One of the Bolshevik signatories to the pact,
Sergey Gusev, himself claimed that the military alliance with the Makhnovists had not made for the sake of insurgent aid in the war against Wrangel, "but in order to rid ourselves for a time of an enemy behind our lines", stating that the agreement would always have "quite naturally broken" following Wrangel's defeat. The other Bolshevik signatory was
Yakov Yakovlev, who denounced the Ukrainian anarchists at the first congress of the
Red International of Labor Unions, blaming the breakdown of the alliance on the Makhnovists, who he labelled as "
bandits". Despite the Bolshevik displays of
Realpolitik, the Makhnovists hoped that the pact would continue to hold for another few months, which would allow them time to build a libertarian alternative to the Ukrainian Soviet government. The Makhnovist delegation to the anarchist congress in Kharkiv, led by
Dmitry Popov, bluntly declared the restoration of the
free soviets and the autonomy of the Makhnovschina, calling on the Bolsheviks to fully implement the terms of the political pact. Other Makhnovists were not so optimistic, with the chief-of-staff
Hryhory Vasylivsky even declaring the end of the agreement and calling for the insurgents to prepare for a Bolshevik attack within the week. , a member of the Makhnovist delegation to the
Ukrainian soviet government in
Kharkiv, who was assassinated by the
Cheka on 26 November 1920 On 14 November, the Bolshevik plans to liquidate the Makhnovshchina were finalised by the
All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee, with the approval of both
Vladimir Lenin and
Leon Trotsky. The insurgents began reporting to their high command that Makhnovist supporters were being harassed and arrested on charges of
banditry, as Mikhail Frunze began issuing orders to sweep Ukraine of all "bandits". On 17 November, Frunze issued Order 00106, which integrated the Insurgent Army into the
4th Army and transferred it to the
Caucasian Front, although the order was never actually sent to insurgent command. The following week, on 23 November, Frunze issued Order 00149 directly to Makhno, instructing the Insurgent Army to dissolve itself. He then issued Order 00155 to his own troops, instructing them to prepare to liquidate the Makhnovshchina within 48 hours. Copies of these orders, in which Frunze declared the Makhnovists to be outlaws and ordered the concentration of Red Army forces in the Makhnovist region, were not sent to Huliaipole or the delegation in Kharkiv. Vladimir Lenin also directly ordered Rakovsky to covertly initiate the criminalisation of the Ukrainian anarchist movement and to begin preparing charges against them. That same day, spies from the
42nd Rifle Division were discovered attempting to locate the exact whereabouts of the insurgent command, with the purpose of aiding a Red Army offensive against the Makhnovshchina. The delegation in Kharkiv responded by pressing
Christian Rakovsky to arrest the 42nd Division's commanding officers and prevent any Red Army incursion into insurgent-held territory, but the Soviet government claimed it had all been a misunderstanding and promised to investigate it.
Surprise attack On 26 November, when the Makhnovist delegation inquired about the status of the investigation, they were arrested and sent to
Moscow, where they were shot. In total, 346 of the anarchists in Kharkiv were arrested, with a number of prominent Makhnovists being charged with treason and shot by the Moscow Cheka, and almost the entire membership of the
Nabat being imprisoned. Coordinated mass arrests of anarchists were also carried in the other major cities of southern Ukraine, including
Yelysavethrad. The 42nd Division simultaneously led an attack against Huliaipole, while the
2nd Cavalry Corps surrounded the town. Makhno's 150-strong Black Guard detachment quickly rallied the towns defense, but decided to make their escape after spotting a break in the Red lines. After the 3rd Makhnovist Regiment was captured by the
126th Division at
Malaya Tokmacha, Makhno's forces led a counterattack that pushed the Red forces back to
Novouspenivka, taking the opportunity to regroup the insurgent forces, with some Red soldiers even defecting to his ranks. With 1,500 infantry and 1,000 cavalry at their disposal, the insurgents retook Huliaipole from the 42nd Division after hours of fighting, capturing 6,000 Red soldiers in the town, 2,000 of whom also joined the Makhnovist ranks. Among the captured soldiers, the Makhnovists found that they had been given orders to attack the Makhnovists as early as 16 November, a day before the Crimean campaign had even reached its conclusion. Despite the victory, the Makhnovists were forced to abandon Huliaipole and retreat. , the leader of the
Makhnovist offensive in Crimea, who was assassinated by the
Red Army on 26 November 1920 That same night, the Makhnovist commanders in Crimea were summoned to a joint planning conference with the Red Army command, but were ambushed
en route and shot, with both
Semen Karetnyk and
Petro Havrylenko being killed. The following night, their contingent was encircled in a surprise attack by the
Cheka and mown down by hundreds of machine guns, wiping out large numbers of insurgents. Part of the detachment was able to escape to
Perekop, managing to defeat the 7th Cavalry Division along the way, while being pursued by the
3rd Cavalry Corps and the
52nd Rifle Division. When they reached their destination, they split into two groups, with one crossing the
Syvash while the other faced the
1st Rifle Division at the
Isthmus. They rejoined each other the following day at , having safely escaped Crimea. Red commanders noted that their "own units displayed no initiative" in attacking the Makhnovists, often not acting without specific orders and only reluctantly engaging. In response, 2,300 Red soldiers were ordered to be shot by their high command, charged with having "undermined the just endeavors of the soviet authorities and of their valiant Red Army." The Red Army command also justified the attacks against the Makhnovists based on claims that they had refused orders and intended to betray them, despite themselves having reportedly planned to break the alliance with the Makhnovists since before the offensive against Wrangel had even begun. Red troops in mainland Ukraine, who had not themselves participated in the siege of Perekop, were ordered to pursure Karetnyk's detachment and prevent them from regrouping with the other insurgents at Huliaipole. They were caught and encircled at
Mykhailivka by the
Red Junker Division, 42nd Rifle Division, International Cavalry Brigade and
4th Cavalry Division, under the command of
Semyon Timoshenko. Short on ammunition and outnumbered 20-to-1, the insurgent detachment only had 1,000 cavalry, 300
tachanki, 250 machine guns and 6 artillery cannons with which to face the Red divisions. They were able to evade the first encounter but fell into an engagement with the Red Divisions at , capturing the city after a day of fighting and heavy casualties, allowing them to restock ammunition for the first time since their capture of
Simferopol. Rather than moving on immediately, the detachment remained in the town, which allowed the Red forces to regroup and attack, eventually forcing the insurgents to retreat back to Mykhailivka after running through their ammunition. Once again, they were pinned down by the Red cavalry and artillery, resulting in the deaths of 600 insurgents and the rest of the detachment breaking up into small groups and attempting to escape. 200 insurgents were immediately intercepted and killed by the sabres of the International Cavalry Brigade, with less than 300 insurgent cavalry managing to escape to
Kermenchyk, where they finally linked up with Makhno's forces on 7 December. The contingent's commanders announced "the return of the Crimean army", now only 1/5th of its original size, and told the story of Karetnik's assassination at a general assembly of the remaining insurgent forces.
Encirclement attempts , commander of anti-Makhnovist operations in late 1920, during which he oversaw attempts to encircle the Makhnovshchina With the surprise attack having failed to eliminate the Makhnovshchina, Mikhail Frunze deployed almost the entire
Southern Front of the Red Army against the Makhnovists, aiming to encircle them. The Red Army mustered together 150,000 soldiers to fight against the insurgents, rallying the
4th,
6th and
13th Armies, along with the
1st and
2nd Cavalry Armies. With the
Revolutionary Military Council putting pressure on Frunze and Kamenev to liquidate the insurgent movement, they ordered continual sweeps through insurgent-held territory over the subsequent weeks, planning to push them down towards the
Sea of Azov, where they would be "ruthlessly exterminate[d]". But the Makhnovists continued to remain an ephemeral target, launching waves of surprise attacks against Red units and seizing their equipment, before breaking out of their encirclement with relative ease. One Red officer acknowledged that this
guerrilla warfare was made possible by the Makhnovists' popular support, which came from the local peasantry, mine workers, war widows and orphans, and even some former Communist Party members and Red Army soldiers. Frunze responded with an order that the local population be completely disarmed, dispatching Internal Affairs commissar
Vladimir Antonov-Saratovsky to the Makhnovist region, in order to solidify Bolshevik power and break civilian support for the Makhnovshchina. The Makhnovist movement was also aided by numerous desertions from the Red Army, which became such a systemic problem that the Bolshevik command ordered all Makhnovist prisoners be executed, in order to discourage potential sympathisers. By the time the Crimean army reunited with the Makhnovist core, the insurgents had already seen a number of victories at
Komar. At the head of a 600-strong detachment, the Makhnovist commander
Mykhailo Brova defeated a
Russian hussar brigade, and the following day, Makhno himself commanded a 4,000-strong insurgent detachment in routing a
Red Kirghiz brigade. Pursued by the Red Army, which was under orders to annihilate the Makhnovshchina before
Christmas, the insurgent core subsequently made for Novospasivka, where they joined up with Vdovychenko's insurgent detachment, before finally moving on to
Berdiansk. There, on 12 December, the Makhnovists encountered a small and ill-equipped Red garrison, many of whom went over to the insurgent side. The Makhnovist raid on Berdiansk resulted in the deaths of about 83 Reds, before the insurgents moved on to
Andriivka. Following a short rest at local farmhouses, the insurgents found themselves under assault by units of the 4th Army, which were approaching from the north-west. Surrounded by a much larger Red force, the insurgents managed to go on the offensive, breaking out to the north and escaping with their entire cavalry and almost all of their infantry after a day of constant fighting, in a battle that became known as the "Andriyivsky konfuz". In the process, the insurgents had managed to capture some 20,000 Red soldiers, who were subsequently given the option to either return home or join the insurgent ranks. Ignorant of the insurgents' exact whereabouts, Frunze again attempted to encircle them, ordering the 2nd Don Division to sweep the area south of the railway between Oleksandrivsk and
Volnovakha, while the cavalry detachment under
Roberts Eidemanis was ordered to prevent the insurgents from breaking out of the encirclement. Frunze also put together three 2,000-strong detachments, reinforced by the 2nd Cavalry Army, to pursue the insurgents, with the intention of wiping them out. Some Red units that had joined the insurgents at Andriivka re-defected and informed their commanders of the insurgent positions. On 16 December, the insurgents were surrounded at
Fedorivka. For 14 hours, the insurgents fought against the 2nd Cavalry Army and Eidemanis' forces. The battle was apparently confused, with documented cases of
friendly fire by Red units, as both sides were wearing the same uniform. The engagement eventually resulted in a stalemate and the insurgents abandoned many of their black standards in the battlefield, along with most of their equipment, including all of their artillery cannons. In a telegram to Lenin, Frunze reported devastating losses on the Makhnovist side, with only a small detachment of cavalry escaping.
Retreat and pursuit On 19 December, the insurgents were again encircled by a large Red force at Kostyantin, but managed to escape. By this time, the insurgents were down to only 3,000 soldiers and often faced Red forces between 3 and 5 times their size. The insurgents responded by splitting up into several small detachments and scattering throughout Ukraine, abandoning their heavy weapons in order to stay mobile on the open steppe. Some insurgent detachments even made it as far as
Kyiv, attacking members of the Cheka, requisitioning units and Communist Party officials. was among the prominent Ukrainian Bolsheviks that were killed in a surprise attack by the insurgents. Makhno himself led a detachment towards
Yuzivka, but was turned back by a larger enemy force and retreated to Yelysavethrad, taking care to avoid the roads in order to make their pursuit more difficult. in
Crimea was put in command of a "flying corps", composed of the Red Army's best units in Ukraine, that was charged with pursuing the insurgents throughout the country, aided by the
Red Cossacks under
Vitaly Primakov and
Grigory Kotovsky. Makhno's detachment found itself surrounded, only able to advance slowly under heavy machine-gun fire and artillery bombardment. According to
Peter Arshinov, none of the insurgents there wanted to disperse, as they were "all determined to die together, side by side." The Makhnovists managed to approach the border with
Galicia, before swinging around and heading back across the
Dnieper, eventually ending up in
Poltava. From there they went north towards
Belgorod, where they managed to shake off the pursuing Cossacks by the end of January. At this point they had travelled more than 1,500 kilometers, lost most of their equipment and half of their detachment, but were now in a position to go on the offensive. In February, Makhno's detachment went on to province of
Kharkiv and then
Kursk, where they captured
Korocha, before resolving to return to their home region via the
Don, pursued the whole way by the 2nd Cavalry Army. Meanwhile, back in
southern Ukraine, the encircled local insurgents were already carrying out reprisals against the Cheka, requisitioning units and other government functionaries. The Ukrainian Soviet government were increasingly worried by the persistence of the Makhnovist movement, with Eidemanis publishing several papers on how he thought the insurgency could be overcome, through both military and political means. Lenin himself blamed the continuation of the insurgent movement on Mikhail Frunze, who he rebuked at the
10th Bolshevik Party Congress and again demanded the immediate liquidation of the Makhnovists.
Semyon Budyonny reported that he faced great difficulty maintaining discipline within his own ranks, having at one point shot a number of brigade and regimental commanders after they had been defeated by the insurgents, declaring that: "none of the commanders had any inclination to complete the task of wiping out Makhno, regardless of cost and with all possible speed." Furthermore, soldiers continued to desert the Red Army in order to join the insurgents. One notable case happened on 9 February, when
Grigori Maslakov led his entire brigade in defecting from the 4th Cavalry Division to the Insurgent Army, in which he came to command insurgent operations in the
Don and
Kuban regions. This was all happening at a time when
anti-Bolshevik uprisings were sweeping through the country, with rebellions breaking out in
Tambov,
Siberia,
Karelia and even
Kronstadt. In Ukraine alone, an estimated 50,000 people were in open revolt against the government. The Makhnovists themselves maintained a core group of 2,000 infantry, 600 cavalry, 80 machine guns and 10 artillery cannons, with the ability to field 10,000 more for large scale operations. The Soviet government responded by introducing the
New Economic Policy (NEP), which brought an end to the policy of "
war communism". The cessation of
food requisitioning removed the main grievance that the peasants had against the Bolsheviks, effectively severing the Makhnovshchina from their war-weary peasant base. The Makhnovist's peasant base, which they had relied on for supplies and logistics, started to melt away.
Reorganization and other partisans of the
Kronstadt rebellion The Insurgent Army reorganized itself once again, relying on their tested tactics of lightning warfare and decentralization to continue prosecuting the conflict. In response to the outbreak of the
Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921, Mykhailo Brova's detachment was dispatched to the
Don and
Kuban regions, while others were sent to
Voronezh and
Kharkiv, all in order to foment the further spread of the insurrection. Makhno's detachment stuck to the banks of the Dnieper, eventually splitting up in order to cover more ground, in the face of continued Red Army assaults and ambushes. After attempting to link up with insurgents near Huliaipole, a fierce engagement with Red forces at Melitopol forced Makhno's wounded detachment to retreat to Tokmak, then to Komar.
Petro Petrenko led the defense against further Red assaults, but after a botched insurgent counter-offensive resulted in Makhno being seriously wounded, on 15 March, the insurgents split up into independent sotnias of 100–200 men. Makhno's own detachment was forced by the 9th Red Cavalry Division into a long 120 mile retreat to
Novospasivka. Here they ran into more Red cavalry and subsequently fled to , where five machine gunners sacrified themselves in order to cover for the wounded Makhno's escape. On 17 March, following a skirmish at
Pokrovske, Makhno's remaining detachment fled on to
Hryshyne, where they reestablished contact with
Fedir Shchus' detachment after a few days of separation. The insurgents began to regroup their forces once again, setting a rendezvous in
Kobeliaky for the beginning of May. In response to the rebound of the Makhnovshchina, the
Fifth All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets had called for a formal campaign against "
banditry" and offered amnesty to those charged with banditry if they turned themselves in before 15 April. Thousands of insurgents gave themselves up, including a number of leading Makhnovists, such as the former artillery commander
Vasyl Sharovsky. Despite the intensification of the Red Army offensive, the Insurgent Army continued prosecuting its war into the spring of 1921. The Red Cavalry had found itself largely ineffective against the Makhnovist core and were thus transferred to Crimea, in order to put down Brova's insurrection. When Semyon Budyonny's own cavalry detachment fell into an encounter with Makhno's, the Red Cossacks were forced to flee in the face of the superior insurgent numbers, with the defeat even catalyzing a number of desertions from the
1st Cavalry Army. , who took over anti-Makhnovist operations in the summer of 1921 In May, the Makhnovists mounted an offensive against the Ukrainian Bolshevik capital of
Kharkiv, regrouping thousands of insurgent partisans, including 2,000 cavalry. The Bolsheviks responded by surrounding the city with Red Army infantry, tanks, machine guns and artillery cannons, which frustrated the insurgent army's attempted assault, forcing them to abandon the offensive and again revert to decentralized detachments. Over the course of June 1921, the Makhnovists suffered heavy losses, particularly during their defeat in
Poltava. The Red Army also suffered heavy losses, but were able to more effectively replenish those losses due to their much larger reserves. On 26 June, when Mikhail Frunze himself was ambushed and wounded by insurgents, the Red Army central command took the opportunity to finally relieve him from command, replacing him with the former Tsarist officer
Konstantin Avksentevsky. Under Avksentevsky's command, the Red Army offensive against the Makhnovists was stepped up, with prominent Bolsheviks such as
Roberts Eidemanis,
Vasily Blyukher and
Nikita Khrushchev taking charge of on-the-ground operations. With this change in leadership, the Red Army finally adopted new tactics. Following Eidemanis' suggestions, instead of pursuing the insurgents, the Reds established a series of garrisons along the predicted lines of the Makhnovist raids.
Defeat By the summer of 1921, the Makhnovshchina had effectively been defeated, both militarily and politically, with Red Army garrisons everywhere and their peasant base exhausted by the long war. The season brought with it a drought, which forced the insurgent core out of Ukraine on a series of raids around
Southern Russia, before returning to Ukraine through the Don. This repeated crossing of the Bolshevik lines showed a weakness in Eidemanis' tactics, with the Bolshevik command resolving to combine it with Frunze's previous tactics of pursuit, which would together cut down on the Makhnovist capability to escape. Although it had finally gained the upper hand with the defeat of the numerous other rebellions around Russia, the Red Army still found itself unable to fully tame the insurrection in Ukraine. In July 1921, there were still 18 insurgent bands, with 1,042 men and 19 machine guns, operating in
Donetsk alone. The Red Army command resolved to focus its energies entirely on wiping out the Makhnovist core by fielding a
motorized detachment, commanded by
Marcian Germanovich, to pursue Makhno's 200-strong
sotnia. On 12 July, the motorized detachment disembarked from its armored train at
Tsarekonstantinovka but one of its armored cars was immediately ambushed by the Makhnovists, who captured the crew and ran the car out of fuel. The subsequent pursuit of the Makhnovists lasted five days and covered 520 kilometers, causing the insurgents heavy losses and almost running them out of ammo, before they were finally able to shake the armored detachment off their trail. With Makhno having again slipped away from the Red Army, on 22 July, Eidemanis ordered the execution of a number of Makhnovist reserves, while Frunze again demanded the "definitive liquidation" of the Makhnovist movement. By August, the insurgent army had almost been completely eliminated. Some insurgent commanders like
Vasyl Kurylenko had already been killed and others like
Fedir Shchus and
Foma Kozhyn were gravely wounded, while Makhno himself was hiding out in
Donetsk. On 4 August, Frunze held a press conference in which he confidently declared victory over the insurrection, reporting that only a few small insurgent bands were left to wipe out. A wounded Makhno finally accepted defeat and decided to flee into exile, in order to receive medical attention. and other Makhnovist exiles, in a Polish concentration camp Leaving
Viktor Bilash in command of the insurgent core in Ukraine, Makhno set off on 13 August, taking with him his wife and his black sotnia — consisting of 100 cavalry. On 16 August, they crossed the Dnieper, under constant pursuit by the Red cavalry, which wounded Makhno even further. On 19 August, they encountered the 7th Cavalry Division at
Bobrynets. Unable to retreat, the insurgents attacked the division and captured their machine guns, before continuing again on their journary, having lost 17 of their own men. On 22 August, Makhno was shot in the neck, causing a scar where the bullet exited through his right cheek. On 26 August, they fought a final battle with the Red Cavalry, during which the last of his old comrades, including Petro Petrenko, were killed. After one of the insurgent scouts was captured on his way to the Polish border, the detachment changed direction and headed for the
Dniester. On 28 August, the insurgents disguised themselves as Red Army soldiers and accosted the Soviet border guards, disarming them before fording the river under heavy fire. Finally in
Romania, they were themselves disarmed by the Romanian border guards and taken to an internment camp. In exile, many of the Makhnovists found themselves drifting between a series of concentration camps and prisons. Leading figures of the Makhnovist movement, such as Volin, Peter Arshinov and Nestor Makhno himself, eventually ended up in
Paris, where their exile lasted up until their deaths. Meanwhile, Bilash had found himself unable to sustain the guerrilla war, with his detachment almost being wiped out in an ambush at
Znamianka. Some of the survivors managed to flee across the border, but Bilash himself was arrested by the Cheka and transferred to Kharkiv, where he wrote his memoirs before his trial and execution. During the autumn of 1921, 30 Makhnovist commanders and 2,443 insurgents surrendered to the Soviet government, some of whom even asked for official recognition of their role in fighting the
White movement. Despite the defeat, the Makhnovist insurrection continued on underground throughout the 1920s: in 1922, a Makhnovist band was eliminated in Poltava; in 1923, a clandestine Makhnovist organization was dismantled; in 1924, there were reported to still be 18 insurgent bands operating in Ukraine. Makhnovist activity even persisted up until the outbreak of
World War II, when
Makhnovist veterans rose up against the
Nazi occupation of Ukraine. ==References==