Chapter eleven

42 This is undoubtedly one of the most perplexing aspects of the Makhnivshchyna. The first major allegation appears to be that of die former Makhnivets, Teper: "Whether this plan became known to Petliura even at present is unclear; in any case, the latter, a few hours before the appointed meeting-time, left Uman and in this way escaped the fate of Hryhoriiv." Teper, p. 51.

Another source of evidence for such a plot is F. Meleshko, a Directory proponent who spent some time among the Makhnivtsi in the summer of 1919. Meleshko, February 19, 1960. It is unlikely that knowledge of such a plot existed in the Petliura camp. It is known, however, that a group of dissatisfied Galician Sich Riflemen conspired to assassinate Petliura and that this group was later in contact with Makhno. Letter to the author by Zenon Jaworskyj, January 15, 1971. See also K. V. Gerasimenko, "Makhno," in Denikin-Iudenich-Vrangel: Revoliutsiia i grazhdanskaia voina v opisaniiakh belogvardeitsev, Vol. V (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izd., 1927), pp. 236-238.

43 The movement even seems to have contained a strain of attachment to the Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation. A poem by "Staryi Makeich" in Put k svobode (Huliai-Pole), No. 1, May 17, 1919, p. 3, contains a tinge of Ukrainian feeling. In an appeal for revolutionary action, it concludes:

And the brave ones went out,
Bidding adieu to their families,
To chase the oppressors from
native Ukraine.

Thus, segments of the movements, while not nationalist, saw the Makhnivshchyna as their revolution in their native land. The role of the "newcomers" (prishlie) is illustrated by a poem in Put k svobode (Huliai-Pole) No. 3, June 4, 1919, entitled, "To Ukraine . . . from the North," by Chashcharin, and asking that the Ukraine accept them in a brotherly manner.

44 Arshinov, p. 204. Denikin protested the assertion that his movement was directed against the minorities by claiming that only the publicly supported schools were required to instruct in the "state" language. A. Denikin, Ocherki russkoi smuty, Vol. I (Berlin: J. Povolozky & Cie, 1926), pp. 142-144.

45 Both Volin and Arshinov estimate that the Makhnivshchyna was overwhelmingly Ukrainian, with six to eight percent of its participants Russian, and substantial numbers of Greeks, Jews, and Caucasians. Arshinov, p. 203; Volin, The Unknown Revolution, p. 221.

46 This is based on the observations of Iwan Majstrenko, Borotbism: A Chapter in the History of Ukrainian Communism (New York: Research Program on the USSR, 1954), p. 104, who had Shliakh do voli at his disposal. V. Holubnychy maintains that, while the Makhnivtsi literature was primarily in Russian at the beginning, it was later for the most part in Ukrainian. He also mentions the existence of a Makhnivtsi Ukrainian paper in Poltava (Anarkhist-Povstanets). V. Holubnychy, "Makhno i Makhnivshchyna," Entsyklopediia Ukrainoznavstva: Slovnykova chastyna, Vol. IV (Paris, Munich: Vyd. "Molode Zhyttia," 1962), pp. 1493-1494.

47 Halyna, the daughter of a police, official, was from Pishchanyi Brid, Elizavethrad (Kirovhrad) county, Kherson gubernia. She studied at the Women's Seminary in Dobrovelychkivka (Elizavethrad county) and in the fall of 1918 accepted a position in the newly opened Ukrainian State Gymnasium in Huliai-Pole. Her reasons for becoming one of a long string of Makhno's wives are reputed to have been her fears of the Denikin forces. The couple are reported to have married in her native village church during the summer of 1919. Meleshko, December 18, 1959, and December 21, 1959. Halyna later denied that there had been any religious rites. See her "Vidpovid na stattiu 'Pomer Makhno' v 'Novii Pori' vid 9-ho serpnia 1934 roku, hor. Detroita, Mych.," Probuzhdenie (Detroit), No. 50-51, September-October, 1934, p. 17. Another source maintains that the church wedding was necessary to please Halyna's parents, who were Old Believer peasants, and attributes her hatred of Denikin's Whites to their murder of her parents. Sukhogorskaia, p. 55. There is a rumor that she and Makhno were not on good terms in the emigration, but it is known that Halyna attended her husband's funeral in 1934 with their daughter. Meleshko, February 26, 1960, p. 3.

Teper, p. 44, describes Halyna as a person "who until 1922 remained of a rather strong chauvinist viewpoint." On the other hand, Nikolaev, in his novel on Makhno, Pervyi sredi ravnykh, based largely on the author's acquaintance with Halyna in Paris, writes with apparent total oblivion of the existence of a Ukrainian question. One may suppose that by the 1920's and 1930's Halyna toned down any Ukrainian nationalist sympathies.

48 Sukhogorskaia (pp. 48, 53-54), a Russian teacher in Huliai-Pole, describes Halyna as the self-proclaimed patroness of education and the intelligentsia, as well as an organizer of cultural events.

49 Halyna's role in the Makhnivshchyna was of considerable importance. She was her husband's constant companion even in battle and appears to have served as head of the movement's Punitive Commission. Dubrovskyi, p. 15.

50 Teper, p. 51, is the major source. He charges that a group of Ukrainian intelligentsia became active in the Makhnivshchyna and were accepted by the Batko because of his need for cultural workers; that this group began to feel stronger, especially because it attracted Makhno's wife to its side; and that they sought to take over the Makhnivshchyna when it was in close proximity to die Petliura forces at Uman. He maintains that they were easily defeated by the anti-nationalist Secretariat of the Makhno movement. Teper further asserts that Makhno's plan to kill Petliura originated from his reaction to this plot. While these charges can be properly evaluated only after closer study of the material on both sides, they would appear to be correct.

M. Irchan, who served as a press-attache for the Galician Sich Riflemen and who visited the Makhno camp in mid-September 1919, reported: "There are two parties, the nationalists, that is the Ukrainian, and the apoliticals, that is, those indifferent to the national question. The first group is constantly growing. The Army has a relatively large percentage of educated people -- doctors, teachers (male and female), and people well-known even from pre-war Ukrainian literature." Irchan, pp. 17-18.

The growth of Ukrainian cultural forces is also indicated in die memoirs of F. Meleshko, who relates that after being cut off from the Directory's forces he received a note from Halyna inviting him and some of his cohorts to the Makhno camp. Makhno proposed that they embark on cultural work with the implicit understanding that they would serve as negotiators with the Petliura forces if the need should arise. Meleshko, V. Nadaikasa. L. Voitsyk, T. Berezhniak, and T. Moldovanenko accepted, but they bolted from the Makhno forces within a month. Meleshko reports that Volin and Arshinov were absent from the camp and that one of the twelve members of the Revolutionary-Military Soviet was an ardent Ukrainian. Meleshko, however, gives no indication that his stay with the Makhnivtsi was occasioned by anything more than chance, or that there was a Ukrainian plot against Makhno. Meleshko, December 18, 1959, and February 29, 1960.

The most important indication that an attempt was made to overthrow Makhno and utilize his forces in cooperation with the Ukrainian National Directory is offered by an informant of Dubrovskyi, R. Kupchynskyi. He states that Makhno's emissary, Shpota, who "spoke often with us on Ukrainian themes" and who "disliked Makhno's anarchism," conspired with F. Shchus, one of the Makhno's major "generals," against the Batko, but that Makhno discovered the plot. He relates that Makhno's wife did not want to see the end of the agreement with the Ukrainian People's Republic and "would have been happy if Makhno's whole army had gone over to Petliura." Dubrovskyi, p. 12.

51 Both Arshinov and Volin are silent as to the question of Ukrainian influence in the Makhno camp. Arshinov's discussion of cultural and educational activities makes no mention of even using the Ukrainian language. Arshinov, pp. 175-179.

52 Kubanin, pp. 165-166.

53 Nestor Makhno, Makhnovshchina i ee vcherashnie soiuzniki-bolsheviki (Otvet na knigu M. Kubanina) (Paris: Izd. 'Biblioteki Makhnovtsev,' 1928), pp. 26-27. For an example of the Makhno movement's anticentralism (used in this case against the Bolsheviks), see Roshchin, "Dukha ne ugashaite," Put k svobode (Huliai-Pole), No. 2, May 24, 1919, pp. 1-2.

54 It is, of course, possible that what Majstrenko sees as an increase in Ukrainian themes, Kubanin views as nationalism.

55 "Makhnovshchina, petliurovshchina, banditizm, antisemitizm i borba s nimi," Volna (New York), No. 58, October, 1924, pp. 37-39.

56 As early as February 1920, the Nabat had expressed concern over Makhno's methods of leadership. In April, a new concordat was reached when Baron and Sukhovolskii were sent as emissaries to Makhno. After Makhno's new alliance with the Bolsheviks, only Volin, Arshinov, Berman, and Goldman remained faithful to the Makhnivshchyna. Aaron Baron and Mark Mrachnyi became especially virulent enemies of Makhno. Ierde, pp. 52-54.

57 Kubanin, p. 111. Vynar, "Zviazky," p. 17-18, also asserts that cooperation between UNR and Makhno forces was of a local and minor character. Elsewhere, he maintains that Makhno's antagonism to Ukrainian forces had diminished considerably in this period. "Prychynky," pp. 17-18.

58 Nestor Makhno, "Makhnovshchina i antisemitizm," Delo truda (Paris), No. 30-31, November-December, 1927, p. 16. It appears that in April 1920 a group of Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionaries joined the Makhnivtsi, and one of their number became a member of the Revolutionary-Military Soviet. R. Ivanenko, "Pro shcho ne vilno zabuvaty (Makhnivshchyna)," Ukrainskyi holos (Winnipeg), August 29, 1962.

59 Teper, p. 114.

60 Another indication that Makhno had not espoused Ukrainian nationalism in 1920 is that, when Wrangel called on him, in the summer of 1920, to join the struggle against the Bolsheviks, he did so in the name of Russian nationalism. Arshinov, p. 168.

61 See Makhno's answer in Makhnovshchina i ee vcherashnie, as well as "Makhnovshchina i antisemitizm."

62 Meleshko, December 18, 1959, asserted that Makhno "was not able to gather around himself and his idea even ten Ukrainians in the emigration" (presumably he means nationally conscious Ukrainians) and that at his funeral there was only one Ukrainian, his wife.

63 Mrs. Ida Mett, an acquaintance of Makhno from 1926 to 1929, confirms that relations were strained between Nestor and Halyna Makhno in that period. Letter of January 7, 1971, to author.

64 The only work that has noticed the tone of Ukrainian patriotism in Makhno's memoirs is that by Max Nomad. He commented that: "Makhno was particularly bitter when writing about the Ukraine, his homeland, whose liberator he had hoped to become . . . Unwittingly he gave vent to the nationalistic longings of his countrymen." Nomad, p. 340. In fact, Makhno's commentaries are not as "unwitting" as Nomad presumed.

65 See, for example, Makhno I, pp. 98, 104-105, 109-114, 157, 185; II, pp. 7, 72, 84; III, pp. 17, 155-156, 172-173.

66 Makhno III, p. 59. Makhno's theory of a Ukrainian Revolution developing out of a Russian Revolution is illustrated in the titles of his memoirs. The first volume is entitled, "The Russian Revolution in Ukraine," while the third is "The Ukrainian Revolution."

67 Makhno I, p. 185.

68 Makhno I, p. 6.

69 Makhno II, p. 159. Volin's discussion is devoted to two major attacks by Makhno on other anarchist movements. The first is Makhno's attack on urban anarchists for their ineffectiveness and their failure to give assistance to rural anarchists. Volin asserts that the urban anarchists were tremendously understaffed even for the needs of the cities. The second is Makhno's attack on the anarchists of Russia and their ineffectiveness compared to those of the Ukraine. Volin explains this in terms of the very different conditions existing in the Ukraine and Russia during the 1917-1921 period. He stresses the speed with which Bolsheviks assumed control in Russia and the degree to which the peasant disturbances against the Hetmanate created a favorable climate for anarchists in the Ukraine. Makhno's attacks were largely prompted by his resentment of what he saw as the halfhearted and tardy support of anarchists from the cities and from Russia for his movement. Of course, in the Ukraine, where the concepts "Ukrainian" and "peasant" were almost coterminous, Makhno's prorural disposition implied a pro-Ukrainian stance. That Makhno's memoirs go beyond this is testified to by Volin's emphasis on Makhno's "fanatic belief" in a "Ukrainian" peasantry. For examples of Makhno's disparagement of the Russian Revolution in comparison to the Ukrainian, see Makhno II, pp. 39, 142, 150.

70 Nestor Makhno, "Neskolko slov o natsionalnom voprose na Ukraine," Delo truda (Paris), No. 19, December, 1926, pp. 4-7.

71 Ibid., p. 5.

72 Ibid., p. 5.

73 Ibid., p. 7.

74 When the Nabat group met in Kursk in November 1918, it proclaimed that it would concentrate its work in the Ukraine, because there was a chance for a new "October" that might not fall under Bolshevik control. Ierde, p. 50.

75 The resolutions of the conference of Nabat in Elisavethrad show no evidence that the group was taking into account the non-Russian composition of the area. Rezoliutsii pervogo sezda Konfederatsii anarkhistskikh organizatsii Ukrainy "Nabat" (Buenos Aires, 1923). As late as July 21, 1919, a conference of Kievan anarchists made a proclamation to the "Russian peasant and worker." "Vozzvanie kievskikh anarkhistov," Nabat, No. 25, July 21, 1919, pp. 1-2. A study of the issues of Odesskii Nabat, Nabat and Kharkovskii Nabat during the 1919-1920 period shows almost no awareness of the Ukrainian revival. Though the Kharkovskii Nabat carried frequent notices of the formation of a specifically Latvian language group of anarchists, no analogous Ukrainian group appears to have existed. A Ukrainian language journal was planned for village consumption, though it appears never to have been published. P. Rudenko, Na Ukraine (povstanchestvo i anarkhicheskoe dvizhenie) (Argentina: Izd. Rabochei gruppy v Resp. Argentine, 1922), p. 25.

76 Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, American anarchists who remained Makhno supporters even after the Russian anarchist movement turned against him, sensed this change and mentioned it in the accounts of their travels in Soviet Russia and Ukraine in 1920. "In Soviet institutions, as among the people at large, an intensely nationalistic, even chauvinistic spirit is felt. To the natives, the Ukraine is the only true and real Russia; its culture, language, and customs are superior to those of the North. They dislike the 'Russian' and resent the domination of Moscow. The imported officials, unfamiliar with the conditions and psychology of the country, often even ignorant of its language, apply Moscow views to the population with the result of alienating even the more friendly disposed elements." Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1925), p. 163. See also Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment with Russia (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1923), pp. 211-241.

77 Volin begins his discourse on the Makhnivshchyna in terms that might well have served as an introduction for a nationalist publication: "Relatively cultivated and refined, individualistic and capable of taking the initiative without flinching, jealous of his independence, warlike by tradition, ready to defend himself and accustomed for centuries to feel free and his own master, the Ukrainian was in general never subjugated to that total slavery -- not only of the body but also of the spirit -- which characterized the population of the rest of Russia." Volin, The Unknown, p. 76. Arshinov, p. 41, in discussing the reasons why events in the Ukraine and Russia had taken such different courses, wrote that "A second still more important side in the life of the Ukrainian peasantry and workers (the local, not the alien -- the prishlie) were the traditions of free life retained from bygone times." Despite these introductions, both authors actually proceed to describe the Makhnivshchyna as part of the Russian revolution and Russian anarchism. Arshinov states that: "The Makhnivshchyna is a revolutionary movement of the masses, prepared for by the historical conditions of life of the poorest strata of the Russian peasantry." Arshinov, p. 214. See also pp. 24, 33.

78 One indication of this failure was Makhno's promise that he would republish his memoirs in Ukrainian as soon as a translator could be found, thus indicating the scarcity of culturally Ukrainian anarchists. The memoirs were never published in Ukrainian. Nestor Makhno, "K russko-ukrainskoi rabochei kolonii v Sev. Amerike i Kanade," Delo truda (Paris) No. 29, October, 1927, p. 20. The only translation of Makhno's writings into Ukrainian was his "Zapysky," a short commentary on the movement, in Volia Ukrainy (Newark, N.J.), No. 2, 1923, pp. 2-3.

79 See Vilna hromada (New York, 1922) and Volia Ukrainy (Newark, N.J., 1923). While these groups were not founded by Makhno, they had great respect for the Batko. On October 20, 1923, Arshinov wrote to Volia Ukrainy requesting financial support for the defense of Makhno, who was being tried in Poland for supposedly fomenting disturbances among Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia. Volia Ukrainy (Newark), No. 2, 1923. For an example of their adulation of Makhno, see "Buv chas borotby i na nashom grunti," Volia Ukrainy (Newark), No. 2, 1923.

80 Just how formidable this task was is obvious from reading the article by A. S. "Makhnivshchyna," pp. 105-109. "It appears that, under anarchism, there will be communes of nations: Polish, Ukrainian, Muscovite, that create one great union (association) of nations. But are we Ukrainians sure that the Muscovite commune will give up Ukrainian wheat from the rich fields of the Dnieper-Ukraine, or the Polish commune, Galician oil? No, we are not sure. Imperialism (the tendency to exploit other nations) has been formed in Poles and Muscovites for centuries, this spirit of rule is passed at birth from father to son." (p. 108).

81 Makhno's recognition that knowledge of the Ukrainian language was necessary for any future anarchist work in the Ukraine is confirmed by Mrs. Ida Mett. She writes in a letter of January 7, 1971: "Je me souviens qu'un jour il m'a dit que s'il retourne en Ukraine un jour, il faudrait sans doute apprendre la langue ukrainienne tout simplement comme necessite." Mrs. Mett's commentary lends support to the possibility that perception of new realities, and not an active self-identification as a Ukrainian, was the cause of Makhno's Ukrainianism in his memoirs.

82 Makhno II, pp. 153-154.

83 Makhno II, pp. 134-135.

84 Makhno II, pp. 121.

85 For a discussion of Shapiro's attacks on Makhno for anti-Semitism, see "Dlia chego sushchestvuet anarkhicheskaia pressa," Probuzhdenie (Detroit), No. 14, November, 1930, p. 62.

86 Makhno II, p. 100. He also uses this tactic in describing a conversation with the anarchist Lev Chernyi. He reports that they discussed the anarchist movement in the Ukraine, "which he never recognized and called the 'South of Russia'." Makhno II, p. 96.