The Bolshevik Coup and the Central Rada

If the February Revolution was essentially the result of a collapse of power, the second revolution, called the October Revolution, was brought on by a seizure of power. It was carried out by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, a group that only six months earlier would have been considered as most unlikely candidates to rule Russia.

In early 1917, the Bolshevik party in Russia, consisting mainly of Russian and Jewish intelligentsia and workers, numbered less than 24,000 at a time when other socialist parties had hundreds of thousands of members. But the Bolsheviks possessed features that, in those chaotic times, were much more valuable than large membership. They were a disciplined, tightly centralized party of committed, longtime revolutionaries who had, in the person of Lenin, a leader of genius with an unrivaled mastery of revolutionary tactics. Lenin’s confidence and sense of direction, as well as his promises to give the masses “peace, bread and land,” made his party increasingly appealing to many. By fall 1917, Bolshevik ranks had swelled to 350,000. After wresting control of the soviets from other socialist parties and raising the slogan “All power to the Soviets” on 7 November (25 October, Julian style) the Bolsheviks overthrew the floundering Provisional Government in Petrograd and claimed authority in the name of the workers’ and soldiers’ assemblies.

Concentrated mainly in the Russian industrial centers, the Bolsheviks were exceedingly weak in Ukraine, where in 1918 there were, mostly in the Donetsk industrial region, about 4000–5000 of them. Thus, of Ukraine’s more than 2 million workers, Bolshevik adherents constituted a miniscule portion. By comparison, Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries alone had over 300,000 party members at this time. Moreover, because the Bolshevik message was aimed primarily at the proletariat – in which the Ukrainians were poorly represented – it held little appeal for them.

Like most Russians in Ukraine, the Bolsheviks were antagonistic to the Ukrainian movement. As Marxists, they feared that it would undermine the unity of the working class; as members of a dominant minority, they felt threatened by the mobilization of a previously quiescent majority; and as city people, they were contemptuous of a movement based on the peasantry. A leading Bolshevik, Khristian Rakovsky, even had difficulty acknowledging the very existence of a Ukrainian nation. That this attitude was quite widespread in the party was confirmed by Mykola Skrypnyk, one of the few prominent Ukrainian Bolsheviks, when he noted: “For the majority of our party members, Ukraine as a national unit did not exist.”⁷ Georgii Piatakov, one of the most influential Bolshevik leaders in Ukraine, flatly stated that the party “ought to reject completely the slogan of the right of nations to self-determination.”⁸ On another occasion, he argued: “We must not support the Ukrainians, because their movement is not convenient for the proletariat. Russia cannot exist without the Ukrainian sugar, industry, coal, cereals, etc.”⁹

Lenin, however, was too astute a politician to allow such attitudes to mold Bolshevik policies. He realized, somewhat belatedly, that nationalism was a potent force that could be used to the advantage of his party. Therefore, he developed a rather contorted argument to the effect that Bolsheviks should acknowledge and even encourage the rights of suppressed nationalities to cultural development and self-government as long as – and this was an extremely crucial qualification – doing so did not hinder the proletarian revolution. Thus, for example, if Ukrainian nationalism were to lead to the separation of Ukrainian workers from Russian workers, this, according to Lenin, “is bourgeois nationalism against which a merciless struggle is imperative.”¹⁰ In other words, Ukrainian national aspirations were recognized in theory but rejected in practice.

The great merit of this approach was that it allowed Bolsheviks to claim that they were sympathetic to Ukrainian aspirations and deserved Ukrainian support without compromising their commitment to the socialist revolution. The influence of Lenin’s views on his colleagues in Ukraine became evident in August 1917 when ten Bolshevik representatives even joined the Central Rada.

After the Bolsheviks assumed power in Russia, the question arose as to who should rule in Ukraine. Too weak to crush both the Central Rada and the supporters of the Provisional Government in Kiev who gathered around the Army Staff, the Bolsheviks decided, for the time being, to maintain good relations with the Ukrainians while dealing with the Army Staff. On 10 November fighting broke out in Kiev between the approximately 6000 Bolsheviks and the Army Staff, which had about 10,000 men at its disposal. At a crucial point in the conflict, the Central Rada ordered its 8000 men to aid the Bolsheviks, thus forcing the Army Staff to evacuate Kiev.

But, to the great consternation of the Bolsheviks, the Central Rada announced that it was assuming the highest authority in all nine provinces where Ukrainians were in the majority. This was formally restated in the Third Universal, issued on 22 November, which proclaimed the establishment of an autonomous Ukrainian Republic. Because it was still hesitant about breaking all ties with Russia, the Central Rada declared that one of its goals was to work for the creation of a “federation of free and equal peoples” in the former Russian Empire. Hopeful that the Central Rada might be a stabilizing force amidst the spreading anarchy, Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian parties, most of the soviets, and even the Bolsheviks (the latter only grudgingly and temporarily) acknowledged the authority of the Ukrainian government.

It quickly became apparent, however, that conflict between the Central Rada and the Bolsheviks would be unavoidable. While the Central Rada criticized Lenin’s use of violence in taking power in Petrograd, Lenin complained that the Ukrainians were allowing Cossack troops to pass through their territory so that they could gather in the south where a Russian anti-Bolshevik movement was taking shape.

Led by the talented Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko and his brutal associate Mikhail Muraviev, the Bolsheviks, numbering about 12,000, advanced from the northeast. To oppose them, Symon Petliura, the Ukrainian minister of war, had a force of about 15,000 widely scattered men, consisting of the “Free Cossack” peasant militia, the Sich Riflemen, a unit of former Galician prisoners of war, a few small frontline units, and hundreds of young gymnazium students who were sent to the front directly from their schools in Kiev.

Map 20 German/Austrian invasion in 1918

One may well wonder, at this point, about where the 300,000 soldiers of the Ukrainized units were who had pledged support to the Central Rada in the summer. Most of them had returned to their villages and adopted a “neutral” stance, as did many of those who remained under arms. Some went over to the Bolsheviks. The unreliability of the majority of these Ukrainian soldiers – contrasting sharply with the heroic efforts of the relative few who actually fought in support of the Central Rada – was largely a result of the effectiveness of Bolshevik agitators.

Another advantage the Bolsheviks enjoyed in Ukraine was the diversionary uprisings against the Central Rada staged in almost every large city by their adherents. The most dangerous of these revolts occurred in Kiev on 29 January 1918, when Russian workers seized the Arsenal and tied down Ukrainian troops for several days before giving in. At the same time, not far to the east at Kruty, Petliura’s men made their last major stand against Muraviev’s advancing forces. After several days of intense fighting, the Ukrainians were forced to retreat. In the process, a unit of 300 schoolboys was surrounded, and, after fierce resistance, slaughtered. Their deaths earned for them a place of honor in the Ukrainian national pantheon. Meanwhile, in Kiev, the Central Rada, which was meeting day and night, rushed through a radical land-reform bill that called for the nationalization of large land-holdings. It issued its Fourth and last Universal (although dated 22 January this important document was actually produced on the night of 24 to 25 of that month) proclaiming that the Ukrainian National Republic had broken its ties with Bolshevik Russia and that henceforth it was a free and independent state. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

With defeat imminent, the Central Rada had only one last hope – foreign aid. In general, its sympathies lay with the Entente and from the outset it worked strenuously to gain recognition, especially by France.

Within days of signing the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Germans and Austrians, having divided Ukraine into spheres of influence, marched in with a powerful army of over 450,000. After only three weeks, the Bolsheviks, who boasted that “they brought in Soviet power from the north on the tips of bayonets” and who had instituted a reign of terror during their brief stay in Kiev, were forced to flee.¹² But this did not mean that the Central Rada, which returned with the Germans on 2 March, received a warm welcome.

Almost every segment of Ukraine’s population was disillusioned with its policies. Non-Ukrainians were distraught about the severing of bonds between Ukraine and Russia; poor peasants had not gotten the land they expected; rich peasants and estate owners were furious about the nationalization of large properties; and all blamed the Central Rada for bringing the heavy-handed Germans into the land. For their part, the Germans were also losing their patience with the young, inept ideologues who dominated the Central Rada. They soon realized that it had practically no administrative apparatus with which to collect the millions of tons of food that the hungry German and Austrian cities so desperately needed. The interminable squabbles, debates, and crises among the socialist parties in the Central Rada convinced the Germans that the “young Ukrainian Utopians” were incapable of governing. Therefore, on 28 April, just as the Central Rada was formulating the constitution of the Ukrainian state, a German unit marched into the hall and disbanded the assembly. A day later the Central Rada fell without a move being made to defend it.

During the one year that the Central Rada had been the major political factor in Ukraine, it achieved notable successes and experienced dismal failures. Considering the weak, repressed, and politically inexperienced state of the Ukrainian intelligentsia prior to the revolution, the creation and growth of the Central Rada was a considerable achievement. By its activity, it finally put to rest long-standing and widely held doubts about the very existence of a Ukrainian nationality. Indeed, it transformed the Ukrainian issue into one of the key issues of the revolutionary period. In strictly political terms, the Central Rada more than held its own in dealing with the Provisional Government.

It also out-maneuvered the Bolsheviks of Ukraine, forcing them to turn to Russia for aid. Intent on creating a democratic, parliamentary government, the Central Rada adhered to its goals despite the pressure for arbitary action. A striking example of this commitment was its precedent-setting grant of wide-ranging cultural autonomy to the Jewish minority, despite the fact that its representatives were among the severest critics of the Ukrainian government. But perhaps the Central Rada’s most far-reaching achievement was that by its stubborn demand for Ukrainian self-government, it seriously challenged the previously untouchable principle of “one, indivisible Russia” and forced both the Provisional Government and, later, the Bolsheviks to retreat (at least in theory) from this shibboleth of Russian political thinking.

The most obvious fact about the Central Rada was, however, that it failed. Among the basic causes of that failure was that it lacked the two main pillars of statehood, namely an effective army and administrative apparatus. Without the latter, the Central Rada was unable to maintain contact with the provinces and countryside where most of its potential support lay. Equally damaging was the lack of consensus on what policies to follow. This deficiency was painfully evident in the bitter feud between Vynnychenko and Petliura, two of the government’s key ministers. Vynnychenko argued that the Central Rada should pursue more socially radical policies so that it could “out-socialize” the Bolsheviks and live up to the expectations of the masses for drastic change. Petliura, meanwhile, believed that more emphasis should be placed on building the institutions of a nation-state. Finally, the immediate cause of the Central Rada’s demise was its inability to satisfy German demands.

Yet as John Reshetar has demonstrated, in the final analysis, the failure of the Central Rada lay in the underdevelopment of the Ukrainian national movement.¹³ In effect, the Central Rada was forced to begin state-building before the process of nation-building had been completed. Because of the repressive nature of the tsarist regime and the socioeconomic peculiarities of Ukrainian society, most of the educated people in Ukraine were either Russians or Russified. The Ukrainian movement had not yet penetrated the cities and these crucial centers of industry, communications, and skilled personnel functioned as bastions of the Russian and Russified minorities who were often militantly anti-Ukrainian. Hence, there was a critical lack of competent individuals available for organizing and staffing the army and administration of a Ukrainian state. The people who were available were young and inexperienced: Vynnychenko was 38, Petliura was 35, Kovalevsky (leader of the largest Ukrainian party, the Socialist Revolutionaries) was 25, Mykola Shrah (who substituted for Hrushevsky as presiding officer of the Central Rada) was 22. Aware of its lack of human as well as material resources, Serhii Efremov, a member of the Central Rada, urged it to refrain from assuming authority, for, he argued, the masses awaited miracles and a Ukrainian government would be sure to disillusion them. In view of these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, it is understandable why Vynnychenko, referring to the Central Rada’s efforts, remarked: “Truly, we were like the gods … attempting to create a whole new world from nothing.”¹⁴