The Makhnovist movement in the Ukraine has been maligned by its enemies, the Bolsheviks have dismissed it as "Anarcho-Kulak Debauchery", while the Whites labelled the Makhnovists as drunken bandits;

"deserters from both sides wearing bandoleers over women’s fur coats and reeking of vodka and onions".

The Makhnovists were peasants and their failure to understand the needs of urban workers, and to expand their support further from their home region contributed to the failure of the movement to survive. The Makhnovist movement was Anarchist, it opposed any kind of state which was regarded, what ever its political colour as a form of oppression and sought self governing communities who would cooperate with each other without the need for external interference. A Makhnovist proclamation of 1920 called for the peasants to ignore all Communist decrees that conflicted with the interests of the peasants, redistribute the land each peasant having as much as he could work with his own labour, workers to directly run the factories, the creation of free Soviets without representatives of political organisations involved, total freedom of speech, assembly and press, the abolition of the military and the police and free exchange of goods and products. Another proclamation of June 1920 aimed at members of the Red Army summed up the movements aims;

"Our frank ideal is the achievement of a non-authoritarian laborers’ society without parasites and without commissar-bureaucrats. Our immediate goal is the establishment of a free soviet order, without the authority of the Bolsheviks, without pressure from any party whatsoever".

But this anarchism was based more on a natural peasant instinct for freedom and independence rather than on any deeply thought out political platform. The Makhnovists redistributed the land to the peasantry and attempted a similar redistribution of wealth in urban areas but with less success. Makhno was nicknamed ‘Batko’, meaning ‘little father’, a term of respect given to him for his military skills. It is also a term indicating traditional social hierarchy, given to a dominant figure, and Makhno sometimes succumbed to the dictatorial antics of a warrior chief, forgetting his egalitarian beliefs in the difficult circumstances of Civil War and making arbitrary decisions without consulting the movements supreme decision making body the ‘Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents’. He was no mere bandit but a guerrilla leader who successfully fought off attempts to defeat his movement until the Bolshevik Red Army could concentrate all its time to his destruction in 1921.

For most of the period of activity the Makhnovists operated as partisan groups against their many foes, raiding small enemy targets in their home area of Ekaterinoslav. These partisan units of up to 100 would disappear into the general peasant population when not fighting;

"In the villages it is absolutely impossible to distinguish the bandits and their horses from peaceful peasants and theirs".

The partisan unit of the village of Zhmerinka was set up by the locals following the occupation of the Central Powers and operated independently of the Makhnovists until the retreat of 1920 . The Partisans often relied on stealth to attack superior forces, using enemy uniforms to gain entrance to defended buildings and springing ambushes on numerically larger forces. Makhno also operated at night or in bad weather when the enemy would not be expecting an attack.

As the civil war progressed the different armies uniforms became almost indistinguishable from each other, infantry dressed in ragged greatcoats and what ever else they could get from civilian or military supplies of ally or enemy. Add to this the fact that by April 1919 there were as many as 93 separate groups operating in the Ukraine against the Bolsheviks and the situation was ripe for confusion. In these conditions Makhno’s insurgents used a Red flag or a revolutionary song to gain contact with the Bolshevik enemy. For most of the Civil War the Makhnovists were mainly a cavalry based force, recruited from the local peasantry in the Gulyai-Pole area, using a system of horse exchange in the local villages the Makhnovists could mass and disperse troops quickly for operations. One of the most important elements of the Makhnovist tactics was the use of the Tachanka, these peasant carts had four sprung wheels and were pulled by two horses, the Makhnovists either used them to carry infantry who could support the cavalry in battle or Machine guns, giving the Makhnovists manoeuvrable fire power. The use of horses and Tachanka gave the Makhnovists the speed to outpace Advancing enemies and avoid encirclement by cavalry. While the rifle was the main weapon of all the armies in the Civil War, Makhno’s insurgent Army made the Machine gun the hallmark of their attacks. In the Autumn of 1919 the Makhnovists had some 1000 Machine guns, mainly mounted on Tachanka and the Makhnovist forces in the Crimean campaign had machine guns in a ratio of 1:24, compared to 1:67 for the Red Army units involved. This firepower gave the Makhnovists an advantage over larger forces, though they had to rely on captured weapons and equipment as they had no regular supplies from outside their home area. The Red Army supplied the insurgents with a few thousand Italian rifles during their time as a Red Army formation, but ammunition was almost impossible to come by for these weapons. During 1919 when they Makhnovists fought along side the Red Army and operated behind Denikin’s lines a number of Red Army infantry Regiments fought under and then as part of the Makhnovists forces. These infantry units made up a significant part of the insurgents forces, until the Bolsheviks final campaign against the Makhnovists, when again they became a mainly cavalry then partisan force recruited from their home region. The use of four captured armoured trains, four armoured cars, forty eight pieces of field artillery and a captured aeroplane (used to foil an attempted Bolshevik coup in April 1919) shows that the Makhnovists had a level of technical and military expertise far higher than any of the other ‘Green forces’, active in the Ukraine. The Makhnovists were certainly a proletarian organisation but were more than the drunken bandits or debauched kulaks of White and Red propaganda. Though the Makhnovists did their share of drinking, and looting as all armies in the Ukraine did.

When looking at the Makhnovists it is difficult to estimate the size of their military forces. At the start of the movement against the Skoropadsky regime and his German, Austrian and Hungarian allies Nestor Makhno had 100 to 200 men, at the movements height in Autumn 1919 the ‘Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist)’, had under its command between 14,000 to 6,000 cavalry and 40,000 to 15,000 infantry, some estimates are higher but the higher figures quoted here are reasonable considering the size of the area controlled by the Makhnovists. By the time Makhno crossed into Rumania in 1921 he was left with between 50-250 of his personal bodyguard. For the most part the Makhnovists were recruited locally from the Ekaterinoslav region especially Gulyai-Pole, only from Autumn 1919 did outsiders from the Red Army and Hryhoriyiv’s partisans change the local character of the insurgents. After the start of the Bolshevik campaign in 1920 the movement reverted to its local support due to military losses and disease.

Makhno led his army from the front but he also ran it with few concessions to his political beliefs, discipline was harsh and often terminal. The Makhnovist military forces were commanded directly by Makhno and his staff with only lip service paid to the ‘Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents’, who theoretically controlled them. Makhno’s General staff were chosen by him and were mainly Gulyai-Pole men that he new and trusted, this group despite its lack of trained career officers was the backbone of the Insurgent Army. So successful was Makhno’s tactics and organisation that the White’s believed he had a professional staff pressganged from captured officers, rumours spread that Makhno was advised by Colonel Kleist a member of the German General Staff. In reality the Makhnovists had no professional officers among their army, captured officers and NCO,s were shot and the ordinary soldiers either joined the Makhnovists or were disarmed and released after being distributed Makhnovist propaganda. Though the Staff officers were appointed by Makhno, on a Regimental level officers were elected by the men from their own ranks and were mostly ex-soldiers. As to Makhnovist order of battle it is confusing, certainly troops were organised into regiments, but it is unknown if they were all of the same size or organisational structure. Specialised units included eight Machine gun regiments of 300 men each, and two Artillery divisions. Former Red army infantry Regiments fighting with the Makhnovists would be of between 400 to 1,000 men. Regiments seem to have been quite large and when fighting on the front organised into Corps of six regiments. The confusion over the Makhnovists order of battle probably has more to do with the destruction of almost all of the records of the insurgent Army and the deaths of most of its commanders than with any problems of organisation. As well as the fighting forces the Makhnovists had their own intelligence service the Kontrazvedka who gathered intelligence from the villages and arrested Bolshevik and White spies, foiling several attempts on Makhno’s life by the Bolshevik’s. The Makhnovists while certainly not in the same league as the Red Army organisationally did have an organised senior military staff, a civilian political organisation and unit organisation at regimental level . Indeed for several months they were part of the Red Army fighting on the southern front against Denikin and later the Makhnovists activities in the Whites rear forced Denikin to divert forces from the Moscow front to deal with the insurgents. these were hardly the actions of counter revolutionary kulaks.

The Makhnovists described themselves as Anarchists but this has been denied by critics and indeed contemporary Anarchist supporters of the Makhnovists. The 3rd Nabat (Confederation of Anarchist Organisations of the Ukraine)Conference in Kharkiv held in September 1920 reported that;

"As regards the ‘Revolutionary Partisan Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovites)....it is a mistake to call it anarchist....mostly they are Red soldiers who fell into captivity, and middle peasant volunteers".

As regards the insurgent army this is basically true many Red army men captured by the Makhnovists decided to stay and fight and the majority of Makhno’s cavalry were middle peasants, due to the agricultural development in South East Ukraine commercial grain farming in an area of low population wages were higher and there was a far larger number of middle peasants than in other areas of the Ukraine. Makhno was undoubtedly an Anarchist of deep conviction he had spent nine years in prison for his involvement with crimes committed while a member of an Anarchist Communist group in Gulyai-Pole and had his beliefs strengthened and sharpened by his time in prison with other Anarchists. On leaving prison he worked in Gulyai-Pole to set up organisations based on Anarchistic principles and attempted to apply his beliefs to the Makhnovshchina. Makhno was no ideologue following the teachings of any one Anarchist ideology he believed that Anarchism was not a doctrine but a way of life;

"Anarchism does not depend on theory or on programmes which try to grasp man’s life in its entirety. It is a teaching which is based on real life, which outgrows all artificial limitations".

Makhno failed to do much to put into practise a free, non governmental society, but this is understandable when he was fighting for his very survival against overwhelming odds. Those free communes that were organised were destroyed by the Bolsheviks when they took control of the Makhnovist area (the Rosa Luxemburg commune with 300 members was one of at least four agricultural communes). For the most part the peasants farmed as much land as they could without hired labour, sharing tools and other materials amongst themselves, similarly those industrial concerns in captured towns and cities were run by workers councils. Each community set up its own free soviet which in turn elected a delegate to the ‘Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents’, these congresses were the supreme decision making body with delegates from 72 districts representing more than two million people. Only three of these Congresses were ever held as the fourth called for June 1919 was outlawed and its delegates marked for arrest by the Bolsheviks, on orders from Trotsky. As well as the lack of stability in which to build anarchist communities the movement also lacked intellectuals and agitators to help build them, Makhno appealed to anarchists to come and help the Makhnovist movement but only few including Voline and Arshinov responded to the call. The majority of Anarchist theoreticians had their origins in the intelligencia and were unable to respond to a purely peasant movement whose Anarchism lay more in the rough and ready democracy of the Cossack Sich than in the teachings of Kropotkin. In May 1919 the Ukrainian Anarchist Nabat sought to become more involved in the Gulyai-Pole region but the advance by White forces into the region and the Bolsheviks attacks on Makhno prevented any larger link up from happening. While in the countryside the Makhnovists at least allowed the peasants natural instinctive anarchist tendencies towards communal organisation and the removal of outside interference to be realised, in the large towns and cities they failed to build any real support. Partly this was due to the short periods of time that the Makhnovists occupied any large town, but it was also due to the lack of understanding of urban economies. The Makhnovists allowed freedom of the press, assembly and speech in all towns that they captured but this lack of control also applied to money. All currencies issued by Nationalist, Bolshevik forces was to be accepted (some reports state that Makhno printed his own money, which on the back stated that it was permissible to forge it). This mass of different types of notes, all off which were acceptable led to inflation which alienated urban workers who needed a stable currency to buy food. The Makhnovists were primarily a peasant movement, peasants could largely do without money if they had access to the land to grow food, they failed to understand that workers needed payment in a strong currency to survive. The Makhnovists were not a fully Anarchistic movement but they did try to create free organisations without outside interference from non members. As Peter Arshinov who played an important part in the movement in its Cultural- Educational section said;

"In the Makhnovshchina we have an anarchist movement of the working masses not completely realised, not entirely crystallized, but striving toward the anarchist ideal and moving along the anarchist path".

How does the Makhnovshchina compare to other contemporary peasant movements?. In Russia the most striking comparison is with the Antonov rebellion in Tambov province South East of Moscow against the Bolsheviks, with as many as 40,000 volunteers started in August 1920. The rebellion targeted state farms and the Bolshevik authorities in retaliation for food requisitioning and the collectivisation of peasant land. Antonov’s movement was like Makhno’s almost exclusively peasant, but although calling himself a Social Revolutionary his political platform was less defined calling for land to be given to those who worked it and the abolition of soviet power. The rebellion was crushed in May 1921 by the Red Army. The Antonov rebellion like the Makhnovists was confined to its home province in which it had popular support. The failure to spread the rebellion led to its isolation, containment and eventual destruction by the Red Army. In Central Asia the Bolsheviks had to deal with the Basmatchi, these peasant partisans like the Makhnovists fought mainly from horseback and operated with the support of the villages in their home region. Originally started in the Fergana valley a rich area of cotton plantations the Basmatchi spread to other areas of Russian controlled Central Asia. The Basmatchi fought against collectivisation and requisitioning by the communists, but it was also a nationalistic and religious movement against the Russian non-Muslim occupiers. Unlike the Makhnovshchina the Basmatchi never became a unified army under one command structure due to religious and tribal differences. The Basmatchi also had an advantage that the Makhno never had being able to operate across borders from neutral territory in Iran and Afghanistan.

To compare the Makhnovists and foreign peasant movements one should look to Mexico and the Mexican Civil War which gives two peasant movements to compare with Makhno’s. That of Doroteo Arango (Pancho Villa) and Emiliano Zapata. With the fall of the dictator Porfirio Diaz in 1910 Mexico fell into confusion with peasant rebels, constitutional reformists and reactionary supporters of the old regime vying for control over the country. Villa operated in the Northern state of Chihuahua an area mainly of cattle ranches and dominated by the landed upper classes. Labour was scarcer and more expensive than in the rest of rural Mexico and the independently minded cowboy’s and bandit’s provided Villa with supporters susceptible to revolutionary propaganda. These hard core of supporters provided Villa with cavalry, and like Makhno his was a war of manoeuvre. Villa unlike Makhno could obtain weapons and equipment from outside his own area across the border in the United States. Villa like Makhno was a peasant who while in Prison gained what political education he had from Gildardo Magana an intellectual involved in the Zapatista movement. By 1914 he commanded 40,000 troops in the North of Mexico. Although he paid lip service to the land reform program of Zapata he never carried out any agrarian reforms, due partly to the difficulties of dividing cattle estates up viably among peasants and cowboys . In the South of Mexico, Emiliano Zapata led a peasant partisan army that had perhaps more political similarities to the Makhnovists than any other. Operating in their home region of Morelos the Zapatistas redistributed the land of the huge estates (Haciendas) to the local peasantry and sought to build self governing village communities similar to those advocated by Makhno. Indeed the Zapatista’s rural anarchism resembled that of the Makhnovists. Like the Makhnovists the Zapatistas had to rely on what materials and supplies they could capture and operated in their home region with some success eventually capturing the capital Mexico city. The Zapatistas fought mainly a defensive guerrilla campaign which was unable to defeat superior government forces in open battle. Both the Zapata and Villa movements failed to become more than peasant rebellions concentrated in their home regions, and both failed to gain support among the urban working class. The constitutional government who gained power with the help of these two movements then turned on them killing Zapata in an ambush in 1919 and making peace with Villa who was later assassinated in 1923.