Talk:Makhnovshchina

Use of neologism "anarcho-communism"

A clear majority of reliable sources on the subject of anarchist communism itself, as well as on this event use the word "anarchist communism", not the neologism "anarcho-communism". Is there a reason that this article does so? Outside of not reflecting the scholarly work on this subject, this goes against the guidance of MOS:NEO. :3 F4U (they/it) 14:31, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

@F4U: Thanks for catching this. I'm looking through the cited sources now and it appears that: Patterson 2020, Shubin 2010 and Sysyn 1977 do use "anarcho-communism"; but Avrich 1971, Darch 2020, Footman 1961, Malet 1982, Palij 1976 and Peters 1970 use "anarchist-communism"; and Skirda 2004 uses "libertarian communism". This may account for the variation. As it seems like many of the uses of "anarcho-communism" are cited to Shubin, I'll keep those as is for now, but I've changed other iterations to "anarchist-communism" per the common use across sources.

Interestingly, the primary sources seem to contradict the idea that "anarcho-communism" is entirely a neologism. Makhno himself used "anarcho-communism" alongside "anarchist communism" in his 1926 memoir The Russian Revolution in Ukraine, both in the Russian language original and its English translation. The 1974 English translation of Arshinov's History of the Makhnovist Movement also uses "anarcho-communism", although the 1923 Russian language original doesn't appear to. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:14, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I've checked Synsyn and he appears to use "anarchist-communism", not "anarcho-communism"? :3 F4U (they/it) 15:30, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Not sure what version you're looking at but in my copy he uses the term "anarcho-communist" 5 times and "anarchist-communist" only once. Just as example: <Makhno claimed to have said to Lenin: “Anarcho-communists in the Ukraine (or, since you Communist-Bolsheviks attempt to shun the word Ukraine and call her ‘the South of Russia’) — anarcho-communists in this ‘South of Russia’...”> -- Grnrchst (talk) 08:29, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Disagreement with infobox removal

I strongly disagree with the removal of the “former country infobox” that used to be on this article. I have issues with the reasons given for such a removal:

1. The movement had no permanent borders This is not a requirement for a state to exist. Many states have existed with constantly fluctuating or unclear borders throughout history (look at the Turkic empires of central Asia for an example). And yes, I realize that the definition of a “state” is contentious, but in no definition I have seen are “permanent” borders part of it.

2. They were an anarchist movement, and anarchists are stateless Wow, quite a can of worms here. They were an anarchist movement, sure, but it doesn’t mean that they successfully established anarchism. In fact, this very article states that the purpose of Makhnovshchina was to create an anarchist society, not that it WAS one. And finally, this article also mentions military, economic, and governmental institutions that Makhnovshchina ran under; these are all hallmarks of a state system.

Now obviously, Makhnovshchina wasn’t the most centralized, stable, or “stately” state out there, but it was a state nonetheless. Therefore, I believe the removed infobox should be brought back. 296cherry (talk) 01:54, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeing as it's been about 4 days and no one has responded, I will boldly add the infobox to the page (with proper citations of course). Please respond here if you disagree with such an edit. 296cherry (talk) 15:16, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I still don't think this infobox is a good idea, but I'm too exhausted to contest it. Would like to know how you interpreted Skirda as having described it as an "anarchist commune under a free soviet direct democracy" though... Sources consistently describe the Makhnovshchina as a mass movement, not as a country or a state. -- Grnrchst (talk) 17:50, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

The government type definitely should be changed, you're right. The problem is that I can't find anything that states Makhnovshchina's government in a single phrase. There's lots of sources that state that "its government was run by a system of free soviets" or "the council was operated by a system of communes in a participatory democracy" etc etc... but I don't know how to put these into the infobox. The closest thing I could find was this quote from Skirda: "the free soviets became the grassroot organs of a direct democracy".

I've done a little more research while writing this reply. Malet writes extensivley about the civilian governance of Makhnovshchina: he calls it a "federation of free soviets". Would that be sufficient?

I haven't found anything that explicitly refers to Makhnovshchina as a "state", but I have seen it referred to as a "territory" or "region" extensively.

I have to go for now, hopefully we can work this out, 296cherry (talk) 19:45, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I also object to this infobox addition for reasons already covered in the last discussion. If you feel strongly in the other direction, please create a formal WP:RfC consensus. There has been robust discussion on how the Makhnovshchina was a movement and not a "former country". Perhaps the best reason is that nearly all fields that would be filled in this infobox do not apply to the Makhnovshchina's makeup. As it stands, it becomes a place to show a bunch of facts that reflect minor details of the Makhnovshchina and defeat the purpose of calling them out in an infobox. Ultimately, not everything needs an infobox. czar 22:19, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeing how places like Lokot Autonomy or Komańcza Republic get their own infoboxes, Anarchist Free Territory should get one as well. They had active and effective military, unconventional but stable government form, stable core territory, ideology and even their own songs. All that existed for more than 2 years during civil war era.

They did not limit their territorial claim to any particular borders, but areas close to Huliaipole were always in their hands.

Their actual government form was so called free soviets. That is the same form of government RSFSR and later USSR had until 30s. The only difference is that Free Territory soviets did not recognize any supreme soviets over them and RSFSR soviets agreed towards sending representatives to upper tier national soviets.

Thus "Makhnovia" has more reasons to be a state than many other entities. 211.30.177.133 (talk) 02:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

See previous discussion about how there is no such "Anarchist Free Territory". The topic is described in sources as a mass movement, not a state or territory. czar 11:24, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Aside from what Czar said, I think you might have to check your sources, because a lot of what you said here is inaccurate. The Makhnovshchina certainly did not have a "stable core territory", nor were areas around Huliaipole "always in their hands". In summer 1919, they were forced to retreat from Huliaipole to the west bank of the Dnipro; and for most of 1920 and 1921, they were effectively a guerrilla movement without any "stable territory". Huliaipole changed hands very often during the conflict. As for the free soviets, there was a lot more to it than that. --Grnrchst (talk) 12:22, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

The article does not mention the word Free Territory a single time, because we made it up. shouldnt we include that fact tho?

Term "Free Territory" was invented by sock puppet wikipedian almost 20 years ago (https://www.thecommoner.org.uk/we-carry-a-free-territory-in-our-hearts/), and was used as a result by multiple sources and is widely used by people on social media. i think it would be justified to make a short mention of this name and its origin? Zuzu8691 (talk) 13:50, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Tricky. First question is: Can you locate any reliable sources to base such a mention on? Meaning, sources that have written about the fact that Wikipedia's former "Free Territory" article was the genesis of the term as it was later used in other works?

This was discussed in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anarchism/Archive 6#Free Territory ➤ Makhnovshchina — at one point Grnrchst mentions adding "Free Territory" to the Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents, and czar jokingly replies, After you write our first secondary source about the incident ;). The article you linked to is effectively exactly that, as it's written by Grnrchst. And therein lies the rub.

Wikipedia can't ever be a source for Wikipedia, and an external article written by a wikipedian who's also heavily involved in editing this article really can't be considered a reliable source either. (If anyone were to make that mistake, they'd immediately be throwing Grnrchst into a retroactive conflict of interest situation that I certainly wouldn't envy.)

As things currently stand, the "Free Territory" situation isn't even listed on Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents, because there's also a lack of documented citogenesis — the evidence for citogenesis is largely (or entirely?) circumstantial. Sources post-2006 that use the term don't directly cite it to Wikipedia, they just don't provide any other citations either, and the term is conspicuously absent from all literature prior to 2006. So it appears they picked it up directly or indirectly from this article's original title. But "appears" isn't enough to earn a spot at Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents, and it's even less sufficient for mention in this article.

(There's also the danger that, if the term does make a return to the article, it will be cited here uncritically by especially lazy researchers. Sometimes, the best way to mitigate the spread of false information is to simply eliminate it, as even acknowledging it (in any context) may serve only to perpetuate the error.) FeRDNYC (talk) 03:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I'll be recusing myself from this discussion due to the above-mentioned conflict of interest. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:50, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@Grnrchst: I mean... absolutely, do as you think best, but FWIW I don't think it's really possible to have a disqualifying conflict-of-interest in a talk page discussion. After all, aren't genuine COI editors (which so far you're not, anyway, as your external work isn't used as any of the article sources) instructed to redirect their editing to discussions and requests on the relevant talk page(s), instead? 🤔 FeRDNYC (talk) 14:02, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the reply, I'm very incompetent at procedure on that so don't assume anything I write comes from consideration of it. (I didn't know it existed there!)

That said, shouldn't the fact that we can't trace the origin of the name Free Territory anywhere but to wikipedia be sufficient? because even if these sources don't cite Wikipedia, we can reasonably expect their usage to trace back to it?

Tho I see your point that it would be improper for Wikipedia to cite a Wikipedian, but I have to say I have a strong conviction situations like these should be an exception, because words circulating in the internet arent still that likely to be picked up by reliable source.

Last point, do we consider Free Territory a misinfo? I don't see any substantive difference between the translation of the historically accurate term (liberated zone I think?), so why would we say its misinformation? Zuzu8691 (talk) 03:07, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The ideal source would be a source secondary to us editors who affirms what Grnrchst wrote, such as citing his post in an academic journal article or a book or another non-self-published publication. In the meantime, I wager it's best to not mention Free Territory at all since it's not like there is a robust discussion of this term's usage in which The Commoner (as a primary source) is needed to correct that record—it's an absence of discussion altogether. czar 13:58, 14 July 2024 (UTC)