But in April 1920, the Nabat held a larger meeting in Kharkiv, which reversed the course set by the secretariat. Renewed political repression by the Bolsheviks had forced them to again shift their attentions back towards the countryside and start working closer with the Makhnovists, resolving to intensify their work within the Makhnovist movement in order to shape it into a specifically anarchist revolutionary vanguard. In their newspaper, the organisation declared that Ukrainian anarchists needed to close ranks with the Makhnovshchina, in the face of the advance by the White movement. At the beginning of June 1920, the secretariat of the Nabat attempted to negotiate an armistice with the Ukrainian Soviet government, but their offers were rebuffed.
