At this Congress of the Soviets of Gulyai-Pole rayon we examined all the facts about the activities of the Central Rada and the Left Bloc. It was clear that the Central Rada, although lead by socialist-revolutionaries and social democrats, had as its goal not only driving the “katzaps” out of “Motherland Ukraine”, but also wiping out all every last trace of the Social Revolution.
The Congress passed the following resolution: Death to the Central Rada.
(This resolution of the Congress was rigorously put into practice.)
Several days after this, when the delegates had dispersed to their homes, the Soviet received a telegram from Aleksandrovsk announcing that units of the Central Rada had occupied the city in order to secure the Kichkass Bridge for the trains which were transporting Cossack troops from the external front to join General Kaledin on the Don.
When this telegram was received and understood the whole population of the raion, including the young and old, were on their feet.
I immediately received telephone messages and letters from all the villages of Gulyai-Pole raion. Most of these messages were brief, but clearly revolutionary. They expressed the readiness of the population to empower me to handle this crisis with the assistance of the best members of the Anarchist Communist Group who had done such a good job organizing the peasants.
The sincere and absolute confidence which the peasantry demonstrated towards me I found worrisome. (I say peasantry, not mentioning the workers because in Gulyai-Pole raion the chief role in the Revolution was played by the peasants; the workers at that time mostly took a wait-and-see position vis-à-vis the Revolution.) I had been working like crazy, never taking any rests, but never felt tired. But the trust of the peasants worried me — I feared setting out on the path of war.
Only a clear awareness that revolutionary work must be devoid of any sentimentality (which had infected my comrades) sustained me and I thrust any anxiety from my thoughts.
I posed the following question to myself and to my comrades of the Anarchist Communist Group: if I am an adherent of revolutionary anarchism, would it not be a great crime to limit myself in this time of great popular events to a secondary role? Would this not require me to trail after other groups and parties which would probably be hostile to our own views? An anarchist revolutionary must be in the vanguard of the fighting masses in order to win them over to the real struggle of Labour with Capital, not sparing oneself in the process.
I recall what I said at the meeting of our Group:
“It’s time to put an end to meetings. The times demand action. This remark really isn’t applicable to our group but we should keep it in mind.
Sixty to seventy percent of those comrades who call themselves anarchists are diverting themselves by seizing the gentry’s’ fancy homes in the cities and nothing gets done among the peasantry. Their way is the wrong way. They can’t influence the course of events sitting in those mansions. It’s sad, but that’s the way it is! Our group will have to work even harder among the peasants. Any day now the haidamaks of the Central Rada will descend on our region. These brutes bear, at the tips of their bayonets, the death of the Revolution and life of its enemies.
Our Group must form the vanguard of the struggle with these hirelings of the Counter-Revolution and lead against them the all toiling population of the rayon…
So, comrades, let’s get ready: some of you for local actions, others for the Congress which our Soviet has called for the day after tomorrow.
We must prove ourselves worthy of the trust the toilers of our raion have in us. And we can only do this by dedicating ourselves to their struggle for freedom and independence.”
The Group knew what it had to do at such a moment. Tirelessly, in the course of several months of revolution, it had moved itself and moved the peasantry in the same direction. And I would never have dared to speak about it if my opinion had not been requested on this question.
We prepared ourselves. A day later the delegates from the peasants arrived at the Congress.
At the Congress I decline the office of chairperson offered to me and took the floor with a report on behalf of the Gulyai-Pole Soviet and the Anarchist Communist Group. The Congress discussed my report thoroughly and resolved as follows: to put in order our weak forces, where they existed; and where they did not exist, to organize them immediately. And at the first summons from the Gulyai-Pole Soviet to muster in Gulyai-Pole or some other assembly point indicated by Gulyai-Pole.
This was at the end of December 1917.
Chapter 20
With the Left Bloc Against the Counter-Revolution
On December 31 1917 I was doing organizational work in the village of Pologi when I received an accurate report that a battle was going on in Aleksandrovsk between detachments of the Red Guard group of Bogdanov and some haidamak units of the Central Rada.
At such a moment it was impossible to remain on the sideline as a neutral observer. The population was clearly hostile towards the Central Rada, whose agents were combing the countryside, hunting down revolutionaries, and treating them as “traitors… of Mother Ukraine” and defenders of the “katzaps”, whom it considered necessary to exterminate as mortal enemies of the Ukrainian language.
Such concepts were offensive to the peasants. They dragged down from the tribune any speakers who espoused such notions and rained blows down on them as enemies of the fraternal unity of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples.
This rancorous propaganda of the Ukrainian nationalists pushed the toilers of Gulyai-Pole rayon on the road of armed struggle against any form of Ukrainian separatism because toilers saw in this chauvinism — which was in fact the ruling idea of Ukrainian nationalism — death for the Revolution.
While fighting was going on in Aleksandrovsk between the Red Guards and the haidamaks, several train-loads of Cossacks were grouped along the Aleksandrovsk — Apostolovo — Krivoi Rog line. These troops had removed themselves from the External Front and were on their way to the Don to General Kaledin. (Kaledin’s movement was in essence a genuine throwback to the old monarchist system. It went under the flag of independence for the Don, but suddenly at its very heart appeared the black forces of reaction whose intention was to use the Cossacks to finish off the Revolution and restore the rule of the Romanovs.)
On January 2, 1918, the Gulyai-Pole Soviet, with the participation of the Union of Metal & CarpentryWorkers and the Anarchist Communist Group, met around the clock. There was a heated discussion about what urgent measures to take to prevent the Cossacks from reaching the Don, because, once they joined up with Kaledin, they would form a Front which would constitute a threat to all the conquests of the Revolution. We, the peasants, all agreed on this.
This long and tiring session inspired in all its participants one and same thought: we must, in spite of the obvious contradiction, form a united front with the government forces. We must arm ourselves and go to to the aid of the Left Bloc. Our devotion to anti-authoritarian ideas would allow us to overcome any contradictions. After annihilating the black forces of reaction, we would extend and deepen the Revolution for the greatest good of all oppressed humanity. I said then:
“Each of us present today must keep our final goal in mind and make sure our actions are compatible with this goaclass="underline" no person must be dominated by another person — an idea which opens to us the road to peace, liberty, equality, and solidarity for the whole human family. At each step we must think about this and it will help us to remain true to all we have discussed and agreed to here.”