32 Revolution in Dnieper Ukraine, 1917-1918
Even before World War I ended one of the major belligerents, the Russian Empire, was rocked by a series of revolutions that were to have a profound impact on Dnieper Ukraine. By 1917 the Russian Empire had sustained the greatest losses of all the combatant powers.
Of the fifteen million troops the empire mobilized, more than half were casualties (dead, wounded, or imprisoned). The western territories of the empire, including parts of Dnieper Ukraine, also suffered high civilian casualties and loss of property. As a result, the economic structure was profoundly undermined, and severe food shortages were common, most especially in the cities.When, in early March 1917 (February according to the Julian calendar) massive food riots broke out in the capital of Petrograd / St Petersburg, the imperial troops refused to restrain the rioters. Instead, they joined protesting workers to form a council, or Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. The example of the Petrograd Soviet was to be copied in towns and cities throughout the empire, including Kiev and the rest of Dnieper Ukraine.
At the same time that the soviets were being formed, representatives of the Duma, Russia’s parliament, convinced the tsar to abdicate (March 15). In his stead they formed a Provisional Government to administer the country through use of the former imperial bureaucracy and army. The Provisional Government was to function as a caretaker authority until an elected body, or constituent assembly, would be able to determine the structure of post-imperial Russia. In fact, in the months following the first February/March revolution, Russia experienced dual power, that is, it was governed—or was claimed to be governed —simultaneously by the Provisional Government and by the local Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. The Provisional Government and the soviets sometimes cooperated but more often they were in conflict with each other.
32.1 The Pedagogical Museum in Kiev, seat of Ukraine’s Central Rada, 1917-1918.
Within a few days of the events in Petrograd, profound changes also took place in Kiev and other parts of Dnieper Ukraine. This marked the beginning of the Ukrainian revolutionary era during which several efforts were undertaken to create a Ukrainian state. Developments during this period can be seen within a framework of three chronological phases: (1) the Central Rada—March 1917 to April 1918; (2) the Hetmanante—April to December 1918; and (3) the Directory, Civil War, and Bolsheviks—January 1919 to October 1920.
32.2 Members of the first General Secretariat, created in June 1917 as the chief executive body of the Central Rada and Ukrainian National Republic; its chairman, Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880-1951), is seated in the center.
The first phase is associated with the Central Rada, a body formed in Kiev on March 17, 1917 by Ukrainian national activists. The self-proclaimed members of this body (rada is the Ukrainian word for council) hoped to govern Dnieper Ukraine until the future status of Russia was clarified. In fact, three entities were to compete for authority over Dnieper Ukraine: the Provisional Government, the soviets in Kiev and other cities, and the Central Rada. The Provisional Government was primarily concerned with maintaining order and the socioeconomic status quo until an all-Russian constitutional assembly was convened. Meanwhile, the Kiev Soviet and soviets in other towns and cities as well as the Central Rada—dominated by socialists and other leftist political groups—called for the break-up of the large manorial estates, the distribution of land to the peasants, improved conditions for urban workers, and an end to Russia’s participation in the war. Added to these concerns were demands put forth by the Central Rada, which included autonomy for Ukrainian lands within what should become a federalized Russian state.
The overall political situation changed once again on November 6-7, 1917 (October according to the Julian calendar), when the Bolshevik branch of the All-Russian Social Democratic Workers’ party, led by Vladimir Lenin, succeeded in overthrowing the Provisional Government. The goal of what came to be known as the Bolshevik Revolution was to create a socialist state in which the means of production and the ownership of land would be in the hands of the working proletariat (whether industrial or agrarian) led by a government under the direction of the Bolshevik party. In Kiev the Bolsheviks cooperated with the Central Rada to remove supporters of the deposed Provisional Government. No sooner had they succeeded in their joint effort than they clashed in an attempt to take over control of the various soviets throughout Dnieper Ukraine’s towns and cities.
32.3 Central Rada President Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi (center with beard), flanked by Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Symon Petliura (both on his left) address the Third All-Ukrainian Military Congress in Kiev (November 1917) at which the formation of a Ukrainian National Republic was proclaimed.
In an attempt to assert its autonomy, on November 20 the Central Rada proclaimed the formation of a Ukrainian National Republic (Ukraïns’ka Narodna Respublika) to be headed by the Rada’s president, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs’kyi. The republic claimed authority over the former empire’s nine “Ukrainian” provinces: Kiev, Podolia, Volhynia, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Katerynoslav, Kherson, and Taurida (excluding the Crimea). At the time, the national republic’s leaders still expected that Ukraine would remain part of a federal Russia.
The Bolshevik government in Petrograd refused to recognize the Ukrainian National Republic and gave support instead to local Bolsheviks who took over the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies based in the eastern city of Kharkiv.
There, on December 25, 1917, the Kharkiv Soviet proclaimed a rival state called the Ukrainian Republic of Councils (Respublika Rad Ukrai’ny). For the next three years, the Kiev-based Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) and the Kharkiv-based Ukrainian Republic of Councils (later renamed the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) were to struggle against each other in an attempt to rule Dnieper Ukraine. In the course of that struggle each of the rival republics called on the assistance of outside powers to help their cause, whether the Bolshevik government in Petrograd (in the case of the Ukrainian Republic of Councils), or Germany and Poland (in the case of the Ukrainian National Republic).
32.4 Delegates of the Ukrainian National Republic signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, February 1918.
Almost immediately the Ukrainian Republic of Councils, backed by Red Army troops sent from Bolshevik Russia, began to take over the eastern provinces of Ukraine and to march on Kiev. In the midst of this conflict, the Central Rada in Kiev issued a decree dated January 22, 1918, declaring the Ukrainian National Republic an independent state. This did not, however, deter the Red Army and Soviet Ukrainian government, which captured Kiev on February 9.
32.5 Troops of imperial Germany arrive in Kiev, March 1918.
Meanwhile, developments on the international diplomatic front were to determine the further course of events in Dnieper Ukraine. The Bolshevik government in Petrograd did keep its promise to pull Russia out of the war, and from December 1917 it was in negotiations with Germany to sign a peace agreement. The result was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk concluded on February 8, 1918, according to which, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the other Central Powers, and eventually Soviet Russia (the Bolshevik leaders accepted the treaty on March 3) recognized Ukraine as an independent state.
Aside from the nine provinces which the Ukrainian National Republic had previously claimed, the Brest-Litovsk treaty also recognized as Ukrainian territory the provinces of Kholm, southern Grodno, and southern Minsk. In return, the Ukrainian National Republic agreed to supply Germany and Austria-Hungary with large quantities of grain and other foodstuffs. At the request of the Ukrainian government, German and Austro-Hungarian troops (including units of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen) arrived, and by March they drove the Red Army, Red Guard militias, and the Soviet Ukrainian government out of Kiev and the rest of the country.It was not long, however, before the Germans became displeased with their new ally in the east. When it turned out that the government of the Ukrainian National Republic was unable to extract from a reluctant peasantry the grain required to supply its foreign protectors according to the provisions of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the German Army simply deposed the Central Rada on April 28, 1918. With that move, the Ukrainian National Republic ceased to exist and the first phase of the Ukrainian revolutionary era came to an end.
32.6 Hetman of the Ukrainian state, Pavlo Skoropads’kyi (1873-1945), meets the emperor of Germany Wilhelm II in Berlin, September 1918.
The second phase of the revolution, which was to last until December 1918, was initiated by Germany’s military authorities. They backed the idea that Pavlo Skoropads’kyi, a former tsarist military officer, become hetman of what formally was called the Ukrainian State. Because of the leading role played by Hetman Skoropads’kyi, this second stage of the Ukrainian revolutionary era came to be known as the Hetmanate. Skoropads’kyi was actually chosen hetman on April 29 at a meeting in Kiev of the Congress of Landowners Alliance. The Congress represented Dnieper Ukraine’s large landowners, industrialists, entrepreneurs, government administrators, and Orthodox clergy, most of whom were Russians or russified Ukrainians (i.e., “Little Russians”) fiercely opposed to the leftist social programs and nationalist platforms of the Central Rada and the Ukrainian National Republic.
Skoropads’kyi not only agreed to return to the social, legal, and property norms of the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire, he also promised to fulfill all of the provisions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and to allow German control over Ukraine’s military and governmental appointments. In effect, during the Hetmanate period Ukraine became a client state of Germany.Yet, paradoxically, it was during the few months of the Hetmanate’s existence that some of the national programs formulated by the Central Rada were actually carried out. The school system continued to be ukrainianized and several national institutions were established, including the Ukrainian Academy of Fine Arts, the State Library, the State Archives, and the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Skoropads’kyi was not, however, able to appease the political opposition which hoped to restore the Ukrainian National Republic. Again, events far from Dnieper Ukraine were to determine the country’s fate.
World War I came to an end on November 11, 1918, when Germany accepted the armistice. By mid-December the German and Austro-Hungarian armies left Ukraine, the Hetmanate collapsed, and the oppositionist Ukrainian National Union formed its own government, the Directory. On December 19, 1918, the Directory entered Kiev and proclaimed the re-establishment of the Ukrainian National Republic.
32.7 In the midst of Ukraine’s revolutionary turmoil, Czech prisoners-of-war from the Habsburg army and Czechs living in Ukraine met in Kiev, November 1917, to form the Czechoslovak Military Legion to fight for an independent state. Seated on the right is founding president of Czechoslovakia, Tomaš G. Masaryk.
MAP 33 UKRAINE, 1919-1920
