Why did the Bolsheviks attack the free territory?

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

Well...

[Prinskaj]

The bolsheviks started to see the Free Territory as a threat, and did what all states do when they feel threatend.. They use violence..

[Polyphonic Foxes]

The bolsheviks started to see the Free Territory as a threat, and did what all states do when they feel threatend.. They use violence..

basically this, and they were correct: Machno and his army were indeed a threat to the stablility of the newly formed USSR, because anarchism and leninism literally cannot coexist together, they are totally incompatible in practice since in practice Leninism tends to involve a great deal of authoritarianism, naturally anarchists reply to this with opposition, dissidence, violence and in the case of Machno, large scale combat.

Both on the small scale and large anarchists are basically garunteed to get driven underground if Leninists seize power, since anarchists split their support and supposedly work in the interest of the bourgeoisie simply for opposing any form of leftist government - hence they are "counter revolutionary". This is also what happened in Cuba.

[Ostrinski]

Both on the small scale and large anarchists are basically garunteed to get driven underground if Leninists seize powerYeah, if they attack the state. I still don't understand why anarchists would treat a worker's state like a bourgeois state. It's like they oppose power and authority for the sake of opposing power and authority. Which is completely nonsensical.

[Polyphonic Foxes]

Yeah, if they attack the state. I still don't understand why anarchists would treat a worker's state like a bourgeois state. It's like they oppose power and authority for the sake of opposing power and authority. Which is completely nonsensical.

When the people are being beaten by the hammer, it doesn't matter whether or not it is the peoples hammer.

[Caj]

The first two responses said it right: the Bolsheviks viewed the Free Territory as a threat.


Yeah, if they attack the state. I still don't understand why anarchists would treat a worker's state like a bourgeois state. It's like they oppose power and authority for the sake of opposing power and authority. Which is completely nonsensical.

Maybe because a "worker's state" (in the Leninist sense) is a bourgeois state. To quote Lenin, the first stage of communism is "the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie" (State and Revolution).

[Susurrus]

Maybe because a "worker's state" (in the Leninist sense) is a bourgeois state. To quote Lenin, the first stage of communism is "the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie" (State and Revolution).

I believe he may have been employing sarcasm. I would put in a pun based off "employing" and capitalism, but I'm tired.

[Искра]

Well...
To establish full control over teritory of former Czarist Russia. It's called realpolitik.

[Caj]

I believe he may have been employing sarcasm. I would put in a pun based off "employing" and capitalism, but I'm tired.

I couldn't detect the sarcasm. Perhaps Poe's Law applies to Leninism. . . .

[Polyphonic Foxes]

you think the Black Army did not practice state authority?

I don't know enough about the subject, when I think of anarchists in the revolution I think of the people in Kronstadt or the ones the were surpressed in Moscow - I do know that Machno implmented authoritarian policies that were in conflict with the Bolsheviks simply because they had anarchist ideals at heart.

I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt as you can see, but I'm not really a fan of Machno.

Please forgive how long this post might take to reply, I'm not here long enough to not need moderator approval.

[Geiseric]

Makhno was in practice not that different from the bolsheviks, the mere fact that he had an army organised under him as a leader makes him actually not an anarchist. He purged his ranks in the same way and for the same reasons as the bols. From what I understand Lenin and the Bolsheviks tried to create good relations between them and the new "free territory" but why didn't Makhno just join the rest of the formerly czarist areas and form an SSR? Did he have any wish to industrialise or modernise? I actually don't know.

[gorillafuck]

Did he have any wish to industrialise or modernise? I actually don't know.he opposed industrialization and modernizing transportation.

the bolsheviks and the black army were two opposing forces that had a temporary truce to fight the white army but both distrusted eachother (as evidenced by how the bolsheviks banned the black army and how the free territory banned Bolsheviks), both formed governments that were hostile to eachother. it's not surprising that eventually they fought.

[PhoenixAsh]

That is actually the criticism he got from Parissian anarchists...he was too much of a bolshevik for them....for the blosheviks he was too much of an anarchist.

I do not think modernisation and industrialisation were a point of priority at that specific moment in time...there was constant armed conflict in the Ukraine. Not to mention the fact that the Ukraine was already modern accoding to contemporary standards.

What he did want were social and economic changes towards free councils, assemblies and workers councils and based on free exchange. This was implemented alongside the re/appropriation of land and assets of the nobility and elite.

[PhoenixAsh]

Well...the bolsheviks did start hostilities by declaring the Ukrainian Anarchists counter revolutionaries....and a lot of other unfounded and false charges...

NOt to mention that a huge amount of distrust can be attributed to the continuous attempts by the Cheka on Makhno's life and the complete and utter disregard for treaties and agreements the Bolsheviks had.

[Caj]

the mere fact that he had an army organised under him as a leader makes him actually not an anarchist. He purged his ranks in the same way and for the same reasons as the bols.

I'm not particularly well read on the Ukrainian Free Territory, but wasn't the Black Army organized far differently than the Red Army (or any other army for that matter)?

In Daniel Guerin's Anarchism, it says of the Black Army


This army was organized on a specifically libertarian, voluntary basis. The elective principle was applied at all levels and discipline freely agreed to[.]

If such an assessment of the Black Army's organizational structure is indeed accurate, I don't see how the fact that Makhno was the leader of such an army would render him not an anarchist.


I do know that Machno implmented authoritarian policies

Such as? (I'm not denying it. I'm just not familiar with any.)

[ArrowLance]

When the people are being beaten by the hammer, it doesn't matter whether or not it is the peoples hammer.

Oh but it does matter!

[Prinskaj]

Oh but it does matter!

I am not sure wether you're joking or not..
But if you are serious, could you then please elaborate.

[Crux]

Well...the bolsheviks did start hostilities by declaring the Ukrainian Anarchists counter revolutionaries....and a lot of other unfounded and false charges...

NOt to mention that a huge amount of distrust can be attributed to the continuous attempts by the Cheka on Makhno's life and the complete and utter disregard for treaties and agreements the Bolsheviks had.
As well as at the arrests and assasinations of Bolsheviks and attacks on the Red Army in the Free Territories by the Makhnovischina. This was prior to the alliance was reached by the way. It is not so black and white as you might think.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I still don't understand why anarchists would treat a worker's state like a bourgeois state. It's like they oppose power and authority for the sake of opposing power and authority.

Bingo.

"The history of all hitherto is the history of the class struggle." :thumbup1:

Whether the ruling class' flag is red, blue or black, whether they pronounce themselves to be Socialists, Capitalists or Fascists, whether they govern over the workers or on behalf of the workers and whether they pronounce themselves to be for or against imperialism, if they look like a ruling class attached to the state, and they act like a ruling class attached to the state, then they are probably a ruling class.

From Stalin, to Krushchev, to Brezhnev through to Gorbachev, from Qaddafi to Raul Castro and from glorious comrade Kim Jong-Il to Mao Tse-Tsong, it has been proven that their actions have spoken louder than their words. Combined, these people have 'held power' (something which should be anomalous, at least in the individual sense, in any Socialist's mind) for over a century, yet none of them, not a single one of them, has at any period of time actively moved to establish workers' direct control of the means of production, of political democracy and none of them has done more than make noise and pay lip service to the goal of abolishing the state. None of them. Most of them have killed more members of the working class directly than they've saved. Most of them have killed/repressed more Socialists and Anarchists than anybody else. They've done more damage to the left than any Capitalist propaganda piece could

So, when Leninists come and tell us that we should put our trust in them, give them the power of the state and its repressive forces, and that in due time they will defeat imperialism and capital and allow the state to wither away, forgive us for not being entirely trusting of what they say, okay?:rolleyes:

[A Marxist Historian]

Well...

Because there was nothing "free" about it. It was a brutal military dictatorship of Makhno in "anarchist" disguise, complete with secret police and torture.

Except during periods of Bolshevik-Makhno alliance vs. the Whites etc., communists were shot on the spot--if they were lucky.

-M.H.-

[Crux]

Bingo.

"The history of all hitherto is the history of the class struggle." :thumbup1:

Whether the ruling class' flag is red, blue or black, whether they pronounce themselves to be Socialists, Capitalists or Fascists, whether they govern over the workers or on behalf of the workers and whether they pronounce themselves to be for or against imperialism, if they look like a ruling class attached to the state, and they act like a ruling class attached to the state, then they are probably a ruling class.

From Stalin, to Krushchev, to Brezhnev through to Gorbachev, from Qaddafi to Raul Castro and from glorious comrade Kim Jong-Il to Mao Tse-Tsong, it has been proven that their actions have spoken louder than their words. Combined, these people have 'held power' (something which should be anomalous, at least in the individual sense, in any Socialist's mind) for over a century, yet none of them, not a single one of them, has at any period of time actively moved to establish workers' direct control of the means of production, of political democracy and none of them has done more than make noise and pay lip service to the goal of abolishing the state. None of them. Most of them have killed more members of the working class directly than they've saved. Most of them have killed/repressed more Socialists and Anarchists than anybody else. They've done more damage to the left than any Capitalist propaganda piece could

So, when Leninists come and tell us that we should put our trust in them, give them the power of the state and its repressive forces, and that in due time they will defeat imperialism and capital and allow the state to wither away, forgive us for not being entirely trusting of what they say, okay?:rolleyes:
facinating. Now what does this have to do with the topic at hand?
Makhno and his army hardly adhered to the maxim of opposing power for power's sake. Whatever that means.

[Zulu]

Because it's what any anarchist society gets either way: it gets conquered by a highly organized determined power. Better be the power of Marxism-Leninism, than the economic neo-slavery of transnational corporate imperialism, if you ask me...