[1] In 1917–1918, he was involved in organizing anarcho-syndicalist trade unions among Donbas miners, then he participated in the underground struggle against the Ukrainian State of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky.

[1][2] In the RIAU he commanded the 1st Don Brigade, which was later transformed into a corps (1919), led the partisan struggle in Kharkov and Donetsk provinces (1920) and was a member of the Council of Revolutionary Insurgents of Ukraine.

On the evening of February 23, 1920, he arrived with the Makhnovists in Gavrilovka, Budanov called a meeting in the village and pasted leaflets with his own hand.

[8] He was arrested upon breaking the military-political agreement with the Bolshevik authorities on November 26, 1920,[9] but in the summer of 1921 he escaped from the Ryazan prison and returned to Ukraine, leading the rebel movement until it was defeated in 1922 in Donbas.

[1] By the end of 1928, he organized an underground anarchist group near Mariupol, which was discovered by the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR in November 25, 1928, and Budanov was sentenced to be shot.