Talk:Makhnovshchina

List of problem (submarine) links in article

For the record, here's a list of links that I perceive as problematic in MOS:SUBMARINE terms. I won't promise it's exhaustive, but I used a regular expression search to examine every one of the 251 piped links in the article, so it should be pretty close. I was intentionally and explicitly overzealous in compiling it; IOW, I call out plenty of links here that in any other circumstances I would most likely ignore or even be fine with. The list is, of course, subjective, debatable, and solely representative of my personal opinion; YMMV, void where prohibited, etc.

Major Section

All links are listed in the same order they appear in the article source.

Lead

• [[Bolshevik–Makhnovist conflict|political and military conflict]]
• [[Starobilsk agreement|peace agreement]]

History

• [[Stolypin reform|agrarian reforms]]
• [[Obshchina|traditional communes]] (I'm somewhat on the fence about this one)
• [[Zemstvo|local governments]] (ditto)
• [[Antisemitism in Ukraine|antisemitism]]
• [[First Universal of the Ukrainian Central Council|declared the autonomy]]
• [[Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party|social democrats]]
• [[Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party|socialist revolutionaries]]
• [[International Workers' Day|May Day demonstration]] (Ironically, it's the inclusion of "demonstration" in the link text, here, that I would object to. The article is not about a demonstration.)
• [[July Days|workers' uprising]]
• [[Black Guards|armed anarchist detachments]]
• [[Third Universal of the Ukrainian Central Council|declared the autonomy of Ukraine]]
• [[Soviet–Ukrainian War|civil war]]
• [[April Theses|all power to the soviets]]
• [[Aleksandrovsk Bolshevik Uprising|capture]]
• [[Battle of Kiev (1918)|captured]]
• [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Ukraine–Central Powers)|peace treaty]]
• [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|peace treaty]]
• [[Battle of Dibrivka|defeated the occupation forces in battle]]
• [[Ukraine Offensive (1919)|invade Ukraine]]
• [[Political repression in the Soviet Union|repression]]
• [[Prodrazvyorstka|food requisitioning]] (as with the earlier links, I'm 50/50 on this; I'd need to check guidelines regarding translated terms)
• [[Pogroms of the Russian Civil War|antisemitic pogroms]]
• [[Battle for the Donbas (1919)|Donbas]]
• [[Prodrazvyorstka|food requisitioning]] (again)
• [[Starobilsk agreement|Political Agreement]]
• [[Political repression in the Soviet Union|political repression]]
• [[free soviets|institutions]]
• [[Army of Wrangel|Russian Army]]

Politics

• [[soviet (council)|free soviets]] (especially nonsensical as the actual article free soviets is linked here multiple times, via both its actual title and other names)
• [[List of political parties in Russia#Soviet parties, 1917–1992|political parties]] (iffy)
• [[Draft Declaration of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine|declared]]
• [[Russian Civil War|war]] (easily fixed by just removing the pipe)
• [[Freedom of the press in Ukraine|freedom of the press]] (a problem mostly because every other time various civil rights concepts are mentioned in the article, even immediately adjacent this link, the link goes to a generic article on the right itself)

Economy

• [[Russian Revolution|Revolution]] (again, easily fixed by removing the pipe)
• [[Dunbar's number|around 200 members]] (← WINNER!! Ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary Wikipedians, feast your eyes on The Most Egregious Submarine Link In The Article™!)
• [[Anarcho-communism|well-being for everybody]]
• [[Makhnovist ruble|their own money]] (not even 50/50, I'd lean towards letting this go)
• [[Banking in Ukraine|banks]] (This article's timeframe is 100 years ago; how is an article that only goes as far back as 1991 relevant at all?)

See also

• [[Korean People's Association in Manchuria|Shinmin Autonomous Zone]] (piped links do not belong in see also, given that the section is for referencing other relevant articles — why would it make sense to list those under any name other than the actual article title?)

FeRDNYC (talk) 06:10, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

@FeRDNYC: Hey, thanks for compiling this, it's very thorough. I've quickly gone through the more egregious sections and dealt with those links. I still need to go through the history section but I'll leave that until after I've had some coffee. -- Grnrchst (talk) 08:49, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Use of neologism "anarcho-communism"

A clear majority of reliable sources on the subject of anarchist communism itself, as well as on this event use the word "anarchist communism", not the neologism "anarcho-communism". Is there a reason that this article does so? Outside of not reflecting the scholarly work on this subject, this goes against the guidance of MOS:NEO. :3 F4U (they/it) 14:31, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

@F4U: Thanks for catching this. I'm looking through the cited sources now and it appears that: Patterson 2020, Shubin 2010 and Sysyn 1977 do use "anarcho-communism"; but Avrich 1971, Darch 2020, Footman 1961, Malet 1982, Palij 1976 and Peters 1970 use "anarchist-communism"; and Skirda 2004 uses "libertarian communism". This may account for the variation. As it seems like many of the uses of "anarcho-communism" are cited to Shubin, I'll keep those as is for now, but I've changed other iterations to "anarchist-communism" per the common use across sources.

Interestingly, the primary sources seem to contradict the idea that "anarcho-communism" is entirely a neologism. Makhno himself used "anarcho-communism" alongside "anarchist communism" in his 1926 memoir The Russian Revolution in Ukraine, both in the Russian language original and its English translation. The 1974 English translation of Arshinov's History of the Makhnovist Movement also uses "anarcho-communism", although the 1923 Russian language original doesn't appear to. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:14, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I've checked Synsyn and he appears to use "anarchist-communism", not "anarcho-communism"? :3 F4U (they/it) 15:30, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Not sure what version you're looking at but in my copy he uses the term "anarcho-communist" 5 times and "anarchist-communist" only once. Just as example: <Makhno claimed to have said to Lenin: “Anarcho-communists in the Ukraine (or, since you Communist-Bolsheviks attempt to shun the word Ukraine and call her ‘the South of Russia’) — anarcho-communists in this ‘South of Russia’...”> -- Grnrchst (talk) 08:29, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Disagreement with infobox removal

I strongly disagree with the removal of the “former country infobox” that used to be on this article. I have issues with the reasons given for such a removal:

1. The movement had no permanent borders This is not a requirement for a state to exist. Many states have existed with constantly fluctuating or unclear borders throughout history (look at the Turkic empires of central Asia for an example). And yes, I realize that the definition of a “state” is contentious, but in no definition I have seen are “permanent” borders part of it.

2. They were an anarchist movement, and anarchists are stateless Wow, quite a can of worms here. They were an anarchist movement, sure, but it doesn’t mean that they successfully established anarchism. In fact, this very article states that the purpose of Makhnovshchina was to create an anarchist society, not that it WAS one. And finally, this article also mentions military, economic, and governmental institutions that Makhnovshchina ran under; these are all hallmarks of a state system.

Now obviously, Makhnovshchina wasn’t the most centralized, stable, or “stately” state out there, but it was a state nonetheless. Therefore, I believe the removed infobox should be brought back. 296cherry (talk) 01:54, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeing as it's been about 4 days and no one has responded, I will boldly add the infobox to the page (with proper citations of course). Please respond here if you disagree with such an edit. 296cherry (talk) 15:16, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I still don't think this infobox is a good idea, but I'm too exhausted to contest it. Would like to know how you interpreted Skirda as having described it as an "anarchist commune under a free soviet direct democracy" though... Sources consistently describe the Makhnovshchina as a mass movement, not as a country or a state. -- Grnrchst (talk) 17:50, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

The government type definitely should be changed, you're right. The problem is that I can't find anything that states Makhnovshchina's government in a single phrase. There's lots of sources that state that "its government was run by a system of free soviets" or "the council was operated by a system of communes in a participatory democracy" etc etc... but I don't know how to put these into the infobox. The closest thing I could find was this quote from Skirda: "the free soviets became the grassroot organs of a direct democracy".

I've done a little more research while writing this reply. Malet writes extensivley about the civilian governance of Makhnovshchina: he calls it a "federation of free soviets". Would that be sufficient?

I haven't found anything that explicitly refers to Makhnovshchina as a "state", but I have seen it referred to as a "territory" or "region" extensively.

I have to go for now, hopefully we can work this out, 296cherry (talk) 19:45, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I also object to this infobox addition for reasons already covered in the last discussion. If you feel strongly in the other direction, please create a formal WP:RfC consensus. There has been robust discussion on how the Makhnovshchina was a movement and not a "former country". Perhaps the best reason is that nearly all fields that would be filled in this infobox do not apply to the Makhnovshchina's makeup. As it stands, it becomes a place to show a bunch of facts that reflect minor details of the Makhnovshchina and defeat the purpose of calling them out in an infobox. Ultimately, not everything needs an infobox. czar 22:19, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeing how places like Lokot Autonomy or Komańcza Republic get their own infoboxes, Anarchist Free Territory should get one as well. They had active and effective military, unconventional but stable government form, stable core territory, ideology and even their own songs. All that existed for more than 2 years during civil war era.

They did not limit their territorial claim to any particular borders, but areas close to Huliaipole were always in their hands.

Their actual government form was so called free soviets. That is the same form of government RSFSR and later USSR had until 30s. The only difference is that Free Territory soviets did not recognize any supreme soviets over them and RSFSR soviets agreed towards sending representatives to upper tier national soviets.

Thus "Makhnovia" has more reasons to be a state than many other entities. 211.30.177.133 (talk) 02:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

See previous discussion about how there is no such "Anarchist Free Territory". The topic is described in sources as a mass movement, not a state or territory. czar 11:24, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Aside from what Czar said, I think you might have to check your sources, because a lot of what you said here is inaccurate. The Makhnovshchina certainly did not have a "stable core territory", nor were areas around Huliaipole "always in their hands". In summer 1919, they were forced to retreat from Huliaipole to the west bank of the Dnipro; and for most of 1920 and 1921, they were effectively a guerrilla movement without any "stable territory". Huliaipole changed hands very often during the conflict. As for the free soviets, there was a lot more to it than that. --Grnrchst (talk) 12:22, 2 February 2024 (UTC)