Makhno and Memory

Anarchist and Mennonite Narratives of Ukraine's Civil War, 1917–1921

Sean Patterson

• Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780887555787
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Eastern European History
• Index: History

Nestor Makhno has been called a revolutionary anarchist, a peasant rebel, the Ukrainian Robin Hood, a mass-murderer, a pogromist, and a devil. These epithets had their origins in the Russian Civil War (1917–1921), where the military forces of the peasant-anarchist Nestor Makhno and Mennonite colonists in southern Ukraine came into conflict. In autumn 1919, Makhnovist troops and local peasant sympathizers murdered more than 800 Mennonites in a series of large-scale massacres.

The history of that conflict has been fraught with folklore, ideological battles and radically divergent cultural memories, in which fact and fiction often seamlessly blend, conjuring a multitude of Makhnos, each one shouting its message over the other.

Drawing on theories of collective memory and narrative analysis, Makhno and Memory brings a vast array of Makhnovist and Mennonite sources into dialogue, including memoirs, histories, diaries, newspapers, and archival material. A diversity of perspectives are brought into relief through the personal reminiscences of Makhno and his anarchist sympathizers alongside Mennonite pacifists and advocates for armed self-defense.

Through a meticulous analysis of the Makhnovist-Mennonite conflict and a micro-study of the Eichenfeld massacre of November 1919, Sean Patterson attempts to make sense of the competing cultural memories and presents new ways of thinking about Makhno and his movement. Makhno and Memory offers a convincing reframing of the Mennonite / Makhno relationship that will force a scholarly reassessment of this period.

CHAPTER 1

THROUGH MAKHNOVIST EYES

How Makhnovists understood class and ethnicity is a critical component of the Makhnovist-Mennonite conflict. In an account of his pre-revolutionary prison life, Makhno elaborated on his own sense of being Ukrainian:

I couldn’t really explain where I got my sympathies for Ukraine; of course, I had read a lot about its history, in particular the books of Kliuchevskii and Kareev. My mother often told me about the lives of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, about their free communes in the old days. I had once read Gogol’s novel Taras Bulba and was thrilled with the customs and traditions of the people of those times. But it never occurred to me that the day would come when I would feel myself their heir, and they would become for me a source of inspiration for the rebirth of this free country. My convictions forced me to distance myself from separatist tendencies and did not allow me to give in to the temptation of contemplating an independent Ukrainian state, despite the sense of kinship I felt towards my Ukrainian prisoner comrades.1

In this passage Makhno admits a strong affinity with Ukrainian identity and Cossack mythology. He also acknowledges Ukraine as a distinct territory—as opposed to its official designation as southern or New Russia. The latter point is strongly emphasized in another memoir where Makhno describes personally confronting Lenin for using “southern Russia” to describe Ukraine.2 Makhno also expressed disappointment that his memoirs could not be published in Ukraine or in Ukrainian.3 Yet despite such cultural affinities, Makhno simultaneously signals his opposition to political nationalism and its project for an independent state. Indeed, as an anarchist Makhno rejected the idea of a centralized nation-state, instead advocating a federated network of locally elected worker and peasant councils. Throughout both Makhno’s career and his movement’s existence, nationalism was aggressively opposed in favour of an internationalist position, tolerant of ethnic expression, but centred on the unity of all working peoples. Later in exile, Makhno did display a growing interest in harnessing Ukraine’s cultural awakening for a renewed struggle against Bolshevism.4 This attitude is at times reflected in his memoirs, but is articulated in tandem with a passionate distaste for nationalism as an ideology. As historian Frank Sysyn succinctly observed, while Makhno “never became a nationalist, he did to a degree become a Ukrainian anarchist.”5

Makhno considered political nationalism—as embodied in Ukraine’s Central Rada during the civil war—as a traitorous manifestation of the urban middle-classes. In his memoirs, Makhno described the “spirit of the Ukrainian Liberation Movement” as “bourgeois and chauvinist through and through . . . which caused so much harm to the Revolution.”6 He derided them as “phony Ukrainians,” for whom “language was the only thing that mattered, and not the total freedom of Ukraine and its population of working people.”7 He reserved special vitriol for the Rada’s 1918 treaty with Imperial Germany, which allowed Austro-Hungarian and German troops to occupy Ukrainian territory in return for a recognition of Ukraine’s theoretical independence. In his memoirs, Makhno describes a bitter battle with local nationalists for control over Huliaipole, in which he emphasizes their collaboration with the Austro-Germans and betrayal of the Revolution.8 Throughout the civil war, Makhnovist-nationalist relations were likewise punctuated by open military conflict and a single, brief but tense truce.9

The ideological root of Makhno’s disagreement with the nationalists lay in his rejection of using ethnicity to mobilize the masses and define enemies. The Makhnovist movement repeatedly and aggressively denounced national antagonisms in its proclamations and resolutions. According to their world view, dividing enemies and allies along ethnic lines would break working class solidarity and undermine the Revolution. This attitude was forcefully expressed in February 1918 at the movement’s second congress in Huliaipole. In addition to specifically condemning anti-Semitism, the congress unanimously resolved:

Workers and peasants from all countries and nationalities face one great common task: to overthrow bourgeois oppression, class exploiters, and the yoke of capital and state power, and to introduce a new social system based on freedom, fraternity, and justice.

The enslaved of all nationalities, whether they be Russians, Poles, Latvians, Armenians, Jews, or Germans, should unite in one close-knit family of workers and peasants, and then deliver a final and decisive blow to the class of capitalists, imperialists, and their minions to throw off the chains of economic slavery and spiritual enserfment.10

Volin cites a similarly worded proclamation issued by the Huliaipole Nabat Group of Anarchists on 15 May 1919, and signed by Makhno, reiterating that the enemy is not any one ethnic group but their capitalist representatives: “Peasants, workers and partisans, you know that the workers of all nationalities—Russians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Armenians, etc.—are equally imprisoned in the abyss of poverty. . . . We must proclaim everywhere that our enemies are the exploiters of all nationalities—the Russian manufacturer, the German iron magnate, the Jewish banker, the Polish aristocrat.”11 Furthermore, on 5 August 1919, Makhno issued a detailed order to all army commanders, again denouncing anti-Semitism and reminding his troops that the Revolution’s enemy is “the rich bourgeois class, regardless of whether they are Russians, Jews, Ukrainians, etc.” Furthermore, the order stipulates the death penalty for anyone who commits “violence against peaceful workers, no matter what nationality they belong to.”12

The movement’s official program entitled the Draft Declaration—adopted in late October 1919, just three weeks before the Eichenfeld massacre—addresses the national question in greater detail. Nationalism is once again described as a “profoundly bourgeois and negative” phenomenon leading to “absurd and bloody national conflicts.” The Declaration also clarifies the movement’s position on cultural expression:

Clearly, each national group has a natural and indisputable entitlement to speak its language freely, live in accordance with its customs, retain its beliefs and rituals, draw up its school books and have its own managerial establishments and agencies: in short, to maintain and develop its national culture in every sphere. It is obvious that this clear and specific stance has absolutely nothing to do with narrow nationalism of the “separatist” variety which pits nation against nation and substitutes an artificial and harmful separation for the struggle to achieve a natural social union of toilers in one shared social communion.13

The Declaration advocates a kind of working-class multiculturalism, in which ethnic expression is considered compatible with the Revolution but national separatism is regarded as inherently counterrevolutionary. In terms of defining enemies, the movement rhetorically employs class as the primary determinant. According to Makhnovist ideology, violence against a Russian or German landowner is justified via their control over wealth and land but not their ethnic identity. In this way, the borders of legitimate and illegitimate violence are defined. This world view is imperative to consider when attempting to untangle Makhnovist motivations behind the attacks on Mennonites. While ideology was not the only factor involved, it did shape how violence was expressed and rationalized in important ways.

As previously mentioned, Mennonites are never explicitly referred to in Makhnovist literature. Rather they are subsumed in the general category of “German colonist.” However, one pro-Makhnovist source does directly mention Mennonites. In March 1919, Stéphane Roger, a French Army deserter and left-wing journalist, embedded himself with the Makhnovists as they occupied the Mennonite Molotschna colony. Roger produced a glowing report of the movement for the French Socialist newspaper La Vague. Describing Makhnovist-Mennonite relations, he writes, “Always true to their own lying system of propaganda, the bourgeois and estate-owning Mennonites from the German colonies of Ukraine have for several months now carried on a deceitful campaign of slander with the goal of vilifying the reputation of Comrade Makhno. Only those without the slightest acquaintance with our Brigade Commissar Makhno could take seriously their perfidious insinuations.”14 It is likely the “propaganda” Roger refers to were articles from Friedensstimme—a Mennonite newspaper based in Halbstadt—which had been publishing eyewitness accounts of Makhno’s fall 1918 raids on the Schönfeld colony. As a result of these attacks many Schönfelders fled south that winter to the Molotschna, which was still under the protection of the Selbstschutz and the White Army. By March 1919 the Molotschna colony itself was overrun by a joint Bolshevik-Makhnovist force.

Not addressing any specific Mennonite accusations, Roger then describes how Makhno gave an hour-long speech to a large, enthusiastic crowd in front of the town’s main church, but Roger could not understand Russian and does not report on the speech’s contents. However, a Mennonite memoirist, Jacob Toews, was also present and writes that Makhno “came himself to Halbstadt and held a public speech” in which he promised “peace and justice.” Toews adds Makhno’s troops “did not go by what their leader promised” and the villagers were subjected to “house searches, arrests and extortions, ” while former Selbschuztler were “hunted down and arrested.”15

Roger’s account conforms with the Makhnovist interpretation of ethnicity and class as illustrated above. It is specifically the “bourgeois and estate-owning Mennonites” that he identifies as a threat. It must also be assumed that Makhno’s speech was directed at Halbstadt’s general populace, which included many landless and working-class Mennonites. Indeed, according to Chortitza resident and Mennonite historian David Rempel, some Mennonites actively joined revolutionary groups and even participated in expropriation campaigns.16 Toews states the emphasis of Makhno’s speech was on “peace and justice,” reiterating the kind of rhetoric found in official Makhnovist proclamations. Roger furthermore reports how the speech ended with chants of “Long Live the Revolution! Down with the Bourgeoisie!” Roger’s article serves as an example of how ethnic identity was qualified with class categories by the Makhnovists to construct an enemy.

Toews’s comment that the Makhnovists “did not go by what their leader promised,” is an equally important observation, indicating Makhnovist rhetoric did not always match reali...