to reorganize the economy and society along anarchist lines. 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. Defeat (November 1920 – August 1921) 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. 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. Politics 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