Nestor Makhno Biography
(Ukrainian Anarchist Revolutionary and the Commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine)
Birthday: November 7, 1888 (Scorpio)
Born In: Hulyaipole, Ukraine
Nestor Makhno was a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary who led an independent army in Ukraine during the Russian Revolution. Born into a poor family in Ukraine (part of the erstwhile Russian Empire), he had worked as a shepherd in his childhood to make ends meet. After working at a few other places during his later teenage years, he became interested in national politics. His entry into revolutionary politics was mostly caused by the injustice that he had faced at work. In 1906, he joined an anarchist organization in Huliaipole. He was arrested many times before he was finally given a death sentence in 1910, but he was eventually released from prison after the February Revolution of 1917. The Russian Civil War began in the same year, and Nestor took command of the ‘Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine.’ The peasant revolution, which had started in Huliaipole, eventually spread to the entire Southern Ukraine. He adopted the political ideology known as anarcho-communism and tried to recruit more people for the cause. He took up arms against the ‘White Army,’ the ‘Red Army,’ the Hetmanate State, and the forces of the Ukrainian National Republic. After facing strong resistance from the ‘Red Army,’ Nestor fled to Paris, France, with his family. In 1934, he died from tuberculosis in Paris.