Magnus wrote:
This is just an example of an anarchist leader.
Nestor Makhno in 1909
Nestor Makhno was born into a poor peasant family in Hulyai Pole, Yekaterioslav Governorate in Novorossiya region of Russian Empire (now Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine).[4][5] He was the youngest of five children. Church files show a birthdate of October 27, 1888, but Nestor Makhno's parents registered his date of birth as 1889 (possibly in an attempt to postpone conscription, or a later attempt to avoid execution after his arrest in 1910 for belonging to the anarchist group and for robberies).
His father died when he was ten months old.[6] Due to extreme poverty, he had to work as a shepherd at the age of seven.[6] He studied at the Second Hulyai Pole primary school in winter at the age of eight and worked for local landlords during the summer.[6] He left school at the age of twelve and employed as a farmhand on the estates of nobles and on the farms of wealthy peasants called kulaks.[6]
At the age of seventeen, he was employed in Hulyai Pole itself as an apprentice painter, then as a worker in a local iron foundry and, ultimately worked as a founder in the same organization.[6] During this time he became involved in revolutionary politics.[6] His involvement in revolutionary politics was based on his experiences of injustice at work and seeing the terror of the Tsarist regime during the 1905.[6] In 1906, Makhno joined the anarchist organization in Hulyai Pole.[4] He was arrested in 1906, tried, and acquitted. He was again arrested in 1907, but Makhno could not be incriminated, and the charges were dropped.[6] The third arrest came in 1908, when an infiltrator was able to testify against Makhno.[6] In 1910 Makhno was sentenced to death by hanging, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he was sent to Butyrskaya prison in Moscow.[6] In prison he came under the influence of intellectual cell mate Piotr Arshinov.[6][7][8] He was released from prison after the February Revolution in 1917.[7]
[edit] Organizing peasants' movement
After liberation from prison, Makhno organized a peasants' union.[8] It gave him a "Robin Hood" image and he expropriated large estates from landowners and distributed the land among the peasants.[8]
Wow, that is a very obscure reference. But I'll take your word for it.