Conversation Nestor Makhno and Lenin over Ukraine

MY AUDIENCE WITH LENIN

The next day, at one o' clock, I was back in the Kremlin where I met Comrade Sverdlov who promptly took me to Lenin. The latter welcomed me like a brother. He took me by the arm, and tapping my shoulder lightly with his other hand, had me sit in an easy chair. Having invited Sverdlov to settle into another armchair, he went over to his secretary and told him.
— Be so kind as to finish that job by two o' clock.
Whereupon he sat facing me and began to question me.
His first question was: What region do you come from? Then: How have the peasants of the area taken to the watchword ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS IN THE VILLAGES and what has the reaction been from the enemies of that watchword, and the Central Rada's reaction in particular? Then: Have the peasants of your area risen up against the Austro-German invaders? If so, what prevented the peasant revolts from turning into a general uprising and linking up with the actions of the Red Guard units which have so courageously been defending our revolutionary gains?
I gave Lenin brief answers to all of these questions. With that talent that was all his own, he strove to put the questions in such a way that I could answer them point by point. Take, for instance, the question: How have the peasants of the area taken to the watchword ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS IN THE VILLAGES? Lenin put it to me three times, and was astonished at my reply: The peasants have welcomed it after their fashion, which is to say that, as they understand it, all power should, in every sphere, mirror the consciousness and wishes of the toilers; that the soviets of worker-peasant deputies, at village, cantonal or district levels are nothing more nor less than offshoots of the revolutionary organization and economic self-management of the toilers struggling against the bourgeoisie and its lackeys, the Right Social Revolutionaries and their coalition government.
— Do you think that that is a proper construction to place upon our watchword? asked Lenin.
— Yes, I replied.
— In that case, the peasants of your region have been infected with anarchism, he told me.
— Is that such a bad thing? I asked.
That is not what I mean. On the contrary, it is to be celebrated for it would hasten communism's victory over capitalism and its power.
— I find that flattering, I told Lenin, straining not to laugh.
— No, no, I am very seriously arguing that this social phenomenon in the life of the peasant masses would hasten communism's victory over capitalism, Lenin reiterated, adding: But I think that this phenomenon has not come about spontaneously; it is a consequence of anarchist propaganda and will not take long to evaporate. I am even inclined to believe that this mentality, cornered by the triumphant counter-revolution before it had the time to spawn an 	organization, has already perished.
I pointed out to Lenin that a political leader ought never to display pessimism or skepticism.
— So, according to you, Sverdlov interrupted, these anarchist tendencies in the life of the peasant masses ought to be given encouragement?
Oh, your party is not going to encourage them, I replied. Whereupon Lenin interjected:
— And why should we encourage them? In order to divide the proletariat's revolutionary forces, clear a path for the counter-revolution and, when all is said and done, mount the scaffold ourselves along with the proletariat? I could scarcely contain myself, and with my voice betraying my irritation, I pointed out to Lenin that anarchism and anarchists did not aspire to counter-revolution and would not lead the proletariat there.
— Did I really say that? Lenin asked me, and he added: I meant to say that anarchists, lacking mass organizations, are not in a position to organize the proletariat and the poor peasants and, as a result, incite them to defend, in the broadest sense of the term, what has been won by us all and which we hold dear."
The conversation then turned to other matters raised by Lenin. To one query, regarding "The Red Guard units and the revolutionary courage with which they defended our common gains" Lenin forced me to give as complete an answer as possible. Plainly, the question bothered him or else reminded him of what the Red Guard units had recently accomplished in the Ukraine in achieving, so they claimed, the objectives which Lenin and his party had set themselves and in the name of which they had despatched them from Petrograd and other far-off great cities in Russia. I remember Lenin's emotion, the emotion that could only be displayed by a man who passionately lived the struggle against the social order which he despised and wanted to see beaten, when I told him:
— Having been involved in the disarming of dozens of Cossacks withdrawn from the German front at the end of December 1917 and the start of 1918, I am well-informed about the 'revolutionary bravado' of Red Army units and especially their commanders. Now it strikes me, Comrade Lenin, that, taking second- and third-hand intelligence as your basis, you are exaggerating it. How so? Are you questioning it? Lenin asked.
The Red Guard units have displayed revolutionary spirit and courage, but not to the extent you describe. The Red Guards' struggle against the Central Rada's 'haidamaks'" and above all against the German troops have seen times when revolutionary spirit and bravery, as well as the Red Guards' and their commanders' actions, have proved very flimsy. To be sure, in many instances, there are, as I see it, grounds for putting this down to the fact that the Red Guard detachments had been hastily put together and employed against the enemy tactics that resembled neither the tactics of partisan bands nor those of regulars. You must know that the Red Guards, whatever their numerical strength, mounted their attacks upon the enemy by traveling along the railroads. Some ten or fifteen versts from the rails, the terrain was unoccupied: defenders of the revolution or of the counter-revolution could have circulated there at will. For that reason, surprise attacks almost always succeeded. It is only around railway halts, towns or hamlets served by the railways that the Red Guard formations organized a front and launched their attacks.
But the rear and the immediate environs of the places under enemy threat were left undefended. The revolution's offensive action suffered counterthrusts as a result. Red Guard units had scarcely finished issuing their appeals in a region before the counter-revolutionary forces went on to the counteroffensive and very often forced the Red Guards to beat the retreat, scrambling aboard their armored trains. So much so that the rural population never even saw them and consequently could scarcely support them.
— What are revolutionary propagandists doing in the countryside? Can they not even manage to keep the rural proletariat on stand-by to act as fresh troops to replenish Red Guard units passing through the neighborhood, or to form new Red Guard irregulars and occupy positions for the purposes of combating the counter-revolution) Lenin asked.
Let's not get carried away. There are very few revolutionary propagandists in the countryside and there is not much that they can do. Now, every passing day brings hundreds of propagandists and secret enemies of the Revolution into the villages. In many places, we should not be waiting for revolutionary propagandists to conjure up fresh forces for the revolution and organize them to confront the counter-revolution. These are times, I told Lenin, that require decisive action of all revolutionaries in every aspect of the workers' life and struggle. Failure to take that into account, especially where we in the Ukraine are concerned, amounts to letting the counter-revolution marshaled behind the hetman expand at will and consolidate its power. Sverdlov's eyes darted from me to Lenin and back again and he smiled with satisfaction. As for Lenin, his fingers were intertwined and he was deep in thought, his head tilted to one side. Having taken it all in, he said to me:–Everything that you have just told me is greatly to be regretted. And, turning towards Sverdlov, he added: We are on the right track in reorganizing the Red Guard units into the Red Army, the track that leads on to the proletariat's definitive victory over the bourgeoisie.
– Yes, yes, Sverdlov responded with animation.
Whereupon Lenin said to me:
— What work have you in mind to do here in Moscow?
My answer was that I would not be staying long. As agreed by the Conference of partisan groups held in Taganrog, I was due to return to the Ukraine early in July.
– Clandestinely? Lenin asked.
— Yes, I replied.
Turning then to Sverdlov, Lenin mused:
— Anarchists are always full of the spirit of sacrifice, ready to face any sacrifice, but being blind fanatics, they ignore the past and have their thoughts fixed exclusively upon the distant future.
And, begging me not to take that as applicable to me, he went on:
— You, comrade, I regard as a man with a feeling for the realities and requirements of our times. If only a third of the anarchists in Russia were like you, we Communists would be ready to work with them under certain conditions and work in concert in the interests of free organization of the producers. Right then, I felt a deep regard for Lenin develop within me, although until recently I had held him responsible for the elimination of Moscow's anarchist organizations, which had been the signal for the crushing of them in lots of other cities. And in my heart of hearts, I was ashamed of myself. Searching for what answer I should make to Lenin, I let him have it point-blank:
–The Revolution and its gains are dear to anarchist-communists: and that is proof that on that count they are all alike.

– Oh, come off it! Lenin returned with a laugh. We know the anarchists as well as you do. For the most part, they have no idea of the here-and-now, or at any rate, care very little about it; now the present is so serious that not thinking about it or not adopting some positive stance with regard to it is more than shameful in a revolutionary. Most anarchists have their minds focused on the future and devote their writings to that, without making any attempt to understand the here-and-now: and that is another thing that sets us apart from them.
At which Lenin rose from his easy chair and pacing back and forth, added:
— Yes, yes, anarchists are big on ideas for the future, but in the here-and-now, their feet never touch the ground; theirs is a deplorable attitude, because their vacuous fanaticism ensures that they have no real links to that future. Sverdlov smirked, and, turning in my direction, said:
— You cannot challenge that. Vladimir Ilitch's reasoning is spot-on. Lenin hurriedly added:
— Have anarchists ever acknowledged their lack of realism in the 'here-and-now' of life? It doesn't even occur to them.
In reply to that, I told Lenin and Sverdlov that I was a semi-literate peasant and would not get into a discussion of the, to me, overly erudite, view which Lenin had just expressed regarding anarchists.
— But I ought to tell you, Comrade Lenin, that your assertion, to wit, that anarchists have no grasp of the 'here-and-now' and have no real ties to it, et cetera, is wrong through and through. The anarchist-communists of the Ukraine, (or "Southern Russia," since you Bolshevik-Communists try to steer clear of the word Ukraine) as I say, the anarchist-communists have already furnished proof aplenty that they stand four-square in the 'here-and-now.' The entire struggle of the Ukrainian revolutionary countryside against the Central Rada has been conducted under the ideological direction of anarchist-communists and, partly, of the Social Revolutionaries (who, to be honest, ascribe to their fight against the Rada quite different objectives than we anarchist-communists do). Your Bolsheviks are, so to speak, nonexistent in our countryside; where any do exist, their influence is minuscule. Nearly all of the peasant communes or associations in the Ukraine have been launched at the instigation of anarchist-communists. And the laboring population's armed struggle with the counter-revolution generally, as well as with the counter-revolution embodied in the Austro-Hungarian and German armies of invasion, has been undertaken under the exclusive ideological and organizational aegis of anarchist-communists. True, it may not suit your party's interests to give us credit for all that, but the facts are there and you cannot dispute them. You are, I imagine, perfectly well aware of the numbers and fighting capabilities of the Ukraine's revolutionary irregulars. Not for nothing have you referred to the courage with which they have heroically defended our common revolutionary gains.
A good half of them have fought under the anarchist colors. Mokrooussov, M. Nikiforova, Cherednyak, Garin, Chernyak, Lunev and many another partisan commander it would take too long to list them all are all anarchist-communists. Not to mention myself and the group to which I belong, or all the other partisan groups and volunteers that we have set up to defend the revolution and of which the Red Guard command simply must be aware. All of which demonstrates rather forcefully, Comrade Lenin, the extent to which you are mistaken in alleging that we anarchist-communists do not have our feet on the ground, that our attitude in the 'here-and-now' is to be deplored, although we were fond of thinking about the 'future' a lot. What I have said to you in the course of this conversation cannot be called into question, for it is the truth. The account I have given you contradicts the verdict you pronounced upon us, and everyone, you included, can see there proof that we are four-square in the 'here-and-now,' that we operate there, keeping an eye out for whatever brings us closer to the future, about which we do think, and very seriously at that.
I glanced at Sverdlov now. He blushed, but carried on smiling at me. As for Lenin, spreading his arms, he said:
— Perhaps I may be mistaken.
—Yes, yes, as it happens, Comrade Lenin, you have been too hard on us anarchist-communists, simply, I believe, because you are misinformed as to the reality in the Ukraine and the role we play there.
— Maybe, I won't challenge that. In any case, show me who does not make mistakes, especially in the situation in which we find ourselves? was Lenin's response.
And, realizing that I had become a little agitated, he tried, in a fatherly way, to assuage me by steering the conversation very skillfully on to another topic. Hut my bad character, for want of another word for it, prevented me from taking any further interest in it, in spite of all the respect which I had developed for Lenin in the course of our exchanges. I felt insulted. And no matter that I had facing me a man with whom there would have been a lot more topics to explore and from whom there would have been a lot to learn, the mood had been broken. My answers now were more curt; something in me had snapped and a feeling of irritation swept over me.
Lenin could not have failed to notice this change of mood in me. He strove to smooth things over by switching to a different topic. And noticing that I was coming out of my sulk and succumbing to his eloquence, he suddenly asked me:
— So, it is your intention to return clandestinely to the Ukraine?
— Yes, I replied.
— May I be of assistance?
— Certainly, I said.
Turning then to Sverdlov, Lenin asked:
— Which of our people is presently in charge of the service for getting our lads south?
— Comrade Karpenko or Zatonski, Sverdlov answered. I'll make inquiries.
While Sverdlov made a telephone call to discover whether it was Karpenko or Zatonski that was in charge of the agency whose task it was to smuggle militants into the Ukraine for underground work there, Lenin attempted to persuade me that I ought to conclude from his treatment of me that the Communist Party's stance vis à vis anarchists was not so hostile as I seemed to believe.
— While we have been compelled–Lenin told me–to take vigorous action to remove the anarchists from the private hotel they were occupying in the Malaia Dmitrovka, where they were harboring certain bandits, locals or just passing through, the blame for that lies, not with us, but with the anarchists who had settled in there. Anyway, we won't be bothering them again. You ought to know that they have been given permission to occupy other premises not far from Malaia Dmitrovka and they are free to operate as they see fit.
— Have you any evidence–I asked Comrade Lenin–to indicate that the Malaia Dmitrovka anarchists were harboring bandits?
— Yes, the Extraordinary Commission [Cheka] collected the evidence and authenticated it. Otherwise our party would never have authorized it to proceed, Lenin replied.
Meanwhile, Sverdlov had returned to sit with us and he announced that Comrade Karpenko was indeed in charge of the smuggling agency, but that Comrade Zatonski was also conversant with things. Whereupon Lenin burst out:
— There you go, comrade, drop in on Comrade Karpenko tomorrow afternoon, or whenever you like, and ask him about everything you'll be needing in order to make your way back to the Ukraine by clandestine means. He will work out a safe route to get you over the border.
— What border? I asked.
— Haven't you heard? A border has been drawn between Russia and the Ukraine. The troops manning it are Germans, Lenin said wearily.
— Yet you look upon the Ukraine as "Southern Russia?" I replied.–Looking upon is one thing, comrade, and keeping one's eyes open in life is quite another, returned Lenin.
And before I could answer, he added:
— Tell Comrade Karpenko that I sent you. If he has any queries, he need only telephone me. Here is the address at which you can find him.
By now we were, all three, on our feet. We shook hands and after a seemingly cordial exchange of thanks, I left Lenin's office.


Daniel Guérin – 	No Gods No Masters