All through the year of 1920 and even later, the Soviet authorities carried on the fight against the Makhnovists pre- agitation to persuade the country of this, using their press tending to be fighting banditry. They engaged in intense and all their means of propaganda to uphold the slander both inside and outside of Russia. At the same time, numerous infantry and cavalry divisions were sent against the insur- gents, for the purpose of destroying the movement and pushing its members toward the gulf of real (jan 1, 1920