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169-527: During the early 20th century, Ukrainian anarchists initiated a campaign of terrorism against the Russian Empire . Robberies, known as " expropriations ", where frequently carried out against institutions of the state and capitalism . Unlike other criminal groups of the time, anarchist organisations spent the money from these expropriations on the publication of propaganda, without keeping any for themselves. The anarchist terrorist campaign culminated during

338-605: A typhus epidemic , which even struck Volin, resulting him in being captured by the Bolsheviks. But in October 1920, Pyotr Wrangel launched an offensive from Crimea, causing the Makhnovists to once again sign a truce with the Bolsheviks, on the conditions of their autonomy, the amnesty of all anarchist political prisoners and the right to freedom of speech. Upon recovery, Volin was released and returned to Kharkiv, where he resumed work for

507-469: A " voluntary mobilization " of people into the Insurgent Army and electing a Regional Military-Revolutionary Council to oversee the election of non-partisan "free soviets" and the establishment of anarchist communes. Each commune had a little over 100 members and were organized along egalitarian lines with mutual aid as an organizing principle. The distribution of resources to the communes was overseen by

676-719: A Bolshevik. This accusation became reality in 1930, when Arshinov returned to the Soviet Union and joined the Communist Party . Arshinov would later disappear during the Great Purge , while Makhno and Volin both succumbed to tuberculosis in their Parisian exile. Following the end of the Povolzhye famine , there was widespread disillusionment with the New Economic Policy (NEP) due to rising levels of unemployment. Furthermore,

845-573: A Cultural-Educational Commission for the purpose of providing free democratic education to Ukrainians, inspired by the Ferrer movement . Ukrainian Jews held a number of important positions in the Makhnovschina, with the majority fighting in the Insurgent Army, often in specifically Jewish detachments. Antisemitism was punished severely by the Makhnovists, with one insurgent commander being shot for raiding

1014-519: A Jewish town and another executed for displaying an antisemitic poster. The Makhnovists remained on good terms with the Bolsheviks at this time. When famine threatened Petrograd and Moscow, Huliaipole's Ukrainian peasants exported large amounts of grain to the Russian cities, while Makhno himself was cast as a "courageous partisan" by the Soviet press. By March 1919, the Insurgent Army had even been absorbed into

1183-593: A bomb laboratory. The anarcho-syndicalist leader Daniil Novomirskii justified this use of terrorism as having acted to benefit the movement "as a whole", which he distinguished from the unplanned "motiveless terror" of the Nechayevshchina . The Odesa Anarcho-Syndicalists had adopted the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT) as a model for anarcho-syndicalism in Ukraine, centring trade unions as

1352-634: A broad mix of peoples, including those who had fled from serfdom , who as "free Ukrainians" held their own land and were mobilized as part of the Zaporozhian host. The Ukrainian cossacks fought against the Poles, Russians and Ottomans alike, organized into decentralised regiments ( polks ) and squadrons ( sotnias ). The Zaporozhian Sich was itself organized along democratic and egalitarian lines, where military and civilian officials were all directly elected for one-year terms and subject to instant recall by

1521-656: A close friend of Nestor Makhno , later joining his insurgent movement during the Ukrainian War of Independence . In April 1919, Makhno ordered him to reinforce the insurgent detachment in Mariupol , where he joined Lev Zadov 's branch of the Kontrrazvedka , the newly-established counterintelligence division of the insurgent movement. He quickly became one of the chiefs of the Kontrrazvedka's military division and carried out

1690-469: A communal village that lived without government and distributed its resources " from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs ". Members of Bread and Freedom denounced the "robber bands" of Odesa, comparing them to the Italian mafia and claiming that their terror campaign demoralized and discredited the movement. Nevertheless, the anarcho-communists continued to advocate for propaganda of

1859-634: A large amount of military equipment for the Makhnovists to seize. The Ukrainian State , unable to sustain itself without the support of either the central powers or the Ukrainian people, was overthrown by the Directorate , which established the Ukrainian People's Republic in its place. The Ukrainian Radical Party subsequently joined the Central Council , the democratic-federalist orientation of which

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2028-691: A larger-scale Bolshevik attack. On 26 November 1920, the Red Army attacked the Makhnovshchina, inundating the Makhnovist-held territory with 58,000 Red soldiers and forcing the Insurgent Army to scatter their forces. Even after the attack, the KAD continued to take caution with punishing captured Soviet state officials, often releasing the ones that were compelled into their position. They also continued to hold their own insurgents to account, with one detachment fleeing

2197-464: A meeting in Vremivka , the newly constituted Revolutionary Insurgent Council (RPS) effectively abolished the Kontrrazvedka and unanimously voted to transfer its judicial and punitive functions to a new Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activities ( Ukrainian : Комісія Противмахноських Дел , romanized :  Komisiya Protyvmakhnosʹkykh Del , KAD). During the meeting, the conduct of the Kontrrazvedka

2366-474: A national conference and gauge the movement's strength throughout the country. It was around this time that the Ukrainian revolutionary anarchist Nestor Makhno returned to his native Huliaipole , where he became involved as a union organizer among the local peasants. By August 1917, Makhno had been elected as the Chairman of the local Soviet , a position from which he organized an armed peasant band to expropriate

2535-578: A notably strong hold in Odesa , while acts of anarchist terrorism by cells such as the Black Banner became more commonplace. After the revolution was suppressed, Ukrainian anarchism began to reorganize itself, culminating in the outburst following the February Revolution , when Nestor Makhno returned to the country and began to organize among the peasantry. Ukraine became a stronghold of anarchism during

2704-449: A number of antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theories about the labour movement, which resulted in another wave of pogroms breaking out in Ukraine. The living conditions of Pale nourished the growth of the Ukrainian anarchist movement, which grew particularly strong in Jewish towns, where workers' circles began to educate themselves on a number of radical ideas. Dissatisfied with

2873-528: A number of clandestine groups in various other cities of Ukraine. Despite a subsequent arrest wave in 1925, the anarchist movement remained strong in Poltava , where young people continued to adopt anarchism even as more of them were being arrested, imprisoned and exiled. The growth of anarchist tendencies among Ukrainian students continued, with a number of youth groups sprouting up in cities throughout Ukraine, leading Communist Party officials to officially call for

3042-479: A number of expropriations throughout 1923. The State Political Directorate 's usual repression tactics proved ineffective against the anarchists, who engaged in both legal and clandestine activities, recruiting former Communists and organizing strike actions. State-run factories in cities throughout Ukraine were hit by strikes, even approaching the levels of a general strike in Donbas . Anarcho-syndicalists also organized

3211-420: A police officer by Oleksandr Semenyuta . This meant that, by the outbreak of the 1917 Revolution , there were many anarchist insurgents that had prior experience in counterintelligence . One of these anarchists was Lev Zadov , who had been imprisoned for his criminal activities by the imperial authorities and released during the February Revolution , after which he returned home to Yuzivka and participated in

3380-435: A police officer. Following her sentence, she remarked: I am an Anarchist-Individualist [...] My ideal is the free development of the individual personality in the broadest sense of the word, and the overthrow of slavery in all its forms. [...] Proudly and bravely we shall mount the scaffold, casting a look of defiance at you. Our death, like a hot flame, will ignite many hearts. We are dying as victors. Forward, then! Our death

3549-540: A refuge for foreign anarchists fleeing oppression in Romania and Bulgaria . Italian and French anarchists even emigrated to Ukraine, where they established an agricultural commune near Yalta . By 1924, there were anarchist groups in at least 28 Ukrainian cities. In the Odesa alone, there were three anarchist workers' circles, a youth group, a published journal and a library, with the police knowing of hundreds of anarchists in

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3718-550: A relatively small insurgent formation. But as the reach of the Makhnovshchina grew during the autumn of 1919, the organisation itself decentralised into a network structure, with its responsibilities spreading out between the four corps of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army . Each insurgent unit had its own Kontrrazvedka, each independently subordinated to the army headquarters, which created a dense intelligence network, where one-tenth of all insurgents acted as agents of

3887-576: A retreat to Western Ukraine . But in September 1919, the Makhnovists returned and launched a surprise counterattack in Uman , cutting Denikin's army off from its supply lines, which forced him to call off the Moscow offensive and retreat to Crimea . The Makhnovists swiftly occupied the cities of Katerynoslav and Oleksandrivsk , releasing their prisoners, proclaiming freedom of speech and assembly , and dissolving

4056-451: A series of terrorist attacks in the enemy rear. On 25 June 1919, he participated in a meeting with Nykyfor Hryhoriv , who was negotiating to merge his forces with those of Nestor Makhno. But an investigation by the Kontrrazvedka discovered evidence of Hryhoriv's participation in antisemitic pogroms and connections to the White movement , for which he was assassinated by the Kontrrazvedka. In

4225-477: A terrorist organization inspired by the insurrectionary anarchism of Mikhail Bakunin , grew to include a large membership of Russians, Ukrainians and Jews. In Katerynoslav, Odesa and Sevastopol , the Black banner organized a number of detachments that carried out bombings on buildings, murdered and robbed rich people, and fought with the police in the streets. Even the merchant vessels that docked in Odesa's port became

4394-475: A unit of the Ukrainian People's Army and executed its commander for having committed pogroms. In September 1920, the KAD executed a requisitioning unit, although at Makhno's own intervention, it left the youngest member alive. The KAD also executed all officers of the White movement that it captured, while allowing their rank-and-file to join the ranks of the Insurgent Army. The Makhnovist Kontrrazvedniks also directed

4563-606: A wave of attacks and expropriations, eventually establishing ties with other underground anarchists in Moscow. Fleeing from the repression in Petrograd and Moscow, Russian anarchists sought asylum in the " wild fields " of Ukraine, where the anarchist movement was still strong. By late 1918, the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations had been founded in Kharkiv and established branches in all of Ukraine's major cities. Among

4732-485: A wave of punishment against the Black Banner and other radical organisations, with a number of militants committing suicide after their capture. The concept of martyrdom entered the anarchist zeitgeist as hundreds of young anarchists were executed in the repression, including the Ukrainian individualist Matrena Prisiazhniuk, who was sentenced to death for raiding a sugar factory, murdering a priest and attempting to murder

4901-432: A wave of raids and arrests, but continued their underground organizing work, even planning an All-Union Anarchist Congress before another wave of arrests forced leading Kharkiv anarchists into exile. In Kyiv, anarcho-syndicallists made attempts to unify the Ukrainian anarchist movement, but the arrest waves continued, resulting in the suppression of anarchist youth groups and a dissident construction workers' union, as well as

5070-454: Is our triumph! Contempt of court was common among anarchist defendants, with one terrorist from Odesa, Lev Aleshker, attacking the judges: "You yourselves should be sitting on the bench of the accused! [...] Down with all of you! Villainous hangmen! Long live anarchy!" In Aleshker's last testament, he predicted the coming of an anarchist future: Slavery, poverty, weakness, and ignorance—the eternal fetters of man—will be broken. Man will be at

5239-459: Is the anarchist ideal. And when it comes about, men will live wisely and well. The masses must take part in the construction of this paradise on earth. Five young anarchists were brought to trial for the bombing of the Cafe Libman in Odesa, all of them being sentenced to the death penalty. One of the defendants, Moisei Mets, denied any criminal guilt while also confessing to the bombing, declaring to

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5408-573: The Makhnovtsy quickly grew into a small army, as previously isolated guerrilla cells placed themselves under Makhno's command. Supported by the peasantry, they were able to carry out lightning warfare against their adversaries, using guerilla tactics to disperse and regroup their forces when needed. Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918 , the Central Powers withdrew from Ukraine, leaving behind

5577-704: The 1905 Revolution , during which 4,500 imperial officials were either killed or wounded. Tens of thousands of terrorist attacks, including expropriations, were also carried out in the years following the suppression of the revolution. This series of expropriations resulted in the development of an ad hoc intelligence apparatus by the militant anarchist organisations, which aided in the planning of raids and attacks through thorough research and reconnaissance. The Union of Poor Peasants , which carried out expropriations in Katerynoslav province , developed its own intelligence gathering operation during its targeted assassination of

5746-570: The Austrian authorities and ostracised by local religious conservatives , due to his staunch anti-clericalism . Nonetheless, in 1890 Franko was able to found the Ukrainian Radical Party (URP), which engaged in a number of activities including the convocation of popular assemblies , the establishment of cooperatives and the education of the peasantry. In 1895, members of the URP were elected to

5915-632: The Central Powers . Ukrainian anarchists responded with the formation of armed detachments known as the Black Guards , which would undertake a campaign of guerilla warfare against the invading German Empire . Armed anarchist contingents quickly spread throughout Ukraine, with the Anarcho-Futurists of Kharkiv proclaiming "death to world civilization!" and anarchists in Katerynoslav breaking into

6084-514: The Galician Diet and the Austrian parliament , by which point its party congresses were beginning to call for Ukrainian independence and endorsed a number of strikes by agricultural workers. Drahomanov's death that same year accelerated a split in the organization, between orthodox radicals that stayed loyal to Drahomanov's platform, younger social democrats that had gravitated towards Marxism and nationalists who were no longer comfortable with

6253-551: The Golden Horde , the northern states under the rule of Moscow became known as "Russia", while the southern borderlands came to be known as "Ukraine". After the fall of the Horde, Ukraine became a battleground between the competing Polish , Russian and Ottoman Empires , which brought about the development of a distinct Ukrainian culture . By this time, the Cossacks had emerged from

6422-633: The Imperial Russian Army , in which they became loyal soldiers of the Russian Empire , going on to play a vital role in defeating the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 and later becoming the de facto police force in Russia. Likewise, the Zaporozhian Sich was broken up and its people were forced into either serfdom or exile, with Ukraine being brought definitively under Russian imperial rule. Nevertheless,

6591-721: The Red Army , becoming the 7th Ukrainian Soviet Division , subject to the orders of the Revolutionary Military Council . The Ukrainian Front of the Red Army , although commanded by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko , was largely made up of Ukrainian peasants led by the atamans Nestor Makhno and Nykyfor Hryhoriv . Considering themselves inheritors of the Zaporozhian Host , the peasantry were less committed to Bolshevism than they were to their liberation from "all those they considered their oppressors". Hostilities within

6760-588: The Turkic Khazars , Pechenegs and Cumans , before the migration of Slavs to the region. By the 9th century CE, these Slavs became known as the Rus and had formed a loose federation of principalities, with Kyiv as its center. The Rus were converted to Orthodox Christianity over the following century, before being invaded by the Mongol Empire , which brought about the collapse of Kyivan rule. While ruled by

6929-493: The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in its place. Anarchism experienced a brief resurgence in Ukraine during the time of the New Economic Policy , but was again defeated following the rise of totalitarianism under the rule of Joseph Stalin . Further expressions of anarchism existed in the breach of Soviet Ukrainian history, before finally reemerging onto the public sphere following the dissolution of

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7098-467: The White defenses at Perekop , he declared the end of the Starobilsk agreement and predicted that the Bolsheviks would attack them within the week. On 26 November, Huliaipole was attacked by the 42nd Division and 2nd Cavalry Corps of the Red Army, forcing the insurgents to flee. On 2 January 1921, while the insurgents were being pursued by the 8th Division of the 1st Cavalry Army , Hryhory Vasylivsky

7267-565: The Zaporozhian Cossacks , who inhabited the region up until the 18th century. Philosophical anarchism first emerged from the radical movement during the Ukrainian national revival , finding a literary expression in the works of Mykhailo Drahomanov , who was himself inspired by the libertarian socialism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon . The spread of populist ideas by the Narodniks also lay

7436-497: The bourgeoisie . Finally, the Kontrrazvedka requisitioned winter clothing for the insurgents, for which they became known as "shubniks" ( Russian : шубникы , due to the fur coats they wore. Although much of the looting was carried out in order to support the Insurgent Army, the Kontrrazvedka also redistributed the expropriated wealth to the urban poor, with thousands regularly queuing up outside their headquarters for portions and money also being transferred to city orphanages. Although

7605-404: The death of Lenin , the dissolution of the once-powerful Socialist-Revolutionary Party and the purging of leading academics and civil servants had opened a power vacuum in Ukrainian politics. During this time, there was a noted easing of repressive measures against the anarchist movement, leading to a resurgence of the Ukrainian anarchist movement, as a new generation of youths became attracted to

7774-517: The democratic - federalist tradition from the Decembrists and the Brotherhoods, Mykhailo Drahomanov blended together elements from liberal democracy , agrarian socialism and Ukrainian nationalism , envisioning the final goal of the democratic-federalist movement to be the achievement of anarchy , as inspired by the works of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon . Having coined the slogan " Cosmopolitanism in

7943-479: The industrial union . The Union quickly spread throughout Ukraine, at one point claiming 5,000 members, creating a union presence particularly among the factory and dock workers of Odesa and the bakers and tailors of Katerynoslav. On the rise of the Ukrainian anarcho-syndicalist movement, Juda Grossman remarked: "I am convinced that God, if he existed, must be a syndicalist—otherwise Novomirskii would not have enjoyed such great success." The anti-intellectualism of

8112-464: The revolutionary period , acting as a counterweight to Ukrainian nationalism , Russian imperialism and Bolshevism . The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU), led by Makhno, carved out an anarchist territory in the south - east of the country, centered in the former cossack lands of Zaporizhzhia . By 1921, the Ukrainian anarchist movement was defeated by the Bolsheviks , who established

8281-549: The totalitarian rule of Joseph Stalin . The policies of collectivization and dekulakization , as part of the first five-year plan , led to a famine in Ukraine known colloquially as the Holodomor - killing millions of people due to starvation. This was followed by a repressive campaign against the Ukrainian intelligentsia, culminating in the Great Purge of 1937–1938. Hryhory Vasylivsky Hryhory Vasylivsky ( Ukrainian : Григорій Василівський ; d.  1921 )

8450-837: The Black Banner, 51 sympathisers, 5 members of the SR Combat Organization and 5 members of the Anarchist Red Cross . They were mostly young people of mixed Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish backgrounds, of whom 28 received the death penalty and 5 escaped prison. One of those that escaped was Olha Taratuta, who fled to Geneva and joined the buntars before returning to Katerynoslav and joining an anarcho-communist "battle detachment", which saw her arrested again and this time sentenced to hard labor. Vladimir Ushakov had also fled capture in Saint Petersburg , hiding out in Lviv before joining

8619-533: The Bolshevik newspaper Zvesda and shoot its editorial staff for having printed anti-Makhnovist articles, but these orders were also rejected by his subordinates, who declared that freedom of the press would be upheld. By this time, an outbreak of epidemic typhus had spread through the ranks of the Insurgent Army. In response, the Military Kontrrazevdka covertly purchased medicine in areas still held by

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8788-540: The Bolsheviks in Moscow, in July 1918 Makhno returned to Huliapole, where he found the village occupied by both the Austro-Hungarian Army and the Ukrainian troops of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi . He quickly rallied a partisan detachment under the black flag and launched raids against both the counterrevolutionary forces and the local nobility. Moving quickly across the steppe on horseback with weaponized tachanka ,

8957-628: The Central Council was inspired in part by Drahomanov platform, and Drahomanov's influence further inspired the Socialist-Federalists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries . The outbreak of the February Revolution brought with it a resurgence in anarchist activity in Ukraine. Within the month, anarcho-syndicalist circles had been organized in the factories of Ukraine's largest industrial cities and miners in Donbas had adopted

9126-399: The Cheka, which ambushed and killed the former kontrrazvedniks in a series of raids. In his memoirs, Makhnovist chief of staff Viktor Bilash claimed that the activities of the Moscow group happened under direction of the Kontrrazvedka, while leaflets issued by the Moscow group itself declared their planned attacks to be revenge for the execution of Makhnovists by the Cheka. Testimony by one of

9295-447: The Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activities, which Vasylivsky joined, along with Halyna Kuzmenko and Nazarii Zuichenko . After the insurgent capture of Huliaipole in October 1920, Vasylivsky remained behind in the city with a wounded Makhno, while Karetnyk led the insurgent army on to Crimea , in their offensive against the White movement . On 16 November 1920, when Vasylivsky heard that Semen Karetnyk 's detachment had breached

9464-409: The Front grew over time, as the Bolshevik leadership developed a distaste for the peasant base and began to reign in the autonomy of the "free soviets". After Makhnovists accused the Bolsheviks of monopolizing the Revolution, Pavel Dybenko declared the Ukrainian anarchists to be "counterrevolutionary" and attempted to ban their congresses, which they held anyway. The Soviet press subsequently turned on

9633-492: The Geneva Circle, the first Ukrainian socialist organisation. Drahomanov's socialist tendencies brought him into conflict with more moderate members of the Hromada , as well as the " chauvinist " and " dictatorial " Russian revolutionaries, leaving him isolated from many of his contemporaries by 1886. In Galicia , which Drahomanov had placed at the center of the Ukrainian national struggle due to its constitutionalism , Drahomanov's disciple Ivan Franko found himself persecuted by

9802-432: The Huliaipole Soviet, from which he ordered the armed expropriation of land by the peasantry. During World War I , the URP took part in the establishment of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen and, following the war, collaborated in the constitution of the West Ukrainian People's Republic , with a number of its members subsequently joining the Central Council of the Ukrainian People's Republic . The federalist orientation of

9971-499: The Insurgent Army. It was also allowed to charge agents of the Cheka , requisitioning units and anti-Makhnovist partisans, without investigation. Even in the face of the White advance, the conflict between the Bolsheviks and Makhnovists intensified, with the Cheka prosecuting their Red Terror against any peasants suspected of Makhnovist sympathies. On 13 July, the Soviet Security Forces  [ ru ] executed 2,000 Makhnovist prisoners in Chaplyne . This provoked reprisals from

10140-419: The Insurgent detachment led by Semen Karetnyk was joined by the Kontrrazvedka chiefs: Lev Zadov and Lev Golik. During the Perekop-Chonhar operation , the Kontrrazvedka carried out reconnaissance work with information from their agents in Crimea, which aided in the forcing of the Syvash and the capture of Crimea by the Soviets. The KAD itself increasingly upheld the terms of the Starobilsk agreement and ordered

10309-451: The Katerynoslav battle detachment and going on to expropriate a bank in Yalta . He was caught in the act and taken to prison in Sevastopol , where he committed suicide during a failed escape attempt. The leaders of the anarcho-syndicalist movement in Odesa and the anarcho-communist movement in Kyiv were all sentenced to long terms of hard labor. The mass imprisonment of anarchist agitators affected each of them differently, with some taking

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10478-441: The Kontrrazvedka under civilian control were largely unsuccessful, it was the military itself that managed to maintain order. When the 1st Donetsk Corps withdrew from Oleksandrivsk on 3 November, Makhno ordered its counterintelligence division to remain behind and liquidate 80 of the city's Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries . But these unilateral death sentences were prevented by Alexander Kalashnikov and Semen Karetnyk ,

10647-459: The Kontrrazvedka was led by Dmitry Popov , under whom the organisation developed a reputation for torture and arbitrary executions, fed by both Red and White reports. Reports from Katerynoslav depicted numerous executions on the banks of the Dnieper , where the Kontrrazvedka would leave the bodies to wash ashore. Among the executed were participants in the Polonsky conspiracy , an attempt by Bolsheviks to assassinate leading insurgents and overthrow

10816-407: The Kontrrazvedka. The Kontrrazvedka of the 1st Donetsk Corps was headed by Lev Zadov and that of the 2nd Azov Corps was headed by Lev Golik . The Kontrrazvedka had both a Military and a Civilian Section. The Civilian Section, which included the counterintelligence divisions of the 1st and 2nd Corps, as well as Makhno's "Black Sotnia", was tasked with hunting down and liquidating enemy agents in

10985-405: The Makhnovist banner, resulting in a purge of officers with Makhnovist sympathies. On 3 December 1920, Kontrrazvedka spies led the rapid destruction of the Red Kirghiz Brigade at Komar . By March 1921, agents were also making use of disinformation to mislead the Red Army about insurgent movements. In August 1921, when the defeat of the Makhnovshchina had been assured, Lev Zadov led the retreat of

11154-440: The Makhnovist core into Romania by disguising themselves in Red Army uniform and disarming the border guards, before crossing the Dniester . Despite the predominance of the Kontrrazvedka, the insurgent army's agent network was largely based on a grass-roots system of covert Makhnovist organisations, partisan units and supply points. Following the defeat of the Makhnovshchina, this network continued to function underground, forming

11323-452: The Makhnovist territory. Along with its own military agents, volunteers from the civilian population acted as informants for the Kontrrazvedka, which allowed for the swift identification and neutralisation of anti-Makhnovist agitators. The Military Section was chiefly concerned with military intelligence, particularly reconnaissance. Behind the front lines, the Military Section was largely concerned with hunting down members and collaborators of

11492-432: The Makhnovists, who on 15 July, raided Hryshyne and wiped out the local Bolsheviks. A subsequent raid cut through the provinces of Katerynoslav , Kharkiv and Poltava , during which the KAD carried out a "purge" of state officials in the areas that they occupied. Under orders from Kuzmenko, Makhno and Zadov, an estimated 1,000 Bolshevik officials were executed during the Bolshevik-Makhnovist conflict. The KAD also disarmed

11661-410: The Makhnovists, who were integrated into the Free Cossack Insurgent Group following their investigation by the Kontrrazvedka, which continued surveilling their commanders and even executed some for having committing pogroms after joining. Meanwhile, other agents of the first Kontrrazvedka had signed up to Maria Nikiforova 's terrorist detachment, which organised assassination attempts against leaders of

11830-412: The Makhnovshchina concluded an agreement with the Ukrainian People's Republic , which allowed a brief period of respite for the two forces. At this time, the Kontrrazvedka began infiltrating the Ukrainian People's Army (UPA) and reported that the nationalists had begun negotiations with the White movement at Khrystynivka . They also reported on an apparent nationalist attempt to remove Makhno and merge

11999-422: The Makhnovshchina, which the Kontrrazvedka uncovered and suppressed. When the Whites later entered Katerynoslav, they found 70 bodies of those executed by the Kontrrazvedka. With the Volunteer Army having already systematically looted the area, the insurgents carried out requisitions on a more orderly basis, targeting the procurement of provisions necessary for the survival of the army and the wider population. This

12168-797: The Nabat and set about preparing for the slated All-Russian Anarchist Congress. Within the month, the Bolsheviks had reneged on the agreement. Following Wrangel's evacuation of the Crimea , the Makhnovist commanders were immediately shot by the Bolsheviks, Huliaipole was subsequently attacked by the Red Army and members of anarchist organizations throughout Ukraine were arrested by the Cheka. The remnants Insurgent Army retreated to Romania , with Makhno himself eventually making his way into exile in Paris . The power vacuum in Ukraine

12337-504: The Nabat boycotted the Red Army, due to its authoritarian and militarist style of organization, it instead called for the formation of an independent and spontaneously organized "partisan army" to fight the Whites. A call that was taken up by the peasant leader Nestor Makhno. When the German Empire invaded Ukraine, Nestor Makhno's small peasant band hadn't been strong enough to fight it, with

12506-466: The Nabat's most prominent leaders were Volin , Aron Baron and Peter Arshinov , with its youth wing led by Senya Fleshin and Mark Mratchny . At its first conference in Kursk , the Nabat recognized the importance of building a nationwide anarchist federation at all levels of Ukrainian society, encouraging anarchists to participate in non-partisan soviets , factory committees and peasant councils, However,

12675-462: The Nabat's subsequent congress would end up discussing how the trade unions had absorbed the factory committees and how the Bolsheviks had taken over the soviets and transformed them into instruments of the state. While the Nabat were critical of the Bolshevik dictatorship, it reserved most of its hostility for the White movement, which it considered to present the biggest threat to the Revolution. As

12844-639: The Nabat, the Huliaipole Anarchist Union or the Military Revolutionary Soviet. The VRS itself was charged with maintaining discipline within the insurgent ranks, giving commanders authorisation to punish minor infractions, while establishing military tribunals to sentence those charged with more serious offenses. Anarchism in Ukraine Anarchism in Ukraine has its roots in the democratic and egalitarian organization of

13013-707: The Narodniks' " Going to the People " campaign culminated in a number of Ukrainian revolutionary anarchists ( buntars ), led by Yakov Stefanovich , organizing a peasant revolt in Chyhyryn , before being suppressed by Russian authorities. Alexander II subsequently issued the Ems Ukaz which banned the use of the Ukrainian language , resulting in the repression of the hromadas and Drahomanov's flight into exile in Geneva , where he established

13182-604: The National Economy and the repression of dissident elements by the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission . In Katerynoslav, anarcho-communists called on the masses to overthrow the Bolshevik dictatorship and establish a libertarian socialist society in its place. Left-wing opposition to the Bolsheviks intensified after the ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , which ceded the entirety of Ukraine to

13351-642: The Polish revolutionary Jan Wacław Machajski , inspired by Bakunin's insurrectionary anarchism, also made an impression among Ukrainian anarchists, with the Black Banner members Olha Taratuta and Vladimir Striga organizing alongside Makhaevists in a secret society known as the Intransigents. Even the Odesa Anarcho-Syndicalists were influenced by Machajski's anti-intellectualism, with their denunciations of social democracy being rooted in their opposition to

13520-594: The Purge. The Kontrrazvedka was subordinated to the Operations Section of the insurgent staff , which itself was under the supervision of the Military Revolutionary Council (VRS), and established its own subdivisions in insurgent-occupied cities, where they procured provisions and hunted down members of the White movement . The organisation began as a centralised entity, as it was under the purview of

13689-450: The Red Army's 42nd Division . In Nikopol , the Kontrrazvedka of the 2nd Azov Corps was broken up and its commanders shot, although its chief Lev Golik managed to escape. Throughout the spring of 1920, Golik and his staff continued to operate underground, maintaining contacts between the disparate insurgent groups, in spite of the Insurgent Army itself being effectively dissolved. The Kontrrazvedka kept track of Red Army movements, allowing

13858-539: The Soviet Union . In the 21st century, the Ukrainian anarchist movement has experienced a resurgence, itself coming into conflict with the rising far-right following Euromaidan . At the western-most point of the Eurasian Steppe , the lands today known as Ukraine came under the control of a number of nomadic societies from the 5th century BCE. First came the Indo-European Scythians and Sarmatians , then

14027-559: The USSR to exiled Ukrainian anarchists noted a revival in activity, with anarchism gaining sympathy particularly among the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League . Anarchists in Ukraine made contacts with organizations in Russia, with the intention of unifying the renewed movement and eventually holding an "All-Union Congress of Anarchists". The Cheka likewise reported a surge in anarchist activity, particularly among

14196-627: The Ukrainian Commissar for Education. But following the October Revolution , the anarchist movement came into conflict with the Bolsheviks. The Kharkiv Anarchist-Communist Association described the new soviet state as a "commissarocracy, the ulcer of our time", due to the centralization of power under the Council of People's Commissars , the direction of economics by the Supreme Soviet of

14365-547: The VRS had managed to maintain discipline over the military, notably having a number of insurgents shot for looting, they were unable to extend that to the Kontrrazvedka, which went entirely unpunished for any act of looting. On 2 November 1919, the Oleksandrivsk Regional Congress established a commission to investigate the Kontrrazvedka and to resolve any grievances caused to the population. But while attempts at bringing

14534-445: The White movement, for which he was executed. In August 1919, when the Makhnovists reached Novyi Buh , the Kontrrazvedka engineered a coup within the Red Army's 58th Rifle Division  [ ru ] , which included a number of former insurgent commanders that remained sympathetic to the Makhnovshchina, resulting in much of the unit defecting to the Makhnovists. On 1 September 1919, the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU)

14703-480: The White movement, particularly those connected with the White law enforcement apparatus, who were executed by shooting. It also maintained a communications network between isolated insurgent units, kept contacts with the Nabat and distributed Makhnovist propaganda behind enemy lines. Each of the sentences passed during the Kontrrazvedka's campaign of "Black Terror" were reviewed on a case-by-case basis, either by members of

14872-632: The White movement, such as Anton Denikin and Alexander Kolchak . Cherednyak's group made it to Siberia , where he led an insurgent movement against the Russian State . Kovalevich led his own group to Moscow , where he collaborated with Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in an attempt to assassinate leading figures of the Russian Communist Party , while Sobolev even attempted to blow up the Kremlin . By October 1919, these attempts were all uncovered by

15041-511: The Whites, such as Crimea , Odesa and Kharkiv . At the beginning of 1920, the combined assault of the Whites and Reds, along with the spread of epidemic typhus, brought an end to definitive Makhnovist control over southern Ukraine. When the Red Army returned to Ukraine, it brought with it the Red Terror . On 19 January 1920, many Makhnovists that were sick with typhus, including the kontrrazvednik Oleksandr Lepechenko , were shot in their beds by

15210-540: The activities of the local Soviet . Following the outbreak of Civil War , Zadov then went on to fight in Maksim Cherednyak 's detachment of Red Guards against the counterrevolution of the White movement , before linking up with the Makhnovshchina during their war of independence against the Central Powers . The local insurgents , led by Nestor Makhno , had already developed their own reconnaissance unit by

15379-568: The anarchist groups in Odesa and Nizhyn . Popular discontent with the Tsarist autocracy eventually culminated in the 1905 Revolution , during which much of the country rebelled against the Russian Empire , with a general strike in October successfully securing civil liberties and the constitution of the State Duma . But workers and peasants throughout the country, having not had any of their economic demands met, continued to openly revolt against

15548-475: The anarchists, decrying them as " kulaks " and " bandits ". The Cheka also attempted to assassinate Nestor Makhno, but the two agents sent were caught and killed. When the anarchists held another congress, this time even inviting soldiers of the Red Army, the Military Commissar Leon Trotsky responded with another ban and declared Makhno to be an outlaw . Huliaipole's libertarian experiment

15717-538: The assemblies, while its land was distributed equally among the people. Dedicated to the preservation of "Cossack freedoms", Stenka Razin led the Don Cossacks in an uprising against the Tsarist autocracy in Russia and later Yemelyan Pugachev led the Ural Cossacks in a peasants' revolt against serfdom , but both of these rebellions were defeated. The Cossack hosts were subsequently dissolved and inducted into

15886-491: The authorities noting anarchist attempts to unite into a single Ukrainian organization. Repression largely resulted in the anarchist movement being pushed further away from legality and into clandestinity, as punitive measures were focused mostly on a few dozen prominent members of the anarchist old guard, with the secret police unable to infiltrate the clandestine "wildcat" groups. Imagined cells of underground anarchists engaged in acts of terrorism and expropriation presented

16055-451: The autumn of 1919, Vasylivsky joined the insurgent staff , alongside Semen Karetnyk , Viktor Belash and Oleksiy Chubenko . Together with Karetnyk and Chubenko, he participated in the arrest and execution of the leaders of the Polonsky conspiracy , a Bolshevik attempt to assassinate the insurgent high command. This affair led to the dissolution of the Kontrrazvedka and its replacement with

16224-570: The basis for the Makhnovist insurgency to continue until the rise of Joseph Stalin in the mid-1920s. Makhnovist cells continued to operate in Huliaipole , Dnipro , Odesa and Mariupol up until the Great Purge of 1938. One of these cells was established by Lev Zadov himself, who after returning to Ukraine and becoming an operative for the OGPU , used his network to ensure the safe passage of exiled Makhnovists to Odesa, where 90 of them were exposed during

16393-471: The biggest threat to the Soviet government, which feared the onset of an anarchist-led mass uprising, despite Ukrainian anarchists of the time largely being either unable or unwilling to commit to terrorist tactics. Nevertheless, the inclination of some exiled anarchists in Poland towards carrying out a terror campaign in Russia provided the authorities with evidence of an alleged conspiracy in Ukraine, which allowed

16562-539: The captured anarchists even established a direct link between the actions of the Moscow group and those of the Makhnovists in Ukraine. The Military Section of the Kontrrazevkda had continued working behind the frontlines in the White rear, where they reported a military vacuum, with no White units to be found in multiple directions. Following the insurgent victory over the Volunteer Army at the battle of Peregonovka ,

16731-435: The center of nature. The earth and its products will serve everyone dutifully. Weapons will cease to be a measure of strength and gold a measure of wealth; the strong will be those who are bold and daring in the conquest of nature, and riches will be the things that are useful. Such a world is called "Anarchy." It will have no castles, no place for masters and slaves. Life will be open to all. Everyone will take what he needs—this

16900-492: The cities shortly after to return to the battlefield. The Makhnovists resolved to defend their territory against both the Red and the White armies, with Trotsky again declaring Makhno an outlaw and the Makhnovists producing propaganda to persuade Red Army soldiers not to take up arms against them. The Makhnovists led the Red Army offensive into a protracted guerrilla war, causing great losses on both sides. The deaths were exacerbated by

17069-621: The city's prisons and freeing the prisoners. Inspired by the earlier armed struggle during the 1905 Revolution, Ukrainian anarchists dedicated themselves to the destruction of "would-be counterrevolutionaries ", which included the Whites , Bolsheviks, nationalists and German imperialists alike. Partisan detachments in Simferopol and Katerynoslav sang songs of the incoming "era of dynamite", which they believed would bring about libertarian communism . Ukrainian anarchist detachments subsequently carried out

17238-470: The city. Anarchists also organized within independent groups that were disconnected from the anarchist movement, such as Esperanto clubs and masonic bodies , which offered them a clandestine platform for their activities. In Kharkiv, anarchists re-established the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations , organized strike actions, published propaganda and developed contact with anarchists throughout Ukraine and Russia. In April 1924, they were subject to

17407-423: The commanders of the 1st Corps, who requested confirmation from Viktor Bilash and had the Kontrrazvedka screen the arrested at a meeting. Bilash subsequently blocked the order as "motiveless terror", which he claimed would only serve to exacerbate the coming White Terror , and ordered the arrested be released. The following week, after the insurgents retook Katerynoslav, Makhno ordered the Kontrrazvedka to shut down

17576-474: The conflict, establishing themselves along the banks of the Don and Dniepr rivers, where they practiced a form of participatory democracy in popular assemblies ( Krugs ) and elected their own military leaders ( Atamans ). While other cossacks would end up pledging their loyalty to one state or another, the Zaporozhian Cossacks in Ukraine were able to maintain their independence. The Zaporozhians were made up of

17745-420: The conflict. The region of Zaporizhzhia , with Huliaipole at its center, was transformed into a libertarian society, free of any political authority. By the turn of 1919, the Makhnovists were holding Regional Congresses of Peasants, Workers, and Insurgents, which discussed the economic, political and military issues affecting the Makhnovshchina . Focus was paid particularly to the issue of defense, calling for

17914-415: The court that they demanded nothing less than "the final annihilation of eternal slavery and exploitation". Before his execution, Mets declared: "Death and destruction to the whole bourgeois order! Hail the revolutionary class struggle of the oppressed! Long live anarchism and communism!" In Odesa alone, 167 anarchists were tried in the wake of the revolution, including 12 anarcho-syndicalists, 94 members of

18083-487: The creation of a new intellectual elite, declaring that "the liberation of the workers must be the task of the working class itself". Despite the best efforts of the syndicalists, their extremist counterparts attracted far more attention from the press and the government. Pyotr Stolypin instituted pacification measures against the terrorist movement, placing the Russian Empire under a state of emergency and unleashing

18252-449: The creation of an anarchist vanguard party and the establishment of a state. Arshinov retorted that his Platform did not conflict with anarchism, but in fact advocated for decentralization and anti-authoritarian practices. Makhno also accused Volin of being an agent provacateur for the Bolsheviks, which only drew the rest of the exiled anarchist movement into conflict against platformism, with Alexander Berkman himself denouncing Arshinov as

18421-563: The deed, even approving "defensive terror" against the police and Black Hundreds , with a report from Odesa printed in Bread and Freedom declaring that "only the enemies of the people can be enemies of terror!" Alongside anarcho-communism , Ukrainian cities also saw the emergence of other anarchist tendencies, such as anarcho-syndicalism in Odesa and individualist anarchism in Kyiv. The anarcho-syndicalists of Odesa declared themselves in opposition to

18590-399: The detachment disbanding and Makhno himself fleeing to Moscow. Here he met with Peter Kropotkin and held an interview with Vladimir Lenin , during which he debated the differences between authoritarian and libertarian communism, eventually enlisting Bolshevik support for the anarchists that were holding back the counterrevolutionary advance in Ukraine. Alienated by the "paper revolution" of

18759-408: The dissolution of the Ukrainian People's Republic , many Ukrainian nationalist exiles experienced a sharp turn to right-wing politics , with a number even blaming Mykhailo Drahomanov 's anarchist ideas for the Ukrainian defeat in the war of independence . During the war, antisemitic pogroms had caused the murder of tens of thousands of Jewish people, committed by all sides of the conflict. But it

18928-536: The distribution of propaganda, with the Kyiv Group of Anarchist-Communists pursuing a more moderate course, inspired by the works of Peter Kropotkin . Inspired by their Narodnik predecessors, anarcho-communists from Odesa, Katerynoslav, Kyiv and Chernihiv " went to the people ", distributing radical propaganda among the peasantry. Their leaflet How the Peasants Succeed Without Authority depicted

19097-460: The election of a Donbas Anarchist Bureau. The Bureau then organized a series of political lectures in Ukraine, inviting anarchist intellectuals such as Juda Grossman , Nikolai Rogdaev and Peter Arshinov . It was at this time that Volin returned to Ukraine and began work for the People's Commissariat for Education in Kharkiv, even getting so far as to turn down an appointment that would have made him

19266-495: The execution of insurgent commanders that recruited Red Army deserters, in order to not provide pretext for the Bolsheviks to break it. Meanwhile, agents of the 42nd Division had been sent to Huliaipole , with orders to assassinate the insurgent leadership. But having already been infiltrated by the Military Kontrrazvekda, on 23 November 1920, the Cheka agents were arrested and executed by the KAD, which began to prepare for

19435-623: The existing socialist parties, activists of the General Jewish Labour Bund , Socialist Revolutionary Party and Revolutionary Ukrainian Party all deserted party politics for anarchism. The Bread and Freedom group in London organized the distribution of anarchist literature, including the Yiddish language journals Arbeter Fraynd and Germinal , throughout much of the Pale, reaching as far as

19604-680: The first members of this new Kontrrazvedka. Among the new recruits were former members of the Union of Poor Peasants, including Oleksandr Lepechenko , Isidor Lyuty and Hryhory Vasylivsky , as well as veteran intelligence specialists, such as Yakov Glazgon, K. Kovalevich and P. Sobolev. Within weeks, the Berdiansk Kontrrazvedka came into conflict with the local division of the Cheka , after uncovering evidence that local Bolsheviks had planned to assassinate Nestor Makhno. In response to this, combined with

19773-549: The following day. By this time, the Army of Wrangel had occupied Northern Taurida and the Makhnovists resolved to move their partisan activities behind the White lines. But when their advanced guard made for the front lines on 24 June, they were ambushed and almost wiped out by the 520th, 521st and 522nd Red infantry regiments. The lack of prior warning from the Kontrrazvedka enfuriated the wounded Makhno, who even threatened to shoot Lev Zadov himself for their failure. On 9 July 1920, at

19942-475: The front and harassed the White rear between Nikopol and Oleksandrivsk . Despite their efforts against Alexander Kutepov 's 1st Army Corps , on 25 October, the White Makhnovist division was defeated and disarmed at Melitopol , where their commander Volodin was shot. Other White Makhnovist units, such as the 10th Brigade, provided intelligence on White positions, allowing the Insurgent Army to break through

20111-540: The frontlines. With this information, the insurgents led by Petro Petrenko penetrated the rear of the Don Army , cutting them off from Wrangel and forcing them into retreat. The insurgent breaking of the White lines also allowed many of the White Makhnovists to reunite with the Insurgent Army, reinforcing it with an entire brigade of 3,300 infantry and 200 cavalry. As the combined Soviet forces advanced towards Crimea ,

20280-455: The government. During the suppression of the revolution in December, workers' uprisings broke out in Odesa, Kharkiv and Katerynoslav, but they were unsuccessful and the revolution was brought to an end. Juda Grossman described the rise of anarchist groups in the wake of the revolution as though they "sprang up like mushrooms after a rain". Jewish anarchist groups sprouted up throughout many of

20449-538: The groundwork for the adoption of anarchism by Ukraine's working classes, gaining notable circulation in the Jewish communities of the Pale of Settlement . By the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution , a specifically anarchist movement had risen to prominence in Ukraine. The ideas of anarcho-communism , anarcho-syndicalism and individualist anarchism all took root in Ukrainian revolutionary circles, with syndicalism itself developing

20618-451: The ideas and the ends, nationality in the ground and the forms," Drahomanov rejected separatism due to his philosophical anarchist opposition to nation states . Viewing national liberation as "inseparable from social emancipation", he instead encouraged for the Hromada to concentrate on building a bottom-up form of democracy of small communities organized on a federative basis. In 1874,

20787-529: The insurgent 3rd Brigade on 15 March, Maksim Cherednyak was appointed to form a counterintelligence division, which would procure provisions for the insurgents and hunt down collaborators of the White movement in the city. Cherednyak, who had previously organised a counterintelligence detachment for the Southern Front of the Red Army , established the Kontrrazvedka, which was immediately tasked with carrying out requisitioning in order to supply provisions to

20956-471: The insurgent brigade. Cherednyak also established a civilian counterintelligence section in Mariupol , and again tasked them with procuring provisions for the insurgents, either through expropriation or levies. This had become more necessary as the Red Army command had cut supplies to the Ukrainian insurgents, who increasingly recruited intelligence agents with backgrounds in both expropriation and terrorism. Cherednyak's own associates, including Lev Zadov, were

21125-449: The insurgent capture of Berdiansk , where they recruited local fisherman to attack the White garrison and let the insurgents into the city. By the time that the Makhnovshchina was in control of most of southern and eastern Ukraine , the Kontrrazvedka itself had intelligence centres in every single major settlement, often situated in places that soldiers frequented, like taverns and cafes. This network kept tabs on White movements and kept

21294-442: The insurgent command updated on conditions in the rear. The Kontrrazvedka also had agents infiltrating the Red and White armies, a dangerous enough job that it was often assigned to delinquent insurgents as punishment. The Civilian branch of the Kontrrazvedka was given largely unchecked power within the Makhnovist territory, which resulted in widespread use of cordon and search tactics and arrests of subversive persons. At this time,

21463-442: The insurgent counterintelligence acted as a reconnaissance unit, gathering intelligence from peasants and securing provisions for the army, in order to ensure it kept moving. The Kontrrazvedka kept itself up-to-date not only on Red Army positions and numbers, but also their morale and the competency of their commanders. Makhnovist counterintelligence agents infiltrated many of the Bolshevik units, some of which even prepared to defect to

21632-548: The insurgent staff immediately resolved to return to left-bank Ukraine , where they planned to build a regime of free soviets , as laid out in their Draft Declaration by the Fourth Regional Congress in Oleksandrivsk . The Makhnovists declared a system of justice be created through self-organisation , which led once again to the rise of the Kontrrazvedka. The Kontrrazvedka played a particularly important role in

21801-523: The insurgents to stay clear of open conflict. The Kontrrazvedka also identified targets for insurgent attacks, resulting in the seizure of two million rubles from Red transports in Huliaipole and the capture of ten machine guns from the 42nd Division in Polohy . It was the actions of the Kontrrazvedka during this time that set the foundation for the reformation of the Insurgent Army. In May 1920, Felix Dzerzhinsky

21970-482: The large privately held estates and redistribute those lands equally to the whole peasantry. As the year went on, more anarchist political prisoners were released from prison and returned from exile, which brought a number of intellectuals into the movement. By the turn of 1918, further anarchist conferences had been held in Donbas, Kharkiv and Katerynoslav, resulting in the foundation of the newspaper Golos Anarkhista and

22139-437: The like. Death to the bourgeois! Always, wherever he may be, he will be overtaken by an anarchist's bomb or bullet. Although the terrorists within the Black Banner had been energised by their attacks in Odesa, a dissenting Communard group had also emerged that called for the organization of a mass uprising, rather than individual acts of propaganda of the deed . Anarchists in major cities began to shift their activities towards

22308-431: The local revolutionary committeess . The Makhnovists emphasised self-organization and self-determination , agitating against political party activists that called for centralisation and advising unpaid workers to seize control of their workplaces and charge the customers directly. However, the agrarian Makhnovists found themselves unable to understand or adapt to the complexities of industrial capitalism, and would leave

22477-484: The means for class struggle, winning short-term gains while building towards a social revolution , in which the unions could themselves seize the means of production . Like their western counterparts, the Odesa syndicalists rejected vanguardism and tasked themselves with combatting socialist entryism in the unions, going on to form the Revolutionary All-Russian Union of Labor as their own version of

22646-472: The new government of Alexander III implemented the May Laws , which persecuted Jews living in the Pale. In 1903, a strike in Odesa rapidly escalated into a nationwide Ukrainian general strike , with the heavy industry centers of Kyiv , Kharkiv , Mykolaiv and Katerynoslav all experiencing mass industrial action. The Minister of Interior Vyacheslav von Plehve responded to the strike wave by propagating

22815-446: The newly established factory committees , which they considered to be more in line with revolutionary syndicalism. In July, attempts were made to unify the revolutionary anarchist movement, with an anarchist conference in Kharkiv discussing the revolutionary role of factory committees versus trade unions and how they could convert the world war into a world revolution . They also established an "Anarchist Information Bureau" to organize

22984-480: The occupation of specific cities in order to replenish the Insurgent Army's supplies. On 3 September 1920, the Insurgents occupied Starobilsk and seized 22 million rubles from the local bank, which was paid out in wages to their fighters. They also targeted sugar refineries for seizure, as sugar pods were being increasingly used as a de facto currency, due to the scarcity of the commodity in rural villages. Following

23153-785: The overthrow of the monarchy and its replacement with a revolutionary republic . Following the death of Alexander I , the Southern Society in Kyiv staged a revolt against the Russian Empire , but it was suppressed. Radicalism was raised further during the Ukrainian national revival , as Brotherhoods began to advocate for Ukrainian autonomy and the replacement of the Empire with a pan-Slavic federation organized along liberal democratic lines, with Taras Shevchenko even displaying revolutionary sentiments. The Ukrainian intellectual hromadas , inspired by Russian populism , began to engage with

23322-465: The party's socialist line. By losing the latter two factions, the URP took on a definitively agrarian socialist platform and grew to become the second-largest of the Ukrainian political parties in Galicia. Ukrainian Jews in the Pale of Settlement had been extended a number of rights during the reign of Alexander II , but following his assassination by People's Will , a wave of pogroms broke out and

23491-564: The peasantry - leading to the rise of agrarian socialist tendencies in Ukrainian radical circles. The most prominent of the hromadas was the one in Kyiv, founded in 1859 by populist students of the Lavrovist tendency , who emphasised the education of the peasantry and rejected revolutionary agitation. It was banned by 1863 but renewed its educational activities in 1869, spearheaded by a new generation of students led by Volodymyr Antonovych , Pavlo Chubynsky and Mykhailo Drahomanov . Continuing

23660-539: The philosophy. With the Bolsheviks' attention turned to its ongoing internal conflict between Stalinism and Trotskyism , anarchists declared their neutrality in the dispute, while expressing some sympathy for the Group of Democratic Centralism , which had numerous members in Ukraine. Anarchists began to openly criticise the Bolshevik government for its implementation of state capitalism , repression of libertarian socialists and destruction of soviet democracy . Letters from

23829-446: The police to intensify repression against the anarchist movement, going on to use the publishing house of Golos Truda as a way of baiting anarchists out of hiding. Following the rise of Joseph Stalin to power and the implementation of totalitarianism , punitive action against dissent was intensified, leading to the complete suppression of the Ukrainian anarchist movement by 1929. Political repression in Ukraine intensified under

23998-497: The political repression being carried out by the Cheka in southern Ukraine , Makhno ordered Cherednyak's Kontrrazvedka to break up the Berdiansk Cheka division. Conflict between the Makhnovists and their Bolshevik commanders culminated with Makhno's resignation from the Red Army. Under the weight of political repression, the Kontrrazvedka dissolved, with many of the organisation's agents joining Makhno's detachment in retreating into

24167-607: The preamble to the Industrial Workers of the World 's constitution. In May 1917, the adoption of workers' control as Bolshevik policy was welcomed by many Ukrainian anarcho-syndicalists, with one proclaiming that "since the time of the revolution, the [Bolsheviks] have decisively broken with Social Democracy , and have been endeavoring to apply Anarcho-syndicalist methods of struggle." By this time, anarcho-syndicalists in Donbas had begun to reject traditional trade unions in favor of

24336-539: The ranks of the White movement. The Military Kontrrazvedka also operated behind the White lines, ordering the "White Makhnovists" (insurgents that had defected to the Whites) to cease hostilities against the Red Army and prepare for the Makhnovist advance into White territory. As a result, the White attempts to cut off the Kakhovka bridgehead were sabotaged by the actions of the White Makhnovist cavalry division, which withdrew from

24505-454: The ratification of the Starobilsk agreement in September 1920, the insurgent staff ordered that all its units cease hostilities with the Red Army. Some local detachments refused this order and deserted, in order to continue fighting against the Bolsheviks, to which the KAD responded by ordering the execution of their commanders. During the Northern Taurida Operation , the KAD ordered the execution of unrepentant former Makhnovists that had joined

24674-524: The region upon hearing that the KAD was investigating their looting. Meanwhile, the Cheka carried out a punitive campaign against suspected Makhnovist sympathisers in Ukraine, specifically aiming to destroy their peasant-based intelligence network, which constantly provided the insurgents with information about Bolshevik positions and numbers. The insurgent army broke itself up into smaller independent detachments, which maintained communication with each other through their intelligence network. During this period,

24843-452: The regional congresses, which organized the allotment of livestock, farming tools and land to each commune based on their individual abilities and needs. Makhno had himself assumed authority over the Insurgent Army, introducing the military discipline of the Zaporizhian Cossacks and appointing his own key officers, although the majority of the army's officers were elected by their own insurgent detachments. The Nabat, for its part, established

25012-407: The repression of the youth anarchist movement. Soviet authorities were troubled by the growth of the anarchist underground and the leading role of anarcho-syndicalists in the workers' movement, as a number of "free trade unions" had organized strike actions, including among the miners in Bakhmut . The police further identified anarchist cells known as "fivers", which agitated within labor collectives,

25181-399: The revolution. In order to rectify what he perceived to be a generalized state of disorganization within the anarchist movement, Peter Arshinov founded the organizational tendency of platformism , which found the approval of Nestor Makhno. Volin and Mollie Fleshin were among those that led the split of the synthesis faction over this proposal, considering the aims of "the Platform" to be

25350-409: The small towns in the Pale, while in the cities of Ukraine, the anarchist movement that had first appeared in Odesa and Katerynoslav had spread to Kyiv and Kharkiv. In Huliaipole , the Union of Poor Peasants was formed to carry out expropriations against the rich, with a young Nestor Makhno joining the group and later being arrested and imprisoned for killing a police officer. The Black Banner ,

25519-422: The student and unemployed workers' movements, and even in the Red Army itself. Soviet authorities noted that underground anarchist groups "were often composed of from 25 to 60 persons or more", with some even developing into mass movements among the Ukrainian working classes. Repressive actions against the movement in Kyiv failed to have lasting effects, as anarchist activity continued and even surged afterwards,

25688-460: The target of expropriations. At his trial, a member of the Odesa branch of the Black Banner explained their method of " motiveless terror ": We recognize isolated expropriations only to acquire money for our revolutionary deeds. If we get the money, we do not kill the person we are expropriating. But this does not mean that he, the property owner, has bought us off. No! We will find him in the various cafes, restaurants, theaters, balls, concerts, and

25857-446: The terrorist tactics of the time, having experienced a number of them first-hand, instead advocating for the construction of labor unions capable of radical industrial action . However, the Odesa Anarcho-Syndicalists soon found themselves establishing their own "battle detachments" to carry out expropriations, using the stolen money to buy more weapons and fund the printing and distribution of their literature, even going on to establish

26026-428: The time of the battle of Dibrivka . The unit consisted largely of former border guards, whose reconnaissance of the enemy positions ensured the insurgent victory over the occupation forces. In February 1919, the insurgents entered into an alliance with the Red Army , integrating themselves into Pavel Dybenko 's 1st Zadneprovsk Ukrainian Soviet Division , in return for armaments. Following the capture of Berdiansk by

26195-410: The time to educate themselves and write of their experiences. In the Butyrka prison , Nestor Makhno met Peter Arshinov , who educated the young peasant on the anarcho-communist theories of Bakunin and Kropotkin, up until their release following the February Revolution . Makhno subsequently returned to Ukraine, where he began organizing an agricultural workers' union and was later elected chairman of

26364-465: The tradition of the "libertarian-minded warrior-peasants" persisted, setting the groundwork for the libertarian communist movement in Ukraine. Radicalism spread through Ukraine in the wake of the War of 1812 , as the rise in calls for abolition of the Tsarist autocracy and serfdom led to the establishment of the Southern Society of the Decembrists in 1821. Ukrainian Decembrists were more radical than their northern counterparts , calling for

26533-486: The two armies, which allegedly included Fedir Shchus and Halyna Kuzmenko . These developments culminated with the Kontrrazvedka plotting the assassination of the nationalist leader Symon Petliura , which they planned to carry out at an arranged meeting with him in Uman . But Petliura managed to avoid his would-be assassins, who were surrounded and killed after a two-hour battle with the UPA, forcing both sides to withdraw. Some Ukrainian nationalists responded by defecting to

26702-416: The unemployed, leading a series of unemployment demonstrations in Odesa that culminated in the protestors storming the headquarters of the local government. The repression that followed led to the arrest of 75 anarchists, 16 of whom resisted arrest with arms, and the formal dissolution of the Odesan Anarchist Federation, which continued its organizing activities clandestinely. By the mid-1920s, Odesa had become

26871-481: The well-organized anarcho-syndicalists , which had received support from the International Workers' Association (IWA). There was also an upsurge in violent activity, with anarchists being reported to have gassed a theatre pit in Kharkiv , agitated against taxation in rural Ukrainian villages and attempted to carry out expropriations in Poltava . In Odesa , one armed detachment of about 30 members carried out attacks on infrastructure and local officials, committing

27040-416: The west. Makhno himself reorganised the Kontrrazvedka around the 500 cavalry that formed his personal security service, the "Black Sotnia", a unit that became infamous due to its punitive actions. In July 1919, during the meeting of the Makhnovists with Nykyfor Hryhoriv , the Kontrrazvedka investigated the ataman's actions in Kherson . They found Hrhyoriv guilty of committing pogroms and collaborating with

27209-422: Was Symon Petliura that was largely held responsible for the outbreak of violence, due to his position as chairman of the Ukrainian Directorate . While in exile in France , Petliura was assassinated by the Ukrainian Jewish anarchist Sholem Schwarzbard , who after a short trial was acquitted on all charges. Meanwhile, the exiled anarcho-communists began to have their own disagreements in their analysis of

27378-450: Was a commander in the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine , often serving as Nestor Makhno 's aide-de-camp and as the army's chief of staff . Hryhory Vasylivsky was born into a poor peasant family in Huliaipole . In the wake of the 1905 Revolution , he joined the Union of Poor Peasants and participated in its campaign of expropriations , during which he became experienced in intelligence gathering. As part of this group, he became

27547-433: Was attacked first by Red Army, which forcibly dissolved the town's communes, and again by Anton Denikin 's Armed Forces of South Russia , which liquidated its soviets. With peasants increasingly being brought into opposition against the Bolsheviks, by May 1919, both Makhno and Hryhoriv had deserted the Ukrainian Soviet Army. When Denikin's forces began an offensive against Moscow, the Makhnovists were initially forced into

27716-462: Was carried out largely in the major cities, while the Kontrrazvedka rarely touched rural villages. The Kontrrazvedka looted the homes of executed White officers, under the pretext of looking for weapons, in a series of arbitrary actions that were unauthorised by the insurgent staff. In all the major cities of southern Ukraine, the Kontrrazvedka carried out the expropriation of former White property from local banks and imposed levies on both landlords and

27885-446: Was criticised by Viktor Bilash , who personally pushed for the establishment of the KAD in its place, along with Yakiv Sukhovolski and Aron Baron . Nazarii Zuichenko was elected as chairman of the KAD, which also counted Halyna Kuzmenko and Hryhory Vasylivsky among its other members. The new Commission was given a mandate to prosecute prisoners of war from the White, Red and Ukrainian nationalist sides, as well as soldiers within

28054-420: Was definitively filled with the establishment of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , with the Red Army taking control of the Dnieper River basin by the end of 1921. Any remaining remnants of anarchism in Ukraine were suppressed, with many anarchists being imprisoned in the Gulag , and the New Economic Policy was implemented, transforming the Ukrainian SSR into a state-capitalist economy. Following

28223-442: Was inspired in part by Drahomanov's platform, with Drahomanov's influence further inspiring the Socialist-Federalists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries . But the Ukrainian nationalists and their leader Symon Petliura quickly fell victim to anarchist attacks, with the Makhnovists ousting the forces of the People's Republic from Katerynoslav in a guerrilla attack. The city would later change hands between several different sides of

28392-415: Was reorganised at an insurgent conference in Dobrovelychkivka , resulting in the re-election of the entire formation, including the Military Revolutionary Council (VRS) and the Kontrrazvedka. Over the subsequent weeks, the Military Kontrrazvedka led a series of raids against White trains and carried out bank robbies behind the White rear in Pryazovia , in order to fund the insurgent army. On 19 September,

28561-459: Was tasked with liquidating the anarchist presence in Ukraine. The Cheka subsequently recruited a number of criminals, offering their death sentences be commuted, to infiltrate the ranks of the Makhnovists and kill any anti-Bolsheviks that they found. On 20 June 1920, two of these Red spies, Glushchenko and Kostyukhin, were arrested by the Kontrrazvedka in Turkenivka , after one confessed that they planned to assassinate Nestor Makhno. The pair were shot

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