Old Makhno
95 years ago, in December 1920, the main battles of the Red Army against Makhno took place. AT stories Civil War Nestor Ivanovich became a very colorful figure. He was born in 1888 in a peasant family in the large village of Gulyaypole near Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk). In the years of the first revolution he joined the anarchists, participated in the "expropriations", that is, the robberies of wealthy people. He was arrested several times for illegal possession. weaponsfor the attempt on the life of rural guards. Makhno managed to get off the water, until in 1908, he was not arrested for killing a military council official. Sentenced to hang, but pardoned, replaced by indefinite penal servitude.It was liberated by the February revolution. Makhno returned to his native Gulyaypole as a hero, he was elected deputy chairman of the Zemstvo Council, to the Council of Workers 'and Peasants' Deputies. But he proved himself to be the undisputed leader, and soon he was able to re-form and lead both the Soviet and the district council. Actually became a local dictator. Russia was falling apart, and Makhno announced that he was not subject to either the Provisional Government or the Central Rada that emerged in Ukraine. In September 1917 of the year, without any instructions from above, he ordered the land of the churchmen to be selected and divided among the peasants, the church land, which ensured him great popularity among the people. And as the chaos deepened, he created the Black Guard, his detachments stopped trains, robbed, shot officers, "bourgeois" - who was meant by bourgeois, they decided on their own.
In February, the 1918 of the year from Romania went to the Don regiment Drozdovsky. Having learned about the excesses, they taught Makhnovists. They put several companies in the wagons, sent them to Gulyaypole. An armed crowd surrounded the wagons, and it was mowed with machine guns at close range. And after Drozdovskim invaders, Germans and Austrians moved to Ukraine. Makhno with his troops retreated to Taganrog, participated in the congress of anarchists. He traveled to Moscow, met with Kropotkin and other prominent anarchists there. I also talked with Lenin and Trotsky. But he did not agree with them.
Makhno was an opponent of the party dictatorship and centralization, believed that all issues should be decided only by local councils. Returning to his native land, he created a partisan detachment. He attacked the small divisions of the Austrians, who pumped food from Ukraine, to the estates, to save, about him fame as a national hero. In the autumn of 1918, revolutions broke out in Germany and Austria, the interventionist troops were evacuated. And the army of Batka grew. He took control of a significant territory, establishing the power of "free advice". The Bolsheviks agreed on an alliance with him, and Yakov Blumkin, who was close to Trotsky, was sent to Makhno to coordinate his actions.
In November, the army of Batka approached Yekaterinoslav, occupied by the Petliurists. Makhno demanded to let him into the city for three days, promised during this time to introduce a new, anarcho-communist system — to take everything away from the rich and distribute to the poor. When the demand was ignored, he went to the attack, bombarded the city with shells. In the Yekaterinoslav made the Red Guards. The battle lasted several days. The Makhnovists occupied street after street, robbed shops, apartments. They killed the "bourgeois", tucked under his arm. But from Kremenchug, reinforcements with heavy guns approached the Petliurists. During the shelling and the very first attacks, the Makhnovists fled the city.
Meanwhile, the Red Army launched an offensive against Ukraine. “Zhovto-blakytynnyh” nationalists, she trashed quite easily. The rebel army Makhno joined the red units as a brigade. True, this designation was conditional. Against Denikin dad sent 10 thousands of bayonets and sabers. And in the agreement with the Bolsheviks it was stipulated: the brigade "submits to the highest red command only in operational terms", "its internal routine remains the same", the existence of the Makhnovist "free soviets" was recognized. But these "free advice" already covered 72 parish with a population of 2 million people!
Immediately began to friction. In Ukraine, the Bolsheviks established their dictatorship, introduced a surplus. By decision of the 3 All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Kharkov, landlord and kulak land needed to be used to set up state farms and communes, it was again taken away from the peasants. Those resisted, they were suppressed by executions. On the vast territory of Makhno, the prodotryad and Chekists did not go. Already in March, a coup was organized against him. The commander of one of his regiments, Padalka, associated with the Cheka, was about to attack Gulyaypole and capture the old man with headquarters. But Makhno found out about the danger in advance, flew to Padalka on an airplane, caught the conspirators off guard and executed.
On April 10, the 3 Congress of Soviets of the Makhnovsky District was held in Huliaipole, qualified the communist policy as "criminal against the social revolution and the working masses", recognized the Kharkov Congress of Soviets with its decisions "not a true and free expression of the will of the working people", protested "against The reactionary methods of the Bolshevik government, conducted by the commissars and agents of emergency, shooting the workers, peasants and insurgents under various pretexts, "demanded a change in the root of the food policy." The congress declared: "Dictatorships of any party categorically do not recognize ... Down with the commissar! .."
Naturally, the Bolsheviks did not like it. Threats rained down. But before the gap has not yet come. Lenin wrote in the RVS of the Southern Front: "With Makhno's troops, until Rostov was taken, one must be more delicate." Antonov-Ovseenko, Kamenev came to Gulyaypole, the friendship seemed to be restored. In May, another similar "brigade commander", another separatist ataman Grigoriev, rebelled. Makhno did not support him. Grigoriev was a slightly different berry field - officer, he managed to serve the king, the Provisional Government, the Central Rada, the hetman, Petliura, then spread to the red. Now he intended to stop the fight with the whites and turn his weapon against the Bolsheviks. For Makhno this was unacceptable. However, he did not need a rival either. Voroshilov defeated the motley gangs of Grigorievka in two weeks. Grigoriev himself with the remnants of the troops rushed to Makhno. But Nestor Ivanovich shot him along with his assistants, disarmed the surviving army, took part to him.
However, the Batka was growing conflict with the Bolsheviks. At the front, his brigade was side by side with units of the 13 Red Army, decomposing them. The Makhnovists appeared in the disposition of the Soviet troops, they saw how partisan freemen lived freely in comparison with them. A lot of Red Army soldiers began to run over to their neighbors. The Soviet command stopped supplying the Makhnovists with ammunition and weapons. "Reliable" communist and international troops were sent to the junction of their units with the 13 Army. There were clashes between them and the Makhnovists. Formed a certain second front, curved, perpendicular to Denikin.
And the White Guards took advantage, on May 19 they struck just in the joint. The selective Volunteer Corps was attacked and Tankscausing a panic. The Reds were just regrouping. Filmed parts infected with the Makhnovshchina, and replaced by others. These "reliable" ran - the 2nd International Regiment, Special Cavalry, Jewish Communist Regiments. The front was broken through. White immediately sent Shkuro's horse corps into the resulting gap. Under the threat of the environment, the Makhnovists also rolled back. Blamed each other. The Reds dumped as if Makhno had betrayed and opened the front, the rebels as if the Reds had opened the front on purpose, substituting them for destruction.
But the Soviet command decided to get rid of Makhno. Trotsky issued an order number 108: "The end of the Makhnovshchina." Large formations were sent to the Yekaterinoslav region - seemingly to the aid of the Old Man, but with a secret order to arrest him. Makhno did not wait for this. He sent Lenin and Trotsky a statement about breaking up with the Reds and disappeared. Only members of his Council and headquarters were captured, eight people were shot. Makhno declared "outlaw." And at the same time with him the sailor Zheleznyakov, who had once dispersed the Constituent Assembly. The propaganda stigmatized the Makhno-Zheleznyakov adventure. This after the death in battles "sailor-partisan Zheleznyak" again became a positive hero.
But dad had very tight. He was pursued by parts of Shkuro and Slaschev, occupied by Guliaipole. He left the Dnieper, retreated, and he was pressed to the location of the troops Petliura. In a stalemate, he entered into negotiations and announced that he was going over to the side of the nationalists. Old Man commissioned to occupy a section of the front near Uman. The main offensive of Denikin turned north. And Makhno took a breath, heightened. He was joined by many Petliurists, defeated and fleeing Red Army soldiers. He gathered a lot of horses, carts. Carts, light carriages with springs became his shock force. They were used by German colonists in the south. The first man realized that it was convenient to put machine guns on them.
Petlyura Makhno was not on the way - he was not interested in "independent Ukraine". And the Denikin troops launched a campaign against Moscow, only small garrisons remained in the rear. September 26 dad threw Petlyura, rushed into a deep raid. He put the army on carts, tired horses changed from the peasants. Scattered white detachments, pogromi Aleksandrovsk (Zaporozhye), rushed in Gulyaypole. A widespread rebellion flashed. The main core of the batka numbered about 5 thousands. These were desperate thugs living in one day. Witness, N.V. Gerasimenko, wrote: "The personnel of the Makhnovists could be identified by their clownish, purely masquerade Zaporozhye costumes, where colored ladies' stockings and panties coexisted alongside rich fur coats." But the peasants joined the Batka calls, they had plenty of weapons, even guns were hidden in the villages, thousands of people flowed along 10 – 15. And the peasants only considered themselves to be real Makhnovists, and the “personnel” gangsters were contemptuously called “slander”, especially violent ones were driven away from the villages by machine guns. This attitude was not transferred to the "sacred" personality of the fatherland in any way.
Raid Makhno swept to the Sea of Azov. Captured and ravaged Orekhov, Canopies, Tokmak, Melitopol, Berdyansk. Following the rebels, thousands of peasant carriages drove into the taken cities. They took everything they could from the shops, collected weapons, robbed. Denikin blew up the entire rear. He had to withdraw troops from the front against Makhno. After a month of hard fights, he was smashed. But he escaped with his core, and the peasants dispersed in villages and turned into "civilians." Makhno suddenly emerged from Yekaterinoslav and captured the city.
True, he was almost killed by the Communists. For the second time, a conspiracy was organized led by the commander of one of the regiments, Polonsky. But the Makhnovist counterintelligence revealed it. Polonsky and 12 killed his assistants. In the meantime, the whites were pushing troops, and in December they still beat the father out of Yekaterinoslav. But they themselves found themselves besieged - they were sitting in the city, and the neighborhood was controlled by the rebels. And soon Denikin had to retreat, advancing red. They again brought with them an after-profit, requisition, and the Makhnovists launched an action against them. The Soviet leadership formed WOCM troops specifically to eliminate the insurgents, battles raged there and there.
In 1920, Wrangel began to prepare his breakthrough from the Crimea. He hoped that it would be possible to create a united anti-Bolshevik front. 13 May issued an order: “In the event of our going over to the offensive, we are on the way to achieving the cherished goal - the destruction of communism, we can come into contact with the insurgent units of Makhno, Ukrainian troops and other anti-communist groups. to co-ordinate their actions with the actions of the troops of these groups ... "
Wrangell sent his emissaries to negotiate with Makhno. But he did not go to the union. He escaped with general phrases like statements in the Makhnovist press (there was such a thing — the Nabat newspapers, Izvestia of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Army named Makhno); against emergency and promised not to touch us. " Only some local Makhnov atamans of the local scale — Volodin, Yashchenko, Chaly, Khmara, and others — joined the whites. And then some of them were then hanged up for robberies and connections with the Reds. Makhno himself, when the front approached Hulyaypole, moved west to Starobelsk. In his actions, he was guided only by what was beneficial to him. At the moment - tweak the rear of the Bolsheviks, not Wrangel. He liked to say: "We are still fooling generals, and with them the Communists."
But the Soviet leadership threw numerous contingents against Wrangel, and the Southern Front was formed under the command of Frunze. He, too, entered into negotiations with Makhno, and he responded. October 6 entered into a joint action agreement. Old Man promised the most tempting conditions. His Rebel Army retained its independence, submitting to the red command only in operational terms. The task of Makhno was determined by the actions in the rear of Wrangel, in the region of Gulyaypole. He was helped by supplies, weapons, allowed to lead to the mobilization of their troops. And he sent an "army" to the front, 5,5, thousands of people led by Cartwright.
Both sides did not believe each other. For Frunze, the main thing was to secure his rear during the offensive on the Crimea. And for Makhno, the accumulation of red troops became dangerous, but now he was able to "walk" again, and even plunder the Crimea. But the previous contradictions have not gone away. For the Bolsheviks, the Makhnovshchina remained a bone in the throat. From the red parts deserters flowed into the detachments of the batko. The front command demanded that Makhno stop campaigning, not to accept defectors. Well, when Wrangel was defeated, 24 November, an ultimatum was sent to him - to move to the position of regular units of the Red Army in two days and redeploy to the Caucasian front. The Old Man, of course, did not like this.
Frunze was already pushing his units against him, putting guljaipole around him; on November 26, they arrested the headquarters of the "army" located in Crimea. But the group itself instantly crumbled into small detachments, rushed to the isthmuses and got out of the peninsula. Makhno also escaped from Guliaipol, gathering his army. He responded to treachery by open war, in early December he captured Berdyansk, completely killing Communists there. Frunze threw 4's army at him, three divisions surrounded the city. But at dawn 6 December, all the forces of Makhno attacked the 42 division, scattered it. Other Soviet compounds did not have time to react, but Makhno had already left and seized Tokmak, repeating the massacre.
There were a lot of troops on the Southern Front, he was surrounded again. But on December 12, he repeated the previous maneuver, with a surprise attack, crushed the same 42 division and broke free. The chase of the 1 th Conarmia did not overtake him. He did 250 – 300 versts per day. At Nikopol he jumped across the Dnieper, turned back north to the left bank, sped past Poltava and Kharkov to Voronezh, then turned to Kupyansk, Bakhmut, and in mid-January 1921 returned to Gulyaypole. Throughout the course of the movement, he smashed the communist power, raised the peasants.
Around him again red. In frontal battles there was no chance of resisting, and Makhno came up with a new tactic. To send detachments, stirring up rebellions everywhere, and to make raids myself, linking these foci with each other. He sent the Brow and Maslak group to Don and Kuban, the ataman Parkhomenko near Voronezh, Ivanyuk near Kharkov. In battles, the old man became a cripple, the bullet smashed and bent his ankles. He moved to the cart. In March he made a speech to Nikolayev with the core of his fighters, turned and walked past Perekop. Under Melitopol they set a trap for him, but he got out. Demonstrated that he wanted to break in one place, and hit in another. Separated part of the detachments to act in the Azov region and rushed to Chernihiv region.
There he was once again surrounded. In battle, it was seriously wounded - the bullet went right through the thigh and the cecum. But his army crumbled in groups of 100 – 200 people and leaked out of the ring. Makhno began to collect these troops, the red cavalry discovered him. Batyku rescued five machine gunners. They sacrificed themselves and shot to the last, allowing them to be taken away. He otlezhivatsya month after injury. In May, he emerged in Poltava, and he again gathered 2 thousands of cavalry and 10 – 15 thousands of infantry. The Old Man proclaimed a campaign against Kharkov, the then capital of Ukraine, called for "dispersing the earthly rulers from the Bolshevik Party." Against him, Frunze threw several cavalry divisions, 60 armored cars. Fighting went on for several weeks, and the Rebel Army disintegrated into detachments again.
Makhno continued to send them to Chernihiv, Kyiv region, in the Volga region, even to Siberia. In the summer, the southern provinces of Ukraine were seized by drought, crop failure. Old Man outlined a deep raid on the Volga - to Tsaritsyn and Saratov. He skirted the whole Don, but found out that the situation on the Volga was even worse, famine was rampant. Yes, and red discovered, Makhno received another severe wound. They decided to take him abroad for treatment and rest. Turned west, crossed the Dnieper. Here intercepted 7-I Soviet cavalry division. 19 August Makhnovists desperate attack broke. Reds did not lag behind. 22 August Makhno was again injured - the bullet entered below the back of the head, but surface, coming out through the right cheek. 28 August dad and his escort crossed the Dniester, took refuge in Romania.
And in Ukraine there was no leader, and the rebel movement began to fade. However, the Soviet government went on reforms. Replaced the surplus with a trade tax. To lay down their arms announced amnesty. But at the same time, general searches were conducted in the villages, withdrawing weapons. They appointed "defendants" who, under the threat of death (theirs and loved ones), were obliged to warn the authorities about the actions of the rebels. The situation gradually calmed down, the power strengthened. Therefore, the old man was not destined to return home, he died in Paris in 1934 year.
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