I’m not saying you must all go to the peasants, comrades. I know you well — you are used to the city and are close to the workers. Work here, but remember that here the Revolution has passed from direct action to rules and regulations issued by the Revkom. In the villages, the Revkom will not have such an easy time of it. That’s where the soul of the Revolution is, here is where the Counter-Revolution will be. Only an intensive organization of the revolutionary forces of the villages can prevent attempts to kill the Revolution.”
To this my comrades from the anarchists and their friends, the Left S-R sympathizers, replied that the future will be revealed in due time. “But in the meantime the Left Bloc is still following the road of the Worker-Peasant Revolution. It is firmly staying the course. A majority of the toiling masses masses see this and support the Bloc. Consequently, to agitate against it or raise an insurrection would simply pave the way for the return of the semi-bourgeois Kerensky regime or, still worse, consolidate the position of the Central Rada which has almost abdicated from the the struggle for the liberation of the toilers. Such adventurism would be a crime against the Revolution.”
“We deplore your attitude towards the Left Bloc,” said my comrades, “and would be happy if you looked at things from a different point of view. As you yourself constantly stress, the revolutionaries must always be with the people in order to broaden, deepen and further develop the Revolution.
Up to the present you and we have done this. What is stopping us from continuing this work? We all know that if the Left Bloc turns to the right, or tries to bring a halt before the toilers have attained their goals — liberty, equality and independent work — we will immediately pursue a campaign against it. And then each toiler will see and understand that we are right to rebel against the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs.”
I recall that Maria Nikiforova and all the friends who worked with her in this city defended this position. She cited several times the name of Comrade A. Karelin, saying that before her departure from Petrograd she had talked to him a lot about this question and he said that this was the best attitude that we could take towards the power of the Left Bloc.
However, these reasonable-sounding arguments of my comrades didn’t shake me in the least. I was profoundly convinced that the Bloc was not long for this world. A sign of this, besides those mentioned above, I found in the fact that Lenin acted without any control not only by the Party of Left SRs, but also by his own party, of which he was the creator and leader.
Having organized the peasants of Gulyai-Pole and its raion where the Bolsheviks and SRs had no influence, I had an outsider’s point of view on these things. I saw that Lenin intended to make of the Left SRs (among whom I saw none of the core members of the old SR Party) a toy in his hands. That’s why I abstained from any response to the comrades and only said once more that I was nevertheless returning to Gulyai-Pole.
While we were exchanging opinions about the Left Bloc and the future of the Revolution which it was trying to control, I received from the commissar of posts a telephonogram from Gulyai-Pole. It announced that agents of the Central Rada had arrived in Gulyai-Pole who, while declaring themselves supporters of the soviets, were carrying on an energetic agitation to persuade solders returning from the External Front to organize haidamak units in Gulyai-Pole and its raion. The nationalists had already got started on this. The telephonogram was signed by M. Shramko.
This message helped me to quit the Aleksandrovsk Revkom and hastened my departure for Gulyai-Pole.
After drawing up an official document, recalling me from the Revkom in the name of the Gulyai-Pole detachment, I went to the Revkom to submit this document as required and to say goodbye. At the Revkom my recall was greeted unfavourably, the executive expressed its disapproval but in a restrained tone. When I explained the reason why I and the whole detachment were in such a hurry to get back to Gulyai-Pole, the chairman of the Revkom, Comrade Mikhailevsky, pulled me aside into a private office and gushed that he was overjoyed that I was rushing back to my raion.
“Your presence in Gulyai-Pole, Comrade Makhno, is necessary now more than ever. And besides, as I think you know already, we are thinking of dividing Aleksandrovsk uyezd into two administrative units, on an initiative from higher up. It is proposed that one of these units be organized under your direction at Gulyai-Pole!”
I responded to my “benefactor” that this idea didn’t interest me, that it didn’t fit in with my views on the subsequent growth and development of the Revolution.
“Besides,” I added, “this all depends on your future successes, does it not?”
“But our successes are assured. All the workers and peasants are with us, and they already hold everything in their hands” exclaimed my ex-colleague.
“Have you not read the telephonogram I got from Gulyai-Pole? And do you not understand what was in it?” I said to him.
“But, yes!”
“We’d better leave our conversation for later,” I remarked. “Now you need to order the commandant of the Ekaterinoslav station to prepare an echelon for four o’clock to transport the Gulyai-Pole detachment.”
The order was given immediately.
I continued speaking with him and other members of the Revkom, including the anarchist M. Nikiforova. I talked about the clearly revolutionary mood in the raion and then, taking leave of everyone, I departed for the station. A few minutes later members of the Revkom arrived at the station, most of them in an automobile, M. Nikiforova on horseback. They came to say goodbye again and see us off.
Once more I exchanged a few words with the directors of the Revkom. Then the detachment sang the anarchist marching song and the train left the station.
Chapter 24
Suppression of the Zemstvo Territorial Units; Formation of a Revkom by Members of the Soviet; Search for Funds
During the time that I, along with our bunch of energetic revolutionary peasants, worker-anarchists, and sympathetic-to-anarchism non-party revolutionaries were absent from Gulyai-Pole, guests turned up in the village — agents of the Central Rada. These were landowners of Gulyai-Pole who had been appointed sub-lieutenants during the War and had now been sent into the countryside and villages to preach the idea of an independent Ukraine supporting itself on the backs of the “haidamaks” and the Cossacks.
We arrived in Gulyai-Pole at night and during that same night I was informed by soldiers just returned from the Front that they had held a meeting at which agents of the Central Rada announced that troops of the Rada were concentrating in Podolia and around Kiev. These agents invited the Frontoviks to organize themselves here and seize power over the raion where there was currently a power vacuum.
As an added incentive, a certain Vulfovich, a Frontovik who called himself a “Maximalist”, presented to the assembly several anonymous letters which affirmed that there existed in Gulyai-Pole and its raion some kind of benevolent society which could make regular subsidies to an organization of Frontoviks, etc., etc.
I immediately decided to arrest the “Maximalist” Vulfovich. At 1 a.m. I went to the secretary of the Anarchist Communist Group, Comrade Kalashnikov, and together we summoned a number of comrades. After talking things over, we arrested Vulfovich. He protested, declaring that he would protest to the Anarchist Communist Group. (He knew I made regular reports to the Group about my actions while occupying official positions. The Group decided collectively if my actions were consistent with the tasks the Group had set itself. The same procedure was followed for any members serving on Soviets or Public Committees as a result of being elected by the toilers.)