Thus the textiles, coming from the city factory workers to the peasants in exchange for the products of agriculture produced through the peasants’ labour, were distributed among the population of Gulyai-Pole and its raion by the Gulyai-Pole Co-operative and the Food Board. The raion Soviet, together with the provisioning organizations, decided it was necessary to broaden and deepen the concept of exchanging goods between city and country without the usual intermediaries — agents of the state and their functionaries.
Delegates were sent to several cities to investigate various questions concerning the practical side of goods exchange. Meanwhile the peasants began to build up stocks of wheat, flour, and other food products in a special warehouse which henceforth was designated to store goods destined for future exchange. This time, however, our delegates returned for the most part with empty hands. The authorities of the Left Bloc had, in all the workplaces, categorically forbidden the proletarian organizations from entering into any sort of direct relationship with the villages. For this purpose there existed — according to the authorities — proletarian organizations: Prodorgans. These statist entities were charged with organizing the industrial and agricultural development of the cities and villages, thereby consolidating socialism in the whole country.
Only in Moscow were the revolutionary workers of the textile factories able to obtain from the ruling socialists the right to exchange once more their goods against the products of Gulyai-Pole raion. But the shipment of textiles was extremely difficult. It was stopped several times en route. The government “prodorgans” shunted them from one railway siding to another for over two weeks until rail transport came to a complete halt because of the war situation. Powerful German armies, accompanied by detachments of the Central Rada and the Ukrainian SRs and SDs, were advancing on Kiev and Odessa. The leaders of the Ukrainian SRs and SDs, Professor Hrushevsky and the publicist O. Vinnichenko respectively, had concluded an alliance with the German and Austrian emperors directed against the Left Bloc. Now these Ukrainian SRs and SDs were leading their allies onto Ukrainian soil and showing them the shortest and most practical routes towards the Dnepr and the Revolutionary Front.
To the agents of the Left Bloc regime there was a choice: either abandon the textile shipment somewhere on the railway, thus leaving it to the new authorities who would receive their marching orders from the Germans and Austrians; or send it to its proper destination, thereby showing the toilers of the cities and villages that, despite the retreat and the scoundrels who were taking over, their needs still counted. The shipment finally arrived in Gulyai-Pole and was shared out according to the wishes of the inhabitants.
Chapter 26
New Members of Our Group
Towards the middle of February three sailors from the Black Sea Fleet arrived in Gulyai-Pole. Two of them were peasants from Gulyai-Pole, the third was a stranger to us. He was visiting with his father who served as a coachman for the pomeshchik Abraham Jantzen. All three called themselves Left SRs. Two of them, Boris Veretel’nik (peasant of Gulyai-Pole) and E. Polonsky (the stranger) had party membership cards from the Sevastopol Committee of the Party of Left SRs. The third, Sharovsky, also a peasant of Gulyai-Pole, was not a party member.
All three from the first days of their arrival in Gulyai-Pole showed up at general assemblies and made an impression as energetic revolutionary workers. That was a time when sailors were renowned as fearless defenders of the Revolution. The inhabitants of Gulyai-Pole welcomed them with respect and listened to their speeches with interest.
Comrade Veretel’nik was familiar to me from childhood. So when he introduced me to his two companions I had no reason not to trust them. I presented all three to the Raion Revkom in Gulyai-Pole and they were admitted as members of the propaganda section of the Committee on conditions that all their agitation work in Gulyai-Pole and its raion would be carried out under the banner of the Revkom. This condition was accepted by them and they settled down to work in Gulyai-Pole.
The Sevastopol Committee of the Party of Left SRs summoned Veretel’nik and Polonsky back to Sevastopol but I, at their request and with the consent of the Anarchist Communist Group, wrote to the Sevastopol Committee in the name of the Gulyai-Pole Revkom that they were needed in the village. And the Party didn’t bother them any more.
Shortly after this, Comrade Veretel’nik severed his connections with the Party of Left SRs and joined the Gulyai-Pole Anarchist Communist Group. Comrade Polonsky remained outside the Group but declared himself sympathetic to anarchism. He worked with Comrade Veretel’nik and other members of the Group, taking part in all their activities in Gulyai-Pole and its raion and giving an account of his work just as if he were a member.
Several times, it’s true, the brother of Polonsky, a Bolshevik who belonged to the Revkom in Bolshoi Tokmak, invited our Polonsky to join him, promising him a position on the executive of the Revkom. But our Polonsky always refused, not wanting to leave Gulyai-Pole where the revolutionary spirit was infectious and his organizing work gave him great satisfaction.
The strength of our group was increasing. Our revolutionary work broadened. The Group was entirely devoted to it. There was no obstacle which could prevent us from winning over the revolutionary masses intellectually and spiritually.
Always the Group was in the vanguard of the Revolution, leading the toilers in their struggle against the oppressors. In the way it operated, the Group set an example of autonomous self-activity of peasants and workers. It taught them how to be activists and saw the results being put into practice by the toilers.
Chapter 27
The Agrarian communes; Their Organization; Their Enemies
February — March, 1918. The moment had come to distribute the livestock and implements which had been seized from the pomeshchiks in the autumn of 1917 and to organize agrarian communes on the former estates. All the toilers of the raion understood the importance of decisive action at this moment, both for the construction of a new life, and for its defence. Under the direction of the Revkom, ex-soldiers from the Front began moving all the implements and livestock from the estates of the pomeshchiks and large farms to a central holding area. Their former owners were left with two pairs of horses, one or two cows (depending on the size of the family), one plough, one seeding machine, one mower, one winnowing machine, etc. Meanwhile the peasants went to the fields to finish the division of the land begun in the fall. At the same time some peasants and workers, previously organized into agrarian communes, left their villages and, with their whole families, took possession of the former properties of the pomeshchiks. In doing so, they paid no attention to the fact that the Red Guard units of the Left Bloc, after the agreement with the emperors of Austria and Germany, had evacuated Ukraine. The remaining revolutionary military formations could offer only token resistance to the regular German and Austrian troops who were supported by the armed bands of the Central Rada.