Anarchist General: Nestor Makhno

In September 2021 Charlie Allison (who is writing a biography of Nestor Makhno on behalf of PM Press [https://pmpress.org]) offered the KSL an English translation of ‘Anarchist General: Nestor Makhno’ by the Japanese anarchist, Osugi Sakae. Osugi had travelled to Europe aiming to meet Makhno (and other anarchists). They never met: Makhno was then imprisoned in Poland, and Osugi was deported from France after speaking at a May Day meeting in Paris. ‘Anarchist General: Nestor Makhno’ was Osugi’s last political writing. Shortly after his forced return to Japan he was murdered by the police.

Some further reading: An extract from Osugi’s account of his trip to Europe, My escapes from Japan (translated by Michael Schauerte and published Tokyo: Doyosha, 2014) is at: https://www.marxists.org/subject/japan/osugi/1923/prison-deportation.htm

Charlie Allison’s work on Makhno can be read at https://www.charlie-allison.com/tag/nestor-makhno/ He says ‘Now that Osugi Sakae’s final essay is available in English, it is my firmest hope that it provides fuel for discussion and study in the field of international anarchism in the twentieth century. I would particularly like to thank Sean Patterson for his tireless good cheer and generous expertise in all things Makhno-related, Doug Stiffler of Juniata College for making introductions in the wide world of translation and asking probing questions about Japanese anarchism over lunch, Nicholas Perilli at Temple University for providing the Japanese edition of the text on wonderfully short notice, and Jim and Judy Allison for helping with resources for the translation of Sakae’s work.’

Selected works of Osugi Sakae and Ito Noe
Volume 6
Anakisuto no mita Roshia kakumei
(The Russian Revolution as Viewed by an Anarchist)
Published by Kokushoku sensensha
Translated by the Legato Company, Limited. 

Anarchist General
Nestor Makhno

1

One of the programs I had been eager to research at first, if given a chance to be in Europe, was the one about the Makhnovshchina (Makhno Movement) of Nestor Makhno, who was ironically nicknamed the Anarchist General. Makhnovshchina was the event that I was most fascinated by among all the incidents that occurred during the Russian Revolution. I was sure that studying this movement would give us the greatest lesson which could be learned from the Revolution.

The hours of my quite short stay in France were mostly dominated by the effort of collecting materials on this issue. I managed to obtain all the input which I thought trustworthy, including several dozens of media news reports and comments on the topic released in European newspapers, magazines and books. Regarding Russia, however, information other than those on bulletins and semi-official papers of the Soviet government is yet half-known even in Europe. Particularly, concerning the detail of the grassroots movement such as Makhnovshchina – the most dangerous campaign for the Soviet government – nothing is clear. Even if I could line up all the materials at hand, the result would be unsatisfactory.

What was most regretful for me then was that, since I was not able to enter Germany, I could not meet many people who had joined the Makhno movement and defected to Berlin, especially Volin who was said to be the Chief of Makhno’s General Staff. Volin himself, and the Russian anarchists in exile in Berlin have already made many reports on Makhnovshchina. Although compiling the full features and details of the movement into a book has been mentioned, it has not been realized yet.

Therefore, I still have no solid conclusion on this matter, but there is some intimation. And the deeper I understand this issue, the stronger this feeling grows. The greatest lesson we can learn from the Russian Revolution will be found in this issue, as predicted.

It is not that a group of anarchists are trying, as the chosen people, to force their ideal new society on the public or the so-called mob. It is not that they plan and define the entire process of a social revolution to compel people to exactly do the same thing. 

It is meant to leave the whole thing up to the free creativity of the people themselves. Kropotkin explained it in detail in his famous publication, Mutual Aid.

We have just found out that this crucial fact was repeated in the peoples’ history of the Russian Revolution. In short, Makhnovshchina was the instinctive movement of the farmers in Ukraine who tried to make the Russian Revolution what we call the real social revolution. Makhnovshchina protected the Russian Revolution itself by fighting with the extreme anti-revolutionary armies and invading foreign armies, while at the same time battling with the so-called “revolutionary government” that forced revolutionary principles on the people. By doing so, Makhnovshchina attempted to protect the social revolution itself, which should always be a creative movement by the people themselves. Makhnovshchina was the peaceful organizer of the totally autonomous, self-governing, free Soviet and at the same time, the courageous partisan who stood before every kind of enemy that was hindering freedom. And the anarchist, Nestor Makhno was the most powerful representative of this Makhnovshchina.

2

The revolution enabled Russian people to escape from the tyranny of the Czar and the looting by landowners and capitalists. The release from these old masters, however, was just a mere preparation rather than the first step of a revolution.

However, by the time the old masters have fallen or were about to fall, other autonomous candidates already started to gather around. Troops of charlatans and crooks assailed the public from every quarter. Every politicomaniac of any trend and hue pursuing power tried to seize control of its own faction over the public. Using as many revolutionary words as possible, they all tried to enter the civil war between people and masters, saying their activities were for the sake of the liberty and happiness of the people. 

However, the real purpose of these charlatans was not entering into the battle between people and masters, but was a scramble for seats for new masters. In other words, they aimed to compromise the battle between people and masters into one between new masters. They only sought the autocracy of their own party; namely, monopolizing power over the public.

Thus, by getting weapons and employing every possible means, these charlatans made use of the public for their own purposes and tried to force the people to obey their own revolutionary directives. These directives differed among each party of charlatans, but were equal in that all of them contradicted peoples’ instinct and freedom. They all were the counterrevolutionary principles which were against real social revolution. All the parties tried to lock the peoples’ movements into their own parties’ narrow disciplines to strangle to death peoples’ revolutionary spirits and their direct actions.

Some parties acted in the name of democracy, some in the name of socialism, some in the name of communism, some in the name of racial self-determination principle, some in the name of the recovery of the Czar, and some under the goal to gather all cattle into the same manger. All the parties mercilessly oppressed; mobilized; plundered; attacked and shot people; and burned down villages, while publicly claiming that they intended to release plunderers. Then, the party which had the most cunning and violent criminals involved in robbery, arson and murder sat on the throne of Kremlin and tracked down and placed the once-liberated workers and farmers into even fiercer slavery again, thus completely suppressing the Russian Revolution. This was the so-called “Russian Revolution”, that is, the Bolshevik Revolution.

But, were the Russian people willing to be just made use of and accept it while the robbers, arsonists and murderers were committing atrocious crimes against each other and to the people?

Definitely not. In various places in Russia, civil movements to protect themselves from these criminals were organized; especially in central Russia, Siberia, and Ukraine, these civil self-defense movements turned to be revolutionary riots. Among them, the most powerful movement was Makhnovshchina.

People of Ukraine who had originally been said to love freedom the most in Russia stood up to rebel against all the nationalistic power that reattempted to put people in chains they once had broken. They sought freedom. They ran into this anti-dictatorial and anarchistic battle driven by an instinct of self-preservation; a desire to maintain all the gains from the revolution; and hate and contempt for any power.

Furthermore, the revolutionary movement of Ukrainian people, which were later labeled with the name of the anarchist, Nestor Makhno, had, in fact, already attempted armed resistance in many places against the counterrevolutionary armies of Skoropadskyi and Petliura even before Makhno himself first attacked German and Austrian invading troops with several of his comrades. These movements took place, by chance, almost simultaneously in various places in Ukraine. 

It is not that the anarchist Makhno first created Makhnovshchina, but the revolutionary riots based on the instinctive self-defense of Ukrainian people brought Makhno forward as a hero. And his revolutionary characteristics and his anarchist ideology exactly matched the nature of these movements, making him the most prominent person in the movement.

However, in accordance with the practice of literally written history, I have no other materials that enable me to depict Makhnovshchina centered on a person named Makhno.

3

Makhno: a mere youth of 33 years of age.

He was born in a house of a dirt-poor farmer at Huliaipole, Yekaterinoslav Governorate in Ukraine. From the age of seven, he worked as a keeper of sheep and cattle of the village farmers and after that, worked as a tenant farmer in lands of a variety of landowners and German colonial villages. He had only received a basic education, learning at an elementary school in the village only for one year. 

In 1906, at the age of seventeen, he joined an anarchism movement and in the following year, he assassinated one military policeman and several policemen in Huliaipole, was arrested and sentenced to death. However, since he was below adult age, the sentence of death was commuted to imprisonment for life. Since then, until March 1, 1917, the day when the Russian Revolution released all political criminals, he was in prison. During his imprisonment, by himself, he earnestly learned history, natural science, politics, and literature.

As soon as he was released, he returned to his hometown, organized the local Soviet and the labor unions, and worked for farmers and workers in the village. In that summer, he was at the center of the farmers’ revolutionary movement to take the lands from the landowners.

In the spring of 1918, when German and Austrian armies occupied Ukraine, Makhno took up arms against them together with six of his comrades around the fields of Taganrog, Rostov and Tsaritsyn.

In June of the same year, he sneaked into Huliaipole to organize a partisan force and disturbed the counterrevolutionary troops in Skoropadskyi and Austrian armies. These foreign troops had established a military administration in Ukraine under a treaty with the Bolshevik government in Brest-Litovsk.

Thus, this partisan force fought bravely against counterrevolutionary and foreign troops while having fierce battles against landowners. Makhno’s force instantaneously attacked hundreds of houses of landowners and defeated thousands of hostiles. His courageous and elusive actions and his strategic talent raised extreme fear and hatred against him in his enemies, but offered great pleasure and strength to Ukrainian people.

Makhno’s forces’ activities and success caused small partisan armies to grow one after another in each region: a small force with a mere seven fighters became a large troop of four-to-five thousand soldiers by the end of the year. Gaining people’s respect as a marshal in the army, he enlisted rebellious farmers in the southern Ukraine together into his army.

German and Austrian invading armies were defeated while the counterrevolutionary force of Skoropadskyi fell, and Peliura’s counterrevolutionary army that took the place of Skoropadskyi was also suppressed at once. Then, Makhno had to fight with the counterrevolutionary army of a prime enemy, Denikin.

In this battle with Denikin, there were front lines more than a hundred verst long spread. Makhno took every chance in the entire front lines to advocate local autonomy by the farmers and workers. He recommended that each free Soviet would become independent and organize, by itself, its economic and social life.

Makhno’s propaganda was employed at every front line of his army and has grown into a great public movement by Ukrainian peasant workers. Makhno was called Bat’ko Makhno (Father Makhno) by these workers and he, himself, often used this name. Thus, this public movement started to become popular by the name of Makhnovshchina even outside of Ukraine. 

Wherever Makhnovshchina was adopted, first, a Soviet was freely elected and organized in each village. It made decisions on all the lives in the village. Lands were expropriated from landowners and distributed to the farmers. The farmers cultivated these lands independently or cooperatively. 

Whenever the Cossack soldiers around the Don River increased their forces and seemed to threaten the farmers’ lives, villages of Makhnovshchina held a general meeting and mobilized several numbers of partisans from each village. The mobilized farmers gathered under the Makhno force, but when it became free from danger, they returned to their villages to work peacefully again.  

Thus, most of the Makhno force was organized by the farmers and their food was supplied from the farming villages.

The Bolshevik government was not pleased with the existence of Makhnovshchina from the start. Makhno, also, while battling against the counterrevolutionary and foreign troops, did not initially cooperate with the Bolshevik government that was also fighting the same enemies. 

However, in February 1919 when the Denikin force strengthened its threat, Makhno aligned for the first time with the Red Army of Bolshevik that had entered Ukraine. To fight with the Denikin force, the common enemy, Makhno took charge of the south battle line of which he had already been in charge. However, the Moscow government, while begging him for cooperation, always supplied very strictly limited military goods which was the condition for his cooperation with the government.

When Grigoriev rebelled against the Bolshevik government, Moscow’s concern about Makhno intensified. Grigoriev, who had once been one of commanders-in-chief of Petliura, joined the Bolshevik army with his soldiers and weapons when the Petliura force was destroyed. He then was ordered by the Moscow government to be on the Romania battle line, but he refused and put up the counterrevolutionary flag. Moscow feared that the forces of Makhno and Grigoriev would become closer. The attitude of Makhno toward Grigoriev will be referred to later.

But this was not all. Makhno, while following the joint front with Moscow, never changed his ideology on the social revolution at all. 

The rural Makhnovshchina continued on the path it pioneered. The people stood on the principle of social independence of the class of workers and farmers and never respected at all the authority of representatives dispatched by the Moscow government. They did not have any responsibility for anything but the organizations they had created by themselves. They had their own local Soviet, revolutionary committees of all regions across a few prefectures, and the general meetings of the Union of Soviet. In fact, after they began the independence campaign, general meetings were held thrice: in January, February, and April 1919. 

The Moscow government could never approve this self-government or autonomy by the people. The statement by Marx “the emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the working class themselves,”[1] and the statement by Lenin “All Power to the Soviets”[2] were downright lies of Marxism which was originally nationalism. Marxism never permitted people to create their own destiny by themselves.

4

On May 5, 1919, the special envoy of the republic national defense committee,[3] Kamenev, arrived at Huliaipole village, the center of Makhnovshchina, accompanied by several governmental representatives from Kharkov Oblast. He immediately required the dissolution of the Union of Soviet. Makhno, committee members of Soviet, and the representatives of the rural community rejected to even discuss the requirement with Kamenev and others, claiming that such a requirement would violate the rights of revolutionary workers. 

The steering committee of the Union of Soviet decided to hold a special meeting for all the workers and farmers on June 15 in order to discuss this grave issue and in particular, to prepare for the all-out attacks of the Denikin force which were about to take place.

The Denikin force had been supplied with a large number of weapons, ammunition and tanks by the allied troops of England and France, and launched another major offensive. The Makhno force was short of ammunition: Makhno had been demanding the Moscow government to supply them with ammunition, but there was no reply from Moscow. The Red Army did nothing but watch Ukraine being overrun by the White Army.

The Makhno force was almost in a great danger. Taking advantage of it, the Moscow government offered a battle against Makhno and the entire Makhnovshchina in the name of Trotsky.

The Makhno army faced attacks from both White Army and Red Army and retreated as far as Galicia while fighting with the forces in the West. Thousands of peasant families followed the Makhno army with their assets and cattle. This mass immigration group wandered around for about four months having mostly desperate and endless battles along a front line over 900 verst long.

Meanwhile, the Denikin army proceeded to Orel trying to threaten even Moscow.

On September 26, the Makhno army waged a decisive battle in Peregonovka village against the Denikin force that had chased him, defeated the artillery main force, killed out the vanguard, and finally contained the main troop completely.

Makhno also killed the above-mentioned General Grigoriev who was a traitor to the Bolshevik force. 

At that time, Grigoriev who was leading a troop of about ten thousand soldiers, occupied cities of Ukraine, including Alexandrovsk, Znamenka and Elizavetgrad, and was further threatening Yekaterinoslav. With this momentum, he tried to ally with Makhno. 

In July 1919, a general conference of the revolutionary partisans was held in Sentovo village near Alexandrovsk and Makhno invited Grigoriev there. At the meeting, Makhno revealed Grigoriev’s counterrevolutionary crime and shot him dead with a pistol.

Thus, during the time between June 1919 and January 1920, Makhno’s army defeated the Denikin force totally alone. 

Then, the Bolshevik army entered Ukraine again audaciously and challenged a battle against Makhno and his army. In the meantime, however, the counterrevolutionary Poland and Wrangel troops both stood up. The Makhno force, being caught between the White Army and the Red Army again, was obliged to conclude an agreement with the Red Army in September 1920.

The Bolshevik army was beaten everywhere by the Wrangel army. Cities such as Melitopol, Alexandrovsk, Berdyansk and Synelnykove were occupied and finally all the coal mining areas by the Donets River were threatened. The army resultantly made a proposal for peace to Makhno’s Black Army. 

Meanwhile, when Makhno’s army made all-out effort to fight numerous battles deep in Crimea and completely defeated the Wrangel army, the Moscow government sent a large troop of the Red Army to Makhno for the third time.

In the summer of 1921, Makhno was surrounded by several divisions of Red Army cavalry and driven into the border of Romania. He was disarmed and jailed by the Romanian government and was nearly extradited to Moscow. However, in the spring of 1922, he escaped Romania, but was then captured by the Polish police.
Makhno is still in the jail in Poland. The Soviet government demanded that Poland extradite him several times as a criminal for robbery and murder, but it was in vain. Then seeking another means, Soviet sent a spy who said he was Makhno’s comrade and let him disperse false information; namely, that Makhno had been plotting to carry out a revolution in Poland. Makhno is soon to be judged at court as a defendant of the so-called “conspiracy”.

5

The achievement of Makhno and Makhnovshchina at the Russian Revolution was truly great. Almost all the counterrevolutionary armies in Europe and Russia as well as foreign invading troops were wiped out by Makhno’s group. Without them, the establishment of the Bolshevik government would not have been realized.

It was not only them, but many anarchists in Russia worked for the success of the revolution, some by allying with Bolshevik and some independently. They fought most eagerly and courageously. 

And while other various revolutionary parties were intent on establishing new authorities, only independent anarchists, mostly alone, attended these grass-root movements. They took away lands from landowners and factories from capitalists, and joined a movement to organize production based on workers’ autonomy.

The anarchists also took the lead in the riot by workers and sailors in Kronstadt and Petrograd from July 3 to 5, 1917. They created a precedence of publishing workers revolutionary newspapers at capitalists’ printing offices that they attacked in Petrograd and other cities. In the summer of the same year, when the attitude of Bolshevik toward the bourgeoisie became the most revolutionary of all the miscellaneous political parties, the anarchists took their side. They committed their revolutionary duty by exposing the false propaganda of various bourgeois governments and various socialist parties that had slandered Lenin and other Bolshevik bosses saying they were Germany’s minions.

In October of the same year, the anarchists always took a lead in fighting battles in Petrograd, Moscow and other cities to beat the coalition government. In Petrograd, sailors of Kronstadt played the most crucial role. The members contained many anarchists who were acting as the most active elements. Meanwhile in Moscow, those who played the most critical and most dangerous roles were the famous Dvinsk regiment that had refused to be in the battle lines of Germany and Austria during the age of Kerensky, and all of them were put in jail. This regiment fought everywhere that was dangerous and wiped out the Kadets from Kremlin, Metropole and other major regions. All of these soldiers named themselves anarchists and marched under the command of the old anarchist revolutionists, Grachev and Fedotov. Moscow’s anarchist alliance joined this Dvinsk regiment and led the attacks against the coalition government. These attacks were attended by the workers of Moscow’s various districts such as Presnia, Sokolniki and Zamoskvorechye, and were led by the group of anarchists. In these numerous battles, the anarchists lost hundreds of supreme fighters.

It did not mean that the anarchists took part in these battles under any new powers. It meant that the workers themselves acted under the name of the rights to create their economic and social new lives. Then, after the October Revolution, even when the so-called communist new authority was established, they continued working for the Russian Revolution with the same eagerness and endurance although the ideology and methodology were completely contradictory. 

The anarchists, as with Makhno, fought against the counterrevolutionary attacks at every battle front. 

In August 1917 when General Kornilov attacked Petrograd and also in the next year when General Kaledin raised his army in southern Russia, the anarchists fought against them as hard as they could.

Various partisans, large and small, organized by the anarchists disturbed the counterrevolutionary armies everywhere. As stated before, Denikin and Wrangel were not defeated by the northern Red Army, but were beaten by the southern partisan, Makhnovshchina. The anarchists also fought similar battles against the counterrevolutionary armies of Kolchak in Ural, Siberia and other regions. In fact, against these counterrevolutionary armies, the partisan forces were much stronger than the Red Army, which originally was the regular army, and thousands of anarchists lost their lives to protect the revolution.

6

However, what did the Russian anarchists obtain as a reward for their great effort toward revolution? 

Most of their fates are the same as Makhno’s. They just turned to be the most useful tool for establishing the Bolshevik government. After finishing their respective missions, they were jailed, banished or killed through the nastiest and most murderous means of the Bolshevik government – just like a dog hunt.

When Bolshevik’s so-called revolutionary committee was established in Moscow, the biggest obstacle for the committee was the Dvinsk regiment which was under the jurisdiction of Moscow/Soviet. Main leaders of the regiment were surrounded by numerous spies and all of their movements were hindered by multiple barriers. Grachev distributed each factory three or four of machine guns, some rifles and ammunition to arm the people in order to prevent them from evil attacks by the new power that intended to kill the Russian Revolution. Meanwhile, Grachev was summoned by Nizhny Novgorod under the pretext of a crucial military mission, after which he was abruptly shot to death by one of Bolshevik’s spies. Subsequently, the Dvinsk regiment as well as revolutionary troops of Petrograd and Moscow were all disarmed.

There might be too many other powerful leaders of anarchists to count who, like Grachev, were summoned to the Bolshevik government under the name of a military mission, and lost on the way, or captured or killed at their destination.

In spring 1918, when the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed and the foundation of the new government was established, Bolshevik started so-called anarchist hunting openly. Then, when the new government’s tyranny faced complaints and resistance by the farmers and workers, the government made every effort to organize a nationwide anarchist hunt.

Anytime and anywhere, the anarchists stood by the people who were being deceived and oppressed by power. Together with the workers, they asserted the right of workers to manage their own production. Together with the farmers, they claimed the right of nature and the right of the farmers to freely and directly negotiate with urban workers. And together with the workers and farmers, they demanded the government return to the proletariat all the things that had been obtained by the proletariat through the revolution but had been cheated out of by the new communist power. They demanded a return to free Soviet and a return of freedom for the sake of various revolutionary ideologies. They demanded the government to return what the people gained by themselves from the October Revolution back to the people, back to the hands of workers and farmers. And that was the only crime committed by the anarchists against the Bolshevik government.

In addition, this so-called “crime” was inflicted not only on the anarchists who adhered to their ideologies quite faithfully, but also even on the anarchist who dared to make a sort of compromise. (Refer to Museifushugisha no mita Roshiya kakumei “The Russian Revolution as Viewed by an Anarchist”.)

My goal, however, is neither to list the achievements of the anarchists at the Russian Revolution, nor complain about the foulness and tyranny of the Bolshevik government toward these anarchists. I only want to see among the facts how bolshevism and anarchism differ from each other in their essence. Then, on top of that…

7

In fact, Bolshevik had a keen insight into the future. From the first stage, they knew that bolshevism and anarchism were contradictory in essence. They were aware that the socialistic power and the people’s revolution neither match nor harmonize with each other at all. Then, keeping this in mind, they attempted to use their enemy, that is, the anarchists and the people, to destroy the old power at the initial stage of the revolution, as a most powerful force.

Of course, the anarchists knew that well. They also anticipated it: Anticipating that was the essence of anarchism itself. However, they were too eager for the revolution and thus, were content with being used. The word content suggests that they seemed to be more or less dazzled by Bolshevik’s totally popular revolutionary war cry at the time of the October Revolution.

This dazzling first misled the anarchists. That was why the anarchist worker troops which were the most powerful armed forces at the start of revolution not only avoided to lay a finger on the communist new powers, but also were ashamedly subjected to dissolution. In the meantime, the anarchists lost opportunities to well organize and concentrate their power on the efforts to sufficiently develop a totally anti-authority and free party in the public of workers and farmers. They lagged behind.

And many anarchists, when they woke up from the dazzling, ran to their fantasy and abstract theories, which had been their bad habit.

When I first obtained news on Makhnovshchina that I thought reliable, I was surprised that almost all the anarchist groups in Russia were opposed to it. 

Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists does not acknowledge Makhnovshchina as an anarchism movement. Therefore, they neither helped the movement nor had any relationship with it. The confederation will keep opposing the armed riot against the Bolshevik government until the Russian people become prepared for the revolution.”

Golos Truda (The Voice of Labour) group,[4] too, is always against the Makhno movement, fiercely criticizing it and protesting against an armed riot.”

Even Nabat in Ukraine, which had been the most revolutionary, as with the above two groups and had close relations with Makhnovshchina, states “Makhnovshchina is not an anarchism movement and an anarchism movement is not equal to Makhnovshchina.” (Refer to Museifushugisha no mita Roshiya kakumei “The Russian Revolution as Viewed by an Anarchist”)

I wanted to give the highest respect to the idea of Nabat in which many groups worked actively in the educational and advertising sections of Makhnovshchina. However, even concerning this, I was able to obtain in France only an outline of the discussion on the general conference in September 1920.

The discussion on Makhnovshchina held in the general conference seemed to be divided into various arguments some of which were quite intense. Some comrades asserted that Makhnovshchina would bring a dawn of the third revolution to the Russian farmers’ movement and required that the said resolution be passed; the meeting proceeded with the speed such that finally it was almost torn apart. In short, it seems that they reached conclusions that Makhno’s personality had something such that no one could completely be sympathetic for him and that Makhnovshchina, too, had numerous defects.

However, if that was all, I had also expected such conclusions from the beginning: The result seemed obvious.

The Nabat general conference affirmed that it would take some period of time for a revolution that has an anarchism tendency to reach an anarchism society. And the meeting resolved that this age of mistake and fallacy and of sustained accomplishment should be called “the age of accumulated non-authoritarian experiences or the age to deepen the social revolution”, avoiding the use of the term, “transient age” which means authoritarian. 

To help the people’s sustained accomplishment is the mission of anarchists. Numerous comrades of Nabat took it as their actual mission. And out of the anarchism parties all over Russia, a number of comrades expelled by the government persecutions found their real missions there. And Makhno himself invited these comrades saying, “Come into us. To propagate your ideologies and to apply your theories, come to us”.

August 10, 1923, Tokyo

Notes

1, http://www.unm.edu/~soc101/quotemarx.htm
2, Lenin’s article with this title was first published in Pravda No. 99, July 18, 1917. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jul/18.htm
3, Kamenev was chairman of the Bolshevik Defense soviet in Kharkov
4, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golos_Truda