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Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine

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Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine
LeadersNestor Makhno
Dates of operation1918-1921
Active regionsUkraine, mostly Yekaterinoslav Province, especially Huliaipole
Alliestemporary agreements with (Red) Soviet Russia, (Red) Soviet Ukraine, (Red) Soviet Crimea, temporary cease-fire with the Directory, agreements with Antonov's Revolt
OpponentsAustro-Hungarian Occupation Forces, German Occupation Forces, Hetmanate, Directory, (White) Don Host, (White) Volunteer Army, (White) Armed Forces of South Russia, (White) Russian Army, (Red) Soviet Russia, (Red) Soviet Ukraine, (Red) Soviet Crimea, Grigoriev's Revolt & Selbstschutz
Battles and warsBattle of Peregonovka September 1919

The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (Template:Lang-uk), also known as the Black Army, was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian and Crimean peasants and workers[1] under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno during the Russian Civil War.

History

Nestor Makhno and the Insurrectionary Anarchist Army

Ukrainian anarchist guerrilla bands were active during the Civil War period. Some claimed to be loyal to the Ukrainian state, but others acknowledged no allegiance; all fought both Red and White Russians with equal ferocity in the opening stages of the Civil War. Of all the anarchist groups, the most famous and successful was that of the peasant anarchist leader Nestor Makhno, aka Batko (Older Brother), who began operations in the south-eastern Ukraine against the Hetmanate regime in July 1918. In September he formed the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, or Anarchist Black Army, with arms and equipment largely obtained from retreating Austro-Hungarian and German forces. During the Civil War, the Black Army numbered between 15,000 and 110,000 men[2] and was organized on conventional lines, with infantry, cavalry, and artillery units; artillery batteries were attached to each infantry brigade. Makhno's cavalry incorporated both regular and irregular horse-mounted (guerrilla) forces, and was considered to be among the best trained and most capable of any of the cavalry units deployed by any side in the Russian Civil War.[3] The Black Army was frequently referred to at the time by the Bolshevik Communist government and Red Army commanders as Makhnovist forces, since they pointedly declined to accord the Ukrainian anarchists the status of having either an army or a legitimate political movement. One source described the Insurrectionary Black Army of the time (less its cavalry, which normally ranged far afield) as follows:

"The infantry, when it was not fighting, led the march of the army...[The Black Army also used horse-drawn carts or] tachankas. Each of these vehicles, which were drawn by two horses, carried the driver on the front seat and two soldiers behind them. In some sections a machine-gun was installed on the seat between them. The artillery brought up the rear. A huge black flag floated over the first carriage. The slogans Liberty or Death and The Land to the Peasants, the Factories to the Workers were embroidered in silver on its two sides."[4]

A primary obstacle to the Ukrainian anarchist army, and one which it never overcame throughout its existence, was a lack of access to Russia's primary industrial manufacturing resources, specifically factories capable of producing large amounts of arms and ammunition. Denied large-scale arms shipments from the Bolshevik government in Moscow, and without arsenal manufacturing centers of its own, the Black Army was forced to rely on captures of munition depots and supplies from enemy forces, along with demand procurement of food and horses from the local civilian population.

Red Army Mutinies in Ukraine

By early 1919, the Communist Bolshevik government had withdrawn most Red Army forces from Ukraine after White successes in the south. The remaining Red Army troops who had remained in various parts of Ukraine were suspicious of their commanders, and angry at the withdrawals from Ukraine, which they considered to be a defection from the revolutionary cause. At the end of July, 1919, Red Army detachments numbering some 40,000 troops in the Crimea mutinied and deposed their commanders; many set out to join Makhno's anarchist Black Army. The mutiny was organized by some of Makhno's anarchist comrades who had remained commanders in the ranks of the Red Army, including Kalashnikov, Dermendzhi, and Budanov; these men also planned the transfer of forces. Large numbers of Red Army soldiers advanced from Novi Bug to Pomoshchnaya in search of Makhno's Black Army, bringing with them, as captives, their former commanders: Kochergin, Dybets and others. The mutineers joined Black Army forces at Dobrovelichkovka in the government of Kherson at the beginning of August, 1919. For the Bolshevik Communist government in Moscow, this defection was a major blow; since almost nothing remained of the Red Army in southern Ukraine and the Crimea, Bolshevik influence in the area became nonexistent.[5]

Campaign against Denikin and the White Army

Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchist Black Army, at first declared 'bandits' and 'outlaws' by the Moscow's Bolshevik government, were welcomed after General Denikin threatened to overrun Moscow in a drive towards the city in 1919. After concluding an agreement with the Bolshevik government, Makhno and his subordinate commanders made plans to turn the Black Army east and attack Denikin's White Army and its lines of supply, hoping to break through his lines.[5]

On the evening of September 25, 1919, the Black Army, which until then had been retreating to the west across Ukraine, suddenly turned eastward, attacking the main forces of General Denikin's army. The first encounter took place late in the evening near the village of Kruten'koe, where the Black Army's First Infantry Brigade advanced towards White Army positions. General Denikin's troops retreated to take up better positions. At first, Denikin believed the move was a feint or reconnaissance-in-force, and did not follow up, concluding that the bulk of the anarchist army was still retiring to the west. However, in the middle of the night, all of Makhno's troops commenced an offensive to the east. The White Army's principal forces in the area were concentrated near the village of Peregonovka; the village itself was occupied by anarchist units. Intense fighting broke out, and the occupying anarchist forces began to lose ground, pressured by White Army reinforcements, including infantry regiments composed largely of young and fanatically anti-communist officers. Makhno's headquarters staff, as well as everyone in the village who could handle a rifle, armed themselves and joined in the fighting. On the approach of Makhno's cavalry forces, White Army troops retreated from Peregonovka; a fierce battle took place outside the town. During this battle, which included instances of hand-to-hand combat, a White regiment was forced to retreat, at first slowly and in an orderly manner, but as the fighting moved near the Sinyukha river, it became a rout. The other White Army regiments, seized by panic, followed them. Finally all of Denikin's troops in the area were routed; most escaped by swimming across the Sinyukha River, though hundreds died in the river and on its banks.[5]

After this victory, Makhno's troops set out to attack Denikin's lines of supply. The fall of Aleksandrovsk to the Black Army was followed by Pologi, Gulyai-Polye, Berdyansk, Melitopol', and Mariupol'. In less than two weeks, the entire southern Ukraine had been conquered by Black Army troops. Makhno's occupation of the southern Ukraine, especially the regions bordering on the Sea of Azov, soon posed a threat to General Denikin's entire offensive, as the supply base of Denikin's army was located in the region between Mariupol' and Volnovakha. When Berdyansk and Mariupol' were taken, immense stores of munitions were captured by anarchist forces. Since all the railroads of the region were in the hands of Makhno and his Black Army troops, no war material could reach Denikin's forces on the northern front. White Army reserve regiments stationed throughout the region were ordered to break the blockade, but were instead routed.[5]

After a failed attempt to dislodge Black Army forces, General Denikin was forced to shift his campaign from the north to the south. The White Army's best cavalry troops, commanded by General Mamontov and General Shkuro, were transferred from the northern front to the Gulyai-Polye region of Russia. General Denikin's new strategy succeeded in driving out Makhno's forces from part of Ukraine, but at the cost of denuding forces opposing the Red Army. During October and November 1919, Denikin's troops were defeated in a series of battles by Red Army forces. His Caucasus regiments suffered the greatest losses, especially the Chechen cavalry and others, who died by the thousands. Toward the end of November some of these troops mutinied, abandoning their positions and returning to their homes in the Caucasus. This in turn began a slow disintegration of Denikin's White Army. Some historians note that if Makhno and the anarchist forces had not won a decisive victory at Peregonovka, blockading General Denikin's lines of supply and denying the White Army supplies of food, ammunition, and artillery reinforcements, the White Army would probably have entered Moscow in December 1919.[5]

First Repudiation of the Alliance

After the victories over General Denikin and the White Army, the Bolshevik government repudiated its alliance with Makhno and the Ukranian anarchist movement, repeatedly attacking concentrations of Black Army troops, as well as ordering Chekist and Red Army reprisals against those believed sympathetic to the anarchists. In June 1920 the Cheka sent two agents to assassinate Makhno - one recruited from Ukranian naletchiki,[6] another a double agent who had previously worked for Makhno. However, the latter disclosed his mission before it could be carried out, and both were executed. Meanwhile, Red Army forces, vastly superior in numbers and equipment, steadily reduced areas of Russia under anarchist control.[7]

By 1920 Leon Trotsky (as War Commissar of the Red Army) had resorted to terror tactics, ordering the assassination of thousands of Ukrainian villagers and peasants loyal to Makhno's Black Army. Trotsky also intentionally withdrew Red Army troops from their positions on the southern front, allowing Tsarist Cossack forces to overrun the southern Ukraine. At first, Makhno and the Black Army retreated, followed by a caravan of Ukrainian refugees. Attacking once again, Makhno's forces surprised General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel's counterrevolutionary regiments in southern Ukraine, capturing 4,000 prisoners and stores of weapons and munitions, and preventing Wrangel from seizing that year's grain harvest in Ukraine.[8]

Bolshevik-Makhnovist Treaty of Political and Military Alliance

Trotsky once again offered an alliance, sending a plenipotentiary delegation from the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Communist Party, headed by Comrade Ivanov to propose a military and political treaty of alliance; Makhno agreed, subject to a pardon of all Anarchist prisoners throughout Russia.[7] The treaty was drawn up and signed on October 15, 1920 at Starobel'sk by anarchist military and political representatives and the Bolshevik Communist delegation.[9] The treaty, along with a Makhnovist delegation then traveled to the Bolshevik-held city of Kharkov for official ratification and to plan a common military strategy. Using the arms and munitions previously captured from General Wrangel's infantry brigades in the southern Ukraine, Makhno and the Black Army went on to clear much of Crimea of Cossack cavalry, and helped force a retreat of Wrangel's remaining infantry brigades. After an unsuccessful northern offensive against the Red Army, Wrangel and the last of his forces were evacuated from Sevastopol by the British Navy on November 14, 1920.

However, the Bolshevik Communist government in Moscow initially refused to publish the Bolshevik-Makhnovist Treaty or acknowledge the existence of a formal alliance outside Ukraine. It also continued to denounce anarchism as an illegitimate political movement elsewhere in Russia, accelerating mass arrests and detentions of anarchists in all areas of the country under Bolshevik and Red Army control. After pressure by Makhno, the Central Committiee in Moscow eventually published the military section of the Bolshevik-Makhnovist treaty, followed a week later by the political section. A fourth clause concerning the establishment of autonomous committees composed of workers and peasants for self-government of areas held by the Black Army was omitted.[10]

Second Repudiation

It soon became clear why Moscow had resisted the publicizing of the Bolshevik-Makhnovist treaty. On November 26, 1920, less than two weeks after completing their successful offensive against General Wrangel's White Army in the Crimea, Makhno's headquarters staff and several Black Army subordinate commanders arrived at Red Army Southern Front headquarters to participate in a joint planning conference with Red Army commanders. Upon arrival, they were arrested and executed on the spot by a Red Army firing squad; the Makhnovist treaty delegation, still in Kharkov, was also arrested and liquidated.[7][11] Makhno continued to fight on, but the peasants of Ukraine, dispirited by three years of war, food seizures, reprisals, and outright genocide, no longer flocked to join the Black Army in numbers. Makhno's final Black Army forces were defeated and dispersed in August 1921; with a small number of men, he managed to slip across the Romanian border into exile. In the book of the Argentine sociologist Christian Ferrer, explained that components in exile from the makhnovist army which came as international brigade during the Spanish Civil War These Ukrainians were part of a company commanded by "Lieutenant Shevchenko" within the Battalion Mickiewicz -Palafox of the XIII International Brigade or Dabrowski Brigade, which crossed the Pyrenees after the fall of Catalonia, and who participated in the resistance against Nazism.

According to the franco-bulgarian historian, Frank Mintz, even during the Second World War, the makhnovist impact appeared as "Ukrainian guerrilla groups still brandish the black flag and fought against the Nazis and the Stalinists."

Organisation

In mid-1919 the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine had a strength of some 15,000 men organised into 1 cavalry and 4 infantry Brigades, a machine gun regiment with 5000 guns, and an artillery detachment. At its peak in December 1919 it had about 83,000 infantry, 20,135 cavalry, 1,435 machine guns, and 118 guns, as well as 7 armored trains and some armored cars.[12] It was organized into 4 Corps and the strategic reserve. Each Corps had 1 infantry and 1 cavalry Brigade; each Brigade had 3-4 Regiments of the appropriate type.[13]

The structure of the RIAU was not that of a traditional army. Instead, the RIAU was a democratic militia based on soldier committees and general assemblies. Officers in the ordinary sense were abolished; instead all commanders were elected and recallable. In theory, the RIAU relied on voluntary enlistment instead of conscription, however in practice conscription was used[14]. Regular mass assemblies were held to discuss policy. The army was based on self-discipline, with all of the army’s disciplinary rules approved by soldier assemblies.

This organizational structure was later used in organizing militias created by anarchists in the Spanish revolution and Spanish Civil War.

Commanders

References

  1. ^ The Black Army, an anarchist force, also had large numbers of Jewish members in its ranks.
  2. ^ Le Banquet des Généraux, Anarchy's Cossacks Article: Armed forces of all types in the Black Army varied over the course of the war. Frequently, large numbers of potential anarchist soldiers were ready for duty, but Moscow refused to supply rifles and equipment for them.
  3. ^ Le Banquet des Généraux, Anarchy's Cossacks
  4. ^ Eikhenbaum, Vsevolod M. (Volin), The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921: Book III: Struggle for the Real Social Revolution, Part II: Ukraine (1918-1921), Free Life Editions (1974), ISBN 0914156071, 9780914156079
  5. ^ a b c d e Arshinov, Peter, History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918-1921), Chapter 7, (1923)
  6. ^ Naletchiki was a common term for apolitical armed bandits that roamed lawless areas of Russia before and during the Civil War.
  7. ^ a b c Avrich, Paul, Russian Anarchists and the Civil War, Russian Review, Vol. 27, No. 3 (July 1968), pp. 296-306
  8. ^ Berland, Pierre, Mhakno, Le Temps, 28 August 1934: In addition to supplying White Army forces and their sympathizers with food, a successful seizure of the 1920 Ukrainian grain harvest would have had a devastating effect on food supplies to Bolshevik-held cities, while depriving both Red Army and Ukrainian Black Army troops of their usual bread rations.
  9. ^ Arshinov, Peter, History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918-1921), Chapter 9, (1923)
  10. ^ Arshinov, Peter, History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918-1921), Chapter 9, (1923)
  11. ^ Arshinov, Peter, History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918-1921), Chapter 9, (1923)
  12. ^ Belash, Victor & Belash, Aleksandr, Dorogi Nestora Makhno, p. 340
  13. ^ Belash, Victor & Belash, Aleksandr, Dorogi Nestora Makhno, pp. 333 & 340
  14. ^ Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Portraits, 1988 Princeton University Press, pg 121

See also

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