The revolutionary wave of 1917–23 saw varying degrees of active participation by anarchists. Following the failed 1905 Russian Revolution, anarchists participated again in both the February and October revolutions of 1917 and were initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik cause. Prior to the revolution, Lenin had won over anarchists and syndicalists with high praises in his 1917 work The State and Revolution. However, anarchist objections quickly arose. They opposed, for example, the slogan, "All power to the Soviet". The dictatorship of the proletariat was incompatible with the libertarian views of the anarchists, and co-operation shortly ended as the Bolsheviks soon turned against anarchists and other left-wing opposition. After their grasp on power was stabilized, the Bolsheviks crushed the anarchists. Anarchists in central Russia were either imprisoned, driven underground, or joined the victorious Bolsheviks. Anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to Ukraine. There, the Makhnovshchina established an autonomous region of four hundred square miles with a population of approximately seven million. Anarchists who had fought in the Russian Civil War at first against the anti-Bolshevik White Army now also fought the Red Army, Ukrainian People's Army, and the German and Austrian forces who fought under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This conflict culminated in the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion, a garrison in Kronstadt where Baltic Fleet sailors and citizens made demands for reforms. The new government suppressed the rebellion. The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, led by Nestor Makhno, continued to fight until August 1921 when it was crushed by the state only months after the Kronstadt rebellion.
