The monograph traces the difficult to contradictory life path of Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, one of the most famous leaders of the peasantry of southern Ukraine during the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power, civil war and foreign military intervention. The history of the Makhnovism is covered, reflecting the fluctuations of the peasantry at different stages of the revolutionary process - from the mass rebel movement of village workers against foreign interventionists and their accomplices to political banditry.