Makhno, covered with glory as he was, constantly tried to utilize his popularity among the peasants of the Yekaterinoslav and neighboring governments for an independent policy. He called himself an anarchist, but denied all connection with the party — he wanted to be more anarchistic than the anarchists. In general his
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politics in relation to his own followers as well as the peasants in the neighborhood was characterized by the attempt to distribute among them, especially among the poorest, the property, mainly Jewish, which had been plundered and collected in the small towns. Thus he took possession of salt in the south (a very rare and therefore a very expensive product) and had it distributed free to the peasants. As regards the Soviet power he was the typical representative of the temper prevailing among the middle peasants. He never stood on the side of the Soviet government. During the first period, after the fall of the German rule, he supported the Soviet power because he regarded it as stronger and more consistent than the Directory, but he opposed it as being a city power. At the same time he was an opponent of the volunteer army of Denikin, an oppressor of the peasants and fighter for the reestablishment of the pre-revolutionary order. He defended the Soviet power and at the same time opposed the "Bolsheviki and the communists, who established a dictatorship by force with the help of hired Magyars, Chinese and Letts." When danger threatened from the right, he was ready to fight against Denikin. He fought against Grigoriev and assassinated him. He justified this act by Grigoriev* s anti-revolutionary attitude, which expressed itself in Jewish pogroms, and was even ready to negotiate with the Kiev government. But when Makhno fought against the Soviet government, he summoned his people to murder and exterminate the Jews, using the watchwords which are already familiar to us. As a personality, Makhno is not a typical Batko. He is too individualistic in his make-up. As a politician, however, he is the most typical of them all, for he embodies completely at every moment the interests and desires of the middle peasants of the Ukrainian village.
Interesting but not typical is the third prominent personality on the dark horizon of the Batko institution, Mazurenko, who calls himself in his pronunciamentos and proclamations the chief of the insurrectionists, the oldest among the numerous and small village and circuit Batki. Mazurenko comes from a wellknown Ukrainian family, whose members have been active in public and political life. He is an intellectual in the European sense of the word. At the beginning he held responsible positions in the service of the Soviet government. He was the head of the Art Department of the whole Ukraine and member of the Ukrainian Council of Labor Deputies. He belongs to the left wing of the Ukrainian Social Democracy (the Independent Social Democracy), who are trying to democratize the Soviet system in the Ukraine by giving the controlling influence in the Soviet organs to the representatives of the peasants. One can scarcely imagine that the humane Mazurenko later became the author of a whole series of terrible Jew baiting pamphlets, in which he incited the people to pogroms.
We designated above in detail the names and spheres of activity of the most important among the lower Batki. They overran the whole Ukraine and caused terrible devastation in "their" districts. The Jewish population depends entirely upon the temper of the Batki and their bands. There is no escape. The whole Ukraine is divided into a number of such districts, in which cities and railway junctions are, like desert islands, to be met with only rarely, and which the Soviet power is able to hold for a while. But the moment a city gets into the hands of such a band, the Jewish popula-
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tion is plundered and murdered, until the Soviet government succeeds in getting possession of the place again.