Talk:Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine

Libertarian vrs Anarcho-communist

I understand Libertarian communist is synonymous with Anarcho-Communist. Recently, a changes were made referring to, for example, Nestor Makhno as a Libertarian Communist. The argument was the "term Libertarian communist was used back then instead of Anarcho-communist". I believe back then the prevailing term used in the Revolution in Ukraine was Anarchist. For example, there are materials from The Nestor Makhno Archive. I find most examples from the period use Anarchist. Case in point, The Russian Revolution in Ukraine (March 1917 - April 1918). In Chapter 1: My Liberation

The eight years and eight months I spent in prison, during which I was shackled hand and foot (as a "lifer") and suffered from a serious illness, failed to shake my belief in the soundness of anarchism. For me anarchism meant the struggle against the State as a form of organizing social life and as a form of power over this social life. On the contrary, in many ways my term in prison helped to strengthen and develop my convictions. Because of them I had been seized by the authorities and locked up "for life" in prison. Convinced that liberty, free labour, equality, and solidarity will triumph over slavery under the yoke of State and Capital, I emerged from the gates of Butyrki Prison on March 2, 1917. Inspired by these convictions, three days after my release I threw myself into the activities of the Lefortovo Anarchist Group right there in Moscow. But not for a moment did I cease to think about the work of our Gulyai-Pole group of peasant anarcho-communists. As I learned through friends, the work of this group, started over a decade earlier, was still on-going despite the overwhelming loss of its leading members.

There are counterexamples, but I find few. For example, THE ORGANIZATIONAL PLATFORM OF THE LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISTS, Delo Truda - 1926,(Makhno, Mett, Arshinov, Valevski, Linski) occasionally uses the term Libertarian but even here the term anarchist is more prelevant . While I am sure there are other examples from the period using "libertarian", I can find more using "anarchist". So is there a scholarly source that states unequivocally the term "libertarian" was the prevailing term used by the revolutionaries in the Ukraine?---- Work permit (talk) 20:02, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I just saw the messages, so here is my answer. If you understand that Libertarian communist is synonymous with Anarcho-Communist, then may I ask why you reverted it with the currently used term? I'm not disputing that the word Anarchist was used more in revolutionary Ukraine than the term Libertarian. What I'm saying is that from what I've seen (although I could be mistaken), the term Anarcho-Communist wasn't used by Makhno and his Anarchists during that time period. Yes, this is what historians and book authors could currently describe him, but the term "libertarian" had a completely different meaning during those times. This is why I replaced all of the words "Anarcho-Communist" with "Libertarian communist" instead. I think this confusion is a matter of a difference in modern translations. In "The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays", which is mostly a compilation of Makhno's entries in the magazine Dyela Truda, this specific English translated version has no mention of the word "anarcho-communist" and instead includes "libertarian communist" 22 times, "anarcho-syndicalist" 4 times, and anarchist(s) 130 times. (If the original magazine this was translated off of has no mention of the word libertarian communist, then I agree to not take this further.)

Chapter 2: "It was in those days, when all seemed lost, that the revolutionary peasants, united around the libertarian communist group in Gulyai-Polye and dispersed in numerous groups and detachments, also retreated towards Russia, where, they reckoned, the revolution was still on course and might help them recover the strength they needed to tackle the counter-revolutionary invaders again..."

Chapter 11: "The fact that we libertarian communists or anarcho-syndicalists failed to anticipate the sequel to the Russian revolution and that we failed to make haste to devise new forms of social activity in time, led many of our groups and organizations to dither yet again in their political and socio-strategic policy on the fighting front of the Revolution."

Also the Russian Wikipedia article on Libertarian socialism lists Makhno as one of the key figures for that ideology. SkoraPobeda (talk) 01:22, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Expansion in progress

I'm currently undertaking to expand this article, building on Skirda's Anarchy's Cossack as a foundation. As such, I'm provisionally adding a one source tag to the lede, until such a time as I'm able to add more citations from sources such as Malet (1982), Palij (1986) and Darch (2020). I will also be removing primary sources such as Arshinov's History, in favor of the above-mentioned secondary sources, per Wikipedia policy on the matter. If anybody is able to lend a hand in finding additional citations as the article is expanded, I would very much appreciate that. Regards. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 6 February 2022

Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine → Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine – The existing name of the article seems to have come about from inconsistencies in certain translations of the Template:Lang-uk; and the Russian: Революцио́нная повста́нческая а́рмия Украи́ны. Requesting this move is something that I've been thinking about for a while, and I decided to push forward with it after an extensive amount of research using the below-mentioned sources.

In primary sources:

• Arshinov, Peter (1974). History of the Makhnovist Movement. – the term "Insurrectionary Army" is used more (74 cases), but has substantial references to it as "Insurgent Army" (30 cases), using the two terms fairly interchangeably.
• Volin (1954). The Unknown Revolution, 1917–1921. – the term "Insurrectionary Army" is used most of the time (103 cases), but with occasional references to it as "Insurgent Army" (5 cases).

In secondary sources:

• Avrich, Paul (1971). The Russian Anarchists. – the term "Insurgent Army" is used exclusively (12 cases), with no references to it as "Insurrectionary Army".
• Darch, Colin (2020). Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917–21. – the term "Insurgent Army" is used almost exclusively (27 cases), with only one reference to it as "Insurrectionary Army".
• Footman, David (1961). Civil War in Russia. – the term "Insurgent Army" is used exclusively (14 cases), with no references to it as "Insurrectionary Army".
• Malet, Michael (1982). Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War. – the two terms are used interchangeably, using the term "Insurgent Army" slightly more (18 cases) and "Insurrectionary Army" slightly less (10 cases), but seeming to prioritize "Insurrectionary Army" in its Glossary and Index.
• Nomad, Max (1939). Apostles of Revolution. – the term "Insurgent Army" is used exclusively (3 cases), with no references to it as "Insurrectionary Army".
• Palij, Michael (1976). The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918–1921. – oddly enough this source uses neither, instead opting for the term "Partisan Army" (41 cases).
• Peters, Victor (1970). Nestor Makhno: The Life of an Anarchist. – the term "Insurgent Army" is used almost exclusively (12 cases), with only one reference to it as "Insurrectionary Army".
• Skirda, Alexandre (2004). Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack. – the term "Insurgent Army" is used exclusively (81 cases), with no references to it as "Insurrectionary Army".

Furthermore, the Makhnovists are often referred to as "insurgents", in all of the above-mentioned sources and in others too, but almost never as "insurrectionists" or "insurrectionaries". Additionally, although I'm not sure how much weight this has, when you put either the Russian or Ukrainian terms into machine translators, such as Google Translate and the DeepL Translator, the term "Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine" comes out in both cases. The specific word in question (Template:Lang-uk / Russian: повста́нческая)) can be translated as "rebel" or "insurgent", which may have been loosely converted into "Insurrectionary" by the English language translations of Volin (1954) and Arshinov (1974).

Given that this is a matter of translation and whether one or the other is the common name is debatable, I thought I'd open up discussion on moving the article title here. I personally lean towards moving this, given that "Insurgent Army" is vastly given preference in most secondary sources, but I'm more than willing to here arguments to the contrary. --Grnrchst (talk) 17:56, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

• support per nom. The current title appears to be an ineffective attempt at a natural dab—blindlynx 18:46, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support but I'm surprised that the common name wouldn't be some version of "Makhnovists" or "Makhno Army" based on how I've seen it invoked in sources (i.e., not its official name but the name used most often in sources). czar 14:21, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• @Czar:, from what I've seen in the sources, "Makhnovists" could refer to members of the movement that weren't in the army. For example, residents of Huliaipole were also referred to as "Makhnovists" at various points. As such, I'm not sure there would be a good enough DAB between that and Makhnovschina (which itself roughly translates to "Makhnovist regime"). As for "Makhno army", I've not really seen that used in many places. In Darch (2020) it's used in 2 cases, in Peters (1970) it's used in 6 cases, in Palij (1976) it's used in 11 cases, and it's not used at all in any of the others. In every such source, they use "Insurgent Army" as the common name for the armed force, while "Makhnovists", "insurgents" and "anarchists" are used interchangeably for individuals. But the term "Insurgent Army" itself wouldn't be readily DABed, given it is also used by a number of other armed forces, including 3 others from Ukraine. Hence why I stuck with the official name of "Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine", to account for both common name policy and disambiguation. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for that—sounds reasonable! czar 15:52, 7 February 2022 (UTC)