Ukraine
Barmash, Vladimir Vladimirovich aka Gorbonos aka Valya aka Lonya, 1879-1938+
A short biography of Vladimir Barmash, prominent anarchist communist in Russia who perished in the prison camps
Vladimir Barmash was born in a village near Ivanovo-Voznesensk (now Ivanovo). This village was very small and everyone who lived there had the family name Barmash. Despite the disadvantages of coming from a peasant background, he was successful at school and afterwards went to Moscow where he completed three courses in the people’s university of Alfons Shaniavsky.
Veretelnik, Boris, ?-1919
A short biography of Boris Veretelnik , Left Socialist Revolutionary and then anarchist and Makhnovist
Boris Veretelnik was born into a peasant family in Gulyai-Polye. He worked as a foundry worker in the village and then in a foundry at the Putilov works in Petrograd. During the 1905-1907 Revolution he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and became an experienced organiser and agitator.
Popov, Dimitri Ivanovich, 1892-1921
A short biography of Dimitri Popov, sailor, Left Socialist Revolutionary and then anarchist and Makhnovist
Dimitri Popov was born in to a peasant family in the village of Kononova in the Klin district of Moscow province. After leaving school at fourteen he worked in the Moscow factories. In 1914 he was called up to active duty in the Baltic Fleet. He may have been in a group of anarchist sailors in spring 1917 but by summer of the same year he had joined the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Anti-Semitism and the Makhnovists - Michael Malet
Malet finds that - despite false allegations - Makhno was not anti-Semitic and that incidents of anti-Semitism among the Makhnovists were less than in rival military forces, including the Bolshevik Red Army.
Lepetchenko, Ivan and Alexander
A short account of the lives of the Lepetchenko brothers, Alexander and Ivan, who fought with the Makhnovists.
Alexander (born 1890) and Ivan Lepetchenko (born 1899) were the sons of the police constable Savelya Lepetchenko (from a poor peasant background) who died in a shoot-out with the Semeniuta brothers (leading lights in the Gulyai Polye Anarchist Communist Group) in 1909. Alexander became an anarchist communist in 1907. In his childhood and adolescence he was known as a tearaway.
Zuychenko, Nazar Semenovich, 1887/8-1938
A short biography of Nazar Zuychenko, one of first members of Gulyai Poye Anarchist Communist Group, persecuted by the Soviet authorities
Nazar Zuychenko was born in Gulyai Polye, the home village of Nestor Makhno, in 1887 or 1888, into a peasant family. His education was so basic that he remained illiterate, according to some reports although it doesn’t seem to have stopped him from having a rich political and cultural life.
Chuchko, Ivan Minovich, 1893-1938
A short biography of Ivan Chuchko, Makhnovist commander hounded by the Soviet authorities for many years.
Ivan Chuchko was born on July 13th 1893, in the village of Gulyai Polye , the native village of Nestor Makhno in the Ukraine. He was born into a peasant family and received an elementary education. From 1914 to 1917 he served in the armed forces of the Tsar. After demobilization he returned to Gulyai Polye and started his own farm.
The Kolesnikov uprising
A short account of the uprising against the Bolsheviks led by Ivan Kolesnikov, like Fomin and Sapozhkov an ex-Red Army man.
Ivan Sergeevich Kolesnikov was born in 1894 in the settlement of Stara Kalitva in Ostrogozh county of Voronezh province in a large but prosperous farming family of four sons and four daughters. He is described as having blond hair, and as being of medium height with a stocky build.
The Greek Makhnovists
A short account of the role of the Black Sea Greeks in the Makhnovist movement.
Greeks had settled along the north coast of the Black Sea in what is now Ukraine and Crimea from at least the 5th Century BC. At the time of the Revolution of 1917 there were around 180,000 of these Pontic Greeks in the region.
Ivanyuk (?-1921)
A short biography of Ivanyuk, independent-minded Makhnovist commander, who died in the last major battle of the movement.
On 26 August we fought another battle…in which we lost our dearest fighters and comrades, Petrenko-Platonov and Ivanyuk”. Nestor Makhno, quoted in the History of the Makhnovist Movement, Piotr Arshinov.
