Nestor Makhno and the Insurrectionary Anarchist Army
Ukrainian anarchist guerrilla bands were active during the Russian Civil War. Some claimed to be loyal to the Ukrainian state, but others acknowledged no allegiance; all fought both the Red and White Armies with equal ferocity in the opening stages of the Civil War. Of all the anarchist groups, the most famous and successful was that of the peasant anarchist leader Nestor Makhno, aka Batko ("Father"), who began operations in the southeastern Ukraine against the Hetmanate regime in July 1918. In September, he formed the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, or Anarchist Black Army, with arms and equipment largely obtained from retreating Austro-Hungarian and German forces. During the Civil War, the Black Army numbered between 15,000 and 110,000 men[2] and was organized on conventional lines, with infantry, cavalry, and artillery units; artillery batteries were attached to each infantry brigade. Makhno's cavalry incorporated both regular and irregular (guerrilla) horse-mounted forces, and was considered among the best-trained and most capable of any of the cavalry units deployed by any side in the Russian Civil War.[3]
The Bolshevik government and Red Army commanders often referred to the Black Army as "Makhnovist forces", because they pointedly declined to accord the Ukrainian anarchists the status of having an army or a legitimate political movement. Volin described the Insurrectionary Black Army of the time (less its cavalry, which normally ranged far afield) as follows: The infantry, when it was not fighting, led the march of the army ... [The Black Army also used horse-drawn carts or] tachankas. Each of these vehicles, which were drawn by two horses, carried the driver on the front seat and two soldiers behind them. In some sections a machine-gun was installed on the seat between them. The artillery brought up the rear. A huge black flag floated over the first carriage. The slogans Liberty or Death and The Land to the Peasants, the Factories to the Workers were embroidered in silver on its two sides.[4]
A main obstacle to the anarchist army, and one which it never overcame throughout its existence, was a lack of access to primary industrial manufacturing resources, specifically factories capable of producing large amounts of arms and ammunition. Denied large-scale arms shipments from the Bolshevik government in Moscow, and without arsenal manufacturing centers of its own, the Black Army was forced to rely on captures of munition depots and supplies from enemy forces, and to procure food and horses from the local civilian population.
"Death to the Oppressors of Workers" - A flag used by the 2nd Consolidated Infantry Regiment of the RIAU (1920)
