelena. During this period, Makhno wrote numerous memoirs and articles for radical newspapers. Makhno also played an important role in the development of platformism and the debates around the 1926 Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft). Makhno died in 1934 in Paris at the age of 45 from tuberculosis-related causes.

Early life

On November 8 [O.S. October 27] 1888, Nestor Makhno was born into a poor peasant family in Huliaipole, a town in the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine). He was the youngest of five children, born to Ivan Mikhnenko and Evdokia Makhnovka, a couple of former serfs that had been emancipated in 1861.

Nestor Makhno in 1906

Unable to feed his family on their small plot of land, following Nestor's birth, Ivan Mikhnenko went to work as a coachman for a wealthy industrialist. When Nestor was only ten months old, his father died, leaving behind an impoverished family. Nestor was briefly fostered to a more well-off peasant couple, but he was unhappy with them and returned to his family of birth. At only seven years old, the young Nestor was put to work tending livestock. When he turned eight years old, he began his education in a local secular school, starting off as a model student before increasingly committing truancy. One day, while ditching school to go ice skating, Nestor fell through the ice and nearly drowned, being forced to walk home in frozen clothes, contributing to the beginning of his breathing problems. After returning to his studies, he went to work on the estate of a kulak, bringing home 20 rubles over the course of the summer. Nestor's brothers also worked as farmhands, all contributing to help their family subsist.

When Nestor returned to school, he again proved to be a gifted student, excelling in arithmetic and reading. However, that school year proved to be his last, as his family's extreme poverty forced the ten year old Nestor to begin working in the fields full-time, which led him to develop a "sort of rage, resentment, even hatred for the wealthy property-owner". Nestor's aversion to the landlords only increased over time, nurtured by stories his mother told him of her time in serfdom and tales of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. In the summer of 1902, when Nestor was twelve, he observed a farm manager and the landlord's sons physically beating a young farmhand. He quickly alerted an older stable boy "Batko Ivan", who attacked the assailants and led a wildcat strike action against the landlord. After the affair was settled, Ivan told Nestor: "if one of your masters should ever strike you, pick up the first pitchfork you lay hands on and let him have it..." The following year, Nestor quit working in the fields and found a job in a foundry. At this time, his older brothers had left home and started their own families, leaving only the young Nestor and Grigory with their mother. Nestor moved between jobs, quitting his job at a wine merchants' within months of starting, which began his life-long distaste for alcohol, according to Alexandre Skirda. He started to focus his work on his mother's land, occasionally returning to employment to help provide for his brothers.

When the 1905 revolution broke out, the seventeen year old Nestor quickly became engaged in revolutionary politics, first distributing propaganda for the social democrats before joining the Union of Poor Peasants, an anarchist group in his hometown of Huliaipole that "[rid] his soul once and for all of the lingering remnants of the slightest spirit of servility and submission to any authority." But the Tsarist authorities were already repressing revolutionary elements, sending some Don Cossacks to pacify Huliaipole, where even teachers came under the state's attacks. Despite the political climate, the dozen-strong group continued to meet weekly, inspiring Nestor Makhno to devote himself completely to the revolution.

Nestor Makhno (bottom-left) sitting with other members of the Union of Poor Peasants in 1907.

After six months in the group, Makhno had "fully digested the ideals and goals of libertarian communism" and became a formal member. The group distributed libertarian propaganda among the peasantry, carried out a campaign of "Black Terror" against the Tsarist autocracy and executed "expropriations" against local businessmen. The money they stole was used either to print more propaganda or to purchase weapons and explosives. When the Stolypin reform abolished community assemblies (obshchina), the kulaks grew even wealthier, leading the group to begin setting fire to the property of wealthy landowners. Makhno was arrested in September 1907, but after ten months of interrogation in prison, he was released without charges. As the rest of the group's members had been outlawed, Makhno founded another anarchist study group in a neighboring village, where two-dozen members would gather on a weekly basis to discuss anarchist theory.

Nestor Makhno in 1909

This new group quickly found themselves infiltrated, seeing the execution of two spies and one of their meetings broken up by the Okhrana, which the group managed to escape after a shootout with the police. When one of their members was killed in the clash, the group responded by plotting to execute the provincial governor, but their attempts failed and Makhno was arrested following another shootout. One of the group's members confessed during interrogations, leading to 16 group members being arrested and the others fleeing into exile. One of those that fled to Belgium was Alexander Semenyuta, who soon returned to Huliaipole, where he assassinated the local police superintendent and led a failed attempt to break the other group members out of prison. But Semenyuta was eventually caught while seeking refuge at the house of Nestor's brother, where he was killed during a shootout with the police.

On March 26, 1910, Makhno was sentenced to be hanged, refusing to seek appeal. Egor Bondarenko, who had also been condemned to death, predicted that Makhno's sentence would be commuted, that he would later be freed from prison by a revolution and that he would then "hoist again the black flag of Anarchy" over Ukraine. After Bondarenko was hanged, Makhno's sentence was indeed commuted to a life sentence of hard labour, due in part to his young age. Makhno grew severely ill in prison, contracting an almost fatal bout of typhoid fever, before his eventual recovery and return to work in chains. He was moved to the prison in Luhansk, where he was briefly visited by family before being moved again to the prison in Ekaterinoslav. On August 2, 1911, he was transferred one final time to Butyrskaya prison in Moscow, where over 3,000 political prisoners were being held. Through the other prisoners he became well-read on Russian history and political theory, taking a particular interest in Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin. Makhno's behavior in prison earned him the nickname "Modest", due to his frequent boasting to fellow prisoners, sometimes even antagonising the guards and landing him in solitary confinement. Due to the conditions of the punishment cells, he soon fell sick again, this time being diagnosed with Tuberculosis, which kept him returning to the prison hospital throughout his sentence.

It was in Butyrskaya prison that Makhno met the anarcho-communist politician Peter Arshinov, who took the young anarchist under his wing as a student. But during this time, Makhno also became disillusioned with intellectualism after he noticed the differences between how the prison guards treated the intellectual prisoners and those inmates from the lower classes. As the years passed, Makhno began to write his own work, starting off with a poem titled Summons that called for a libertarian communist revolution. Prison did not break his revolutionary zeal, with Makhno vowing that he would "contribute to the free re-birth of his country". Although influenced by the ideas of Ukrainian nationalism, Makhno nevertheless remained hostile to nationalism, taking the internationalist position during World War I and even circulating an anti-war petition around the prison. When the prison doors were flung open during the February Revolution of 1917, Makhno was released from bondage for the first time in eight years, even finding himself off-balance without the chains weighing him down and in need of sunglasses after years in dark prison cells. He remained in Moscow for three weeks, briefly getting involved with an anarchist group in Moscow's Lefortovo District until March 23, when he was finally convinced to return to Huliaipole by his family.

Organizing the peasants' movement

Makhno in 1918

Following nine years of imprisonment, on March 24, 1917, the twenty-seven year old Makhno finally returned to Huliaipole, where he was reunited with his mother and elder brothers. At the station, he was greeted by many of the town's peasants, as well as his comrades from the Union of Poor Peasants, which was now mostly dedicating itself to the distribution of propaganda. Clashing with the propagandists of the group, Makhno proposed that libertarians take the role of a revolutionary vanguard in order to ignite mass action among the peasantry, but found his position a minority within his old group. He instead led the establishment of a local Peasants' Union on March 29 and was elected as its chairman, which soon came to represent the majority of Huliaipole's peasantry and even those from the surrounding region. Carpenters and metalworkers also formed their own industrial unions, electing Makhno as their Chairman against his own wishes. By April, Makhno had brought Huliaipole's Public Committee, the local organ of the Provisional Government, under the control of the town's peasantry and anarcho-communist activists. It was during this period of rising anarchist activity in Huliaipole that Makhno met Nastyenka, who would become his first wife, but his activism kept him too busy to focus on his marriage.

Makhno quickly became an active leading figure in Huliaipole's revolutionary movement, himself aiming to sideline any political parties that sought to seize control of the workers' organizations, justifying his leadership as only a temporary responsibility. As a union leader, Makhno led workers in strike actions against their employers, demanding wages be doubled and vowing the continuation of work stoppages in case of their refusal, eventually resulting in the establishment of workers' control over all industry in Huliaipole. Makhno subsequently disarmed and minimized the powers of local law enforcement, before carrying out the seizure of property from local landlords and equally redistributing the lands to the peasantry, in open defiance of the Provisional Government. All this gave him an image of social banditry, as peasants compared him to the Cossack rebel leaders Stenka Razin and Yemelyan Pugachev, rallying around the slogan of "Land and Liberty". As Huliaipole's delegate to the regional peasant congress in Oleksandrivsk, he called for the expropriation of large estates from landowners and their transfer to communal ownership by the peasants that worked them, becoming infamous throughout the region. However, he quickly became disillusioned with the long debates and party politics that dominated the Congress, considering Huliaipole to have "advanced beyond what the congresses were merely talking about, without the constant wrangling and jockeying for position."

Although he had achieved success at home, Makhno was disappointed to discover a generalized state of disorganization among the wider Ukrainian anarchist movement, which largely dedicated itself to propaganda activities. Despite its large size, the anarchist movement found itself unable to compete with the established political parties, as it had yet to establish a coordinated organization capable of playing a leading role in the revolutionary movement. Following news of an attempted coup against the Provisional Government, Makhno led the establishment of a "Committee for the Defense of the Revolution" in Huliaipole, which organized armed peasant detachments against the local landlords, bourgeoisie and kulaks. Makhno called for the local bourgeoisie to be disarmed and their property expropriated, with all private enterprise to be brought under workers' control. Peasants withheld rent and took control of the lands they worked, large estates were collectivized and transformed into agrarian communes, with Makhno personally organizing communes on former Mennonite settlements. Himself living on a commune with his companion Nastia, Makhno worked twice a week, helping out with the farming and occasionally with fixing the machines. According to Alexandre Skirda, at this time Makhno's "responsibilities were enormous but his power small", taking on a more advisory role than a commanding one, with his advise often being challenged in the local Soviet, defense committee and even in the anarchist group.

Following the October Revolution, Makhno bore witness to the rising hostilities between the Ukrainian nationalists and the Bolsheviks, even finding himself resolving a dispute between the two factions at a provincial congress in Katerynoslav. With the outbreak of the Soviet–Ukrainian War, Makhno advised anarchists to take up arms alongside the Red Guards against the forces of the Ukrainian nationalists and the White movement. After dispatching his brother Savely to Oleksandrivsk at the head of an armed anarchist detachment, Nestor was brought onto the local revolutionary tribunal, from which he oversaw the prosecution of counterrevolutionary army officers, even placing the man who had prosecuted him in the same cell that he had been imprisoned in a decade earlier. Makhno also oversaw the release of still imprisoned workers and peasants, successfully defended Huliaipole against a Don Cossack raid, and expropriated 250,000 rubles from a bank to fund the activities of the local soviet.

Following the invasion of Ukraine by the Central Powers, Makhno quickly formed a volunteer detachment to resist the occupation, joining up with the Red Guards in Oleksandrivsk. But in their absence, he learnt that Ukrainian nationalists had seized control of Huliaipole from the Soviet, inviting forces of the Austro-Hungarian Army to occupy the town. Unable to return home, Makhno and his detachment retreated to Taganrog, where a conference of Huliaipole's exiled anarchists was held. Setting July 1918 as the date for returning to retake Huliaipole, Makhno set off on a tour of Russia to rally support behind the Ukrainian anarchist cause. On May 4, Makhno departed from Rostov-on-Don on an artillery train, ahead of the German advance on the city. Travelling via Tikhoretsk, Makhno delivered a speech to woodworkers during an unscheduled stop, before finally arriving at Tsaritsyn. Here he was briefly reunited with a number of his comrades from Huliaipole, including a heavily pregnant Nastyenka, who Makhno helped secure with lodgings at a nearby farm. But due to his tight schedule, combined with the repression against "non-party military detachments" brought by the arrival of Kliment Voroshilov's 10th Army to the area, Makhno was forced to leave Nastyenka in order to continue his tour.

As he continued his travels, he witnessed confrontations between revolutionary partisans and the newly established Cheka, which were undertaking to disarm any autonomous units and shoot those that disobeyed their decrees. This conflict between the masses and the "institutional revolutionaries" caused Makhno to consider whether "the revolution is not destined to perish by the very hand of revolutionaries". In Saratov, Makhno arrived to a tense situation, with the Cheka in conflict with the local Maximalists and a non-party military detachment from Odesa, spurring him to hastily leave the city on the first boat he could. In Astrakhan, Makhno found himself working for the local Soviet's propaganda department and giving speeches to Red soldiers bound for the front, before boarding a train north towards Moscow at the end of May.

Peter Kropotkin in his studio.

While aboard an armored train to Moscow, Makhno prevented a Red Guard company he was travelling with from being captured by Don Cossacks, using a performative artillery exercise to disentangle the train from the cossack advance. After spending a few days in the Volga region, Makhno finally arrived in the Russian capital, where he again made contact with Peter Arshinov and others in the Muscovite anarchist movement, many of whom were now under surveillance by the Bolshevik authorities. He also discussed the situation in Ukraine with the anarcho-communist theorist Peter Kropotkin, who wished Makhno well, parting ways with him after declaring that "struggle is incompatible with sentimentality. Self-sacrifice, tough mindedness and determination triumph over all on the road to the goal that you have set yourself."

Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov at a rally in Moscow.

Satisfied with his time in Moscow, Makhno resolved to return to Ukraine, but required forged identity papers in order to cross the border. He thus applied to the Kremlin, where he was engaged by Yakov Sverdlov, who immediately arranged Makhno an interview with Vladimir Lenin himself. In their meeting, Lenin showered him with questions about the situation in Ukraine, which Makhno answered, even as Lenin bemoaned that the country had been "contaminated by anarchism". Makhno stuanchly defended the Ukrainian anarchist movement from charges of "counter-revolution", criticising the Red Guards for sticking to the railways while peasant partisans fought on the frontlines. Despite his criticisms of the anarchist movement for idealism and his erroneous description of Ukraine as "South Russia", Lenin expressed his admiration for Makhno and admitted his mistakes regarding the revolutionary conditions in Ukraine, where anarchists had already become the predominant revolutionary force. After a long conversation, Lenin passed Makhno on to Volodymyr Zatonsky, who fulfilled his request for a false passport. On June 29, the young Ukrainian finally departed for the border, content that he had "take[n] the temperature of the revolution".

On July 1, Makhno arrived at Kursk and prepared to make his journey through the frontlines on foot. Disguised as an officer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, he crossed the border back into Ukraine and was reunited with some Jewish comrades, who informed him of the situation in Huliaipole. The German occupying forces had shot, tortured and arrested many of the town's revolutionaries. Mistaken for Nestor, Yemelyan Makhno had been shot, while Savely Makhno was arrested and his mother's house was destroyed. Nestor himself was being hunted by the imperial German authorities, forcing him to take a number of precautions to evade capture. To avoid recognition while aboard the crowded train carriages, he changed at Kharkiv and Synelnykove, ultimately deciding to walk the final 27 kilometers to Rozhdestvenskoye after his train was searched by police. From Rozhdestvenskoye, he dispatched letters to comrades in his hometown of Huliaipole, but they discouraged him from returning there, fearing he would be caught by the authorities.

Despite the discouragement, after weeks in hiding, Makhno clandestinely returned to Huliaipole. In a number of secret meetings, he began to lay plans for an insurrection and started to organize peasant partisans together, advocating that they build support by attacking the estates of large landowners, while also counselling against individual acts of terrorism and forbidding anti-semitic pogroms. From the outset, Makhno emphasised tactical and theoretical unity, advocating a generalized insurrection only once the conditions were ripe for it. But before long his presence was discovered and he was forced to retreat after a bounty was placed on him by the authorities, only narrowly escaping capture. In Ternivka, Makhno revealed himself to the local population and established a peasant detachment to led attacks against Hetmanate positions. In coordination with partisan groups in Rozhdestvenskoye and after securing weapons from former soldiers of the defunct Ukrainian People's Army, Makhno resolved to decisively reoccupy Huliaipole and establish it as a permanent headquarters for the insurgent movement. He began carrying out a series of raids against Austrian positions, seizing weapons and money, leading to the intensification of the insurrection. While disguised as a woman, Makhno even briefly returned to Huliaipole, where he planned to blow up the local command center of the occupation forces, but called off the attack due to the risks of killing innocent civilians.

Leader of the Makhnovist movement

Main articles: Makhnovschina and Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine

On September 22, 1918, Makhno moved to decisively reoccupy Huliaipole. In disguise as a captain of the National Guard, he encountered an actual National Guard contingent and ordered them to lay down their arms. After learning from them the whereabouts and strength of the local occupation forces, he revealed himself to be Nestor Makhno and shot them when they tried to run away. He and his comrades reached Huliaipole within a few days, where he discovered that the German occupation forces had been spreading misinformation about him, claiming he had robbed the local peasantry and ran away with the money to buy a Dacha in Moscow. After beating the Austrian occupation forces in Marfopol, Makhno produced a letter that was translated into the German language, encouraging the conscripted troops to mutiny, return home and launch revolutions of their own. While his comrades scattered themselves throughout the region to rise the peasants to revolt, Makhno went to Huliaipole and prepared proclamations for when the region was under insurgent control. When the occupation forces counterattacked, Makhno decided to evacuate Huliaipole and retreat, rather than digging in. His tactial decisions were challenged by his comrades, but as conditions proved his decisions to be the most viable, they gradually fell into line behind him. According to Alexandre Skirda, Makhno "displayed remarkable gifts as a leader of men, gifts that never failed him thereafter."

Makhno with Fedir Shchus in 1919.

Upon linking up with the forces of Fedir Shchus, Makhno warned of a coming invasion by the White movement and issued a rallying cry to resist it. When their force was ambushed in Dibrivka, Makhno's quick-thinking tactics prevented their immediate defeat. He subsequently gave a rousing speech, encouraging the insurgents to attack the far larger enemy force, resulting in the local peasantry giving him the title of Bat'ko: ""Henceforth, you are our Ukrainian Batko, and we shall perish together with you if need be. Lead us into town against the enemy!" With only a small force, Makhno led the surprise counterattack, proclaiming "this is it, we are in the arms of death. So, friends, let us be dauntless to the point of madness, as our cause demands!" The route was successful, resulting in a decisive defeat of the local Austrian forces.

Makhno subsequently led a series of attacks against the occupation forces, White Russians and their Ukrainian collaborators. However, Makhno still remained opposed to indiscriminate attacks against wealthy Ukrainians, preferring instead to prosecute a "social war" that targeted their money, rather than their lives. The Bat'ko also focused much of his energies on agitating the peasantry, stopping in villages to give impassioned speeches against his enemies, gathering much support wherever he went. Despite being wounded and almost dying during a Hungarian attack on Temirovka, Makhno's position at the head of the insurgent movement grew more powerful, with the German high command even resolving to directly meet a number of Makhno's demands. At a regional insurgent conference, Makhno proposed that they open up a war on four fronts: simultaneously against the Hetmanate, Central Powers, Don Cossacks and White movement. He argued that in order to prosecute such a conflict, it would be necessary to organize an insurgent army along a federal model, directly answerable to him as commander-in-chief. Not long after taking command, Makhno was almost killed on two separate occasions, with rumours even circulating of his death at the hands of the White movement. From that point onwards, Makhno fought "day and night in the front lines and without rest", even being forced to miss a number of important congresses due to his preoccupation with the war.

Commander in the Red Army

Pavel Dybenko (left) with Makhno (right).

During the insurgent attack against the nationalist-held city of Yekaterinoslav, Lenin sent Makhno a dispatch that confirmed him as commander-in-chief of the Soviet forces in the Yekaterinoslav Governorate, to which Makhno himself responded that "there were no "soviet" forces, only the Makhnovist insurgent army." After the battle was over, the Bolsheviks attempted to seize control of the city from the Makhnovists, to which Makhno responded by personally delivering "slaps about the back of the head" to the bureaucrats who arrived at the train station. When a nationalist counteroffensive forced Makhno to retreat to Huliaipole, he undertook a complete reorganization of insurgent forces on every front, eventually culminating with their integration into the Ukrainian Soviet Army as the 3rd Trans-Dnieper Brigade, with Makhno subordinating himself to the command of Pavel Dybenko. On February 12, 1919, Makhno was finally able to extricate himself from the front to attend a regional congress in Huliaipole, where he was elected honorary chairman, himself rejecting official chairmanship due to the situation at the front requiring his attention. At the congress, he declared his support for "non-party soviets", in open defiance of his Bolshevik commanders.

Nestor Makhno, pictured during his command within the 1st Zadneprovsk Ukrainian Soviet Division.

Makhno justified the integration of the insurgent forces into the Red Army as a matter of placing the "revolution's interests above ideological differences", but he was nevertheless open about his contempt for the new order of political commissars, with some complaining he had treated them "with sarcasm". The Bolshevik interference in front-line operations even led to Makhno arresting a Cheka detachment, which had directly obstructed his command. He also got into a number of debates with Josef Dybets, an anarcho-syndicalist turned Bolshevik, during which Makhno reiterated his intention "to eliminate the Whites first and then the Bolsheviks", after which he insisted self-governance would prevail in what he called a "People's Commune" or "Anarchist Republic." Despite his hostility to the Bolsheviks, Makhno still respected freedom of the press, authorizing Bolshevik newspapers to be distributed in Huliaipole, Berdyansk and Mariupol, even as the papers published violent denunciations of the Makhnovists. By April 1919, the newspaper Pravda was publishing glowing reports of Makhno, praising him for his opposition to Ukrainian nationalism, his successful assault against Ekaterinoslav and his continued successes against the White movement. It also detailed Makhno's widespread support amongst the Ukrainian peasantry, reporting them as having said of him: "Our Batko fears neither God nor Devil, yet he is a simple man like us." However, this did not stop Pavel Dybenko from declaring the insurgents' subsequent regional congress to be "counter-revolutionary", outlawing its participants and ordering Makhno to prevent future congresses from taking place, despite Makhno himself being preoccupied at the front-lines.

Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Soviet Army.

To resolve the dispute, Makhno proudly invited Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko to visit Huliaipole, enthusing the Ukrainian commander-in-chief enough to reject a Bolshevik request for Makhno's removal from command. Upon arrival, Makhno informed Antonov-Ovseenko of the situation at the front, introduced him to members of the local Soviet and reunited him with his "old acquaintance" Maria Nikiforova. As news came in of the insurgents' successful capture of Mariupol, Makhno proceeded to promise further successes at the front, provided that the insurgents received the necessary equipment. Makhno further elaborated on the material shortages that the insurgents were suffering and bemoaned the problems caused by the 9th Soviet Reserve Division, which he described as "prone to panic", claiming that "its command's sympathies lay with the Whites." Following another discussion with Makhno about the newly established Hungarian Soviet Republic and the situation at the front-lines against the Whites, the two shook hands as Makhno promised to prevent any counter-revolutionary activity and continue their war against the "bourgeois generals".

Upon his return, Antonov-Ovseenko openly praised Makhno and the insurgents, who he described as having demonstrated "extraordinary revolutionary valor", criticising the Bolshevik press for publishing misinformation about Makhno and requesting the Makhnovists be supplied with the necessary equipment. However, his attempts proved unsuccessful and he was later removed from command. His reports quickly attracted Lev Kamenev to himself visit Huliaipole the very next week. He too was greeted by Makhno, who gave him a tour of the town, making sure to show off a tree where he had personally lynched a White army officer. Despite disagreements between the two over the autonomy of the insurgent movement, Kamanev bade farewell to Makhno with an embrace and warm words. Kamenev immediately published an open letter to Makhno, praising him as an "upright and daughtless fighter" in the war against the White movement. However, in a private telegram sent to Lenin that same day, Kamenev proposed only a "temporary diplomatic with Makhno's army". After a Bolshevik-backed assassination attempt against Makhno was thwarted, some anarchists like Peter Arshinov began to wonder if the visit to Huliaipole had actually been a reconnaissance mission to prepare a Red Army offensive against the insurgents. Makhno himself was warned by sympathetic Soviet functionaries not to travel to the cities of Ekaterinoslav and Kharkiv, fearing a trap would be laid for him there.

Nikifor Grigoriev (left), ataman of the green army in Kherson, who would be assassinated during a meeting with Makhno, on charges of his counter-revolutionary activities and antisemitism.

After Nikifor Grigoriev revolted against the Bolsheviks, Kamenev sent a telegram to Makhno, asking him to condemn Grigoriev, or else face a declaration of war. Grigoriev had previously attempted to form an alliance with Makhno against the Bolsheviks, but this proposal went unanswered. Makhno responded to Kamenev's request by reaffirming his commitment to the struggle against the White movement, which he worried would be endangered by opening conflict with Grigoriev, noting that the insurgent movement was "fighting for the people's freedom and not in any circumstances for power." In a direct telegram to Kamenev, Makhno declared that he would "remain unshakably loyal to the worker and peasant revolution", while also stating that "as an anarchist revolutionary, let me declare that I cannot by any means support seizure of power by Grigoriev or by anyone". In an insurgent military congress on May 12, Makhno expanded on this anti-authoritarian position with a denouncement of the Bolsheviks:

The Bolshevik government of Ukraine has appointed itself the guardian of the workers. It has laid its hands on all the wealth of the country and disposes of it as if it were government property. The Party bureaucracy, once more hanging a privileged upper class around our necks, tyrannises the people. They scoff at the peasants, usurp the rights of the workers, and do not allow the insurgents to breathe. The efforts by the Bolshevik command to humiliate us and Grigorev’s men, the tyranny of the Cheka against anarchist and SR organisations, all speak of a return to the despotism of the past.

The Red Army high command responded by attempting to reign in Makhno's influence over his detachment, with his commander Anatoly Skachko even declaring that "he is to be liquidated". By the end of May 1919, the Revolutionary Military Council had pronounced Makhno to be an outlaw, issuing a warrant for his arrest and for him to be tried before a revolutionary tribunal. On June 2, Leon Trotsky published a diatribe against Makhno, attacking him for his anarchist ideology and even labeling him as a "kulak".

A few days later, Makhno learnt that while he had been preoccupied at the front, Huliaipole had been captured by the Kuban Cossacks, forcing him to retreat from his positions. In an attempt to appease Trotsky, so that the insurgents wouldn't be caught in a pincer between the Red and White armies, Makhno resigned his command of the insurgent army. Despite a rebuff from Trotsky, he again attempted to offer the Bolsheviks his resignation on June 9, reaffirming his commitment to the Revolution and his belief in the "inalienable right of workers and peasants". Makhno thus relinquished command of the 7th Division and was replaced by Alexander Krusser, with Makhno declaring his intention to wage a guerrilla war against the Whites from the rear. Trotsky then ordered Kliment Voroshilov to arrest Makhno, but sympathetic officers reported the order to him, thus preventing his capture by the Cheka. Makhno even led the rescue of Voroshilov's detachment from a White encirclement, despite knowing the intentions of his "would-be executioner".

Makhno's small sotnia then linked up with other insurgent detachments that had mutinied against the Red Army, falling back to Kherson, where they met with Grigoriev's green army. Although Makhno initially sought an alliance with Grigoriev, due to the ataman's popularity with the local peasantry, revelations of Grigoriev's antisemitism and connections with the White movement led to the Makhnovists openly denouncing him. When Grigoriev attempted to shoot Makhno, he was gunned down in his place by Alexei Chubenko. Makhno began rebuilding his forces in Kherson, quickly pulling together 20,000 insurgents, many of whom had deserted the Red Army after its retreat from Ukraine. Red Army mutinies even became so bad that the Ukrainian Bolshevik leader Nikolai Golubenko telephoned Makhno, begging him to again subordinate himself to Bolshevik command, to which Makhno responded: "You have broken faith with Ukraine, and more seriously, you shot my comrades in Huliaipole. Your units will be defecting to me in any case, and then I will deal with all of you officials the same way that you dealt with my comrades."

Against the White Army

Yakov Slashchov, leader of the White movement in Ukraine until his defeat by Makhno during the Battle of Peregonovka.

With the Bolsheviks having fled Ukraine entirely, the Makhnovists were left facing the White movement alone. As the Whites advanced on the Makhnovist positions at Voznesensk and Yelisavetgrad, reports by the White commander Yakov Slashchov depicted Makhno as "a very redoubtable adversary and was deserving of quite special attention on the part of the Whites." Slashchov credited Makhno for "his ability quickly to raise and to keep his troops well under control, even enforcing a quite severe discipline on them. It was for this reason that engagements against him always took a serious turn; his mobility, his energy, and his flair in mounting operations brought him a whole series of victories over the armies he confronted." The insurgents launched a number of attacks behind the White line, with Makhno himself commanding a cavalry assault against Mykolaivka that resulted in the capture of White munitions, equipment that the Makhnovists sorely needed. It was during one of these attacks that Nestor's brother Grigory Makhno lost his life. Following a successful White assault that drove the insurgents back to Uman, Makhno was impressed by the bravery of the White cavalry, comparing them favorably to the Red cavalry, as "they were always ready for a saber fight and always swooped hell for leather upon the enemy, not waiting for cannon fire and machine-gunfire to scatter them first."

Map depicting the advance on Moscow by the White movement, during the summer of 1919.

During the Battle of Peregonovka, the tide of the battle turned in the insurgents' favor when Makhno led his sotnia in a flanking maneuver against the White positions, charging the much larger enemy force with sabres and fighting them in close quarters combat, which forced the Whites into a retreat. Makhno then led the pursuit of the retreating Whites, decisively routing the enemy forces, leaving only a few hundred survivors. The Makhnovists subsequently split up in order to capitalize on their victory and capture as much territory as possible, with Makhno himself leading his sotnia in the capture of Yekaterinoslav from the Whites on October 20. With southern Ukraine being brought almost entirely under insurgent control, the White supply lines were broken and the advance on Moscow was halted.

In Yekaterinoslav, Bolsheviks attempted to establish a revolutionary committee to take control of the city, proposing to Makhno that he confine himself exclusively to military activity. But Makhno no longer held any sympathy for the Bolsheviks, who he described as "parasites upon the workers' lives". He quickly ordered the revolutionary committee be shut down and forbade their activities under penalty of death, telling the Bolshevik officials to "take up a more honest trade". At a regional congress in Aleksandrovsk, Makhno called for the establishment of "free soviets" outside of political party control. When delegates from the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionary Party objected, due to their belief in the legitimacy of the dissolved Constituent Assembly, Makhno denounced them as "counter-revolutionaries in cahoots with Denikin", causing them to walk out in protest. When he returned to Yekaterinoslav on November 9, the local railway workers looked to Makhno to pay their wages, which had gone without for two months. He responded by proposing the workers take over the self-management of the railways and levy payment for their services directly from the customers. By December 1919, Makhnovist control of Yekaterinoslav was beginning to slip, as the city faced increasing attacks from the White Cossacks. On December 5, Makhno survived an assassination attempt by the Bolsheviks, who had planned to poison him and seize control of the city, but the plot was uncovered and the conspirators were shot.

Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

While White attacks forced the Makhnovists to abandon the city and retreat to their base in Huliaipole, many of the insurgents were beset by epidemic typhus, with even Makhno himself contracting the disease. By the time that the Bolsheviks invade Ukraine, Makhno had slipped into a coma, which lasted for weeks. While still comatose, the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee issued a decree that declared Makhno to be an outlaw, to which the peasants of his hometown responded by providing him refuge and hiding him from the Cheka. Once he recovered, he immediately began to lead a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the Cheka and requisitioning units. He also implemented a discriminatory policy for dealing with captured Red Army units: commanding officers and political commissars would be immediately shot, while the rank-and-file soldiers would be given the choice to either join the insurgent army or be stripped of their uniforms and sent home. With the Makhnovists once again wreaking havoc on Bolshevik positions and with Red Army soldiers increasingly defecting to the insurgents, the Cheka began to resort to the use of agent provocateurs and informants in order to entrap Ukrainian anarchists. One anarchist that the Cheka attempted to bring under its wing was Fedya Glouschenko, who they commissioned to assassinate Makhno on June 20, 1920. Despite Glouschenko immediately informing Makhno of the plot, he was shot the following day as a servant of the secret police.

Makhnovist commanders discuss plans to defeat the Army of Wrangel, in Starobilsk.

On June 23, a member of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries attempted to convince the insurgents to form an alliance with the Bolsheviks, to which Makhno responded with skepticism, claiming that the Left SR's mission was "wholly Bolshevik inspired and without question they have set him very specific objectives." When the proposed alliance was brought up again in August, Makhno was in two minds about it, but ended up submitting himself to the decision of the Insurgent Army, which narrowly voted in favor. With the pact made, Makhno reaffirmed his distrust for his "irreconcilable enemies" in the Bolshevik Party, while also stating that "there must be no confusion of military intercourse in the wake of the danger threatening the revolution with any crossing-over, 'fusion' or recognition of the soviet authorities, which cannot have been and cannot ever be the case."

Makhno hoped that victory over the Whites would oblige the Bolsheviks to honor his desire for soviet democracy and civil liberties in Ukraine, but he would later consider this to be a "grave error" on his part. Nevertheless, under the terms of the pact, Makhno was finally able to seek treatment from the medical corps of the Red Army, with physicians and surgeons seeing to a wound in his ankle, where he had been hit by an expanding bullet. He was also visited by the Hungarian communist leader Béla Kun, who greeted him as "fighter of the worker and peasant revolution, comrade Batko Makhno" and gave him gifts, including over 100 photographs and postcards depicting the Executive Committee of the Communist International. On October 22, the insurgents successfully reoccupied Huliaipole, driving the Whites out of the city for the final time. Back in his hometown, Makhno requested three days of rest and recuperation but this was rejected by the Bolshevik command, which ordered the insurgents to continue their offensive, under penalty of their alliance being nullified. While Simon Karetnik set off to lead the Makhnovist offensive against the Army of Wrangel, the still-wounded Makhno and his black guards stayed behind in Huliaipole. There he turned his attention towards reconstructing his vision of anarcho-communism, overseeing the reestablishment of the local soviet and a number of other libertarian projects.

Anti-Bolshevik rebellion

On November 26, the 42nd Division and 2nd Cavalry Corps led a surprise attack against Huliaipole, placing the town under siege. Caught unprepared, Makhno rallied together 150 black guards to defend the town, but after spotting a gap in the Red lines, he and his detachment escaped. Makhno then led a counterattack that pushed the Red forces back to Novo-Uspenovka and regrouped his own forces, with some Red soldiers even defecting to his ranks, before recapturing Huliaipole a week later. The Red Army command justified the attacks against the Makhnovists based on claims that Makhno had refused orders and intended to betray them, despite themselves having planned to break the alliance with the Makhnovists since before the offensive against Wrangel had even begun.

Makhno and his lieutenants in Berdiansk.

The following week, Makhno was finally reunited with Karetnik's detachment in the village of Kermenchik, although it was now only 1/5th of its original size and without its commander, who had been assassinated by the Bolsheviks in Crimea. Despite orders directly from Vladimir Lenin for the Red Army in Ukraine to "liquidate Makhno", the insurgents were able to successfully prosecute a campaign of guerrilla warfare in the face of their encirclement. One Red officer described Makhno as having "sauntered throughout the region as the fancy took him, picking his targets and suddenly popping up wherever he chose, capturing a regiment or a whole brigade, seizing transports, munitions and atillery pieces then bursting out of the encirclement as he chose." On December 3, he led a detachment of 4,000 insurgents in an assault against a Red Kirghiz brigade at Komar, Altai Krai, successfully routing them. In the following weeks, he recaptured Berdiansk and Andriivka from the Bolsheviks, defeating a number of Red divisions before an engagement with the remaining divisions at Fedorivka resulted in a stalemate.

Makhno had hoped that simply defeating a few Red divisions would halt the offensive, but not found himself having to change tactics in the face of his encirclement by overwhelming numbers, consequently splitting up his contingent into a number of smaller detachments and sending them in different directions. Taking his own 2,000-strong detachment north at a pace of 80 kilometers each day, he derailed a Bolshevik armored train at Aleksandrovsk, before pushing deep into the provinces of Kherson and Kyiv, all the while pursued by Red divisions. One Red Army officer that survived one of Makhno's assaults was Pavel Ashakhmanov, who compared Makhno's tactical capabilities to that of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar and Napoleon. He spoke of Makhno's charismatic leadership in personally leading his own men into battle, his practice of lightning warfare and his close familiarity with the local geography. He also details Makhno's extensive knowledge of not just his enemy's positions, but also their commanders' personalities, and his ability to sow disorganization within the Red Army ranks "by letting it be largely known that he amnestied simple soldiers and ruthlessly gunned down only commanders and commissars.". Ashakhmanov ended his account with the declaration: "Makhno the partisan is enterprising and gallant in the extreme."

But Makhno's detachment soon found itself surrounded and under constant pursuit by the Red Cossacks, only able to advance slowly under heavy machine-gun fire and artillery bombardment. While still wounded, Makhno managed to lead his detachment all the way to the border with Galicia, before suddenly swinging around and heading back across the Dnieper, eventually heading north from Poltava to Belgorod, where they finally managed to shake off the pursuing Cossacks at the end of January. By this point he had travelled more than 1,500 kilometers, lost most of his equipment and half of his detachment, but he now found himself in a position to once again lead an offensive against the Red Army. Following the outbreak of the Kronstadt rebellion, Makhno dispatched a number of his detachments to various regions of Southern and Central Russia in order to foment insurrection, while he himself stuck to the banks of the Dnieper river. At this time, Makhno was wounded in the foot and had to be carried by a tachanka, but still managed to personally lead the detachment from the front. When they crossed back over to left-bank Ukraine, his detachment was ambushed at Melitopol, but they managed to slip away and get some rest before attacking a Red unit at the Sea of Azov. It was at this point that he decided to split his detachment up, sending one to stir up revolt against the Cheka in Berdiansk and Mariupol. Makhno's own contigent, consisting of 1,500 cavalry and two infantry regiments, continued along its path, routing a number of Red units and seizing their equipment. During one engagement, Makhno was wounded in the stomach and fell unconscious, having to be evacuated on a tachanka. Upon his resuscitation, he again divided his forces and sent them out in all directions, leaving himself behind with only his black sotnia remaining.

Makhno was unable to withdraw from the front and tend to his injuries, as his sotnia kept being hit with assaults by the 9th Cavalry Division. During one engagement, a sabre battle broke out, with a number of Makhnovists sacrificing themselves just to ensure Makhno's escape. About a month later, Semyon Budyonny's own detachment fell into an encounter with Makhno's sotnia, during which the Red Cossacks were forced to flee in the face of the superior insurgent numbers, with Makhno alleging that Budyonny himself had "turned tail and fled like a craven coward, abandoning his men to their fate." Towards the end of May, Makhno attempted to organize a large-scale offensive to take the Ukrainian Bolshevik capital of Kharkiv, pulling together thousands of partisans before he was forced to call it off, due to the comprehensive Red defenses. Red Army command resolved to focus its efforts on Makhno's small 200-strong sotnia, deploying a motorized detachment to pursue them. Upon its arrival, Makhno led the ambush of one armored car, taking it for himself and driving it until it ran out of fuel. The subsequent pursuit of Makhno lasted five days and covered 520 kilometers, causing his sotnia heavy losses and almost running them out of ammo, before they were finally able to shake the armored detachment off their trail.

Exile

On July 23, 1921, Mikhail Frunze demanded the "definitive liquidation" of the Makhnovist movement. Despite having suffered several wounds, Makhno continued to carry out raids in the Don river basin, even attacking Voronezh. But by August 13, Makhno's wounds had forced him to flee abroad for treatment, taking his wife and 100 loyalists with him in a retreat to Poland, leaving Viktor Belash in command of the Insurgent Army. With Red Army attacks following them, Makhno took a bullet in the neck on August 22 and a number of his old friends died in battle on August 26. After a scout was captured by the Reds, Makhno diverted his forces towards Romania. On August 28, the Makhnovists ambushed and disarmed the Soviet border guards, then after crossing the Dniester, they were in turn disarmed by the Romanian border guards and taken to an internment camp. Makhno and his wife were soon released from the camp and granted permission to stay in Bucharest, under police surveillance, while Makhno recovered from his wounds.

In September 1921, Georgy Chicherin and Christian Rakovsky demanded that the Kingdom of Romania extradite Makhno back to Ukraine. The Romanian government of Take Ionescu did not accept their demand, as the two states had no extradition treaty, also pointing out that capital punishment had been abolished in Romania and reminding the Bolshevik diplomats of international law on the matter, but the Bolsheviks continued to push the subject. By this time, Makhno had come into contact with the exiled Ukrainian nationalists around Symon Petliura, themselves allies of both Romania and Poland. In the face of the conditions in Ukraine, Makhno called for an alliance between the Makhnovists and the Petliurists, which he believed could together reignite an insurgency in Ukraine.

Makhno, with his wife Halyna Kouzmenko, surrounded by other Makhnovists in Poland, 1922.

With Romania still caught up in the extradition demands, Makhno decided to make a break for Poland, getting caught between the border before finally being shipped to a Polish internment camp on April 12, 1922. Makhno subsequently attempted to secure permission to move on to Czechoslovakia or Germany, but the Polish government refused, as they were attempting to force the dissolution of the Makhnovists into the Ukrainian nationalist movement. The Soviet government sent an agent provocateur to entrap Makhno, themselves attempting to force the extradition of Makhno from Poland, fabricating a Makhnovist plan to launch an insurgency in Galicia. Makhno and his wife were arrested by the Polish authorities and for over a year were held in pre-trial detention, where Halina gave birth to their daughter on October 30, 1922. In prison, Makhno drafted his memoirs which he passed on to Peter Arshinov, who published them in his Berlin-based publication The Russian Messenger. Makhno also sent out open letters to exiled Don Cossacks and the Ukrainian Communist Party, and began to learn German and Esperanto, before the prison's conditions caused another resurgence of his tuberculosis.

Makhno received support from throughout the European anarchist movement, with Polish and Bulgarian anarchists even threatening violence in the event of extradition. At his trial in November 1923, Makhno was acquitted on all charges and given permission to stay in Poznań. The following month he and his family moved to Toruń, where he fell under close police surveillance, being arrested and interrogated a number of times in the wake of Vladimir Lenin's death. Unable to secure a visa to travel to Germany and facing a severe strain on his marriage with Halyna, on April 14, 1924, Makhno attempted suicide and was hospitalized by his injuries.

In July 1924, Makhno and his family were allowed to move to the Free City of Danzig, where he was struck again by tuberculosis and held in hospital by the police, before escaping and making plans to move on to Berlin before he could be recaptured. Leaving Halyna behind in Poland, he arrived in Berlin towards the end of 1924, where he was reunited with other Ukrainian anarchist exiles. With Voline acting as his interpreter, Makhno met with a number of prominent anarchists that were also living in the city, such as Rudolf Rocker and Ugo Fedeli. After a botched attempt to kidnap Makhno, Soviet agents reported him to Prussian police, with Makhno again being imprisoned and falling sick. German anarchists managed to help Makhno escape from prison and clandestinely cross the border into Germany, before finally moving to Paris in April 1925. Upon arrival he wrote that "I am now staying in Paris, amongst a foreign people and political enemies whom I have so often declaimed against."

Nestor Makhno circa 1925

Makhno was reunited with his wife and daughter in the city, where French anarchists like May Picqueray provided the family with lodgings and healthcare. On June 21, 1926, they moved into an apartment at 18 Rue Jarry in Vincennes, before moving on to another apartment on Rue Diderot, in the same building as Peter Arshinov's family. Makhno attempted to find work at a local foundry and later at a Renault factory, but was forced to leave both jobs due to his health problems, with a bullet wound in his right ankle even threatening amputation. His health care was overseen by the anarcha-feminist Lucile Pelletier, who described his body as being "literally encased in scar tissue" and advised his family to move out, in order to prevent them from being infected with tuberculosis. His debilitating illness, combined with homesickness and a strong language barrier (due to his inability to learn the French language), caused Makhno to fall into a deep depression. According to Alexander Berkman, Makhno particularly despised living in a big city and dreamed of returning to the Ukrainian countryside, where he could "tak[e] up again the struggle for liberty and social justice."

Instead of manual labor, Makhno undertook to write his Memoirs, but the books sold poorly due to their high price. He also collaborated with other exiled Russian anarchists to establish the bi-monthly libertarian communist journal Dielo Truda (Russian: Дело Труда, English: The Cause of Labour), in which Makhno published an article in each issue over three years. His articles were apparently poorly-written and criticised as such by the journal's editor Arshinov, which greatly upset Makhno and exacerbated his anti-intellectualism. The theoretical developments of the journal eventually culminated in the publication of the Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, which called for the reorganization of the anarchist movement into a more cohesive structure, based on the experiences of revolutionary Ukraine and the defeat by the Bolsheviks. The Platform attracted criticism from the synthesists, such as Voline, who regarded it as a Bolshevization of anarchism. On March 20, 1927, a meeting was held in L'Haÿ-les-Roses to discuss the Platform, attracting anarchists from Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Italy and China. When the meeting was raided by police, Makhno was arrested and threatened with deportation, but this was prevented by Louis Lecoin and Henri Sellier, who both vouched for him.

Nestor Makhno with Alexander Berkman

During this period, he often met with anarchist friends in cafes and restaurants, reminiscing over a bottle of wine about the "good old days" in Ukraine, one time even celebrating the fall from power of his old rival Leon Trotsky and hoping that the fall of Joseph Stalin would soon follow. In June 1926, during a meal with Alexander Berkman and May Picqueray in a Russian restaurant on Rue de l’Éсоlе de Médecine, Makhno met with the Ukrainian Jewish anarchist Sholem Schwarzbard, who went pale upon seeing the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura walk into the room. Schwarzbard immediately informed the Batko of his intentions to assassinate Petliura, in revenge for the pogroms carried out in the Ukrainian People's Republic. Makhno attempted to dissuade him but the deed was carried out anyway, with Schwarzbard's subsequent trial bringing to light a trove of documentary evidence that confirmed Petliura's role in the pogroms, exonerating the assassin. Around this time, rumors began to circulate about Makhno's own relationship to antisemitism, resulting in a number of public debates on the matter. Citing stories of Makhno told by White émigrés, Joseph Kessel published a novel that portrayed a fictionalized version of Makhno as an Orthodox Christian and antisemite, an accusation which Makhno categorically denied. Makhno defended himself by speaking up about the pogroms in Ukraine: in To the Jews of all Countries, published in Le Libertaire, he asked for evidence of antisemitism in the Makhnovist ranks; at an open debate on June 24, 1927, Makhno claimed that he had defended Ukrainian Jews from persecution, an assertion that was backed up by Russian and Ukrainian Jews in attendance.

By this time, Makhno was succumbing to physical and mental illness, with his wounds and tuberculosis getting worse, and his relationships with fellow Ukrainian exiles deteriorating. His wife grew to resent him, causing the couple to separate on multiple occasions, with Halyna even unsuccessfully attempting to apply for permission to return to Soviet Ukraine. He quarreled with Ida Mett over the editing of his memoirs, with Mett eventually quitting out of frustration with Makhno's "indecipherable and meandering manuscripts." Makhno also came into a serious personal and political conflict with Voline, which would last until their deaths, resulting in the later volumes of Makhno's memoirs only being published posthumously. As gossip spread about Makhno, he became increasingly defensive against any criticisms of himself, no matter how minor. In the pages of Dielo Truda, he published categorical denials of anything from allegations of antisemitism to whether or not the Makhnovists had used a pirate flag.

Buenaventura Durruti during the Spanish Civil War.

Neglected by the Russian and French anarchists in Paris, Makhno turned his attention towards Spain. Following the release of a number of Spanish anarchists from prison, Makhno met with Francisco Ascaso and Buenaventura Durruti on July 21, 1927. The Spaniards expressed their admiration for Makhno, who himself displayed a sense of optimism about the Spanish anarchist movement and predicted an anarchist revolution in Spain. Makhno was particularly impressed by the revolutionary traditions of the Spanish working classes and the tight organization of the Spanish anarchists, declaring that if revolution broke out in Spain, then he would join the fight. With some Spanish anarchists suggesting he assume command of their guerrilla revolutionary movement, Makhno devoted himself to studying the events in Spain, which had just overthrown the monarchy and declared a republic. With his experiences of the war in mind, he warned the Spaniards against collaboration with the Bolsheviks, declaring: "May the calamity of Bolshevik communism never take root in the revolutionary soil of Spain!"

Due to the threats of deportation, he mostly kept to writing about libertarian communist political theory, as he was no longer able to attend meetings or engage in active organizing. In great pain, increasingly isolated and financially precarious, Makhno got a number of odd jobs as an interior decorator and shoemaker. He was also supported by the income of his wife, who worked as a cleaner, and in April 1929, May Picqueray and a number of other French anarchists established a "Makhno Solidarity Committee" to raise funds. Much of the money was contributed by the Spanish anarchists of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), which greatly admired Makhno, with the fundraiser in Le Libertaire eventually securing Makhno's family with an allowance of 250 francs per week, barely one-third of the living wage. Makhno spent most of this money on his daughter, neglecting his own self-care, which contributed further to his declining health. However, Makhno's ideological conflict with the synthesis anarchists escalated and, in July 1930, Le Libertaire suspended his allowance. Individual fundraising attempts ended up being unsuccessful.

Around this same time, Makhno learnt that Peter Arshinov had defected to the Soviet Union, which left him even more isolated from the Ukrainian exiles. Makhno spent his last years writing criticisms of the Bolsheviks and encouraging other anarchists to learn from the mistakes of Ukrainian experience. His final article was an obituary to his old friend Nikolai Rogdaev, but he was unable to afford the postage, so it was not published until after he died. Suffering from malnutrition, Makhno's tuberculosis worsened to the point that he was hospitalized on March 16, 1934. Operations failed to help and Makhno finally died in the early hours of July 25, 1934. He was cremated three days after his death, with five hundred people attending his funeral at the cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris.

Makhno's widow and his daughter Yelena were deported to Nazi Germany for forced labor during World War II. After the end of the war they were arrested by the NKVD and taken to Kiev for trial in 1946. For the crime of "anti-Soviet agitation", Halyna was sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Mordovia and Yelena was sentenced to five years in Kazakhstan. Following the death of Stalin, the two were reunited in Taraz, where they spent the rest of their lives: Halyna would die in 1978, followed by Yelena in 1993. Makhno's relatives in Huliaipole faced harassment by Ukrainian authorities up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Personal life

Makhno and his daughter Yelena in Paris

In 1919, Nestor Makhno married Agafya (aka Halyna) Kuzmenko, a former elementary schoolteacher (1892–1978), who became his aide. They had one daughter, Yelena. Halyna Kuzmenko personally carried out a death sentence of Nikifor Grigoriev, a subordinate commander who committed a series of anti-semitic pogroms (according to other accounts, Grigoriev was killed by Chubenko, a member of Makhno's staff or Makhno himself).

Nestor's brothers were also anarchists and active partisans of the Makhnovist movement. In 1918, Emilian was executed by the Austro-Hungarian Army; in September 1919, Grigory was killed in Uman by the Volunteer Army; and in February 1920, Savely was killed by the Red Army in Huliaipole.

According to Paul Avrich, Makhno was "a thoroughgoing anarchist, who practiced what he preached insofar as conditions permitted. A down-to-earth peasant, he was not a man of words, not a phrasemaker or an orator, but a lover of action who rejected metaphysical systems and abstract social theorizing".

Voline, one of his biggest supporters who was active for several months in the movement, reports that Makhno and his associates engaged in sexual mistreatment of women: "Makhno and of many of his intimates – both commanders and others... let themselves indulge in shameful and even odious activities, going as far as orgies in which certain women were forced to participate." However, Voline's allegations against Makhno in regards to sexual violations of women have been disputed by Alexandre Skirda on the grounds that the allegations are unsubstantiated, do not stand up to eyewitness accounts of the punishment meted out to rapists by the Makhnovists, and were originally made by Voline in his book The Unknown Revolution which was first published in 1947, long after Makhno's death and following a bitter falling-out between Makhno and Voline. Voline and Makhno fell out due to Kuzmenko and Voline having an affair, which is later corroborated by Ida Mett after Makhno had died in Paris. Mett asserts that not only had they stolen effects from Makhno, such as his diary, but they had instantly started sleeping together openly after Makhno's demise.

Years after Makhno's death, Volin described Makhno's "greatest failing" as being alcohol abuse, claiming that "under the influence of alcohol, he became perverse, over-excitable, unfair, intractable and violent." This depiction was disputed by Ida Mett, who declared that Makhno "drank in the same proportion that all Ukrainian peasants drink — that is, on such occasions as festivals, celebrations, etc." Although Victor Peters noted that Mett only knew Makhno later in life, while Volin was a first-hand witness of Makhno's behavior in Ukraine. Alexandre Skirda also disputed Volin's characterization, himself claiming it "inconceivable" that Makhno would have engaged in binge drinking during the war, given the dangers of intoxication in an active warzone, and cited one example of Makhno emptying barrels of alcohol from a Berdiansk distillery into the snow. In April 1919, during a meeting in Huliaipole, Makhno reportedly told his commander Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko that he did not drink and that he had even prohibited alcohol. However, after Makhno had relinquished his command in the Red Army in June 1919, reports began to emerge from Pravda that claimed Makhno had "ordered thousands of buckets of spirits and got his partisans drunk." Michael Malet himself noted that "Makhno was known to go on blinders of two or three days." Skirda further noted that later in Makhno's life, a number of his comrades from Bulgaria denied ever having seen him drunk or drinking heavily. Ida Mett herself declared that a single glass of wine was enough to get the ailing Makhno intoxicated, stating that "his eyes would sparkle and he became voluble, but I never saw him really drunk." Skirda concluded his analysis by declaring that he was unable to unearth any first-hand evidence of Makhno's alcoholism. On the other hand, Victor Peters and Michael Malet both claimed that, during the final years of his life, Makhno again began to drink heavily, "when he knew that the tuberculosis was killing him anyway."

Controversy

Due to his role as a military leader during the Ukrainian War of Independence, Nestor Makhno has become a figure of some controversy, with charges of antisemitism, banditry and militarism all being levelled against him.

Allegations of antisemitism

Like the White Army, the Ukrainian People's Army and Red Army, Makhno's Insurgent Army was also accused of conducting pogroms against Jews in Ukraine. While in exile, Makhno found himself personally being accused of antisemitism and took to actively defending himself from the charges. He responded by claiming that he had actually protected Ukrainian Jews from pogroms, admitting that there had been cases of insurgent violence against Jewish communities, which he blamed on "criminal elements" within their ranks. Makhno was also defended from accusations of antisemitism by a number of prominent Jewish anarchists, including Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Sholem Schwarzbard, Senya Fleshin, Mollie Steimer and Voline. One former Nabat member, Isaac Teper, even commented that "Makhno was as far removed from nationalism as from the antisemitism ascribed to him by many".

According to Peter Kenez, "[Makhno] was a self-educated man, committed to the teachings of Bakunin and Kropotkin, and he could not fairly be described as an anti-Semite." From as early as April 1918, following the outbreak of war, Makhno had expressed his worries about a rise in antisemitic violence. When he returned to Huliaipole to incite an insurrection, he cautioned against acts of violence against a local Jewish company, as he feared any antisemitism would "compromis[e] the region's revolutionary reputation". At one point, Makhno had even responded to reports of antisemitic violence by threatening to commit suicide. In July 1919, Makhno also oversaw the assassination of Nikifor Grigoriev, due in part to Grigoriev's leading role in a number of antisemitic pogroms. By the next month, Makhno was forced to discharge many of Grigoriev's former soldiers due to their unrepentant antisemitism.

But Peter Kenez claimed that "the anarchist leader could not or did not impose discipline on his soldiers. In the name of 'class struggle' his troops with particular enthusiasm robbed Jews of whatever they had." The historian David Footman concurred that "[s]ome antisemitism, of course, persisted, but cases of ill-treatment or of incitement against Jews were on occasion severely punished." In one case, Makhno executed an insurgent commander who had conducted a raid on a Jewish town and shot another soldier just for displaying an anti-semitic poster. When a White provocation resulted in insurgents massacring a Jewish settlement, Makhno insisted on shooting those responsible, even against Bolshevik orders to first establish an inquiry, and then redistributed weapons and ammunition to other Jewish settlements for their protection. Makhno also resolved to establish specifically Jewish insurgent detachments, including both artillery and infantry units, which took part in the defense of Huliaipole against the White Cossacks. It was for this reason that Alexandre Skirda concluded: "[if] Makhno had any anti-Semitic tendencies, not one of these insurgents and anarchists of Jewish origin would have tolerated or countenanced them and would instantly have dissociated themselves from the movement."

Although Leon Trotsky had himself described Makhno as displaying a "pugnacious antisemitism", allegations of Makhno's antisemitism were rebutted by a number of prominent Bolsheviks. Dmitry Lebed wrote of Makhno's "declar[ation of] war on antisemitism" and how Makhno had "stressed the unacceptable nature of antisemitism and combated signs of it through extreme repressive measures." Makhno's former commander Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko likewise defended him from the allegations, declaring that "[t]here was no basis for accusing Makhno of personally supporting antisemitic tendencies. Quite the contrary, he did all in his power to combat pogroms." The Soviet historian Mikhail Kubanin also affirmed that "Makhno was not personally antisemitic", himself detailing a rise of Ukrainian nationalism within the insurgent ranks, without noting any antisemitic tendencies. The Soviet dissident Pavel Litvinov even went so far in repudiating the allegations as to say Makhno "deserves to be held in high regard and have his memory honored by Jews."

According to Michael Malet, "[m]ost of the allegations are of a very vague and general nature, and the authors concerned not very reliable." As far back as the 1920s, Jewish scholars have investigated reports of antisemitism in Ukraine, with one Berlin-based committee having found themselves unable to verify reports of Makhnovist pogroms, as they had successfully done with antisemitic violence carried out by the White and Red Armies. During his own investigation into the pogroms, the Jewish historian Elias Tcherikower noted that reports of anti-semitic violence by the Makhnovists had been negligible when compared to the other factions of the war. Tcherikower concluded his report by declaring: "Let us not speak of pogroms supposedly organized or encouraged by Makhno himself. That is calumny or error. Nothing of the sort occurred." The historian Paul Avrich followed up on this investigation by doing his own research in the archives of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, during which he found no indication of Makhno's involvement in any pogroms, discovering only one photograph among hundreds that was attributed to the Makhnovists. Likewise, Avrich declared of Makhno's alleged antisemitism that: "[c]harges of Jew-baiting and of anti-Jewish pogroms have come from every quarter, left, right, and center. Without exception, however, they are based on hearsay, rumor, or intentional slander, and remain undocumented and unproved."

Charges of banditry

The Makhnovist movement were charged with banditry by a number of sides during the conflict, most notably by the Bolsheviks. As early as Makhno's interview with Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader had justified the repression of the Russian anarchist movement by accusing them of "hiding well-known bandits". Makhno himself was given the label of "bandit president" by a number of prominent Bolshevik military leaders, such as Efim Shchadenko and Vitaly Primakov. During the breakdown of the Bolshevik-Makhnovist alliance in May 1919, Pavel Dybenko had been noted to have said of Makhno: "I've given one bandit a thrashing, one more won't be any problem". Leon Trotsky himself also affirmed his belief that "Makhno's anarchism was only kulak banditry in fancy dress", declaring his willingness to hand Ukraine over to the forces of Anton Denikin rather than allow the continuation of the Makhnovshchina. Before long, the Bolsheviks declared the fight against "the bandit Makhno" to be equally imporant as the fight against the White movement and the Ukrainian nationalists.

The Bolsheviks were not alone in charging Makhno with banditry. A report by the Ukrainian People's Army described Makhno as "a regular bandit on horseback", while conceding that he was making efforts to "transform the gangs of bandits into more respectable units." Ukrainian nationalist charges of banditry became so widespread that even Halyna Kouzmenko, Makhno's future wife, was warned of the violent excesses committed by "a bandit by the name of Makhno", while she was travelling to Huliaipole to work as a teacher. The White movement also charged Makhno with banditry during its own campaign in Ukraine. During Makhno's conflict with the forces of Yakov Slashchov, the White Cossack commander described Makhno as a "typical bandit [...] who kowtowed to no power and fought them all in turns." When Makhno's assaults against the Whites in Ukraine forced a halt to the advance on Moscow, the Caucasian commander Pyotr Wrangel attempted to turn Denikin's attention back to the "bandit Makhno's insurgent movement which threatens our rear." It was for this reason that the Ukrainian anarchist Max Nomad came to describe Makhno as "the Bandit Who Saved Moscow".

Nevertheless, Bolshevik charges of banditry continued throughout the war, culminating in a secret order on September 21, 1920, which ordered the "complete eradication of the banditry of the Makhnovshchina." This was followed up in December 1920, when Mikhail Frunze was given the task of "annihilating banditry" by the Ukrainian Soviet government, which intensified the attacks against the Makhnovists. When Makhno fled into Romania, the Bolsheviks cited these charges of banditry against him, in an attempt to demand his extradition back to Ukraine. But the Romanian government understood the label of "bandit" to be a designation for a political opponent of the Bolsheviks, refusing the extradition demands, while also affirming that "it is beyond doubt that if the bandit Makhno and his accomplices were to be tried in a Bessarabian court they would be condemned to death."

After the war had come to an end, the Bolshevik politician Dmitry Lebed noted that Makhno had actually shot his own insurgents for looting, as he had forbidden the seizure of goods from the peasantry and "issued reminders that the insurgents had to be friendly and considerate towards the local population." The Soviet historian Mikhail Kubanin also noted that Makhno had taken measures to prevent looting and banditry, describing one case during the Makhnovist occupation of Yekaterinoslav, during which Makhno had executed a number of looters on the spot.

Legacy

In popular culture

In the 1923 Soviet adventure film Red Devils (Russian: Красные дьяволята, romanized: Krasnye dyavolyata), Nestor Makhno was the main antagonist, portrayed by Odessa gangster and part-time actor Vladimir Kucherenko (credited as Vladimir Sutyrin). After reprising his role in the 1926 sequel Savur-Mohyla (Russian: Савур-могила), Kucherenko returned to his criminal activities, adopting the name "Makhno" as a pseudonym.

In the 1942 Soviet epic film Alexander Parkhomenko, Makhno was played by the famous Soviet actor Boris Chirkov, during which he sang the traditional Cossack song "Lovely, brothers, lovely" (Ukrainian: Любо, братці, любо), one of Makhno's favorite songs. According to the Russian journalist Pavel Sadkov, this was the first time in the history of Russian cinema that Makhno was portrayed positively.

In the 1970 Soviet drama film Hail, Mary!, Makhno was played by Valeri Zolotukhin, beating Vladimir Vysotsky to the role. During the film, the titular main character Mary was briefly brought into the Makhnovist ranks by Halyna Kouzmenko, working as a nurse and a Red Army informant until conflict between the Bolsheviks and Makhnovists flared up, which eventually resulted in the Makhnovists attempting to execute her.

In the 1977 Soviet miniseries The Road to Calvary (based on Aleksey Tolstoy's trilogy of novels), Makhno was played by Alexei Krychenkov and was portrayed as "quite a nasty character".

In 1977, Des de Moor recorded an industrial Music Krautrock influenced track dedicated to the Anarchist revolutionary entitled Makhno With Menaces, on a compilation called XX Smash; A Bloody Row which was circulated amongst fans but not officially released.

In the 1981 alternate history novel The Steel Tsar (the final part of Michael Moorcock's steampunk trilogy A Nomad of the Time Streams), Makhno makes an appearance, still alive in 1941, and plays an important role as a supporting character. Makhno also briefly appeared in Chapter 9 of Moorcock's 1972 speculative fiction novel Breakfast in the Ruins.

In 1989, in the context of the fall of communism in the Eastern Bloc, the Russian rock band Lyube released their first album Alert. The first song that they recorded for the album was titled Batka Makhno.

In 1991, while Serhiy Koniev, a People's Deputy of Ukraine, was on an official visit to the United States, he was greeted by Dana Rohrabacher, the Republican representative for California's 42nd congressional district. Rohrabacher informed the Ukrainian deputy that he had written a song about Nestor Makhno and proceeded to sing it to Koniev, while playing a guitar as an accompaniment.

In 1999, the leader of an "anti-yuppie crusade" in San Francisco, campaigning against perceived gentrification by Silicon Valley, signed his pamphlets as "Nestor Makhno".

In 2005 Russian miniseries Nine Lives of Nestor Makhno (Russian: Девять жизней Нестора Махно, romanized: Devyat zhizney Nestora Makhno), a biographical series about Nestor Makhno's life, the titular Makhno was portrayed by Pavel Derevyanko, whose performance received high praise from a number of Russian critics. The series was noted for its positive portrayal of Makhno and commended for its historical accuracy, although some critics mentioned that this dedication to accuracy resulted in a lack of narrative coherence.

In the 2017 Russian miniseries The Road to Calvary, Nestor Makhno was played by Yevgeny Stychkin and was again portrayed negatively, as in previous adaptations of Tolstoy's novels. According to the Russian film critic Aina Kurmanova, in this adaptation, Makhno was depicted as a "psychopathic rapist - in a word, the kind of monster that even Hitler's men are not often shown in movies."

In Ukraine

Following Makhno's flight to Romania in 1921, the Ukrainian anarchist insurgency continued in his absence as Makhnovist militant groups operated clandestinely throughout the 1920s, with some even going on to fight as partisans during World War II. Although anarchism in Ukraine would eventually be wiped out by the Soviet authorities, it began to reemerge underground during the 1970s and once again came into the public light following the Revolutions of 1989. In 1994, the Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists (RKAS) was founded, naming itself after Nestor Makhno and organizing itself along the lines of platformism. Other Ukrainian anarchists that have lay claim the legacy of Nestor Makhno include the militants of Revolutionary Action, who have claimed responsibility for a number of attacks against neo-Nazis.

In Makhno's hometown of Huliaipole, he has achieved the status of a local hero, with a statue of the Bat'ko being erected in one of its town squares in 2009. In 2019, Oleksandr Ishchenko revealed that the Huliaipole City Council was preparing itself to request the return of Makhno's ashes from the Père Lachaise Cemetery, as part of a campaign to attract tourists to the city, declaring Makhno to be part of the city's personal brand.

Since the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, sections of the Ukrainian right-wing have also attempted to re-characterize Makhno as a Ukrainian nationalist, while downplaying his anarchist politics.

• 

  The memorial panel on Makhno's crematory vault in Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris

• 

  Bust of Nestor Makhno in the Huliaipole museum

• 

  Nestor Makhno monument in Huliaipole, unveiled in 2009

• 

  Pro-Makhno protest in Odessa, Ukraine

See also

• Maria Nikiforova
• Anarchism in France
• Buenaventura Durruti
• Rummu Jüri
• Emiliano Zapata
• Black Guards
• Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (Anarchist Black Army)
• Makhnovia (Ukraine)
• Green armies
• Rudolf Rocker
• Ricardo Flores Magon
• Anarchism in Germany

Bibliography

• Avrich, Paul (1988). "Nestor Makhno: The Man and the Myth". Anarchist Portraits. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 111–124. ISBN 978-0-691-04753-9. OCLC 17727270.
• Darch, Colin (2020). Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 9781786805263. OCLC 1225942343.
• Footman, David (1961). "Makhno". Civil War in Russia. New York: Praeger. pp. 245–302. OCLC 254495418.
• Kantowicz, Edward R. (1999). The Rage of Nations. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-4455-2.
• Kenez, Peter (1992). "Pogroms and White ideology in the Russian Civil War". In Klier, John D.; Lambroza, Shlomo (eds.). Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 293–313. ISBN 0521405327. OCLC 895464910.
• Magocsi, Paul R. (1996). A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5. OCLC 757049758.
• Malet, Michael (1982). Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-25969-6. OCLC 8514426.
• Nomad, Max (1939). "The Warrior: Nestor Makhno, the Bandit Who Saved Moscow". Apostles of Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. pp. 302–342. OCLC 717604079.
• Palij, Michael (1976). The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918–1921: An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution. Publications on Russia and Eastern Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-95511-7. OCLC 81941010.
• Peters, Victor (1970). Nestor Makhno: The Life of an Anarchist. Winnipeg: Echo Books. OCLC 7925080.
• Shubin, Aleksandr (2010). "The Makhnovist Movement and the National Question in the Ukraine, 1917–1921". In Hirsch, Steven J.; van der Walt, Lucien (eds.). Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940. Studies in Global Social History. Vol. 6. Leiden: Brill. pp. 147–191. ISBN 9789004188495. OCLC 868808983.
• Skirda, Alexandre (2004) [1982]. Nestor Makhno–Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921. Translated by Sharkey, Paul. Oakland: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-902593-68-5. OCLC 60602979.
• Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-5808-9. OCLC 20722741.
• Sysyn, Frank (1977). "Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian Revolution". In Hunczak, Taras (ed.). The Ukraine, 1917–1921: A Study in Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 271–304. ISBN 9780674920095. OCLC 942852423. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
• Yekelchyk, Serhy (2007). Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530546-3. OCLC 219616283.

Further reading

• Allen, W. E. D. (1963). The Ukraine: a history. Russell & Russell. p. 404. OCLC 578666051.
• Arshinov, Peter (1974) [1923]. History of the Makhnovist Movement. Detroit: Black & Red. OCLC 579425248.
• Avrich, Paul (1971) [1967]. "The Downfall of Russian Anarchism". The Russian Anarchists. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 204–233. ISBN 0-691-00766-7. OCLC 1154930946.
• Avrich, Paul (1983). "Review of Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War by Michael Malet". The Russian Review. 42 (1): 113. doi:10.2307/129469. ISSN 0036-0341. JSTOR 129469.
• Chamberlin, William Henry (1965). The Russian revolution, 1918-1921: from the civil war to the consolidation of power. Grosset & Dunlap. p. 558. OCLC 614679071.
• Dubovik, Anatoly (2009). "The Anarchist Underground in the Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s: Outlines of History". After Makhno. Anarchist Sources Series. Translated by Szarapow. London: Kate Sharpley Library. ISBN 978-1-873605-84-4. OCLC 649796183.
• Eichenbaum, Vsevolod Mikhailovich (1955) [1947]. The Unknown Revolution. Translated by Cantine, Holley. New York: Libertarian Book Club. ISBN 0919618251. OCLC 792898216.
• Goldberg, Joel Harold (1973). The Anarchists View the Bolshevik Regime, 1918-1922 (PhD). Madison: University of Wisconsin. OCLC 36688081.
• Gilley, Christopher (8 October 2014). Daniel, Ute; Gatrell, Peter; Janz, Oliver; Jones, Heather; Keene, Jennifer; Kramer, Alan; Nasson, Bill (eds.). "Makhno, Nestor Ivanovich". 1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Berlin: Free University of Berlin. doi:10.15463/ie1418.10117. OCLC 895280021. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
• Goldman, Emma (1923). "A Visit from the Ukraina". My Disillusionment in Russia. New York: Doubleday. pp. 94–106. ISBN 978-1-4191-3601-6. OCLC 250732439.
• Gora, Dirk (1930) [1921]. A Russian Dance of Death. Claremont: Key Books Publishers. OCLC 2002299.
• Lincoln, W. Bruce (1989). Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. Simon & Schuster. p. 637. ISBN 0671631667.
• Makhno, Nestor (1996). Skirda, Alexandre (ed.). The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays. Translated by Sharkey, Paul. Edinburgh: AK Press. ISBN 1873176783. OCLC 924883878.
• Makhno, Nestor (2007) [1928]. The Russian Revolution in Ukraine (March 1917 - April 1918). Translated by Archibald, Malcolm. Edmonton: Black Cat Press. ISBN 9780973782714. OCLC 187835001.
• Makhno, Nestor (2009). Skirda, Alexandre (ed.). Mémoires et écrits: 1917-1932 (in French). Paris: Ivrea. ISBN 9782851842862. OCLC 690866794.
• Menzies, Malcolm (1972). Makhno, une épopée: le soulèvement anarchiste en Ukraine, 1918-1921 (in French). Translated by Chrestien, Michel. Paris: P. Belfond. OCLC 370883941.
• Przyborowski, Michal; Wierzchoś, Dariusz (2012). Machno w Polsce (in Polish). Poznan: Oficyna Wydawnicza Bractwa "Trojka". ISBN 978-83-933082-1-7. OCLC 814303677.
• Savchenko, Victor (2005). Махно [Makhno] (in Ukrainian). Kharkiv: Folio. ISBN 9660330537. OCLC 66091188.
• Semanov, Sergeĭ Nikolaevich (2005). Нестор Махно: вожак анархистов [Nestor Makhno: Anarchist Chieftain] (in Russian). Moscow: Veche. ISBN 5953305192. OCLC 1171373855.
• Semanov, Sergeĭ Nikolaevich (2001). Махно: подлинная история [Makhno: An Authentic History] (in Russian). Moscow: AST-PRESS. ISBN 5780508305. OCLC 50990634.
• Rublyov, D. I (2009). "The Story of a Leaflet and the Fate of the Anarchist Varshavskiy (From the History of Anarchist Resistance to Totalitarianism)". After Makhno. Anarchist Sources Series. Translated by Szarapow. London: Kate Sharpley Library. ISBN 978-1-873605-84-4. OCLC 649796183.
• Wierzchoś, D. (2011). "Nestor Machno i jego kontakty z Polakami i Polską". In Krasucki, Eryk; Przyborowski, Michał; Skrycki, Radosław (eds.). Studia z dziejów polskiego anarchizmu (in Polish). Szczecin: Szczecin Scientific Society. ISBN 9788393394210. OCLC 804017743.
• Yanowitz, Jason (May–June 2007). "The Makhno Myth". International Socialist Review. Chicago: Center for Economic Research and Social Change (53). OCLC 760591210. Archived from the original on 25 October 2020.
  • Letter Exchange on above article Archived 2011-05-11 at the Wayback Machine
  • McKay, Iain (17 July 2008). "On the Bolshevik Myth". Anarchist Writers. Retrieved 10 January 2021. (a response to the above article)

External links

• The Nestor Makhno Archive
• Works by and about Nestor Makhno at The Anarchist Library
• Works by and about Nestor Makhno at Libcom.org
• Hélène Châtelain (1996). Nestor Makhno, paysan d'Ukraine [Nestor Makhno, Peasant of Ukraine] (Documentary film) (in French). Marseille: 13 Production. OCLC 1038580600. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
• Robert Evans (22 December 2020). "Nestor Makhno: Anarchist Warlord and Book Club Aficionado". Behind the Bastards (Podcast). iHeartMedia. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
• Tristan Johnson (6 July 2017). Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian Black Army: No Harmless Power (Internet video). London, Ontario: Step Back. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
• "Nestor Makhno". Making History. 12 May 2019. National News Agency of Ukraine. UATV. Retrieved 29 December 2021.