Did the Makhnovists join the Whites? Far from it. Marxist Victor Serge noted the "strenuous calumnies put out by the Communist Party" against Makhno "which went so far as to accuse him of signing pacts with the Whites at the very moment when he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle against them." (Memoirs of a Revolutionary). Some things never change.
As for being pogromists, this claim is just as false. The Makhnovists contained numerous Jewish anarchists as well as volunteer fighters from the local Jewish colonies (indeed, there was an exclusively Jewish artillery battery and infantry detachment). After the war, Jewish anarchists like Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Sholem Schwartzbard, Voline, Senya Fleshin, and Mollie Steimer did not criticise Makhno as an anti-Semite and defended him against such claims. Significantly, Schwartzbard assassinated the Ukrainian Nationalist leader Petliura in 1926 because he considered him responsible for pogroms during the civil war. He shot Petliura the day after he, Makhno and Berkman had seen him at a Russian restaurant in Paris.
Turning to Voline, an active participant in the Makhnovists (when not under arrest by the Bolsheviks), we find him quoting the eminent Jewish historian M. Tcherikover about the question of the Makhnovists and anti-Semitism. An expert on these matters, Tcherikover stated "it is undeniable that, of all these armies, including the Red Army, the Makhnovists behaved best with regard the civil population in general and the Jewish population in particular." Moreover, "do not speak of pogroms alleged to have been organised by Makhno himself. That is a slander or an error. Nothing of the sort occurred. As for the Makhnovist Army . . . [n]ot once have I been able to prove the existence of a Makhnovist unit at the place a pogrom against the Jews took place. Consequently, the pogroms in question could not have been the work of the Makhnovists." (Voline, The Unknown Revolution)
The lie that the Makhnovists were pogromists is common in Marxist circles. Why? Let me quote another Jewish anarchists active in the movement (and, like so many others, shot by the Bolsheviks). Talking to Berkman, Yossif the Emigrant stated that "Nestor is merciless toward those guilty of Jew-baiting. Most of you have read his numerous proclamations against pogroms, and you know how severely he punishes such things." He stressed that any stories of atrocities and pogroms committed by the Makhnovists were "lies wilfully spread by the Bolsheviks" who "hate Nestor worse than they do Wrangel." For Yossif, "Makhno represents the real spirit of October." (The Bolshevik Myth) Makhno represented the dream of the Russian revolution (soviet democracy, socialism, workers' control) while the Bolsheviks represented its nightmare (party dictatorship, state capitalism, controlled workers). No wonder Marxists, then and now, hate and slander him.
Then there is the strange inclusion of Proudhon in the diatribe. Yes, anarchists know he was sexist and racist and we all reject these aspects of his ideas. So to mention him suggests that the "reviewer" ran out of ideas and is as irrelevant to a critique of anarchism as mentioning the racism and homophobia of, say, Engels. Or, perhaps, Marxists (like Engels) consider Mexicans "lazy" and support US imperialism against them? Or consider that peoples dominated by other countries should "grateful" that the imperialist nation has "taken the trouble to civilise them" (as Engels did as regards the Germans and Slavs). Or, like Engels, see a positive side to genocide (as "the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreck a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will . . . wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names . . . [and this war] will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth . . . . of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward")
But, then again, for Marxists racism against Slavs is usually not worthy of note. What about Blacks? Well, Marx was of the opinion that "the main stock of [slave] Negroes in Jamaica always consisted of freshly imported barbarians . . . [while] the present generation of Negroes in America is a native product, more or less Yankeefied, English speaking, etc., and hence capable of being emancipated." Obviously, only whites have a valid culture and have the duty to bring up the less fortunate in their own image. Perhaps this explains Marx and Engels support for "progressive" imperialism in so many non-capitalist nations?