Nestor Ivanovych Makhno , also known as Batko Makhno (батько Махно, lit. 'Father Makhno'), was a Ukrain… See more

Nestor Makhno was born on 7 November [O.S. 26 October] 1888, into a poor peasant family in Huliaipole, a town in the Katerynoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine). He was th… See more

When the 1905 revolution broke out, the sixteen-year-old Makhno quickly joined the revolutionary movement. He distributed propaganda for the Social Democratic Labor Party before affiliating with his home town's local anarc… See more

During Makhno's absence from Ukraine, the Austro-German occupation forces orchestrated a coup in late April 1918 against their former allies within the Ukrainian People's Republic, removing the UPR's … See more

Red Army commander Mikhail Frunze demanded the "definitive liquidation" of the Makhnovist movement in July 1921. Makhno continued to execute raids in the Don river basin despite having suffered several wo… See more

While imprisoned in the 1910s, Makhno received "warm letters" from one Nastia Vasetskaia, a young peasant woman from Huliaipole. After his return home in 1917, the two met and married, living together on a … See more