If it had been as the bolsheviks wrote, they would have had no reason to arrest these people. This proves rather that they feared to be convicted of lying.
In spite of all these means which the Soviet government used in the struggle against Machno, they did not succeed in discrediting Machno before the population. The peasants honor and love Machno as one of their own, and there is hardly another man in all Ukraine who is so* popular as Machno. The peasants gave him the surname Batkno, meaning Little Father. They have woven a wreath of stories about his head and relate the most incredible tales among themselves about Batkno. Machno is to them not a "Mister" (Gospodin) but their "Little Father" (Batkno) . No matter what dangers Batkno throws himself into, he always comes out of them whole, as by a wonder. Because Machno had such great armies that were always dissolved again, only in order to rise up anew; because he had to flee so often, but always came back again, the peasants said that Batknp could not be defeated. There is a tale that Batkno was in Denekin's camp and in his tent. He was disguised and talked with Denekin. Suddenly he said : "I am Machno," and disappeared. As a sample of Machno's tactics it is said that, when he has taken a place, he orders one or several houses vacated and then pretends that he is to live there. When evening comes he goes disguised into some other village and sleeps there without being known. Another tale about Machno is: in some village a small, insignificant peasant (that is how Machno looks) sells a dish of butter. The buyer, who gets the dish also*, can, when he gets home, find the following words on the plate: "He who bought this butter has seen Batkno- Machno."
Such a figure of story and myth is Machno in the mind of the peasants. For that reason it is plain that the Machno movement finds better response and reception than all the government troops coming from the outside. When Machno needs horses, provisions, or rather material of war, the peasants generally give to him voluntarily what others cannot get with force. It needs only to be said that "Batkno needs it," and it is given without question.
Is is also said that Machno, who as an anarchist rejects every compulsory mobilization, once sent out a call for a voluntary mobilization. At the end of this call the following words are said to have been added: "Who does not come voluntarily will be shot." Naturally, a peasant movement such as Machno's cannot escape such humorous contradictions. It also happens that the peasants, when the bolsheviks want to mobilize them, declare that they already are mobilized by Machno. Nor is the Machno movement free from coarse, brutal and savage traits. Thus, an officer of the Red Army relates that the Machno troops had made an attack upon a railroad train in which traveled a Wrangel deputation, of whom some are said to have been Frenchmen. The leader of the delegation is said to have been a very stout gentleman. The Machno soldiers in the struggle killed the whole delegation. But the thick leader they opened up, after he was dead, and then buttoned the coat again. When the leader later was discovered, he could not be recognized, because it was a corpulent man they sought. But among the dead were only thin ones.
For such horrors Machno should not, of course, be held responsible. The peasants are so brutalized through the incessant wars, revolutions and struggles, during which they had to suffer terribly. When, for instance, the Poles staged their entry into the Poltava gouvernement, the peasants looked with avaricious eyes at their well fed horses and decided in advance on how they should be divided when they had chased the Poles away. A noisy quarrel arose in the presence of a Polish officer. When he asked them what they were fighting about, they answered him bluntly: " About who will own your horse." The logic of the peasants is very simple: We want to live for ourselves and not be disturbed. Who comes "to us and wants to rule over us will be slain and his property will be distributed.