The bolsheviks now sent the anarchist Roschtschin-Grossman, professor of philology and philosophy at the Moscow University, to Machno, in order to prevail upon him to join with the Red Army. Machno was to remain supreme commander of his army but place his force under the supreme commander of the Red Army, Trotzky. Machno, who was embittered by the conduct of the bolsheviks refused this on the ground that he did not want to work under those whose desire was to conquer power. And no change could be made in this position of his by the bolsheviks sending him a wagon load of paper.
From that moment began the war between the bolsheviks and the Machno warriors. That it had to come to an open break between these two powers, lay in the very nature of these two armies. Here were two hostile principles which stood against one another. The principle of an army which was formed through compulsory mobilization and naturally stood on centralistic ground, and on the other side peasants who' had sprung together voluntarily, guerilla bands which were held together only for the moment through the hour of danger and through common suffering. With the former, iron discipline was a matter of fact; with the latter enforced discipline was a matter of taste. Machno, as the leader of the rebellious peasants, could never submit to the superior command of a high army commander. Even if he had personally desired to do so, the very nature of the army he commanded would not have permitted it. To demand this bears witness of complete ignorance of the essential difference between these two bodies. The Red Army is militarism; the Machno army consisted of rebellious peasants, militants, but not military.
It is, therefore, absolutely false and unjust to brand Machno as a bandit and a traitor, as the bolsheviks did. Only the defenders of Roman law can designate rebellious peasants as bandits, but the bolsheviks who themselves are revolutionaries have no right to do so.
Not only in principle, but also as a matter of tactics, was it impossible for the Machno army to co-operate with the Red Army, at least for any length of time. The Machno army which consists of revolting peasants, is no army in the military sense of the word. When the work in the fields begins, then the peasants go to tend to that work, and when the harvest begins they go out harvesting. Machno's army is, thus, anything but stable, and its strength varies extremely, according to circumstances and seasons. Also the mode of fighting used by this army is fundamentally different from the methods used by the Red Army, drilled around the barracks. The rebellious peasants principally carried on a guerilla warfare. However successful a guerilla war may be, still it can never be the tactics used by a centralistically organized, militaristic national army. It is and remains the tactics of insurgents in a revolution, no more and no less.
Although the Red Army of Trotzky and the peasant army of Machno, due to their nature, stood completely strange to one another, still they struggled on a common platform and, for the time being had a common aim. It was therefore clear that Trotzky should want to make use of this considerable power of the peasants. But the impossibility of getting rid of Denekin without Machno made Trotzky blind to the unbridgeable cleft which existed between him and Machno.
Trotzky was really in an extremely difficult situation. The Red Army stood in the North, Denekin in the South, and Machno with his army was in the middle between the two. Trotzky was compelled to force Machno to recognize his superior command, in order to be able to conduct uniform operations, that could have given the victory to the Red Army, which was not any too strong. This could be done only with the aid of Machno. But from the above mentioned causes of fundamental nature it was impossible for Machno to recognize Trotzky's supremacy. And Machno himself was in a very critical situation, between two fires. Munitions he had none. Trotzky wanted to give him munitions only if he completely accepted all the conditions of the Red Army. This was impossible for Machno. Then Trotzky conceived the idea of annihilating Machno.