[2] They brought together delegates from the region's peasantry, industrial workers and insurgent soldiers, which would discuss the issues at hand and take their decisions back with them to local popular assemblies.

[5] In August 1917, Makhno attended the First Provincial Congress of Soviets and Peasant Unions, which was being held in Katerynoslav, but encountered similar problems, despite noting the peasantry's general shift towards left-wing politics.

[9] The advancing Ukrainian People's Army eventually pushed Nestor Makhno's insurgents back to the region around Huliaipole, where they regrouped and resolved to organise a pair of congresses.

[12] With the Makhnovshchina caught between the advancing fronts of the Ukrainian nationalists in the north and the White movement in the south, it was decided to convene a General Congress to discuss and take action on the situation.

[17] The delegation's propaganda efforts led to mass desertions from the UPA, which allowed the insurgents to capture a number of nationalist-held areas, including the cities of Kharkiv, Katerynoslav and Luhansk.

[31] Within days of the Congress ending, the Makhnovist insurgent detachments were inducted into the 1st Zadneprovsk Ukrainian Soviet Division, with Nestor Makhno himself assuming command over the 3rd Brigade.

[32] With the Bolsheviks attempting to further integrate the Makhnovshchina into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the military alliance between the two factions continued to hold, in spite of the political divisions.

[34] One of the resolutions that the Third Congress adopted was the free election of unit commanders within the Insurgent Army, while at the same time recommending that those with military expertise, such as veterans of World War I, be given preference for these positions.

[37] Near the end of the Congressional session, a telegram arrived from Pavel Dybenko, who pronounced the Congress to be "counter-revolutionary" and declared its organizers to be outlaws, threatening them with "the most rigorous repressive measures.

Assuming Dybenko to be ignorant of the context, the Congress pointed out that it had come about through a process set into motion by the Makhnovshchina, at a time when the Red Army had not yet arrived in Ukraine.

"[41] With tensions between the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks beginning to reach a head, on 31 May 1919, the Military Revolutionary Council decided to convene an extraordinary Fourth Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents.

[48] By this time, Leon Trotsky was already levying fierce criticisms against the Makhnovshchina and had declared himself unwilling to accept a Fourth Regional Congress being held.

"[54] Over the subsequent weeks, even more people were arrested and shot for supporting the Fourth Congress, including members of the Makhnovist general staff and a number of Huliaipole's peasants.

[56] The local populations of the insurgent-occupied territory were invited to elect their own delegates from trade unions and Soviets to a regional congress, which would determine how to solve the issues at hand.

Congress then decided that the Insurgent Army's provisions would be drawn from supplies captured in battle, requisitions from the wealthy and voluntary contributions from the peasantry.

[69] Other resolutions passed at the Oleksandrivsk Congress included one that prohibited drunkenness amongst the armed insurgents, by penalty of execution by firing squad, and another that levied an expropriation against the local banks and bourgeoisie, resulting in the seizure and redistribution of millions of rubles.

[77] The anarchist author Peter Arshinov would later insist that this term of the pact was only made "as a precaution on the insurgents' part against a surprise attack from the Bolsheviks.

[80] The Fifth All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, which anarchists and Makhnovists had been promised they could participate in, ended up ordering a state campaign against "banditry", dedicated to liquidating the Makhnovshchina.

[81] After her flight into exile, Halyna Kouzmenko wrote a letter to Kharkiv requesting an end to persecution against the Makhnovists, asking that they be extended the right to participate in congresses and soviets, in exchange for laying down their arms.