Nestor Ivanovych Makhno, also known as Batko Makhno, was a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian War of Independence. He established the Makhnovshchina, a mass movement by the Ukrainian peasantry to establish anarchist communism in the country between 1918 and 1921. Initially centered around Makhno's home province of Katerynoslav and hometown of Huliaipole, it came to exert a strong influence over large areas of southern Ukraine, specifically in what is now the Zaporizhzhia Oblast of Ukraine.
Makhno in 1921
Butyrka prison, in Moscow, where Makhno was imprisoned from 1911 to 1917 (photograph taken by Stanislav Kozlovskiy in 2010)
Makhno (centre) and Fedir Shchus (right), together with other Insurgent command staff in Huliaipole (1919)
Makhno wearing his Red Army uniform (1919)
Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine
The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, also known as Makhnovtsi, named after their leader Nestor Makhno, was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian peasants and workers during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. They protected the operation of "free soviets" and libertarian communes by the Makhnovshchina, an attempt to form a stateless anarcho-communist society from 1918 to 1921 during the Ukrainian War of Independence.
A Tachanka used by soldiers of the Insurgent Army, on display at a museum in Huliaipole.
French soldiers, mixed with civilians and White Army soldiers, during the allied intervention in 1919.
Commanders of the Don Army.
The 6th Ukrainian Soviet Division [ru] of ataman Nykyfor Hryhoriv, during their entry into Odesa, in April 1919.