If we now ask ourselves wherefrom these comparatively strong anarchist tendencies of the Ukrainian peasantry come, we can say that, besides the natural desire for liberty, the conditions of the last years of revolution and war have exerted a strong influence. Who will not be able to understand that a people will hate all political governments when in the course of six years it has had thirteen different governments, ias the case was in some gouvernements, such as Kievsk, Poltava and Berdiansk. But these governments were all war governments and must, consequently, show themselves from the worst side. They requisitioned grain, horses, etc., from the peasants, in short, the peasants were for the governments only the means of carrying on the war.
In regard to the theories of anarchism the revolutionary movement of the peasants has only parts of anarchism in it. But this movement is not identical with the anarchist movement of Ukraine. Although the bolsheviks label the whole peasant movement, (which under Machno causes them so many difficulties) sometimes as anarchistic and sometimes as a common bandit movement, the anarchists in no manner identify themselves with the Machno peasant movement. And still a large part of the anarchists of Ukraine join the Machno peasant movement, in order to work for their ideas. And while they, for the reasons above mentioned, and because of the related character of this movement, found a good field for their ideas and made great progress in these circles, the whole Machno movement was by outsiders designated as an anarchist movement.