Black Army

The Russian Civil War wasn't a simple struggle between Red and White Guards. In reality many forces were involved: the Blue, Green, Red, White and Black Armies. The last of these started out as a militia led by Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno. His generals included the kickboxer Fedor Schuss, ex-convict Maria Nikiforova, and peasant-turned-revolutionary Simon Karetnik
Bullock Collection

Yes, the Ukrainian Anarchist Army. The Bolsheviks didn't acknowledge them as a legitimate movement, so they didn't have access to  military resources, and got whatever they had from running Austro-Hungarian and German forces. Then the Bolsheviks used them agaisnt the Denikin and the Whites, only to crush them after that, when they didn't need anymore. Trotski made a treaty with them but the bolshevivs didn;t like it, and when finally accepted, a point that secured organization of independent grass-root committees was omitted.

Finally the Black Army was repudiated and crushed, whoever could run to Romania. The biggest treachery was that when the Black Army finished with Wrangels' Whites in Crimea, and came to participate in a joint conference with the Reds, they got arrested and executed by them - how typical! Mahno ended up in Paris, writing "Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists "; working as a carpenter, stage hand and in a factory.

Here some of his works I dug up from my favorite Anarchist Library http://theanarchistlibrary.org/author-index.html

< name="R" value="862" ="">	The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays /HTML/Nestor_Makhno__The_Struggle_Against_the_State_and_Other_Essays.html 100% relevant, matching: organizational, platform, general, union and anarchists
< name="R" value="1565" ="">	The Russian Revolution in Ukraine (March 1917 — April 1918) /HTML/Nestor_Makhno__The_Russian_Revolution_in_Ukraine__March_1917___April_1918_.html 88% relevant, matching: organizational, platform, general, union and anarchists

Edited by Don Quixote - 26-Feb-2012 at 22:44

I think he is very respected, although controversial:
"...Makhno is indeed a controversial figure. Neither historians nor the general public have been able to come to a consensual assessment of his role in the history of Ukraine. Some call him “the defender of the peasants’ cause”; others refer to him as “a blood-thirsty anarchist and bandit.” We wanted to see the places where he spent much of his time both in his childhood and later, during the Civil War...."
http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20083/130

But them anarchism is supposed to be controversial; it's the most misunderstood political theory ever. I personally have great respect for the man  - he had pure ideals, he fought a brave fight, starting from absolute zero, with no support, took lots to bring him down, and to his end he uphold his ideals - I can't have nothing but respect for that.

This link is full with articles on Makhno, the Makhnovist movement, the Russian Civil War, etc  http://libcom.org/tags/ukraine  , http://libcom.org/search/apachesolr_search/makhno
I'm going to bookmark it for future readings, but one have to keep in mind that this is a political link, leftist, even more, not to say openly anarchist /so I would use only it's historical articles, not the news it comes up with/. I like that, because it's directly from "the horse's mouth", but one has to keep an eye open for political bias, which is rife in the news section of it. from what I looked over.

This is an interesting parallel, I hadn't think about it; probably because of my communist upbringing I tend to see the Russian Civil War as a class struggle, not as a civil war per se, and the American Civil War as a regular civil war, and as such didn't deem them comparable; but they are actually. Thank you for the new perspective!
I have to research the said guys before I come up with a reasonable opinion.

Originally posted by Don Quixote This is an interesting parallel, I hadn't think about it; probably because of my communist upbringing I tend to see the Russian Civil War as a class struggle, not as a civil war per se

Edited by Cryptic - 28-Feb-2012 at 21:13

As you say, some of Makhno's officers were thugs and bullies: Schuss was deeply antisemitic and ordered pogroms against Ukraine's Jews until Makhno threatened to have him shot. The Black Army relied on the goodwill of the peasants and helped them with their chores in return for fresh horses

That's a great link, thanks, bro!:)

I found this primary source on Makhno, this is from "Memoirs of a Revolutionary 1901-41" by Victor Serge,pg. 121-122, I read it on Questia, so I cannot provide link, most lamentably:
"... Among the peasants of the Ukraine, their spirit of rebellion, their capacity for self-organization, their love for local autonomy, the necessity of relying on nobody but themselves as defence against the Whites, the Germans, the Yellow-and-Blue nationalists, and often against harsh and ignorant commissars from Moscow, heralds of endless requisitioning -- all these factors gave rise to an extraordinarily vital and powerful movement: the 'Insurgent Peasant Armies' assembled in the regions of Gulyai-Polye by an anarchist schoolmaster and ex-convict, Nestor Makhno. Under the inspiration of Boris Voline and Aaron Baron, the anarchist Nabat (or 'Alarm') Federation provided this movement both with an ideology, that of the Third (libertarian) Revolution, and with a banner, the black flag. These peasants displayed a truly epic capacity for organization and battle. Nestor Makhno, boozing, swashbuckling, disorderly and idealistic, proved himself to be a born strategist of unsurpassed ability. The number of soldiers under his command ran at times into several tens of thousands. His arms he took from the enemy. Sometimes his insurgents marched into battle with one rifle for every two or three men: a rifle which, if any soldier fell, would pass at once from his still-dying hands into those of his alive and waiting neighbour.

Makhno invented a form of infantry mounted in carts, which gave him enormous mobility. He also invented the procedure of burying his weapons and disbanding his forces for a while. His men would pass, unarmed, through the front lines, unearth a new supply of machine-guns from another spot, and spring up again in an unexpected quarter. In September 1919, at Uman, he inflicted a defeat on General Denikin from which the latter was never to recover. Makhno was known as 'Batko' (little father, or master).

When the railwaymen of Yekaterinoslav (later Dniepropetrovsk) asked him for money to pay their wages, he replied, 'Get organized and run the railway yourselves. I don't need them.' His popular reputation through the whole of Russia was very considerable, and remained so despite a number of atrocities committed by his bands; despite, also, the strenuous calumnies put out by the Communist Party, which went so far as to accuse him of signing pacts with the Whites at the very moment when he was engaged in a life-anddeath struggle against them ...."

Edited by Don Quixote - 02-Mar-2012 at 02:33

That's great, Nick, thank you so much for that link. I haven't read anything by the guy save parts for the book I quoted, so this comes just great and in time.:)