Starobilsk Agreement
스타로빌스크 협정
The political and military agreement made in October 1920 between Nestor Makhno's Revolutionary Insurgent Army and the Ukrainian Soviet government and Red Southern Front against Wrangel. A provisional agreement was signed at Starobilsk on 6 October and the final text at Kharkov on the 15th. The insurgents came under Red Army command while keeping their internal structure, and the government promised the release of anarchists and freedom of speech and association. It was broken on 26 November, just after the conquest of Crimea, when the Red Army attacked the Makhnovist movement.
In depth
On 29 September the Ukrainian Soviet government agreed to a truce, and on 2 October Frunze ordered hostilities to cease. The provisional agreement was signed by Andriy Ivanov for the government and by Semyon Karetnik, Dmitry Popov and Viktor Bilash for the insurgents. Its political clauses guaranteed the release of anarchist political prisoners and an end to repression, freedom of speech, press and association short of anti-Soviet agitation, and participation in Soviet elections and the Fifth All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. Its military clauses placed the Insurgent Army under the Red Army high command while it kept its internal structure and autonomy, barred it from taking in Red Army units or deserters, and gave insurgents' families the same benefits as Red Army families. A fourth political clause, allowing workers' self-government in south-eastern Ukraine, was deferred by the Bolsheviks as needing Moscow's approval and quietly dropped.
Under the agreement Volin and others were released from Cheka prisons, and Karetnik's insurgent detachment took Melitopol in Northern Taurida and then crossed the Sivash on 8 November in the Perekop–Chongar operation. Lenin backed the agreement while Trotsky voiced doubts, and Makhno declared it a purely military alliance that did not recognise the authority of the Soviet government. On the night of 26 November the Red Army struck the whole Makhnovist movement, executing Karetnik and the insurgent staff, surrounding Huliaipole and arresting the anarchists in Kharkov.