The Soviet government used the same methods against the anarchists and the Machnovtzi as the German government used
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
at the outbreak of the world war when marching into Belgium; all agreements are nothing but a scrap of paper. This is apt to mean the end of the Machno movement.
How rapidly the Soviet government forgot its agreement, their conduct toward the Machno people shows. Wollin and Tschubenko, mentioned abo<ve, who were 9 months in a Moscow prison and released in October, were again arrested in the house of their friend N. Pavlov, Bolschoi Tschernitschevski No. 18. When, on October 24, a membership meeting of the anarchists took place in that house, the Tscheka (Extra-ordinary Commission) broke in and wanted to arrest Tschubenko. But as he could not be found, all of those present — about 50 men — were taken along, and to-day, January, 1921, some of them are still in prison. But Wollin was arrested on December 1 at a conference of the anarcho-syndicalists in Charkov — the conference was entirely legal and permitted by the Tscheka — together with all the other participants, among whom was also the above mentioned Pavlov.
The forecast I made in regard to Machno's early annihilation by the bolsheviks proved to be correct. Fourteen days after I had the manuscript of this book ready, and before it was yet in print, the telegraph brought the information (a Rosta notice) that Machno's troops were being disarmed by the bolsheviks. The Rosta bureau in Stockholm, which has the most direct connection with Russia over Reval, sent out a telegram in these words:
"Moscow, December 7, 1920 (Rosta). — The Soviet commander at the Southern front has started a merciless fight on all the robber bands under Machno, which still operate in the Ukraine. The operations have been very successful. The largest part of the Machno detachments are already split up or disarmed."
But now the "Rothe Fahne" (Red Flag) of Vienna also prints a news item coming from Christiania, in which it says:
"In the struggle with Wrangel the Machno troops have, without obeying the orders of the Red Army command, continued to plunder peaceful inhabitants and to irresponsibly take up various robber bands in their army. The revolutionary War Council of the Southern front has, after the liquidation of the Wrangel army, sent out an order to change the Machno troops into common disciplined parts of the Red Army. The order was caused by the fact that the Machno troops had undertaken regular plunderings of cities and villages, plundering not only the population but the store of ammunition, and had attacked red soldiers, in order to get hold of weapons. In the villages the Machno troops have aided the rich peasants, who sabotaged the grain deliveries to the hungering gO'Uvernements. After a partial change of the Machno troops into a regular army, they were given orders to immediately start off for the Caucasus. Instead of obeying this order, Machno started hostilities against the Red