Time for Insurrectionary History!

Enough of commemorating political and religious figures.

Let’s remember those who rebelled :)

Makhnovia established 1918 to be a stateless anarchist society

Flag attributed to the Makhnovists by Bolshevik media, proclaiming "Death to all those who stand in the way of the working people"

Makhnovshchina or Makhnovia (Ukrainian: Махновщина, romanized: Makhnovshchyna; Russian: Махновщина, romanized: Makhnovshchina), resulted from an attempt to form a #stateless #anarchist society in parts of #Ukraine during the #RussianRevolution of 1917–1923. It existed from 1918 to 1921, during which time free soviets and #libertarian #communes operated under the protection of Nestor Makhno's Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army. The area had a population of around seven million.

#Makhnovia was established with the capture of #Huliaipole by Makhno's forces on 27 November 1918. An #insurrectionary staff was set up in the city, which became the territory's de facto capital. #Russian forces of the White movement, under Anton Denikin, occupied part of the region and formed a temporary government of Southern Russia in March 1920, resulting in the de facto capital being briefly moved to Katerynoslav (modern-day Dnipro). In late March 1920, Denikin's forces retreated from the area, having been driven out by the Red Army in cooperation with Makhno's forces, whose units conducted #guerrilla warfare behind Denikin's lines. Makhnovia was disestablished on 28 August 1921, when a badly-wounded Makhno and 77 of his men escaped through Romania after several high-ranking officials were executed by Bolshevik forces. Remnants of the #BlackArmy continued to fight until late 1922.

#anarchy #anarchism #history #insurrectionaryhistory

Time for Insurrectionary History!

Enough of commemorating political and religious figures.

Let’s remember those who rebelled :)

Policarpa Salavarrieta, Colombian independence heroine

This morning in 1817, a #Colombian #seamstress was shot in #Bogota for #spying on the #Spanish forces fighting to quell #SouthAmerica’s #Bolivarian #independence movements.

Policarpa Salavarrieta — it was the name her brother used for her; her legal given name and origin are romantically lost — was infiltrated into Bogota during the #reconquista, when a #Spain recovering from Napoleon’s intrusion deployed in force to quash the #separatist aspirations of its #NewWorld #colonies.

It was the day of #SimonBolivar, but Spain had completed its apparent pacification of New Granada* in 1816, and established a stronghold in Bogota. #Subversives had to mind their P’s and Q’s.

Although she was a known agitator in the city of Guadas, “La Pola” could slip into Bogota without drawing attention.

There, she used her skills as a domestic to hang around royalist households, sewing up clothes while snooping around, and helping #revolutionaries recruit soldiers.

She was arrested when the Spanish busted the network, (the link is in Spanish) and shot publicly with her lover, Alejo Sabarain, and a number** of others — all men, none of them half so well-remembered or beloved as Salavarrieta. She was supposed to have ignored the priests murmuring te deums in her ear on the scaffold in order to exhort the onlookers to resistance.

Over the years to come, she would become an emblematic #martyr of independence; just see how many times her theme is visited in this history of Colombian painting (Spanish again). She’s also the only historical (not mythological/allegorical) woman ever used on Colombian currency.

As will be readily surmised, of course, she merits her tribute because the movement in whose service she died soon rallied and carried the day.

#history #insurrectionaryhistory