The phenomenal life of Ukrainian peasant Nestor Makhno (1888-1934) provides the framework for this breakneck account of the downfall of the tsarist empire and the civil war that convulsed and bloodied Russia between 1917 and 1921. As in the days of history’s great chivalric tales, crucial 20th century clashes were fought through stunning cavalry charges and bitter hand-to-hand, saber-wielding combat. Combatants were drawn from several camps: Budyenny’s Red cavalry, the Don Cossacks and Kuban Cossacks (allied with the Whites), Ukrainian nationalists and Makhnovist partisans. Makhno, a formidable strategist characterized by exceptional daring, headed an army of anarchist insurgents — a popular peasant movement which bore his name.
Mahkno and his people were fighting for a society “without masters or slaves, with neither rich nor poor.” They acted towards that ideal by establishing “free soviets.” Unlike the soviets drained of all significance by the dictatorship of a one-party State, the “free soviets” became the grassroots organs of a direct democracy — a living embodiment of the free society — until they were betrayed, and smashed, by the Red Army.
Delving into a vast array of documentation to which few other historians have had access, this study illuminates a revolution that started out with the rosiest of prospects but ended up utterly confounded. Nestor Makhno: Anarchys Cossack brings to life this dramatic turning point in contemporary history.
More than just the incredible exploits of a guerilla revolutionary par excellence, Skirda weaves the tale of a people, and the organizations and practices of anarchism, literally fighting for their lives.
Historian and translator Alexandre Skirda (born in 1942 to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother) is a specialist in the Russian revolutionary movement. His edited collection of Nestor Makhno's writingSy The Struggle Against The State And Other Essays, and his seminal history of anarchism. Facing The Enemy: A History Of Anarchist Organization From Proudhon To May ’68, are both published by AK Press.
Paul Sharkey has, amongst a huge body of work, translated many ofSkirdds works into English.
World History
