Mahknovists

Jabberman
Posts: 29 Joined: 06-11-07
Submitted by Jabberman on 16 March, 2008 - 23:30.

A bolshevik I know says the Maknovists had a secret police, Is this true?

Feighnt "the definition of "nobody important""
Posts: 908 Joined: 20-07-06 Location: canada, nanaimo
17 March, 2008 - 00:38

i dont think i've heard that, outside of claims made by bolsheviks. but my memory is hazy, unfortunately. now, of course, makhnovists, or associated political organizations which they and makhno were involved in certainly would have done some detective work when trying to figure things out (for instance, to discover former undercover police spies from before the revolution), but this is hardly a secret police, and i gather it was conducted rather informally by individuals, rather than being a function of a specific organization. but i wonder if perhaps certain bolsheviks are over-extending a concept, so that they can consider such actions as evidence of a secret police (akin to how certain bolsheviks will, when arguing with an Anarchist who tells them about the necessity for organization and goes into it a little bit, that the Anarchist is just building a "State" too).

anyway, hopefully someone more knowledgable than i can chime in...

SW
Posts: 8 Joined: 02-04-07
17 March, 2008 - 18:04

Your Bolshevik probably has in mind the Makhnovists' counter-espionage/intelligence service. Page 329 of Skirda's book Anarchy's Cossack offers this description of the service:

"The Makhnovist insurgent army's counter-espionage/intelligence service had been a purely military agency; its tasks were:

'(a) not to allow agents or enemy armies to infiltrate Makhnovist ranks (b) to be fully conversant with the enemy's deployments and military plans (c) to maintain ongoing liaison between the isolated detachments of the insurgent army: in times of military operations, its members participated in engagements alongside other insurgents'.

When towns were occupied, the job of the service had been to expose the hidden enemies on the ground, another purely military function - nothing to do with the police activities of the Cheka or Denekin's political counter-espionage."

The passage quoted by Skirda is from Peter Arshinov's 1923 article Anarchism and the Makhnovschina.

Eastern Barbarian
Posts: 72 Joined: 05-12-06
27 March, 2008 - 13:34

They had counter-intelligence service, but not any sort of secret police.

rata "A Toad full Ruddy I saw"
Posts: 444 Joined: 26-09-06 Location: Serbia, Belgrade
27 March, 2008 - 13:47
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
They had counter-intelligence service, but not any sort of secret police.

Hihihi. This is quite funny. It was not a secret police it was counter-intelligence service!

if you read the post above, with quotations from Skrida's book, you can see that they had an infrastructure whose work is identical to the work of secret police. You could call it Mahko's Cheka.

Just to make it clear, I don't have any problems with that kind of structure, and I do think that there is a need for something like that in times that are like those in which Mahkno and the crew were.

Demogorgon303 "Against All National Flags - Workers Have No Country!"
Posts: 955 Joined: 05-07-05
27 March, 2008 - 13:52

MI5 is a counter-intelligence service, not a secret police. neutral

rata "A Toad full Ruddy I saw"
Posts: 444 Joined: 26-09-06 Location: Serbia, Belgrade
27 March, 2008 - 14:31
Demogorgon303 wrote:
MI5 is a counter-intelligence service, not a secret police. neutral

Counter-intelligence service, really a nice name for segments of the "non-totalitarian" state secret police.

Demogorgon303 "Against All National Flags - Workers Have No Country!"
Posts: 955 Joined: 05-07-05
27 March, 2008 - 14:45
Quote:
Counter-intelligence service, really a nice name for segments of the "non-totalitarian" state secret police.

Exactly. I largely agreed with your earlier comment incidentally.

Both the Cheka and the Makhnovist equivalent were counter-intelligence / secret police organisations. Similar organisations will almost certainly be required after a future revolution unless the remnant of the bourgeoisie gracefully decides to give in and wish the new proletarian power the best of luck.

We can't avoid the necessity of these organs. Instead we need to think about ways of ensuring they're controlled by the working class instead of being in control.

EdmontonWobbly "Sombre, jaded class warrior."
Posts: 1304 Joined: 25-03-06 Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
27 March, 2008 - 17:10

The comrade in Edmonton who wrote the pamphlet on Maria Nikiforova, and is translating Makhno's memoirs which we can send to you by mail order if you are interested is translating a piece from Russian on the Makhnovist counter intelligence service, should be done in a month or so. All of this stuff can be mail ordered from blck cat press PM me for an email address if you want it.

wangwei
Posts: 230 Joined: 20-09-06
27 March, 2008 - 21:15

I am very interested in your literature on Makhno. He's possibly the most important figure in Anarchism during the 20th century.

rata "A Toad full Ruddy I saw"
Posts: 444 Joined: 26-09-06 Location: Serbia, Belgrade
27 March, 2008 - 21:29
wangwei wrote:
I am very interested in your literature on Makhno. He's possibly the most important figure in Anarchism during the 20th century.

Wow black bloc

Feighnt "the definition of "nobody important""
Posts: 908 Joined: 20-07-06 Location: canada, nanaimo
28 March, 2008 - 03:57
EdmontonWobbly wrote:
The comrade in Edmonton who wrote the pamphlet on Maria Nikiforova, and is translating Makhno's memoirs which we can send to you by mail order if you are interested is translating a piece from Russian on the Makhnovist counter intelligence service, should be done in a month or so. All of this stuff can be mail ordered from blck cat press PM me for an email address if you want it.

this is great to know - the first volume of the memoirs were gripping, i cant believe they've never been translated until now!

hey, does black cat press have a website or somesuch? i cant seem to find anything.

rata wrote:
wangwei wrote:
I am very interested in your literature on Makhno. He's possibly the most important figure in Anarchism during the 20th century.

Wow black bloc

oh, dont be jealous, you're a close second. groucho

Anarcho "Raise the Black Flag!"
Posts: 277 Joined: 22-10-06
3 April, 2008 - 08:06
Demogorgon303 wrote:
Both the Cheka and the Makhnovist equivalent were counter-intelligence / secret police organisations.

I'm not aware of the Makhnovists using their counter-intelligence grouping to suppress strikes nor opposition groupings. Unlike the Cheka, of course. They were used to defend the Makhnovists against assassinations attempts by, amongst others, the Bolsheviks,

Demogorgon303 wrote:
Similar organisations will almost certainly be required after a future revolution unless the remnant of the bourgeoisie gracefully decides to give in and wish the new proletarian power the best of luck.

I would say that the Cheka was not the equivalent at all, given the role of the Cheka in crushing working class self-organisation and general political freedoms. Moreover, according to Malet's book the Makhnovist forces were held accountable to the general public.

wangwei
Posts: 230 Joined: 20-09-06
30 April, 2008 - 18:30

Regardless of the formal simularities between the Bolshevik Cheka and the Makhnovist secret police, it does illustrate the need for a policing force for a worker's state to defend itself from counter-revolution. Now, as the Bolsheviks consildated their concept of socialism as being capitalism run under the auspices of the state, they then had to defend themselves from the working class. Within the next revolution, we'll have to figure out how to best organize a method for defending the gains of the revolution against counter revolution while simultaneousely not oppressing the working class.

Don't ask me exactly how that's going to get done, as that's what direct democracy/democratic centralism is for. I just find it intriguing that part of the revolutionary organization is going to have to have a policing force, but not a police force. There is a major difference.

nico "Qui pue du cul, idéologise"
Posts: 20 Joined: 09-04-08 Location: London
1 May, 2008 - 17:09

Im still not a big fan of the word policing... or force...

Among other things, the problems of the police force is that they are defending the bourgeois order but also that they are a body separated from the working-class/communities. They are not controlled or even directly managed by them. Basically its a professional full-time job and as such (same applies to union bureaucrats) its got interests that are separated from those of the working-class/communities.

Maybe its this separation that should be resolved as far as the structure and organization of any kind of defensive organization is concerned.
They should be members of the working-class/communities directly defending their own interests, organized more along the lines of councils rather than unions.

Sean Siberio
Posts: 107 Joined: 03-04-08
5 May, 2008 - 04:51
Quote:
Among other things, the problems of the police force is that they are defending the bourgeois order but also that they are a body separated from the working-class/communities. They are not controlled or even directly managed by them. Basically its a professional full-time job and as such (same applies to union bureaucrats) its got interests that are separated from those of the working-class/communities.

I agree with this, and I am leery of anything "professional" in regards to a person holding a gun. If violence is necessary, it should always be borne out of the sheer power of numbers, as well as with a clear indication of openness and identification. Otherwise you create an opening for Italian styled "tension" attacks, or COINTELPRO paranoia. The base form, the lack of appointed or non-revocable "leaders", and federations as opposed to a central governing body, keep informants and rightist hacks from leveraging power within revolutionary organizations.

While its true that the bourgeoisie won't give anything up, I'm not exactly sure the suburbs are going to all of a sudden become the White Army either, or stock-brokers are going to become Green Berets. I don't think its possible to militarily beat most of the developed worlds army's anyways, unless someone is secretly building large aircraft carriers and an air force as we speak.

wangwei
Posts: 230 Joined: 20-09-06
8 May, 2008 - 22:00
Quote:
I agree with this, and I am leery of anything "professional" in regards to a person holding a gun. If violence is necessary, it should always be borne out of the sheer power of numbers, as well as with a clear indication of openness and identification.

You're preaching to the qoir. I am against centralizing force into any form of a police force. I'm trying to figure out, using the language we have at our disposal today, how to convey the idea of an active force that will not be sedimantary. I fully believe that the working class must be completely armed and able to police themselves, but looking at the Makhnovist and Bolshevik experience, it is clear that a policing force is necessary during the actual insurrectionary period. This time will be marked by the need for a Red Army (column) and will require a fully armed proletariat.

Now, I'm not sure, nor do I believe that we can figure this out at this stage of history, exactly how the policing force will be organized and function. That's going to require the direct imput from the working class involved particular to their peculiar situation.

Demogorgon303 "Against All National Flags - Workers Have No Country!"
Posts: 955 Joined: 05-07-05
9 May, 2008 - 10:34

I agree with wangwei that a policing force and a Red Army of some description will be needed during the insurrection and post-revolutionary period. I'm not against centralisation though. An army that has to fight the kind of the war the Red Army fought in Russia can only do so on the basis of a centralised strategy.

I think the question is the form of centralisation. We can certainly learn negative lessons from both Bolshevik and Makhnovist experiences about the importance of preserving proletarian control over and within these organs. And certainly we can also learn lessons about the way these organs were used by both sides as a weapon to clear out opposing political views within the soviets and councils. The "police" and red guard / army should be instruments of the soviet councils, not for settling disputes within them.

Karetelnik
Posts: 3 Joined: 19-12-07
15 May, 2008 - 14:53

As mentioned by Edmonton Wobbly, Black Cat Press is publishing "Kontrrazvedka: the Story of the Makhnovist Secret Service", a 23,000-word essay by Vyacheslav Azarov.

Azarov is an Ukrainian anarchist who has been active recently in trying to protect Makhno's "heritage" from right-wingers who would like to induct Makhno into their pantheon of proto-fascist martyrs like Petlyura and Bandera.

The Kontrrazvedka had military and civilian sections. The military section was mainly concerned with reconnaissance with a typical reconnaissance unit consisting of a horse-drawn wagon with a woman, an old man, and a child. These "units" kept an eye on enemy activity within a radius of 60 km of the Insurgent Army.

The civilian section was concerned with counter-intelligence, but also recruitment and the procurement of supplies. The civilian section came under a cloud in connection with the killing of Polonsky (along with his wife and staff) in December, 1919. Polonsky was an adventurer who switched sides several times in the Civil War and apparently tried to poison Makhno. After this episode the anarchists set up a "Commission for Anti-Makhnovist Activities" to supervise the civilian section.

The Kontrrazvedka was in a sense the most "anarchist" part of the Makhnovist movement because its core members were anarchists who had been active in the anarchist underground before the Revolution. Through their experience in the underground they acquired the skills which allowed the Kontrrazvedka to protect the movement from destruction for three years.

Weeler "The wind that shakes Nathan Barley"
Posts: 5499 Joined: 25-09-05 Location: Dublin
15 May, 2008 - 15:21
Sean Siberio wrote:
I don't think its possible to militarily beat most of the developed worlds army's anyways, unless someone is secretly building large aircraft carriers and an air force as we speak.

They are our armies, potentially. Its a matter of winning them over to communism along with the rest of the workers.

Feighnt "the definition of "nobody important""
Posts: 908 Joined: 20-07-06 Location: canada, nanaimo
16 May, 2008 - 19:55
Karetelnik wrote:
The military section was mainly concerned with reconnaissance with a typical reconnaissance unit consisting of a horse-drawn wagon with a woman, an old man, and a child.

probably an obvious thing, but just making sure - the choice of using this group of (traditionally) non-combatants for recon would be so that the enemy doesnt suspect that they're scouting, am i right?

ps: seriously, does black cat press have a website or something? i'm really interested in this stuff related to makhno, i'd definitely like to get it when it comes out...

Eastern Barbarian
Posts: 72 Joined: 05-12-06
21 May, 2008 - 14:15

Is it already published or not yet? Is there list of stuff available from Black Cat somewhere?

Feighnt "the definition of "nobody important""
Posts: 908 Joined: 20-07-06 Location: canada, nanaimo
22 May, 2008 - 02:45
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
Is it already published or not yet? Is there list of stuff available from Black Cat somewhere?

good question! that's why i keep asking about websites and all sad

all i know that they have, for sure, is a neat pamphlet on Maria Nikiforova, and the first part of the autobiography of Makhno (i cant believe nobody'd translated this before!). ps: the autobiography, i thought, was fascinating, and shed light on stuff about the revolution in the Ukraine that i'd not known about before, stuff that actually foreshadowed Spain.

Karetelnik
Posts: 3 Joined: 19-12-07
23 May, 2008 - 03:07

You can receive information about Black Cat Press publications by emailing blackcatpress@shawbiz.ca. We will send you a price list and promotional material about our books. We have been working on getting AK Press to distribute our Makhnovist stuff but without result to date. Our edition of Volume I of Makhno's memoirs is complete -- the editions published in Eastern Europe in recent years (including on the internet) have been cut by about two-thirds.