Maria Nikiforova

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Maria Nikiforova : biography

1885 – September 1919

Nikiforova agreed to ally with the Bolsheviks under special circumstances, and negotiated to have herself appointed to a soviet institution, briefly becoming the Deputy leader of the Alexandrovsk revkom. She would go on to help establish footholds for Soviet power in several Ukrainian cities, demanding material support from Bolshevik agents in return, which she then used to pursue her anarchist agenda. Although She would ally herself with the Red Army on multiple occasions, she was constantly at odds with their commanders and personally antagonized several, arguing against some their practices on revolutionary grounds. Upon discovering that a Soviet commander was hoarding luxury goods looted from an aristocrat’s home, she angrily confronted him for his selfishness. "The property of the estate owners doesn’t belong to any particular detachment," she declared "but to the people as a whole. Let the people take what they want." With their alliance based on expediency rather than ideology, she was largely disliked within Bolshevik political circles and was the subject of rumor and harassment in Bolshevik propaganda.

Public image

Then Marusya stepped to the podium and began to speak. Now the Cossacks were paying attention. "Cossacks, I must tell you that you are the butchers of the Russian workers. Will you continue to be so in the future, or will you acknowledge your own wickedness and join the ranks of the oppressed? Up to now you have shown no respect for the poor workers. For one of the tsar’s roubles or a glass of wine, you have nailed them living to the cross."

As Marusya continued in this vein many of the Cossacks removed their caps and bowed their heads. Soon some of them were weeping like children.

A knot of Aleksandrovsk intellectuals was standing in the crowd. They told each other: "The speeches of the Left Bloc representatives seem so pale in comparison with the speeches of the anarchists and, in particular, with the speech of M. Nikiforova." One upshot of the meetings, which went on for days, was that a number of Cossacks maintained contact with the Gulyai-Pole anarchists even after they went home to the Kuban and other regions.

With their black flags and cannons, Marusya’s echelons resembled pirate ships sailing across the Ukrainian steppe. One observer, the Left-SR I. Z. Steinberg, compared the trains to the Flying Dutchman, liable to appear at any time, anywhere.

Summer 1918: "A carriage flew down the street at a mad speed. Carelessly sprawled in it was a young brunette wearing a kubanka at a rakish angle. Standing on the footboard was a broad-shouldered chap wearing red cavalry britches. The brunette and her bodyguard had all sorts of weapons hanging from them."

Criminal accusations

In order to inflame the population, a story was spread that Marusya looted icons from churches. She was depicted as the leader of a gang of thieves. 

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Physical descriptions

Following Nikiforova’s death, several publications recalled her as an "intersex" person, describing her in terms which placed emphasis on her supposed unattractiveness. Chudnov, a former Makhnovist, wrote of her when recalling a 1918 meeting: "This was a woman of 32 – 35, medium height, with an emaciated, prematurely aged face in which there was something of a eunuch or hermaphrodite. Her hair was cropped short in a circle." Years after meeting her in 1919, Aleksei Kiselyov described her in his memoirs: "Around 30 years old. Thin with an emaciated face, she produced the impression of an old maid type. Narrow nose. Sunken cheeks. She wore a blouse and skirt and a small revolver hung from her belt." Kiselev also alleged that she was a cocaine addict. Nikiforova biographer, Malcolm Archibald, noted that most Bolshevik writers described her in ways similar to this, and hypothesized that this was part of an effort to discredit her ideas with ad hominem attacks. "One suspects the Bolshevik memoirists, finding her ideology unattractive, tried to make her external appearance ugly as well."

Descriptions of Nikiforova fall into two general categories, either highlighting an alleged repulsiveness, or beauty. An exception to the majority of Bolshevik descriptions, Raksha recalled his 1918 meeting with her in very positive terms: "I had heard that she was a beautiful woman… Marusya was sitting at a table and had a cigarette in her teeth. This she-devil really was a beauty: about 30, gypsy-type with black hair and a magnificent bosom which filled out her military tunic."

Footnotes

. Historian Michael Palij refers to this city as "Oleksandrivsk". This should not be confused with contemporary Oleksandrivsk, as the city’s Russian name formally matched Nikiforova’s home city, Alexandrovsk. However, the two cities are located in entirely different regions of the Ukraine.