Today in Labor History December 27, 1918: The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU) seized 7 airplanes, establishing an Insurgent Air Fleet. The RIAU was an anarchist peasant army led by Nestor Makhno. During the Ukrainian War of Independence, they created a stateless libertarian communist society known as the Free Territory, or Makhnovshchina. Roughly 7 million people lived there. The peasants who lived there refused to pay rent to the landowners and seized the estates and livestock of the church, state and private landowners, setting up local committees to manage them and share them among the various villages and communes of the Free State. They implemented a system of common land ownership among the peasantry and they established hospitals, schools and children’s communes. Their influence extended over nearly one-third of the country.
In 1919, Trotsky banned the 4th Ukrainian Congress of Free Soviets with Order #1824. He also declared Nestor Makhno an outlaw. In 1920, the Bolsheviks began attacking Makhnovshchina, after the Maknovists had defeated White Army, their common enemy. But many soldiers in the Red Army defected and joined the Makhnovists in their fight against the Bolsheviks. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks ultimately crushed Makhnovshchina in 1921. Nester Makhno barely escaped, and with serious injuries. He died in exile in Paris, July 25, 1934.
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