Nestor Makhno

Revolutionary, anarchist

Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (8 November [O.S. 27 October] 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno ("Father Makhno"), was a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian Civil War.

Makhno was the namesake of the Makhnovshchina (loosely translated as "Makhno movement"), a predominantly peasant phenomenon that grew into a mass social movement.

It was initially centered around Makhno's hometown Huliaipole but over the course of the Ukrainian Civil War came to exert a strong influence over large areas of southern Ukraine.

Makhno and the majority of the movement's leadership were anarcho-communists and attempted to guide the movement along these ideological lines.

Makhno was aggressively opposed to all factions that sought to impose their authority over southern Ukraine, battling in succession the forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic, Central Powers, White Army, Red Army, and other smaller forces led by various Ukrainian otamans.

Makhno and his supporters attempted to reorganize social and economic life along anarchist lines, including the establishment of communes on former landed estates, the requisition and egalitarian redistribution of land to the peasants, and the organization of free elections to local soviets (councils) and regional congresses.

However, the disruption of the civil war precluded a stable territorial base for any long-term social experiments. Although Makhno considered the Bolsheviks a threat to the development of anarchism in Ukraine, he entered into formal military alliances twice with the Red Army to defeat the White Army.

In the aftermath of the White Army's defeat in Crimea in November 1920, the Bolsheviks initiated a military campaign against Makhno.

After an extended period of open resistance against the Red Army, Makhno fled across the Romanian border in August 1921. In exile, Makhno settled in Paris with his wife Halyna and daughter Elena.

During this period, Makhno wrote numerous memoirs and articles for radical newspapers. Makhno also played an important role in the development of platformism and the debates around the 1926 Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft).

Makhno died in 1934 in Paris at the age of 45 from tuberculosis-related causes.