Union of Poor Peasants
The Union of Poor Peasants () was an underground anarchist organization, operating in the years 1905–1908 in the Huliaipole Raion in Ukraine. Activity. The organization initially operated under the guise of a theater group associated with the Coliseum theater in Huliaipole. The leaders were Czech - Woldemar Antoni (pseudonym "Zarathustra", son of a socialist, worker, brought up from childhood in an anti-capitalist atmosphere) and a Ukrainian - Oleksandr Semeniuta (an anarchist defector from Odessa). They had about fifty permanent members and several hundred supporters. Initially, they dealt with the distribution of anarchist leaflets and appeals among the population . In 1905, Nestor Makhno became a member of the Poor Peasants (he took part in the first action in 1906). Due to the lack of financial resources for its day-to-day operations (members lived in poverty or extreme poverty), the organization launched armed attacks on the local rich, which was called expropriation by its members. There were many deaths then. Weapons were usually bought in Czerniowce in Bukovina, from where revolutionary literature was also brought. Spherical bombs were cast illegally at Kerner's plant in Huliaipole (they also attacked Boris Kerner himself). In July 1908, the group was weakened , some members died, including Ołeksander Semeniuta's wounded brother - Prokop, who shot himself in the head. Oleksandr was also killed later. On August 27, 1908, the group was finally exposed, 15 people were arrested, including Makhno. They waited for the sentence until March 1910. The punishments were death (including for Makhno), hard labor, imprisonment or penal colonies. Makhno avoided death only thanks to the forgery of his birth certificate, which indicated that he was a minor. Membership. The Union of Poor Peasants was mostly made up of young people, with their age ranging from 15 to 25 years old, and  was an ethnically diverse mix, reflecting the makeup of the local population. In the March 1910 trial, the members of the group that were implicated in the activities of the "illegal subversive association" included: Other members included: the Ukrainian Levadny, who died of typhus in the infirmary according to official reports, although Makhno claimed he was strangled by another anarchist inmate; the Jewish Kshiva, who was executed on 17 June 1909 for murdering an agent provocateur; and the Ukrainian Nazar Zuichenko, a police informant who allegedly contracted typhus before he could stand trial. Legacy. Members that escaped capture continued their  activities in Huliaipole, setting the groundwork for the libertarian resurgence during the 1917 Revolution. Following the February Revolution, Nestor Makhno was released from prison and returned to Huliaipole, where he was elected as Chairman of the local soviet and went on to lead the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (RIAU). By 1921, the RIAU was defeated by the Red Army and Makhno was forced into exile in France, where he died in 1934. After decades of exile in South America, Voldemar Antoni eventually returned to Ukraine as a "soviet patriot", visiting Huliaipole for the 50-year anniversary of the October  Revolution.