On January 15, 1919, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had been arrested and killed in Germany.

The fear of the rise of the "enemy within", following the example of the victorious Russian proletariat, required all bourgeoisies as much to oppose economic demands from the workers as a fierce repression of revolutionary movements, which tended to assume power. But workers’ struggles during the Red Biennium in Europe had different developments in different countries without being able to achieve the hoped-for and expected successes for the proletarian revolution. It had an ominous influence on the support provided by the Social Democratic parties to the national parliaments, which in 1914 had approved war credits to finance military expenditures, effectively bringing about the end of the Second Socialist International.

To give direction to proletarian struggle initiatives, fostering the formation of genuine communist parties worldwide for the international communist revolution, the First Congress of the Communist International was held in Moscow from March 2, 1919. It was able to be attended by 51 delegates from 30 countries, after overcoming considerable travel difficulties and police impediments.

Since 1918, strikes and demonstrations had taken place in almost all European countries, especially in those directly involved in the world conflict, against the war and over the deep economic crisis it had generated and which, aggravated, was affecting the proletariat, both in the victorious and vanquished countries. Even far from the fronts, in the United States there was a widespread general strike in Seattle and in Canada violent unrest forced the governor to insist with London that Canadian troops not be used in the civil war in Russia.

Anton Denikin, commander-in-chief of the counterrevolutionary forces, after no less than three failures to capture Caricyn (later Stalingrad), shelved offensives against the strategic city on the Volga for the time being and favored on the southern front the campaign for control of the rich mining and industrial basin of the Donbass. He then established a new arrangement that took into account the changed engagement in the Russian Civil War of the Entente forces, mainly Franco-British, following Germany’s exit from the war and the subsequent withdrawal of German troops from Ukraine, which had facilitated the Red Army’s occupation of Kiev on February 6, 1919.

The revolutionary forces were positioned as follows: the western flank on the Sea of Azov was held by the Ukrainian 2nd Army, which was joined by formations of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, which together formed the 14th Red Army.

We briefly reported on the expansion in Ukraine of these insurrectionary bands. They had arisen as an armed response to the allocation of part of Ukraine to the Central Empires, sanctioned by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 3, 1918. The Black Army, i.e., the anarchist formation headed by Machno, which in early 1919 numbered 15,000 men, all volunteers, organized into cavalry, infantry and artillery, came to have 83,000 infantrymen, 20,135 cavalrymen, 1,435 machine guns, 118 cannons, 7 armored trains and some armored cars in December of that year.

They were reorganized to operate jointly with the Red Army. But complex and tumultuous was the relationship with these anarchists, who fought by making shifting temporary alliances. Because of their anarchist conception they tended toward the economic and political self-administration of the various productive, autonomous and federated communities, according to the egalitarian and anti-authoritarian principle, which was not at all compatible with the total centralization of the proletarian dictatorship. Finally, after bitter contrasts and clashes, they were defeated in 1921 by a Bolshevik expedition led by M. Frunze.

There was a need to take immediate advantage of the failure of the White Cossacks’ three attempts to take control of the Caricyn junction and of the crumbling of their formations, which for the most part had surrendered, even without fighting, due to their weakening and lack of all kinds of supplies.

V|cietis, at the head of the Revolutionary Military Council (RVSR), now glimpsed the final victory on the southern front and the conquest of the Donbass, the entire Don region and the North Caucasus, which had hitherto been excluded from the plans, was imminent. The previous approach aimed at outflanking the Whites further north at the Millerovo junction, without advancing into the Donbass, thus, however, depriving themselves of the help of the substantial number of workers in that industrialized region through an insurgency of their own behind the backs of the Whites.

The new defensive set-up of the Whites aimed at defending the Donbass, now considered the epicenter of the entire southern front, however, forced V|cietis to rectify plans by quickly concentrating the available forces to the west, toward the Donbass, for a large-scale offensive.

But the change of direction was by no means easy for the exhausted Soviet divisions, in the absence of usable rail lines, which the retreating Cossacks had destroyed.

Greater involvement of Antonov-Ovseenko’s troops and the Anarchist Group was required for the Soviet maneuver. Gittis, the Red Front commander in that sector, prepared the new general deployment, which took place by sustaining several skirmishes, with mixed fortunes due in part to an early melting of the ice on the Donec and its major tributaries, which effectively interposed a mud barrier between the opposing lines.

After various placements, by mid-March the line of departure for the offensive for the Donbass roughly followed the course of the Donec, where some 130,000-150,000 Soviet troops had converged against some 45,000-55,000 counterrevolutionary troops.

An attack was decided on March 17 for units that could operate unimpeded by the river. This allowed important centers around the Donec to be occupied.

Antonov-Ovseenko’s forces advanced from Ukraine to the Azov Sea, forcing the Crimean Corps to retreat to the peninsula, leaving the left flank of Maj-Maevsky’s White forces unprotected along the coast near Mariupol, which was occupied by Machno’s anarchists.

Gittis, seeking to make the most of the situation and the precarious numerical superiority of the moment, devised a new plan, not without risk, to bring, after a rapid movement of substantial troops, including Machno’s anarchist brigade, a mighty attack on the flank of Maj-Maevsky’s troops, while a meager Red formation was to attack the Whites stationed in Lugansk.

Initially the plan worked, and Maj-Maevsky’s formations were forced to retreat from their positions, but when the white command realized that in front of Lugansk the Reds were clearly outnumbered, Denikin ordered an immediate counteroffensive in force in that sector, producing between March 27 and 28, a breakthrough in the red lines. The vigorous and successful White attack on the weak and secondary Red position disjointed Gittis’ plan, who was forced to quickly reposition troops to stem the extensive breach that had been created near Lugansk. From this, }kuro’s Caucasus Cavalry had penetrated by attacking the rear of the Soviet attack group from behind, forcing Gittis even to relieve the first line of attack to counter them. In their raids, }kuro’s Cossacks sowed terror and destruction in the villages and took a fair amount of military booty and 5,000 prisoners.

As a result of these negative events the Red forces were forced to give up some of the ground they had gained. Further attacks by }kuro’s "wolves" forced the Black Army of anarchists to leave Mariupol. The original situation was re-established.

The failure of Gittis’s plan was also brought about by the strong rebellions in the rear, where numerous communities in the Cossack villages around Vesenskaya and Kazanskaya, which had already rebelled against Krasnov’s troops, now revolted against the Bolsheviks, especially over requisitions of foodstuffs. The Bolshevik attempt to take complete control of the situation resulted in thousands of killings in a matter of weeks. Trotski in "Rebellion in the Rear", May 12, 1919, wrote, "The rebellion of a part of the Cossacks has been going on for some weeks already. It has been provoked by counterrevolutionary officers, agents of Denikin, and is supported by the Cossack kulaks. The kulaks have dragged along a substantial group of average Cossack peasants. It is very likely that in certain cases the Cossacks had to endure injustice from certain passing military units or from certain representatives of the Soviet authorities. Denikin’s agents were able to make use of them to fan the flame of revolt (...) A rebellion in the rear is to the soldier as an abscess in the arm for the worker (...) That is why our most urgent task is to cleanse the Don of troublemakers and suppress riots" (Military Writings I-The Armed Revolution).

In April Gittis organized a new attack on the Donbass mainly by moving the 9th Army from the east. The elaborate maneuver, taking advantage of the retreating waters of the Donec, involved some divisions, newly repositioned behind Millerovo, striking the right flank of the Whites, already engaged in countering the 8th Army, thus allowing the 9th to advance deep beyond the Donec. Unfortunately, the 9th Army moved with slowness and confusion; instead of cooperating with the 8th according to plan, it advanced haphazardly, crossed the Donec settling for small tactical achievements, by the way not even well exploited. The other Red divisions in the complex maneuver, which found themselves across the river, with their flanks exposed and under counterattacks by the Whites, were forced to return to their original positions. The Whites took advantage of this to throw the Reds back across the Donec, occupy Lugansk and from there try to control the passage north of the river. They were stopped, however, by the bridgehead of the 8th Army hitting them on the flanks from Kamenskaya.

This was the first heavy defeat, not only militarily, after months of onerous Red offensives in the Donbass. Trotski ordered Gittis to organize another vast attack as soon as possible to retake Lugansk and penetrate deep into the Donbass.