title: Pickett's Charge

text: Two gaps opened up in the Union line: the commander of the 71st Pennsylvania ordered his men to retreat when the Confederates came too close to the Angle; south of the copse of trees, the men of the 59th New York (Hall's brigade) inexplicably bolted for the rear. In the latter case, this left Captain Andrew Cowan and his 1st New York Independent Artillery Battery to face the oncoming infantry. Assisted personally by artillery chief Henry Hunt, Cowan ordered five guns to fire double canister simultaneously. The entire Confederate line to his front disappeared. The gap vacated by most of the 71st Pennsylvania, however, was more serious, leaving only a handful of the 71st, 268 men of the 69th Pennsylvania, and Cushing's two 3-inch rifled guns to receive the 2,500 to 3,000 men of Garnett's and Armistead's brigades as they began to cross the stone fence. The Irishmen of the 69th Pennsylvania resisted fiercely in a melee of rifle fire, bayonets, and fists. Webb, mortified that the 71st had retreated, brought the 72nd Pennsylvania (a Zouave regiment) forward. Initially, the regiment was hesitant to attack, this being due to the regiment not recognizing Webb as brigadier general (he had recently been promoted.) However, the 72nd moved forward after realizing their error, helping to plug the gap in the line. During the fight, Lt. Cushing was killed as he shouted to his men, three bullets striking him, the third in his mouth. The Confederates seized his two guns and turned them to face the Union troops, but they had no ammunition to fire.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: As more Union reinforcements arrived and charged into the breach, the position became untenable and the Confederates began to slip away individually, with no senior officers remaining to call a formal retreat.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: The infantry assault lasted less than an hour. The supporting attack by Wilcox and Lang on Pickett's right was never a factor; they did not approach the Union line until after Pickett was defeated, and their advance was quickly broken up by McGilvery's guns and by the Vermont Brigade.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: While the Union lost about 1,500 killed and wounded, the Confederate casualty rate was over 50%. Pickett's division suffered 2,655 casualties (498 killed, 643 wounded, 833 wounded and captured, and 681 captured, unwounded). Pettigrew's losses are estimated to be about 2,700 (470 killed, 1,893 wounded, 337 captured). Trimble's two brigades lost 885 (155 killed, 650 wounded, and 80 captured). Wilcox's brigade reported losses of 200, Lang's about 400. Thus, total losses during the attack were 6,555, of which at least 1,123 Confederates were killed on the battlefield, 4,019 were wounded, and a good number of the injured were also captured. Confederate prisoner totals are difficult to estimate from their reports; Union reports indicated that 3,750 men were captured.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: The casualties were also high among the commanders of the charge. Trimble and Pettigrew were the most senior casualties of the day; Trimble lost a leg, and Pettigrew received a minor wound to the hand (only to die from a bullet to the abdomen suffered in a minor skirmish during the retreat to Virginia). In Pickett's division, 26 of the 40 field grade officers (majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels) were casualties—twelve killed or mortally wounded, nine wounded, four wounded and captured, and one captured. All of his brigade commanders fell: Kemper was wounded seriously, captured by Union soldiers, rescued, and then captured again during the retreat to Virginia; Garnett and Armistead were killed. Garnett had a previous leg injury and rode his horse during the charge, despite knowing that conspicuously riding a horse into heavy enemy fire would mean almost certain death.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: Armistead, known for leading his brigade with his cap on the tip of his sword, made the farthest progress through the Union lines. He was mortally wounded, falling near "The Angle" at what is now called the high-water mark of the Confederacy and died two days later in a Union hospital. Ironically, the Union troops that fatally wounded Armistead were under the command of his old friend, Winfield Scott Hancock, who was himself severely wounded in the battle. Per his dying wishes, Longstreet delivered Armistead's Bible and other personal effects to Hancock's wife, Almira. Of the 15 regimental commanders in Pickett's division, the Virginia Military Institute produced 11 and all were casualties—six killed, five wounded.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: Stuart's cavalry action in indirect support of the infantry assault was unsuccessful. He was met and stopped by Union cavalry under the command of Brig. Gen. David McMurtrie Gregg about three miles (5 km) to the east, in East Cavalry Field.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: As soldiers straggled back to the Confederate lines along Seminary Ridge, Lee feared a Union counteroffensive and tried to rally his center, telling returning soldiers and Wilcox that the failure was "all my fault". Pickett was inconsolable for the rest of the day and never forgave Lee for ordering the charge. When Lee told Pickett to rally his division for the defense, Pickett allegedly replied, "General, I have no division."


title: Pickett's Charge

text: The Union counteroffensive never came; the Army of the Potomac was exhausted and nearly as damaged at the end of the three days as the Army of Northern Virginia. Meade was content to hold the field. On July 4, the armies observed an informal truce and collected their dead and wounded. Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant accepted the surrender of the Vicksburg garrison along the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy in two. These two Union victories are generally considered the turning point of the American Civil War.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: History may never know the true story of Lee's intentions at Gettysburg. He never published memoirs, and his after-action report from the battle was cursory. Most of the senior commanders of the charge were casualties and did not write reports. Pickett's report was apparently so bitter that Lee ordered him to destroy it, and no copy has been found. Years later, when asked why the charge at Gettysburg failed, Pickett reportedly said, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."


title: Pickett's Charge

text: Virginian newspapers praised Pickett's Virginia division as making the most progress during the charge, and the papers used Pickett's comparative success as a means of criticizing the actions of the other states' troops during the charge. It was this publicity that played a significant factor in selecting the name Pickett's Charge. Pickett's military career was never the same after the charge, and he was displeased about having his name attached to the repulsed charge. In particular North Carolinians have long taken exception to the characterizations and point to the poor performance of Brockenbrough's Virginians in the advance as a major causative factor of failure. Some historians have questioned the primacy of Pickett's role in the battle. W. R. Bond wrote in 1888, "No body of troops during the last war made as much reputation on so little fighting."


title: Pickett's Charge

text: Additional controversy developed after the battle about Pickett's personal location during the charge. The fact that fifteen of his officers and all three of his brigadier generals were casualties while Pickett managed to escape unharmed led many to question his proximity to the fighting and, by implication, his personal courage. The 1993 film "Gettysburg" depicts him observing on horseback from the Codori Farm at the Emmitsburg Road, but there is no historical evidence to confirm this. It was established doctrine in the Civil War that commanders of divisions and above would "lead from the rear", while brigade and more junior officers were expected to lead from the front, and while this was often violated, there was nothing for Pickett to be ashamed of if he coordinated his forces from behind.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: Pickett's Charge has become one of the central symbols of the literary and cultural movement known as the Lost Cause, in particular for Virginians. Proponents extol the bravery of Confederate soldiers attacking headlong into Union lines, the capable leadership of southern generals inspiring overwhelming confidence in their men, especially that of Virginians such as Lee and Pickett, and the tantalizing closeness of ultimate victory. William Faulkner, the quintessential Southern novelist, summed up the picture in Southern myth of this gallant but futile episode:


title: Pickett's Charge

text: Over time this view came to dominate perceptions of the battle, despite the initial protestations from groups both north and south. Northern veterans in particular opposed the decreasing emphasis on their hard-fought defense of Cemetery Ridge in favor of extolling the bravery and sacrifice of the attacking Confederate army. Non-Virginian southerners took offense at the overwhelming focus the myth places on Virginian leaders and Virginian troops, despite that larger number of Northern Carolina troops, who sustained greater casualties than the Virginian regiments. Nevertheless, after decades of strident historicizing this narrative had firmly taken root and by the battle's 50th anniversary in 1913 it had become in many ways the standard interpretation of what occurred.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: Modern analysis, however, has increasingly shifted away from many of the Lost Cause interpretation's tenets. Lee's decision to conduct the attack has been characterized as the culmination of multiple strategic and tactical blunders, and the sacrifice of his troops as unnecessary. Examination of casualty records, capture reports, and first hand accounts has revealed that substantial numbers of Confederate troops involved in the attack refused to make the final charge, instead choosing to shelter in the sunken depression of the Emmitsburg Road and surrender to Union soldiers after the battle. And later research has shown that it is unlikely Pickett's charge could ever have provided the decisive victory imagined by Lee; a study using the Lanchester model to examine several alternative scenarios suggested that Lee could have captured a foothold on Cemetery Ridge if he had committed several more infantry brigades to the charge; but this likely would have left him with insufficient reserves to hold or exploit the position afterwards.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: The site of Pickett's Charge is one of the best-maintained portions of the Gettysburg Battlefield. Despite millions of annual visitors to Gettysburg National Military Park, very few have walked in the footsteps of Pickett's division. The National Park Service maintains a neat, mowed path alongside a fence that leads from the Virginia Monument on West Confederate Avenue (Seminary Ridge) due east to the Emmitsburg Road in the direction of the Copse of Trees.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: Pickett's division, however, started considerably south of that point, near the Spangler farm, and wheeled to the north after crossing the road. In fact, the Park Service pathway stands "between" the two main thrusts of Longstreet's assault—Trimble's division advanced north of the current path, while Pickett's division moved from farther south.


title: Pickett's Charge

text: A cyclorama painting by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux entitled "The Battle of Gettysburg", also known as the Gettysburg Cyclorama, depicts Pickett's Charge from the vantage point of the Union defenders on Cemetery Ridge. Completed and first exhibited in 1883, it is one of the last surviving cycloramas in the United States. It was restored and relocated to the new National Park Service Visitor Center in September 2008.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: This is a list of the main career statistics of professional tennis player Rafael Nadal. All statistics are according to the ATP Tour website. To date, Nadal has won 92 ATP singles titles, including a men's record 22 Grand Slam singles titles and 36 ATP Tour Masters 1000 titles. He is one of two men to achieve the Career Golden Slam in men's singles, with titles at all four majors and the Olympic singles gold. He is the first man in history to win Grand Slam singles titles on three different surfaces in a calendar year (Surface Slam) and is the youngest (24) in the Open Era to achieve the Career Grand Slam. Following his triumph at the 2022 Australian Open, he became the fourth man in history to complete the double Career Grand Slam in singles, after Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, and Novak Djokovic. He is the first man to win multiple majors and rank world No. 1 in three different decades.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Representing Spain, Nadal has won 2 Olympic gold medals including a singles gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a doubles gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics. In the process, he became the first male player in history to complete the Career Grand Slam and win Olympic gold medals in both singles and doubles. Nadal is the only Spanish player, male or female, to win all four majors twice, to rank world No. 1 for more than 200 weeks, and to win more than 20 majors. He has led Spain to 5 Davis Cup titles in 2004, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2019. At the international level, he has won the 2017 and 2019 editions of the Laver Cup with Team Europe.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Nadal has been the most successful player in history on clay courts. He has a 63–8 record in clay court tournament finals and has lost only three times in best-of-five-set matches on clay. He has won 14 French Open titles (unbeaten in finals), 12 Barcelona Open titles (unbeaten in finals), 11 Monte-Carlo Masters titles, and 10 Rome Masters titles, and has won at least one of the three clay-court Masters 1000 tournaments every year between 2005 and 2014. His 9th French Open crown in 2014 made him the first man in the Open Era to win a single tournament 9 times, breaking a 32-year record held by Guillermo Vilas, who won the Buenos Aires title 8 times. He subsequently won his 9th title at three more tournaments; 2016 Monte Carlo, 2016 Barcelona, and the 2019 Italian Open. By winning his 11th Monte Carlo Masters title in 2018, he became the first and only male player in the Open Era to win a single tournament 11 times. The same year, he would replicate the feat by winning his 11th Barcelona and French Open titles, hence becoming the sole record-holder for most titles at the ATP 500, Masters 1000, and Grand Slam levels.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: He also holds the longest single-surface win streak in the Open Era, having won 81 consecutive matches on clay between April 2005 and May 2007. Nadal has never been taken to five sets in 14 French Open finals, and has never lost consecutive matches on clay since the start of his professional career. Many tennis critics and top players regard him as the greatest clay-court player of all time. Nadal's 14 French Open titles are a record for one player (male or female) at a single major, surpassing the old record of 11 Australian Open titles won by Margaret Court. Nadal is the only player to defeat Roger Federer in the finals of three different Grand Slam tournaments as well as on three different surfaces (2009 Australian Open on hard court, 2006 French Open on clay court, and 2008 Wimbledon on grass court). He has won 6 hard-court majors (2 Australian Open & 4 US Open titles), tied with Andre Agassi for fourth-most behind Pete Sampras (7), Federer (11) and Novak Djokovic (12) in the Open Era.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Nadal is the first player to win four Grand Slam titles without dropping a set (2008, 2010, 2017 and 2020 French Opens) surpassing the old record of three titles held by Björn Borg. He is also the first player, male or female, to win 100 matches at the French Open and holds the all-time record for the most match wins at a single major, with 112 at the French Open. He is the only player, male or female, to record three streaks of four or more consecutive titles at a single major in their career (2005–2008, 2010–2014 and 2017–2020 French Open), surpassing the old record of 3 consecutive Wimbledon titles won by Sampras twice (1993–1995, 1997–2000). Nadal is the only player to bagel both Federer (2008 French Open) and Djokovic (2020 French Open) and defeat both in straight sets in Grand Slam finals. He has won the most ATP titles (30 titles) without dropping a set, with 26 of these titles won on clay courts and 4 on hard courts. From 2005 to 2022, no male player has been able to defend his French Open title, other than Nadal.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Nadal is the sixth player to be ranked ATP world No. 1 for more than 200 weeks. Nadal has qualified for the ATP Finals for a record 16 consecutive years (2005–2020).


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Nadal is the second of three male players in history to have won at least two Grand Slam titles each on grass (2), hard courts (6) and clay (14), alongside Mats Wilander and Djokovic.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Nadal won five straight French Open singles titles from 2010 to 2014 to become the only player in the tournament's history to win 5 consecutive singles titles, breaking the previous record of 4 titles held by Paul Aymé and Borg. In 2017, by winning his 10th French Open title, Nadal became the first and only man to win a milestone 10 titles at the same major. He has played 32 matches against his primary rivals — Federer and Djokovic — in majors and leads 21–11 (10–4 vs Federer and 11–7 vs Djokovic). He is 14–2 on clay and 7–9 off clay against them.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: In 2018, Nadal became the first player, male or female, to amass 450+ match wins on both hard and clay courts, with 514 and 474 wins respectively. His 500+ hard court wins rank him No. 4 on the Open Era list, and his 1000+ total match wins have only been achieved by four other players in the Open Era. He holds the record for winning at least one Grand Slam title in 10 consecutive years (2005–14) breaking the previous record of 8 consecutive years held by Borg, Sampras and Federer. He also holds the record for most years (15) winning at least one Grand Slam title (2005–14, 2017–20, 2022).


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: In 2008, Nadal became the second Spanish man to win Wimbledon. Nadal is one of only two male players in history to have won the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year at least twice, after Rod Laver and Borg. In 2009, Nadal became the first Spaniard to win the Australian Open.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: He is also the first of two male players to win three consecutive Grand Slam tournaments on three different surfaces (clay, grass, and hard courts) in the same year (2010), a feat later achieved by Djokovic (2021). By winning the 2010 US Open, Nadal completed a men's singles Career Grand Slam at the age of 24, making him the youngest in the Open Era to do so. He is the 7th male player in history to achieve this feat. In addition, Nadal has completed the Career Golden Slam and is only the second male player in history to attain this after Andre Agassi. By winning the 2022 Australian Open, he became the fourth man in history (joining Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, and Djokovic) to complete the Double Career Grand Slam, by winning each Grand Slam title at least two times. Nadal has won ATP tournaments in 19 countries throughout his career.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: He is the only male player to win the French Open and the US Open in the same year four times (2010, 2013, 2017, 2019). Both Ivan Lendl (1986, 1987) and Laver (1962, 1969) achieved this feat twice.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Nadal has won 36 ATP Masters 1000 titles, two behind Djokovic, and reached 53 finals, a record 76 semi-finals, and a record 99 quarter-finals.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Because of these many accomplishments, Nadal is considered by many sports analysts to be the greatest tennis player of all time.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Nadal's 22 Grand Slam singles titles place him 1st in the men's all-time rankings. His 30 Grand Slam singles finals place him 3rd in the men's all-time rankings, behind Federer's 31 and Djokovic's 32 finals respectively. He has won 14 French Open titles, an all-time record at any tournament. He is the youngest player in the Open Era to win all four majors (24 years old).


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: Nadal has won 36 Masters titles, two behind Novak Djokovic. He has had the longest run of consecutive years with at least one Masters title (10). He and Djokovic are the only players in history to win at least five Masters titles at four separate events (Monte Carlo – 11, Rome – 10, Madrid – 5, Canada – 5). He has reached the final of each tournament, including Hamburg, which is no longer a Masters.


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: (*) signifies tournaments where Nadal won the title without dropping a set. He has won the most titles without dropping a set in the Open Era (30 titles).


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: (**) signifies tournaments where Nadal won the title after saving at least one match point. He is tied with Novak Djokovic and Thomas Muster for most titles won after saving at least one match point in the Open Era (7 titles).


title: Rafael Nadal career statistics

text: (**) signifies tournaments where Nadal and his partner won the title after saving at least one match point.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Aerobic exercise (also known as endurance activities, cardio or cardio-respiratory exercise) is physical exercise of low to high intensity that depends primarily on the aerobic energy-generating process. "Aerobic" is defined as "relating to, involving, or requiring oxygen", and refers to the use of oxygen to meet energy demands during exercise via aerobic metabolism adequately. Aerobic exercise is performed by repeating sequences of light-to-moderate intensity activities for extended periods of time. Aerobic exercise may be better referred to as "solely aerobic", as it is designed to be low-intensity enough that all carbohydrates are aerobically turned into energy via mitochondrial ATP production. Mitochondria are organelles that rely on oxygen for the metabolism of carbs, proteins, and fats.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Examples of cardiovascular or aerobic exercise are medium- to long-distance running or jogging, swimming, cycling, stair climbing and walking.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Archibald Hill, a British physiologist, introduced the concepts of maximal oxygen uptake and oxygen debt in 1922. German physician Otto Meyerhof and Hill shared the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their independent work related to muscle energy metabolism. Building on this work, scientists began measuring oxygen consumption during exercise. Henry Taylor at the University of Minnesota and Scandinavian scientists Per-Olof Åstrand and Bengt Saltin made notable contributions in the 1950s and 60s. Contributions were also made by the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, Copenhagen Muscle Research Centre as well as various German universities.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: After World War II, health-oriented recreational activities such as jogging became popular. The Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plans, developed by Dr. Bill Orban and published in 1961, helped to launch modern fitness culture.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Physical therapists Col. Pauline Potts and Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, both of the United States Air Force, advocated the concept of aerobic exercise. In the 1960s, Cooper started research into preventive medicine. He conducted the first extensive research on aerobic exercise on over 5,000 U.S. Air Force personnel after becoming intrigued by the belief that exercise can preserve one's health. In 1966 he coined the term "aerobics". Two years later, in 1968, he published a book of the same name. In 1970, he created the Cooper Institute for non-profit research and education devoted to preventive medicine. He published a mass-market version of his book "The New Aerobics" in 1979. Cooper encouraged millions into becoming active and is now known as the "father of aerobics". Cooper's book inspired Jacki Sorensen to create aerobic dancing exercise routines, which grew in popularity in the 1970s in the U.S., and at the same time, Judi Missett developed and expanded Jazzercise.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: In the 1970s, there was a running boom. It was inspired by the Olympics, the New-York marathon and the advent of cushioned shoes.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Aerobics at home became popular worldwide after the release of "Jane Fonda's Workout" exercise video in 1982. Step aerobics was popular in the 1990s, driven by a step product and program from Reebok shoes.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Aerobic exercise comprises innumerable forms. In general, it is performed at a moderate level of intensity over a relatively long period of time. For example, running a long distance at a moderate pace is an aerobic exercise, but sprinting is not. Playing singles tennis, with near-continuous motion, is generally considered aerobic activity, while activities with brief bursts of energetic movement within longer periods of casual movement may not be aerobic. Some sports are thus inherently "aerobic", while other aerobic exercises, such as fartlek training or aerobic dance classes, are designed specifically to improve aerobic capacity and fitness. It is most common for aerobic exercises to involve the leg muscles, primarily or exclusively. There are some exceptions. For example, rowing to distances of 2,000 meters or more is an aerobic sport that exercises several major muscle groups, including those of the legs, abdominals, chest, and arms.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Aerobic exercise and fitness can be contrasted with anaerobic exercise, of which strength training and short-distance running are the most salient examples. The two types of exercise differ by the duration and intensity of muscular contractions involved, as well as by how energy is generated within the muscle.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: New research on the endocrine functions of contracting muscles has shown that both aerobic and anaerobic exercise promote the secretion of myokines, with attendant benefits including growth of new tissue, tissue repair, and various anti-inflammatory functions, which in turn reduce the risk of developing various inflammatory diseases. Myokine secretion in turn is dependent on the amount of muscle contracted, and the duration and intensity of contraction. As such, both types of exercise produce endocrine benefits.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: In almost all conditions, anaerobic exercise is accompanied by aerobic (in the presence of oxygen) exercises because the less efficient anaerobic metabolism must supplement the aerobic system due to energy demands that exceed the aerobic system's capacity. During anaerobic exercise, the body must generate energy through other processes than aerobic metabolism, including glycolysis paired with lactic acid fermentation, and the phosphocreatine system to generate energy in the form of ATP. Common kettlebell exercises combine aerobic and anaerobic aspects. Allowing 24 hours of recovery between aerobic and strength exercise leads to greater fitness.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Depending on the intensity of exercise, the body preferentially utilizes certain fuel forms to meet energy demands. The two main fuel sources for aerobic exercise in the body include fat (in the form of adipose tissue) and glycogen. At lower intensity aerobic exercise, the body preferentially uses fat as its main fuel source for cellular respiration, however as intensity increases the body preferentially uses glycogen stored in the muscles and liver or other carbohydrates, as it is a quicker source of energy. Aerobic exercise is not a very efficient way to burn fat in comparison to other forms of exercise, as in order to preferentially burn fat one should exercise at lower intensities, which decreases the overall amount of calories burned per unit of time.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Both the health benefits and the performance benefits, or "training effect", require that the duration and the frequency of exercise both exceed a certain minimum. Most authorities suggest at least twenty minutes performed at least three times per week.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: The National Institute on Aging's Go4Life initiative has a YouTube channel of suggested exercises for older adults.


title: Aerobic exercise

text: Aerobic exercise has long been a popular approach to achieving weight loss and physical fitness, often taking a commercial form.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovshchina () was an attempt to form a stateless anarchist society in parts of Ukraine during the Russian Revolution 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 Insurgent Army. The area had a population of around seven million.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovshchina was established with the capture of Huliaipole by Makhno's forces on 27 November 1918. An insurgent 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. The Makhnovshchina 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 Black Army continued to fight until late 1922.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The term "Makhnovshchina" () can be loosely translated as the "Makhno movement", referring to the mass movement of social revolutionaries that supported the anarchist Nestor Makhno and his Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU).


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The area controlled by the RIAU also came to be known as "Makhnovia" (; ), a term used primarily in Soviet historiography. This "Makhnovist territory" or "Makhnovist region" was alternatively referred to as a "liberated zone", "liberated region", "liberated area", or "autonomous area". The name "Anarchist Ukraine" is also used in modern historiography. The term "Free anarchist homeland" () has also been used to describe the territory.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: In June 1919, the Bolsheviks began to refer to the Makhnovist territory as the "independent anarchist republic of Huliaipole", in calls for the Makhnovshchina's abolition. According to Bolshevik sources, that month's Planned Fourth Regional Congress intended to assert the region's independence and establish the "Priazov-Donets Republic" or a "libertarian republic of Makhnovia". Later, during their alliance with the Bolsheviks in October 1920, the Makhnovists insisted on terms allowing for the establishment of an "Autonomous Republic of Free Soviets" in the region.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: What became the territory of the Makhnovshchina was centered in the region of Zaporizhzhia, which had previously been inhabited by Cossacks before its conquest by the Russian Empire. Rechristened as the province of Katerynoslav, land largely came to be used for agriculture, leading to the rise of a landed nobility and a middle-peasant class known as the "kulaks", many of whom were Black Sea Germans. The region's poor peasants attempted to resist Pyotr Stolypin's agrarian reforms, which threatened to break up their traditional communes, but by the 20th century the region had been thoroughly integrated into the grain market and came to export nearly half of its wheat each year.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: As the price of land raised in order to prevent poor peasants from buying it, they became actively hostile to the concentration of land ownership by the "pomeshchiks" and "kulaks". Supported by their local governments, peasants resolved to found their own agricultural cooperatives and began trading their grain in a system of market socialism. This eventually led to the development of an agricultural industry in Katerynoslav, which produced almost a quarter of the Russian Empire's agricultural machinery and developed the region's settlements into small industrial centers. The development of industry brought together the peasantry and proletariat for the first time, with peasants often moving to centers of industry to become wage-earners and then back to their villages during times of industrial crisis. This also caused the region to become quite ethnically diverse, with Ukrainians, Russians, Germans, Jews and Greeks all settled alongside each other. The region's common language soon became Russian and many local Ukrainians eventually became unable to speak the Ukrainian language.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Due in part to the diversity of the region's peasantry, the local Jewish population faced relatively little antisemitism, in comparison to the Jewish communities living in right-bank Ukraine. It was young Jews that eventually formed the nucleus of the nascent Ukrainian anarchist movement, which became a leading force during the 1905 Revolution in Ukraine. The town of Huliaipole was itself hit by strike actions and a series of robberies, carried out by a group of young anarcho-communists known as the Union of Poor Peasants. The group was eventually caught and its leading members arrested, with many of them being sentenced to the death penalty or life imprisonment.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: In the wake of the February Revolution, Ukrainian intellectuals around Mykhailo Hrushevsky established the Central Council of Ukraine, which initially sought freedom of the press and education in the Ukrainian language, and eventually declared the autonomy of the Ukrainian People's Republic. In concert with the emergence of the movement for Ukrainian nationalism, largely made up of social democrats and socialist revolutionaries, the Ukrainian anarchist movement also began to experience a revival, catalyzed by the return of Nestor Makhno from his imprisonment in Moscow.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: With Makhno as its leading figure, the anarchist movement in Huliaipole established a peasants' union, seized control of the town from the local provisional government and established a Soviet in its place, laying the foundations for the implementation of anarcho-communism. According to Michael Malet, Huliaipole "was moving leftwards at a faster pace than elsewhere", with the town successfully organizing a May Day demonstration and even declaring its support for the workers' uprising in Petrograd, while the Oleksandrivsk Soviet still supported the Provisional Government. The nascent Makhnovist movement undertook the seizure of land from the "pomeshchiks" and "kulaks" in Huliaipole and redistributed it to the peasantry, aiming to abolish the concentration of land ownership. By the summer of 1917, the town's peasants had stopped paying rent and had brought the land largely under the control of a land trust, which prevented landlords from selling off livestock or farming equipment.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: In August 1917, the Ukrainian Central Council and Russian Provisional Government reached an agreement on the position of the Russia–Ukraine border, which placed Katerynoslav within the territory of the Russian Republic, a decision which was rejected by the province's anarchist movement. Viktor Chernov, the Russian Minister of Agriculture, attempted to implement a comprehensive package of land reform in the province, but his efforts were blocked by the Provisional Government. However, the Kornilov affair had resulted in the Provisional Government losing its control over Katerynoslav and the Makhnovists becoming the dominant force in the region. They subsequently resolved to implement land reform directly, without waiting for the Provisional Government's consent. On , the Huliaipole Congress of Soviets announced that it would be confiscating all land owned by the nobility and bringing it under common ownership, leading many landlords to flee the region. Attempts to bring the region back under the control of the Provisional Government met with resistance, both from the armed anarchist detachments led by Maria Nikiforova and from a series of strike actions by sympathetic industrial workers.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: On 7 November 1917, the Central Council declared the autonomy of Ukraine, which brought Katerynoslav back within its borders. Although the Central Council safely controlled right-bank, its new territorial claims in the left-bank were met with indifference from the more ethnically mixed population. By December 1917, Eastern Ukraine had come under Soviet influence, with the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets establishing the Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets in Kharkiv. Unable to reconcile their differences, a civil war soon broke out between the forces of the People's Republic and the new Soviet Republic.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Before the outbreak of the October Revolution, the Makhnovists had already established "soviet power" in Katerynoslav, implementing initiatives of workers' control and self-management. So when the Bolsheviks seized power under the slogan of "all power to the soviets", the Ukrainian anarchists initially supported it, while remaining critical of political and economic centralisation. As the Makhnovists desired to bring the region under Soviet power, they declared themselves against the new Ukrainian nation state, establishing armed detachments to combat both the forces of the Ukrainian People's Army and the Don Cossacks. An anarchist detachment led by Savelii Makhno aided in the capture of Oleksandrivsk and the reestablishment of Soviet power in the city. By January 1918, Southern Ukraine had largely come under the control of the Soviet Republic, which established revolutionary committees as its local organs of power. In Huliaipole, the local revolutionary committee included members of the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, alongside the anarchists.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The rapid capture of territory by the Soviet Republic culminated on 8 February 1918, when the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv was captured by Mikhail Muravyov's Red Guards.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Just one day after the fall of Kyiv, the Central Council of Ukraine signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers, which invited the Imperial German Army to invade Ukraine and oust the Soviets from power. The Red Guards were unable to halt the imperial advance, which within a month forced the Bolsheviks to negotiate their own peace treaty with the Central Powers, ceding control of Ukraine to the German Empire and Austria-Hungary.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: When the Ukrainian nationalists in Huliaipole began threatening anarchists with reprisals, local anarcho-syndicalists initiated a campaign of "revolutionary terror" against them, assassinating one nationalist leader before being forced to the negotiating table by Nestor Makhno. The nationalists subsequently began planning a coup, threatening pogroms against the local Jewish community in order to bring them on side. On the night of 15–16 April, the Ukrainian nationalists carried out the coup, launching a surprise attack against the anarchist "free battalion" and disarming them, before arresting leading anarcho-communists. The following day, a demonstration managed to secure the release of the arrested anarchists but were unable to organize any armed defense of the town, which was soon occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Army. Before the end of the month, the Ukrainian People's Republic was overthrown by the Central Powers and replaced with the Ukrainian State. Under the rule of Pavlo Skoropadskyi, the new regime began returning land to the nobility and requisitioning grain from the peasantry, which fomented popular discontent that ignited the Ukrainian War of Independence.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: At a conference in Taganrog, anarchist insurgents regrouped and agreed to return to Huliaipole in July 1918, in order to carry out an insurrection against the occupation forces. By the time they returned to Ukraine, the country was already in revolt against the Ukrainian State, with hundreds of thousands participating in armed uprisings and rail strikes, even in the face of harsh reprisals by the occupation forces. Peasant bands under various self-appointed otamans now attacked the occupation forces and eventually came to dominate the countryside; some defected to the Directorate or the Bolsheviks, but the largest portion followed either socialist revolutionary Nykyfor Hryhoriv or the anarchist flag of Makhno.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: On 30 September, insurgent detachments led by Nestor Makhno and Fedir Shchus linked up at and defeated the occupation forces in battle. When the November Revolution brought World War I to an end, the occupation finally began to melt away. In right-bank Ukraine, the Ukrainian State was overthrown by the Directorate and the Ukrainian People's Republic was reestablished, while the region of Pryazovia quickly fell under the control of the Makhnovshchina. On 27 November, the Makhnovshchina's capital of Huliaipole was definitively retaken by the insurgents, who reestablished the local Soviet and reorganized the town's trade unions. Before long the Makhnovshchina's territory had expanded as far west as Katerynoslav, as far north as Pavlohrad, as far east as Yuzivka and as far south as the Sea of Azov.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The end of the imperial occupation and the fall of the Ukrainian State allowed the Makhnovshchina to shift its emphasis from military campaigns towards political concerns, transforming the movement "from a destructive peasant uprising to a social revolutionary movement". In order to restart the construction of a libertarian communist society, the Makhnovists convened a Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents, which would act as the supreme authority of the Makhnovshchina. The Congress declared its intention to create "a society without ruling landowners, without subordinate slaves, without rich or poor", and called on workers and peasants to begin building this society themselves, "without tyrannical decrees and orders, and in defiance of tyrants and oppressors throughout the world."


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Under the direction of the democratically elected Military Revolutionary Council (VRS), the Makhnovshchina began to establish a new system of education, redistributed land and set up a number of agricultural cooperatives. The Ukrainian Soviet Army commander Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko reported that the Makhnovists had established a number of schools, hospitals and "children's communes", which had transformed Huliaipole into "one of the most cultured centres of Novorossiya." The VRS also instituted adult educational programs and extended a number of civil liberties to the population, including freedom of speech, press and association, even allowing the Bolsheviks to agitate amongst the local populace. During this period, the peasants of the Makhnovshchina implemented a system of common ownership where "land belongs to no one, and only those who work it may use it." The largest of the peasant communes was one named after the Polish communist Rosa Luxemburg, which, in May 1919, counted 285 members and 125 hectares of land.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: While in the Ukrainian Soviet capital of Kharkiv, the insurgent commander Viktor Bilash met with the Nabat and requested they begin producing anarchist propaganda for the Makhnovshchina, securing the passage of numerous Russian anarchist intellectuals to Ukraine, including Peter Arshinov and Aron Baron. With the Nabat having moved its headquarters to Huliaipole, anarchist newspapers such as "The Road to Freedom" and the "Makhnovist Voice" quickly began circulating throughout the Makhnovist territory, widely publicizing anarchist ideas. The arrival of these "urban anarchist newcomers" accelerated the development of the Makhnovshchina's anarcho-communist character, which aimed to completely restructure Ukrainian society along the lines of "free soviets". These soviets, independent of all political parties, began to be set up by industrial workers, with some even receiving financing from the Makhnovists in order to make up for lost wages, which hadn't been paid due to the conditions of war. The end goal of the free soviet system was to eventually convene an "all-Ukrainian labour congress", which would become the new central organ of an independent Ukraine, as a result of the Ukrainian workers' self-determination.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Around this time, the Bolsheviks finally broke the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and ordered the Red Army to invade Ukraine, with Christian Rakovsky proclaiming the establishment of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in Kharkiv. As the Makhnovshchina had found itself surrounded by the Ukrainian People's Republic and South Russia, the Makhnovists resolved to form an alliance with the Bolsheviks in order to maintain "soviet power" in the region, although they explicitly ruled out a political alliance and held that their pact was an exclusively military endeavor. Now integrated into the Red Army, the Makhnovists secured and expanded their territory with the capture of Orikhiv, Polohy, Bakhmut, Berdiansk and Volnovakha.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: However, the implementation of Bolshevik rule in Ukraine was soon followed by repression. As the Bolsheviks favored the proletariat over the peasantry, on 13 April, the Ukrainian Soviet government implemented food requisitioning in order to supply its urban centers, shooting any peasants that resisted, which caused a resurgence of peasant revolts in Ukraine. The Cheka also carried out its Red Terror in the areas captured by the Bolsheviks, with residents of Katerynoslav reporting arbitrary political persecution and increased economic hardship. Regiments of the Red Army even began to committ robberies against the local population and carried out a number of antisemitic pogroms, as part of a rising wave of violence against Ukrainian Jews that was perpetrated by the Reds, Whites and nationalists alike. In comparison to the surrounding states, the Makhnovshchina "represented a relatively peaceful model", given the ethnically diverse makeup of the Makhnovists, who severely punished acts of antisemitism.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Bolsheviks' implementation of bureaucratic collectivism and their authoritarianism brought them into opposition with the Makhnovshchina, which still upheld soviet democracy and libertarian socialism. In May 1919, tensions between the two were exacerbated when Nykyfor Hryhoriv led an anti-Bolshevik uprising in right-bank Ukraine, during which his green army carried out a series of antisemitic pogroms and anti-communist purges. The Makhnovists decided to take up arms against Hryhoriv and maintain their alliance with the Bolsheviks, hoping that talks between the two parties would result in the official extension of autonomy to the territory of the Makhnovshchina. But tensions between the two parties only increased with time, eventually resulting in the Makhnovists completely breaking from their Bolshevik commanders.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: When the Military Revolutionary Council called an extraordinary Regional Congress, it was considered to be an act of treason by the Bolshevik government, which ordered the Congress be prohibited and that any of its participants be executed by firing squad. The Bolsheviks subsequently attacked the Makhnovshchina, killing a number of the Makhnovist general staff and forcing the insurgents to flee, which began a period of guerrilla warfare in the region. By June 1919, the autonomy of the Makhnovshchina had been suppressed by the successive Red Terror and White Terror.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: It was at this time that the White movement broke through the Soviet lines in Donbas, with the Kuban Cossacks under Andrei Shkuro leading an attack against Huliaipole, capturing the town from the Makhnovists. As the Red Army had also declared war against the Makhnovshchina, labelling Huliaipole as a "paradise on earth for cowards and good-for-nothings," the local insurgents were left without Bolshevik support and many peasants were forced to defend the town themselves, armed only with farming tools and a few rifles. The Cossacks massacred the peasant rebels and raped 800 of the town's women, before restoring the property rights of the former landowners, causing a mass exodus of the town's peasantry.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovists fled to right-bank Ukraine and linked up with Nykyfor Hryhoriv's green army. But after revelations of the otaman having committed antisemitic pogroms, the Makhnovists assassinated Hryhoriv and began rebuilding their forces to take on the Whites. By September 1919, the Makhnovshchina had been pushed back as far as Uman, the last stronghold of the Ukrainian People's Republic. In order for their wounded to be tended to, the Makhnovists formed a temporary alliance with the Directorate, before turning back around and leading an attack against the General Command of the Armed Forces of South Russia. After the Battle of Peregonovka, the tide turned against the Whites as the Makhnovists pushed them back into Katerynoslav, which was brought back under the control of the Makhnovshchina on 11 November 1919.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovist advance brought with it a second period of reconstruction, during which a system of libertarian socialism was once again implemented throughout the territory of the Makhnovshchina, with all enterprises being directly transferred to workers' control. Wherever the insurgents captured, the locals were invited to elect their own trade union delegates and Soviets, which would then convoke a regional congress that would form the decision-making body for the region. Regional workers' conferences were subsequently held in Oleksandrivsk between 27 October and 2 November, bringing together 180 peasant delegates, 20 worker delegates and 100 delegates from left-wing political organizations and insurgent units. Volin, the chair of the congress, proposed that they adopt the anarchist thesis of establishing "free soviets", outside of political party control, throughout the Makhnovist territory. This proposal was objected to by 11 delegates from the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionary Party, who still desired the reestablishment of the Constituent Assembly and walked out of the congress. Further objections were made by a Bolshevik delegate, who rejected calls for anarchy.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: By December 1919, the Makhnovshchina was struck by an outbreak of epidemic typhus, which incapacitated the Makhnovist forces, allowing the White movement to briefly recapture Katerynoslav and the Red Army to invade the region.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: By the end of January 1920, the territory of the Makhnovshchina had been overrun by the Red Army. The Cheka set about disarming the local populace, taking villagers hostage while their troops set about searching homes, killing the hostages if they found any unreported weaponry. Petro Grigorenko would later state that "there was no end of bloodshed", drawing attention to reports of one massacre in the Makhnovist town of Novospasivka, where the Cheka had "shot down one in every two able-bodied men". In what Alexandre Skirda described as an act of "outright genocide", an estimated 200,000 Ukrainian peasants were killed during the Red Terror.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Bolshevik government implemented war communism in Ukraine, introducing a strict system of rationing and food requisitioning, which confiscated agricultural produce and livestock from the peasantry, and even forbade them from fishing, hunting or collecting lumber. The attacks against the Ukrainian peasantry were justified under the policy of Dekulakization, despite the fact that, by this point in time, only 0.5% of the peasantry owned more than 10 hectares of land. The "sovkhozes" also collapsed, with the number of state-owned farms halving and their land area reducing to a third, over the course of 1920. Even the soviet historian noted that to most of the Ukrainian peasantry: "the Soviet economy was a new and abhorrent form of rule [...] which in reality had merely set the State in the place of the former big landowner." The implementation of war communism thus resulted in a resurgence of peasant revolts. Before the fall of 1920, over 1,000 Bolshevik requisitionists had been killed by the Ukrainian peasantry.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovists themselves began to wage a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the Bolsheviks, launching a series of attacks against small red detachments and infrastructure. In the areas which they captured, they abolished war communism and redistributed requisitioned food back to the peasantry, forcing many Bolsheviks in the area back underground. But following a successful White offensive into Northern Taurida, the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks once again formed an alliance, which extended autonomy to the Makhnovshchina. The conditions of the Political Agreement between the two parties stated that:


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Bolsheviks ratified the first three clauses of the political agreement but held off on agreeing to the fourth clause, which they feared would limit their access to the Ukrainian rail network and turn the Makhnovshchina into a "magnet for all dissidents and refugees from Bolshevik-held territory." But now that Ukrainian anarchists were once again free to operate, they quickly pushed the Russian Army out of Huliaipole and Makhnovshchina control was once again reestablished.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Having once again regained control of their home territory, the Makhnovists drew up a program to reorganize the economy and society along the lines of anarcho-communism. By mid-November, the free soviets were being reconstituted, libertarian schools were established and theater shows were put on daily. According to the Polish anarchist Casimir Teslar, the scars of war ran deep throughout the region. He reported seeing abandoned trenches, demolished houses and a strong presence of insurgent detachments, detailing that even the local children were playing wargames based on the recent events.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: After Semen Karetnyk's detachment assisted in the siege of Perekop, which had forced the Army of Wrangel to evacuate from Crimea, the Bolsheviks turned against the Makhnovshchina on 26 November 1920. Many prominent Ukrainian anarchists were arrested and shot, while the Makhnovist capital of Huliaipole was itself captured by the Red Army. The Cheka also intensified the Red Terror in Ukraine, ordering the Southern Front to search and disarm peasants, and to shoot any that resisted. They also purged the district of any suspected Makhnovists, arresting the entire revolutionary committee in Polohy and executing a number of its members for allegedly collaborating with the Makhnovists during the Ukrainian War of Independence in 1918. In the place of the liquidated free soviets, the Bolsheviks established committees of Poor Peasants to take over local administration of Ukrainian villages.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Hoping to keep the Makhnovshchina safe from reprisals, the Insurgent Army retreated into right-bank Ukraine then moved on north, passing through Poltava, Chernihiv and Belgorod, before returning to Katerynoslav in February 1921. Once again on their home turf, they aimed to spread the Makhnovshchina to new territories and to establish reliable insurgent bases throughout Ukraine. However, the Bolshevik government's implementation of the New Economic Policy resulted in many Ukrainian peasants losing their will to fight, leading to a series of military defeats and the dwindling of insurgent forces. On 28 August 1921, Nestor Makhno's forces fled to Romania, leaving the country entirely under control of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The political system established by the Makhnovshchina was variously described as a "people's commune" or an "anarchist republic", one based on the theories of anarcho-communism and built on a network of trade unions, factory committees, peasant committees and popular assemblies. The assemblies were used by the local citizens as a form of referendums, where decisions were made through direct democracy, and became the basis for civil law. The vast majority of the Makhnovshchina's decisions were made independently, through a system of local self-governance at the village and district level. Networks of "free soviets" acted as institutions of participatory democracy, where issues would be discussed and dealt with directly.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The free soviets were conceived of as the basic form of organization in the Makhnovshchina. These soviets acted independently from any Central Authority, excluding all political parties from participation, and met to self-manage the activities of workers and peasants through participatory democracy. The soviets acted as the local organs of self-governance and federated together up to the regional and national levels, resulting in the relatively horizontal organization of the soviets. However, the conditions of the war meant that the Soviet model could only be implemented at scale during "periods of relative peace and territorial stability", as the populace was largely concerned with securing food or staying safe from the advancing armies.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents represented the "highest form of democratic authority" within the political system of the Makhnvoschina. They brought together delegates from the region's peasantry, industrial workers and insurgent soldiers, which would discuss the issues at hand and take their decisions back with them to local popular assemblies. Four Congresses were held over the course of 1919, while one was banned by the Bolsheviks and another was unable to convene due to renewed conflict with the Red Army.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Military Revolutionary Council (VRS) acted as the executive in the interim between sittings of the Regional Congresses. Its powers covered both military and civil matters in the region, although it was also subject to instant recall at the will of the Regional Congress and its activities were limited to those explicitly outlined by the Congresses themselves. At each Regional Congress, the VRS was to provide detailed reports of its activities and subjected itself to reorganization. When it came to the decisions of local soviets and assemblies, the VRS presented itself as a solely advisory board, with no power over the local bodies of self-government.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU), commanded by "Bat'ko" Nestor Makhno, constituted the principal armed force of the Makhnovshchina. Composed largely of peasant partisans and generally supported by the wider peasantry, the RIAU was able to capture large amounts of territory throughout southern Ukraine. Within this area, the RIAU declared that its aim was to "serve and protect" the social revolution in Ukraine, but also that it would not impose its own ideals upon the Ukrainian people. Nominally overseen by the civilian VRS, the RIAU played a purely military role, with Makhno himself functioning as little more than a military strategist and advisor. According to the Soviet historian , "neither the overall command of the army nor Makhno himself truly ran the movement; they merely reflected the aspirations of the mass, acting as its ideological and technical agents."


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Workers and peasants of Ukraine saw the October Revolution, which had promised "Factories to the Workers; Land to the Peasants!", as the beginning of workers' control of the industrial economy and land redistribution to the peasantry. In the territory controlled by the Makhnovshchina, a system of market socialism was implemented, to the particular benefit of the peasantry and workers that produced consumer goods, while social welfare was introduced through the redistribution of income and wealth.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: For the first year of the Revolution, an energized Ukrainian peasantry carried out a campaign of expropriations against the "pomeshchiks" and "kulaks", redistributing land to those that worked it and creating an agrarian socialist economy. In the wake of the Kornilov affair, the revolutionary defense committee in Huliaipole sanctioned the disarmament and dispossession of the local bourgeoisie, bringing all private enterprise in the area under workers' control. Peasants took control of the farms they worked and large estates were collectivized, creating agrarian communes that were settled by previously landless peasant families and individuals, with each commune counting around 200 members.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The first commune, named after Rosa Luxemburg, was highly successful. Though only a few members actually considered themselves anarchists, the peasants operated the communes on the basis of full social equality, including gender equality. They accepted Kropotkin's principle of mutual aid ("from each according to their ability, to each according to their need") as their fundamental tenet. Land was held in common, with shared meals also being eaten in communal kitchens, though members who wished to cook separately or to take food from the kitchen and eat it in their own quarters were allowed to do so. The work was collectively self-managed, with work programs being voluntarily agreed upon through consensus decision-making at general assemblies, and those who were unable to work could notify their neighbors in order for a replacement to be found. Many commune members considered communal life to be the "highest form of social justice", with some former landowners even voluntarily adopting the new lifestyle.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The father of Victor Kravchenko was one of the promoters of a commune called the "Tocsin", which counted 100 families on an estate made up of 200 hectares of wheat fields and orchards. The estate had been divided up and supplied by the local soviet, with many former industrial workers flocking to the new commune due to the promise of "well-being for everybody", while others were driven to communal life by their own ideological commitments. Some peasants even made fun of the urban communists that had joined the commune, although Kravchenko insisted that "such teasing was without malice", as the peasants still undertook to help the unskilled industrial laborers. However, this commune eventually dissolved, "with commune workers quitting one after another".


title: Makhnovshchina

text: While the Makhnovshchina was a primarily agrarian society, efforts were also made to organize the industrial economies in the cities which the Makhnovists briefly occupied, despite the pervasive lack of understanding that the (largely peasant) insurgents had for large-scale industry. Upon the occupation of cities, the Makhnovists organized workers' conferences with the intention of restarting production under a system of workers' self-management. When urban workers asked for the payment of their wages, still in arrears following the end of the White occupation, the Makhnovists responded by proposing they extract payment directly from their customers, albeit exempting the Insurgent Army from such payment.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Railroad workers in Oleksandrivsk took the first steps in organising a self-managed economy in 1919. They formed a committee charged with organizing the railway network of the region, establishing a detailed plan for the movement of trains, the transport of passengers, etc. Soviets were soon formed to coordinate factories and other enterprises across Ukraine.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: In Katerynoslav, the local anarcho-syndicalist movement took the reigns on bringing the city's industrial economy under social ownership. Collective agreements were won at a tobacco factory and the city's bakeries were brought under workers' control, with a number of anarcho-syndicalist bakers drawing up plans to ensure food security for the local population.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Many industrial workers ended up becoming disillusioned with the Makhnovshchina and instead supported the program of the Mensheviks. At one Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents, Menshevik trade union delegates were denounced as "counter-revolutionaries" for speaking out against the Makhnovist platform of free soviets and subsequently walked out of the congress.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovshchina came up against difficulties concerning the issue of money, as its largely peasant base could easily go without money through subsistence farming, while urban workers still needed to buy their own food. When the direct exchange of goods was not possible, the Makhnovshchina largely continued to use money, but planned to build a moneyless system of anarcho-communism following the Russian Civil War.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Early on, barter had been a popular means of exchange, with the Huliaipole Soviet even establishing links with textile factories in industrial centers such as Moscow. The Soviet procured wagon loads of cloth in exchange for grain, directly exchanged in quantities determined by the needs of both parties. However, this barter economy was frustrated by the newly established Council of People's Commissars, controlled by the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, which demanded an end to the independent barter economy and called for it to be brought under the control of the government.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Although the anarchists of the Makhnovshchina preferred a barter economy, they recognized that the working poor were still in need of money and permitted the use of any currencies, including the Imperial ruble, Soviet ruble and Ukrainian karbovanets. One account even suggests that the Makhnovists printed their own money, which stated on its reverse that "no-one would be prosecuted for forging it".


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The regional congresses imposed levies against the local bourgeoisie and banks, extracting about 40 million rubles from the bourgeoisie and seizing 100 million rubles from the banks. An extensive wealth redistribution campaign was subsequently implemented, in which the poor were able to apply for material assistance from the Military Revolutionary Council. One resident of Katerynoslav reported that thousands of people queued up on a daily basis for the redistribution packages, which they would receive in varying amounts depending on the assessment of their needs, with applicants being awarded up to thousands of rubles. Redistribution measures reportedly continued up until the final days of Makhnovshchina control, with an estimate 3–10 million rubles being distributed to the population of Katerynoslav alone.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovists' unfamiliarity with monetary economics led to high rates of inflation, while the changing military situation resulted in wild fluctuations of currency value, with Soviet rubles appreciating in value as the Red Army advanced into Ukraine. They also neglected to impose price controls, which caused the price of bread to rise by 25% during Makhnovshchina control.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The territory of the Makhnovshchina was mainly spread across the regions of Pryazovia and Zaporizhzhia. At its height, the population of the Makhnovshchina was roughly 7.5 million people, spread across 75,000 km of territory. At its greatest extent, the territory covered five provinces, including the entirety of Katerynoslav, as well as the northern part of Taurida, the eastern part of Kherson and the southern parts of Poltava and Kharkiv.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Following the end of World War I, the existing empires and multinational states were collapsing, leading to a rise of the nation state as the dominant polity. While a number of ethnic minorities of the former Russian Empire began to break off and form their own independent states, such as the Ukrainian People's Republic, the territory of the Makhnovshchina was notably multicultural and resisted the rising wave of Ukrainian nationalism. According to Peter Arshinov, while 90% of the Makhnovshchina was made up of Ukrainians, 6–8% was made up of Russians and the remainder consisted of Greek and Jewish communities. There also existed small minorities of Armenians, Bulgarians, Georgians, Germans and Serbs.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: As such, the Makhnovshchina sought "to deconstruct the entire state-based national paradigm, and build local socio-economic relations from the bottom up on anarchist principles." In February 1919, the Second Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents passed a resolution denouncing nationalism and called on "the workers and peasants of every land and all nationalities" to join together in a social revolution to overthrow the state and capitalism. In October 1919, the "Draft Declaration" adopted by the Military Revolutionary Council hoped to put an end to the "domination of one nationality over others" through the introduction of free soviets. Although it proclaimed "the right of the Ukrainian people (and every other nation) to self-determination", it also considered nationalism to be "profoundly bourgeois and negative" and called instead for the "union of nationalities" under socialism, which it believed would "lead to development of the culture peculiar to each nationality."


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovists specifically railed against antisemitism, which they considered to be a "bequest" of the Tsarist autocracy, and the Military Revolutionary Council even went so far as to declare a "war on anti-Semitism". Instances of antisemitic violence were notably much less common in the territory of the Makhnovshchina than they were in right-bank Ukraine, with any cases of antisemitism being punished severely by the Makhnovists. After one documented instance of an antisemitic pogrom taking place in Makhnovist territory, the insurgents responsible were executed by firing squad and weapons were redistributed to the local Jewish communities for their own protection. Many of the Makhnovshchina's most influential figures also came from a Jewish background, including a number of Nabat's leading members: Aron Baron, Mark Mratchny and Volin.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: In contrast to the Makhnovist hostility to antisemitism, anti-German sentiment was allowed to proliferate throughout the ranks of the Makhnovshchina, as the result of long and deeply-held resentments between the native Ukrainian peasantry and German Mennonite colonists. Following the battle of Dibrivka and the destruction of Velykomykhailivka by the Austro-Hungarian Army and local German collaborators, the Insurgent Army carried out a campaign of reprisals against Mennonite colonists in southern Ukraine. Anti-Mennonite repression intensified when the "Selbstschutz" formed an alliance with the White movement, leading to a number of insurgent raids against Mennonite settlements. Violence against the Mennonites reached its apex following the battle of Peregonovka, when the insurgents rapidly occupied most of southern and eastern Ukraine, bringing numerous Mennonite colonies under their occupation. Throughout late-1919, hundreds of Mennonites were murdered in a series of massacres committed by the insurgent forces, the most infamous of which was the Eichenfeld massacre.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The different language policies of the various regimes that occupied Ukraine during the war of independence led to a number of shifts in the use of language throughout Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrainian State had prioritized the use of the Ukrainian language, enforcing its use in education, and following the region's occupation by the Volunteer Army in June 1919, Vladimir May-Mayevsky banned the use of the Ukrainian language in schools throughout South Russia, instead enforcing the use of the Russian language. In reaction to the linguistic restrictions enforced by the various preceding governments, after the Makhnovist victory over the White movement at the Battle of Peregonovka, the Makhnovshchina's "Cultural Enlightenment Section" declared that people were to be educated in whichever language was used by the local population, to be decided on voluntarily by the people themselves. In the majority of villages and towns in the Makhnovist territory, this meant a return to the use of the Ukrainian language and an end to the privileged status of the Russian language.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Nevertheless, the Russian language had a notable prevalence in left-bank Ukraine. Since the 1905 Revolution, the Ukrainian anarchist movement's publications had largely been in the Russian language, and the predominance of the Russian language in anarchist literature continued following the emigration of Russian anarchists to the territory of the Makhnovshchina. But driven by a small number of Ukrainian intellectuals, led by Halyna Kuzmenko, the Makhnovshchina increasingly started to use the Ukrainian language in both its propaganda and educational activities, leading to a notable Ukrainization of the Makhnovist movement. In late 1919, the Makhnovists began to publish a Ukrainian language edition of "The Road to Freedom" () in Katerynoslav, and set up a new publication called "Anarchist Rebel" () in Poltava. But this would prove to be the extent of the Makhnovist movement's Ukrainian language publications, as they still lacked editors and proofreaders that were competent in the written Ukrainian language, and sometimes had no access to printing presses that carried the Ukrainian alphabet.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: During the 1917 Revolution, members of the Huliaipole Anarchist Group first proposed the creation of a new system of education, inspired by the work of the Catalan pedagogue Francesc Ferrer. One group member, Abram Budanov, took the initiative to establish a Cultural-Educational section for the nascent Makhnovist movement. This section would publish pamphlets and hold meetings, but would also organise the establishment of educational institutions, theatre productions and live music shows. With the outbreak of the war, the Cultural-Educational Section was brought under the oversight of the Military Revolutionary Council. At the beginning of 1919, a number of Russian anarchist intellectuals emigrated to southern Ukraine, where they began work for the Cultural-Educational section. Peter Arshinov, who had educated Nestor Makhno during their time in prison, became the section's Chairman and edited the insurgent newspaper "The Road to Freedom". In the summer of 1919, he was joined members of the Nabat, including Volin and Aron Baron. Volin, who had briefly worked in the Department of Education of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, oversaw the drawing up of the "Draft Declaration", which declared the need for cultural and educational institutions to be outside of state control, instead proposing they be established as voluntary associations.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The Makhnovshchina's education system was spearheaded by Halyna Kuzmenko, a Ukrainian pedagogue and former primary school teacher. From as early as the February Revolution, teachers were already engaged in setting up schools in Huliaipole, with three secondary schools being established by 1919, despite the conditions of the war. Adult education was also carried out, with a focus on political agitation, by educational workers within the Insurgent Army itself. But by the time that the armistice with the Bolsheviks was promulgated in October 1920, most of the region's teachers had fled and few schools were still open. Driven by the ideology of the Ferrer movement, the Makhnovshchina responded with plans to open new workers' schools, supported by their local communities, which would educate both children and adults. The Nabat member Levandovski proposed the establishment of an anarchist university in Kharkiv, which would have cost the Huliaipole Soviet some 10 million rubles. But Nestor Makhno himself rejected the idea, as he considered educational institutions to be most needed in rural areas and believed that the instinct to establish such a university in a large city like Kharkiv was indicative of centralism.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Meanwhile, the cultural section travelled with the Insurgent Army, publishing flyers and issues of "The Voice of the Free Insurgent" using a mobile printing press. When the Insurgent Army halted, the cultural section provided entertainment and organised conferences, where they advocated for free soviets. As part of their cultural activities, Makhnovist men and women staged daily amateur theatre shows, during which they dramatised the region's recent history and the story of the Insurgent Army. The theatre section itself had a number of units that specialised in different types of productions, whether musical, dramatic, operatic or satirical. The Cultural-Educational Section often used entertainment as a way to raise money for wounded insurgents, holding plays and Dutch auctions in a number of southern Ukrainian towns. Music also played an important role in the Makhnovshchina, with musical ensembles often accompanying meetings and the harmonica becoming a popular instrument among the insurgents. Makhnovist musicians played a number of original songs, including their own version of the popular folk song "Yablochko", which depicted insurgents triumphing over the forces of Anton Denikin's White movement.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Following the siege of Perekop and the renewal of Bolshevik attacks against the Makhnovshchina, the remains of the Makhnovist cultural and educational programs were finally destroyed. Bolshevik reforms to education included the scrapping of the final year of secondary education and the requirement that all teachers seek election. Political commissars and Bolshevik cells were established in all schools, in order to remove teachers that contradicted the party line.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: While the territory of the Makhnovshchina was a predominantly rural, it also included a number of large cities, with the Insurgent Army capturing several following the Battle of Peregonovka. Its capital city was Nestor Makhno's relatively small hometown of Huliaipole, which was nicknamed "Makhnograd" by the Bolsheviks.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: Civil liberties were first introduced to southern and eastern Ukraine following the February Revolution, but were suspended with the outbreak of the war, when the territory fell under the sequential control of the Ukrainian State, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and South Russia. Following the defeat of the White movement in October 1919 and the subsequent extension of the Makhnovshchina throughout the area, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of association were all reintroduced.


title: Makhnovshchina

text: The implementation of freedom of the press resulted in the appearance of a number of newspapers in the territory, including the official organs of several political organizations. These included the Socialist Revolutionary Party's "People's Power" ("Narodovlastie"), the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries' "Banner of Revolt" ("Znamya Vosstanya"), the Bolsheviks' "Star" ("Zvezda"), the Mensheviks' "Workers' Gazette" ("Rabochaia Gazeta"), the Ukrainian Anarchist Confederation's "Nabat" and the Insurgent Army's own "Road to Freedom".


title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009 film)

text: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo () is a 2009 Swedish-Danish crime thriller film with German co-production directed by Niels Arden Oplev from a screenplay by Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel and produced by Søren Stærmose, based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson, the first entry in his "Millennium" series. The film stars Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace.


text: That same year, two sequels, "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest", were released in September and November, respectively.


text: In December 2002, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, publisher of independent magazine "Millennium", loses a libel case involving unproven allegations that he published about billionaire financier Hans-Erik Wennerström, and is sentenced to three months in prison. Lisbeth Salander, a freelance surveillance agent and hacker, is hired by Henrik Vanger, the patriarch of the wealthy Vanger family, to conduct a background check on Blomkvist.


text: Vanger subsequently hires Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of his niece, Harriet, who vanished on Children's Day decades earlier in 1966. Vanger believes that Harriet was murdered by a family member. Henrik explains that his brothers—Richard, Gottfried and Harald—are supporters of the Nazi regime. As Richard died in 1940, he is not a suspect. Her father, Gottfried, who is described as a heavy drinker, womanizer and wife beater, accidentally drowned in a lake a year prior to Harriet’s disappearance, so he is not a suspect either. After his death, since Harriet’s mother seemed incapable of/uninterested in taking care of her children (Harriet and her older brother Martin), Henrik took responsibility for raising the two.


text: Harald is a recluse who still clings to his strong Nazi views and is a suspect for the murder, as is Harriet's mother and all the other family members who were present on that day. Henrik also shows Blomkvist a room whose walls are covered with pressed flowers. The first ones were gifts from Harriet, and since her disappearance, a flower has arrived each year from different places around the world. Henrik believes that Harriet's killer is sending them to taunt him.


text: Salander, who was ruled mentally incompetent as a child, is placed in the custody of a new legal guardian, Nils Bjurman, after her previous guardian suffers a stroke. Bjurman makes it clear to Lisbeth that unless she does what he tells her, he will make her life very difficult and even threatens her with incarceration in a mental hospital. Bjurman also takes over control of Lisbeth's bank account and refuses to let her access her own money. Lisbeth lies to Bjurman about the nature of her work by pretending that she is just an office assistant.


text: Lisbeth is attacked by a group of drunk thugs in the subway. Although she manages to fight them off, her laptop is broken. She visits a hacker friend of hers, "Plague", who can save the hard drive and let her use his spare PC, but only until she can get a replacement laptop. She goes to see Bjurman, who forces her to perform fellatio on him in return for the money that she needs to buy a new computer; he refuses to give her the full amount she needs. Lisbeth calls him again the next day, but when she goes to meet with Bjurman, he handcuffs her to his bed then beats and rapes her. Lisbeth secretly records the encounter with a hidden device. She later returns to Bjurman, uses a taser to incapacitate him, ties him up, rapes him with a dildo, shows him the hidden camera footage, explains what she really does for a living, and tells him that she is taking back control of her money and her life. If anything happens to her, then the video recording will be released, and any threat to her will result in the same outcome. She then uses a tattoo machine to brand Bjurman's abdomen with the message "I am a sadistic pig and a rapist".


text: Blomkvist moves to a cottage on the Vanger estate and meets the Vanger family, including Harriet's brother Martin, who is the head of the Vanger group, and her cousin Cecilia. Martin is congenial and invites Blomkvist over for dinner; he and Cecilia both think that Harriet simply ran away, as she was unhappy at home. Inside Harriet's diary, Blomkvist finds a list of five names alongside what appears to be phone numbers. He visits retiring police inspector Morell, who informs him that his team had been unable to decipher them when they worked on Harriet's case. After viewing photographs taken during the Children's Day parade, Blomkvist sees Harriet's facial expression change suddenly just before she leaves and, after obtaining photographs taken from the same side of the street that she was on, comes to believe that Harriet may have seen her murderer that day.


text: Using her access to Blomkvist's computer, Salander theorizes that the numbers in Harriet's diary are references to verses in the Book of Leviticus and emails Blomkvist anonymously. Blomkvist figures out that Salander sent the email and hires her as a research assistant. Together, Blomkvist and Salander connect all but one of the names on Harriet's list to murdered women. They are all Jewish names, which intrigues Blomkvist, as the Vanger family has a long history of antisemitism. During the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander become lovers.


text: They suspect Henrik's reclusive brother Harald to be the murderer, as he is the only other surviving Vanger brother. Salander searches through Vanger's business records to trace Harald to the crime scenes, while Blomkvist breaks into Harald's house, believing it to be unoccupied. He discovers many Nazi texts and memorabilia amid the wreckage of the interior of the house, which has been left to decay. When Harald attacks Blomkvist, Martin appears and saves him. Harald insults Martin for stopping him from shooting Blomkvist. Martin escorts Blomkvist to his home, where Blomkvist reveals what he and Salander have uncovered. Martin says that he'll call the police, but instead he drugs Blomkvist. Salander's search of the company accounts points to Martin and his late father, Gottfried, as having been jointly responsible for the murders. She returns to the cottage to find Blomkvist missing.


text: Blomkvist wakes to find himself bound in Martin's cellar. Martin explains that Gottfried began teaching him to rape, torture, and kill as a teenager. Martin boasts about raping and murdering women for decades since his father's death. However, he denies killing Harriet, insisting that she disappeared. He also says that his father was too theatrical and that leaving the bodies out to be found was a step too far, as it drew unwanted attention. As Martin is in the process of hanging Blomkvist, Salander appears and attacks him with a golf club. While she frees Blomkvist, Martin flees in his car. Salander gives chase on her motorcycle. When Martin drives off the road, Salander finds him still alive but trapped in the vehicle. She then simply walks away as the car catches fire and he burns to death.


text: Blomkvist realises that Cecilia's late sister Anita was the near-double of Harriet and that some of the photographs taken on the day of Harriet's disappearance show Anita, not Harriet as previously thought. Blomkvist and Salander discover that Harriet has been using Anita's name and is still alive in Australia. Blomkvist flies there to look for her, and he persuades her to return to Sweden, where she is reunited with her uncle. Harriet explains the truth about her disappearance: that her father and her brother had repeatedly raped her; that she killed her father by drowning him, which was witnessed by Martin; and that her cousin Anita had smuggled her away from the island prior to her death. Harriet notes that her brother was harsher to her than her father and that she knew that remaining on the island would lead to her death at her brother's hands. As a way of letting Henrik know that she was alive, Harriet sent him a pressed flower every year. She apologises for frightening Henrik as he had misinterpreted these messages, but Henrik reassures her by explaining that thanks to her messages, the truth has come out.


text: Salander's elderly mother, living in a nursing home, apologises for not choosing a "better papa" for her. Salander then visits Blomkvist in prison and gives him new information on the Wennerström case. From prison, Blomkvist publishes a new story on Wennerström in "Millennium" which ruins Wennerström and restores his reputation. Wennerström is then found dead, which the police write off as a suicide. His offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands is raided by a young woman caught on CCTV, whom Blomkvist recognises as Salander in a blond wig. The film ends with Salander, now wealthy and living under an assumed identity, as she is walking along a sunny beach promenade.


text: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" was well received by critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a normalized score of 85% based on 188 reviews, with an average score of 7.27/10 and declares it "Certified Fresh". The critical consensus is: "Its graphic violence and sprawling length will prove too much for some viewers to take, but Noomi Rapace's gripping performance makes "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" an unforgettable viewing experience." Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 76% based on reviews from 36 critics. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film four out of four stars, noting that "[the film] is a compelling thriller to begin with, but it adds the rare quality of having a heroine more fascinating than the story".


text: The film grossed more than $10 million in North America in a limited release of 202 theatres. The total gross worldwide is $104,617,430.


text: French premium pay television channel Canal+ aired extended versions of the three films as a miniseries between March and June 2010, before the theatrical release of the second and third films, consisting of six parts of 90 minutes each. The first part attracted 1.2 million viewers, the largest audience of a foreign series at Canal+ that year. The series aired on US pay-for-view cable networks in the weeks leading up to the release of David Fincher's 2011 film adaptation of the novel.


text: A home video set of all six parts of the miniseries was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc by Music Box Home Entertainment on 6 December 2011.


title: The Rundown

text: The Rundown (known internationally as Welcome to the Jungle) is a 2003 American buddy action comedy film directed by Peter Berg and written by James Vanderbilt and R.J. Stewart. It stars Dwayne Johnson (credited as The Rock), Seann William Scott, Christopher Walken, Rosario Dawson and William Lucking. In the film, Johnson plays a bounty hunter who travels to Brazil to retrieve his employer's son (Scott). The film was released by Universal Pictures in North America and Japan and by Columbia TriStar Film Distributors under Columbia Pictures label internationally on September 26, 2003 and made $80.9 million on an $85 million budget.


title: The Rundown

text: Beck is a "retrieval expert", a bounty hunter who collects debts for a man named Billy Walker. He is sent to a nightclub to retrieve a championship ring from a football player, and after doing so is assaulted by one of Walker's other collectors. Angry, he confronts Walker and tells him that he wants out of the business. Walker talks him into one last bounty – retrieve Walker's son Travis from a small mining town in Brazil and Walker will give him enough money to open his own restaurant. Beck accepts and leaves for Brazil. When Beck arrives in the town of El Dorado, he meets with the man running the mining operation, Cornelius Hatcher. Hatcher gives Beck his blessing to grab Travis, but reneges when he finds out that Travis has discovered a missing golden artifact called "O Gato do Diabo” (The Devil's Cat). Hatcher and his men confront Beck in the local bar, but he manages to leave with Travis. On the way back to the airfield, Travis forces their Jeep off the road and into the jungle. Travis attempts to escape but is re-captured by Beck. After an unfortunate encounter with some local monkeys, the two find themselves in the camp of the local resistance movement.


title: The Rundown

text: At the resistance camp, Travis convinces the rebels that Beck works for Hatcher and was sent to kill them all. After a prolonged fight, Beck gains the upper hand before the rebel leader Mariana intervenes. She wants the Gato so it can be used to ensure the locals can free themselves from Hatcher. Hatcher and his men suddenly attack the camp, killing many rebels. Beck, Travis, and Mariana escape the camp and Beck makes Mariana a deal – she helps him get Travis to the airfield in exchange for the Gato. After some searching, Travis leads them to a cave behind a waterfall where the Gato is located. They retrieve it and begin the journey back.


title: The Rundown

text: On the way back, Mariana chastises Travis for wanting to sell the artifact, but Travis argues that he actually did want to give it to a museum. Mariana gives the two men a toxic fruit that temporarily paralyzes them. She tells Beck which direction the airfield is, and leaves them with a fire to keep the animals away. After waking up able to move, Beck hauls Travis to the airfield. The local pilot, Declan, tells Beck that Mariana was captured earlier by Hatcher and will probably be killed. Travis pleads with Beck to help, and the two head into town to rescue her. Using a cow stampede for cover, the two begin their assault on Hatcher's goons. Travis becomes trapped by gunfire in a bus, and Beck saves him before the bus explodes. Hatcher tells his brother to take Mariana and the Gato and flee, but they are stopped by Travis. Hatcher confronts Beck, who offers him the chance to leave town, which Hatcher initially refuses. After he is shot by the townspeople, Hatcher agrees to leave town, but eventually dies from his gunshot wounds. Travis gives the Gato to Mariana before leaving with Beck, who tells him that despite all they've been through he must still return Travis to the United States.


title: The Rundown

text: Back in Los Angeles, Travis is delivered to his father who begins to verbally and physically abuse him. Beck asks to celebrate with them and gives Walker and his men the same fruit Mariana used on him. As they are paralyzed, Beck uncuffs Travis and the duo leave together.


title: The Rundown

text: The movie was originally called "Helldorado". It was offered to Peter Berg, who had made one film, "Very Bad Things". Looking for inspiration on how to do it, Berg bought a DVD titled "The Fifty Best Fights Ever Filmed". At first he says watching it made him depressed. "I just thought, 'Good God, it's all been done and it's all been done so well, probably with more money than I'm going to have," Berg said. "What am I going to do?" Then he saw the fight between Roddy Piper and Keith David in "They Live". "It just hurt watching it," Berg says. "It was a completely different style from all these sexy and sleek movies. And thinking about it, I couldn't remember the last time in a movie fight where I felt the pain, where if you got hit in the face, it hurt. So that's where I found my breathing room: Let's give people old-school guys slugging it out with big punches."


title: The Rundown

text: Producer Kevin Misher called the film "Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark" meets "Romancing the Stone" with a little bit of "Midnight Run".


title: The Rundown

text: Johnson was paid $12.5 million for the film. "This movie could have been a dark, vicious action thriller," said Berg. "But the fact that it's playful and funny is a tribute to The Rock. He's a charming, charismatic and very smart man."


title: The Rundown

text: Berg and producer Kevin Misher were held up by armed robbers in Brazil in June 2002 while scouting locations. This meant they decided to film in Hawaii instead. Shooting began September 2002. "We just basically made up as we went along," said Scott.


title: The Rundown

text: One scene on Oahu involved Johnson and Scott falling down the side of a mountain. "The goal was to put the biggest fall down a hill in a movie that people have ever seen," said Berg. "The big inspiration was the old 'Wide World of Sports' - 'and the agony of defeat' - and wondering what would have happened if that poor bastard on the ski slope had had a few more stages to go," it became a question of finding the stuntmen." Johnson's regular stuntman refused to do the stunt, so they hired "a guy who has a reputation for just doing anything," said Berg. The new stuntman was knocked out the first time.


title: The Rundown

text: Arnold Schwarzenegger made a cameo on the film; He visited Universal Studios during the shoot and was having lunch with The Rock. Berg asked if he would like to appear in the film and Schwarzenegger agreed if they could do it then. "Within 15 minutes, we were on the set," said Berg. Despite his uncredited cameo appearances, this was the last time Schwarzenegger has appeared in a film distributed by Universal Pictures.


title: The Rundown

text: Despite the positive reviews, "The Rundown" was a significant box office failure, grossing just under $81 million worldwide compared to its $85 million budget, which makes a sequel not entirely likely. Director Peter Berg has expressed interest in making a sequel to the film but notes that "no one can ever get motivated and focused enough to do it."


title: The Rundown

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 69% based on 153 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's critical consensus states, ""The Rundown" doesn't break any new ground, but it's a smart, funny buddy action picture with terrific comic chemistry between Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Seann William Scott." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: The Rundown

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 3 stars out of 4, saying "The jungle locations give the film a texture and beauty that underlines the out-sized characters."