Hryhorii was born into a peasant family in the village of
Huliaipole on 24 January 1886 to Ivan Rodionovych Mikhnenko and Evdokiia Matveevna Perederyi. His father died in 1889, leaving he and his brothers in the sole care of their mother. Hryhorii was married to a peasant woman Khristina, with whom he had two daughters: Maria and Elizabeth. In 1907, he joined the anarcho-communist
Union of Poor Peasants. When his brother
Nestor Makhno was arrested for participating in the group, Hryhorii visited him in prison and told him of the death of their comrade
Oleksandr Semenyuta. In the same year he was drafted into the
Imperial Russian Army, in which he fought during
World War I. In 1918 he took part in the defense of the
Donets-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic as part of an anarcho-communist detachment, with which he retreated to
Tsaritsyn. In Tsaritsyn, Hryhorii was appointed chief of staff of the 37th Brigade of the
Red Army on the Tsaritsyn front. In the spring of 1919, he returned to his native Huliaipole and joined the
Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU). When the Insurgents separated from the
Red Army and began their retreat westward, Hryhorii joined the small detachment around his brother Nestor. For some time Hryhorii served as the
chief of staff of the united rebel troops of
Nestor Makhno and
Nykyfor Hryhoriv, then as a member of the
Military Revolutionary Council (VRS). In early September 1919, the Insurgents clashed with the
White movement around
Pomichna, with the insurgent cavalry carrying out a series of raids into the White rear. According to
Peter Arshinov, on 18 September 1919, Hryhorii Makhno was killed in battle with the Whites, alongside
Petya Lyuty. After receiving news of his brother's death, an enraged Nestor responded by massacring the wounded White officers that the insurgents had captured. ==Memory==