When Machno came from the prison in Siberia, he first stopped in Moscow. The rumors of the peasant massacres penetrated to Moscow and he went to Ukraine, and to his home place Gulai-Pole.
The following description of the development of the Machno movement comes not alone from his most intimate friends, his aids and comrades, but also from the bolsheviks, who formerly served him as soldiers but who later entered the Red Army and fought against Machno.
Machno organized the peasants against the Germans and against Skoropadski-Warta. There were in Gulai-Pole, a village of about 30,000 inhabitants, seven men who were good rebels. Among them were Machno, Tschubenko and Gribelenko. They had some rifles and took in the first day 80 Skoropadski soldiers prisoners. Besides they took rifles and collected money for a fighting fund, and for the first 3,000 rubles they bought a machine gun. some bombs and one revolver. Machno is a splendid, fiery orator and understood how to inspire the peasants to fight. Through his successes he became famous among the peasants and was soon known in the whole gouvernement and later in all Ukraine. From all sides the peasants gathered round him and wanted to serve under his flag. His power became stronger from day to day, and towards the end of the year 1918 he had an army of 50,000 or, according to some reports, 70,000 men.
Towards all other generals and adventurers the peasants stood skeptical. But not to Machno. The peasants loved Machno, and for him they voluntarily gave everything that the Germans and Skoropadski as well as all other counter-revolutionary generals could not get from them. Thus Machno was able to send 30 wagon loads of foodstuffs to Moscow in December, 1918. The Moscow paper of the bolsheviks, the "Isvestija" then wrote very approvingly of Machno. Machno's army at that time held a front of over 300 kilometers (about 186 miles).
The Germans and the Austrians, as well as Skoropadski, wdre thus driven from the Ukraine by the peasants, principally under Machno. It was, consequently, not the Red Army, which came into existence only later, but the peasants themselves who cleaned out Ukraine. This is a historic fact of great importance. It shows us that well organized and great modern armies were conquered by peasants and peasant generals who had no military training whatsoever. Here we see repeated what we before have seen in history; the French peasants, after the revolution of 1789, threw back the invasion of the Prussians and the Austrians. In Russia we have still more instances of this phenomenon. Such historic experiences from the French, Mexican, Russian and Ukrainian revolutions compress themselves into a lesson which can be of great use to us for the future.
But the counter-revolution was not settled through the expulsion of the Germans, Austrians and the Skoropadskis from, the Ukraine, Not for a moment. France and England as well as Roumania, who thereby got the danger of revolution directly in their neck, were not at all suited by the fact that in Ukraine, it was the peasants, the anarchists and bolsheviks who ruled. The aim of the entente was, and is up to the present time, to break down Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine. They provoked and supported counter-revolution. They financed the old czarist generals Petljura, Kaledin, Grigorjev, Denekin, and Wrangel and encouraged them to reactionary advances. As Germany was vanquished, the conquerors of Germany took over the role of watchdogs for the reaction, formerly played by Germany in Europe. Germany throttled with iron fist the revolution in Finland through general Goltz. The entente tried to do the same in the Ukraine through the old czarist officers.
From Podolia and from the East Galician frontier came Petljura, from the region of Don came Kaledin, and later Denekin took possession of the Don basin. Besides, a former czarist general, Grigorjev, gathered dissatisfied peasants around him, and he succeeded in drawing to himself great numbers under pretense that he brought the peasants freedom.