Nestor Makhno

Nestor Makhno grew up in a Ukrainian peasant family and joined a local anarchist group during the 1905 revolution, spending seven years in prison for it. Released in 1917, he returned to his hometown of Huliaipole and began redistributing estates to peasants, then built the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine. He defeated occupying Central Powers forces at the Battle of Dibrivka and established the Makhnovshchina, a mass movement attempting anarchist communism across the region. His forces fought alongside the Bolsheviks twice - first in 1919, then again in 1920 to expel the White Army from Crimea - but each alliance shattered over autonomy. After routing the Whites at Perehonivka and capturing much of southern Ukraine, Makhno was wounded and driven westward by Bolshevik betrayal in August 1921. He escaped through Romania and Poland to Paris, where he wrote memoirs and helped shape platformist theory before dying of tuberculosis at 45, his family persecuted long after.