The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays
Buy on Amazon — The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays
Detailed overview
This AK Press collection, edited by Alexandre Skirda and translated by Paul Sharkey, gathers Nestor Makhno's exile-period essays from Dyelo Truda, Probuzdeniye, Bor'ba, and related anarchist outlets. The book is not a retrospective memoir in the ordinary sense. It is Makhno using the memory of Gulyai-Polye, the Ukrainian peasant insurgency, Kronstadt, and Bolshevik repression to make a practical case for anarchist organization, armed defense, and anti-state construction after 1917.
The opening essays relocate "Great October" away from Petrograd alone and back into Ukrainian villages where peasants had already seized estates, refused payments to pomeshchiks and kulaks, disarmed gendarmes, judged disputes in village assemblies, and treated local soviets as organs of self-direction rather than state command. Makhno's purpose is to deny the Bolshevik monopoly over revolutionary chronology. For him, the decisive acts in Ekaterinoslav, Kherson, Poltava, Kharkov, Tavripol, and Zaporozhe began before Bolshevik decrees arrived from the Soviet of People's Commissars.
The collection repeatedly returns to the Makhnovist movement as a test of anarchist practice under military pressure. Makhno narrates the Taganrog conference, the return to Gulyai-Polye, the fight against Hetman Skoropadsky and Austro-German troops, the later fronts against Denikin, Petliura, Wrangel, and the Entente, and the failed alliance with Bolshevism. He treats these episodes as evidence that libertarian communists cannot rely on loose affinity alone when counter-revolutionary armies, party states, and opportunist allies are already organized.
Several essays are polemical defenses against accusations and falsifications. Makhno answers Jewish associations, Joseph Kessel, Colonel Gerassimenko, Arbatov, Yanovsky, the Faubourg Club, and hostile claims about pogroms by naming Jewish units in the Insurgent Army, the Novo-Uspenovka executions, Grigoriev's killing at Sentovo, and the punishment of looters at Dobrovelitchka. The anti-Semitism essays are therefore not generic pleas for tolerance; they are Makhno's attempt at historical preservation, defending the record of a multiethnic insurgent army against Bolshevik, nationalist, and literary slanders.
The central political target is state power under socialist names. Makhno attacks "proletarian" power, "soviet" power, Bolshevik equality, the Russian Communist Party's assault on Kronstadt, and the idea that a party dictatorship can carry working people to emancipation. His recurring mechanism is concrete: the party captures soviets, monopolizes arms, manufactures political consciousness, uses Cheka and Red Army force, creates wage and status hierarchies for communists, and then renames coercive execution as defense of the revolution.
The later essays turn from Russian and Ukrainian experience toward organizational prescription. Makhno argues for a Union of anarchists, fraternal discipline, free soviets, commune-unions, production and consumer cooperatives, revolutionary Staffs, armed detachments, and a peasant union federated with the CNT in Spain. Skirda's bibliographical afterword then extends the book's documentary quarrels into later historiography: Litvinov on the Jewish question, Gridin on Leon Zadov-Zinkovsky, Ida Mett, Voline's unpublished manuscripts, Arshinov's History, Galina Kuzmenko, and the personal-political fracture between Makhno and Voline.
Source links
Chapter-by-chapter notes
Chapter 1. Great October in the Ukraine
Summary: Makhno redefines October 1917 through Ukrainian peasant action rather than Bolshevik seizure alone, naming Zaporozhe, Ekaterinoslav, Kherson, Poltava, Kharkov, Tavripol, Petrograd, Moscow, the Ukrainian Central Rada, General Kornilov, pomeshchiks, kulaks, monasteries, gendarmerie, magistrates, village assemblies, and the slogan "All power to the soviets." He says peasants had already refused land levies, seized estates and livestock, armed themselves during Kornilov's march, limited gendarmes to carrying out village decisions, and understood soviets as autonomous bodies for socio-economic self-direction before Bolshevik decrees reached Ukraine. Source anchors: Zaporozhe, Kornilov, pomeshchiks, village assemblies, Central Rada, Soviet of People's Commissars.
Analysis: Zaporozhe and the named Ukrainian provinces let Makhno move revolutionary initiative from Petrograd and Moscow into the countryside, while Kornilov, pomeshchiks, and village assemblies show why peasants trusted direct seizure more than central decrees. The Central Rada and Soviet of People's Commissars mark two rival state claims that arrive after the local anti-landlord acts, so the essay makes Ukrainian peasant self-direction the standard against which Bolshevik October is judged.
Chapter 2. On the 10th Anniversary of the Makhnovist Insurgent Movement in the Ukraine
Summary: Makhno recounts the formation of the Makhnovist insurgency after Brest-Litovsk by moving through Lenin, Sverdlov, the Kremlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Emperor Karl, Taganrog, Veretelnikov, Gulyai-Polye, Hetman Skoropadsky, Austro-German troops, Denikin, Petliurovshchina, Wrangel, the Entente, and comrades such as the Karetnik brothers, Alexis Marchenko, the Semenyuta brothers, Lyuty, A. Chubenko, Makeyev, and A. Chernyakov. He describes Bolshevik ambushes near Taganrog, clandestine peasant organizing around Gulyai-Polye, the creation of "Batko Makhno revolutionary units," and the later error of joining Bolsheviks against Wrangel. Source anchors: Lenin, Taganrog, Gulyai-Polye, Skoropadsky, Denikin, Wrangel, Karetnik brothers.
Analysis: Lenin's Kremlin assurances become evidence of Bolshevik duplicity once Taganrog ambushes and Gulyai-Polye organizing are placed beside them. Skoropadsky, Denikin, Wrangel, and the Karetnik brothers allow Makhno to present the insurgency as both military and doctrinally anarchist, while the Wrangel alliance identifies the one tactical compromise he believes exposed the movement to Bolshevik betrayal.
Chapter 3. On Defense of the Revolution
Summary: Makhno answers debates around the Draft Platform of the General Union of Anarchists by grounding revolutionary defense in Ukrainian civil-war practice against German, Austrian, Hungarian, Hetman, and Denikinist forces. He contrasts early Red Guard detachments, Bolshevik Red Army organization, Ukrainian "free battalions," partisan infantry-cavalry detachments, regiments, brigades, divisions, an operational Staff, and a single regional command built without abolishing the autonomy of fighting units. Source anchors: Draft Platform, Red Guards, free battalions, Hetman Skoropadsky, Denikin front, operational Staff, regional command.
Analysis: The Draft Platform gives the essay its organizational dispute, but Red Guards, free battalions, and the Denikin front supply the practical proof for Makhno's answer. The operational Staff and regional command matter because he is refusing the idea that anarchists must choose between disorganization and state militarism; he wants coordinated armed defense tied to the toilers' own revolutionary institutions.
Chapter 4. A Few Words on the National Question in the Ukraine
Summary: Makhno treats Ukrainian self-determination after the fall of tsarist despotism by distinguishing language, culture, customs, and local life from the program of an independent Ukrainian State. He names the Bolshevik yoke, Denikin, Petliura, Wrangel, Moscow rule, 1923 tactical adjustments, the Constitution of the USSR, the right of secession, "blow-ins," Ukrainian cat's paws, chauvinist backlash, and the need for a powerful Ukrainian anarchist organization using the Ukrainian countryside's own tongue. Source anchors: self-determination, Ukrainian language, Denikin, Petliura, Wrangel, Constitution of the USSR, blow-ins.
Analysis: Ukrainian language and self-determination are legitimate for Makhno because they arise from toilers' daily life, while Denikin, Petliura, Wrangel, and the "blow-ins" show how state projects exploit those same national feelings. The Constitution of the USSR appears as legal theater, and the call for Ukrainian anarchists using the local tongue treats national identity as a practical organizing requirement rather than a state-building slogan.
Chapter 5. To the Jews of All Countries
Summary: Makhno directly appeals to Jewish readers to demand specific evidence from those calling him and the Makhnovist movement pogromist, naming Le Libertaire, Yanovsky, Joseph Kessel's Makhno and his Jewess, Colonel Gerassimenko, Arbatov, Ostrovsky, Bolshevik-sponsored photographic books, the First Red Army Cavalry, Alexandrovsk, Denikinist control, and false photographs of supposed Makhnovists under a death's-head black flag. He argues that allegations resting on novels, journalism, and miscaptioned images falsify both his movement and the suffering of Ukrainian Jews. Source anchors: Le Libertaire, Yanovsky, Kessel, Gerassimenko, Ostrovsky, Alexandrovsk, First Red Army Cavalry.
Analysis: Le Libertaire and Yanovsky place the quarrel inside anarchist and Jewish public opinion, while Kessel, Gerassimenko, and Arbatov show how literary and political sources turn rumor into reputation. Alexandrovsk, Ostrovsky, and the First Red Army Cavalry let Makhno contest the evidentiary record: he is not only denying guilt but accusing Bolshevik-aligned documentation of hiding Red Army pogroms and attaching Makhnovist labels to unrelated images.
Chapter 6. The Makhovshchina and Anti-Semitism
Summary: Makhno expands the anti-Semitism rebuttal with named incidents and punishments: the Faubourg Club debate of 23 June 1927, Poldes, Lecoin, French police restrictions, the Gulyai-Polye infantry regiment's two hundred Jewish toilers, a Jewish artillery battery, Jewish colonies, Novo-Uspenovka, the executions of 13 May 1919, Grigoriev, Elizavetgrad, Sentovo on 27 July 1919, Semyon Karetnik, Alexis Chubenko, Levchenko, Matyansha, Avereski, Zinkov, Budyenny's cavalry, Petrovo, Dobrovelitchka, and the XIVth Division. He insists that pogromists and looters inside or near the Insurgent Army were shot, including Grigoriev after evidence of massacres at Elizavetgrad. Source anchors: Faubourg Club, Jewish artillery battery, Novo-Uspenovka, Grigoriev, Sentovo, Dobrovelitchka, Budyenny.
Analysis: The Faubourg Club episode shows Makhno fighting reputation under exile constraints, while the Jewish artillery battery and Gulyai-Polye regiment give him positive evidence of Jewish participation. Novo-Uspenovka, Grigoriev at Sentovo, Dobrovelitchka, and Budyenny's former cavalrymen make the anti-pogrom claim operational: the movement's answer to anti-Semitism is presented as investigation, arrest, and execution rather than declarative innocence.
Chapter 7. In Memory of the Kronstadt Revolt
Summary: Makhno commemorates March 7, 1921, as the date when Kronstadt sailors and workers were fired on by the Russian Communist Party and the Soviet government. He names freely elected soviets, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, workers, peasants, anarchists, Left Socialist Revolutionaries, Chekists, Kursanty, Red Army detachments, 6:45 p.m. artillery fire, more than ten thousand dead, blockhouses, Bolshevik prisons, and concentration camps in Finland. Source anchors: March 7, Kronstadt, freely elected soviets, Chekists, Kursanty, ten thousand dead, Finland camps.
Analysis: Kronstadt gives Makhno a non-Ukrainian proof of the same Bolshevik mechanism he sees in Ukraine: free soviets and press freedoms are answered by Chekists, Kursanty, and artillery. The estimate of ten thousand dead and the Finland camps make the commemoration a demand for surviving prisoners as well as a verdict on party capacity turned against the workers and sailors it claims to defend.
Chapter 8. The Idea of Equality and the Bolsheviks
Summary: Makhno uses the 14th Congress of the Russian Communist Party to show Bolshevik abandonment of equality, naming Zinoviev, Ustrialov, Bukharin, Kalinin, peasants, workers, non-party members, communists paid twice the wage, dictatorship of the proletariat, eight years of anarchist blood, prisons, deportations, murdered political enemies, "bandits," "counter-revolutionaries," and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Kalinin's reasoning rejects equality for peasants, workers, and even communists because hierarchy is built into the party state. Source anchors: 14th Congress, Zinoviev, Kalinin, twice the wage, non-party members, eight years, bandits.
Analysis: Zinoviev and Kalinin let Makhno quote Bolshevism against itself: the revolutionary language of equality becomes an internal danger once non-party members and peasants might claim actual rights. The twice-the-wage example, the eight years of repression, and the labeling of anarchists as "bandits" show equality being replaced by party privilege, material hierarchy, and prison violence.
Chapter 9. The Paths of "Proletarian" Power
Summary: Makhno traces "proletarian" power from socialist intelligentsia theory into Russian revolutionary practice, naming the proletariat, bourgeoisie, Marx, Lenin, February 1917, October 1917, the Bolshevik social democratic party, the Bolshevik Communist party, class privileges, the "proletarian class State," freedom of speech, revolutionary organizations, and the defense of the revolution slogan. He argues that one fraction of the urban proletariat helped the party occupy the positions of the overthrown bourgeoisie and then used violence against independent workers and revolutionaries. Source anchors: socialist intelligentsia, Marx, Lenin, February 1917, October 1917, class privileges, proletarian State.
Analysis: Marx and Lenin name the doctrine Makhno is rejecting, while February 1917 and October 1917 supply the revolutionary sequence in which that doctrine became power. The socialist intelligentsia, class privileges, and the proletarian State explain how a party can recruit part of the proletariat into a new ruling layer rather than dissolving rule over workers.
Chapter 10."Soviet" Power -- Its Present and Its Future
Summary: Makhno attacks sympathetic left-wing portrayals of "soviet" power by naming the Bolshevik-Communist party, economic resources, spiritual "perfection," party privileges, proletarian minority, political consciousness, workers of the USSR, Gregory Bessedovsky, Bor'ba, Oui, J'accuse!, anti-Stalinist and anti-Trotskyist defectors, free soviets of 1917, and Kronstadt rebels of 1921. He says Bolshevik power seeks not only economic and political command but also a manufactured consciousness to replace workers' revolutionary consciousness. Source anchors: soviet power, Bolshevik-Communist party, party privileges, political consciousness, Gregory Bessedovsky, free soviets, Kronstadt rebels.
Analysis: The Bolshevik-Communist party and party privileges show why Makhno refuses to treat "soviet power" as worker rule. Political consciousness is the key mechanism in this essay: the regime uses ideological language to control how workers understand their own exploitation, while Bor'ba, Gregory Bessedovsky, free soviets, and Kronstadt rebels locate Makhno among anti-Stalinist currents still measuring the USSR against 1917 and 1921.
Chapter 11. The Struggle Against the State
Summary: Makhno defines the modern State as centralized minority violence whether called bourgeois or proletarian, naming oppressive centralism, gun, money, psychological pressure, private capital, State capitalism, Russian revolution, libertarian communists, anarcho-syndicalists, free soviets, armed revolutionary force, local and territorial units, social and economic self-direction, local enclaves, and anti-authoritarian soviets. He says anarchists succeeded at destroying state forms in Russia but failed to design constructive organs fast enough to keep victory from passing into state capitalism. Source anchors: oppressive centralism, gun and money, State capitalism, free soviets, armed force, anti-authoritarian soviets.
Analysis: Oppressive centralism, gun and money, and psychological pressure specify the instruments Makhno wants anarchists to defeat, while State capitalism explains why victory over private capital can still become defeat for toilers. Free soviets, armed force, and anti-authoritarian soviets are his constructive answer: military struggle must be linked from the first days to economic self-direction.
Chapter 12. The First of May: Symbol of a New Era in the Life and Struggle of the Toilers
Summary: Makhno rejects May Day as a passive labor holiday and returns it to Chicago workers, anarchist orators, Spies, Parsons, provocations by Capital's hirelings, the massacre of unarmed workers, socialist professionals, Menshevik and Bolshevik social democracy, villages, towns, mass rallies, direct armed struggle, and the memory of the Chicago martyrs. He wants May 1 used for measuring collective strength and discussing present and future emancipation rather than for official celebration. Source anchors: May Day, Chicago workers, Spies, Parsons, mass rallies, armed struggle, Chicago martyrs.
Analysis: Chicago workers, Spies, and Parsons give May Day a specific anarchist genealogy rather than a state-approved festival. Mass rallies and armed struggle show Makhno converting commemoration into preparation, while the Chicago martyrs expose the distance between workers' original protest and the "Feast of Labor" language of socialist professionals.
Chapter 13. Anarchism and Our Times
Summary: Makhno describes anarchism as a teaching about the whole human individual and then moves to the need for a Union of anarchists based on collective discipline and concerted direction. He names bourgeois capitalist science and technology, the will of the individual, the spirit of submission, local organizations, a countrywide Union, socio-revolutionary goals, common means, toilers' rights, social revolution, anarchist society, and Dyelo Truda in November 1925. Source anchors: whole individual, spirit of submission, Union of anarchists, collective discipline, local organizations, common practice.
Analysis: The whole individual and spirit of submission show why Makhno treats anarchism as more than a policy program, but the Union of anarchists and collective discipline prevent that breadth from dissolving into private belief. Local organizations and common practice form informal institutional discipline: anarchists can adapt to local conditions only if they share means and coordinated action.
Chapter 14. Our Organization
Summary: Makhno argues that Russian and Ukrainian anarchists must learn from the absence of a solid anarchist organization during the revolution, naming the working class, Russian revolution, Ukraine, Pan-Bolsheviks, insurrectionary masses, slave mentality, propagandists, militants, revolutionary modes of struggle, marginal groups, social practices, and two theses about anarchism's many forms and revolutionary integrity. He says anarchism incited masses to struggle but lacked an organization able to marshal forces against enemies during and after social revolution. Source anchors: Russian revolution, Pan-Bolsheviks, solid organization, slave mentality, two theses, social practices.
Analysis: The Russian revolution and Ukraine are the painful evidence behind Makhno's organizational demand, while Pan-Bolsheviks signal the continuing enemy he expects anarchists to meet again. Solid organization, the two theses, and social practices move the essay from diagnosis to remedy: anarchism must retain revolutionary integrity while developing forms capable of public, mass activity.
Chapter 15. On Revolutionary Discipline
Summary: Makhno defines revolutionary discipline as individual self-discipline inside collective activity, naming responsible policy line, practice and theory, revolutionary vanguard, Russian revolution, anarchists "of all persuasions and tendencies," bourgeois properties, "tourists," Bolshevik posts, anarchists shot by authorities, fraternal discipline, Labor against Capital, organizational responsibility, and social anarchism. He attacks anarchists who lived comfortably in occupied bourgeois houses or accepted Bolshevik positions while comrades were being repressed. Source anchors: self-discipline, collective activity, tourists, Bolshevik posts, fraternal discipline, organizational responsibility.
Analysis: Self-discipline and collective activity define discipline without importing barracks obedience, while the "tourists" and Bolshevik posts provide Makhno's examples of undisciplined conduct under revolutionary conditions. Fraternal discipline and organizational responsibility matter because he sees them as the minimum conditions for anarchists to survive political scrutiny and remain useful to workers fighting Capital.
Chapter 16. The ABC of the Revolutionary Anarchist
Summary: Makhno offers a long catechism of revolutionary anarchism, naming Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Johann Most, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Sebastien Faure, Ukrainian people, scientific socialism, Bolshevism-Communism, bayonet, ruble, "justice," sorcerers' apprentices, February and October 1917, Kiev, Kharkov, Petrograd, Moscow, the union of the "five," commune-unions, free soviets, production and consumer cooperatives, land, forests, workshops, factories, railways, and seaborne transportation. He moves from innate freedom and anti-authoritarian society to the practical seizure and federated management of the social heritage. Source anchors: Godwin, Bakunin, Bolshevism-Communism, union of the five, commune-unions, free soviets, social heritage.
Analysis: Godwin and Bakunin place Makhno inside a libertarian lineage, while Bolshevism-Communism and the union of the "five" define the enemies that keep recreating domination through property, soldiers, judges, priests, and intellectual servants. Commune-unions, free soviets, and the social heritage give the essay its constructive content: anarchism becomes land, factories, railways, and cooperatives organized without a new state.
Chapter 17. Open Letter to Spanish Anarchists
Summary: Makhno writes to Carbó and Pestaña on 29 April 1931, urging Spanish workers, peasants, and working intelligentsia to accelerate the revolution against the republican government. He names the bourgeoisie, seizure of land and factories, full freedoms, a great peasant union federated with the CNT, free soviets, armed detachments, FAI, CNT, action groups in every village and town, Bolshevik-communists, Lenin, Stalin, Russian precedent, and the Spanish revolution as a world workers' cause. Source anchors: Carbó, Pestaña, republican government, peasant union, CNT, FAI, Russian precedent.
Analysis: Carbó and Pestaña make the letter a direct intervention in Spanish anarchism, while the republican government and bourgeoisie identify the immediate danger as delay after monarchy's fall. The peasant union, CNT, FAI, and Russian precedent transfer Makhno's Ukrainian lessons to Spain: seize land and factories, build armed and economic organs, and avoid any alliance with Bolshevik-communists.
Chapter 18. On the History of the Spanish Revolution of 1931 and the Part Played by the Left and Right-Wing Socialists and the Anarchists
Summary: Makhno analyzes the Spanish Revolution of 1931 by naming the ballot box, Alcala Zamora, right-wing state socialists, socialist workers, Bolshevik-communists, Caudine Forks, bourgeois leaders, Spanish libertarian communists, anarcho-syndicalists, CNT membership growth, Manifesto of the Thirty, Arshinov, Rudolf Rocker, Alexander Berkman, Berlin, an international anarchist congress, and a preparatory conference. He blames socialist coalition politics, Bolshevik provocations, and anarchist lack of a specific program for allowing a republican opening to be contained. Source anchors: ballot box, Alcala Zamora, Bolshevik-communists, CNT growth, Manifesto of the Thirty, Rocker, Berkman.
Analysis: The ballot box and Alcala Zamora distinguish the Spanish case from insurrectionary beginnings, while Bolshevik-communists and right-wing socialists show two forms of authoritarian capture. CNT growth and the Manifesto of the Thirty let Makhno criticize his own side: without a program, Rocker, Berkman, a preparatory conference, and an international congress become necessary tools for turning anarchist prestige into coordinated action.
Chapter 19. Bibliographical Afterword by Alexandre Skirda
Summary: Skirda surveys omitted writings and later controversies by naming kulaks, serednyakis, bednyakis, batrakis, de-kulakisation from 1929 to 1934, fifteen million victims, Bela Kun, Anatoly Zhelezniakov, the Constituent Assembly, British imperialism, Anarchist Black Cross, Arshinov's History of the Makhnovist Movement, Pavel Litvinov, Jacob Gridin, Leon Zadov-Zinkovsky, NKVD, GPU, KGB, Ida Mett, Voline, Rosa Dubinsky, Igor Eichenbaum, Daniel Guerin, Galina Kuzmenko, Henri, Marie Louise Berneri, Oleg Koshchuk, and the Dniepr. The afterword situates Makhno's essays inside disputes over missing texts, memoirs, anti-Semitism claims, Soviet misinformation, and Voline's ambivalent portrait of Makhno. Source anchors: de-kulakisation, fifteen million, Zhelezniakov, Litvinov, Zadov-Zinkovsky, Voline, Galina Kuzmenko.
Analysis: De-kulakisation and the fifteen million victims extend Makhno's anti-state warning into Stalinist rural catastrophe, while Zhelezniakov and the Constituent Assembly reopen the question of what 1918 might have become if Lenin's commissars had also been dismissed. Litvinov, Zadov-Zinkovsky, Voline, and Galina Kuzmenko make archive defense part of the politics: the Makhnovist movement survives here as a contested record of pamphlets, memoirs, burned manuscripts, police stories, and exile grievances.