I knew perfectly well that our anarchist movement, because of the absence of a strong organization, was weak in the cities and in the countryside scarcely existed. Consequently, our anarchist group had to operate completely independently, as we had earlier decided, and be ready for anything.
Our Soviet provided Comrade L. Schneider with documents certifying that he was authorized to represent it on the Executive Committee of the Provincial Soviet. The Anarchist Communist Group gave him instructions about how to conduct himself and about working with the Ekaterinoslav Federation of Anarchists. The Soviet of the Trade Union also empowered him to try to enter into negotiations with the Provincial Industrial Committee which was located in Ekaterinoslav. The purpose of this was to ensure that the foundries of Gulyai-Pole received the raw materials they needed in sufficient quantity and in a timely fashion so that work in the plants would not have to stop. Or if it did have to stop, then only in those branches which were least necessary for the population of Gulyai-Pole raion.
At the Provincial Executive Committee of Soviets, Comrade Schneider was welcomed with open arms. But… after one or two meetings of the Committee, and one or two speeches by Comrade Schneider — the attitude of the leaders of the Committee changed drastically. His position became difficult. Some members of the Committee raised the question of denying him the right to vote on decisions, leaving him with only a consultative role. Lev Schneider responded that he had never had the right to take part in the decisions of the Provincial Executive Committee of Soviets because the Gulyai-Pole Soviet had not authorized him to do so. He had been delegated to the Committee only to keep informed of all new measures taken by the Committee in the revolutionary domain, and to acquaint the representatives of the toilers from other parts of the province with what was being accomplished by the toilers of Gulyai-Pole. In this way he hoped it would be possible to coordinate the self-activity of the toilers of the various uyezds or raions so as to fill in any gaps in a coordinated way.
After this frank declaration by Schneider of the motives which had brought him to the Provincial Executive Committee of Soviets from the Gulyai-Pole Soviet, numerous members of the Committee requested that an item be added to agenda demanding the complete exclusion of the representative of Gulyai-Pole.
However, the times were such that to exclude the representative from Gulyai-Pole would have provoked a boycott of the Provincial Executive by Gulyai-Pole and a number of revolutionary-minded raions adjacent to it. This would have demonstrated to the toiling masses of the whole province, and even well beyond its boundaries, that the Ekaterinoslav Provincial Executive was trailing the masses when it came to revolutionary action. A boycott at such a high-stress point in the Revolution would create serious problems, at least for politicians.
The Provincial Executive understood this very well and, grudgingly, allowed the representative of Gulyai-Pole to remain in its ranks, assigning him to a place in one of its sections. He ended up in the industrial section, if I am not mistaken.
Each week our representative came back to Gulyai-Pole to make reports to the Soviet, the Trade Union, and the Anarchist Communist Group. His reports were discussed. His strength renewed, he headed back to Ekaterinoslav for another week.
Through his mediation the Soviet of the Trade Union concluded an agreement with the Provincial Industrial Committee and began to receive vital raw materials for its plants.
The Raion Congress of Land Committees designated a number of properties of pomeshchiks to be turned into agrarian communes with the help of volunteers.
The toiling peasantry and workers, made up of people with the appropriate skills — often extended families or groups of neighbours — organized themselves into free agrarian communes ranging in size from 50 to 200 people. They had joy on their faces as they discussed among themselves what they must do before spring, what kind of wheat they should sow so as to give the best harvest and, of course, help the Revolution, on condition that the weather was good, not too dry, with the rain necessary for our black earth at the right time in the spring and first two months of summer.
“Sowing all the land with a good grain, followed by an abundant harvest, will allow us to overcome the devastations of war and support the forces of the Revolution as they work in our best interests,” said the peasants.
And when the anarchists put this question to them: “What about the Provisional Government in Petrograd and the Central Rada in Kiev? They are the direct enemies of this Revolution which you are striving to support.” The answer was always the same, delivered with revolutionary emotion: “But we are organizing ourselves precisely to overthrow the Provisional Government and not allow the Central Rada to triumph. We hope that by the time spring rolls around we will have done with all governments.”
And sometimes we asked: “Who’s going to do this — you?”
“We, the peasants and workers. You went to Aleksandrovsk and were able to see that the workers want to live, like us, free and independent of any kind of rulers over our heads.”
In September, during our organizing work among the peasants and workers, the Government Commissar, the pomeshchik Mikhno, sent to Gulyai-Pole an official charged with conducting an investigation of me and the other peasants and workers who had disarmed the bourgeoisie of the raion.
This official set up shop in the office of the Militia and told the Militia to summon all these peasants and workers, including myself, so he could interrogate them one at a time.
There I sat him on a chair and asked him to explain as calmly as possible the reason for his presence in Gulyai-Pole. He tried his best to give me explanations in a calm manner but, for reasons I can’t imagine, he didn’t manage at alclass="underline" his lips trembled, his teeth clattered, he face alternated between red and white, and his eyes were fixed on the floor.
Then I asked him to compose himself and write down what I was going to dictate to him. And when he, holding his pen with great difficulty, had written down what I said, I gave him 20 minutes to get out of Gulyai-Pole and two hours to leave the borders of the raion. And the official indeed left very quickly, astonishing the Committee and myself with his speed, as he returned to his boss in Aleksandrovsk.
After this Gulyai-Pole no longer received any external orders, nor any special envoys from Aleksandrovsk.
PART II
Chapter 16
October Coup d’État in Russia
Repercussions of the October coup d’état — in Petrograd and Moscow, and then in the whole of Russia — reached us in Ukraine only at the end of November and the beginning of December, 1917.
Up until December 1917 the Ukrainian toilers, both urban and rural, knew of the October coup d’état only through the manifestoes of the All-Russian Executive Committee of Soviets, the Soviet of People’s Commissars, and revolutionary parties and groups. Two parties in particular were prominent: the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. For these two parties knew how to benefit from this period in the Russian Revolution to attain their goals. This was a vast uprising of workers, soldiers, and peasants against the Provisional Government, against its disgraceful, but feeble, attacks against the Revolution. The foundations of this uprising had been laid by all the revolutionary groups which had found a place in the great current that was the Russian Revolution.
But these two parties — the one, well-organized; the other, submissively following the crafty Lenin — knew how and when to approach the revolutionary masses, enticing them with their lying slogan: “All Power to the Soviets” and congratulating the masses for their slogan “The Land to the Peasants, the Factories to the Workers”. These parties took over the Revolution and, having at their disposal an abundance of paper and printing presses, they papered town and country with their manifestoes, declarations, and programs.