It is ironic that Joe Wills (letters, 505) accuses me of "revisionism," given the utter lack of historical truth in his own claims.
He asserts that the Makhnovists "occupied a single town, Ekaterinoslav, for one day." In reality, they liberated numerous towns. Even his own example is false. Ekaterinoslav was held for "for six weeks" at the end of 1919, without the negative affects he claims (Michael Palij, "The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno", p. 200). In Oleksandrivs'k, they organised "a meeting of workers . . . and . . . asked them to organise the management . . . of industry by their own means and under their own control." A Fifth soviet Regional congress was also called. (pp. 196-7)
Wills claims that the Makhnovists were a "marginal force" which "numbered no more than 6,700." In realty, in May, 1919, they numbered over 22,000, peaking at about 40,000 in late October (p. 111, p. 198). Wills' figure derives from Darch's "The Makhnovshchina 1917-1921" and are soviet estimates for early 1919. I can see why he uses this source, given Darch's uncritical use of Soviet histories on the subject. Nice to know that Wills considers Stalinist accounts not suffer from "revisionism"! As for "marginal," well the Whites would dispute that: "the Denikin troops came to regard Makhno's army as their most formidable enemy." (Palij, p. 202) Indeed, their role in the defeat of Denikin and Wrangel were key.
Wills asserts that the Makhnovists failed "to understand the needs of urban workers." While predominantly a peasant movement, they did urge workers to organise themselves and run their own workplaces (with some success). The Bolsheviks, in contrast, imposed one-man management and militarisation onto the workers. Presumably, for Wills, the latter expresses "the needs" of workers better than the former!
He claims I think "principles are not important -- just the degree of violation." Can he not see that a movement which applies most of its proclaimed ideas most of the time is fundamentally different to one which violated them all, from the start? He claims that if "grassroots democracy" can be ignored then "both hierarchy and bureaucracy must have existed." Delegates can ignore their mandates (that is why anarchists argue for instant recall) but that does not imply hierarchy. It implies hierarchy is beginning, unless the grassroots act. Which, in the Makhnovist movement, it did. So, yes, the Makhnovists were not perfect but they stood for and implemented workplace, army, village and soviet self-management.
Unlike the Bolsheviks. The facts are that whenever faced with a functioning soviet democracy before, during and after the civil war, they preferred party power. Wills absolves the Bolsheviks disbanding soviets in the spring of 1918 because this "was well after the outbreak" of the civil war. Yet Lenin stated in March 1918, that "the Soviet Government has triumphed in the Civil War." In April, he said "one can say with certainty that the Civil War in its main phases has been brought to an end."
Even assuming Wills is factually correct, the logic of his argument is clear: working class democracy and revolution are incompatible. This can be seen from his defence of the Bolsheviks banning the Makhnovist's Fourth Regional Congress. His account of the Third is derived from Darch, and so from Soviet accounts. He claims that "Makhno denied the legitimacy of the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets," as if Wills did not know that it was a creature of the Bolshevik dictatorship. Indeed, the conflict between party dictatorship and soviet democracy had been a theme of the Second Congress (Palij, pp. 153-4) As for "agitation against state socialism," is Wills arguing against free speech?
Wills justifies Bolshevik authoritarianism as "all this as the revolution fought for its survival"! Which, ironically, was exactly the reason why the Fourth Congress was called, to discuss the problems facing the revolution. Obviously Wills disagrees with Makhno that it is "an inviolable right of the workers and peasants, a right won by the revolution, to call congresses on their own account, to discuss their affairs." Is Wills really arguing that the masses should have no say in their revolution?
Wills argues that accounts of the Makhnovists cannot be trusted, quoting a historian who bases his case on soviet accounts. It is hardly our fault that "empirical data" is hard to find. Any one who was lucky enough not to be shot or imprisoned by the Cheka was subject to Bolshevik dictatorship. This, naturally, means most first hand accounts were by "committed anarchists" in exile. Significantly respected historians like Palij have managed to produce histories of the movement based on numerous sources which tally with the anarchist ones.
Finally, Wills denies that I express "consistent anti-statism." He notes that Bakunin "describes his organisation as a 'new revolutionary state.'" He did so, in 1868, but not in later, similar, descriptions. Why? To quote Daniel Guerin, initially Bakunin used such terms "as synonyms for 'social collective.' The anarchists soon saw, however, that it was rather dangerous for them to use the same word as the authoritarians while giving it a quite different meaning. They felt that a new concept called for a new word and that the use of the old term could be dangerously ambiguous; so they ceased to give the name 'State' to the social collective of the future."
Anarchists argue that the state is structured to ensure minority rule and, consequently, a "workers' state" would be a new form of minority rule over the workers. For this reason we argue that working class self-management from the bottom-up cannot be confused with a "state." The Russian Revolution showed the validity of this, with the Bolsheviks calling their dictatorship a "workers' state" in spite of the workers having no power in it.
It is simple really, either the class organisations of the working class are in charge or the party leadership is. Wills' arguments just reaffirm that, for Leninists, it is most definitely the latter. Little wonder, then, his distortions about the Makhnovists and anarchism.
Iain McKay