Nestor Makhno (1888 - 1934)

Wed Nov 07, 1888

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Nestor Makhno, born on this day in 1888, was a communist revolutionary and the commander of an anarchist army in Ukraine from 1917-21. After the anarchist movement was defeated by the Bolsheviks, Makhno fled to Paris with his family.

Makhno and his supporters attempted to reorganize social and economic life along anarchist principles, including the establishment of communes on former landed estates, the requisition and egalitarian redistribution of land to the peasants, and the organization of free elections to local soviets (councils) and regional congresses.

Although Makhno considered the Bolsheviks a threat to the development of an anarchist Free Territory within Ukraine, he entered into formal military alliances twice with the Red Army to defeat the White Army. In the aftermath of the White Army’s defeat in Crimea in November 1920, the Bolsheviks initiated a military campaign against Makhno. After an extended period of open resistance against the Red Army, Makhno fled across the Romanian border in August 1921.

In exile, Makhno settled in Paris with his wife Halyna and daughter Yelena. While there, Makhno wrote numerous memoirs and articles for radical newspapers before dying there at the age of 45 from tuberculosis-related causes.

“I would still call on you, reader and brother, to take up the struggle for the ideal anarchism, for only if you fight for this ideal and uphold it will you understand it properly.”

- Nestor Makhno