Makhno then embarked upon his tour from town to town, moving in a northerly direction, for he was due to visit Moscow and Petrograd. In Rostov-on-Don he was struck by the disarray of the revolutionaries, anarchists included.
In Tsaritsyni he came upon his fellow communards from Gulyai-Polye who had had time to escape the vengeance of the estate owners. He saw again his companion, Nastia, pregnant and near to giving birth, but, with a heavy heart, he had to leave her to continue his travels.
Along the route he witnessed disturbing scenes: “revolutionary” authorities arbitrarily and systematically disarming all autonomous partisan units on threat of shooting any who refused to abide by their ukases. In particular he was an eyewitness to a confrontation between the partisan groups of Petrenko, an active but non-aligned revolutionary, and Cheka units. The latter had been routed and Petrenko could have taken control of the situation and “cleaned house,” but he magnanimously declined.2 Whereupon the authorities sued for negotiations during which they treacherously had him arrested before disarming his unit. Petrenko was shot a short time later on some trumped-up charge. At this same time the attack upon anarchist associations all over Russia was mounted in a concerted way; their premises were wrecked, their publications banned or tolerated only on specific Draconian conditions; the recusant were either jailed or shot on a variety of pretexts. The Bolsheviks and their Left SR allies rid themselves of their “troublesome” companions and indeed of all who might challenge their arrogation of power.
Everywhere, Makhno came to appreciate the revolutionary faith and commitment that motivated workers but also their lack of clear-sightedness regarding the ever increasing “prerogatives” of “revolutionary government.” He saw at work certain so-called revolutionary elements made up of artisans, shopkeepers and declasse workers, many of them Jewish, and who, for all their belonging to revolutionary groups of every hue, anarchist ones included, were wheelers and dealers in the circles of power. They were going to wind up as a breeding ground ready to tackle all manner of dirty work assigned to them: as Chekists, members of requisition detachments dispatched against the peasants, bureaucrats of every kind, etc.
These sad revelations led Makhno to wonder if the revolution is not destined to perish by the very hand of revolutionaries; in the way of its development stands an executioner sprung from the revolutionaries’ very own ranks, the government of two revolutionary parties which, for all their titanic endeavors, cannot confine the whole of the broad, deep life of the workers within the narrow compass of their teachers.”3 He saw what these “institutional” revolutionaries were made of, who placed themselves athwart the road to liberation of the masses in revolution.
Makhno continued his journey aboard an armored train, with a company of Red Guards in tow. He saved them from capture by the Don Cossacks; at a halt, the Cossacks surrounded the train and prepared to swoop gently upon the passengers. Nestor ingeniously advised the unit’s commander to fake a sudden artillery exercise so as to hold back the crowd and seize the chance to extricate the train. His ingenuity was to extricate him thus many a time from worse jams. He stopped over in Saratov in the Volga estuary for a few days before moving on to Astrakhan, albeit not without some difficulty as his only travel pass was his credentials as delegate from the Gulyai-Polye revolutionary committee. In the end, he completed the first stage of his trip by arriving in Moscow, which had been made the regime’s new capital because Lenin thought that Petrograd was too exposed.
All of the personalities of the new regime and the officially-approved revolutionary groups were there. Makhno, who strove right away to make contact with the anarchists, noted how the new regime had the libertarian movement under surveillance, and it was only with difficulty that he managed a meeting with its most active militants. Attending rallies, he listened to the Menshevik Martov, to Trotsky, the commissar for War, and to the anarchist Alexei Borovoy who fired him with enthusiasm. He met up again with his prison buddy Arshinov who, for want of something better to do, busied himself with the League for the Propagation of Libertarian Ideas, publishing the classical works of Bakunin and Kropotkin.
Moscow struck him as the heartland of a “paper revolution” that attracted all ¦— socialists or anarchists — who were enthused by one and the same thing "... Lots of talk, writing and from time to time a condescending offer of advice to the masses, but at a distance, from afar....”4
He met Kropotkin, on the eve of his moving house to Dimitrovka on the outskirts of the capital. The apostle of Anarchy made him affectionately welcome, answered his questions satisfactorily, and talked to him at length about the peasants of the Ukraine; but whenever he sought his advice about what he intended to do upon his return home, Kropotkin categorically refused to offer the slightest advice... “This matter is bound up with a very great risk to your life, comrade, and you alone can give it a proper answer.”5
At their leave-taking, the old anarchist told him that "... struggle is incompatible with sentimentality. Self-sacrifice, tough mindedness and determination triumph over all on the road to the goal that you have set yourself.”6The theoretician
Of libertarian communism had assuredly discerned Nestors strong personality and noted his tendency to get a little carried away; otherwise there is no accounting for the author of Ethics having so bizarrely vetoed sentiment from the revolutionary struggle. It was probably a recommendation that Makhno not let himself be distracted from his goals. In any event, it made its mark upon the one-time terrorist and convict who was to bear it in mind at all times thereafter. A short time later, Kropotkin sent him a message urging him to "... take good care of himself, for men like him are all too rare in Russia,” which just goes to show the regard he had inspired in his venerable elder, as well as the perspicacity of the latter.
World History
