Ivan Chernoknizhny was born at the end of the nineteenth century in the
Pavlohrad Raion of the
Katerynoslav Governorate. After receiving his education, he worked as a rural teacher in the village of
Novopavlivka, where he became a member of the
Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. In the autumn of 1918, he joined the
Makhnovist movement and was elected as a delegate for Novopavlivka to the first, second and third
Regional Congresses of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents. At the second congress, he was elected as the first chairman of the
Military Revolutionary Council (VRS), after he gave a speech in which he denounced the newly established
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic: As chairman of the VRS, he oversaw the establishment of the first
free soviets in
Huliaipole Raion. During his speech at an opening ceremony in
Huliaipole, he described the goal of the free soviets to be the establishment of
self-governance in Ukraine, outside of the control of any
political party. He also noted that Ukrainian peasants had instinctively
self-organized many free soviets themselves, indicating widespread popular support for the project. He ended his speech by warning against rising
authoritarianism, brought on by both the
Bolsheviks and the
White movement, calling instead for free soviets to become the nucleus for "
real freedom, genuine equality and honest fraternity." In June 1919, he was
outlawed by the
Soviet authorities and went underground. He continued to take an active part in the Makhnovist movement, constantly working in the VRS and remaining one of the ideologists of the insurgency. He was again declared an outlaw in January and November 1920. In the 1920s, after the
amnesty, he lived in the
Mezhova Raion of the
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, where he led the underground Anarcho-Makhnovist group. For his illicit activities, he was arrested in 1928. ==References==