--- Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/writers/anarcho/left/letters/fifrimperialism.html
> >...However, the greatest lie is the author's
> assertion that the
> Makhnovists "joined the counter-revolutionary White
> and imperialist
> armies" and "carried out pogroms against Jewish
> communities." Making
> such a claim is, truly, to falsify history. Little
> wonder there is no
> attempt to provide such serious assertions with any
> sort of evidence
> -- for there is none.
>
> 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?
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