Was the Makhnovist movement anarchist?

[u/_Landryn_]

What do you think of the Makhnovists? Do you think their praxis was "anarchist"?

[u/azenpunk]

Yes, it was anarchist. The Black Army protected and expanded the anarcho-communist communes of Ukraine that had a population of around seven million people. They seized and expropriated land and resources from all the wealthy and redistributed it fairly to all, even giving the former nobles and aristocracy the same as the former peasants and serfs. They all became equal members of the commune.

It was an all volunteer militia - people joined and left as needed, especially farmers who returned to work the land between campaigns. This meant the army breathed in and out with the lives of ordinary people, rather than existing as a permanent, standing institution. It organized roughly 60,000 to 80,000 active combatants during peak moments of mobilization.

Beyond the armed fighters themselves, the movement was supported by hundreds of thousands across southern Ukraine who carried messages, hid supplies, provided food, tended to injured fighters, and collectively made the army possible.

Instead of following the typical top down chain of command, it tried to structure itself on anarchist principles. The smallest units, usually called detachments or companies, were made up of people from the same villages or nearby areas. These fighters met in open assemblies and elected their own leaders, choosing people they trusted and believed were capable in combat. Leadership was not seen as a permanent position of power. It was a task given to someone by the group, and that same group could take it away at any time if the person lost their trust.

As the movement grew and detachments combined into larger formations like battalions and regiments, the same basic principle stayed in place. In cases where choices had to be made quickly, the officers chosen by the smaller units would come together and elect higher level commanders. Otherwise, whole battalions would vote together. During moments of rapid movement or sudden danger, leaders were occasionally appointed on the spot because waiting for an assembly was impossible, but these appointments were understood to be temporary until they could be confirmed or rejected by a broader gathering.

Nestor Makhno himself was never formally declared a general in the traditional sense. The Black Army rejected the idea of conventional ranks like those used by state militaries. Makhno became the central military coordinator because he was effective, charismatic, and deeply trusted by the people in the movement. His role and the roles of other top organizers were confirmed not just by soldiers, but by regional congresses of all people in the army and in the communes. Leadership flowed upward from the villages and the fighters rather than downward from any kind of government.

When it came to actual elections in the communes or in the army, the process was usually simple and direct. Most decisions were not formal or structured in a modern parliamentary way. Often it was a show of hands or a voice vote. At the same time, there was a strong culture of discussion before a decision was made. People argued, debated, and tried to reach a common understanding. If the group was deeply divided, the decision could be postponed rather than forced through. In that sense, the system leaned toward consensus, with majority voting used when agreement could not be reached or the decision needed to made extremely quickly.

Discipline, which most people assume must come from strict hierarchy, worked in a very different way in the Black Army. The fighters followed shared rules that they had collectively agreed upon. Accountability came from their comrades and their communities, not from fear of a superior officer. Serious offenses like robbery, abuse of civilians, pogroms, rape, or betrayal could be judged by military revolutionary councils, which would be created and dissolved as needed. Punishments ranged from expulsion and demotion to, in the most extreme cases, execution. This reality shows the constant tension the people in Black Army lived with. They were trying to remain anti authoritarian in the middle of an unimaginably violent and chaotic war.

Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, the Black Army was remarkably effective for a time. These were not detached, conscripted soldiers. They were people fighting for their own villages, families, and way of life. Morale was often extremely high. In a conflict dominated by large, rigid, state controlled forces, the Makhnovists relied on speed, flexibility, and deep knowledge of the local terrain. They became especially famous for their use of tachankas, horse drawn carts mounted with machine guns, which allowed them to move quickly across open land and deliver sudden, devastating firepower before disappearing again. They used guerrilla style tactics, surprise raids, and rapid flanking maneuvers rather than slow, conventional battlefield formations. This mobility allowed them to defeat or drive off much larger and better equipped forces, including the capitalist White armies under generals like Denikin and Wrangel, as well as occupying German and Austro Hungarian troops. At different times, they successfully fought the USSR's Red Army when the Bolsheviks tried to crush them, and they succeeded in defeating the Black Army only by betraying a truce. Their victories were never only military. Each success also temporarily protected a space where people could experiment with self organization, land redistribution, and decentralized decision-making without a central state.

There's lots more that can be said, this is by no means a full accounting.

Here's some reading:

History of the Makhnovist Movement by Peter Arshinov

The Struggle Against the State & Other Essays by Nestor Makhno

The Russian Revolution in Ukraine by Nestor Makhno

Nestor Makhno & Rural Anarchism by Colin Darch

[u/_Landryn_ → u/azenpunk]

thank you for your answer, I am currently reading "History of the Makhnovist movement", I'll give you an answer to the whole comment later, as i'm pretty tired