Both these booklets deal with aspects of the revolution in the Ukraine between 1917-21, and with the movement around the insurrectionary army of the Makhnovists and the extraordinary personality of the anarchist Nestor Makhno. But perhaps as equally remarkable was the figure of Maria Nikiforova, born in the Ukrainian city of Alexandrovsk, a factory worker who became an anarchist communist in the early 1900s. Imprisoned for her revolutionary activities, she managed to escape in an epic flight from Siberia , via Japan and the USA, to Western Europe. She took an active part in anarchist agitation in Russia just after the February Revolution, first of all in Petrograd, and then in the Ukraine where she organized her own armed detachment, which linked up with Makhno. This band fought against all invaders including the Germans and the White army of Denikin. She was eventually captured by the Whites in 1919 and shot.
Kontrrazvedka deals with the intelligence service set up by the Makhnovists to counter the Whites and the Bolsheviks, protect itself from assassination attempts, procure funds through expropriation, and generally gather information to help the Makhnovists in their attempt to set up a free area in the Ukraine. The Kontrrazvedka is notorious for being used by critics of the Makhnovists to argue that they were no different to the Bolsheviks in having a secret police force. This pamphlet offers previously unavailable information which gives a clearer view of what the Konrrazevdka actually did, allowing readers to make up their own minds about its role.
Both pamphlets are available from Black Cat Press at http://www.blackcatpress.ca
Emilio Canzi was born in Piacenza in Italy in 1893, the son of a clerk. He was drafted into the army in 1913 and served in the war. Demobbed in 1919 he was active in the post-war wave of discontent that swept through Italy and joined the anarchist movement. He was a leading light in the Arditi del Popolo, the combat organisation set up to fight the fascists and helped train its militants. Following the killing of a fascist he had to flee to France. In 1927 he returned to Italy to undertake underground work but was arrested. He managed to explain away his presence and left the country illegally in 1928. In France he joined an exile group of Piacenza anarchists, the Anarchist Communist Union of Piacenza. In October 1933 he served on the Anarchist Committee for political Victims based in Paris that maintained links with militants still in Italy. He was a main organiser of protests against the expulsion of Italian anarchist militants from France in 1935.
In 1936 he fought with Italian anarchist volunteers in Spain on the Aragon front.
Returning to Paris he contributed to the exile anarchist press and organised aid for Italian anarchist volunteers who had ended up in French concentration camps.
With the German invasion, Emilio was arrested by the Nazis, spending 3 months in a German prison and then he was sent to a concentration camp. In March 1942 he was transferred to Italy to receive a sentence of five years of internment on the prison island of Ventotene. From here he was sent to the concentration camp of Renicci D’Anghiari from where he and other anarchists organised a daring escape in 1943. He organised a partisan detachment in the mountains. He was arrested by the fascists in 1944 but was freed in a prisoner exchange.
The Communists tried to neutralise his importance in the partisan movement and to discredit him and he was arrested by them. Another partisan unit freed him and he took part in the fighting to liberate Piacenza.
He threw himself into activity in the anarchist movement again, taking part in the congress of the FCL (Libertarian Communist federation) and then at the founding congress of the Italian Anarchist Federation in Carrara in September 1945.
On the 2nd October 1945 he was struck by a British Army truck and he died in hospital several weeks later. The nature of the accident remains mysterious. Here is the story of this brave and little known anarchist.
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