This study charts the life of the famous Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno from his earliest years, through the development of his anarchist views in his youth and in prison, culminating in his command of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine. It is this military endeavor to establish an anarcho-communist state during the Russian Civil War that occupies the bulk of this volume. The years from 1917 through 1922 saw the Makhnovshchina embroiled in brutal battles, and increasingly caught up in often dangerous alliances with the Bolsheviks against the White armies. A cruel and vicious rout of his army by the Bolsheviks caused Makhno to flee to an unhappy and frustrating exile in Paris. He died there at the age of forty-five, his interment at the famous Père-Lachaise cemetery attended by five hundred mourners.
I am uncertain how fair it is to write an academic review of a volume that, rather...
