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The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Революційна Повстанська Армія України), also known as the Black Army or simply as Makhnovshchyna (Ukrainian: Махновщина), was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian peasants and workers

under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. They protected the operation of "free soviets" and libertarian communes in the Free Territory, an attempt to form a stateless libertarian communist society from 1918 to 1921 during the Ukrainian Revolution.

History

Nestor Makhno and the Insurrectionary Anarchist Army

Ukrainian anarchist guerrilla bands were active during the Russian Civil War. Some claimed to be loyal to the Ukrainian state, but others acknowledged no allegiance; all fought both the Red and White Armies with equal ferocity in the opening stages of the Civil War. Of all the anarchist groups, the most famous and successful was that of the peasant anarchist leader Nestor Makhno, aka Batko (" Father "), who began operations in the southeastern Ukraine against the Hetmanate regime in July 1918. In September, he formed the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, or Anarchist Black Army, with arms and equipment largely obtained from retreating Austro-Hungarian and German forces. During the Civil War, the Black Army numbered between 15,000 and 110,000 men and was organized on conventional lines, with infantry, cavalry, and artillery units; artillery batteries were attached to each infantry brigade. Makhno's cavalry incorporated both regular and irregular (guerrilla) horse-mounted forces, and was considered among the best -trained and most capable of any of the cavalry units deployed by any side in the Russian Civil War.The Bolshevik government and Red Army commanders often referred to the Black Army as "Makhnovist forces", because they pointedly declined to accord the Ukrainian anarchists the status of having an army or a legitimate political movement. Volin described the Insurrectionary Black Army of the time (less its cavalry, which normally ranged far afield) as follows: The infantry, when it was not fighting, led the march of the army... [The Black Army also used horse-drawn carts or ] tachankas.