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[The struggle against the state and other essays by Nestor Makhno]

6. THE MAKHOVSHCHINA AND ANTI-SEMITISM

For the past seven years, almost, the enemies of the Makhnovist
revolutionary movement have wallowed in so many lies about it that one
might marvel that these people do not take a red face, once in a while at
least. It is rather characteristic that these shameless lies directed
against myself and the Makhnovist insurgents, indeed against our movement
as a whole, can unite folk from very different socio-political camps: among
them one can find journalists of every persuasion, writers, scholars and
laymen who place obstacles in their path, mavericks and speculators, who
occasionally have no hesitation in putting themselves forward as
pathfinders for avant-garde revolutionary ideas. One can also come across
supposed anarchists, like Yanovsky, from the Freie Arbeiter Stimme. All
such folk, folk of every persuasion and every hue, have no shame about
employing lies against us, without even knowing us, sometimes without any
real belief in their own allegations. Such lies are rounded off with
innuendo, which consists of forever and always railing at us, without any
attempt to verify the grounds for that ranting and raving. In fact, where
are the probable grounds to justify this hysteria in the slightest degree?
A little while ago, all these bare-faced lies against us Makhnovists,
alleging us to have been pogromists, without offering one shred of evidence
or any sort of authentication, led me to address the world's Jews through
the good offices of the French and Russian libertarian press, to ask them
to spell out the sources of all these absurdities, so as to supply specific
details regarding pogroms, incitement or instigation of pogroms carried out
or launched by the Ukrainian toilers' revolutionary movement led by me.

The well known Parisian 'Faubourg' Club was alone in replying to my "Appeal
to the Jews of All Countries". Through the press, the club managers let it
be known that, at a meeting on 23 June 1927, the following question would
come up for debate: "Was 'General' Makhno the friend of the Jews or did he
participate in their slaughter?" It was added that our French comrade
Lecoin would be speaking in defense of Makhno.

It goes without saying that as soon as I learned of the holding of this
'Faubourg' debate, I immediately approached the club chairman, Poldes,
requesting him by letter that Lecoin be withdrawn and that I be afforded
the opportunity to address the club on my own behalf. Following a positive
reply, I appeared before the assembled club on 23 June 1927.

However, the particular manner in which debates were conducted in that club
and the fact that the matter of concern to me was dealt with only towards
the close of the proceedings meant that I was only able to make myself
heard very late on, around 11:00 P.M. and I was not able to go into the
matter thoroughly. The best I managed was to broach the subject by dealing
with the historical nature, sources and patterns of anti-Semitism in the
Ukraine.

Perhaps my enemies will make capital out of this factor which was beyond my
control and above all of the fact that I was bound hand and foot by it. In
fact, according to French police regulations, I was forbidden to
communicate with my like-minded French colleagues: as a result, there was
no way that I could have organized a public meeting of my own to put my
rebuttal of these slanders. Also, some people have brazenly lied and talked
about my having been "tried" in Paris. This is a further lie, which has
been taken up by my enemies, hypocritical defenders of the rights and
independence of the Jewish people who have suffered so much over the past
thirty years in Russia and the Ukraine.

Can the facts be squared in any degree at all with these lies? All of the
Jewish toilers of the Ukraine, as well as all other Ukrainian toilers are
well aware that the movement of which I was for years the leader was a
genuine revolutionary workers' movement. At no time did that movement seek
to divide the practical organization of the deceived, exploited and
oppressed toilers on grounds of race. Quite the opposite: it aimed to unite
them into a mighty revolutionary union capable of taking action against
their oppressors, especially against the Denikinists who were
dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semites. At no time did the movement make it its
business to carry out pogroms against Jews nor did it ever encourage any.
What is more, the vanguard of the Ukraine's (Makhnovist) revolutionary
movement contained many Jewish toilers. The Gulyai-Polye infantry regiment
for instance had one company made up exclusively of two hundred Jewish
toilers. There was also a four-piece artillery battery, the gunners and
defense unit of which were all Jews, commander included. And there were
lots of Jewish toilers in the Makhnovist movement who, for personal
reasons, preferred to blend in with mixed revolutionary fighting units.
These were all free fighters, volunteer enlistments who fought honestly on
behalf of the joint endeavors of the toilers. These anonymous fighters had
their representatives inside the economic bodies revictualing the entire
army. All of which may be verified with the Jewish colonies and villages in
the Gulyai-Polye region.

All such Jewish insurgent toilers were under my command for a long period,
not for days or months, but rather for entire years. All were witnesses to
the manner in which 1, the Staff and the entire army conducted ourselves
with regard to anti-Semitism and the pogroms that arose from it.

Every attempted pogrom or looting from our side was nipped in the bud. All
found guilty of such acts were invariably shot out of hand for their
misdeeds. This was the case for instance in May 1919, when some peasant
insurgents from Novo-Uspenovka, on leaving the front line for some rest in
the rear, came upon two decomposed corpses near a Jewish settlement:
assuming these to be the corpses of insurgents murdered by members of the
Jewish colony, they vented their spleen on the colony and slaughtered
around thirty of its inhabitants. That same day, my Staff dispatched a
commission of inquiry to the colony. It discovered the tracks of the
perpetrators of the butchery. I immediately sent a special detachment to
their village to place them under arrest. Those responsible for the attack
on the Jewish colony, namely six individuals, one of them the Bolshevik
district commissar, were all shot on 13 May 1 91 9.

The same thing happened in July 1919, when I found myself caught in the
crossfire between Denikin and Trotsky - Trotsky was then promising his
Party that "it was better that the Ukraine be surrendered to Denikin in its
entirety than the possibility of the Makhnovshschina's expanding be allowed
to arise" and I was forced to cross over to the right bank of the Dniepr.
This was when I met with the famous Grigoriev, the ataman of the Kherson
region. Misled by the inane rumors circulating about me and the insurgent
movement, Grigoriev sought to conclude an alliance with me and my Staff
with an eye to waging a concerted campaign against Denikin and the
Bolsheviks.

Talks were opened on the condition, which I required, that, within two
weeks, ataman Grigoriev furnish my Staff and the Soviet of the (Makhnovist)
Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine with documents proving that all
reports of pogroms carried out by him on two or three occasions against the
Jews of Elizavetgrad were baseless, given that, with time at a premium, I
was not able to authenticate them for myself.

That condition gave Grigoriev something to think about: then, as a good
soldier and strategist, he consented. To prove to me that he could in no
way be a pogromist, he boasted of the fact that his retinue included a
Ukrainian representative of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Then,
accusing me of having issued an "Appeal" against him, in the name of my
Staff, wherein he had been denounced as an enemy of the revolution, in
token of his good faith Grigoriev introduced to me several political
representatives who attended him: Nikolai Kopornitsky of the Ukrainian
Socialist Revolutionary Party, Seliansky (alias Gorobets) and Koliuzhny of
the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party.

This happened at a time when I was on the outskirts of Elizavetgrad with my
main combat detachment. I deemed it incumbent upon me as a revolutionary to
avail of this opportunity to verify for myself just what the ataman
Grigoriev might have done during his occupation of the town. At the same
time, some intercepted Denikinist agents revealed to me that, unbeknownst
to the toilers of the Kherson region, Grigoriev was preparing to coordinate
his movements with the Denikinist headquarters in a build-up to a concerted
campaign against the Bolsheviks.

From inhabitants of Elizavetgrad and neighboring villages, as well as from
some partisans from Grogoriev's units, I learned that every time he had
occupied the town Jews had been massacred. In his presence and on his
orders, his partisans had murdered nearly two thousand Jews, including the
flower of the Jewish youth: many members of the anarchist, Bolshevik and
socialist youth organizations. Some of these had even been taken from
prison for slaughter.

Upon learning all this, I promptly declared Grigoriev, the ataman of
Kherson - a "Socialist Revolutionary" (sic) - a Denikinist agent and open
pogromist, directly culpable for the actions of his supporters against
Jews.

At the Sentovo meeting on 27 July 1919, Grigoriev was denounced for what he
was and executed on the spot for all to see. That execution and the reasons
for it were announced thus: "The pogromist Grigoriev has been executed by
Makhnovist leaders: Batko Makhno, Semyon Karetnik and Alexis Chubenko. The
Makhnovist movement accepts full responsibility before History for this
action." That declaration was endorsed by the members of the Soviet of the
Insurgent Army and the Socialist Revolutionary Party members present,
including Nikolai Kopornitsky (NOTE: The Social Democrats Seliansky and
Koliuzhny had vanished utterly following the execution of Grogoriev.)

That was the sort of treatment I always reserved for those who had carried
out pogroms or were in the throes of preparing them. And looters were not
spared either, whether from the Insurgent Army's own ranks or outsiders.
For example this is what happened in August 1920 when two detachments of
Petliurist nationalist leanings, under the command of Levchenko and
Matyansha, encircled by us, sent emissaries to us to suggest that they be
incorporated into our ranks. The Staff and I received them and agreed that
they could be enlisted: however, as soon as we realized that the
nationalistic elements from these detachments were engaging in looting and
blatant anti-Semitism, we shot them out of hand, in the village of
Avereski, in Poltava province. A few days later, their commander Matyansha
was also shot for his provocative behavior in the town of Zinkov (Poltava
province). His detachment was stripped of its weapons and most of its
members cashiered.

In December 1920, there was a repeat of this with Red Army troops, when we
successfully withstood the onslaught from Budyenny's cavalry and completely
routed the XIVth Division of his army, near the village of Petrovo in the
Alexandrovsk district, followed by the XIVth Cavalry Division, taking the
entire command and Staff prisoners in the latter instance. Many prisoners
from the XIth Division expressed an interest in joining the Insurgent Army
to combat the autocratic political commissars as they described them. As
they were crossing the Kherson region and reached the village of
Dobrovelitchka, over half of the population of which was Jewish, certain
former Budyennyist or Petliurist cavalrymen, acting on the rumors current
in their former units regarding the Makhnovists' hostility towards the
"Yids", set about looting the homes of the Jewish villagers. As soon as
this came to the attention of experienced Makhnovists, they were all
arrested and shot on the spot.

Thus, throughout its entire existence, the Makhnovshschina took an
uncompromising line on the anti-Semitism of pogromists: this was because it
was a genuinely revolutionary toilers' movement in the Ukraine.

NESTOR MAKHNO

              From Dyelo Truda No 30-31, November-December 1927, pp. 15-18

Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter

1. Great October in the Ukraine
2. On the 10th Anniversary of the Makhnovist Insurgent Movement in the
Ukraine
3. On Defense of the Revolution
4. A Few Words on the National Question in the Ukraine
5. To the Jews of All Countries
6. The Makhovshchina and Anti-Semitism
7. In Memory of the Kronstadt Revolt
8. The Idea of Equality and the Bolsheviks
9. The Paths of "Proletarian" Power
10. "Soviet" Power - Its Present and Its Future
11. The Struggle Against the State
12. The First of May: Symbol of a New Era in the Life and Struggle of the
Toilers
13. Anarchism and Our Times
14. Our Organization
15. On Revolutionary Discipline
16. The ABC of the Revolutionary Anarchist
17. Open Letter to the Spanish Anarchists
18. On the History of the Spanish Revolution of 1931 and the Part Played by
the Left and Right-Wing Socialists and the Anarchist
19. Bibliographical Afterword

Published by:
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AK Press
