This is a persistent myth that is shared amongst anarchists and RadLibs alike that the Soviets betrayed the Makhnovists by reneging on their so-called alliance with the Black Army, turning on them immediately after the defeat of the White Army.

This furnishes the anarchist persecution fetish and common narratives about how communists will always betray “the true revolution” and how Lenin was a tyrant.

The historical facts, however, paint a significantly different picture.

For one, you do not sign pacts with your allies. There was a military pact that was signed but, like the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, this is something that occurred between two parties that were constantly at odds with each other and the pact was signed out of conditions where the interests of both parties were temporarily aligned. This simple fact escapes the historical revisionists constantly but, unsurprisingly, only when it serves their arguments.

Secondly, Makhno himself knew that this pact was only temporary. Upon the signing of the pact he had this to say in The Road to Freedom, the Makhnovists’ mouthpiece, in October 13, 1920:

"Military hostilities between the Makhnovist revolutionary insurgents and the Red Army have ceased. Misunderstandings, vagueness and inaccuracies have grown up around this truce: it is said that Makhno has repented of his anti-Bolshevik acts, that he has recognized the soviet authorities, etc. How are we to understand, what construction are we to place upon this peace agreement?

What is very clear already is that no intercourse of ideas, and no collaboration with the soviet authorities and no formal recognition of these has been or can be possible. We have always been irreconcilable enemies, at the level of ideas, of the party of the Bolshevik-communists.

We have never acknowledged any authorities and in the present instance we cannot acknowledge the soviet authorities. So again we remind and yet again we emphasize that, whether deliberately or through misapprehension, there must be no confusion of military intercourse in the wake of the danger threatening the revolution with any crossing-over, ‘fusion’ or recognition of the soviet authorities, which cannot have been and cannot ever be the case."
[Source: Nestor Makhno: Anarchy’s Cossack by Skirda and Sharkey, pp. 200-201]

Clearly these are not the words that allies speak about one another.

At the successful Seige of Perekop, whereby the Red and Black Armies successfully broke the back of Wrangel’s White Army forces and brought the Southern front to a conclusion, Makhno’s aide-de-camp Grigori Vassilevsky, pronounced the end of the pact, proclaiming:

“That’s the end for the agreement! Take my word for it, within one week the Bolsheviks are going to come down on us like a ton of bricks!”
[Source: Nestor Makhno: Anarchy’s Cossack by Skirda and Sharkey, p.238]

The fact is that USSR furnished the Black Army with much-needed military supplies without which they would have been unable to continue fighting and Makhno was no pluralistic leader who was open to Bolsheviks; in fact, his army incorporated Bolshevik forces which defected to the Black Army and Makhno set his military secret police force, the Kontrrazvedka, to at first surveil the former Bolshevik military leaders along with the rising Bolshevik influence that had developed particularly around Yekaterinoslav, and then later summarily executed the Bolshevik leaders when they posed too much of a threat to his power due to commanding some of the strongest units in his army.

But that’s a topic which deserves its own post…

  • ReadFanonOP
    5·
    1 year ago

    I have literally never disputed this. I’ve never met an anarchist that did. You keep bringing it up as if its a super own that changes everything, it really doesn’t.

    I made a clear statement in response to yours and you asked why I would even bring it up. I explained exactly why I brought it up and how it’s relevant to the discussion and now you’re saying that you never disputed this.

    I’m not saying “you disputed this”, I’m simply answering a question you asked. And I brought the fact up that the USSR resupplied the Black Army once so far so I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that I keep on bringing it up but whatever.

    It seems to me like you made up an angry baby anarchist in your head to be mad about instead of going against anything real people believe.

    It seems to me that you yourself were claiming that it was an alliance just a comment ago, that you haven’t spent nearly as much time in discussions with anarchists about Makhnovia than I have, and that you’re once again assuming a position of authority over my own experiences. That’s more than a little condescending.

    To just pretend that the anarchists persecuted and purged the poor little innocent bolsheviks out of nowhere and for no reason other than ideology is just as idiotic and ignorant of what was really happening. Once again, we are all supposed to excuse and understand and give the benefit of the doubt to and even support bolsheivk attrocities no matter how repressive, bloody and absurd, but anything bad an anarchist does is “those evil anarkiddies!!!” with no other context or reason.

    This is just concern-trolling. You haven’t actually given a direct response to what I am missing from this particular event, you’re just handwaving and making vague allusions and implying that what they did was just without actually stating as much. And it’s pretty damning that you’d use a term like “purge” to minimise the extrajudicial executions that happened by Makhno’s command. People get purged out of parties not out of existence.

    So then enlighten me as to what Makhno’s motivations were exactly.

    Do you even know of the event that I’m referring to? Or are you just running defence reflexively because you’re treating this like it’s some sort of team sport?

    There was a very serious distrust that the bolsheviks were just taking advantage of them and treating them like useful idiots, giving basically scraps as “aid” with increasingly pressuring terms and conditions that they would not even get that if they didn’t immediately stop being anarchists (a tactic they would repeat with catalonia btw). It is completely understandable that they thought the very openly anti-anarchist bolsheviks that were helping out were going to backstab them when they had the chance to. What would you have done in that situation, smartass?

    What exactly do you refer to when you say that there was increasing pressure on them to stop being anarchists from the Bolsheviks by way of forcing conditions and terms?

    And what would you have done with a military force that was suppressing your political movement domestically on part of your territory which was openly hostile towards you and would go so far as to establish terror cells within your own country?

    It seems like your political beliefs have blinded you to the reality of the situation. The Makhnovists were openly hostile to the Bolsheviks and they attacked them, which totally is fine and completely justified, but the Bolsheviks attacking the Makhnovists is not okay because they should have simply extended a sort of grace to the Makhnovists which was entirely unreciprocated out of a sense of goodwill to those who consider themselves the mortal enemies of the Bolsheviks.