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Title: Kontrrazvedka Author: Vyacheslav Azarov Date: 2008 Language: en Topics: Makhnovists, history, Ukraine Source: Retrieved on 30th August 2020 from https://libcom.org/history/kontrrazvedka-story-makhnovist-intelligence-service-vyacheslav-azarov
Vyacheslav Azarov is a native of Odessa, Ukraine. In 1985 he graduated
from the Odessa Marine Institute of the Fishing Industry as a marine
electrician and has worked on fishing and merchant marine vessels ever
since. In the 1990’s he was active in the Social-Democratic Party of
Ukraine (SDPU) but left that party when its anarchist fractions were
expelled.
In 1999 Azarov was one of the founders of the political party “Union of
Anarchists of Ukraine” (SAU). The Party stands for legal anarchism and
the evolutionary destatification of society. At the founding congress
Azarov was elected chair of the the chief executive organ of the SAU, a
position he still holds. During the Orange Revolution of 2004 in
Ukraine, SAU took a position of “critical neutrality,” exposing these
events as a struggle for power between two oligarchical clans.
Azarov is author of many essays on the history of Russian/Ukrainian
anarchism and application of anarchist concepts to contemporary
politics.
Vyacheslav Azarov’s website is
.
When the Russian autocracy came to an end in 1917, various political
movements sprang to life to fill the power vacuum in the vast empire.
Eventually one of the most authoritarian solutions, Bolshevik communism,
was to prevail, but not before many other experiments in organizing
political and social life were tried. One such experiment was the
Makhnovshchina (1917–1921), a movement of peasant anarchism in steppe
(southeast) Ukraine.
When Nestor Makhno, the eponymous hero of the Makhnovshchina, visited
his provincial capital, Yekaterinoslav, in December, 1917, he found five
different governments (all un-elected) claiming to rule the province.
Makhno had a different vision of the future — a federation of free rural
communes and worker-controlled industrial enterprises. Eventually
Makhno’s ideas were embraced by several million peasants in a region
with a long history of independence and communal ownership of land.
Almost from the beginning, the Makhnovist movement took on a military
character because of the necessity to protect the “conquests of the
Revolution” from attacks which were liable to be delivered from any
direction. The instrument created to protect the territory on which the
Makhnovists carried out their attempts to construct a new type of social
system was the Insurgent Army. This army included a cultural section
(the Kultprosvet) which carried out propaganda work among the partisans
of the Army and the peasantry. This section was staffed by veteran
anarchists as was another section — the Kontrrazvedka (intelligence
service).
The Makhnovists in 1917–1920 regarded the Counter-Revolution — in the
form of the Whites, the Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Entente — as
their main enemies. Therefore they were willing to form alliances with
the only ally available to them, the Bolsheviks. In fact they formed
four such alliances, all of which were beneficial to both sides. And
when these alliances broke down, as they inevitably did, the results
were detrimental to both sides. In the last phase of their struggle
(1920–1921) with the Counter-Revolution crushed, the Makhnovists had to
defend themselves against the overwhelming power of the Soviet state.
The text presented here is an attempt by the contemporary Ukrainian
anarchist Vyacheslav Azarov to reconstruct the history of the Makhnovist
Kontrrazvedka. Azarov has not carried out new research but has
resurrected a number of obscure sources, in some cases undeservedly
forgotten, which will certainly be unfamiliar to the English reading
public. In a previous essay, Azarov has demonstrated the connection
between the Makhnovist movement and the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921. In
the present study he shows how the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka was involved
in the wave of counter-terror which attacked the heartland of the Soviet
regime in the fall of 1919.
The most important primary source used by Azarov is the memoirs of
Viktor Belash. Belash was born in a village in southeast Ukraine in 1893
and became a railway engineer. In 1908 he was already an
anarcho-communist. In January, 1919, he joined the Insurgent Army,
becoming its chief of staff. Belash was a brilliant military strategist,
responsible for developing plans of movement for a force which varied in
size from a few dozen partisans to more than 100,000. For his
participation in the Makhnovist movement the Whites killed his father,
grandfather, and two brothers. On September 23,1921, Belash, heavily
wounded, was captured by the Reds and ended up on death row in the
Kharkov prison. While in prison he was encouraged by the authorities to
write his memoirs of the Makhnovist movement, aided apparently by a
campaign diary. Released by an amnesty in 1923, Belash worked as a
mechanic for many years before being arrested again in 1937 and shot in
the following year. He was rehabilitated in 1976. His son Alexander, a
World War II veteran, was able to retrieve his father’s manuscript from
the archives and published it, with the addition of many previously
unkown documents, in 1993.
Although written from an anarchist perspective, Azarov’s text is by no
means an apologetical work. All the forces in the Russian Civil War had
intelligence services which included secret police functions and the
Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka was no exception. The murders of Grigoryev and
Polonsky, and the attempted murder of Petlyura, would have been approved
by Machiavelli but were hardly compatible with anarchist ideals. On a
moral plane they were were no different than the Bolsheviks’ repeated
attempts to assassinate Makhno.
The leading personality of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka, although not
its actual chief, was Lev Zinkovsky. In the Soviet era he acquired a
sinister reputation, for example, through his depiction in Alexey
Tolstoy’s potboiler “The Road to Calvary.” Historians have generally
assumed Zinkovsky was a double agent since he later joined the GPU.
Azarov suggests a different interpretation of Zinkovsky s strange
career, in which he continued to pursue the anarchist dream even after
Makhno’s death.
Despite its unique achievement — the creation of an anarchist society
for a significant length of time on a significant territory — the
Makh-novshchina has attracted little serious attention from historians.
After some valuable studies in the 1920 s, the movement was execrated
and stigmatized for decades in the Soviet Union. Ukrainian nationalist
historians have tended to patronize the movement as lacking a patriotic
perspective. In the last two decades much serious work has been done but
to this day many aspects of the movement have not been properly
researched.
For contemporary anarchists it is important to study and understand the
successes and failures of the Makhnovshchina. There are others who would
claim this heritage, namely, the Ukrainian nationalists who never had a
figure like Makhno and would love to include him in their pantheon of
martyrs. Azarov’s text was written in the context of the struggle to
reclaim this valuable part of anarchist history.
The translator would like to thank V. Azarov for his help and
encouragement in preparing this edition although the latter is in no way
reponsible for the views expressed in the editorial apparatus. The
translator would also like to acknowledge the expert editing skills of
Gail Silvius.
As far as I’m aware, the present work is the first attempt at a detailed
study of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka. It’s true that in 2004 the
magazine Vmire spetslyzhb [In the World of Spies] published an article
by I. Andriyenko entitled “The Secret Service of the Makhnovist
Army.”[1] However, in spite of its description as a “scientific
investigation,” the article in question was more like an introduction to
the theme, popularizing it by facts of a superficial nature. My own
work, on the other hand, doesn’t claim to be an exhaustive investigation
of this special organ of the defense of the Third Anarchist
Revolution[2] since it is based entirely on sources which are public and
accessible to me. I’m convinced that in the Ukrainian and Russian
archives there is still a multitude of interesting discoveries in this
field which await researchers.
The Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka, from its founding in the spring of 1919,
was subordinate to the Operations Section of the staff of the
Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (Makhnovist) — the RPAU(m). In
turn, the staff was supervised by the Military-Revolutionary Soviet
(VRS) and, from the summer of 1920, by the Soviet of Revolutionary
Insurgents of Ukraine (Makhnovist) — the SRPU(m). One of the directors
of all these structures was Viktor Belash, and his memoirs are the most
complete account of a direct participant of the military-political
activity of the Makhnovists. Naturally the facts presented by Belash
form the mainstay of my work. But these facts must be interpreted
correctly.
If one wishes to understand the logic of the actions of anarchists
(rather than seek to discredit them in the Soviet manner), one must
temporarily set aside one’s statist education and view their history
through the prism of the anarchist worldview. Above all one must
understand that for an anarchist the State is a criminal organization
which creates immeasurably more harm than good. The States basic
preoccupation is terror against the civilian population: open, in the
form of struggle with its political opponents; and hidden, in the form
of forced redistribution of wealth. Anarchists of the first quarter of
the 20^(th) century envisaged the neutralization of “open terror” by
opposing it with surgically “precise” terror directed against the top
rulers of this criminal organization, as well as the organs which
provided security for its rule. As far as possible this counter terror
avoided causing harm to ordinary citizens who were drawn into the
activity of the State through ignorance or compulsion.
But, in their understanding of “hidden terror,” the anarchists
considered the wealth in all the State’s financial institutions, and
also the personal hoards of capitalists, as having been forcibly
extracted from the people. Correspondingly, the extraction of money from
criminal entities (the State and Capital) to be used to liberate the
people was viewed as a permissible and necessary means of financing the
anarchist movement. This was the basis of expropriations (ex’s). After
the October 1917 upheaval the Bolsheviks declared their rule identical
with the rule of the people, and all wealth -the people’s wealth. But
the anarchists believed that even though the commissar regime called
itself a “people’s regime,” in practice it was still stifling the
people’s rights and seizing their wealth. Only the methods of State
terror had changed but not its essence. Consequently the anarchists felt
they had full rights to relieve the “people’s” credit unions and banks
of the means to assure the real liberation of the masses. The Soviet
authorities, on the other hand, viewed ex’s as criminal acts.
It was undoubtedly true that, as in other revolutionary organizations,
criminals had found a place in the anarchist underground and used ex’s
as a means of personal enrichment. Such practices, for example,
flourished from the summer of 1905 on. “Ideological” anarchist
organizations spent money from ex’s on dynamite, leaflets and
newspapers. But there were also “spontaneous” groups which cloaked
themselves in anarchist slogans but carried out ex’s for personal gain.
They bore appropriate names: “Black Mask,” “The Extortionists,” “The
Racketeers,” etc.[3] In respect to the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka there
are no proven cases of such activity. On the contrary, according to the
testimony of M. Tyamin there was the case of R. Sobolev, a member of the
Kontrrazvedka and a leader of the combat group “The Anarchists of the
Underground.” Although he was holding several hundred thousand rubles
obtained by ex’s, Sobolev refused to spend 1,000 rubles on a pair of
pants. As Tyamin wrote, “so he died in dirty old army trousers.”[4]
The creation of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka is often connected with the
name LevZadov. Thus, in the words of I. Teper (Gordeyev) — anarchist,
member of Nabat,[5] and former editor of the Makhnovist newspaper Put k
svodbode [The Road to Freedom] — the Kontrrazvedka was headed by the
Zadov brothers, “both Jews, both long-time criminals” They served the
anarchist movement before the Revolution by carrying out
expropriations.[6] However, one must treat Teper s information
cautiously: as a repentant anarchist he was prone to exaggerate the
excesses of the past. In reality, from 1910 the metalworker Zadov was an
anarchist-terrorist, a “bezmotivnik”[7] and member of the Yuzovsk
(Donetsk)
Group of Anarcho-Communists. He really did participate in
expropriations: he robbed an artel official at a mine, a post office in
the village of Karan, and a cash office in Debaltsevo.[8] If Teper
concluded from this that Zadov was a criminal, then so was Stalin.[9] In
1913 the Yuzovsk Group was destroyed and Zadov ended up in prison. He
was released only after the February Revolution of 1917 with the
pseudonym Zinkovsky. It is under this name that he was known in the
MakHnovshchina.
It is precisely in the ex’s as well as in the terrorist activity of the
anarchist groups at the beginning of the 20^(th) century that one can
see the origins of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka. The acquisition of
finances for anarchist work by means of raids on banks or the robbing of
wealthy capitalists naturally involved elements of intelligence work.
Estimating the wealth of a bank or a factory’s cash office, determining
the schedule of money deposits, the internal layouts of buildings, the
number of guards, etc. required the carrying out of serious
reconnaissance measures. Analogous tasks were executed by anarchists
planning a raid on private capital: appraising wealth, locating the
place where valuables were stored, and determining the number of
servants. The elements of intelligence work in the preparation of
terrorist acts included researching the targeted individual’s daily
routine, the visitors received, the numbers of body guards, plans of the
site, and convenient escape routes. In each instance the recruitment of
informers could be an important part of the plan.
The Revolution of 1905–1907 was distinguished by an unprecedented surge
of political and economic terrorism. According to Savchenkos data,
during these years 4,500 officials were killed or wounded. From January
1908 to May 1910, 19,957 terrorist acts and ex’s were carried out.[10]
Many of them were accompanied by intelligence-gathering activities. The
majority of these acts could be attributed to anarchist practice which
during that period was based on the view that terror against the
representatives of the State and the ruling classes was the most
effective means of bringing about the downfall of the government and
Capital. One can be certain that anarchists who passed through the
crucible of terror of 1905–1910 and the subsequent reaction were fully
qualified as professional intelligence agents. Their skills were
especially valuable to the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka because, according
to Belash, the tasks of this organ included ex’s and terrorist activity
behind enemy lines.[11]
With regard to the future Makhnovist Liberated Zone, there is no doubt
that intelligence work was already being carried out in this region by
the “Union of Poor Peasants,” in which the young Makhno participated. In
1908 this group prepared ex’s in Yekaterinoslav, Alexandrovsk, and
Nogaysk. The first instance of anarchist intelligence activity in
Gulai-Polye mentioned by Belash was the work of 17-year-old M. Prodan,
who in 1909 was assigned the task by the still-at-large members of the
“Union,” V. Antoni and A. Semenyuta,[12] of gathering information about
the movements of the policeman Karachentsev. This policeman, as the
person responsible for the destruction of the group, was sentenced by
them to death. The spy reported when Karachentsev would be attending the
“Coliseum” theatre and when he emerged from the show he was shot by
Semenyuta.[13] Thus at the time of Civil War the combat wing of the
anarchist movement had serious experience in intelligence work. Veterans
of this experience who were part of the original staffing of the
Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka included K. Kovalevich, P. Sobolev, and Ya.
Glazgon.
As indicated above, Zinkovsky also had this kind of background.
According to Teper, there was a long tradition of expropriation in the
Makhnovshchina.[14]In September 1917 — April 1918, Zinkovsky was a
deputy of the Yuzovska Soviet, and afterwards a member of the staff of
the Red Guard of the Yuzovo-Makeyevska region. Zinkovsky’s detachment
fought with German-Austrian troops, retreated through Lugansk to
Tsaritsin, and then fought with General Krasnovs Cossacks. Zinkovsky
rose to the rank of chief-of-staff of a combat unit in Kruglyak’s
brigade, and in the summer of 1918 he was chief-of-staff of Chernyak’s
detachment in the Tsaritsin region.[15] In the autumn of 1918 he was
sent by the staff of the Southern Front to Ukraine to carry out
underground work behind German lines. But en route Zinkovsky stopped in
Yuzovka, where he and his brother Daniilo, along with eight other
anarchists, created their own combat group. The group headed for
Gulai-Polye and Makhno.[16] Zinkovsky’s work for Makhno began in
November 1918 with the formation of detachments in villages of Yuzovka,
Grishinsk, and Maryupol raions. Later he was elected a deputy regimental
commander.
Already in March 1919 Zinkovsky’s former commander Chernyak organized a
Special Group to collect contributions and carry out requisitions in
thip cities liberated by the Makhnovist 3^(rd) Brigade of the
Zadneprovsky Division of the RKKA.[17][18] Later such work became the
responsibility of the Civilian Section of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka.
Therefore Chernyak’s Special Group can be considered its precursor.
Moreover Chernyak was experienced in this field. According to Kubanin,
already at the beginning of 1918 he organized a kontrrazvedka for one of
the staffs of the Southeast Front. This was the first anarchist
kontrrazvedka.[19] Later Chernyak proposed to Makhno the creation of a
kontrrazvedka for the Makhnovist brigade based on Chernyak’s “collection
group.” Its initial membership included Chernyak’s associates Ya.
Glazgon and Kh. Tsintsiper, as well as Zinkovsky and his brother D.
Zadov.[20] Its remarkable that Chernyak, the founder of Makhno’s
Kontrrazvedka, remains a mysterious figure to this very day.
Belash often mixes up Chernyak and Cherednyak. For example, he names the
former as the head of the Kontrrazvedka and of recruiting in
Berdyansk[21], but further on the head of recruiting in the same city is
listed as Cherednyak.[22] The founder of the Kontrrazvedka also bears
the surname Cherednyak in one of Belash’s footnotes,[23] although in the
text the name Chernyak is everywhere associated with the Kontrrazvedka
in the spring of 1919. In Belashs account there appears to be at a
minimum two Chernyaks and two Cherednyaks. The Chernyaks are (1) an
anarchist writer from Ivanov-Vosnesensk and (2) a certain “anarchist
from the ranks of the Red Army.”[24] The Cherednyaks are (1) the head of
the Kontrrazvedka and (2) an insurgent commander from Kharkov Province.
In June 1919 Chernyak appears as the head of one of the groups from
Nikiforovas detach-
mentput together from the Kontrrazvedka and the detachments of Shuba and
Cherednyak. Chernyak’s group headed off for Siberia.[25] Cherednyak does
not figure in this enterprise at all. It’s clear that this Siberian
“Chernyak” couldn’t be either a writer or a Red Army man, but was the
same Chernyak who appears in the spring of 1919 as chief of the
Berdyansk branch of the Kontrrazvedka.
Subsequently in Belash’s text, this Chernyak from Nikiforova’s
detachment does not reappear in the Makhnovshchina. But, according to a
report of the Donets Provincial Cheka of February 13, 1921, the head of
the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka is identified as Chernyak.[26] Dubovik, in
the name index he prepared for Volin, tries to remove the confusion of
Chernyak and Cherednyak. M. Cherednyak appears as the head of the
Berdyansk branch of the Kontrrazvedka in the spring of 1919 and also as
the chief of brigade recruitment. And further on is a reference to A.
Chernyak, who was appointed already in March 1919 as chief of the
recruitment section and head of the Kontrrazvedka for Makhnos whole
brigade.[27] So, according to this index both Chernyak and Cherednyak
worked in the Kontrrazvedka. Against this version there is one serious
objection: none of the authors of memoirs about the Makhnovshchina ever
mentions these two important figures of the Kontrrazvedka meeting each
other. In short, the founder of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka, as a real
kontrrazvednik, has up to now not yielded his secret to researchers.
In April 1919 separate “civilian sections” of the Kontrrazvedka were
formed by Chernyak and Zinkovsky in the cities of Maryupol and
Berdyansk. These sections were concerned mainly with provisioning the
army. Such forms of military procurement as expropriation, contributions
(levies) or so-called “living off the land” were widely used from 1917
on by Red Guard and Black Guard (anarchist) detachments. With the start
of the transformation of the Red Guard into the RKKA this practice
ceased in Central Russia. But in Ukraine it continued longer. For
example, the 2^(nd) Brigade of the Zadneprovsky Division under Grigoryev
occupied itself with self-supply after the capture of Odessa in April
1919.[28] Probably the 1^(st) Brigade of the Zadneprovsky Division,
under Commander Dybenko, supplied itself by the same means. An analogous
means of supply was also practiced in the division commanded by
Shchors.[29]
For the Makhnovists this practice remained still more urgent. Thus,
according to the March 21 report of the chief of the Kontrrazvedka of
the Brigade, L. Golik, the Red Command was beginning to suppress the
insurgents by cutting down their supplies.[30] Naturally the specialists
in expropriation joining the Makhnovist troops from Russia got involved
in the supply problem. It’s impossible to exclude the possibility that
they were even specially invited, “summoned” by Makhno for this specific
purpose. Their specialization is indirectly confirmed by the testimony
of A. Tyamin who mentions that in April 1919 the well known anarchist V.
Bzhostek in Kharkov, as well as the militant Sobolev in Gulai-Polye,
were seeking tough, “reliable types” to carry out the seizure of 40
million rubles from a certain institution in Moscow. [31] But from May 6
Sobolev was already working in the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka.
The backbone of the Kontrrazvedka was formed from two basic groups:
these arriving “specialists” in ex’s and terror; and the closest
associates of Makhno himself. Among the latter one can name I. Lyuty, G.
Vasilevsky, and A. Lepetchenko. Vasilevsky and Lepetchenko were
anarchist-terrorists from the Gulai-Polye group of anarchists, so they
were well versed in problems of intelligence gathering. Lyuty generally
acted as Makhno’s bodyguard. According to the memoirs of the Batko,[32]
Lyuty joined him from the very beginning of the Makhnovist
organization.[33] Around April 19, 1919, in Volnovakh, Makhno ordered
him to arrest all the regimental commissars imposed on the Makhnovist
Brigade by the Bolsheviks.[34] Later Makhno assigned all three to
reinforce the Maryupol branch of the Kontrrazvedka, the head of which at
that time was Zinkovsky. As representatives of the first group it is
possible to name the specialists who arrived around May 6 to strengthen
the so-called “anarcho-amateurs”: P. Sobolev, M. Grechannik, Ya.
Glas-gon, and K. Kovalevich.[35] According to Kubanin, Glazgon reached
the Makhnovshchina earlier, together with Chernyak, and took part in the
foundation of the Kontrrazvedka.[36]
During the first period of activity of the Kontrrazvedka in the spring
of 1919, its structure was as follows. The basic nucleus was found at
the staff of the Brigade, and when large cities, such as Berdyansk and
Maryupol, were occupied, separate subdivisions of the Kontrrazvedka were
organized in them which were characteristically involved in civilian
activities: the provisioning of the Brigade through expropriations and
the collection of contributions, as well as the pursuit of agents and
former collaborators of the Whites. In the summer of 1919, during the
retreat of the Makhnovist army to the west, the functions of the
Kontrrazvedka were carried out by the Batko’s entourage — his bodyguards
and adjutants. At the time of the re-organization of the RPAU(m) in
September of 1919 these same people headed Makhno’s personal security
service, known as the “Black Sotnia” (a.k.a. “The Devil’s Sotnia” or
“The Batko’s Sotnia”).
Judging by the data I have collected, the activity of the Kontrrazvedka
bore a centralized character only when the army was on the move and only
in cases of relatively small Makhnovist formations, such as the 3^(rd)
Brigade of the Zadneprovsky Division in the spring of 1919 which was the
nucleus of the Insurgent Army, or the Special Army Group SRPU(m) in
1920. On the other hand, at the peak of the movement in the autumn of
1919 the organizations of the Kontrrazvedka had a network structure and
its zone of reponsibility was spread to each of the four corps. For
example, Golik is named by Belash first as the head of the Kontrrazvedka
of the whole army,[37] and later of only the 2^(nd) corps.[38] Judging
by the character of the Makhnovist Army and its disdain for bureaucratic
red tape, I don’t think such information indicates a reassignment,
especially since the time interval involved extends only from just after
November 11 to just after December 2, 1919. In the sources available to
me there is no mention about any central organ of the Kontrrazvedka
during that period to which the secret services of the corps would be
subordinate.
It is well known that during the period just mentioned the head of the
Kontrrazvedka of the I^(s)’ Donetsk Corps, based in Alexandrovsk, was
Zinkovsky.[39] And the Konrrazvedka of the 2^(nd) Azov Corps, based in
Nikopol,was headed by Golik.[40] Who the heads were of the 3^(rd)
Yekaterinoslav and the 4^(lh) Crimean Corps I have so far not been able
to determine. They faced problems very different from the tasks of the
first two corps. I can’t exclude the possibility that the Kontrrazvedka
activities of the two first corps were extended to the corps adjacent to
them, although this contradicts the evidence that smaller military units
had their own kontrrazvedkas. This is demonstrated by the example of the
Free Cossack Insurgent Group in Yekaterinoslav Province.[41] The
presence of kontrrazvedkas in each Makhnovist unit is confirmed by
Kubanin as well.[42] With such a network system, each of the
kontrrazvedkas of the corps or other military groups would be directly
subordinate to the Operations Section of the Shtarm (Army headquarters).
A partisan detachment, which must be able to launch sudden attacks and
elude pursuers, naturally depends on excellent reconnaissance. That’s
why the Makhnovist detachment in the period of struggle with the
Austro-German occupiers already had its own reconnaissance unit. This
unit was set up by former frontier guards,[43] who were more familiar
with this sort of work than other veterans. The reconnaissance unit
assured success in the famous battle for Bolshaya Mikhaylovka in
September 1918, after which Makhno was declared a “batko.” This victory
by the remnants of the exhausted Makhnovist detachment over superior
forces became possible only because of the reconnaissance of the enemy’s
dispositions in the village.[44] Makhno recalled how, along the route of
the detachments advance, the reconnaissance unit “checked out each bush,
each knoll, each gully, and thereby protected the detachment from
ambushes and sudden attacks by the enemy.”[45] In analogous fashion, the
Kontrrazvedka of the spring of 1919 was designed to protect the
Makhnovist socio-political organization.
The first news about the Kontrrazvedka of the Makhnovists appears in
March 1919. At the beginning of February 1919, the Makhnovist Insurgent
Army concluded an agreement with Soviet army group under P. Dybenko
approaching from the north (later it became the Zadneprovsky Division).
This agreement was a necessity for the Makhnovists, called for by the
acute shortage of weaponry and am -munition which was making it
impossible to offer opposition to the advancing Whites. In exchange for
armaments, the Insurgent Army became operationally subordinate to the
Reds and received the name “the 3^(rd) Zadneprovsky Brigade” of the
RKKA. After the capture of Berdyansk by the Makhnovist brigade on March
15, Chernyak was appointed by the staff of the Brigade as chief of
recruitment and of the Kontrrazvedka for the city. The first task of
this kontrrazvedka was the tracking down of former inhabitants of
Gulai-Polye who had earlier acted as agents of both the Austro-German
occupying forces and the White Guards, betraying insurgents to the
authorities.[46] In addition, the kontrrazvedkas in both Berdyansk and
Maryupol requisitioned clothing for the Makhnovist regiments, and also
unloaded goods from passing trains for the use of the Brigade.[47]
It is indisputable that at that time there existed a purely military
kontrrazvedka at the staff of the Brigade which, probably from the very
beginning, was headed by Lev Golik. Not a lot is known about him.
According to Belash, the machinist Golik was an anarchist-terrorist
before 1917 so he possessed the appropriate skills for kontrrazvedka
work. During the second half of March 1919, when Makhno was summoned to
the division headquarters in Yekaterinoslav, Golik’s spies reported
about the Red command’s intense interest in the insurgents and
displeasure with their growing influence. And when, wary of going to
Yekaterinoslav, Makhno agreed to meet with Brigade Commander Dybenko in
Berdyansk, the Kontrrazvedka warned about an attempt on the Batko’s life
being prepared by Dybenkos bodyguards.[48]
Also in March, 1919, Chernyak reported to Makhno that in Berdyansk, as
well as the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka there was also a local branch of
the Cheka, which was harming the work of the Kontrrazvedka in any way
possible: it was interfering with recruiting and it was arresting
Kontrrazvedka agents (kontrrazvedniks). Judging from his report,
Chernyak was prepared to act resolutely, only regretting the presence in
the Cheka branch of former insurgents from the Operations Section. From
a discussion between Makhno and one of the commissars it emerged that,
according to the agreement between the RKKA and the Insurgent Army, in
the region of the anarcho-communist experiment of the Makhnoshchina,
i.e. in the Makhnovist Liberated Zone, repressive Red organizations like
the Cheka or the prodorgans were not permitted. The commissar objected
that the workers themselves organized the Cheka for defense against
Makhnovist guerillas. Nevertheless, Makhno without hesitating ordered
Chernyak to break up the Berdyansk Cheka.[49]
By agreement with the staff of the 2^(nd) Army of the RKKA, on May
16,1919, the Makhnovist VRS announced the reformation of its brigade
into the 1^(st) Insurgent Division. At that time the conflict of Makhno
with the Red command developed into naked repression against the
Makhnovists. In order to remove the source of friction and at the same
time avoid exposing the Front, Makhno resigned from the post of brigade
commander and headed for Alexandrovsk with a detachment of300 cavalry
and 500 infantry. But the machinery of repression had been set in
motion: Voroshilov arrested the staff of the Insurgent Division and
later they were shot. Naturally the Division’s Kontrrazvedka also
collapsed. It had good reason to fear the repression of the Reds as it
had been responsible for carrying out a purge of the RKKA commissars
from the Makhnovist brigades. Some of the Kontrrazvedka agents —
especially the Gulyaipolyans — stuck with the Batko.
On the other hand, the outside “specialists,” the highly professional
terrorists and expropriators, joined the re-organized detachment of M.
Nikiforova which had a complement of 60 militants. This detachment set
itself the task of ending the Civil War by surgical strikes against the
headquarters of the White armies. For this purpose, one group of 20 led
by Nikiforova set out for Rostov to blow up Denikin’s staff. A second
group of 15 under Chernyak and Gromov headed for Siberia to liquidate
Kolchak’s staff. The third group of 25 lead by Kovalevich, Sobolev, and
Glazgon, left for Kharkov to free the staff of the Makhnovist Division
and, in case that wasn’t possble, to blow up the Cheka headquarters.[50]
On June 15 Nikiforova caught up with Makhno at the station of Bolshoy
Tokmak and wrested funds from him for her projects. According to Belash,
the Batko was opposed to these ventures and initially refused to give
her money as a result of which they “almost shot each other.” But in the
end Makhno handed over 250,000 rubles to her detachment.
The first two groups did not achieve their goals. Nikiforova was
arrested by the Denikinist Secret Service in Sevastopol on July 29,
1919.[51] On September 3 she was convicted and shot soon afterwards
(according to some sources, hanged). Her group left for the Kuban and
was absorbed in the “Green” movement. The Chernyak-Gromov group
penetrated through the Urals and took part in the insurgent movement
against Kolchak. In the early part of December, 1919, in the Shitkinsk
partisan region, an SR-anarchist conspiracy against the Bolshevik
authorities was liquidated. The head of the conspiracy was a certain
Gromov.[52] It is possible that this was our kontrrazvednik. The leaders
of the mutiny were executed.
By the time Kovalevichs group arrived in Kharkov, the Makhnovist staff
had already been shot. The kontrrazvedniks at first planned to liquidate
the leadership of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in revenge. But then
they decided to transfer their campaign of retribution to Central
Russia. Together with D. Cherepanov’s Left SR group, they created in
Moscow a large anarchist underground organization: “The Pan-Russian
Insurgent Committee of Revolutionary Partisans — the Anarchists of the
Underground,” with branches in a dozen cities of Russia, Ukraine, and
even Latvia. The Moscow organization of the “Anarchists of the
Underground” (for convenience — MOAP) busied itself with propaganda
(leaflets, newspapers), exs (obtaining funds for publishing, explosives,
and weapons), and terrorist acts against the Bolshevik leaders. The most
important terrorist act was the explosion at the Moscow Committee of the
RKP(b) on September 25, 1919. Lenin, Bukharin, Kamenev, and other
leaders were supposed to be present at this meeting. The leaders were
saved only because they showed up late.
MOAP set up a wide network of agents. In particular the leader of the
combat group Sobolev had agents in the VChK and the Kremlin.[53] It’s
likely his group was preparing a terrorist act against the Chekists.
Thus a certain employee of the VChK passed on to the anarchists the
address of a hostel where dozens of secret agents of the MChK and VChK
were living.[54] Despite all sorts of precautions (MOAP was structured
on the principle of groups of seven), a second employee of the VChK, a
certain Katya, was let in on all the secrets of the organization which
could only carry out its goals with the participation of Chekists in its
work. Thus it was planned to blow up the Kremlin along with the whole
Soviet government. According to Sobolev’s calculations this would
require one tonne of pyroxylin, and the explosion was postponed until
this amount could be accumulated.[55] ‘Die demolition of the Sovnarkom
was planned for the 2^(nd) anniversary of the October Revolution.
Explosives were transported from Bryansk, Tula, and Nizhny Novgorod, and
were stored in a warehouse in Odin-stovo. In addition, a bomb laboratory
was set up in a dacha in Kraskovo.
But already by the end of October the Chekists had established that an
apartment formerly used by Nikiforova was the secret hangout of illegal
anarchists. An ambush was set up there which caught Kovalevich. Mortally
wounded, he was conveyed to the MChK where he died.[56] Then, at the
apartment of MOAP member Voskhodov, another ambush wiped out other
members of the organization and a roster of the organization was found.
As the account of the MChK describes it, “Using this information the
arrests of the gunmen were carried out, but almost none of them
surrendered without resistance.”[57] At the next secret address
Tsintsiper and 10 more militants were ambushed.[58] Later Sobolev showed
up at the same address and was killed. A bomb he threw fell by chance
into the briefcase of a commissar who squeezed it shut with one hand
while shooting the leader of MOAP with the other hand.[59] Finally, in
an ambush at a secret address on the Ryansk Highway, seven more
anarchists were killed.
The last centre of resistance of the Moscow “Anarchists of the
Underground” was the dacha in Kraskovo, where the print shop and bomb
laboratory were located. On November 5,1919, the dacha was surrounded by
a squad of 30 Chekists led by Mantsev and Martinov. A battle raged for
two and half hours, with both sides blasting away at close range.[60]
Finally the underground anarchists blew themselves up.[61] Subsequently
the “Special Strike Group of the VChK for the Struggle with Banditism”
was created for the liquidation of branches of the anarchist underground
in other cities of Russia. This Group hunted down “anarchists of the
underground” also in Ukraine. Thus, in Kharkov the Group arrested a
member of MOAP, the Latvian anarchist K. Kapostin, who was later
shot.[62]
Relevant for the present work is the question: should the Pan-Russian
Committee of the “Anarchists of the Underground” be regarded as an
independent organization or as a special operations unit of the
Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka? In favour of the first interpretation is the
wide scope of the Committee, which had branches in Bryansk, Tula,
Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Samara, Ufa, etc. The Kontrrazvedka didn’t send its
agents to these places. But if one looks at MOAP, its nucleus was made
up of kontrarazvedniks: Sobolev, Kovalevich, Glazgon, Grechanikov, and
Tsintsiper. According to Kubanin, Glazgon and Tsintsiper arrived in the
Makhnovshchina together with Chernyak and were both well experienced in
kontrrazvedka work.[63] Certainly Soviet historians had no doubts about
this question, beginning with Yakovlev (1921) according to whom the
combat groups of the “Anarchists of the Underground” were dispatched to
Russian cities by the Makhnovist VRS.[64] Similarly Bychkov (1934) wrote
about the creation of MOAP by a coalition of Left SRs and
Anarcho-Makhnovists.[65]
Is is possible that such reasoning was simply convenient for the Soviet
authorities as the basis for repression against the Makhnovshchina? No.
As evidence of a special operation of the Kontrrazvedka of the RPAU(m)
there are the leaflets and the testimonies of the Moscow “anarchists of
the underground” themselves. Thus, according to the MOAP “Proclamation,”
the blowing up of the MK RKP(b) was revenge for the shooting in Kharkov
of members of Makhnos staff.[66] Belash directly states that MOAP was a
created by Makhnovist kontrrazvedniks.[67] Even while MOAP was being
liquidated by the Chekists, Glazgon was planning to return to Makhno for
reinforcements.[68] And finally, the anarchist Baranovsky in his
testimony conjectured that “later, after Denikins defeat, an agreement
would be reached between Makhno and the Bolsheviks and the necessity of
terrorist struggle against the Bolsheviks on our part would generally be
eliminated.”[69] In other words, Baranovsky made a direct connection
between the cessation of struggle of “the anarchists of the underground”
and a Soviet-Makhnovist accord, implying that “the Anarchists of the
Underground” were a unit of the Makhnovist Army.
This version is indeed confirmed by the chronology of events in the
autumn of 1919. The MK RKP(b) was blown up on September 25. At that
moment the Bolsheviks had fled Ukraine which came as a direct
consequence of Trotsky s purge of the Makhnovshchina and the resultant
collapse of the Front. The Insurgent Army was forced back by the
Denikinists all the way to Uman and didn’t conceal its hatred for the
Bolsheviks. The depth of this hatred is shown by the episode described
by Gerasimenko, when a Red convoy of supply wagons fled through the
Petlyurist front line heading north and the Makhnovists launched
hit-and-run attacks on it “producing enormous losses to the column of
Bolsheviks”[70] Then followed the breakthrough of the RPAU(m), its
smashing of the Denikinist rear, and the creation by the Makhnovists of
their own federation of Free Soviets. During this period MOAP did not
carry out terrorist acts and the preparation of them for the anniversary
of the October Revolution was only in the discussion stage. News from
Ukraine was still reaching Moscow. This meant the members of MOAP could
have known about the successes of the Makhnovists and taken a
wait-and-see position.
Finally, according to Baranovsky’s testimony, explosives were stored in
Moscow for use in the event that the Bolsheviks again returned to their
former tactics relative to the insurgents and Makhno.[71] This testimony
dates from the middle of November, 1919, that is, at the peak of the
Makhnovist federation. If Baranovsky can be believed, the Moscow
“Anarchists of the Underground” could have been waiting for the outcome
of the junction of the RPAU(m) with the RKKA, which was pursuing the
Denikinists. Correspondingly, if MOAP had not been annihilated before
December, 1919, when the Reds unleashed treacherous blows in the back of
the Insurgent Army, one would have expected from the kontrrazvedniks —
“the anarchists of the underground” — the blowing up of the Kremlin as
well as terrorist acts directed against informers of the VChK and MChK
and much else.
While MOAP was obtaining the resources required for underground work by
means of ex’s, at the end of August,1919, in the region of Novy Bug and
Pomoshnaya, the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka played an undoubted role in the
coup which led to units of the 58^(th) Division of the RKKA joining the
insurgents. According to Volkovinsky, Makhnos detachment maintained
secret contacts with the regiments of the former Makhnovist commanders
Kalashnikov, Dermenzhi, and Budanov which formed the heart of this
division.[72] Judging by the subsequent practice of the Makhnovist
Shtarm in dealing with vacillating Red Army units, such contacts were
made by agents of the Kontrrazvedka. After this, retreating under the
pressure of the Denikinists, the Makhnovist Army at the beginning of
September, 1919, began its own re-organization in the Dobrovelichkovsky
region, adapting to the conditions of mobile partisan warfare. On
September 1 an all-army meeting was convened for re-election of the
political organization of the Makhnovshchina, resulting in a new slate
for the VRS.
At this meeting the Army also received its most familiar name — RPAU(m).
At the same time, besides the various departments and services of the
Shtarm, Makhno also organized his own separate “security service” and
kontrrazvedka of 500 mounted personnel with 10 machine guns. According
to Teper, this “Black Sotnia” was formed from the most experienced
insurgents and was headed by Gavryusha Troyan.[73] According to Belash,
this sotnia and Makhno himself were obsessed with punitive politics, the
first instance of which was the purging of the Shtarm of Bolsheviks.[74]
The population, the soldiers, and even the commanders were afraid of
this sotnia. One of the Batko s chief kontrrazvedniks, Vasilevsky, was a
member of a terrorist unit from 1918 to 1920.[75] Namely, his role in
the Military Kontrrazvedka was carrying out terrorist activity in the
rear of the enemy.
Although the usual targets of the Kontrrazvedka were the Volunteer Army
and the RKKA, in July — September 1919, its agents were also active in
the Petlyurist army of the UNR. This was especially the case during the
period of contact of the Makhnovists with the UNR army and the insurgent
detachments connected with it. In particular, one of the kontrrazvedniks
— Vasilevsky — participated on June 25, 1919, in the joint meeting of
the Makhnovist and Grigoryevist commanders,[76] which marked the
beginning of the unification of the detachments of the two atamans.
According to Timoshchuk, before the meeting of Makhno with Grigoryev,
the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka investigated Kherson and Nikolevsky
uyezds,[77] where the Grigoryevists were active. It ascertained the
number of Grigoryevist troops and the mood of the peasantry. And on July
27 the kontrrazvedniks Lepetchenko and Lyuty took part in the
liquidation of Ataman Grigoryev,[78] charged with pogroms and
negotiations with the Denikinists. According to Teper, Zinkovsky told
him that he had killed Grigoryev himself.[79]
As the retreating Makhnovists approached the Petlyurist positions, an
exchange of delegations began for the purpose of concluding a military
agreement of the Insurgent and UNR armies. But parallel to this Petlyura
was carrying on negotiations with the Denikinist generals, hoping that
Makhno and Denikin would bleed each other white[80] and thereby make him
master of Ukraine. The Makhnovist staff suspected the UNR army of having
relations with Denikin. Makhno even received a report from agents of the
Kontrrazvedka that negotiations were on-going at Khristinovka between
the Pet-lyurists and Denikinists. According to Chop, the Batko himself
in disguise visited the staff of the 1^(st) Brigade of the Ukrainian
Galician Army and encountered there a Denikinist colonel with whom he
got into a scuffle.
Chop also alludes to an intrigue involving Shchus, Shpota, and Kuzmenko
which aimed at replacing the Batko and merging the entire Insurgent Army
with the Petlyurist Army of the UNR.[81] This version has points in
common with Tepers account, according to which the cultural-educational
group of Nabat anarchists, temporarily leaving the Makhnovist movement
during the retreat in the summer of 1919, was replaced by a nationalist
group of Ukrainian intellectuals. It won over the wife of the Batko,
Galina Kuzmenko, who subsequently prosyletized nationalism until 1922.
And this nationalist cultural group was planted in the Makhnoshchina
directly by the Petlyurist staff. Teper connects the presence of this
group among the insurgents with the temporary flare-up of antisemitism
in the Makhnovshchina.[82]
After these disturbing developments, an order was given to the
Kontrrazvedka to prepare an attempt on the life of Petlyura, in the
event of betrayal of the recently signed agreement between the
RPAU(m) and the UNR army. This agreement was concluded by Volin and
Chubenko from the Makhnovist side, and by Petlyura and Tyutyunnik from
the nationalist side, on September 19, 1920, at Zhmerinka Station.
Immediately after the signing the Makhnovist Kultprosvet began to issue
anti-Petlyurist leaflets and started work on demoralizing I lie
rank-and-file of the UNR army with the goal of joining its units to the
Makhnovists.
And the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka began to prepare an attempt on the
ataman’s life, in order to “settle all accounts with him finally, as
with Grigoryev.” For this purpose a group of terrorists from the
Kontrrazvedka advanced on Uman where a meeting of Petlyura with Makhno
had been arranged. The group was supported by a cavalry brigade,
probably to neutralize llie Petlyurist garrison.
However, Petlyura, evidently learning from the example of Grigoryev,
took off in his staff train without waiting for the Batko.[83] According
to Telitsin, an unknown group of terrorists arrived in Uman. Not even
the Petlyurist Kontrrazvedka knew to whom they belonged. But their
appearance in the city did not go unnoticed. Several hours before the
intended action against Petlyura, the house where the commandos were
holed up was surrounded by UNR troops with machine guns. In the
resulting two-hour battle, all the commandos were killed with the
exception of a few who burst out of the building. News about this battle
forced both Makhno and Petlyura to withdraw to their respective
bases.[84]
I.ater, in the autumn of 1919 when the Insurgent Army reached the apogee
of its power, detachments of Petlyurist atamans began to join it. These
atamans included Matyazha, Melashko, Gladchenko, Ogiya, and others who
declared themselves anarchists and enemies of the Petlyurists. According
to Belash, their sincerity, loyalty, and real plans had to be clarified
by agents of the Kontrrazvedka.[85] And when one considers the fact that
these atamans transferred to Makhno together with their units, it’s
natural to assume that the agents carrying out surveillance on the
atamans also made efforts to win over the rank-and-file Petlyurists. The
Petlyurist commanders who proved their loyalty to the RPAU(m) were given
commands of regiments of the Free Cossack Insurgent Group of
Yekater-inoslavshchina. But, on the other hand, Matyazh and Levchenko
were condemned to death. Teper connects their sentences with an increase
in anti-Semitism and agitation for pogroms after their detachments had
joined the Insurgent Army.[86]
In October 1919 while Deniken’s Volunteer Army was attacking Moscow, its
rear areas were wiped out by the Makhnovist corps. The insurgents
liberated a huge region from Yekaterinoslav and Nikopol to Melitopol and
Berdyansk. The building of a new life was begun. On October 20,1919, the
4^(th) Regional Congress opened in Alexandrovsk. At the Congress there
was issued a draft “Declaration of the RPAU(m) about Free Soviets.” In
the article about setting up a judicial process it was said: “A system
of real justice must be organized, but it must be a living, free,
creative act of the community. The self-defense of the population must
be a matter of free, living self-organization. And so any moribund forms
of justice: judicial institutions, revolutionary tribunals, codes of
penalties, police institutes, Chekists, prisons — all this must collapse
under Its own weight.”[87]
On the one hand, this is an understandable protest of the
anarchist-Makhnovists against the punitive organs of the State. But on
the other hand, such a formulation of the question of justice leads to
the dictatorship of emotional impulses, the tyranny of momentary rage,
and opens wide the possibility of manipulation of “people’s justice” by
special-interest groups. In other words, it leads to lynch law.
Fur-ihermore, it allows any kind of abuse to flourish on the grounds of
the “just struggle with the exploiting classes.” Such precedents were
exploited in any way possible by Bolshevik propaganda, which spoke of
the arbitariness and lawlessness of the anarchists, citing the puni-live
activities of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka. This propaganda made use of
Bolsheviks who had tangled with the Makhnovists as well as Denikinists
and former anarchists. Not surprisingly, in the accounts of the Reds one
most often finds descriptions of Zinkovsky, who personified the whole
Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka so far the Holsheviks were concerned.
for example, F. Levenzon, commander of the 133^(rd) Cavalry Brigade,
clashed with the Makhnovists in Alexandrovsk: “At my quarters arrived
... the head of the Kontrrazvedka, the butcher and former com -mon
criminal — Levka.”[88] According to Teper, murder and torture became a
special kind of sport for the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka. The
kontrrazvedniks made these activities “a profitable part of their
business plan.”[89] He claimed that in the field of the Kontrrazvedka’s
punitive politics, the Left SR Popov led the way, researching various
methods of torture and murder. Popov had supposedly sworn to slay 300
Communists, but when Teper met him he had only up to 190.[90] Teper also
wrote about the Tatar Alim who was Makhnos personal executioner.[91] The
former White Guard Gerasimenko also wrote about the Batko’s personal
executioner, identifying him as a certain Kiyko, a metalworker, who
tortured officers.[92]
And the manager of a shelter for refugees in Yekaterinoslav, Hut-man,
wrote that in the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka not a day passed without
shootings and bodies of the executed thrown in the Dnieper, And
supposedly “dozens of corpses stuck out of the water, washed ashore by
the waves.”[93] Of course such accusations make the Civilian Section of
the Kontrrazvedka the crowning disgrace of the Makhnovist movement. It
also means that this activity requires very careful investigation. It is
quite easy to refute the lie about Zadov. In the GPU’s case against
Zinkovsky in 1924[94] and the NKVD’s case against him in 1937 there is
not a word about brutality and torture. [95] In the first instance, at a
time when thousands of witnesses of the Makhnoshchina were alive and
Zinkovsky s group voluntarily surrendered to the Soviet authorities, the
Chekists conducted a scrupulous investigation. And during the “Great
Terror” of 1937–1938, the slightest pretext generally resulted in people
being branded as “enemies of the people.” But no such thing occurred. In
fact such evidence has not been discovered up to this time.
Belash writes about the Civilian Section of the Kontrrazvedka.[96]
However, the absence of specifics about its structure suggests that it
merely encompassed the duties of the Kontrrazvedka outside the war zone.
This would include the kontrrazvedkas of the 1^(st) Corps in
Alexandrovsk and the 2^(nd) Corps in Nikopol and, above all, Makhno’s
personal kontrrazvedka — the “Black Sotnia.” The Civilian Section was
assigned punitive functions in the struggle with enemy agents, as well
as exposing “anti-Makhnovist” elements in the Insurgent Army. The latter
function was ensured by a dense network of agents, admittedly
inexperienced, which extended down to the squad level in Makhnovist
units, Besides the commander and his deputy, one insurgent in ten was a
secret agent of the Kontrrazvedka.
The Civilian Section also had a multitude of agents among the civilian
population. These were unpaid volunteers, keeping the Kontrrazvedka
informed about anti-Makhnovist actions. Such a plenitude of agents
helped to ensure that “political conspiracies were nipped in the bud in
the majority of cases before they could ripen.”[97] For its work in the
rear areas, the Civilian Section received support from the Military
Kontrrazvedka, the activity of which was reduced mainly to uncovering
White Guardists who had gone into hiding. The Kontrrazvedka shot all
those who had been connected with the punitive or police organs of the
Denikinists: officers, cops, prison guards, spies, provocateurs. Quite a
few collaborators were found among the ranks of civic officials and the
bourgeoisie.[98] The punitive actions of the Kontrrazvedka were directly
supervised by Makhno himself.
However it’s impossible to call even these repressive actions arbitrary.
All sentences were regarded as class-directed Black Terror and were
reviewed by the secretariat of Nabat, the Gulai-Polye Union of
Anarchists, or the VRS.[99] According to Hutman, pillaging took place
under the pretext of searches for hidden weaponry. A common type of
pillaging in which the Kontrrazvedka got involved was the looting of the
quarters of Denikinist officers who had been liquidated by the
Makhnovists. This was supposedly done with the knowledge of Makhno
himself.[100] But of course Makhno didn’t authorize pillaging — this was
an arbitrary action of the kontrrazvedniks.[101] In Yekaterinoslav there
were many such cases since, according to the secretary of the local
Gubkom of the KP(b)U, V. Miroshevsky, when the Whites abandoned the city
many of the Denikinists ditched their weapons and dispersed to their
homes.[102]
But I don’t think the working masses and other inhabitants were upset by
reprisals against the Denikinists. Just as in the spring of 1919, the
Makhnovist treasury was replenished by means of expropriations and
“contributions.” This meant, first of all, the expropriation of all the
banks and credit unions. In Maryupol, Yuzovo, Berdyansk, Melitopol,
Genichesk, Alexandrovsk, Aleshki, Novo-Vorontsovka, Krivy Rog, Novy Bug,
and Yekaterinoslav, expropriation was carried out in an official manner,
namely in the form of a legal confiscation. But, according to Belash,
there was also practiced an “aggressive system of contributions” which
were imposed on individual pomeshchiks, financiers, industrialists, and
landlords.[103] This system created abundant opportunities for abuse.
Nevertheless, a bourgeoisie drained by war could not satisfy the
demands. Thus, according to the Yekaterinoslav Gubkom, in Alexandrovsk a
levy of 50 million rubles was imposed but only 10 million was received.
Corresponding figures for other cities were: Yekaterinoslav 50 vs. 7;
Berdyansk 25 vs. 15; and Nikopol 15 vs. 8.[104]
In addition, the Makhnovists commandeered all the pawnshops which the
Denikinist hadn’t touched and in which the citizenry hid their clothing
and jewelry.[105] Finally, with the onset of cold weather, outerwear was
collected for the poorly clad insurgents. As R. Kurgan writes,
“Literally all the clothing was requisitioned from the inhabitants.” The
Makhnovists were even referred to as “shubniks” (creatures with fur
coats). But Kurgan also notes that such robbery did not appear as cruel
as the brigandage of the Denikinists.[106] Hutman echoes him: “There was
no wholescale pillaging under Makhno as there was under the Volunteers”
and the regime of the anarchists was more orderly than the rule of the
Denikinists. [107] Without excusing the Makhnovists, I note that the
provisioning situation of their army was catastrophic and they were
forced to risk their lives for essential supplies. For example, clothing
was salvaged from dead soldiers while under enemy fire.[108]
Furthermore, the money confiscated by the Kontrrazvedka wasn’t just used
to support the army. For example, in Yekaterinoslav the “Makhnovist
Social Security” carried out a widespread redistribution of wealth in
the form of material assistance to the poorest strata of the population.
Up until the abandonment of the city by the Insurgent Army, each morning
thousands of people were lined up at headquarters. The Makhnovists made
a special effort to help the orphaned children of the city with goods
and funds to the amount of nearly 1 million rubles.[109] Finally, all
the testimonies about the lawlessness of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka
deal exclusively with cities: Berdyansk, Yekaterinoslav, Alexandrovsk,
and Nikopol. Cases of repressive actions by the Kontrrazvedka are
unknown in the villages[110] where the majority of the population of the
Makhnovist Liberated Zone lived. Thus, relative to the general
population, the amount of pillaging was negligible.
The VRS tried in every way possible to maintain discipline in the army
In the case of minor offenses, the commander was authorized lo prescr.be
punishment. For serious offenses, “courts of honour” -open meetings of
the military unit — determined the sentence. Thus In September, 1919,
four insurgents from the 7^(th) Tavrian Regiment were shct for the the
illegal search and robbery of a peasant.[111] There are even cases known
where a Makhnovist commander was punished for similar abuses. Thus on
October 14 the chief of staff of the 2^(nd) Brigade, Bogdanov, was shot
for imposing a levy for his own persona! benefit on the bourgeoisies of
Nikopol and Alexan-ilrovsk, aties which had just been captured by the
Makhnovists.[112] Law and order in the rear areas was provided by the
Kontrrazvedka and, probably, with the rare exception, by the military
police of the Makhnovists. But not one of the kontrrazvedniks was ever
punished for pillaging.
When the lawlessness of the Civil Section was submitted to review by the
Alexandrovsk Congress on November 2, 1919, Resolution #3 set up a
Special Commission to look into the activities of the Kontrrasvedka. The
members of this Commission were drawn from 1 he VRS,supplemented by
representatives from worker and peasant organizations. It’s true the
Commission was saddled with a vague and ratter feeble mandate: “the
investigating and resolving of any grievances and misunderstandings
between the population and the insurgerts on the one hand, and the
organs of the Kontrrazvedka on the ether.”[113] Nevertheless, the
Commission had the effect of bringing the operations of the
Kontrrazvedka more into the public eye which naturally resulted in
limiting its arbitrary actions. A severe ciitic of the Kontrrazvedka,
not only in the autumn of 1919 but also later in emigration, was the
head of this Commission and chair of the VRS, V. Volin. In the
deposition he gave to the revolutionary tribunal of the 14^(th) Army he
stated that he had to deal with a whole procession of complainants on
account of the abuses of the Kontrrazvedka, an organ which he regarded
with horror.[114]
Makhno himself recalled that the Kontrrazvedka was given practically
unlimited powers in the liberated regions. This applied, in particular,
to the searching of homes in the zone of military operations or the
arrest of persons, especially those identified by the local population.
The Batko acknowledged that some of the actions of the Kontrrazvedka
caused him “mental anguish and embarrassment when he had to apologize
for their excesses.”[115] On the other hand, Makhno categorically
rejected Volins critique. According to the Batko, Volin himself
frequently turned to the Kontrrazvedka for help. Thus in Yekaterinoslav
he and the Bolshevik Orlov asked for a warrant to search the property of
an anarchist who had defected to Denikin and confiscate any goods for
the local committee of the KP(b)U. And when Volin made a trip to Krivy
Rog to deliver a lecture (he was arrested there by the Reds) in the
autumn of 1919 he was accompanied by Golik personally with a squad of 20
of the best agents of the Kontrrazvedka.[116]
But, in spite of all attempts at community control, the Makhnovist
Kontrrazvedka, especially during periods of military reverses, resorted
to motiveless terror. Thus during the retreat of the 1^(st) Donetz Corp
from Alexandrovsk on November 3–4, 1919, Makhno gave the Kontrrazvedka a
list of 80 Alexandrovsk “jackasses” including Mensheviks, Narodniks, and
“some Right SR bigwigs.” In the prevailing Black Terror these
“jackasses” could only expect to be liquidated. Remaining in the city
were the Kontrrazvedka of the Corps, headed by Zinkovsky, and the
self-defense units which answered to the city commandant. The latter
also included a “regular detachment of Makhnovist military police with
its own command staff, responsible for the maintenance of order and
discipline in places where troops are stationed.”[117]
And yet in the Makhnovshchina even the Batko himself couldn’t
unilaterally pronounce such death sentences. Kalashnikov, commander of
the 1^(st) Donetsk Corps and in charge of the city’s defense, along with
his deputy Karetnikov, requested confirmation of the sentences from the
army chief-of-staff Belash. All the arrested were screened at a meeting
arranged by the Kontrrazvedka. As Belash assessed the order to Makhno
himself, “This would be motiveless terror which, if carried out, would
not improve the existing situa-llon: the army is withdrawing, and the
city is doomed to surrender. Such massive terror would, naturally, stir
up the population and, ultimately, we would have a reciprocal White
Terror from the Denikinists directed against the workers.”[118] As a
result of the screening, all the “jackasses” were released after giving
their word of honour not to take part in the White movement and not to
help the Whites materially. Belash’s account seems accurate: none of the
workers were shot by the Denikinists.
The insignificance of the “Black Terror” of the Makhnovists can be
comprehended only on a comparative basis. Here is what the figures say.
After the capture of Yekaterinoslav, the investigative organs of I he
Denikinists could find only 70 bodies of victims of the “extrajudicial
organs” of the Makhnovists.[119] Alas, there are no data on the number
of victims of the Black Terror in the whole Liberated Zone in the autumn
of 1919. But I’m absolutely convinced that ihese figures would not even
come close to the number of victims of the White and Red Terrors. For
example, the victim count of the White Terror during the mutiny in
Yaroslav in July 1918 was close to 200,[120] and in Finland, where the
White movement was victorious, up to 8,400 people.[121] The number of
victims of the Red Terror in “liberated” Crimea alone is estimated at
100,000 -150,000. In one night were shot, by machine guns: in Simferopol
— 1,800 persons, in Kerch — 1,300, in Feodosia — 420. In Sevastopol
alone the Cheka shot up to 29,000 people in total.[122]
Finally, the level of freedom in the Makhnovist region can easily be
grasped by the example of the press. After the second taking of
Yekaterinoslav on November 11, 1919, according to the normal Makhnovist
practice, freedom of speech was declared in the city. Among other
publications, the Yekaterinoslav Gubkom of the KP{b)U published No. 131
of the newspaper Zvesda [The Star] which was sharply critical of the
Makhnovshchina. Makhno saw this issue and blew his top. He was going to
order Golik or Zinkovsky to arrest and shoot the authors of thearticles
as well as the whole editorial staff: The Shtarm talked him out of this
with difficulty. [123] But this case demonstrates that the Batko was not
a dictator, in fact it shows just the opposite. It must be realized that
already by October 18 the nucleus of a Bolshevik conspiracy had been
formed inside the Insurgent Army. According to Belash, the Batko wanted
to shut down Zvesda because he knew about the conspiracy of the Red
underground.[124] And yet, faced with such a serious threat, Makhno
nevertheless refrained from suppressing their newspapers. And the
Makhnovist patrols did not interfere with the distribution of the Red
press.[125]
According to Volin, in the regions occupied by the Makhnovists, “Without
delay were announced freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, and
of association — for all”[126] (this was intended to apply to left-wing
parties). Coupled with this, Makhno warned I he socialists, and the
Alexandrovsk Revkom personally, that if they created organs of power
they would be shot.[127] This was reported to members of the
Yekaterinoslav Revkom by Lashkevich, commander of the 13^(th)
Regiment.[128] It is within the framework of these positions that the
“Polonsky conspiracy” developed, the most important such event in the
history of the Makhnovshchina. The investigation of the conspiracy was
conducted by the military branch of the Kontrrazvedka. However, the
conspirators were arrested and shot by Lepetchenko and Vasilevsky —
members of Makhnos personal kontrrazvedka who were in charge of its
civilian punitive operations. Finally, the most famous scandal
concerning the Kontrrazvedka was linked with this conspiracy, resulting
in the transfer of the Kontrrazvedkas punitive functions to a
“Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activities.” That’s why I consider it
logical to examine the “Polonsky conspiracy” in the context of the
activities of the Civilian Kontrrazvedka.
After the Insurgent Army had destroyed the Denikinist rear, one of the
chief dangers for the Makhnovshchina became the Bolshevik
semi-underground. Although Bolshevik organizations, equally with other
left-wing parties, were permitted in the zone controlled by the RPAU(m),
they continued to carry on underground work as well as official
activities. As V. Golovanov noted, “Makhno couldn’t get rid of the
underground: it gnawed away at his army day and night, preparing its
collapse and the transfer of its most battleworthy units to the
Reds.”[129] Still in Alexandrovsk, when preparations were going forward
for the 4^(th) Insurgent Congress, a meeting of the semi-legal committee
of the KP(b)U took place. A participant in this meeting was M. Polonsky
who was going to attend the congress. Polonsky was commander of the
3^(rd) Crimean Regiment (a former regiment of the RKKA — at the time the
conspiracy was uncovered its name had been changed to the “Irom Cavalry
Regiment”). Polonsky became head of the conspiracy antd his unit was
supposed to become the strike force of the coup.
Polonsky supplied part of tHie financing for the conspirators. More
financial support for the conspiracy came from a loan which Gubkom
members Grishuta and Mlirkin obtained from the Alexandrovsk
bourgeoisie.[130] At the meeting it was decided to clandestinely
mobilize worker detachments which would link up with Polonsky’s
regiment. The Iron Regiment was part of the 2^(nd) Azov Corps and was
based in Nikopol. It was planned to make this cily the centre of the
mutiny and to seized it before the Red forces arrived. Polonsky’s
adjutant Semenchenko was even sent to inform Moscow about plans for the
mutiny and arrange for the coordination of actions. According to
Polonsky’s neport at this meeting, the underground actively supported
the advancement of members of the KP(b)U to command positions in the:
Makhnovist army.
Thus at the Alexandrovsk .congress, the Gubkom succeeded in inserting
into the staff of the: VPS its own member P. Novitsky, who, it’s true,
was compelled to “be cautious about expressing his own
convictioms.”[131] By October 18 around Polonsky there were already
clustered a group of conspirators occupying responsible posts in the
Insurgent Army. Immediately after the capture of Yekaterinoslav by the
Makhnovists, the Bolsheviks organized an underground revkom headed by
Pavlov who was directing propaganda activities in the city with the aim
of demoralizing its Makhnovist garrison — Lashkevichs 13^(th) Crimean
Regiment. Recruitment for the mutiny was carried on mainly among former
Red Army units which had joined the Insurgent Army. The Makhnovist staff
had left the organization and officer cotre of these units intact. Thus
the soldiers of the regimental machine gun unit and the English battery
were recruited.[132]
At the same time there were ongoing attempts to create underground cells
for the coup in other, purely Makhnovist, units. For this purpose the
Gubkom mobilized Communists who had been liberated by the Makhnovists
from the Yekaterinoslav prison. As a result Communist cells sprouted up
in almost all the units, except Kozhins machine gun regiment, Shchuss’s
cavalry regiment, and the Kontrrazvedka itself.[133] According to the
instructions of the Gubkom, each cell had to be well informed about all
the administrative, operational, and logistical functions of their
units, so they would be prepared to take over at the appropriate
time.[134] According to the Gubkom’s data, in 26 of the Makhnovist
regiments the desire to become part of the RKKA predominated, as well as
support for Bolshevik rule.[135] This is probably a great exaggeration.
But all the same the threat was extreme. According to Miroshevsky, “an
illegal army committee was created which was psyched up against the
Batko and frequently sought permission from the Gubkom to carry out a
military coup.”[136]
In the conspiracy were included such people as a former RKKA inspector
and the former chairman of the revtribunal. Polonsky himself was
appointed commander of the military district of the Nikopol sector of
the Front, and the Communist N. Brodsky was in charge of the Nikopol
garrison.[137] But at the end of the month they were dismissed for
spreading Bolshevik propaganda and came to Yekaterinoslav under the
pretext of seeking treatment for illness. After the surrender of
Alexandrovsk, most of the conspirators followed Makhno to
Yekaterinoslav.[138] The conspirators followed all the rules of secrecy
but understood that such a large scale operation would be impossible to
conceal perfectly. Therefore the Kontrrazvedka was presented with the
“legend” that their goal was to prevent conflict of the RPAU(m) with the
RKKA for which purpose it was necessary to create Communist cells in all
the units. Supposedly these cells were propagandizing the notion of
reconciliation of the Makhnovists with the Red Army troops.[139]
It’s suspicious that among the Alexandrovsk contingent of conspirators
was a certain A. Orlov who was subsequently shot in Kharkhov as a White
Guard provocateur. This fact suggests that the Denikinisl kontrrazvedka
may have had a hand in fomenting the conspiracy. This is indirectly
confirmed by Volkovinsky’s information that the Denikinists were aware
that part of the Insurgent Army supported the Communists and were
waiting for the moment when they could transfer to the RKKA.[140] In
this context Makhnos declaration at the Shtarm conference that Polonsky
was dealing with the Whites seems not so absurd.[141] According to
Konevets, after the exposure of the conspiracy Makhno accused Polonsky
of straight-out treason — of giving out passwords to Slashchev’s
detachments.[142]
In spite of all the secrecy, details of the Bolshevik conspiracy
immediately became known to the Makhnovist army headquarters. The deputy
commander of the Iron Regiment, Ogarkov, was recruited by the
conspirators but went to the Shtarm and confessed his guilt. For six
weeks he was the eyes and ears of the staff at the very heart of the
conspiracy. According to Ogarkov’s testimony, Polonsky’s goal in going
to Yekaterinoslav was the poisoning of Makhno himself, as well as the
bribing of doctors who were supposed to poison the Makhnovist commanders
who were being treated for illness. At the end of November — beginning
of December 1919, a severe epidemic of typhus was raging in the
Insurgent Army, mowing down something like 35,000 insurgents. So when
there is mention of sick commanders being poisoned, this implies a
massive kill-off of the Shtarm. It’s worth noting that while this was
going on, the “Makhnovist Social Service” was rendering material
assistance to the families of RKKA soldiers[143] who were fighting the
Denikinists further north. Typical Bolshevik gratitude.
The Shtarm at first didn’t believe in the possibility of a coup but
initiated an investigation to look into it. Belash illustrates the
improbability of a coup by citing figures indicating that only 10% of
the army’s personnel were former Red Army soldiers and only 1% were
Communists-Bolsheviks.[144] A possible explanation for the ignorance of
the Shtarm is the fact that the centre of the conspiracy
— Nikopol — was simultaneously the centre of the typhus epidemic. An
enormous number of Makhnovists were seriously ill, corpses were lying
about in the streets, and there were heaps of unburied bodies in the
cemetery. Naturally under these conditions the vigilance of the
locally-based kontrrazvedka of the 2^(nd) Corps, headed by Golik, and
the morale of the insurgents generally, was strongly undermined and this
favoured the development of the mutiny. A more vigilant attitude was
displayed by the commander of the 13^(th) Regiment, the former Communist
Lashkevich, who demanded the removal of Communist cells from his unit.
However this was prohibited by the VPS, probably to avoid the accusation
of infringing on the official policy of political freedom.
When the investigation confirmed the conspiracy, an agent of the
Kontrrazvedka was assigned to penetrate the conspiracy. On December
2,1919, a large conference of the Makhnovist commanders was scheduled
for Yekaterinoslav, which Polonsky was going to attend. On the same day,
prior to the conference, a meeting of the conspirators who belonged to
the Gubkom took place at which a certain Zakharov was present, a
representative of the Central Committee (TsK) of the KP{b)U. He had
supposedly been sent by the TsK to direct armed detachments in the
Denikinist rear, in proof of which he presented an “extremely large
credential printed on cloth.”[145] Zakharov was informed by the Gubkom
of everything that was going on. Belash tells us that Golik personally
prepared the agent for this assignment. The suggestion is that Golik’s
direct involvement was required not only by the importance of the matter
but also by the danger of information about the ruse leaking out.
According to Zakharov, the meeting resolved to liquidate Makhno and the
senior commanders of the Insurgent Army. For this purpose, it was
planned to invite them that same evening after the conference to
Polonsky’s apartment for his wife Tatyana’s birthday celebration and
serve them poisoned cognac.[146] The Batko was to be poisoned by
Polonsky’s wife, a professional actress. By the time the conference
ended it was well past midnight. Polonsky invited Makhno, as well as
some of the commanders and memberrof the VRS to the birthday celebration
and left to prepare for the arrival of the guests. However, instead of
the invited guests, a group of kontrrazvedniks led by Karetnikov showed
up at the apartment. They arrested Polonsky, his wife, and three other
conspirators. Later a trap set at the apartment caught four more, and
near the building a dozen Communists who were part of a back-up group
were nabbed.
The second group of conspirators were found to be carrying incriminating
documents from the Gubkom. The wine and cognac were sent for analysis
and found to have traces of a strong poison. According to Volkovinsky’s
version, Makhno and his commanders arrived at the Polonsky apartment.
The food at Makhno’s table was poisoned with strychnine. Chubenko tried
it first, and when he felt there was something wrong, signalled to
Makhno and the commanders. Zinkovsky reported about this on December 3
at a meeting of the VRS.[147] The Kontrrazvedka quickly carried out an
investigation and pronounced the death sentence on the four leaders of
the conspiracy. This sentence was confirmed by the commanders of the
1^(st) Donetsk and the 3^(rd) Yekaterinoslav Corps. The Kontrrazvedkas
report was dated at 4 p.m. on December 2.
According to Belash, all four were executed by Lepetchenko, Vasilevsky,
and Karetnikov on the bank of the Dnieper alongside the road to the
Kontrrazvedkas headquarters.[148]
From Belash’s account, it’s difficult to understand whether the
investigation was carried out directly in Polonsky’s apartment and the
sentence pronounced there, or whether the conspirators were executed in
a fit of rage while being transported to the Kontrrazvedka headquarters
and then the report was written to cover the tracks of this event. I’m
inclined to the second version, as the investigation and the analysis of
the liquor could hardly be carried out in the conspirators’ apartment.
According to Konevets, Polonsky was killed separately, in the middle of
the night, i.e. immediately after his arrest. He was taken to the river
bank and killed there.[149] But according to Miroshevky, all the
shootings took place on December 5. However the memoirs of the
Communists are difficult to accept because they contain a huge quantity
of ideologically-inspired “factoids.” For example, we are told that the
conspirators were shot by a certain “Mishka Levchik,” a professional
criminal and head of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka.[150]
The members of the Gubkom who were still at large were afraid the
Kontrrazvedka would raid the apartment where their headquarters was
located, so the next morning they switched to full underground
mode.[151] The Communists in the Insurgent Army demanded an open trial
for the conspirators. They were supported by the Nabat members Arshinov,
Volin, Aly, and Chubenko. However the Gulai-Polye contingent of the of
the Shtarm insisted that since the conspirators occupied command posts
in the army that immediate shooting was in order. Makhno himself was
challenged before the VRS to give an accounting for the unsanctioned
shootings. But the Batko answered that any conspirator was now working
for Denikin and threatened the VRS with his revolver. The chairman of
the VRS, Volin, responded by calling him “a Bonaparte and a
drunkard.”[152] The reaction of the VRS was to create an investigatory
commission made up of Volin, Uralov, and Belash. According to Chetolin,
the Gubkom was preparing to retaliate by organizing protests by the
workers, but the Whites prevented this by driving Makhno out of the
city.[153]
The punishment of the conspirators lead to the worsening of Makhnos
relations not only with the army’s Communists but with the anarchists.
In accordance with the limitations of the Batko’s powers, he did not
have the right to shoot the Communists without the approval of the
Gulai-Polye Union of Anarchists. This was the accusation he had to face
at the VRS, rather than the charge of executing conspirators — a normal
occurrence under wartime conditions. For me the chief lesson to draw
from this scandal is tolerance of the Makhnovist political system for
nonconformism. Neither the Gubkom, nor rank-and-file Communists, were
persecuted under the suspicion of being involved in the conspiracy, and
their newspaper Zvesda continued to publish legally. For the Bolsheviks
in an analogous situation this would have been simply unthinkable. For
the Makhnovists the principles of freedom of speech and association were
more precious than the emotions evoked by the conspiracy.
From the beginning of 1920, typhus, exhaustion from heavy battles with
the Denikinists, as well as treacherous blows from the RKKA which was
attacking from the north, finally brought about the downfall of the
Liberated Zone. On January 11 at a general meeting of the army officers,
headquarters staff, and the VRS, it was decided to give the insurgents a
month’s furlough. In practice this meant the dissolution of the Army.
But when, at the end of the spring and beginning of the summer of 1919,
the Insurgent Army began to revive from its treacherous suppression by
the Bolsheviks, the insurgents were naturally inclined towards revenge.
This mood was aggravated by the prodotryads and the Red Terror directed
against the Makhnovists and their families. As a result Black Terror
flourished again in the Makhnovist army, directed against Communists,
Chekists, the militia, prodrazverstka agents, chairmen of executive
committees, and officials of Komnezams, trade unions, co-operatives, and
other economic organizations.[154] Sometimes this amounted to lynchings
carried out by the insurgents, or else there was a semblance of justice
with the commanders of detachments passing sentence.
In the summer of 1920 a reorganization of the structure of the reborn
Insurgent Army was carried out in which the Kontrrazvedka became
subordinate to the operations section of the SRPU(m). At the same time,
the Kontrrazvedka was relieved of its judicial and punitive functions,
which were transferred to a Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activities
(KAD), which in turn was subordinate to the organizational section. In
other words, the Civilian Section of the Kontrrazvedka was abolished and
its activities, which had given rise to the most complaints about the
Kontrrazvedka, were transferred to KAD. The SRPU(m) remembered the
lawlessness of the Batko’s associates in connection with the execution
of Polonsky, and the Commission was created in order to remove judicial
functions from commanders and “especially from Makhnos milieu.” KAD was
created at a meeting on July 9, 1920, in the village of Vremyevka,
during re-elections to the VSR.
It’s noteworthy that in his speech at this meeting Belash criticized the
commanders for not adjusting to the changing situation and, along with
the head of “power-hungry” organization, killing leaders of such
grass-roots organizations as trade unions and co-operatives without
carrying out an investigation — just like regular bandits.[155] Belash
was upset, apparently, because while the Kontrrazvedka had been assigned
judicial functions in 1919, after its re-organization and transformation
into an exclusively intelligence-gathering organ, the right to punish
was acquired by each command and even each insurgent. He indicated that
such practices benefited criminal elements who had latched on to the
movement. The resolution to create KAD was passed unanimously. As its
chairperson N. Zuychenko was elected — he was an anarchist from 1906 who
had been active in the “Union ofPoor Peasants.”[156] The other members
of the Commission were G. Kuzmenko, Vasilenko, and Chaikovsky.
Subject to the judgment of the Commission were both captured soldiers
and commanders of the Red and White armies and Petlyurist formations as
well as commanders and rank-and-file insurgents of the SRPU(m)
Army.[157] According to Teper, KAD was created as a result of pressure
from Baron, Sukhovolsky, and Belash.[158] KAD’s mandate was defined as
follows: “to apply justice carrying out the investigation and punishment
to persons of the other camp, i.e. anti-Makhnovists.”[159] Also
according to Teper, KAD was given the right to condemn, without
investigating: Chekists, prodrazverstka agents, and heads of sovkhozes
and kolkhozes. And from the Communists any “who with weapon in hand or
by word of mouth attacked the Makhnovshchina.”[160] It is significant
that from Lhe beginning the KAD was organized out of the
cultural-educational section[161] — the Makhnovist organization which
carried out ideologically sound education and was staffed exclusively by
anarchists who were theoretically adept and had a clear idea about what
a free anarchist society must be and what kind of justice it must have.
From this time KAD replaced the Civilian Section of the Makhnovist
Kontrrazvedka, about which there is virtually no mention from the
beginning of 1920. KAD is mentioned by Belash only a few times. Thus at
the end of July, 1920, the Commission sentenced a Petlyurist insurgent
detachment to be disarmed, and its commander, Levchenko, to be shot for
being an anti-Semite and a pogromist. KAD also sentenced all members of
prototryads to be shot. For example, in September 1910 near Millerovo
station, the Commission condemned the members of a prototryad noted for
its cruelty. Among the condemned was the young M, Sholokhov. Only the
personal intercession of Makhno allowed him to escape death. As the
Batko said, “We’ll let him grow up and see what he does. If he doesn’t
straighten up, we’ll hang him next time.”[162]
KAD sentenced to be shot all White officers taken prisoner, as is shown
by the example of Nazarov’s shattered formation, the rank-and-file
soldiers ofwhich were absorbed in the Insurgent Army.[163] After the
Starobelsky Soviet-Makhnovist agreement of September 1920, Makhno’s
staff sent an order to all Makhnovist units in Ukraine to cease military
activity against RKKA and assemble at army headquarters. This order
produced a split in the ranks of the Makhnovshchina. Many local
detachments refused to carry out this order and continued their struggle
with the Bolsheviks. Desertion started from the Insurgent Army’s core —
the Special Group of the SRPU(m). Thus the 8^(th) Infantry Regiment
wanted to leave for the Poltava region. But its commander, the old
insurgent Matyazh, was arrested and shot on October 16 by order of
KAD.[164] Already during the operations in Northern Tavria in the second
half of October, 1920, the Insurgent Army absorbed into its own ranks
the “White-Makhnovist” units created by the Russian Army from insurgents
who had been deceived by propaganda about an alliance of Makhno with
Wrangel. Some of their repentant commanders were allowed to remain at
the head of their units by decision of the VRS. But Yatsenko and
Savchenko, who issued appeals on behalf of Wrangel, were shot by order
of KAD.[165]
Already near the end of the Crimean operation in the middle of November
1920, the Bolsheviks began to look for a pretext for breaking their
agreement with the Makhnovists. Thus, according to the Starobelsky
Accord (Section 2, Article 2), the Makhnovists were forbidden to accept
into their ranks any Red Army troops or deserters therefrom.[166] And
the Red command focussed attention on the slightest violations of this
point. In order not to give cause for severing the agreement, KAD
sentenced insurgents to be shot even for insignificant violations. Thus
Chaly, the commander of a regiment, was shot for enticing a platoon of
Red soldiers with two machine guns to join him.[167] A short time later,
when the Bolsheviks were already preparing to treacherously attack the
Makhnovists, seven terrorists sent to Gulai-Polye by the Cheka to
liquidate Makhno and his staff were arrested and shot on November 27, by
order of the Commission.[168]
Nevertheless, even after the agreement was ruptured, the Commission did
not become vindictive and administrative personnel who came under its
power (chairpersons of executive committees, members of soviets,
policemen, members of Komnezams) frequently were released for reason of
“compulsory service.”[169] Generally this was the practice in
“anti-Bolshevist” regions. For example, in the Kherson and Kiev regions,
although the population was compelled to participate in Soviet
structures, the directors of these institutions continued to help the
Makhnovists. The Shtarm also turned over to KAD for investigation
matters not connected with the political struggle. For example, in
February 1921 in Korocha near Kursk, the commander of the Crimean
cavalry regiment Kharlashko together with Savonov looted a church. Upon
learning that KAD was investigating the crime, they did not wait for the
sentence but assembled their regiment and took off for Izyumsky
uyezd.[170]
If one can interpret the punitive activity of the Civilian Section of
the Kontrrazvedka as a detriment to the Makhnovist movement, then the
work of the Military Section can be considered with confidence one of
the brightest lights of the anarchist insurgency. Reconnaissance was the
passion of Makhno himself. He disguised himself as a peasant woman and
went about cracking sunflower seeds under the very noses of the Whites.
He posed as a vendor in the bazaar or a beggar, and once he even played
the part of the bride at a church wedding.[171] Naturally the Military
Section of the Kontrrazvedka in the Makhnovist Army was organized
splendidly.
Even in September, 1919, near Uman, at the point of maximum withdrawal
from the Liberated Zone and under the threat of complete annihilation of
the RPAU(m) by the Denikinists, the network of agents of the
Kontrrazvedka worked assiduously far in the Denikinist rear and
maintained contact with the main body of the Insurgent Army. Before the
decisive battle near Peregonovka on September 26, 1919, Makhno had
become aware through this network of the military vacuum in the
Denikinist rear.[172] Agents returning to the Shtarm reported that there
were no regular Denikinist units as far as Nikopol. This information
lead to the decision by the staff to make a dash back to the Left Bank.
And later as the Makhnovist corps were advancing Kontrrazvedka agents
were sent out far ahead and reported that no enemy forces were to be
found in the directions of Alexandrovsk, Pyatikhatki, and
Yekaterino-slav. The agents also reported that in Nikopol there was
disorder, in Krivy Rog 25 — 50 sentries, and in Kherson 100 — 150
officers. Along the Dnieper between Nikopol and Kherson there were no
troops at all.[173]
During the period of the historic destruction of the Denikinist
rearguard by the Makhnovists in October, 1919, one of the most brilliant
operations of the Kontrrazvedka was ensuring the fall of Berdyansk.
According to Gerasimenko, the fate of the city was determined by an
attack, organized by the Makhnovists, of fishermen from the nearby
settlement of Liska. In this night attack, the fishermen seized a
Denikinist battery, the guns of which were then used by the Makhnovists
to rake the city.[174] Of course^ the attack of the fishermen was not
organized by Makhno in person, but by the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka. On
the other hand, when the Insurgent Army retreated from Alexandrovsk on
November 4,1919, the Batko ordered Zinkovsky to find 20 — 30 barrels of
spirits and toss them in the middle of one of the villages. The
calculation turned out to be correct: the spirits held up the pursuit of
the “Shkurovtsy” for several hours.[175] The Kontrrazvedka then set to
spreading rumours. While the retreat was going on due to the pressure of
Shkuro’s cavalry, the Makhnovist agents penetrated to villages in the
hands of the Denikinists and encouraged the peasants to believe that
Makhno was not far away and would soon recapture these places. Such
tactics lead to constant uprisings in the rear of the Whites which
seriously hindered their advance.[176]
At the peak of the Makhnovist movement in the autumn of 1919, the
underground intelligence centres of the Kontrrazvedka were found in all
the cities, towns, and large villages of southern and eastern Ukraine.
These centres were usually situated in artels, inns, boarding houses,
cafeterias, restaurants, and shoemakers’ or tailors’ shops — in fact
anywhere where one could expect to meet soldiers. Secret agents in the
rear of the enemy were to be found in factories, plants, and mines. It
is from these agents that the Makhnovist Shtarm received information
about conditions in the rear and the mood of the workers.[177] The
network of agents of the Kontrrazvedka extended from Odessa to
Novorossysk and sent information on the movement of White units.[178]
Secret addresses of the Kontrrazvedka were maintained in Odessa,
Kherson, Nikolayev, Poltava, Yuzovka, Taganrog, Rostov-on-Don, Yeysk,
Sevastopol, Kharkov, Cherkassy, and Kiev.[179] Direction for the
Military Section of the Kontrrazvedka behind enemy lines was provided by
the Operations Section of the Shtarm.
According to Belash, Makhnovist agents served in Denikin’s Volunteer
Army.[180] Savchenko more precisely states that agents of the
Kontrrazvedka worked in almost all the enemy’s units, starting at the
regimental level up to the army staff. A large part of the
Kon-trrazvedka’s finances went to the underground behind the lines of
the Whites and Reds, for bribing the enemy’s military specialists, or
for the creating of military groups in Moscow, Warsaw, and Siberia.[181]
Incidentally, service as an intelligence agent was so dangerous that it
was sometimes used as a form of correctional labour for delinquent
Makhnovists. Thus one of the widespread types of punishment meted out by
either a commander or a tribunal for minor infractions in the autumn of
1919 was a transfer to service behind enemy lines.[182] Indeed Belash
indicates that agent networks were sometimes wiped out after which they
had to be re-established.
Parallel with its core work, the Kontrrazvedka established
communications between separated units of the Insurgent Army and
maintained contacts between the Makhnovshchina and the secretariat of
the “Nabat” federation in Kharkhov.[183] The Military Kontrrazvedka was
also entrusted with the job of distributing the Makhnovist press and
anarchist literature behind enemy lines.[184] In November — December,
1919, the Insurgent Army was stricken by a terrible epidemic of typhus.
In an effort to save the army, the Kontrrazvedka apparatus in the
Denikinist rear carried out intensive purchasing of drugs in Sevastopol,
Simferopol, Yalta, Feodo-sia, Kerch, Novorossysk, Rostov, Taganrog,
Odessa, Kherson, and Kharkov.[185] Finally, at the beginning of
December, 1919, Belash sent a messenger to Moscow — the kontrrazvednik
Misha, to tell the Bolshevik leadership about the successes of the
Makhnovists in the struggle with Denikin.[186]
In telling about the dispatch of terrorists by the Cheka to liquidate
Makhno in the summer of 1920, Belash insisted that the Makhnovists, due
to ideological considerations, rejected similar terrorist acts against
the leaders of their opponents. “We believed in the free competition of
ideas and didn’t attempt the assassination of senior officials. Such a
policy was never adopted although there were certainly proposals to do
so.”[187] However he was writing this in the USSR under the supervision
of the GPU and was compelled to censor his work. That’s why we think the
scene with Nikiforova’s gang in June 1919 is described by Belash as if
Makhno wanted nothing to do with terrorism. Relative to the situation in
the autumn of 1919, Belash directly states that the Military Section was
occupied with “high-level intelligence work as well as terror and
expropriation.”[188] In other words, the Makhnovist agent network
committed terrorist acts as a minimum against Denikinist officers and
officials.
Thus on September 14,1919, one of the terrorist groups of the
Kontrrazvedka carried out a raid on Pyatikhatka Station and shot all the
officers and “bourgeois” in the station and on board a passing
“Alexandrovsk-Yekaterinoslav” train.[189] In similar fashion,
Miroshevsky recalled a whole series of armed attacks by the insurgents
on troops trains and the major railway stations around September
1919.[190] Expropriations meant bank robberies with the goal of
obtaining the financial means to support the Insurgent Army So, parallel
with the official confiscation of money from banks in the Liberated
Zone, “underground expropriators” of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka
carried out bank robberies in the Denikinist rear: in Rostov, Taganrog,
and Melitopol.[191]
After the dissolution of the Insurgent Army in January 1920, the Reds
occupied Nikopol and appointed a certain P. Lebed who, with his own
squad, began shooting Makhnovist commanders and breaking up the
Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka of the 2^(nd) Azov Corps.[192] However its
chief, Golik, was able to save himself. The whole winter and spring of
1920 he, together with his staff, hid in the underground in Gulai-Polye.
According to Golik’s diary, during the whole of January the army
reconnaissance never ceased to function even when the nucleus of the
Insurgent Army had shrunk to 30 people. In particular, contact between
the remnants of Makhnovist groups and units was maintained by the
surviving agents of the Kontrrazvedka. Thus on February 16, 1920, the
Shtarm, then hiding underground, received a secret agent from the 4^(th)
Crimean Corps who told about its collapse.[193] The Kontrrazvedka mapped
out a route through the numerous RKKA units which were engaged in
mopping-up operations in the Makhnovist region, helping the Makhnovists
to avoid open conflict with the superior forces of the enemy.
The agent network sought out objectives for attack: for example, on
February 18 the supply section of the 42^(nd) Division was located at
Pologi Station. Ten machine guns were removed and 12 large guns disabled
(the bolts were removed).[194] On February 21 the presence in
Gulai-Polye of army transport wagons carrying cash was discovered by the
Kontrrazvedka. Two million rubles were seized, and applied to the
payroll of the insurgents.[195] In other words, the rebirth of the
RPAU(m) — the attracting of insurgents back into its ranks, the
provisioning of the army, its famous raids and victories — this would be
unthinkable without the Kontrrazvedka. Moreover, the Kontrrazvedka
continued to punish Makhnovists who had committed crimes. Thus,
according to Golik’s diary, there was hiding in the village of Bolshoi
Yanisol the former commander of the Yekaterinoslav garrrison Lashkevich,
who squandered 5.5 million rubles of contributions collected for the
army’s treasury. Golik writes: “There was a meeting of commanders which
pronounced the death penalty for Lashkevich. My lads carried out the
sentence”[196] From these lines it is evident that Golik had a certain
group of his “lads,” most likely belonging to the Kontrrazvedka. Most
likely it was from this group that an “agent” arrived from Makhno at
Belashs group in Novospassovsky on May 8.[197]
A theme demanding a separate investigation is the duel of the Makhnovist
Kontrrazvedka with the Cheka. Here I can only touch briefly on its more
dramatic episodes. Still in the spring of 1918 the Komsomol member M.
Spector was assigned by the Nikolayev Cheka to infiltrate the “Nabat”
federation. In “Nabat” as well as the Makhnovshchina he was well known
under the name M. Boychenko. Besides him the group of Chekists in the
Makhnovshchina included the sailor I. Loboda and the soldier V. Naydenov
who worked in the Makhnovist Shtarm. Among other things, this group
counted among its achievements the provocation of quarrels between
Makhno and Grigoryev.[198] On June 20, 1920 while the Special Combat
Group of the SRPU(m) was stationed in the village of Turkenovka, two Red
terrorists were arrested: the former agent of the Insurgent Army
Kontrrazvedka F. Glushchenko and the professional criminal Ya.
Kostyukhin. Their assignment was to murder Makhno. The failure of this
attempt was due to Glushchenko giving himself up voluntarily.
At the beginning of May, 1920, Dzherzhinsky himself was put in charge of
pacifying the rear area of the Southwest Front. With his appearance is
connected the Cheka terror in Ukraine aimed at annihilating Makhnovists,
anarchists and “ex-ists” — brigands. In particular, Glushchenko and
Kostyukhin were members of the “Special Strike Group of the Cheka for
Struggle with Banditism,” which was directed by Martinov, a participant
in the storming of the Kraskovo dacha of MOAP. According to Arshinov,
this group was staffed not with Chekists, but ... anarchists and
criminals condemned to the death penalty. “The agents in this group were
recruited exclusively from former robbers sentenced to be shot who, in
order to save their lives, promised to work for the Cheka... Their links
to the anarchist movement were mainly military.”[199] Nevertheless,
besides robbers, Arshinov also named anarchists in the ranks of the
Special Strike Force: Peter Sidorov, Tima-Ivan Petrakov, Zhenya Ermakov,
Chal-don, and Burtsev, and the Kharkov anarcho-individualist known as
“Big Nicholas.”
«Knowing many of the clandestine addresses of the underground from the
times of the Denikinists, they burst into apartments and literally
carried out massacres... all the anarchists known to them to be more or
less hostile to the Bolshevik authorities were arrested and shot.”[200]
It should be noted that, according to Kubanin, Chaldon arrived in the
Makhnoshchina as part of Chernyak’s group,[201] so he may have been a
Makhnovist kontrrazvednik. Kostyukin took part in the operations of the
Special Strike Force in Kharkov, Yekater-inoslav, and Odessa. At an
inquiry into the assassination attempt, it was clarified that the plan
had been developed personally by the head of the All-Ukrainian Cheka
Mantsev, along with Martinov and Glushchenko. Kostyukin and Glushchenko
were also supposed to recruit Zinkovsky.[202] On June 21 both terrorists
were shot.
In June, 1920, Makhno tried to transfer his partisan warfare to the rear
of Wrangel’s Russian Army, which had occupied Norther Tavria.
Dzerzhinsky pointed to the undesirability for the Reds of such a
development, evidently fearing an alliance of the Makhnovists with the
Whites. From Belash’s memoirs it is possible to understand that the
top-secret location of the place where the Makhnovist vanguard would
cross through the front line was reported to the Cheka by its informants
in the Makhnovshchina — I. Gordeyev and M. Boychenko.[203] As a result
on June 24 the vanguard ran into an ambush set by the 520^(th),
521^(st), and 522^(nd) infantry regiments and was practically
annihilated. Out of 2,000 cavalry only 300 riders and 200 dismounted
soldiers were left. Makhno, wounded in this battle, blamed Zinkovsky for
the disaster. According to Spector, he screamed: “What happened to the
bloody razvedka! Why didn’t they warn us? I’m going to shoot
somebody!... ”[204]
The raids of the Insurgent Army in the summer of 1920 were marked by the
pitiless nature of the Soviet-Makhnovist struggle. Thus on July 13 the
Chaplino group of VOKhR annihilated the Makhnovist group of Klein. Two
thousand (!) Makhnovist prisoners were shot by the Chaplino force.[205]
The Reds carried out massive repressions in relation to the peaceful
population — who were considered “accomplices of the Makhnovshchina.”
The peasants of “Makhnovist” villages were liable to be seized as
hostages or deported to Siberia. As evidence for the latter we can look
at the demands of the Makhnovist delegation to Kharkov in the autumn of
1920. On the basis of the political part of the agreement with the
Soviet authorities, the delegation identified the number of persons
deported by the Bolsheviks and eligible to return (mainly peasants) — as
over 200,000 (!).[206] Naturally, such actions provoked a corresponding
reaction from the Makhnovist side — Black Terror. Thus already on July
15 Klein in revenge raided Grishino and wiped out all the Soviet
organizations there.
According to Belash, the second raid through Yekalerinoslav, Kharkov,
and Poltava provinces “was characterized by the destruction of the state
apparatus and terror directed against administrative officials (chairs
of revkoms and komnezams, militia, Chekists, punitive detachments,
etc.).”[207] The Kontrrazvedka “purged” the cities and villages occupied
by the Makhnovists of Soviet and Party workers. That’s what took place,
for example, in Izyum.[208] Certainly, as a result of the
re-organization of the Insurgent Army, all sentences passed through KAD.
If the common goal of the summer raids of 1920 was to bring about an
upsurge of the peasant movement outside the Makhnovist region, then the
occupation of cities served the purpose of replenishing the army
treasury and capturing booty, which the insurgents distributed to the
peasants. This provided the peasants with some measure of revenge for
the violence done to them by the prodrazverstka (food surplus
appropriation system). For example, a village in the Lugansk region in
the space of one week was raided by detachments from: the RKKA and the
Labour Army; the Metalworkers’, Miners’, and Soviet Employees’ unions;
the Gubkom and the revkom; as well as individual factories and
production combines.[209]
During the time of the raids in the summer and autumn of 1920, the agent
networks of the Kontrrazvedka identified the presence of supplies or
money in various cities. Thus the occupation of cities by the
Makhnovists wasn’t arbitrary but had the object of replenishing the
supplies and finances of the Insurgent Army. For example, agents
detected the presence of 22 million rubles in the Starobelsk bank. On
September 3 the city was taken, with the seizure of major spoils, and
money was paid out as wages to the insurgents. Twenty-two party and
soviet workers were shot.[210] Another goal for the Makhnovists was the
seizure of sugar refineries, for example, the Tsiglerovsky, Vengersky,
and Glebensky plants.[211] And later, in the winter of 1920 — 1921, the
insurgents seized 18 Ukrainian refineries and requisitioned 17,000 poods
of sugar.[212] This commodity, scarce in the villages, functioned as a
currency used to pay the peasants for supplies and horses.[213]
One of the most brilliant, but practically unresearched, pages in the
history of the Kontrrazvedka of the SRPU(m) was its operation in the
Makhnovist units of Wrangel’s Russian Army (the so-called “White
Makhnovists”). As is well known, from the end of the spring of 1920,
Wrangel’s headquarters tried to secure Makhno’s support before the White
advance out of Crimea, and White propaganda spread the myth that such an
alliance had already been established. Some of the insurgents naively
fell for this hoax; for others it was simply convenient. But the result
was that in the Russian army auxiliary units were formed under Makhno’s
name. For example, the 1^(st) Insurgent Division of Volodin; and the
regiments, brigades, and detachments of Chaly, Ishchenko, Yatsenko,
Savchenko, Grishin, Prochan, Samko, Khmara, and Golik. Officially the
staff of the Insurgent Army and Makhno personally angrily rejected the
overtures of Wrangel and the former insurgent commanders associated with
the Russian Army. The White enoys were shot.
But the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka undoubtedly carried on work in the
ranks of the White-Makhnovists, as Belash indicates with the following
words: “The Shtarm issued directions to these detachments (to Volodin,
Prochan, Savchenko, Ishchenko, Samko, Chaloma, and Yatsenko) about
ceasing military action against the Red Army, informing them of our
alliance and our advance against Wrangel. I recall I wrote that they
should not break off their ‘peaceable’ relations with Wrangel for the
time being, but be prepared to strike him from the rear when ordered to
do so by the Soviet.”[214] These orders were delivered by a secret
agent. The relevant order relates to the beginning of October 1920 and
graphically demonstrates the results of the final stage of work by the
Kontrrazvedka in the “Makhnovist” auxiliary units of Wrangel.
It’s probable that at the moment this order was issued, the Shtarm
already completely considered the White-Makhnovist units as their own
“fifth column” in Wrangel’s rear area. Belash’s words testify to this:
“The Soviet government acknowledged the presence of our (my emphasis —
V. A.) formations in Wrangel’s rear area and counted on their
“favourable” participation.”[215] Of course, this was dependent on the
“favourable” participation of Wrangel in the formation, arming, and
provisioning of these units. For the Makhnovists, constantly
experiencing an acute shortage of ammunition and equipment, this was
such a valuable windfall that one is compelled to imagine a planned
operation by the Shtarm as part of the revival of the Insurgent Army
(after its dissolution in the winter of 1919–1920) by equipping its own
units at the expense of the enemy. To reject this logical version of
events is only possible because of the absence today of its evidentiary
base.
But, even if one sticks to the view that the White-Makhnovists were not
a premeditated scheme of the Shtarm, it is necessary to concur that,
even if they were created by a deception, these detachments were
transformed into “our formations” of the SRPU(m) through long, hard work
by the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka in their ranks. As a result of this
work, the White Makhnovists (or at least some of these detachments)
began to carry out implicitly the orders of the Shtarm. This is proven,
for example, by the actions of Volodin’s division near Kakhovka. At that
point after October 8 Wrangel created a strike force composed of the
Babiyev’s Kuban division, Barbovich’s cavalry corps, two guard infantry
divisions, and the Batko Makhno (Volodin’s) cavalry division. The strike
force advanced in the direction of Nikopol and Khortitsa with the aim of
cutting off the Reds’ Kakhovka bridgehead and bringing about a junction
with the Polish Army.
If this operation had been successful, the Bolsheviks would undoubtedly
been driven out of Ukraine again. However the White attack got bogged
down as a result of the “anti-Wrangel actions” of Volodin. When he
received his orders from the Shtarm, he withdrew his division of 800
cavalry from the front and, between Nikopol and Alexandrovsk, began to
harass the rear of the attacking groups, killing officers. His goal was
the annihilation of the staff of General Kutepov’s 1^(st) Army. Troops
were thrown into battle against him and his division was disarmed.
Voldin himself was shot on October 25 in Melitopol.[216] There is no
doubt that such murderous orders could be executed only under conditions
of complete subordination of the White Makhnovists to the staff of the
Insurgent Army. Only the agent network of the Kontrrazvedka could ensure
such conditions.
Already at the beginning of the Makhnovist operation against Wrangel in
Northern Tavria, the Shtarm received from the White Makhnovist units not
only intelligence about the enemy’s rear eara, but also direct
assistance in penetrating the front line. For example, the commander of
the 10^(th) Batko Makhno brigade, Chaly, by order of the Shtarm crossed
the front line in the middle of October, 1920 and arrived at the
Insurgent Army.[217] As a result, Chaly s brigade allowed the Makhnovist
cavalry of Marchenko and Petrenkos group to pass through the front and
then conducted them to the rear of the Drosdovsky Division.[218] The
outcome of the Kontrrazvedka’s work in transforming the White
Makhnovists into a “fifth column” of the SRPU(m) was the penetration of
the two Makhnovist groups of Petrenko and Zabudko into the rear of the
Don Army in the zone of the White Makhnovists. As a result of this
operation, the Don Army was cut off from Wrangels main forces and began
to retreat in disorder.[219]
The goal of this raid by the Makhnovist groups was not so much to carry
out Frunzes fantastic order to seize the Perekop isthmus. According to
Verstyuk, the chief goal was rather to extract from the forces of the
enemy the insurgent detachments of Volodin, Chaly, Yatsenko, Savchenko,
Samko, Ishchenko, and Golik.[220] Taking account of all the
circumstances, it is possible to conclude that in raiding northern
Tavria the Makhnovists were bringing to fruition the schemes of the
Kontrrazvedka. The goal — the reinforcement of the Insurgent Army with
White Makhnovists. And these were serious additions. In the reserve of
the Don Army stood Samko’s detachment — 400 infantry, Ishchenko’s
brigade — 700 infantry, and Golik’s regiment — 200 infantry. In the
reserve of Kutepov’s 1^(st) Army stood: Chaly s brigade — 1,000
infantry, Yatsenkos brigade — 500 infantry, and Savchenkos brigade — 500
infantry and 200 cavalry.[221] Thus through the efforts of the
Kontrrazvedka the attacking Insurgent Army received a new, well-armed
brigade composed of 3,300 infantry and 200 cavalry.
A promising approach for future research would look at the participation
of Zinkovsky in the campaign against Wrangel by Karetnikov’s Crimean
group in which Zinkovsky held the rank of commandant. Golik — the
Military Kontrrazvedka chief — also went to Crimea with this group.
According to the source materials available to me about the
Makhnoshchina, these two insurgents were always involved in
Kontrrazvedka work. Even though during the last period of the movement,
Zinkovsky was the head of Batko’s body guard, this didn’t mean that he
ceased to carry out intelligence functions. This participation of the
leading members of the Kontrrazvedka in the Crimean campaign, possibly
accompanied by their co-workers, can be viewed as one more indirect
confirmation of contacts of the Kontrrazvedka with the White Makhnovist
units and with the agent network in Crimea. Finally, the forced crossing
of the Sivash lagoon on November 8 1920, a complex and risky operation,
must have been preceded by a careful reconnaissance of the different
routes.[222]
The liquidation of Martinov s terrorists in June 1920 was not the final
clash between the Insurgent Army and the Cheka’s Special Strike Force.
Already after the Crimean operation and the destruction of Wrangel, the
Bolsheviks began to get ready to break the Starobelsk Agreement. As part
of the preparations of an attack by the Reds on Gulai-Polye, in November
1920 a whole detachment of 40 members of Martinov’s gang were sent from
Kharkov into the Liberated Zone with the goal of disrupting the
Makhnovshchina and, in case of failure, liquidating its leadership. Ten
members of this bunch arrived in Gulai-Polye itself in the guise of
anarchist-universalists with the task of liquidating the leadership of
the SRPU(m). However the Kharkov group had been infiltrated by agents of
the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka, led by Cherednyak’s former adjutant
Mirsky. Thanks to his secret reports, the Shtarm from the very beginning
of the Chekist operation knew all about the plans of Martinov s agents.
According to Arshinov, on November 23,1920, several days before the Reds
attacked the Makhnovists, the Kontrrazvedka arrested nine agents of the
42^(nd) Division, which was trying to establish the current lodgings of
the Batko, members of the staff of the SRPU(m), and prominent Makhnovist
commanders, so they could be rounded up when Gulai-Polye was captured by
Red forces.[223] According to Belash, when on November 24, 1920 the
Cheka terrorists arrived with bombs at Makhnos quarters, where there was
a gathering to celebrate some holiday, they were arrested. Sentenced by
KAD, seven of them were shot. Furthermore, thanks to Mirsky’s
information about the forthcoming general onslaught of the Reds against
the Makhnovists and, in particular, of the 42^(nd) Division against
Gulai-Polye,[224] the Shtarm was not taken unawares.
Thus it was only thanks to the Kontrrazvedka that the core of the
Makhnovist movement avoided destruction in the autumn of 1920. And
judging from Belash’s information about the arrival of the arrival of
the Makhnovist kontrrazvedniks together with Martinov’s agents directly
from Kharkov, one can deduce that the Military Section must have begun
to prepare a response to the Special Strike Force immediately after the
attempt on Makhos life. Even when there was an agreement in effect with
the Reds (or not long before this) it was considered wise to infiltrate
Makhnovist secret agents into the Cheka’s secret unit for struggle with
banditism. Or, as a possible variant, to re-recruit anarchists who
formed the backbone of the Special Strike Force.
At the end of November 1920, two-thirds of the troops used in the
Crimean operation — 58,000 soldiers of the 2^(nd) Cavalry and 3^(rd)
Infantry Armies — were thrown into the battle to liquidate the
Makhnovist insurgency. The Liberated Zone was literally inundated with
Red units. That’s why the Insurgent Army broke up into several groups
and detachments which easily escaped from their pursuers and proceeded
to defeat them piecemeal, causing severe panic among the Red Army
soldiers. These operations took place over a huge expanse from
Yekaterinoslav to Berdyansk and Maryupol. And, according to a
participant — the Red commander M. Ribakov — it was the skill of the
Kontrrazvedka which was the key element in the freedom of manoeuvre and
consequent victories of the Makhnovists.
“The spies and scouts of the Makhnovist insurgents were found in each
village, on each khutor, darting here and there. Some were disguised as
beggars, some as Red Army soldiers looking for their units, some as
workers from a mine exchanging coal for bread, some as remorseful
deserters, some as ex-Communists, even some as abandoned widows and
orphans seeing “protection and justice,” etc.[225] The agent network of
the Kontrrazvedka continued the same work in 1921. According to the
testimony of the deputy chief of the Military Kontrrazvedka of the
SRPU(m) N. Vorobyev: “To maintain contact between separate groups and
the main staff of the band we used as kontrrazvedniks women and boys of
14–15, wearing peasant dress. They carried documents stamped by the
volost ispolkom of a different gubernia. The Kontrrazvedka derived great
success from the use of oldsters playing the role of vagabonds.”[226]
Gerasimenko supplements this information from October 1919: in the
village of Khoduntsa Cossacks of the 2^(nd) Terek Division captured a
Makhnovist wagon train in which was found 400 (!) women serving in the
Military Kontrrazvedka.[227] There’s also the episode of February 1921
with the 20-year old beauty Oksana, who arranged a concert in one of the
villages for the soldiers of the International Cavalry Brigade. She then
rushed to a neighbouring village to warn the Makhnovists about the Red
cavalry. Oksana was arrested, released for lack of evidence, an then
taken prisoner in battle as a member of a female tachanka machine gun
crew which was covering the retreat of the Makhnovists. At their trial
before a revolutionary tribunal the crew members told about their
exploits while serving in the detachment of Marusya [Nikiforova? — V.
A.]. They met their fate with indifference.[228]
Thanks to their agent network the Makhnovist Shtarm had access to
detailed information not only about the dispositions of Red units, their
strength and movements, but also about the state of morale in the
various formations and even the characteristics of their commanders.
According to the words of a participant in the operations against
Makhno, R Ashakhanov, the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka was so efficient,
that the Makhnovists were aware of the literacy level and military
competency of a certain brigade commander who couldn’t figure out the
scale of a topographic map,[229] With the aid of his intelligence
agents, Makhno could disinform the enemy about his intentions. In a
letter to Arshinov, he recalled his usual modus operandi when, in March
1921, with the help of the Kontrrazvedka the Makhnovists forced one of
the RKKA formations to deploy along a front for 24 hours in expectation
of a battle, while the Insurgent Army was completing a forced march of
60 versts.[230]
The actions of the Makhnovist intelligence service were vividly
displayed in the legendary destruction of the Kirghiz Brigade on
December 3,1920 at the village of Komar. According to Ribakov, the
Makhnovist spies spent the night in Komar along with the Kirghiz
Brigade, then left the village in carts while it was still dark and
alerted their own units, stationed in Bogatir. As a result of
concentrated fire followed by an attack by the Makhnovists, the brigade
was annihilated in 30 minutes. A Red battalion which sped to the scene
found only a handful of “crazed Kirghiz trick riders from whom nothing
sensible could be learned except for the words ‘massaya Makhno’, who had
cut the whole brigade to pieces.”[231] Such actions, supported by a
professional intelligence service, led to the utter demoralization of
nearby Red units and raised the military elan of the Makhnovists to the
utmost. The Kirghiz soldiers who returned from captivity told of the
Makhnovists being in high spirits. And this was going on while the
Makhnovists were supposedly in the grip of the Bolshevik colossus!
During this period the Kontrrazvedka reported to the Operations Section
of the SRPU(m), which consisted of two people — the leaders of the
Makhnovshchina — the Batko himself and Belash. Basing itself on
information supplied by the Kontrrazvedkas agent networks, this
department designed the tactical operations of the army. Belash mentions
that this department was independent of the Soviet, did not submit its
plans to the plenum of the SRPU(m), but only transmitted them to the
Shtarm.[232] This autonomy can probably be explained by considerations
of secrecy in view of the activization of a Cheka network inside the
Makhnovshchina starting from 1920. When battles took place, the conduct
of operations was entrusted to the fully empowered Soviet, which carried
them through on its own responsibility. The Operations Section provided
general direction to the Kontrrazvedka: this function was carried out by
Makhno himself, but sometimes he was replaced by Belash or Petrenko.
Besides the Military Kontrrazvedka the Shtarm had its own fiel cavalry
reconnaissance unit which patrolled the main thoroughfares in which
direction an attack by the Reds might be anticipated. Ranging over a
distance of 10 to 15 versts, this unit gathered information from the
local inhabitants. On campaign, the cavalry reconnaissance unit acted as
a vanguard; 1/8 of its complement was dispatched still farther forward
and in lateral directions. During armed clashes, the field
reconnaissance unit and the Kontrrazvedka did not take part in the
fighting but carried out intelligence functions, defended the rear and
flanks of the army’s transport, and dispatched separate groups in
various directions. The Kontrrazvedka, together with quartermaster
personnel, ensured the provisioning of the army by means of raids. They
were dispatched to villages along the march route and, when the main
forces arrived, they were met by tachankas with fresh horses, food, and
forage. In this way, the replacement of horses and replenishment of
supplies could take place without halting the movement of the army. The
Kontrrazvedka assured not only the elusiveness, but also the continuity
of motion of the Insurgent Army.[233]
During the period at the end of 1920 — beginning of 1921 when the
Insurgent Army was dispersed into a multitude of independent detachments
and small groups, contact between them was also maintained by means of
secret agents. Contact was also made with Red units which showed an
interest in transferring their allegiance to Makno. For example, at the
beginning of December 1920 agents arrived from Masklakov, commander of
the 1^(st) Cavalry Brigade, and reported that he was prepared to switch
sides along with his brigade but was waiting for a propitious moment. In
the meantime he was trying to stir up the commanders of nearby
divisions. Secret agents sent to the 30^(th) Division reported that a
purge was being carried out of officers sympathetic to the Makhnovists
and its prospects of transferring had collapsed. Agents sent to
establish contact with Mironov’s 2^(nd) Cavalry Army did not
return.[234] Probably they were exposed and annihilated.
During the period of the next lull in the fighting (March — April, 1921)
the insurgents were helped by the heretofore hostile German colonists.
Embittered by the repressions of Soviet power, they allowed the
Makhnovist underground to make use of their colonies and carried out
reconnaissance themselves, informing the Shtarm about the movements of
Red forces.[235] At that time the chief of staff of the RKKA reported
secret agents of the insurgents had penetrated “into all the pores of
the military organism.”[236] Even from the underground, the Shtarm of
the SRPU(m) with the help of the Kontrrazvedka directed the operations
of the dispersed insurgent units.[237] Finally, one can consider as the
last action of the Kontrrazvedka Zinkovsky’s efforts in organizing the
departure of the Makhnovist detachment across the border in August 1921.
At the Dniestr crossing, Zinkovsky with 20 insurgents, dressed in Red
Army uniforms and having the appearance of a punitive detachment,
approached a detachment of border guards. Zinkovsky blunted the
vigilance of the guards by asking: “Did you summon us to help? Where are
the Makhnovists? It’s time to finish them off?” Then the Makhnovists
disarmed them and crossed into Rumania.[238]
Up until the downfall of the Makhnovist movement, the agent network of
the insurgents was not a separate entity composed of kontrrazvedniks but
was based on the system of underground Makhnovist organizations, local
partisan units, and collection points for food and other supplies and
the exchange of horses. This was the powerful grass roots system of the
movement. Even after Makhno went abroad, this system was not uncovered
by the Chekists[239] and for many long years served as a contact network
for former Makhnovists. According to Dubovik, the Makhnovist insurgency
in the form of armed struggle persisted in Ukraine until the middle of
the 1920 s. Later, underground groups of former Makhnovists sprang up in
Gulai-Polye, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Maryupol, and elsewhere right up
until 1938. In that year was annihilated the group referred to by the
NKVD under the dubious name “The Gulai-Polye Military-Makhnovist
Counterrevolutionary Insurgent Regiment.”[240] This name smacks of the
falsifications of the “Great Terror,”
In 1925 the Makhovist Foreign Centre in Bucharest, established earlier
by Zinkovsky, became more active. Makhno himself began to prepare for a
campaign in Ukraine. Zinkovsky and his brother D. Zadov-Zotov had
crossed the Rumanian frontier and surrendered in 1924; in the following
year they were amnestied. Zinkovsky was recruited by the foreign
department of the Odessa OGPU. Officially he and his brother, stationed
in Tiraspol, ran an agent network in Rumania, using Makhnovists living
there and the Foreign Centre itself. Their work was distinguished and
they received awards from the GPU-NKVD. But when, in 1935, the whole
network collapsed and an inquiry was started, it turned out that the
real goal of the brothers’ return was the creation of a Makhnovist
underground centre in Odessa. According to the testimony of the former
Makhnovist I. Chuprin, the Zadovs “infiltrated the GPU under Makhno’s
orders in order to form underground Makhnovist detachments in
Ukraine.”[241]
According to materials pulled together in 1937, Zinkovsky had penetrated
the Soviet secret police structure especially in order to ensure the
safe return of the Makhnovists from Rumania and their legalization in
Ukraine.[242] Belash’s testimony says that Zinkovsky surrounded himself
with veteran Makhnovists who had been amnestied.[243] The underground
Makhnovist organization in Odessa was the connecting link between the
Foreign Centre and the former Makhnovists in Gulai-Polye. Moreover, it
was planned to created several Makhnovist detachments in the Odessa
region itself, as there were thousands of former insurgents living
there. Even after the death of Makhno in 1934 Zinkovsky continued to
received instructions from the Foreign Centre. When the Odessa
Makhnovist organization was exposed in August 1937, it consisted of 90
people.[244] Besides Chuprin and Belash, testimony about Zinkovsky was
also given by other Makhnovists: the former chairman of KAD N.
Zuychenko, Ye. Boychenko, and P. Karetnikov.[245]
Zinkovsky, naturally, denied his guilt. But, in distinction from others,
he didn’t save his own skin by “ratting” on his former colleagues,
Although, as head of the Kontrrazvedka he certainly know enough about
them. Recalling the lies of the “Great Terror” it’s possible to believe
that Zinkovsky fell an innocent victim of Stalinist repression. For his
son Vadim, a veteran of the Armed Forces of the USSR, whose sister died
for the “Soviet homeland” in 1942, it was psychologically necessary to
believe in this innocence when, in 1990, he was informed of his father’s
rehabilitation. But, on the other hand, there were thousands of
Makhnovists in and around Odessa with close connections with the Foreign
Centre. It is by no means proven with whom “Leva” played fairly and whom
he used as a screen. It is equally possible to believe that Zinkovsky
remained an anarchist till the end of his days “by virtue of my
political convictions” as he declared at his interrogation. Lev
Zinkovsky was shot on September 25,1938, in the cellar of the Kiev
NRVD[246] and buried somewhere in Bykovna, one of the sections of the
Darnitsky woodland park complex,[247]
Practically none of the other leading kontrrazvedniks outlived their
comrade. Nor did they betray their cause. Here is a bit about several of
them. Somewhere near Uman, most likely in the battle at Peregonovka on
September 26, 1919, which sealed the fate of the White movement, Isidor
Lyuty was killed fighting as a member of Makhno’s “Black Sotnia”
Surrounded by Chekists in the dacha in Kraskovo on November 5 1919,
Yakov Glazgon along with the five last members of MOAP blew themselves
up along with their bomb lab. After the breakup of the Insurgent Army
due to typhus and the treachery of the RKKA, on January 19,1920, in
Gulai-Polye the 42^(nd) Division shot typhus-stricken Makhnovists. Among
those executed was the kontrrazvednik of the “Black Sotnia” Aleksandr
Lepetchenko. The Crimean group of the Insurgent Army escaped from the
battles in Tavria but on November 30, 1920, at the city of Orekhov found
itself in a cauldron surrounded by overwhelming Red forces. During the
battle the head of the field Kontrrazvedka Lev Golik suffered a heart
attack and died. In early January 1921, Grigory Vasilevsky, a
kontrrazvednik of the “Black Sotnia” and one of the chairpersons of KAD,
was slain in battle with the 8^(lh) Division of the Red Cossacks.
Against this background of loyalty stands out almost the only traitor
from the ranks of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka — Fedor Glushchenko.
Arrested by Chekists, he agreed to work in the Special Strike Group of
the VChK only in order to warn Makhno about the attempt being prepared
against him. Arriving in Turkenovka, Glushchenko immediately gave
himself up along with his partner Kostyukin. Before they were shot
Kostyukin cursed Glushchenko for leading him there and then betraying
him.[248] By an irony of fate, of the founders of the Kontrrazvedka
there remained alive only its mastermind Max Chernyak (Cherednyak).
After heading the Siberian group of Nikiforovas detachment in June,
1919, he somehow survived. Later he surfaced abroad. In 1924, based in
Warsaw, he maintained contact with the remnants of the Kharkov-based
group “Nabat.” Acting as a courier, he frequently crossed into the USSR.
[249] According to Belash, he was still alive in 1930.[250]
The greatest quantity of references to Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka and its
terror occur in the autumn of 1919 — the peak of the Ma-knovist
federation of Free Soviets and the time when the Liberated Zone embraced
the most territory. It was natural that in the rear of the Volunteer
Army, under martial law, that the Kontrrazvedka developed a rather
formidable repressive apparatus which the VRS had difficulty
controlling. However it is also possible to draw the opposite conclusion
from this: for most of the time of existence of the Makhnovist movement
the Kontrrazvedka was smaller, proportional to the amount of territory
controlled. Its function was more concentrated on basic reconnaissance
and the struggle with hostile agent networks, and less to the
repressions of the Black Terror. Finally, it was more subject to control
of the main elected organ of the Makhnovshchina.
In the history of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka we confront the thorny
question of the relationship of anarchists to secret services and
punitive organs. The most freedom-loving ideology and the principled
enemy of any kind of compulsion, anarchism was always hostile to
structures similar to those of its chief enemy — the State.
Nevertheless, any active organization of anarchists was compelled to
make use of weapons and mechanisms of “the old society” in order to pave
the way towards an anarchical future. Compelled for the simple reason
that there were no other effective mechanisms. The main question here is
whether the anarchists could control these mechanisms or would there be
yet another State regenerated under their, albeit black, banners. This
question was faced in full measure by one of the most important
anarchist movements in the history of humanity — the Makhnovshchina.
The history of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka displays all the traps and
temptations of power which await human weakness in the process of making
use of such a dangerous weapon. But it also displays the steadfastness
and will power of people who find in themselves the strength to
recognize and offer resistance to the degeneration of this weapon into
the normal murderousness of a statist secret service. I have no
intention of idealizing or even justifying the retributive politics of
the anarchists during the Civil War. But let us recall Volin: “The
Makhnovshchina was an event of extraordinary breadth, grandeur and
importance, which unfolded with exceptional force ... undergoing a
titanic struggle against all forms of reaction.”[251] And let us
remember that without the Kontrrazvedka this struggle would have been
lost much earlier. In which case the Makhnovshchina would generally not
been able to develop its full strength and show the world the heights of
the human spirit liberated from authority.
And one more important observation. Anarchists are usually depicted in
one of two modes: either as romantic idealists cut off from real life —
inexperienced youth or senile oldsters; or as degenerate criminal types,
physically incapable of living in “normal society.” To the State and,
with its encouragement, conformist citizens generally, it is convenient
to perceive people who uphold a different way of organizing society as
“abnormal.” The Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka, the unique organ of defence of
the emerging alternative future, shows better than any other anarchist
structure how competent, sensible, composed, and resourceful people can
be who are true to the anarchist ideal. May they rest in peace and may
their memory live forever.
MMD = Nestor Ivanovich Makhno. Vospominanniya, materialy I dokumenty I
Nestor Ivanovich Makhno. Memoirs, Materials and Documents], Kiev (1991),
p. 161.
ataman Cossack term for chieftain.
batko Ukrainian for “little father” but also a military title similar to
the Russian ataman.
Cheka street name derived from the acronym VChK which stands for the
“All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution,
Profiteering and Corruption,” the original secret police organization
set up by the Bolsheviks shortly alter taking power. The MChK was the
Moscow branch of this organization. The VChK became the GPU (State
Political Directorate) in 1922, and later the OGPU (1924) and the NKVD
(1934).
ex abbreviated form for “expropriation.” Exes were carried out by
“ex-ists”
gubernia an adminstrative unit which can roughly be translated as
“province.” Yekaterinoslav was the administrative centre of a gubernia
(also named Yekaterinoslav) which included several uyezds (including
Alexandrovsk Uyezd).
Gubkom provincial committee of the Communist Party
Gulyaypole Anarcho-Communist Group formed in 1917 from remnants of the
Union of Poor Peasants. As a member of this group Nestor Makhno had to
submit to its discipline even at the height of his powers.
ispolkom the executive committee of a local soviet.
KAD Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activities (1920–1921)
Komnezam Committee of the Poor, a institution of War Communism used by
the Communist to help with the prodrazverstka
kontrrazvedka literally “counter-intelligence.” In the Makhnovshchina it
involved a range of activities including reconnaissance, recruitment,
and procurement of supplies.
KP(b)U Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine
Kultprosvet the Cultural Enlightenment Section of the Insurgent Army
which engaged in propaganda and educational work. It was the home of the
movements intellectuals.
Left SR member of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, formed in
October 1917 from the left-wing of the SR Party.
Makhnovshchina the regime of the Makhnovists. A pejorative term in
Soviet historiography, but used by the Makhnovists themselves.
MOAP the Moscow Organization of “The Anarchists of the Underground,” a
terrorist organization active in the fall of 1919
Nabat federation of anarchist groups of Ukraine (1918–1919), with
headquarters first in Kursk, later Kharkov. Suppressed by the
Bolsheviks.
Narodnik member of a dissident faction of the Left SR Party.
pomeshchik owner of a large rural estate
prodrazverstka food requisitioning by the state during the period of War
Communism (1918 — 1921). The requisitioning was carried out by
prodotryads (food brigades)
raion an administrative unit, a subdivision of a uyezd. The village of
Gulyaypole was the administrative centre of a raion (also named
Gulyaypole) which included several other (much smaller) villages and
hamlets.
revkom Revolutionary Committee. After the October Revolution of 1917
local Soviets set up revkoms to organize the military defense of the
Revolution. A gubrevkom was a revkom for a whole province (gubernia).
RPAU(m) Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (Makhnovist), the
official name of the Insurgent Army.
RKP(b) Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik); its Moscow branch was run by
the MK RKP(b).
RKKA Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, better known as just the Red Army.
Russian Army the White military force in southern Ukraine in 1920,
successor to the Volunteer Army, led by General Wrangel.
Shtarm the common abbreviation for the staff of the Insurgent Army
sotnia literally a group of hundred, so in a military context roughly
equivalent to “company.” In Cossack and Left Bank Ukrainian towns the
inhabitants were organized into sotnias, roughly the equivalent of
wards, which were like a community within a community.
Sovnarkom Council of People’s Commissars, the government of the early
Soviet republic.
SR member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (PSR), the larg
est left-wing party in Russia, which claimed to represent the interests
of the peasantry. Socialist but non-Marxist, it was prone to
factionalism and underwent a number of splits. In Ukraine were found
nationalist variants of the SR Party.
SRPU{m) Soviet of Revolutionary Insurgents of Ukraine (Makhnovist), the
successor of the VRS (1920–1921).
Union of Poor Peasants the first anarcho-communist group in Gu-lyaypole
(1906–1909). Starting as a propaganda group it later embarked on a
campaign of terror.
UNR the Ukrainian National Republic, the nationalist government
which tried to establish an independent Ukraine (1918–1921). Its leading
figure was Simon Petlyura.
uyezd an administrative unit, a subdivision of a gubernia. Alexandrovsk
was the administrative centre of a uyezd (also named Alexandrovsk) which
included several raions (including Gulyaypole Raion).
VOKhR Troops of Internal Security of the Republic (militarized guards)
volsost an administrative unit, in Ukraine equivalent to a raion.
Volunteer Army the White military force in south Russia and Ukraine
(1918–1920) led by General Denikin.
VRS Military-Revolutionary Soviet, an elected body which coordinated
civilian affairs between insurgent congresses (1919–1920). Despite its
name, it exercised only nominal control over military matters.
Whites the main counter-revolutonary force in the Russian Civil War,
represented politically by the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets).
[1] The article cited was accessible to me only on the internet:
-26/71. htm.
[2] In the anarchist historiography of the Russian Revolution, the two
upheavals of 1917 (in February and October) were political revolutions
to be followed by the social, libertarian revolution. The Makhnovists
saw themselves as part of this Third Revolution.
[3]
V. Savchenko, Anarkhisti-terroristi v Odesse (1903–1913)
[Anarchist-Terrorists in Odessa (1903–1913)], Odessa (2006), pp.
61–62.
[4] Sobolev was killed in shoot-out with Cheka agents in Moscow in 1919.
[5] Nabat [Tocsin] was the name of the Ukrainian Federation of
Anarchists (1918–1919). With headquarters in Kharkov it had branches in
a number of Ukrainian cities and produced a targe quan tity of
literature before being suppressed by the Bolsheviks.
[6] I.Teper, Makhno: Ot”edinogo anarkhizma” k stopam rumynskogo korolia
[Makhno: from a “United Anarchism”to the Feet of the Romanian King],
Moscow (1924), p. 77.
[7] Bezmotivny (motiveless) terror was directed against persons
occupying positions in the power structure which entitled them to be
considered enemies of the people. Becoming widespread in the Russian
Empire around 1905, it differed from the earlier form of terrorism which
took the form of retributive acts against specific individuals perceived
as tyrants.
[8]
T. A. Bespechnii & T. T. Bukreyeva, Leva Zadov: chelovek rz
kontrrazvedki [Leva Zadov: the Man from the Kontrrazvedka],
Donetz (1996), p. 225.
[9] Stalin masterminded the robbery of the Tiflis State Bank in 1907 in
the course of which dozens of people were killed or wounded.
[10]
V. Savchenko, op. cit., p. 9–10.
[11]
A. V. Belash & V. F. Belash, Dorogi Nestora Makhno [The Paths of
Nestor Makhno], Kiev (1993), p. 350.
[12] The Gulai-Polye Union of Poor Peasants was an anarcho-communist
group founded in 1906 and had as many as 200 members. When Karachentsev
broke up the group with mass arrests, its founders, Antoni and
Semenyuta, fled abroad but later returned, seeking revenge. At the time
of the attack on Karachentsev, Makhno was in prison, charged with
killing another policeman.
[13] Ibid, p. 17.
[14] I.Teper, op. erf., p. 50.
[15]
T. A. Bespechny &T. T. Bukreyeva, op. cit, p. 228.
[16]
V. Zinkovsky, Anarkhlst i chekist (Anarchist and Chekist],
=> http://www.zavtra.ru/fai/veil/ http://www.zavtra.ru/fai/veil/
data/zavtra/01/371/52.html
[17]
T. A. Bespechny and T, T, Bukreyeva, op. cit., p. 228.
[18] The Zadneprovsky Division was the cornerstone of the Red Army
(RKKA) in the spring of I919.lt was commanded by the Bolshevik ex-sailor
Pavel Dybenko. As the result of agreements concluded in February, 1919,
it included the brigades of the Ukrainian atamans Makhno and Grigoryev.
[19]
M. Kubanin, Makhnovshchina [The Makhnovshchina], Leningrad (1927), p.
220.
[20] Ibid., p. 195.
[21]
A. V. Belash and B. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 111.
[22] Ibid, p. 188.
[23] Ibid, note 14, p. 584.
[24] tod, p. 88.
[25] Ibid, p. 255.
[26]
T. A. Bespechny &T. T. Bukreyeva, op. cit, p, 228.
[27]
A. Dubovik, Imennoy ukazatel [Name lndex]//V. Volin, Neizvestnaya
revolyutsiya [The Unknown Revolution (1917–1921)], Moscow (2005),
pp. 598,600.
[28]
V. Savchenko, “Pogromny” ataman Grigoryev [The “Pogrom” Ataman
Grioorvevl//www. makhno.ru/other/36.php
[29]
T. A. Bespechny and T.T. Bukreyeva, Nestor Makhno: pravda I legend!
[Nestor Makhno: truth and legends], Donetsk (1996) p. 60.
[30]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op cit., p. 110.
[31] Krasnaya kniga VChK t.l [The Red Book of the Cheka], Vol. 1,
Moscow, 1990, p. 362.
[32] “Batko” (literally “Father”) was a title bestowed on military
leaders in the Ukrainian Cossack tradition.
[33]
N. I. Makhno, Ukrainskaya revolyutsiya/ZVospominaniya. kn. 3 [The
Ukrainian Revolu-tion]//Memoirs, Vol. 3], Paris, 1937, p. 79.
[34]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 160.
[35] Ibid, p. 174.
[36]
M. Kubanin, op. cit., p. 195.
[37]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 354.
[38] Ibid, p. 364.
[39] Ibid, p. 331.
[40] Ibid, p. 364.
[41] Ibid, p. 340.
[42]
M. Kubanin, op. cit., p. 116.
[43]
N. I. Makhno, op. cit., p. 84.
[44]
A. V, Belash and v, F, Belash, op. cit, p. 37.
[45]
N. I. Makhno, op. cit., p. 98.
[46] A.V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., pp. 111,1 OS,
[47]
T. A. Bespechny and I. T. Bukreyeva, op. cit., p. 228.
[48]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., pp. 105,110.
[49] Ibid, p. 58–59.
[50] Ibid, p. 255.
[51]
V. N. Chop, Marusya Nikiforova, Zaporozhye (1998), p. 59.
[52] Ye. S. Seleznev and T. A. Seleznev, Politicheskaya ssilka,
revolyutsionniye sobitiya nach. XX v. I grazhdanskaya voyna na
territorii Tayshetskovo reyona [Political Exile, Revolutionary Events at
the Beginning of the 20’^(h) Century and during the Civil War in the
Tayshetsky Region],
www.tai5het.ru/historv/sel2.html
[53] Krasnaya kniga VChK. 1.1 [The Red Book of the Cheka, Vol. 1J,
Moscow (1990), p. 374. Ibid, p. 375.
[54] Ibid, p. 375.
[55] Ibid, p. 374.
[56]
V. A. Klimenko and P.M. Morozov, Chrezvychaynyezashchitniki
revolyutsii [Extraordinary Defenders of the Revolution], Moscow,
1980, p. 18.
[57] Iz istorii VChK 1917 -1921 [From the History of the Cheka 1917
-1921 ], Moscow (1958), p. 351–352.
[58]
V. A. Klimen ko and P. M. Morozov, op. cit,, p. 18.
[59] Iz istorii VChK 1917 -1921 [From the History of the Cheka 1917 —
1921 ], Moscow [1958), p. 351–352.
[60] Ibid, p. 353.
[61] For more details, see V. Azarov, Bomba dlya Kremlya [A Bomb forthe
Kremlin],
.
[62] Na zashchiterevoiyutii [In Defense of the Revolution. From the
History of the Pan-Ukrainian Cheka 1917–1922], Kiev (1971), p. 147,
[63] Kubanin, op. cit., p. 220.
[64] Ya. Yakovlev, Russkiy anarkhizm I Velikaya russkaya revolyutsiya
[Russian Anarchism and the Great Russian Revolution], Kharkhov 09? 1},
p. 45.
[65]
L. Bichkov, Vzriv v Leontyevskom pereulke [Explosion in Leontyevsky
Lane], Moscow (1934), p. 25.
[66] Krasnaya kniga VChK. 1.1, op. cit., p. 329 330.
[67]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., note 127, p. 587.
[68]
V. A. Klimen ko and P. M. Morozov, op. cit,, p. 18.
[69] Ibid, p. 378.
[70]
N. V. Gerasimenko, Batko Makhno. Memurari belogvardeytsa [Batko
Makhno. Memoirs of a White Guard] Moscow (1990), p. 60.
[71] Krasnaya kniga VChK. 1.1, op. cit., p. 378.
[72]
V. Volkovinsky, Nestor Makhno: legendi i realnist [Nestor Makhno:
legends and reality], Kiev (1994), p. 133.
[73] Teper, op. cit., p. 76.
[74]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., pp. 301,303.
[75] Ibid, note 36, p. 581.
[76] Ibid, p. 293.
[77] A.V.Timoshchuk, Anarkho-kommunisticheskyeformirovanniya N. Makhno
[1 he Anarcho-Communist Formations of N. Makhno],
http://www.makhno.ru/1it/Timoshuk/06.php
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., pp. 296.
[78] A.V. Belash and V.F. Belash, op. cit., pp. 296]
[79] Teper, op. cit., p. 40.
[80]
V. Volkovinsky, op. cit., p. 137.
[81]
V. Chop, “Coyuz i zmova” [“Alliance and Accord”],
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[82] Teper, op. cit, p. 49.
[83]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 305,
[84]
V. Telitsin, Nestor Makhno, Moscow (1998), p. 236.
[85] A, V, Belash and V, F. Belash, op. cit, p. 340.
[86] Teper, op. df., p. 50.
[87] Proyektdeklaratsil Revolyutsionnoy Povstancheskoyarmii Ukrainy
{makhnovtsev) [Draft the of Declaration of the Revolutionary Insurgent
Army of Ukraine (Makhnovists)], MMD, p. 161.
[88]
F. Levenzon, Protiv Makhno na denikinskom fronte [Against Makhno at the
Denikinfst Front], MMD, p. 97.
[89] Teper, op. cit., p. 81.
[90] Ibid, p. 77.
[91] ibid, p. 76.
[92]
H. V. Gerasimenko, op. cit, p. 63.
[93]
M. Hutman, Pod vlastyu anarkhistov (Yekaterinoslav v 1919) [Under the
Rule of the Anarchists (Yekaterinoslav in 1919)], MMD, p. 83.
[94]
F. Zinko, Koye-chto iz istorii Odesskoy ChK [Who’s Who from the History
of the Odessa Cheka], Odessa (1998), p. 75.
[95]
T. A. Bespechny and T. T. Bukreyeva, op. cit, p. 284.
[96]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 349.
[97] Ibid, p. 349.
[98] Ibid, p. 349.
[99] Ibid, p. 349.
[100]
M. Hutman, op. cit, p. 81.
[101]
A. Shubin, Anarkhiya — mat poryadka [Anarchy — the Mother of Order],
Moscow (2005), p. 271.
[102]
V. Miroshevsky, Volniy Yekaterinoslav [Free Yekaterinoslav],
Proletarskaya revolyutsiya [Proletarian Revolution] (1922), No.
9, p. 198.
[103]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 348.
[104] Kommunlsty sredi partizan (otchet Yekaterinoslavskogo Gubkoma
Zafrontbyuro TsK KP(b)U) [Communists among the Partisans (report of the
Yekaterinoslav Gubkom to the Zafrontbyuro of theTsK KP(b)Y)], Letopls
Revolyutsli [Annals of the Revolution], No. 4(13), 1925, p. 93.
[105] M, Hutman, op. cit, p. 81.
[106]
R. Kurgan, Makhnovtsi v Yekaterinoslave [The Makhnovists in
Yekaterinoslav], MMD, p. 79.
[107]
M. Hutman, op. cit., pp. 81,84.
[108] Ibid, p. 80.
[109] Ibid, p. 82.
[110]
A. 5hubin, op. cit, p. 274.
[111]
T. A. Bespechny and T. T. Bukreyeva, op. cit., p. 49.
[112]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 318.
[113] Ibid, p. 322.
[114] Kubanin, op. cit._(r) p. 116,
[115]
A. Shubin, op. cit, p. 272.
[116]
A. Skirda, Nestor Makhno — kazak svobody (1888–1934), [Nestor Makhno —
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[117]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 331.
[118] Ibid.
[119]
A. Shubin, op. eft, p. 273.
[120] Yaroslvsky myatezh [The Yaroslav Mjtinv1//
[121] Krasny i bely terror [Red and White Torror1/7
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v/06 vsota/e terror.htiri
[122]
S. P. Melgunov, Krasny terror v Rossi I 1918–1923 [The Red Terror in
Russia 1918–1923], Moscow (1990), pp. 66–67.
[123]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. at., p. 354.
[124] bid, p. 360.
[125]
A. Shubin, op. eft, p. 277.
[126] Volin, Neizvestnaya revolyutsiya 1917–1921 [The Unknown Revolution
1917–1921], Moscow (2005), p. 458.
[127]
P. Arshinov, Istoriya makhnovskogo dvizheniye (1918–1921) [The History
of the Makhnovist Movement (1918–1921)], Moscow (1996), p. 103.
[128]
V. Miroshevsky, Volny Yekaterinoslav [Free Yekaterinoslav], Proletarian
Revolution, No. 9(1922), p. 198.
[129]
V. Golovanov, Tachanka s yuga [Tachankas from the South;, Moscow
(1997), p. 243.
[130] Konevets (Grishuta), 1919 god v Yekaterinoslavye i Alexandrovskye
[1919 in Yekaterinoslav and Alexandrovsk], Letopis Revolyutsii {Annals
of the Revolution], 4 (13), 1925, pp. 83–84.
[131]
V. Miroshevky, op. cft, p. 202.
[132]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. dr., p. 360.
[133] Konevets (Grishuta), op. cit., pp. 83–84.
[134] Kommunisty sredi partisan (otchyot Yekateri noslavskogo Gubkoma
Zafrontbyuro TsK KP(bU [Communists among the Partisans (an account of
the Yekaterinoslav Gubkom of the Zafrontbyuro of the TsK KP(b)U)]”
Letopis Revolyutsii [Annals of the Revolution], No. 4(13), 1925, p.
93–94.
[135]
A. V. Timoshch uk, Anarkho-kom munistichesklye formirovaniya N. Makhno
[The Anarcho-Comm unist Formations of N. Makhno],
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[136]
V. Miroshevky, op. eft, p. 204.
[137]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 362.
[138] Levko (Chetolin), Vtoroy period Yekaterinoslavskogo podpolya [The
Second Period of the Yekaterinoslav Underground], Letopis Revolyutsii
[Annals of the Revolution] No. 4 (13), 192S,p.96.
[139]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 362.
[140]
V. Volkovinsky, op. eft, p. 154.
[141]
V. Miroshevsky, op. cit., p. 205.
[142] Konevets, op. cit., pp. 87.
[143] See note 97, p. 93.
[144]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. eft, p. 362.
[145] Konevets, op. eft, pp. 86.
[146]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 362.
[147]
V. Volkovinsky, op.cft.p. 156.
[148]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. eft, p. 364.
[149] Konevets, op. eft, pp. 86.
[150]
V. Miroshevsky, op. eft, p. 205.
[151] Konevets, op. eft, pp. 86.
[152]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, Op. eft, pp. 362–363.
[153] Levko, op. cit._(r) p. 97.
[154]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. c/‘f., p. 420.
[155] Ibid, p. 421.
[156] /fw’d, note 9, p. 578.
[157]
A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 421.
[158] Teper, op. cit, p. 81,
[159]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 505.
[160] Teper, op. cit., p. 82.
[161]
V. Belash and V, F. Belash, op. cit., p. 505.
[162] ibid, pp. 427,442.
[163] Ibid, p. 444.
[164] Ibid, p. 457,
[165]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 464. Belash writes that these
commanders were sentenced at a general meeting of the SRPU(m) and
the Shtarm. But since KAD was part of the structure of the VRS and
since such sentences were its perogative, there is no basis to doubt
that officially the sentence was confirmed by this commission.
[166] Voenno-politicheskoye soglasheniye Revolyutsionnoy armii
(makhnovtsev) s Sovetskoy via sty u [The M ilitary-Pol itical Agreement
of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army (Makhnovists) with Soviet Power],
MMD, p. 176.
[167]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 484.
[168] Ibid, p. 487.
[169] /b/d, p, 531,
[170] Ibid, p. 537.
[171]
N. Sukhogorskaya, op. cit., p. 104.
[172]
V. Chop, op. cit, p, 44.
[173] Kubanin, op. cit., pp. 86–87.
[174]
N. V. Gerasimenko, op. cit, p. 68.
[175] Konevets, op. cit, p. 83.
[176]
N. V. Gerasimenko, op. cit, p. 73.
[177]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 350.
[178]
A. Shubin, op. cit., p. 275.
[179]
V. A. Savchenko, Makhno, Kharkhov, 2005, p. 234.
[180]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 350.
[181]
V. A. Savchenko, op. cit, pp 234–235.
[182]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 349.
[183]
I. Teper, op. cit., p. 75.
[184]
V. V. Komin, Nestor Makhno: mify i realnost [Nestor Makhno; myths and
reality] // www. makhno.ru/lit/komin/komin.php
[185]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 345.
[186] Ibid, p. 376.
[187] Ibid, p. 415.
[188] Ibid, p. 350.
[189] Grazhdanskaya voyna na YekaterinoslavsHchinye, Dokumenty i
materialy. [The Civil War in Yekaterinoslav. Documents and materials.]
Dnepropetrovsk (1968), p. 178.
[190]
V. Miroshevsky, op. cit., p. 197.
[191]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 348.
[192] Ibid, p. 375.
[193]
V. Bilash, Na pasputye [At the Parting of the Ways], MMD. p. 101.
[194]
V. Befash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 392.
[195] Dnevnik nachalnlka makhnovskoy kontrrazvedki L. Golik [The Diary
of L. Golik, Chief of the Makhnovist Kontrrazvedka], MMD, p. 168.
[196] Ibid, p. 170.
[197]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. tit., p. 399,
[198] Spektor, Mark Borisovich, V logovye Makhno [In Makhno’s Lair],
Podvlg [ 5, Moscow (1969], p. 399–400.
[199]
P. Arshinov, op. cit., p. 110.
[200] Ibid, p. 111.
[201]
M. Kubanin, op. cit., p. 194.
[202]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit., p. 410.
[203] Ibid, p. 412.
[204]
M. Spector, op. cit., p. 356.
[205]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. tit., p. 427.
[206]
S. P. Melgunov, op. cit., p. 74.
[207]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. tit., p. 428.
[208]
V. Volkovinsky, op. Cit, p. 173.
[209]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 437.
[210]
T. A. Bespechny & T. T. Bukreyeva, op. cit., p. 252; T. A. Bespechny
& T. T. Bukreyeva, Nestor Makhno: pravda i legendi [Nestor
Makhno: truth and legends], Donetsk, 1996, p. 136–137.
[211]
V. Belash and V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 431.
[212] Ibid, p. 541.
[213]
V. Chop, Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, Zaporozhye (1998), p. 54.
[214]
A. V. Belash & V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 452.
[215] (bid, p. 452.
[216]
A. V. Belash & V. F, Belash, op. cit, p. 461.
[217]
A. V. Belash & V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 464.
[218]
V. Golovanov, op. cit, p. 446,
[219]
A. V. Belash & V. F. Belash, op. tit, p. 469.
[220]
V. Bilash, Po tilam Vrangelya [In Wrangel’s Rear Areas], MMD, note, p.
108.
[221]
A. V. Belash & V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 461–462.
[222] Ibid, p. 473.
[223]
P. Arshinov, op. cit, p. 123.
[224] A.V. Belash & V. F. Belash, op. tit, p. 487–488.
[225]
M. Ribakov, Makhnoskiye operatsii v 1920 [The Makhnovist Operation in
1920], Krasnaya Armiya [Red Army], 12 (1922), p. 12.
[226]
M. Kubanin, op. cit, pp. 169 170.
[227]
N. V. Gerasimenko, op. cit, p. 72.
[228]
A. V. Belash & V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 546–547.
[229]
P. Ashakhmanov, Makhno i ego taktika [Makhno and His Tactics], Krasny
komandir [Red Commander] 24–25, (November — December, 1921), p. 5.
[230]
P. Arshinov, op. cit, p. 132.
[231]
M. Ribakov, op. Cit, p. 15.
[232]
A. V. Belash & V. F. Belash, op. tit, p. 505.
[233] Ibid, pp. 506,509.
[234] Ibid, pp. 525–526.
[235] Ibid, p. 554.
[236] Ibid, p. 555.
[237] V. Zinkovsky, Anarkhist i chekist [Anarchist and Chekist),
zavtra/01/371/52.htntl
[238] Ibid, p. 573.
[239]
V. Chop, op. cit., p. 54–55.
[240]
A. V. Dubovik, Anarkhicheskoye podpolye v Ukrainye v 1920-1930-x gg.
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F. Zinko, Koye-chto iz istorii Odesskoy ChK [Who’s Who from the History
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[242] V. A. Savchenko, Makhno, Kharkhov, 2005, p. 400.
[243] Sobstvennortichniye pokazanuya obvinyayemogo Belasha Viktora
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F. Zin ko, op. cit., p. S3.
[246] V. Zinkovsky, Anarkhist i chekist [Anarchist and Chekist),
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[247]
T. A. Bespechny and T. T. Bukreyeva, op. cit., p. 285.
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A. V. Belash & V. F. Belash, op. cit, p. 410.
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[250]
A. V. Belash & V. F, Belash, op. cit., note 74, p. 584.
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V. Volin, preface to P. Arshinov, Istoria makhnovskogo dvizheniya
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