Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 13:42:31 +1000
From: "Jeremy Dixon" <jeremydixon-AT-eudoramail.com>
Subject: Re: Ukraine Mystery...



Andrew wrote:
 
>Right story but wrong guy, Petlyura [SNIP etc]

Bugger of a thing, I got the wrong guy? Sounds like Makhno didn't though. Never was good at remembering names; once I gave two different false names to the same cop, one lives and learns.

You ask me the source for the story as I quoted it. It is from a fairly detailed scholarly biography of Makhno by a nationaist sympathiser, and though I screwed up on those funny foreign names [self-deprecating irony here] I believe I've transmitted the story accurately. Can't remember the title of the book or the author but will track them down. I read it years ago while disputing with Trots about the Makhno legacy. I believe the author named the Makhnovist captain who first pulled his gun, that inititiative is usually attributed to Makhno himself isn't it?

Another fascinating aspect of this book (I'll track it down very soon I promise) was its account of an Anarchist female commander of the Black Army, Maria Something; who although she had a smaller following than Makhno did not fight under his command; but rather was an ally. According to this author, only about half the partisans collectively referred to as the Black Army were under Makhno's ultimate command. Maria Something was believed killed in the Civil War.

We Anarchists would do well to revive the memory of such people and write children's books and the like about them. I've read that the famous "Johnson County War" in 1890s Wyoming involved literal Anarchists for example ; and the Hole in the Wall Gang of Butch Cassidy fame, far from being the drooling morons portrayed in the Redford movie were blacklisted militants from the only major cowman strike...and so it goes.

These stories may be thought excessively boysy and genrally non pc in modern Anarchist circles but they are fascinating and romantic to the last degree, and reviving them would be good for propaganda, eh what comrades.  

One interesting result of that dispute is that the then boss cocky of the local International Socialists, Mick Armstrong, did his own research on Makhno and produced an article on him for their theoretical journal. Although a Trot, Mick had the integrity to conclude that the accusations of anti-semitism against Makhno were unfounded. (The reason why I've remembered that particular anecdote is becuase of its value in making that particular point). Micks criticism of Makhno boiled down to the claim that he was a bloody peasant, reflecting the rather mechanical class analysis characteristic of the IS at the time.

What do you think of the portrait of Makhno in Moorcock's historical novel _Byzantium Endures_ ?  

>
>There are extensive notes on the Makhnovists I
>wrote at
>http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/russia/makhno_notes.html

I'll check it out.

-Jeremy 


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