Neither Nestor Makhno or the movement that bore his name were Anti-Semitic, but many of his followers were, anti-Semitism was deep rooted among the peasants of the Ukraine and effected Makhno’s forces as it did all others involved in the civil war. Pogromists among the Makhnovists were ruthlessly dealt with and efforts were made to make the movements position clear through propaganda work. However violent Anti-Semitism did effect elements within the Makhnovist insurgent army. The movements aims, leadership and political activists were not anti-Semitic. Jewish peasants and workers were involved in the movement at all levels as activists and as fighters and the Jewish colonies had equal status with every other community in areas controlled by the Makhnovshchina. The Pogroms perpetrated in the Ukraine stained every army, but the Makhnovists like Trotsky’s Red army did not try to profit through stirring up anti-Semitic feelings among their followers, and both made strenuous efforts to stamp out anti-Jewish activities. Pogroms and other anti-Semitic acts carried out by the Makhnovist and Red army members happened despite both movements avowed commitments to end anti-Semitism. Pogromist activity among the Makhnovists was an aberration rather than a deliberate policy to build support, and allegations against the movements leadership have been based on propaganda produced by the movements enemies.

The Jewish population in the Ukraine, at one and a half million was the largest in post World War One Russia after Poland gained her independence. The majority of Ukrainian Jews had been forcibly resettled from Poland during the early 19th century as part of a Tsarist government plan of ‘Russification’, to bring its Jewish subjects into Russian culture and convert them to Christianity. The Russian state severely restricted the freedoms of its Jewish population placing tight restrictions on Jews from living outside of the Jewish ‘Pale of settlement’, which covered Poland and parts of West Russia. The Jewish settlers in the Ukraine were set up in agricultural colonies in the country and encouraged to assimilate. The policy of resettlement was also meant to change the economic role of the Jewish community, Robert Weinberg states that the authorities hoped to assimilate them not only into Russian culture and religion but also into the peasant economy;

"One aspect of the Jewish question, as defined by Tsarist officials, was the perceived unproductive nature of Jewish economic life. As a group of people heavily involved in lease holding, commerce, money-lending, and the sale of vodka, Russian Jews were regarded as parasites who exploited the defenceless peasantry. Some Tsarist policies....strove to ‘normalise’, the socio-economic profile of Russian Jewry by encouraging Jews to become agricultural colonists and small-scale manufacturers".

Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 (one of the conspirators was Jewish) a wave of Pogroms (anti-Semitic violence) in which thousands were killed spread across the Ukraine. The government and the police turned a blind eye to anti-Jewish incidents, and reversed some of the relaxation’s of restrictions on the Jews. The ‘May laws’, of 1882 banned Jews from civil service and academic employment and re-enforced the ‘Pale of settlement’. Another wave of Pogroms followed Russia’s defeat in the war with Japan in 1905 and the failed Revolution that followed. The outbreak of the First World War again saw the Tsarist authorities attempt to scapegoat the Jews as enemy sympathisers, in an attempt to divert blame for the many military defeats due to the incompetence of the military staff. Publications and correspondence in Yiddish were banned in 1915 to prevent secret communications and Jewish soldiers were blamed for treachery. The Tsarist secret police produced and disseminated ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, after the 1905 Revolution, a document supposedly produced by leading Rabbi’s about secret Jewish world domination, this forgery is still used by Anti-Semitic groups and was widely disseminated in Russia after 1917 by White forces. Because of the persecution suffered by the Jewish community a large number of Jews became involved in radical political organisations including the Bolshevik party. With the fall of the Tsar in March 1917 one of the first acts of the Provisional government was the emancipation of the Jews. In the Ukraine the various nationalist organisations and parties entered the Ukrainian Central Rada who declared independence from Russia, included among them were Jewish political parties who were guaranteed thirty seats. In January 1918 the Central Rada established legal protection for the Jews against Anti-Semitism, recognised Yiddish as an official language and established Jewish schools. These positive steps towards equality were destroyed by the outbreak of the civil war.

Anti-Semitism in the Ukraine was so vicious and marked that some writers have seen it as part of the national character. While there is nothing intrinsic in the Ukrainian culture to make it Anti-Semitic there is certainly a history of violent anti-Jewish incidents in the Ukraine. What were the motives of the Pogromists and why did they find such fertile ground in the Ukraine?. At the outbreak of revolution 83% of the Ukrainian population were illiterate, the majority of the population were peasants, ethnic Ukrainians while the majority of the urban population were either Russian, Polish or Jewish. Religion played its part in the encouragement of Anti-Semitism the Jew seen as Christ killer a view encouraged by the Orthodox church. This view had an effect in areas where religious observance was strong, however the Orthodox church was seen by many in the Ukraine as one of the principle agents of ‘Russification’, (the suppression of national cultures and languages other than Russian) which effected the Ukrainian language and culture as well as that of the Jews. Nationalist and ‘racial’ feelings were more influential on Ukrainian anti-Semitism, the Jew was seen as an outsider, an exploiter, an easy target for pent up frustrations and anger at war and revolution. Those few Jews who converted to Christianity were immediately free from official Tsarist persecution but like secular Jews, those who had given up religious observance including many left wing intellectuals and activists, they continued to suffer from persecution from the Ukrainian population. Ukrainian folk tradition saw the Jew as a ruthless profiteers mercilessly fleecing the poor honest Ukrainian peasantry. This view of the Jews was common in the countryside and was encouraged by the Tsarist authorities who sought to scapegoat the Jewish communities to take pressure of themselves for social injustices. Even Ukrainian politicians accepted that Anti-Semitism was widespread, Vinichenko a Ukrainian Nationalist leader wrote;

"Sons of shop keepers, kulaks, priests and Christians, they had from childhood been infected with the spirit of anti-Semitism".

Anti-Semitism amongst the Ukrainian peasantry was widespread and had been encouraged by the Tsarist government and its supporters, indeed it was accepted by the majority in society a ‘social norm’. So why did pogroms occur at intervals rather than being a constant feature of life, and how could peasants with strong anti-Semitic feelings work and trade with Jews ? Frank Wright in his book ‘Northern Ireland a comparative Analysis’, uses the theory of ‘Communal deterrence’, to explain how two communities can live together despite violent animosity. If you have two clearly defined communities an individual member may be ‘punished’, as a representative of their community. Violence of this nature is controlled because it can set of an endless chain of reprisals in which any member of either community may be a target for reprisals for something done in their name without their approval. This can suppress the acceptability of actual violence among members of either community who fear reprisals and allow members of both communities to work together while the stalemate continues. If some form of authority is present it must be able to pursue and punish acts of violence committed by either side to have any credibility with both communities. In the Ukraine under the Tsarist government, the authorities condoned certain Anti-Semitic acts when it was politically expedient, while during the Civil War any form of authority was removed. In areas controlled by White or nationalist forces anti-Semitism was condoned again for political expediency while in areas where either Bolshevik or Makhnovist authority was firmly in control anti-Semitic violence was suppressed. Pogromist activities by Red and Makhnovist forces happened in unstable areas where social relationships had been disrupted by warfare.

The role of Jews in prominent positions in the Bolshevik party gave a weapon to the White and Nationalist forces who exploited the links to paint the Bolsheviks as a Jewish take over of the Ukraine. Elias Heifetz a Red Cross investigator believed that the presence of Jews on Bolshevik executive committees in villages led the peasants to believe that the Jews intended to dominate Christian Ukraine. The Jews in the Ukraine were blamed for all the excesses of the communists and not only by the Ukrainian peasantry In his report to the Foreign office in June 1919 the Rear Admiral commanding the British Black Sea fleet wrote;

"They found that their own local Soviets were formed, for the most part, of the hated Jews: that these Soviets carried out their requisitions on the workers and peasants...rightly the blame is apportioned to the Jews and there are signs of a violent anti-Jewish movement spreading all over the South of Russia".

The Times newspaper also reported that the Jews were somehow partly responsible for their own fate;

"Alone the Jews, who either as commissaries of the people or as profiteers have filled their pockets since the revolution, are left to be robbed. Hence Sokolovski, Makhno, Zaleny, and the other cut-throat adventurers who lead these bands are conducting one enormous Pogrom throughout the Ukraine".

There was widespread Anti-Semitism among the Ukrainian peasantry but there were equally areas were Ukrainians lived peacefully along side Jewish families and Jewish colonies. Partly this was due to who controlled the region and whether or not they tolerated Anti-Semitism. Thus ensuring the continuation of ‘communal deterrence’.

Both the Nationalists and the Whites stirred up Anti-Semitic feeling to destabilise and discredit the Bolsheviks in areas where no firm control had been established amongst the peasantry who equated Bolshevism with Judaism.

The Pogroms carried out in the Ukraine were far more extreme than any previously carried out under the Tsarist regime, an estimated 180,000 to 200,000 Jews were murdered between 1919-21 in 1,300 separate Pogroms in the Ukraine. Whole peasant communities took part in these massacres against neighbouring Jewish colonies as did troops and partisans of all armies and all political persuasions. The Bolsheviks, perhaps because of the number of Jews in the party committed fewer than the Whites or the Nationalists who had the reputation for being particularly bad, Petliura the nationalist leader lost control of his soldiers who slaughtered the Jews who they regarded as Bolshevik supporters, Petliura feared that if he attempted punish the Pogromists he would lose control of his army;

"It is a pity that pogroms take place, but they uphold the discipline of the army".

The White armies also committed atrocities while they tried to cover them up to placate their foreign backers who sustained the White movement. On the 15 September 1919 the War office received a Telegram from the British High Commissioner in Constantinople reporting allegations by Zionist representatives regarding Pogroms in Ekaterinoslav and Kremenchug carried out by Denikin’s volunteer army. On the 18th of September the military representative in Taganrog interviewed General Denikin, based on this interview he sent a report to the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs stating that;

"Makhno, Gregoriev and the Petliurists are known to have carried out pogroms before the advent of the Volunteer Army which is now being blamed for acts by certain people".

The Secretary of State Lord Curzon wrote in his minutes on 7 October 1919 that;

"There can, I think, be little doubt that Gnr: Denikin’s troops have committed atrocities, and that pogroms have been quite frequent occurrences".

The various Ataman’s fighting during the war were particularly seen as perpetrators of pogroms and there is much truth in this, made up of peasants and deserters and without the discipline of the various armies, and often at the whims of their commanders the ‘Greens’, and partisans loyal to either Nationalists, Bolsheviks or White committed many of the pogroms, some like Hryhoryiv (Grigorieff) revelled in their prejudice. Contemporary White Russian sources blame the Makhnovshchina for many pogroms. While a pamphlet by the Kiev Pogrom Relief Committee makes no mention of Makhno, Major-General H.C. Holman chief of the British military mission to General Denikin in his report to the Foreign office reports Makhno’s victims unnumbered. Despite the lack of any figures the reports from British officials and officers in contact with the White forces make many references to the fact that the Makhnovists are anti-Jewish and committing pogroms. Reports of interviews with Denikin’s staff officers on board HMS Caradoc put Makhno’s popularity down to his extreme anti-Jewish policy. While General Keyes the British consul in Novorossisk in March 1920 reporting on Pogromist activity by the Volunteer army stated;

" No direct evidence re districts formerly occupied by Denikin now available but insistent reports that Makhnoasts bands are exterminating Jews".

Allegations of Anti-Semitism were vigorously denied by the Makhnovists and there is much evidence to show that Anti-Semites were punished for their actions. Two of the most often quoted are the sign seen by Makhno at the railway station of Verkhnii Tokmak saying ‘Death to Jews, save the revolution, long live batko Makhno’, the writer of the sign was found and shot. The second incident happened in May 1919 when twenty Jewish people were shot at the Jewish agricultural colony of Gor’kaya in an area controlled by the Makhnovists, a commission was set up by the Makhnovist staff to investigate this pogrom and seven peasants from a neighbouring village were executed. Both these incidents show that anti-Jewish feelings were prevalent among Makhno’s supporters and that the military staff and activists sought to stop any expressions of these views. The peasant’s involved in the Makhnovshchina had the same anti-Jewish prejudices as peasants in the rest of Ukraine. The severe punishment meted out to those anti-Semites caught shows how seriously such incidents were judged. The incident at the railway station may also show that only through strict discipline could Anti-Semitic elements be suppressed, even the smallest anti-Jewish action had to be stopped to stop it spreading amongst a population who for at least a hundred years had been encouraged to hate the Jews. Makhnovist activists sought an end to all forms of religious or ethnic prejudice the executive committee of the peasant and insurgent congress issued proclamations against anti-Semitism;

"Peasants, workers and insurgents! You know that the workers of all nationalities-Russians, Jews, Poles, Armenians, etc.-are equally imprisoned in the abyss of poverty... You know how many honest and valiant revolutionary Jewish fighters have given their lives for freedom".

Evidence of Makhno’s personal feelings comes from Alexander Berkman a Russian born American Anarchist who was working for the Bolshevik government at the time, while in the city of Nikolayev in September 1920 talked to a girl who saw Makhno speak while he held the town who he reports as saying;

"I heard Makhno himself speak, it was on the square, and some one held a big black flag near him. He told the people they had nothing to fear, and that he would not permit any excesses. He said he would mercilessly punish anyone attempting a pogrom. I got a very favourable impression of him".

The fact that the Makhnovists issued many proclamations against Anti-Semitism shows that they were worried about it amongst their own supporters. As in the Red army activities against Anti-Semitism had an effect on the Makhnovists even if it only suppressed openly anti-Jewish violence, while not effecting underlying prejudices. Some Makhnovist fighters and supporters as well as deserters and partisans recruited from other armies, who had been encouraged by their previous commanders into action against the Jews carried out pogroms. But they had no support from the movements core supporters or activists, Pogromists caught by the military leadership were harshly dealt with indeed they were usually shot .

One sign that the Makhnovist movement was not inherently anti-Semitic was the large number of Jews involved in the movement, this does not signify that the movement did not contain anti-Semites but it does show that Jews played an important role in the Makhnovshchina. Jewish colonies participated in the Peasant, worker and insurgent congresses, sending delegates. In the military structure many Jews fought along side Ukrainian insurgents and indeed an Artillery Battery was recruited exclusively from the local Jewish colonies. Many Jews served in important positions in the movement, Kogan served for a while as the chairman of the peasant congress’s Executive, while Aron Baron was a leading Anarchist agitator, Elena Keller served in the cultural-educational section as did Sukhovol’sky, Aly-Sukhovolski and Yossif the emigrant who Berkman knew from America and who he saw while in Kiev denied that the Makhnovists committed pogroms and blamed them on the ‘Greens’, (independent partisan groups) and bandits. One of the most powerful men in the movement was also Jewish, Lev Zadov-Zinkovski headed the counter intelligence service the Kontrrazvedka. Jewish Makhnovists like their counterparts in the Red army may have been working alongside Anti-Semites, Issaak Babel who was with the Red army’s first cavalry army used a Russian name to hide his Jewish roots though few were fooled. The first cavalry army was recruited mainly from Ukrainian Cossacks, indeed former Makhnovists served with Babel;

"the Cossacks just the same, the cruelty the same, it’s nonsense to think one army is different from another".

While the most that Babel and other Jews in the first cavalry army had to deal with was verbal abuse, Jewish civilians were attacked, robbed, raped and even murdered. The Red Cossacks made distinctions between ‘our’, Jews in the Red army and Jewish civilians, as did Babel who watched the victimisation of Polish Jews by the Cossacks and stood back and did nothing. Similar things probably happened amongst the Makhnovists. If anti-Semitism was a social norm in the Ukraine and if we are to believe the theory of ‘communal deterrence’, then pogroms committed by the Makhnovists would of occurred either in areas were the Makhnovists had not fully taken control or in periods of rapid change either in retreat or in advance. In areas that achieved stability under the Makhnovists serious acts of anti-Jewish violence did not occur unpunished. This suggests that the Makhnovist organisation had the will and authority to pursue and punish violent anti-Semites. Jewish Makhnovists who escaped the movements destruction denied the claims that the Makhnovists were Pogromists, and while pogroms were carried out by members of the movement the movement itself always sought to prevent anti-Semitic behaviour and violence. Voline in his book ‘The Unknown Revolution’, quotes an interview with the Jewish historian M. Tcherikover who had studied the pogroms of the civil war and had no political axe to grind, stated that the Makhnovists behaved better as regards the civilian population including the Jews than any other army involved in the Ukraine.

Allegations about the Makhnovshchina and Makhno personally have, and indeed continue to persist both White and Red propaganda claimed that the Makhnovists were Anti-Semitic and carried out many pogroms. Makhno never denied that anti-Jewish violence took place in areas controlled by the insurgents, but he did deny that the movement was supported such actions. The Bolsheviks sought to discredit him and his movement both at home and abroad and to smear him as a Pogromist was one way to do so, the Soviet historian Yaroslavsky blamed Makhno personally for pogroms, while Makhno himself credited Gerassimenko a ’lick spittle lackey of the Bolsheviks’, and the journalist Arbatov;

"who unashamedly credits me with all manner of violence perpetrated against a troupe of ‘performing dwarves’ ".

During the periods of co-operation with the Makhnovists several commissars sent to work within the movement reported anti-Semitism within the Makhnovist forces but there are no specific allegations, and hostility against the commissars would be found without it being the result of anti-Jewish feeling. From reading Issaak Babel’s diary it is likely that the level of anti-Semitism would be similar within Red army forces who after all were recruited from same social groups and classes and areas to those in the Makhnovshchina. British officers with the White army of Denikin reported Makhno as carrying out Pogroms, but these reports came at the same time as concern by the British government over the Volunteer army’s activities. British intelligence was reliant totally on the White’s intelligence reports and if Denikin could blame his enemies for his own as well as pogroms carried out by the nationalists, Greens and Makhnovists then Denikin could calm concern from his foreign backers. The Bolsheviks had many Jews in powerful positions and western governments were unlikely to believe they were exterminating Jews, especially when many of the British reports show signs of prejudice as regards the number of Jews involved at high levels amongst the Bolsheviks. Petliura’s nationalists had backing from the French government and their own representatives abroad to deny allegations, while Hryhoriyiv and Makhno could be blamed for the Whites own pogroms without fear of contradiction. The Communists blamed the Makhnovists to discredit them as a revolutionary movement, portraying them as pogromists like Hryhoriyiv. While the Whites who after the civil war were reliant on western government’s who would be uneasy about supporting pogromists, could blame their own crimes on Makhno. The Makhnovists own propaganda always denied that they carried out pogroms perhaps fearing that if they admitted that some of there followers had massacred Jews that the lies of both Whites and Reds would be believed. Members of the Makhnovshchina did carry out pogroms and anti-Semitism was prevalent amongst Makhno’s followers, but like the Red army their prejudices were suppressed and their excesses where found were punished.

Both Red and White Russians had reasons to spread the lie that the Makhno was a Pogromist, the Reds sought to discredit Makhno and his movements revolutionary character and justify its destruction both internally and internationally. While the White army of Denikin and Wrangel relied on the support of western governments for their survival and after the war on their charity. The public of most of the ‘liberal’ democracies were shocked and revolted by the Pogroms and the White forces hoped to hide their own guilt by blaming their pogroms on the ‘Green’, forces and the Makhnovists. The stories about the Makhnovists pogroms are partly based on the truth that some of the insurgents carried out violent acts of anti-Semitism, but their activities were dealt with if they were caught and by no means were there actions an accepted by the movement as a whole.

The Jewish colonies provided the Makhnovists with many fighters and activists, and Jewish Anarchists from Russia and the Ukraine were actively involved and supported the movement, this support would not have been there if the Makhnovists had been inherently anti-Semitic or if the movement as a whole had condoned the violence. This is not to say that there were no pogroms carried out by the insurgents. No combatant force in the civil war was innocent of violence against the Jewish population of the Ukraine but the Makhnovists like the Red army who both had many Jews among there ranks did not pursue anti-Semitism as a deliberate policy or condoned it when it happened. The truth concerning the Ukrainian pogroms of the civil war is so highly propagandised by all sides involved that it is perhaps impossible to tell what truly happened or to make judgements on who carries what proportion of blame. However while both the Bolshevik Red army and the Makhnovist insurgents carried out pogroms both of these two forces saw them as failings of discipline and not as deliberate tactics.