Wikipedia:Peer review/Nestor Makhno/archive1

Nestor Makhno

I'm listing this level-4 vital article for peer review because I am hoping to nominate it for GA status and want to make sure it meets all the necessary criteria. I'm mainly looking for comments on the article's neutrality and if there are any remaining sections that need neutralizing, as I'm currently concerned that there may be some lingering editorializing (particularly in the Controversy section). I would also like to know if there are parts that other editors feel could be removed, as the article has grown quite long and I'm sure there are cases of excess detail. Thanks, Grnrchst (talk) 13:34, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

@Grnrchst Warning that it's got a very high earwig report % against Skirda - not really sure what's going on here, since the identical passages are really not that significant relative to the size of either the article or the book. (Link: [1]) I gave it a quick skim and I don't think there's any copyvio in here, since it looks like it's basic phrasing and properly attributed quotations, but you should go through that to be sure if you haven't already. This also indicates to me that this article might have more quotes than is really necessary.

Regarding organization/size: I think "Early Life" is too long, but this is maybe not so much a content issue as an organization issue - "When the 1905 revolution broke out..." should start a new heading, I think. I'm not expecting that much detail relevant to the career of a biography subject in "early life". I also think there's something confusing going on between "Peasant's movement" and "Makhnovist movement": the latter just starts out with "On September 22, 1918, Makhno moved to decisively reoccupy Huliaipole" - this is right in the middle of an action, so why the H2 barrier here? Have you tried reading this on mobile view? In general I think the article would benefit from an edit pass with a mobile reader in mind - the "in medias res" feeling each new section has is really starkly observable when you start from the default all-headings-closed mobile view and pick any one other than the first and try to read.

The antisemitism section sets off a lot of red flags because of the lack of context - who is doing the accusing? What, precisely, is being alleged? (eg, is he supposed to have been antisemitic beyond the accusations of pogroms? that is, if the pogroms are disproven, is the case for Makhno's antisemitism necessarily discarded?) How widely is this view held? When? Because it moves immediately to Makhno's denial and a list of luminaries who stand by him, the accusations are shut down before they've been given any time to even begin. This is a tactic frequently used by people who want to bury criticism, not spend five paragraphs discussing it, so I'm left wondering what is going on here. It doesn't look like anyone has accused Makhno of antisemitism, or indeed even discussed it except to conclude that he was not antisemitic, since his death. If that's not the case, that's an alarming NPOV oversight that should be rectified - Trotsky is the only named person on the "Makhno is antisemitic" side. If that is the case, and indeed no one has made these accusations since Makhno's death, I simply can't understand why there are five paragraphs dealing with it at all. It looks like much of this would be better moved to a subheading on the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine and dealt with in more detail there? There certainly should be some more information in this article on what this meant for Makhno himself in his lifetime - the implication of the first paragraph is that the accusations were causing him some kind of harm. Otherwise, why would he need to reject them, and why would so many contemporaries need to reject them? Ultimately I would put far less weight on individual biographers' declarations (biographers often want to portray their subjects in a flattering light, and at any rate you can sum up several of them in a single sentence like "Makhno's biographers, like x, y, and z, have concluded that, as z says, 'your favourite quote here'"), and more on the historiography of the question. It looks like Avrich has probably done a lot of this work, so you probably just need to dig his book back out to reframe this. -- asilvering (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the feedback, @Asilvering: I agree completely that there are more quotes in the article than necessary, and I already have a few in mind to remove/cut down on, especially if it's triggering the earwig tool's suspicions.

As for the article's structure, I mostly left the original section headers from before I started intact, so I will definitely have to rework those. Thanks for pointing that out, it's not something that stood out to me, I'll get around to editing it into a clearer structure.

And yeah, the antisemitism section will definitely need to be reworked per your criticisms. The reason I went a bit too far on elaborating this section was that the previous incarnation (before I started editing the article) had a tendency to make broad, sweeping declarations in wikivoice, so this was my attempt at rectifying that.

The allegations themselves range from Makhno personally being an antisemite to him allowing pogroms, allegations which started with the book by Joseph Kessel mentioned in the "Exile" section. This is when Makhno himself as well as others took to denying the charge. And I absolutely agree that Avrich is the historian that has done the best work on the matter, that's something that stood out to me upon reading it. If this section is to stay in some form, it'll definitely be more focused on Avrich's research than his various biographers issuing denials. I do think it is necessary to at least mention in the article, given that it is an issue that has popped up in almost every biography that I've read on Makhno, but maybe this is a case of undue coverage. I do like your idea of cutting it down to "Makhno's biographer's concluded [...]"

Cheers again. Grnrchst (talk) 17:37, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, by I simply can't understand why there are five paragraphs dealing with it at all. I didn't mean to imply the section should be removed - though I now realize it's very easy to read it that way. I meant more that five whole paragraphs seemed a bit much for a controversy that doesn't seem to have lived any longer than he did. I see there's some useful context here in the "Exile" section, some of the sort of thing I felt the "Controversies" bit was lacking. Folding the useful parts of the "Antisemitism" subheading into that part of "Exile" might work? I worry that might then have the opposite problem (where it's unduly buried), but if it doesn't exist after his death (except in biographers trying to find the truth of it, and deciding there is none) that seems the sensible place to put it. -- asilvering (talk) 17:52, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I should also add that I find the "charges of banditry" section very strange. It's a very obvious thing to say about an army of insurgents, but this article doesn't really give any of that kind of context - just a hint of it when it comes to the bit about the Romanian government clearly seeing through the political use of this word by the Bolsheviks. What this section is right now is mostly a list of people calling Makhno a bandit and then a very brief "counterargument" in which we learn Makhno shot some of his forces for looting. I don't think this can be described as a "controversy" at all - it would be much more usefully framed as part of a "what people think/thought about Makhno" section, which this article doesn't really have (but which is what should be in the "Legacy" section, imo). -- asilvering (talk) 17:22, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm now thinking about cutting the whole "Controversy" section down to a couple paragraphs and sticking that into the "Legacy" section. I just don't know what I'd call that, if I were to need to use a different title than "Controversy". Grnrchst (talk) 17:40, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

One possible way would be to reframe as "what group x thought about Makhno" - so "Bolsheviks", "White Russians", "Russian historians", "Ukranian nationalists" etc. That gives you a simple way to bring together the novel with its antisemitism claims, and the Bolshevik "banditry" thing, under a unified heading that doesn't imply that any of these things are some kind of active controversy so much as differing perspectives at various times by various groups of people. -- asilvering (talk) 17:57, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

@Asilvering I have provisionally cut the entire "Controversy" section, summarizing the relevant information about the allegations of antisemitism in the "Exile" section. (Honestly, I'm a bit embarrassed by how long it got, as it reeked of defensiveness) Looking through the banditry section, I didn't see what could have been saved from it, as it wasn't pulling from one clear-cut area of the sources, like the antisemitism section did.

At some point I'll go through my sources to see about making a "What group x thought about Makhno" section, but I didn't feel like I had enough in the now cut "Controversy" section to make such a change.

I have also implemented the other changes you suggested, including cutting down on excessive quotations and re-organizing the biographical sections. I hope this has contributed to improving the article. If you have any more feedback, do let me know.

Cheers. -- Grnrchst (talk) 10:17, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

czar

Fantastic work on this—nicely done!

• Do you intend to take this to FAC or just GA? Trying to determine how deep to go in this review
• If FA, is this a complete rewrite or just a restructuring? I.e., would you be able to speak to every source verifying what it says it does?
• First impression was that this is 80 kB of prose and that half of that (40–50 kB) would be more comfortable. 80 kB is about an hour's read, or a 55-page report. I can comment on what to cut.
• I was going to recommend removing the Controversy section for a few reasons but looks like that's already done! My main thought was that it read as if more about Makhnoists or the Makhno Army than about Makhno himself, so it might be fine to move some of this content there, if it isn't already covered there. For instance, how the Army interacted with the local people or claims of how it led pogroms would be better covered in context of the Army and its campaigns unless Makhno himself played an outsized role that would warrant mention in his biography.
• As for a dedicated section on what people thought of Makhno, usually we either cover that in context of the contemporaneous biographical detail (if relevant) or relegate to a Legacy section when evaluating the totality of an individual's life and career.

czar 15:54, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

• I may take this to FAC eventually, but right now I am just going for GA.
• It was almost entirely rewritten. There is some stuff that stayed mostly the same, like the lead, but the vast majority of the current article is new. So yes, I can speak to every single source cited.
• If you can comment on what to cut that'll be awesome. I can't say how much of it I will end up removing, but at the very least it would help me do some more fat-trimming.
• I have archived the "Controversy" section in the Talk page for posterity. It's there for if I (or others) find a way to reincoporate it into other articles in the future.
• Yeah, I was thinking something like that could go in the legacy section. But still, I'd need to put such a "what people thought of him" section together first.

Thanks for your thoughts Czar, they're always appreciated. :) Grnrchst (talk) 17:43, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Early life

• On my reviewing style: The questions below are rhetorical—feel free to only respond on the points you'd like to discuss (i.e., don't view it as a checklist)
• Is linking to "now Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine" better than just saying "now south-east Ukraine"?
• I lose the order of events as Makhno goes back to school but keeps working. Does he do both concurrently? Would it be sufficient to summarize it like that? "Makhno's youth was spent supporting his family through XYZ. In his brief/two? years of schooling, he excelled in reading and arithmetic, but his family's poverty forced him to work the fields full time." This has the added effect of shortening by glossing over detail (of where he worked and how he went in and out), which is closer to the level of detail that a general reader would want.
• Unclear what "20 rubles" amounts to. How sufficient or insufficient was it?
• What led to his rage/resentment: his experience working in the fields full-time or the fact that he had to work the fields instead of receiving an education? Reads a little like the latter but I imagine that's not what is meant.
• What is the Batko Ivan story meant to impart? If it left an impression on the young Makhno, we should say so. It might be sufficient to say that his mother's stories and his personal experience with landlord violence (without going into the story) increased his aversion to landlords over time, if that is indeed the case.
• "He started to focus his work on his mother's land" For how long? "Starting" implies that something else interrupted it (the revolution?)

czar 13:11, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I'll answer these to the best of my ability:

• It was always south-east Ukraine, the only thing that changed was the name of the administrative division, not the geographic location.
• He alternated between the two, depending on the family's economic situation. Sometimes he worked during the school's summer breaks. I'll have a think about cutting this section down a wee bit.
• May need to cut this if it's unclear.
• Here is the full quote from the cited source (Skirda 2004):

  Unfortunately, that was the sum total of his studies for, at the end of the school year, his family's circumstance became so straitened that he had to carry on working throughout the year, although only ten years old. This sad circumstance aroused in him a "sort of rage, resentment, even hatred for the wealthy property-owner" on whose holding he worked, and above all for his progeny: "For these young idlers who often passed close by him, all fresh and neat, with full bellies and in cleanest clothes, reeking of perfume while he, filthy and in rags, barefooted and stinking of dung, scattered bedding for the calves."

• According to Skirda, Batko Ivan spoke to Nestor "the first words of rebellion he had ever heard in his life". It was this that first began to cultivate a sense of anti-authoritarianism within him. The story of Ivan leading a violent peasant's strike against the landlords is a clear influence on Nestor's own actions during the revolution.
• "Started" here refers to him quitting positions of wage labour in order to help out on his mother's plot.

That's all I can think of right now. Grnrchst (talk) 19:00, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• I'm adding some {{clarify}} tags in-line in the text, which is a little simpler than copying the text here. Feel free to remove as you see fit or bring to discussion here if helpful! I also noticed a fair amount of using "even" as a connecting clause, so tried to change some for variety. czar 12:52, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

  Ok, some of these were easily fixed, others I'm not sure how to fix (like the one about the rubles). As for the rest, many of these require me to do more work on the anarchist and peasants' movements in Huliaipole before I can effectively clarify them. (E.g. when it references an "anarchist group" in Huliaipole, it is referring to the Union of Poor Peasants, the article for which presents an incomplete picture of the group's history) So it may take me a bit longer to get back to you on some of these. Cheers. Grnrchst (talk) 11:04, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

  Sounds good and no worries on addressing everything! Sometimes it's fine to just dismiss a clarification as impossible/unknown or to recast the sentence to avoid the ambiguity, especially if the content is not crucial to the topic. czar 18:01, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

  I think I'll be able to address most of the clarification tags, but I just wanted to bring up one of them that I've taken issue with, as it raises a litany of issues that I wouldn't even know where to start with:

  By April 1917? As in within one month of arriving after having been in prison for 8–9 years?

  Yes, this is mentioned in no less than four sources.

  How is that possible to consolidate power so fast?

  At the time, Huliaipole was a small town and it was in the middle of a revolution. Lots of changes happened very rapidly. Is it really that unclear how an organized peasantry and dedicated anarcho-communist activists were able to take control of a few local institutions, in a single town, a month after their entire political system had been uprooted?

  Or if it was more regional and not his personal influence, what should we know about that?

  This is explained in the sentence that the clarification tag was inserted into. Quoting Malet 1982, p. 3: "When re-elections were held in the first half of April, both the Public Committee and its most important sub-section, the Land Department, came under peasant control, exercised by members or sympathisers of the anarcho-communist group in the Peasant Union."

  If I haven't elaborated on this well enough, do let me know.

  If helpful perhaps there is something to clarify here about how the peasant movement came to be and how it connected to Makhno and the anarchists.

  This feels like it could be undue for this specific article, given that the history of the Ukrainian peasant's movement that led to the Makhnovshchina went back decades... centuries even. Grnrchst (talk) 16:22, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

  That sounds more than fair. As I mentioned above, feel free to remove any tags/comments without need for elaboration. I only mean to comment on context that I was missing as a general reader, but I leave to you whether it's worth addressing. If it's so important if left unaddressed, another reader will raise it again in the future.

  To this specific tag, the sentence says "Makhno had brought Huliaipole's Public Committee ... under the control of the town's peasantry and anarcho-communist activists", implying that Makhno was the agent rather than an ensemble cast member within an organized peasantry in a small town amidst a revolution, so recasting along the lines of your elaboration I personally think would be helpful to a general reader. But if he did consolidate power to become the chairman of these groups so fast, that is useful background to have in a biography, i.e., that he was away for nearly a decade but the town revered him? or that he was easily liked or a brilliant orator or a great strategist? or that the anarcho-communists didn't have leaders so he was just a figurehead as chairman? I don't know the reason but I didn't get a sense of "why Makhno" became the leading figure in my initial read. Maybe the sources didn't say. Either way, don't feel compelled to pursue this if you disagree. czar 05:43, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Ok, I've done my best to clarify each of the points, although I may not have gone far enough in clarifying the "why Makhno" question. I'm still unsure about how to clarify the thing about the 250,000 rubles. I tried using Wikipedia's inflation and currency conversion calculators, but was given back an absurdly large number that I'm not sure is accurate or even useful. If I can't clarify the amount of money, what should I do about this instead? Maybe remove the exact number? Grnrchst (talk) 09:11, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Let's take it to the talk page and enlist outside help. Talk:Nestor Makhno#Bank expropriation

  If it proves impossible, probably best to just remove the amount from the sentence. czar 16:25, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

• There are some copyright issues with the images, which mostly do not list their origin. Their copyright license templates are based on the place/time of first publication (not capture), but it's unclear when they were first published at all if they were just scanned and taken from a website. Were they ever published (taken from an archive) or did they come from a publication, etc. czar 12:58, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

  I'm sorry, I can't really help you here, as I wasn't the one that uploaded any of the pictures used in this article to Wikimedia Commons, so I don't know how these images may have been sourced. Grnrchst (talk) 11:06, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

  Might be best to remove those with an unclear copyright status in the meantime. I'll review them eventually if no one beats me to it. czar 18:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

  commons:File_talk:1921._Нестор_Махно_в_лагере_для_перемещенных_лиц_в_Румынии.jpg#First_publication czar 16:25, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

• The article covers some general history with which the reader may be unfamiliar. When introducing new individuals or plot points (such as the disappearance and reappearance of the Bolsheviks), it would be helpful to give some context as to why. Alternatively, if knowing the person's name adds little to the article, best to just remove it and gloss over the detail to stay focused on the bigger picture of what needs to be communicated. czar 02:53, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  Ok I've attempted to clarify the general history to the best of my ability. There's only two clarification tags, one for the above-mentioned ruble issue and the other for the chronology relating to Makhno's marriage to Halyna Kuzmenko. This is actually already covered in the "Personal life" section, so how do I resolve this issue without straight up copying passages from that section? Grnrchst (talk) 09:45, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

  I've removed the ruble text since it's clearer without the magntiude. For some biographies the personal life is a clearer split from the career, as the latter focuses on accomplishments. In this case, Halyna is intertwined with his moving and how he lived in exile. Two options, I think: (1) Introduce Halyna in the main career biography, moving over minimal detail but mentioning that he was married, etc. and leave the detail for the Personal life section. (2) Move much of Halyna's detail out of the main career biogrpahy and into the Personal life. For example, can say that his family traveled with him to Poland and Paris, but otherwise move all other detail into the later section. I personally wouldn't move more of the Personal life detail into the biography, given that it already covers so much. czar 17:38, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  Ok, I added a detail earlier on about Kuzmenko (using Skirda 2004) that should bring her into the chronology without repeating information from the Personal life section. Hopefully I've clarified it sufficiently. Grnrchst (talk) 09:43, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

• Nestor Makhno § In Popular Culture is written in WP:PROSELINE; would be better to recast with paragraphs themed around the types of media that underscore Makhno's legacy. czar 02:53, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Czar thank you for copy editing the legacy section! It looks much better now. Grnrchst (talk) 14:41, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

• The Schwarzbard part is interesting, but does it register as important as a life event? If it doesn't tie into something later or being a material part of Makhno or the trial's legacy, it might be better off removed, especially given its weight in the article. czar 13:44, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

  It was after Schwarzbard's assassination of Petliura that the accusations of antisemitism against Makhno began to start, so it does have an important impact on his life in exile. I'll try to cut this passage down to just the relevant parts and move the rest over to either the article about Schwarzbard or his trial. Grnrchst (talk) 09:47, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

  If the assassination triggered anti-semitism rumors that affected his exile, it would be better to say that outright. I.e., the anecdote about going pale in a restaurant reads as trivia for a general reader. The question is what it has to do with Makhno's own life, which is unclear as phrased. czar 17:38, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• To avoid overlinking, usually a topic will be linked twice in an article, once in the lede, if it appears there, and once for its first mention in the article. czar 14:34, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

  Ah ok, got it. I was trying to keep it to once per section. I'll cut any further overlinking that I stumble upon. Grnrchst (talk) 10:41, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

• The alcoholism paragraph could use some reduction. I would suggest combining it by claim/evidence. Given the volume of writing on this topic and what would constitute due weight within the article, I'd stick to the substantiated claims and remove the aspersions, i.e., who is guessing and who has cited evidence. If possible to combine multiple sentences into one (such as "X and Y said Z based on ABC") all the better. czar 14:34, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

  I was thinking this one might have been unduly long, so I just cut it down to size. Thanks for pointing this out! Grnrchst (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

• Legacy: Are these Russian-language sources reliable? Will want to check or replace before they go to FAC. If there isn't good sourcing, consider striking those sentences. czar 15:26, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

  All of the information coming from Russian languages sources are either indisputable statements of fact (like "Valeri Zolotukhin plays Makhno in the 1970 drama Hail, Mary!") or statements that have been attributed to the author. I don't think any are particularly unreliable in this case, although I am wary about the fact that one of the citations comes from Komsomolskaya Pravda (a Russian tabloid that has published some pretty heinous stuff). Grnrchst (talk) 10:31, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

• Legacy: Does Aleksey Tolstoy's The Road to Calvary (the novel series itself) portray Makhno negatively? If so, would be useful to establish that first before saying that the miniseries adaptations portray Makhno negatively, as that would be more logical than ideological. czar 15:26, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

  I can't say for certain about The Road to Calvary, as I haven't read the book. In The Rehabilitation of Makhno (1989), Alexandre Skirda does cite the book's "unflinching" portrayal of Makhno as an example of the "ambiguous or unfavourable presentation of Makhno in Soviet literature", mentioning it alongside the work of the Soviet poet Eduard Bagritsky. Grnrchst (talk) 10:40, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

  How good is your Russian? :)

  Vorontsova, Galina N. (2017). "The Image of Nestor Makhno in the Pages of Alexey N. Tostoy's Trilogy The Road to Calvary: Documents and Materials". Studia Litterarum (in Russian). 2 (4): 250–269. ISSN 2500-4247. OCLC 7317654421.

  czar 17:38, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  Added a source on Tolstoy that should be sufficient czar 19:15, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• Great read and a tremendous effort! I support further paring down Makhno's military career from specifics into generalities, and if that leads to a great reduction in minute detail, agreed that a "military career of" split article could preserve that detail but likely isn't necessary. Once the campaign detail here is pared down to his specific biography and command, any extraneous campaign detail can be added to the existing Makhno Army article (if it hasn't already) without necessitating a military career article split. On a logistical note, I highly recommend nominating for GA as soon as feasible. It's bound to pass and since there is a review drive this month, it's likely to be quickly assessed instead of waiting months for a reviewer. czar 15:26, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Czar: I'd personally object to having a separate "military career of" article, but that's only because I'm planning to overhaul the article about the RIAU and think breaking it up into individual campaigns would be a better idea.

  Thanks so much for reviewing this! As soon as I get the last of the fixes sorted (like the remaining two clarification tags), I'll be sure to put this up for GA. Grnrchst (talk) 10:41, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  Sounds great! Nice work czar 17:38, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks! If you have no more notes then I'll close this peer review and get it submitted for GA. Grnrchst (talk) 09:43, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  Go for it! czar 00:49, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Arms & Hearts

Some of the same caveats I made at the Paul Goodman PR apply here too: my perspective is that of someone with a certain amount of familiarity with anarchist thought and radical history, so some things may seem less in need of explanation for me than for others (though some other things may need more explanation!). That being said, I learned a lot from this very detailed, clearly written and well-referenced article. I went through and made some copyedits as I read – mostly fairly uncontroversial I think, but let me know if there's anything in need of explanation. Amongst those changes are a few bits that I hope mitigate the concerns about neutrality/editorialising: mostly removing adjectives/adverbs in phrases like quick-thinking tactics, rousing speech, proudly invited. Beyond that, I don't see any particular problems on that score.

The question of what might be cut for size reasons is probably more complex. One possibility, of course, would be to employ summary style and split one or two sections off: splitting off Military career of Nestor Makhno, for example, in the spirit of other articles in Category:Military careers by individual, and leaving a briefer summary of his military activities in the main article, would be one way to preserve valuable encyclopaedic detail while keeping the article at a manageable length. Of course, this is intended as a point to consider rather than any sort of recommendation, and putting it into practice might also raise other issues, like leaving the article too apparently focused on Makhno's life in exile.

If there's no appetite for a split (or even if there is), my sense is that the "In popular culture" section could either go or be cut back a lot. I'm probably generally biased against these sorts of sections, and appreciate not everyone agrees, but it's at least worth asking whether there's really any encyclopaedic value in the knowledge that, for example, a fairly obscure Russian band named a song after Makhno 30 years ago, that he was a minor character in some historical novels, and so on. Perhaps what's needed is an (inevitably arbitrary) limit on inclusion—say, only those things discussed in three or more RSes, those discussed in scholarly works, those discussed in sources more than a year after they were made, or fictional works in which Makhno was a primary character rather than a relatively minor one, or something like that? Finally, I'm not sure of the need for the gallery at the very bottom: the article isn't lacking in images, and if any of these are particularly necessary they could be worked into the article at the appropriate location.

More generally, there are a few places where the detail feels a bit too granular; going through these and trimming each back could put a dent in the length. For example:

• Travelling via Tikhoretsk, Makhno delivered a speech to woodworkers during an unscheduled stop, before finally arriving at Tsaritsyn. – if we're not going to say anything about the content of the speech this can probably go.
• they moved into an apartment at 18 Rue Jarry in Vincennes, before moving on to another apartment on Rue Diderot – do we need the names of these otherwise-unremarkable streets? (the same applies to a Russian restaurant on Rue de l’Éсоlе de Médecine).
• Pavel Ashakhmanov's comments on Makhno (under Anti-Bolshevik rebellion) – the reader isn't likely to know who Ashakhmanov is, so it's not clear why his opinions are relevant. This could of course be resolved by introducing him, but the comments could probably just as easily go.
• even attacking Voronezh. – what's especially significant about Voronezh that requires this detail?

These are just a few indicative examples; I can pull out a few more if that would be useful. A few things that occurred to me, in no particular order:

• I'm finding the article a bit muddled on Makhno's romantic partners. Assuming Anastasia Vasetskaia, Nastia and Nastyenka are the same person (all three are used), can the same name be used consistently, and the full name used at the first mention? Likewise, Halyna is first mentioned in the article body in the "Eastern Europe" section, where the full name and link should probably be given. When Makhno and his wife is introduced in "Exile" there's been no prior mention of marriage.
• a few links seem to stray into WP:EASTER territory to me: attempted coup and some even going on to fight, for example. It could be worth going through and working the titles of the articles these link to into the prose, or removing the links, as appropriate.
• quite a few sentences start with "but" – this may be old-fashionedness on my part, but starting sentences with "and" or "but" seems a bit too informal for me
• the claim Makhno invented the tachanka appears in the lede, so per WP:LEDEFOLLOWSBODY should be mentioned somewhere in the article body too
• the Hetmanate is mentioned twice, but not linked in either case, so the meaning's not clear; likewise, Denikin is mentioned once but no link or full name is given
• are the sentences beginning Following the outbreak of the Kronstadt rebellion and It was at this point that he decided referring to the same splitting up of the detachment(s)? If so the temporality feels a bit confused
• similarly, I'm not clear on when Makhno's Memoirs were published: we learn He quarreled with Ida Mett over the editing of his memoirs in summer 1927, but also that the book had been written and sold poorly sometime the year before in the second paragraph of the section.

...and a few really very minor quibbles:

• the rest of the group's members had been outlawed – can a person be outlawed? or would just "arrested" be clearer?
• Makhno nevertheless remained hostile to nationalism, taking the internationalist position – is this the right link? isn't proletarian internationalism a specifically Marxist, rather than anarchist, philosophy?
• with his advice often being challenged in the local Soviet, defense committee – I wasn't entirely clear if this is one item (with an erroneous comma) or two, in which case it should presumably be "the defense committee"
• what's a a performative artillery exercise?
• their is no sentimentality about our struggle – is this typo ("their" for "there") in the source(s)? if so use {{sic}} or silently correct per MOS:PMC
• Makhno was succumbing to physical and mental illness, with his wounds and tuberculosis getting worse – presumably these aren't recent wounds so would they have been "getting worse" at this point?

Again, this is impressive work with no major issues, and the above isn't intended as anything approaching binding, nor (unless you want it to be) as a checklist where every item needs a response – though I hope it's useful on at least some points. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:54, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the thorough review! This has given me a lot to think about. I'll consider splitting into a military career article, but I'm so far of the opinion that it would cause a disparity in the size of the other sections.

I'll get around to resolving the specific issues you mentioned and will provide clarification for some:

• Voronezh is a major Russian city that's quite far from the Makhnovist heartland, so it's worth mentioning, although maybe the "even" may have assigned it greater significance than it has, so I'll rewrite.
• Nastyenka, Nastia and Anastasia are all different ways of writing the same person's name, with Nastia being the short form. I'll have a peer through my citations and see which name is most commonly used before standardizing. I'll work on fixing the issue about Halyna as well.
• The sentences you mentioned about the splitting up of detachments are referring to different cases. The one following the outbreak of the Kronstadt rebellion involved him dispatching other insurgent detachments to Russia, while the one following the ambush at Mariupol refers to him splitting up his own detachment in southern Ukraine. Does this need further clarifications?
• Makhno's memoirs were published piecemeal in separate volumes. It was the earlier volumes that sold poorly, later volumes were released posthumously.
• Outlawing and arresting are two different things, legally speaking. So often you find cases of criminals that the state hasn't been put in custody being pronounced "outlaws". Yes, a person can be outlawed, and it was quite common practice at the time.
• Thanks for pointing the incorrect link direction out, it should probably point to the internationalist–defencist schism instead.
• These are two different items, so I'll add a "the" for clarification.
• A "performative artillery exercise" refers to the firing of artillery, not at any specific target, but as a demonstration. In this case it was used as a way to quickly scatter the Cossacks.
• Fixed the typo, thanks for pointing that out.
• The wounds themselves may not have been getting worse, but the long-term impacts of them were being felt, particularly with the growth of scar tissue.

Thanks again for the review! I'll be sure to take your advice on board. Grnrchst (talk) 08:48, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the quick reply Grnrchst. Glad the comments were of use and appreciate the clarifications; the changes you've made all look good. To follow up on just a few points:

• the sentences about splitting up detachments still feel a bit confusing to me – perhaps this can be easily resolved by adding "again" to the second sentence though?
• on outlawing vs. arresting, I suppose my sense was that to outlaw usually means, in my experience, to declare an act illegal, rather than to declare a person to be a criminal or outlaw. So while the second sense isn't unheard of, it feels a bit jarring to me. But that may well just be me; if no one else is confused by it I'm sure it's fine.
• if the artillery exercise was used to scatter the opposing troops, wouldn't the clearest term be warning shot(s)? ("Performative" is a pet peeve of mine as it's often used in very unclear ways, sometimes muddling ideas about performative utterances via Judith Butler with a more common sense that just means, as it does here, "for display". But that's, again, very probably just me.)
• something like "long-term impacts" of the wounds might be good in that sentence, or perhaps that whole subclause could be cut – we know he's ill and that he's been wounded and had tuberculosis, do the details need spelling out?

Again, all minor points and nothing pressing. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:36, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok! I just addressed all of your points here with some wee edits. Hope that has cleared things up a bit. Grnrchst (talk) 13:11, 2 June 2022 (UTC)