Mykhailo Drahomanov and His Mission

“ Perednie slovo” (Introduction) appeared in Geneva in 1878 as the first issue of the non-periodical journal Hromada (Community). The editor of Hromada and the author of its programmatic “Introduction” was My- khailo Drahomanov (1841-95).

A brief account of Hromada^,s prehistory is in order here.¹ In 1864 Drahomanov joined the staff of the St. Vladimir University in Kiev, ini­tially holding the rank of privatdocent and later advancing to docent on permanent appointment. He taught courses primarily in ancient history. He also published a number of important studies in Ukrainian folklore and oral literature. Aside from his scholarly endeavours, Drahomanov was active in an underground Ukrainian organization, the so-called Stara Hromada (Old Community) of Kiev, and gained a wide reputation for his outspoken articles in the Russian and GaIician-Ukrainian press. Drahomanov was described as a Ukrainian “separatist” and a dangerous radical in a flurry of denunciations to the university authorities and was attacked in reactionary Russian newspapers. Ultimately the matter came to the attention of the tsar himself. During his stay in Kiev in September 1875, Alexander II ordered that Drahomanov be forbidden to lecture at the University of Kiev and at the other southern universities (in Kharkiv and Odessa), but that he be allowed to transfer to one of the northern uni­versities. Drahomanov refused to ask for a “voluntary” transfer from the University of Kiev. Accordingly, he was dismissed on the strength of “point three’’ (i.e., by administrative decision), which closed the door to a further academic career in Russia.

Drahomanov’s banishment from the University of Kiev was the signal, as it were, for a whole series of anti-Ukrainian measures on the part of the tsarist government. The 1870s were a period of revival for the Ukrainian national movement in Dnieper Ukraine. In the eyes of the regime, this posed a threat that required energetic countermeasures. One such action was the implementation of the notorious Ems Ukase of 18 May 1876, whose goal was the eradication of all manifestations of Ukrainian national-cultural identity.

In these circumstances the Stara Hromada, of which Drahomanov was a leading member, proposed that he become an “ambassador-at-large’’ of the Ukrainian national cause, establishing an organ of free Ukrainian political thought in Western Europe. Plans for future activity abroad were elaborated by a “Committee of Twelve’’ which met in Podil (a dis­trict of Kiev) at the residence of Kost Mykhalchuk. It was agreed that Drahomanov would publish, preferably in Vienna, periodical symposia of the “thick journal’’ type under the title Hromada, which were to con­tain fundamental articles of a theoretical and programmatic character, lit­erary works, and an extensive chronicle of current Ukrainian affairs. Brochures on subjects of topical interest were to be published in Russian and in West European languages. Financing for the project was assured thanks to a generous contribution from Iakiv Shulhyn. Having inherited a substantial estate, he donated the larger part of it, in the amount of 12,000 rubles, to the Stara Hromada, which in turn undertook to pay Drahomanov annual stipends of 1,500 rubles for publications and 1,200 rubles for personal expenses.

Having obtained a passport with no great difficulty, Drahomanov went abroad in mid-February 1876. He made a stop in Lviv, where he first met Ivan Franko. By early March he had arrived in Vienna. His wife and ten- year-old daughter remained in Kiev until June, when they were brought to Vienna by Viliam Berenshtam, a friend of the Drahomanov family and a member of the Hromada.

In the Austrian capital Drahomanov encountered unforeseen circum­stances that obliged him to alter his original plans. The previous year, 1875, had seen the publication in Vienna of an anonymous pamphlet, Parova mashyna (The Steam Engine). Its author was a young revolution­ary and socialist from Left-Bank Ukraine, Serhii Podolynsky. His as­sistant in Vienna was his Galician follower Ostap Terletsky. Parova mashyna was the first socialist publication in the Ukrainian language. Thanks to the efforts of Podolynsky and Terletsky, it was followed by three booklets of similar character. Drahomanov had nothing to do with any of this activity. He was personally acquainted with Podolynsky and Terletsky and esteemed them both, but had strong reservations about the socialist brochures published in Vienna. He did not approve of their seditious character or of their fictionalized-utopian form. Drahomanov feared that, in spite of his non-involvement, he would be implicated as having abetted their publication. That is what actually happened.

In April 1876 the Vienna procuracy confiscated the last brochure in the series of four published by Podolynsky and Terletsky, entitled Pravdyve slovo khliboroba do svoikh zemliakiv (The True Word of a Farmer to His Countrymen). Its unsigned author was a revolutionary populist from Odessa, Feliks Volkhovsky. As the publisher and owner of the print shop, Terletsky was charged with responsibility for the subversive publi­cation. This was the first anti-socialist trial in Austrian history. The jury exonerated Terletsky, but the confiscation of Pravdyve slovo was not re­scinded. Taking this precedent into account, Drahomanov concluded that the Austrian authorities would not give him an opportunity to make Vienna the base of his activity. Another location had to be found. Drahomanov wavered between London and Geneva, finally choosing the latter. In the fall of 1876 Drahomanov took his family to Switzerland, where he spent the next thirteen years of his life.

Drahomanov’s move was timely, for in 1877 the Austrian province of Galicia was swept by a wave of searches and arrests that culminated in two trials in which Mykhailo Pavlyk, Ostap Terletsky, Ivan Franko, and others were defendants.² The indictment charged the defendants with membership in an international underground revolutionary organization allegedly headed by Drahomanov. Thus, the transfer of Drahomanov⁹S base to Geneva was a necessity, but it had somewhat negative conse­quences for his activity. The move isolated Drahomanov from Ukrainian life, limited and impeded his contacts with like-minded Ukrainian circles in Russia and Austria-Hungary, and drew him into the revolutionary Russian emigre milieu in Geneva, with its unhealthy atmosphere of in­cessant bickering and intrigue among individuals and groups.

Drahomanov left Ukraine in the spring of 1876, but the first issue of Hromada did not appear until two years later. This delay was due to a va­riety of reasons. To begin with, there were great practical difficulties as­sociated with the two moves and with the establishment of a print shop in Geneva. Drahomanov was assisted in this enterprise by Antin Lia- khotsky, known in the emigration by the pseudonym “Kuzma,⁹⁹ who be­came the typesetter of all Drahomanov⁹S publications. But there were other reasons as well. This was the critical period of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. Drahomanov warmly sympathized with the cause of liber­ating the Balkan Slavs from Turkish oppression. At the same time, the Russian revolutionary movement was gaining strength. Drahomanov be­lieved in the possibility of overthrowing the regime in Russia and pub- Iished several Russian-language brochures calling for the transformation of the war against the “external Turks” into an attack on the “internal Turks,” i.e., on tsarist autocracy.³ Finally, there were difficulties in ob­taining contributions for the journal that delayed the preparatory work.

Drahomanov managed to publish five issues of Hromada, which ap­peared very irregularly: three issues were published in 1877, one in 1879, and a final one in 1882. An attempt was also made to turn Hromada into a regular bi-monthly journal under the joint editorship of Drahomanov, Pavlyk, and Podolynsky. But this “periodical Hromada" lasted for only two issues in 1881.

The symposia were originally conceived as the external organ of the Kiev Hromada. Owing to poor contact between Geneva and Ukraine, however, they actually became Drahomanov^,s personal organ. The entire burden of filling Hromada^,s pages devolved upon Drahomanov himself. He was assisted to some extent by a small group of emigres and a few contributors from Galicia: Podolynsky, Pavlyk, Fedir Vovk, and Volodymyr Navrotsky. Thus Hromada reflected the strong personality of its editor, as well as his philosophy, but the latter was by no means con­sonant with the views of most members of the Stara Hromada, in which Drahomanov had been a left-winger even before his emigration. In the course of time, the intellectual distance between the Geneva emigre and his former associates in Ukraine grew wider, leading eventually to a complete estrangement between them.

It is not the task of this paper to analyze in detail Drahomanov’s life and work during his residence in Geneva, but the subject merits a few general observations. Drahomanov’s situation was complex because he was both a Ukrainian and an all-Russian political activist. At first he oc­cupied a prominent place in the Russian emigre colony.

Drahomanov’s moral and material situation in Switzerland was always very difficult, but in the latter half of the 1880s, when he found himself almost completely isolated, it became tragic indeed. There can be no doubt that the continual worries, tensions, disappointments, setbacks, uncertainty about the future, lack of security for his family (a wife and three children), and bitter poverty all undermined Drahomanov⁵S health and brought about the heart disease that drove him to an early grave. Yet it should be mentioned that Drahomanov⁵S final years were happier. In 1889 he moved to Sofia, Bulgaria, where he was offered a professorship in history at the Higher School (incipient university). The successes of the Radical movement in Galicia, which was beginning to make rapid headway, were also a great source of satisfaction to him. Drahomanov was the spiritual father of the Galician Radical Party and a most active contributor to its press until the end of his days. Mykhailo Drahomanov died in Sofia on 20 July 1895.

If Drahomanov⁵S activity during his Geneva period is to be evaluated from a moral point of view, it cannot be regarded as anything other than a feat of heroism. It cannot fail to impress one by its very scope. We are unable to pause here to consider Drahomanov⁵S scholarly work during these years (despite unfavourable circumstances, he did not interrupt this work) or his “ambassadorial” role as informant of Western European public opinion on the Ukrainian question. What concerns us here is Drahomanov’s publicistic work, in which he made a lasting contribution to Ukrainian political thought. We shall examine one of his works, the programmatic “Introduction” XoHromada, in greater detail.

In concluding this section, it is appropriate to cite a passage from the writings of Mykhailo Hrushevsky that characterizes “Drahomanov’s mission” as that of the first Ukrainian political emigre of the nineteenth century.

What Drahomanov became in the history of the Ukrainian renas­cence, he became thanks to this civic mission abroad, which con­demned him to the bitter life of an exile but also placed him in po­litical and social circumstances that were especially advantageous in some respects and that involved extraordinary responsibility. It freed him from the oppression of the tsarist regime, from local routines and cliques, and from the necessity of writing in Aesopian language in order to escape censorship, appointing him to the posi­tion of representative spokesman for all progressive Ukrainian life before the civilized world. It elevated him to a post that required him to exert all his energy and all the resources of his intellect over a period of years in order to remind the broad civilized world that, in the darkest era of Ukrainian life, Ukraine continued to live, that it had not died and would not die in spite of all the tsarist repres­sions and proscriptions. It condemned him to suffer the blows, in­sinuations, and abuses directed against this “proscribed Ukraine,” to fend them off and reply with proofs and manifestations of posi­tive, progressive, universally valid characteristics of the Ukrainian movement. Over Ukrainian life, in this difficult, oppressive, demoralizing period, it placed the civic control of this all­Ukrainian foreign Tepresentation-Drahomanov and his cir­cle—which led the Ukrainian movement out of the byways of pro­vincialism and opportunism onto the broad pathways of world cul­tural development and forced it to orient itself toward the pros­pects of universal political and social liberation. For a long time, the direction of the Ukrainian movement was determined by these three centers, all equal in importance: Kiev, Lviv, and Geneva. From this point of view, Drahomanov’s mission constituted an epoch in Ukrainian life.⁵

An Examination of the “Introduction” to Hromada

In the title of this paper, Drahomanov’s “Introduction” of 1878 was termed “the first Ukrainian political program.” This primacy must be considered relative. After the dawn of the Ukrainian national renascence in the nineteenth century, modem Ukrainian political thought also began to make its appearance. Its early offshoots may be seen in the Istoriia Rusov (History of the Rus’ People), written at the turn of the nineteenth century, in the program of the Cyrillo-Methodian Society (1846-7), in the poetry of Shevchenko, in the scholarly and publicistic writings of Mykola Kostomarov and Panteleimon Kulish, in the statements of the khlopomany (peasant-lovers) circle of the 1860s, and in other docu­ments. This was the intellectual tradition that nurtured Drahomanov, a fact of which he was well aware. Not long before his death he stated that in his own work he had only attempted, as it were, to apply “the leading ideas arrived at in the forties by the celebrated Cyrillo-Methodian Brethren... to be sure, with the modifications wrought by universal science and politics in recent times.’’⁶

Yet it must be said that until Drahomanov’s time Ukrainian political thought remained, so to speak, in the embryonic stage of its develop­ment. It still had a fragmentary character: the writings of the early publi­cists dealt with particular aspects of the Ukrainian problem, such as the question of the paths of development of Ukrainian literature, the peasant question, questions OfUkrainian-Russian and Ukrainian-Polish relations, etc., but did not attempt a synthesis. Secondly, Ukrainian political thought of the time often made its appearance not directly but in a veiled form. Its elements must be sought in belles-lettres, in works of literary criticism, historiography, and studies in ethnography and linguistics. This cannot be explained only by the restrictions of censorship, which made it necessary to employ “Aesopian language.’’ There was an added factor: given the state of Ukrainian society, the various branches of its spiritual life—literature, scholarship, and political thought—were as yet insufficiently differentiated. Hence political thought often manifested it­self not in its appropriate form of rational discourse but coloured by the foreign element of poetic diction. An example of this is the quasi-biblical style of Kostomarov’s Knyhy bytiia ukrainskoho narodu (The Books of Genesis of the Ukrainian People). Thirdly, the works of the early Ukrain­ian political thinkers and publicists did not see print with any regularity; more often they circulated in manuscript, which limited their influence. For example, the hand-written programmatic documents of the Cyrillo- Methodian Society—the highest achievement of Ukrainian political thought before Drahomanov—were seized by the tsarist police during the suppression of the Society in 1847, and did not come to light until after the Revolution. Succeeding generations of nineteenth-century Ukrain­ians had only a general notion of the Society’s ideas. These ideas were seminal to the “Hromady” movement of the latter half of the century, but the original works were not known at that time. Moreover, there is reason to believe that important unpublished material on the history of nineteenth-century Ukrainian political thought is still hidden away in Soviet archives.

In comparison with the works that had preceded it, Drahomanov^,s “Introduction” represented a new and higher stage of Ukrainian political thought. As regards its content, the “Introduction” deliberately sought to encompass the Ukrainian problem as a whole in all its salient aspects: political, social, and cultural. As regards its form, it was that of syste­matic and rational exposition, free of literary accretions. Since it ap­peared in print, it immediately gained intellectual currency. Given these elements, the “Introduction” may be considered the first modern Ukrainian political program in the full sense of the word.

In our time, however, there are probably few who have had an oppor­tunity to read the “Introduction” of 1878. A brief resume of this major work will therefore not be amiss.

At the beginning of this tract, Drahomanov outlines the boundaries of Ukrainian ethnic territory—from Podlachia (Pidliashshia) to the Kuban region and from the Danube estuary to Slobodian Ukraine. More than seventeen million of “our people” reside on this territory.⁷ There fol­lows a synthetic survey of Ukrainian history which is meant to provide a basis for a contemporary political program. In connection with the Cos­sack era, Drahomanov states: “The periods of the most powerful upris­ings of our peasantry against the nobility also saw the greatest efforts of communities across the whole of our Ukraine to create a union among themselves” (98). In other words, the experience of history confirms the thesis of the unity of social and national strivings in the Ukrainian people’s struggle for freedom. But “when the power of the Polish and Muscovite states, with the assistance of the Cossack lords, abolished Cossackdom... our peasantry was everywhere subjected to heavy bondage, and our land was torn apart by neighbouring monarchies and governments” (98). The conclusion is that Ukrainians must now “take up the thread of our history that was broken in the eighteenth century” (108).

Considering Ukraine’s situation in the nineteenth century, Drahomanov focuses both on manifestations of spontaneous protest of the peasant masses against social oppression (the exploits of “Robin Hoods” such as Harkusha and Karmeliuk, and the so-called Kievan Cos- sackdom of 1855) and on progressive initiatives emanating from the higher, educated strata: the Ukrainian cultural renascence of the first half of the century, the Cyrillo-Methodian Society, the khlopomany of the late 1850s and early 1860s. Nor does he neglect to mention the Polish in­surrection of 1863 in Right-Bank Ukraine and the year 1848 in Galicia. Nothing is said of the recent Hromady movement of the 1870s, but this omission is obviously due to the wish not to give away his friends in the homeland.

The review of Ukraine’s earlier and contemporary history leads Drahomanov to a conclusion that carries ideological weight and is of fun­damental significance for the whole system of his thought. Drahomanov is profoundly convinced that the tendency of the Ukrainian people’s his­torical development and of its struggle for liberation is basically con­gruent with the tendency of universal progress. And he conceives mod­ern socialism to be the prime manifestation of progressive strivings in the contemporary world. “In Western Europe and America there are already hundreds of thousands of people who are striving directly toward such [a just] order. That is the social, civic party, the party of socialists or com- munalists” (116). Drahomanov urges the Ukrainian intelligentsia (“literate people’’) and the popular masses (muzhiks) “simply to adopt the ideas of the European and American Communalists and apply them to our own land in our own manner” (118).

At this point there naturally arises the question of Drahomanov ^,s un­derstanding of socialism. He does not directly identify his “communalism” (hromadivstvo — he used this term as a synonym for socialism) with any of the contemporary socialist currents. He mentions Louis Blanc, Proudhon, Lassalle, Marx, Diihring, Bakunin, Chemyshevsky, and other exponents of socialism in passing, but consid­ers them all on the same plane and does not discuss ideological divergences among them. Yet it is clear that Drahomanov’s conception of socialism is fundamentally anarchistic. Drahomanov believes that, in spite of disagreements in detail, all socialist factions are striving toward a common goal. “This goal is known as non-authoritarianism [beznachalstvo, Drahomanov’s literal translation of anarchy]: to each his own will and free association and fellowship of people and communi­ties” (115). Elsewhere Drahomanov asserts: “In this fellowship—in equality and joint management of everything that people need for their livelihood—is the root of liberty....” (114). And elsewhere: “Complete non-authoritarianism, complete freedom for every individ­ual, will always remain the goal of every social order, in associations both large and small, just like the idea of reducing to zero the hindrance of friction in machines” (118). Thus, in Drahomanov’s world-view, the highest social ideal and the ultimate goal of human evolution is the complete elimination or at least the greatest possible reduction of author­itarian, hierarchical, and coercive elements in society, which are em­bodied in the organization of the state; accordingly, the state must ultimately be replaced by the voluntary association of free and equal indi­viduals.

As applied to Ukrainian conditions, this means: “To live according to our own wishes in our own land.” Here Drahomanov immediately adds: “But what does this mean: to live according to our own wishes in our own land? Does it mean simply to establish a separate state, as, for ex­ample, the Italians have done before our very eyes?” (111). To this ques­tion of his own formulation, Drahomanov supplies an answer that is at once especially characteristic and highly important for the understanding of his conception:

The Ukrainians have undoubtedly lost a great deal owing to the fact that, at the time when most of the other European peoples founded national states, they were not in a position to do so. A state of one’s own, whether established by free choice or by coer­cion, is, after all, a form of social organization suited to defence against foreign attacks and to the regulation of affairs in one’s own land according to one’s own wishes.... Without question, if the Ukrainians had first managed to shake off the dominance of for­eign states and establish one of their own, they would have begun, like other nationalities, to think for themselves in order to ease the misery from which people suffer everywhere. But what has been lost can never be recovered, and a rising against Austria and Rus­sia similar to that staged by the Italians, with the aid of France, for the unity of their state is impossible for us.... The Ukrainians will have better prospects if they strive for their political and social freedom within the states in which they live, with the help of the other peoples also subjugated by these states. (Ill -12)

Drahomanov also believes that Ukrainians should forgo the struggle for a state of their own, as the existence of a national state does not of itself guarantee either civic freedom or social justice. After all, in such rich and powerful countries as France, England, and the United States, “most people are scarcely less badly off than the Ukrainian peasants” (112). This is also supposedly bome out by the Ukrainian historical experience. Ukraine was closest to attaining political independence in the time of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Within the Cossack state, however, there soon arose estates with conficting interests: the rich and powerful, or the Cos­sack officer class, began to oppress the poor and weak, or the rank-and- file Cossacks and the peasants. Drahomanov elaborates his conception in detail as follows:

We think that, instead of striving to establish their own state or some sort of dualism like that of the Hungarians in the [Habsburg] Empire, the Ukrainians would do better to attempt to dilute all state power and to strive for regional and local freedom together with all other lands and communities. This is why it would be best

for Ukrainians not to advance national ideas, but rather autonomist and federalist ones, which will always attract many people of other lands and nationalities.... For the Ukrainian com­munities it would be far better to begin immediately to strive for the greatest possible freedom for themselves than to attempt to es­tablish a separate, more or less centralized state order for Ukraine. We think it would be wise and useful to strive for such local and regional freedom (e.g., even at the district and provincial levels) for Ukraine—in Russia, for example—because Ukrainians will not take this road alone, but in company with federalists of other na­tionalities, and they will be joined by many people of the Muscovite state nationality itself. (141)

Drahomanov is convinced that decentralization of power is a precondi­tion of liberty and that liberty is possible only in a federative political or­der: “... it is only small states, or, better, communities and associations that can be truly free. Only a union of associations can truly be a free union... ” (115). Ukrainians ought, therefore, to strive for the federal­ization of existing states—Russia and Austria-Hungary. This would be the first step on the path leading to the disappearance of states as such, to “a non-authoritarian order: one without lords and without states” (120).

As regards political strategy, Drahomanov declares himself in favour of evolutionary and gradual methods. He polemicizes against extremists who hold the view “the worse, the better” and “all or nothing,” clearly alluding to the Russian revolutionaries. He does not reject revolution or coup d’etat in principle, but accords them only limited significance. “Revolts may begin to awaken the public mind; they may do away with an old order which has already been undermined from all sides by other means... but a revolt cannot of itself create a new order, especially a civic or economic one” (132). All that is new makes its appearance grad­ually, not in ready-made form. In a state as backward as Russia, where the populace is deprived of elementary civic freedoms, it is first neces­sary to “ensure the abolition of arbitrary tsarist and bureaucratic rule”; in Russian conditions even “an elected council of lords,” that is, a par­liament elected by limited franchise, would be a step forward and would open the way to desperately needed social reforms, particularly in the ag­ricultural sector. In Galicia, on the other hand, Ukrainians should make use of the opportunities for legal cultural and socio-political work and autonomous organization afforded by the Austrian constitutional system, whatever its faults. Drahomanov expresses his skepticism about the util­ity and prospects of success of the elemental popular revolts dreamt of by the Russian revolutionaries.

In Drahomanov’s view, the great evil and anomaly of the contempo- ãàãó situation in Ukraine is the alienation of the educated social strata from the common people. This is due to the fact that the upper classes in Ukraine are composed of foreigners—Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, Hungarians, and Romanians—and of more or less denationalized Ukrain­ians. The Ukrainian masses are therefore deprived of the essential cul­tural services available to other peoples. In Ukraine even the socialists shun the language and disregard the national characteristics of the people among whom they live and off whom they feed. “A literate Ukrainian most often works for anyone at all except his own Ukraine and its peas­antry” (125).

To this cheerless reality Drahomanov counterposes the following moral and political imperative:

We think that all civic work in Ukraine must wear Ukrainian Clothing-Ukrainian identity. Of course, this Ukrainian identity cannot consist in the goals of the work. The goals of human work are the same throughout the world, as theoretical science is every­where the same. But applied science is not everywhere the same. So it is with civic work.... (122)

And so those of the literate Ukrainians who do not want Ukraine and its peasantry continually to lose strength must swear not to go outside Ukraine; they must insist that every individual who leaves Ukraine, every kopeck not spent on a Ukrainian cause, every word not spoken in Ukrainian is an expenditure from the Ukrainian peasants’ treasury, an expenditure which in current conditions will never be returned to it. (125)

The idea of service to one’s own people entails a demand to become rooted in one place: ”... it is high time for the literate man to end the nomadic wandering of his thought and labour ‘from the cold Finnish crags to burning Colchis’ and ‘from sea to sea’!” (147). Socialists be­longing to the intelligentsia should associate themselves with communi­ties of the Ukrainian common people in order to be of service to them. What is required here is not the mere propagation of socialist ideas but all manner of cultural, educational, social, and economic activity. This in turn requires individuals possessing solid academic knowledge and skilled in practical professions. As religion is the force that legitimizes the unjust contemporary social order and keeps the people in ignorance, Ukrainian socialists should “begin to preach widely against the roots of belief and priestcraft with the assistance of natural and social science” (136).

Drahomanov is impatient “for Ukraine to be covered as soon as pos­sible with a network of comrades and associations, Ukrainian civic work­ers, all of them linked one to another, with as many comrades as possible in peasant communities” (138). In this context he coins the aphorism: “Ukrainian socialism is not a party but a community” (138). There is no need to fear allegations that work for the good of one’s own people con­tradicts the universal interests that socialists are supposed to serve. These interests will only gain when “the world contains one soulless corpse less, one living nation more” (139).

The last question considered by Drahomanov pertains to potential al­lies of the Ukrainian liberation movement. Centralist habits are so deeply ingrained in Russian and Polish society that, unfortunately, even their so­cialist circles are infected with them. Nor do the socialists of the great Western European nations comprehend the vital needs of the smaller stateless peoples; the German Social Democrats have at times expressed clearly chauvinist opinions about the Slavs. The Ukrainians should there­fore seek allies first and foremost among the stateless peoples of Russia: the Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Moldavians, Caucasians, etc. As for the Russians, those whose sympathies may most readily be enlisted are rep­resentatives of the border groups who possess regionalist traditions, such as the inhabitants of the Don and Ural territories and of Siberia. There are good prospects of co-operation with the Western and Southern Slavs. In time, friendly relations will also be established with those peoples of Western Europe whose position resembles Ukraine’s, such as the Irish, Catalonians, Flemings, Provencals, and Bretons. “We think that if Ukrainian Communalism takes root in its own land and develops links with neighbouring democratic and federalist groups, then in time it will be drawn into the broad association of all-European democratic groups...” (142).

This, in outline, is the political program that Mykhailo Drahomanov proposed for Ukrainian society a century ago in his “Introduction” to Hromada.