The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Революційна Повстанська Армія України, РПАУ, romanized: Revoliutsiina Povstanska Armiia Ukrainy, RPAU; abbr. RIAU), also known as Makhnovtsi (Махновці), named after their founder Nestor Makhno, was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian peasants and workers during the Russian Civil War. They protected the operation of "free soviets" and libertarian communes by the Makhnovshchina, an attempt to form a stateless and anarcho-communist society from 1918 to 1921 during the Ukrainian War of Independence.
"Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine" is the common translation of the Революційна Повстанська Армія України, Revoliutsiina Povstanska Armiia Ukrainy. It is commonly contracted to "Insurgent Army", or "Revolutionary Insurgent Army". This term has less commonly been translated as "Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine" or "Revolutionary Partisan Army of Ukraine", with their own respective contractions "Insurrectionary Army" and "Partisan Army". The Russian Bolshevik politician Victor Serge himself referred to it as the "Black Army", in his later works about the conflict. Members of the army are generically referred to as "insurgents"; they have also been labelled "Makhnovists" or "Makhnovites" (from the Ukrainian: Махновці, romanized: Makhnovtsi), after their commander Nestor Makhno.
Insurrectionary anarchism first spread throughout Ukraine during the 1905 Russian Revolution, with organizations such as the Black Banner launching a terrorist campaign against the Tsarist autocracy. In the small town of Huliaipole, a young Nestor Makhno joined the Union of Poor Peasants, which carried out "expropriations" against wealthy locals, before much of the group was arrested and imprisoned for their activities. Following the February Revolution of 1917, Makhno was released and returned to his hometown, where he began to organize the local peasantry. With the outbreak of the Kornilov affair threatening the gains of the revolution, Makhno established a revolutionary defense committee that set about "disarming the entire local bourgeoisie and abolishing its rights over the people's assets", resulting in the establishment of numerous agrarian communes. On 10 September [O.S. 27 August], the Ukrainian anarchist Maria Nikiforova responded to the attempted coup by leading a 200-strong detachment from Huliaipole, armed with only 10 rifles and a few revolvers, to disarm a Russian Army regiment in Orikhiv, capturing the town and seizing the regiment's weapons.
The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution ignited a civil war, as counterrevolutionaries such as the Don Cossacks and Ukrainian nationalists rose up against the new government. Anarchists in Oleksandrivsk, led by Nikiforova, responded by establishing a revolutionary committee (revkom) to combat the counterrevolution. When the Central Council of Ukraine seized control of Oleksandrivsk from the revkom, the city's Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries appealed for support from the anarchists of Huliaipole. The town's poor peasants and anarchists resolved to intervene in the conflict, dispatching an 800-strong detachment, led by Savelii Makhno, towards Oleksandrivsk in order to join up with the Red Guards and fight against the forces of the Central Council. Meanwhile, back in Huliaipole, Nestor Makhno led the local resistance to the Don Cossacks, successfully defeating and disarming them, before sending them home. Nestor also freed the imprisoned local workers and expropriated 250,000 rubles from the bank, in order to fund the activities of the local soviet.
The Central Powers responded to the outbreak of civil war by invading Ukraine in February 1918, forcing the Bolshevik government to cede control of Ukraine in exchange for the formal recognition of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Ukrainian revolutionaries were either forcibly disarmed or evacuated to Russia, where the Red Guards also disarmed them. In an attempt to resist the invasion, Nestor Makhno formed a 1,500-strong volunteer detachment and made for Oleksandrivsk. But in their absence, Huliaipole was occupied by German troops, with the assistance of local Ukrainian nationalists. The anarchist detachment retreated to Taganrog where they held a conference, deciding that some would tour Russia to rally support, while others would remain behind to build a clandestine revolutionary organization. The conference set July 1918 as the date to regroup, upon which they would return to Huliaipole and ignite an uprising against the occupying forces.
By the time the anarchist forces returned to Ukraine, the country had been brought completely under the control of the Central Powers, which deposed the Central Council and replaced it with a new Ukrainian State, restoring the rights of the nobility and carrying out a White Terror against libertarian activists. Following Makhno's return to the region, the first Makhnovist detachment was established in Voskresenske and began to carry out raids against enemy positions. Makhno himself formed a peasant detachment in Ternivka, but before long returned to Huliaipole while disguised as a woman, in order to carry out attacks against the occupation forces.
Foundation of the Insurgent Army
On 22 September 1918, the Huliaipole anarchist group around Nestor Makhno and Semen Karetnyk began to make moves to decisively reoccupy their hometown. Disguised as a detachment of the National Guard, they were able to disarm and attack unwitting units of the Ukrainian State, a tactic which they made frequent use of. Aided by their disguises, they were able to reach Huliaipole within a few days, narrowly avoiding the local German occupation forces. They continued on to Marfopol, where they encountered forces of the Austro-Hungarian Army and led a feigned retreat into the fields, upon which they cut down the Austrian detachment with machine gun fire. Afterwards, the anarchists executed the local police chief and passed out propaganda to the conscripted troops, urging them to mutiny and launch revolutions of their own back home, before releasing them in different directions.
While the occupation forces were busy pacifying Marfopol, the anarchists finally returned to Huliaipole and scattered throughout the region, raising the local peasantry to revolt. They held an assembly with 400 participants, which discussed the ignition of an insurrection and how it would be carried out, quickly working out a program of action. Within a day, the insurgent forces had taken control of the region without any bloodshed, briefly returning local infrastructure to workers' control and re-establishing "the power of the soviets", before declaring a general insurrection throughout Ukraine to overthrow the Hetmanate and oust the occupation forces. However, on 29 September, the Central Powers launched a counterattack, forcing the anarchists to evacuate the town and retreat to Mariupol in order to avoid encirclement and subsequent reprisals. On the way to Mariupol, the insurgents were able to disarm more Hetmanate units and seize their equipment for themselves, before linking up with the 60-strong insurgent force led by the anarchist sailor Fedir Shchus, who had been waging guerrilla warfare against the occupation since the Taganrog conference. The two forces resolved to join, so that they could successfully conduct open warfare against not only the Central Powers but also against the invading White movement. This rallying cry eventually resulted in the insurgents pulling together 1,500 volunteers, although only one-quarter were armed.
The insurgents were ambushed in Dibrivka, cutting off their route of retreat, but the Makhnovists managed to maintain their access to the forest through a series of flanking maneuvers. In the face of overwhelming odds, Makhno managed to rouse the insurgents to attack the superior enemy force. Thus, on the night of 30 September, a 30-strong insurgent detachment split into two groups - one led by Shchus and armed with a Maxim gun, the other led by Makhno and armed with a Lewis gun. They faced a well-armed force led by 500-strong Austrian battalion, and supported by 100 Ukrainian soldiers and 80 National Guardsmen, in total outnumbering the insurgents by over 20 times. In a surprise attack, the two small insurgent bands positioned themselves on either side of the enemy camp and opened fire on the unarmed troops, forcing them into a panicked retreat, pursued by local peasants armed only with farming tools. After the battle was over, they had captured four machine guns and two munitions vehicles, along with 80 enemy prisoners of war. With their officers having apparently abandoned them to the insurgents, the captured Ukrainian troops were shot, while the remaining Austrian soldiers were fed and released with some provisions, stripped of their kepis (symbolically demilitarizing them). For his military prowess during the battle, Nestor Makhno reluctantly accepted the honorific title of Bat'ko ("father") from the victorious insurgents.