The Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations of Ukraine (), better known simply as the Nabat (; ), was a Ukrainian anarchist organization that came to prominence during the Ukrainian War of Independence. The organization, based in Kharkiv, had branches in all of Ukraine's major cities. Its constitution was designed to be appealing to each of the different anarchist schools of thought.
The Nabat worked closely with the Makhnovist movement, often taking leading roles within the movement's institutions. But conflicts between the political leadership of the Nabat and the military leadership of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army led to a rupture between the two, before they were both suppressed by the Bolsheviks in November 1920.
In exile, former members of the Nabat became involved in providing prisoner support for their members still in Soviet prisons. They were also embroiled in debates over what to learn from their experiences, with one faction led by Peter Arshinov advocating for platformism, and the other led by Volin advocating for anarchist synthesis.
History Background Following the outbreak of the February Revolution, a number of Russian and Ukrainian anarchists returned from exile to the country. The anarcho-syndicalist Volin arrived in Petrograd and began lecturing about the need for anarchist unity against the rise of Bolshevism. Aron Baron, along with his wife Fanya, moved to Kyiv, where they participated in the local Soviet. Following the Bolshevik occupation of Kharkiv during the October Revolution, Fanya and Aron moved to the city, where they helped to launch the Ukrainian anarchist movement. Meanwhile, Peter Arshinov had been released from Butyrka prison and moved to Katerynoslav, joining the anarchist movement in Donbas and giving lectures to the region's miners and factory workers.
Foundation As the new Russian government became increasingly hostile, many anarchists decided to leave Russia and move to Ukraine, where they could enjoy greater freedom and put their ideas into practice. By the fall of 1918 the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations had established its headquarters in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It soon brought together anarchist groups in cities throughout Ukraine, who aimed to propagate anarchist ideas among Ukrainian workers and peasants through print publications and speaking tours. These local groups were organised through collective decision-making and federated together on a municipal and regional basis, with elected delegates coordinating between them. Over the subsequent months, the Nabat grew to include branches in Katerynoslav and Odesa, Yelyzavethrad, and Kyiv.
On 12–16 November 1918, the Nabat held its founding conference in Kursk. The conference resolved to create an all-Ukrainian federation of anarchist groups, united together under a unified platform to take advantage of the opportunities for societal reform offered by the ongoing Russian Civil War. At the conference, Volin was tasked with creating a "declaration of principles" that would be agreeable to all of the major schools of anarchism, most importantly syndicalists, communists, and individualists. Ukrainian anarcho-syndicalists were key participants in the formation of the Nabat. Volin's platform of "united anarchism" was criticised by many of his own anarcho-syndicalist comrades in Russia, who feared the dominance of the anarcho-communists in such an arrangement.
The conference proclaimed that the Russian Revolution was the beginning of a world revolution that would overthrow capitalism and replace it with communism. But they criticised the Bolshevik model of achieving this through the "dictatorship of the proletariat", instead proposing non-party councils, factory committees and poor peasant committees to oversee a self-managed economy. The conference also resolved to establish anarchist partisan bands to fight against the counter-revolutionary White movement, recognising the insurgent forces under Nestor Makhno to be the best option for creating an anarchist armed force. The Nabat cautioned Makhno against launching an uprising without aid and urged him to wait for the arrival of the Bolsheviks to Ukraine, but Makhno pressed on with his insurgency, not wanting to lose the initiative against the Central Powers.
Joining the Makhnovist movement
In January 1919, the Nabat made contact with Viktor Bilash, who brought the organisation into the fold of the Makhnovshchina. The Nabat established a branch in the Makhnovist capital of Huliaipole, providing the Makhnovist movement with literature and activists. Volin and Aron Baron, as the two principal theoreticians of the Nabat, called for the Makhnovshchina to carry out an anarchist "third revolution". Peter Arshinov would be the anarchist figure who gained the most influence in the movement, working with Makhno to shape the Makhnovist programme of free soviets. According to Bolshevik commissar Yakov Yakovlev, under the influence of the Nabat, Makhno began quoting Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin to justify his actions, which Yakovlev alleged to include "drunken revelry, banditry, theft, and pogroms". The Nabat soon came under Bolshevik harassment, after publishing an appeal to soldiers of the Red Army that urged them to mutiny and overthrow the Soviet government. The organisation appealed for help from the Makhnovists, but harassment continued. On 12–16 February 1919, delegates from the Nabat participated in the Second Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents, which criticised the repressive actions of the Bolsheviks in Ukraine and established a Military Revolutionary Council as the executive organ of the Makhnovist movement.
In March 1919, the Nabat took up editorship of the Makhnovist movement's newspapers, which were printed in the Russian language from Kharkiv. In response to the spread of epidemic typhus, a decree was published in Nabat that demanded the improvement of personal hygiene, under threat of punishment. In that same month, the Nabat also published an advertisement that it was forming its own armed regiment in Huliaipole.
On 2–7 April 1919, the Nabat held its first congress in Yelyzavethrad, where the organisation resolved to commit itself fully to participating in the Makhnovist movement. It soon became an influential force within the movement. When the congress discussed the alliance between the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks, the congress was notable for being relatively pro-Soviet, with the exception of one anti-communist delegate from Huliaipole. Senya Fleshin denounced the Bolsheviks for seizing control of the workers' councils and for establishing a police state in Russia. As a result, the congress opposed anarchist participation in the Bolshevik-dominated Soviets, due to their tendencies towards centralisation. When discussion turned to the organisation of a Revolutionary Insurgent Army, the congress called for it to be established from the bottom-up on a voluntary and egalitarian basis, opposing the hierarchical and militarist conception of the Red Army, which the Nabat believed would inevitably become reactionary. But Makhno himself did not abide by the decisions of the Yelyzavethrad congress, which were taken without his presence.
Repression
By this time, the Nabat was facing increasing political repression by the Cheka, which harassed anarchists in Kharkiv and arrested a number of its members in Katernyoslav, including one member of the secretariat. In mid-May 1919, the Nabat secretariat decided to move its headquarters from the hostile climate in Kharkiv to safety in Huliaipole. Other Russian anarchists, including Peter Arshinov and Aron Baron, also began to flee to southern Ukraine, seeking refuge in the area under Makhnovist control. There, Arshinov joined the Nabat and began work editing the Makhnovist movement's main newspaper The Road to Freedom.
In May 1919, the Makhnovists issued a proclamation that denounced the rebel leader Nykyfor Hryhoriv as a counter-revolutionary and an antisemite, in an article that Peter Arshinov signed, and published in Nabat. Members of the Nabat, such as Yakiv Sukhovolski, publicly blamed the rise of Hryhoriv on the authoritarian policies of the Bolshevik party, which it claimed had driven insurgents away from its own cause. Volin himself became embroiled in a polemic with Leon Trotsky, with the two publishing articles denouncing the other respectively in the Nabat and the Zvezda.
Following the break between the Bolsheviks and the Makhnovists in June 1919, the Nabat newspaper was banned by the Cheka for criticising the Bolsheviks and the organisation itself was dispersed by the government, forcing more of its members into the arms of the Makhnovshchina. In August 1919, more members of the Nabat joined the Makhnovshchina during its retreat to Uman. One Makhnovist detachment was even dispatched to rescue Volin, who was a prisoner of the Ukrainian People's Army. Upon arrival, Volin was quickly elected as chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council and joined the editorial board of The Road to Freedom. From these positions, Volin took a leading role in civilian affairs, while military command remained in the hands of Nestor Makhno himself.
Break with the Makhnovists After the insurgent victory at the battle of Peregonovka, the insurgents occupied much of southern Ukraine, where they proclaimed the extension of freedom of speech and freedom of the press to all socialist organisations. This allowed the Nabat to resume publication in November 1919, beginning its new run by declaring that a "third revolution" had been initiated by the Makhnovshchina. As the Red Army moved into Ukraine at the end of 1919, the Nabat called for the revolutionary elements of the Red Army to unite with the Revolutionary Insurgent Army, in order to work together in a mass movement against the counter-revolution. Despite the Nabat's pleas for Makhno to prevent it, the Insurgent Army began to disintegrate in the face of the Red advance.
In February 1920, the Nabat's secretariat held a secret meeting in Kharkiv, where they dissaffiliated themselves from the Makhnovshchina, declaring Nestor Makhno himself unfit to lead the movement. Although they still maintained contact with the Makhnovshchina, they decided to shift their attentions from supporting the Makhnovist movement to concentrating on fomenting revolution in the cities. At another meeting the following month, the Nabat declared the need for anarchists to participate in the revolutionary struggle, but they disputed the anarchist character of the Insurgent Army, highlighting issues of alcoholism and antisemitism within the ranks.
But in April 1920, the Nabat held a larger meeting in Kharkiv, which reversed the course set by the secretariat. Renewed political repression by the Bolsheviks had forced them to again shift their attentions back towards the countryside and start working closer with the Makhnovists, resolving to intensify their work within the Makhnovist movement in order to shape it into a specifically anarchist revolutionary vanguard. In their newspaper, the organisation declared that Ukrainian anarchists needed to close ranks with the Makhnovshchina, in the face of the advance by the White movement. At the beginning of June 1920, the secretariat of the Nabat attempted to negotiate an armistice with the Ukrainian Soviet government, but their offers were rebuffed.