Is Makhnovshchina left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Makhnovshchina scores −08 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores −05. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Makhnovshchina authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, Makhnovshchina scores −08. Regional congresses of peasants, workers and insurgents; an elected insurgent army.

Atlas / Organisations / Makhnovshchina

Makhnovshchina

Free Territory · 1918–1921 · Ukraine · Anarchist · Movement · coding confidence low

−08ECcollective

−05CUpluralist

−08AUpluralist

−10SClocal

−06IDuniversal

+08CHcoercive

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Peasant anarchist self-organisation fighting both White armies and Bolshevik centralisation.

Economic model

Land seized and worked by free communes and cooperatives.

Organisation of powers

Regional congresses of peasants, workers and insurgents; an elected insurgent army.

Reading note

Destroyed by the Red Army immediately after their joint enemy was defeated.

Check a claim about Makhnovshchina. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

Open in the atlas

The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored −08

Coded −8: land seized and worked by free communes.

Documented act or statuteLand was distributed to communes at the regional congresses of 1919.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored −05

Coded −5: anticlerical and egalitarian in the movement's declarations.

Programme textCongress resolutions abolished landlord and clerical privilege.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −08

Coded −8: regional congresses of peasants, workers and insurgents.

Documented act or statuteFour regional congresses were held in 1919 with elected delegates.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −10

At the floor: the village and the commune as the unit.

Programme textThe movement rejected any authority above the regional congress.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −06

Coded −6: explicitly opposed to the pogroms of the period.

Documented act or statuteMakhno ordered executions for antisemitic violence within his own forces.

CH · Method and tempo · scored +08

Coded +8: an insurgent army.

Documented act or statuteDestroyed by the Red Army in 1921 immediately after their joint enemy was defeated.

Where it came from, and what came after

takes its doctrine fromAnarcho-Communism
The Ukrainian insurgency organised on explicitly anarchist principles.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Ukraine

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Makhnovshchina. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/makhno/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.