Viktor Belash


Viktor Fedorovich Belash was the Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine under Nestor Makhno. He was of Ukrainian ethnicity. Belash's Memoirs are an important source for the history of this insurrection.

Biography

Belash came from a peasant family. He received his primary education, and went on to work as a steam locomotive engineer. In 1908, he became a member of the Novospasovka group of anarcho-communists, conducted propaganda in his native village, and liaised with anarchist groups in Berdyansk and Mariupol.

1917-1918, before meeting with Makhno

In 1917, Belash became Secretary of the Novospasovka group of anarchists. In October 1917, he led Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Anarchists in a revolutionary uprising in Tuapse, as commander of the local Red Guard detachment and a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Returning to Novospasovka, he continued to lead the anarchist group.
In April 1918, after the occupation of Ukraine by German-Austrian troops, he went underground, traveled around Yekaterinoslav, Zaporizhia, Berdyansk and Mariupol districts in order to establish ties between individual anarchist groups. In May 1918, he unsuccessfully tried to organize an uprising of peasants in the Berdyansk region, after the suppression of which, the meeting of the Novospasovka group decided to prepare for a new armed uprising and sent Viktor Belash to the Kuban to search for weapons and volunteers.
On July 23-25, 1918, at the head of a detachment of anarchists, he landed in the Mariupol region, but was defeated by German units, after which he hid in the Kuban and the North Caucasus. In the summer and autumn of 1918 he commanded a regiment of the Red Army. In mid-November 1918, he illegally arrived in Northern Tavria and tried to unite the rebel detachments in Mariupol, Berdyansk, Melitopol and Donetsk counties, trying to replace the detachment-partisan system with disciplined and organized revolutionary units with a single supply and control system.

In the Black Army

He came into contact with the Military Revolutionary Council of the Makhnovists, on behalf of whom he organized and held a congress of rebel groups in Pologi on January 3-4, 1919. According to Belash’s report, the congress decided to replace the detachments with regiments, streamlined supplies, and medical affairs, and chose the Operational Headquarters led by Belash. Since that time, Belash became one of the leading figures of the Makhnovist movement, he was of the part that was most tolerant of the Soviet regime and advocated close alliance with it to combat the white counter-revolution. According to the characterization of P. A. Arshinov, Belash was “an excellent military strategist who developed all the plans for the army’s movement and was responsible for them”.
On January 26, 1919, on behalf of the rebel headquarters, he went to Kharkov, where he negotiated with the command of the Southern Red Front on a military alliance, established contact with the Secretariat of the Confederation of Anarchists of Ukraine "Nabat", agreeing to regularly deliver anarchist literature and agitators to the Makhnovist-controlled area.
In February 1919 he participated in the 2nd Huliaipole district congress, and on March 7, in the congress of the Military Revolutionary Council of Rebels. By a decision of the congress, he left the post of chief of staff and was elected a member of the Military Revolutionary Council. He demanded an end to criticism of the Bolsheviks and the concentration of all efforts of the rebels and anarchists on the front against Denikin.
From the end of March he was at the front; On April 9, 1919 he was appointed chief of staff of the combat section of the Makhnovsky brigade in the Volnovakha area. In fact, acting as commander of a combat section, he routed the Cossack corps of Andrei Shkuro.
On May 12, he participated in the military congress in Mariupol, convened by the Military Revolutionary Council of the rebels to determine the attitude towards the rebellion of Nikifor Grigoriev. Like most of the participants in the congress, considering Grigoriev a clear counter-revolutionary and ally of Denikin, he spoke in favor of an armed struggle against the Grigorievites and for maintaining an alliance with the Bolsheviks. Belash’s attitude towards the Soviet regime was manifested, in the spring of 1919, in his refusal to oppose the work of the Bolshevik political commissars among the Makhnovist units and in his proposal to use the system of state military commissariats to accelerate mobilization into rebel forces. When, in early June, the Bolsheviks broke off the military alliance with the Makhnovists, for the sake of restoring a united revolutionary front, Belash insisted on removing Makhno from command and reconciliation with the Soviet regime at all costs.
On June 6 and 8, meetings of the command staff supported Belash’s demands, elected him chief of the field headquarters of the rebel division, and commissioned them to prepare the transfer of troops to the red command. In fact, on June 10, Belash led the fighting of the Makhnovists, trying to stop the White’s offensive and repel them from Gulyaypole and other settlements. On June 15, a new meeting of military commanders, under the chairmanship of Belash, refused Makhno’s offer to make an armed force against the Bolsheviks and the Red Army and elected Belash as commander of the rebel division. Despite all attempts by Belash to achieve reconciliation with the authorities and his statements on submission to the Red Command, repressions against the Makhnovists continued.
On August 19-20, an uprising took place within a group of red troops, prepared by the Makhnovist anarchists, including Belash. At a meeting of the rebels, Belash was elected chief of staff and secretary of the “Nabat” group on the southern front. On August 30, 1919, the rebels united with the main forces of the Makhnovists.
On September 1, Belash participated in the All-Army Congress of the Makhnovists, where he was elected chief of staff of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine and a member of the Military Revolutionary Council. He was one of the leaders of the RIAU during the battles near Uman in September 1919, which led to the complete destruction of several white regiments. After Uman, the RIAU launched a rapid attack on Yekaterinoslav. At the initiative of Belash, several detachments were sent out of the army for guerrilla operations and organization of uprisings in the Kherson, Kiev, Poltava and Chernihiv provinces.
After the capture of Donetsk on October 5, Belash remained with the headquarters in the city, participating in the general leadership of the army. He was a delegate to the 4th district congress, which developed the foundations of socio-economic life in the areas liberated by the Makhnovists. He continued to insist on the need for an alliance with other revolutionary parties, including the Bolsheviks and the Ukrainian Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were ordered by him to manufacture their own weapons. He also opposed motivational anarchist terror against the bourgeoisie.
In the autumn and winter of 1919 he was involved in the organization of stationary and field infirmaries, command courses, the formation of new units, and participated in battles. As he approached the Red Army in the Makhnovsky region, he again proposed to seek a military-political agreement with the Bolsheviks, subject to the recognition of the independence of the Yekaterinoslav and Tauride provinces. Like other leaders of the Makhnovists, with the resumption of reprisals by the Reds on January 11, 1920, he moved to an illegalist position, left the army at the end of January and left for Novospasovka. Together with the majority of the Novospasovskaya group, he opposed the armed struggle against the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, on May 8, the Novospasovskaya group joined the RIAU, Belash was elected chief of staff of the army, from May 29, he simultaneously served as a member of the Council of Revolutionary Rebels, deputy chairman of the PSA and head of its operations department.
In June - August 1920 - he was a member of the editorial board of the newspaper "Rebel". He participated in the RIAU raids, as the chief of staff, developed plans and issued orders on the movement of units, and was wounded several times in battles. On July 9, a meeting of the command staff on the Belash report decided to establish a Commission to investigate anti-Makhnovist affairs, but rejected his proposal to appeal to the Ukrainian government to conclude a military alliance against Pyotr Wrangel.
After Makhno was seriously wounded on August 29 and temporarily withdrew from the direct command of the RIAU, Belash’s influence increased, he insisted more and more insistently on directly joining the struggle against Wrangel and intensifying anarchist-communist propaganda among the peasantry. On September 27-29, Belash, contrary to the opinion of some other leaders of the movement, achieved the decision of the majority of the PSA and the army headquarters on the cessation of hostilities against the Bolsheviks and the conclusion of an alliance with them. From the beginning of October, he organized the mass dispatch of PSA agents to the rear of the Russian army of Wrangel to prepare for the uprising, which took place at the end of October 1920 and covered several parts of the white territory.
Since October 26, the headquarters and Belash were in Gulyai-Pole. One of the authors of the PSA directives for the commissioners, for the organization of the Makhnovist detachments, prescribed strict voluntariness in the formation of rebel units, the refusal to accept Red Army defectors in the Makhnovist units, and the prevention of conflicts with Soviet authorities. For the sake of preserving the independence of the Gulyai-Polsky district and building an anarchist society, Belash agreed to armed defense from the encroachments of the Soviet regime. Anticipating the inevitability of breaking the alliance with the Bolsheviks after the defeat of Wrangel, the headquarters tried to pull the Makhnovist troops into the Gulyai-Pol region, avoiding their dispersal. From the moment the Bolsheviks broke the military-political agreement and with the resumption of the armed struggle between the Makhnovists and the Reds, Belash exercised operational control of the RIAU movement during the raids of December 1920 - March 1921 in Tavria and Yekaterinoslav.
On March 15, 1921, together with Makhno, he signed an order for temporary self-dissolution of the Army, after which he hid underground for some time.
In May 1921, at the head of a rebel detachment, he again waged a guerrilla war against the Soviet regime. A leader of a part of the Makhnovists who, in the conditions of the disappointment and fatigue of the peasantry, by the summer of 1921 advocated reconciliation with the Bolsheviks and the departure to Turkey or to Galicia to help local revolutionary movements. On July 17, with a detachment of 700 people, Belash separated from the main forces of Makhno and unsuccessfully tried to break through to the Caucasus. After Makhno was forced to retreat over the border to the Kingdom of Romania on 16 August 1921, as the result of multiple wounds, Belash directed operations against the Reds in his absence.

After the civil war

He was captured by the Bolsheviks on September 23, 1921, after being heavily wounded in battle at Znamenka. He was imprisoned in Kharkov prison, where he was sentenced to death. In 1924 he was sentenced to 3 years and prematurely released on bail of legal anarchists. He lived in Kharkov, worked as an instructor on tariff issues of the board of the Yugostal trust. In 1924-1930 he participated in the underground work of KAU: he conducted propaganda among the workers of Kharkov, participated in the organization of strikes, maintained contacts with KAU groups in other cities of Ukraine. For this, in the same 1924 he was arrested and exiled to Tashkent for 3 years, then released ahead of schedule in late 1925 and returned to Kharkov.
In 1930, he was arrested in preparation for the illegal KAU congress. Whilst in prison, he was encouraged to write his memoirs by the Cheka, which he was able to do in great detail with the help of his military notes and campaign diary. He filled three large exercise books with these memoirs. Extracts from these appeared in Issue 3 of Letopsis Revoliutsii No3, May–June 1928 with many text changes by the Soviet censors. Released by the Soviet government under an amnesty in 1923, he was banished to Krasnodar in the Kuban region. There he worked as a mechanic for the Hunters Union. On 13 December 1937 during the mass purges of Stalin, he was arrested by the NKVD and put in front of a firing squad on 24 January 1938. He was posthumously rehabilitated on April 1976 for “insufficient evidence”.
His son, Aleksandr, a World War II veteran, was able to obtain the manuscript of his father's work, with other previously unknown documents in 1993. He subsequently published it together as a book called “The Roads of Nestor Makhno”. It has proved, with its minute details, to be an extremely valuable source on the Makhnovist movement. The Greek translation was published in 2007.