The Revolution in Ukraine

News of the tsarist regime’s collapse reached Kiev on 13 March 1917. Within days, representatives of the city’s major institutions and organizations formed an Executive Committee which was to maintain order and act as an extension of the Provisional Government.

To the surprise of many, the Central Rada generated immediate and growing support. In Petrograd and Kiev, Ukrainians staged huge parades to publicize their cause and demonstrate their backing for the Central Rada. On 19 April a Ukrainian National Congress was held in Kiev. Attended by 900 delegates from all over Ukraine, from Ukrainian communities throughout the former empire, and from various economic, educational, military, and welfare organizations, it formally elected 150 representatives to the Central Rada and reaffirmed Hrushevsky’s leadership.

For the most part, the social background of the Central Rada’s most avid supporters was, to use a term favored by Marxists, petit bourgeois: it consisted of intelligentsia and the so-called half-intelligentsia – village teachers, lower clergy, petty bureaucrats, zemstvo officials, junior officers, and well-to-do peasants. Based mostly in the countryside, these people were motivated not only by the Ukrainophile intelligentsia’s traditional concerns about preserving and developing Ukrainian culture, but also by the pragmatic belief that a government closer to home would be more responsive to their needs. The Ukrainian peasant believed that the Central Rada would be more effective than a government in far-off Petrograd in helping him obtain more land, while the Ukrainian soldier hoped it would get him out of the war more quickly than a Russian government could.

There were, however, also social and ethnic groups in Ukraine that wanted no part of the Central Rada. Russian conservatives and even moderates feared that the growing Ukrainian political presence might lead to the disintegration of “one and indivisible Russia.” Russian radicals, for their part, suspected that the Ukrainian national movement might break up the “unity of the working class.” And Jews, many of whom identified with Russian culture and were active in Russian socialist parties, also looked askance at the Central Rada. Thus, much of Ukraine’s small but strategically located urban minority was greatly disturbed by the unexpected rise of the Central Rada.

But as the limitations of the Provisional government’s power became more obvious, the Central Rada decided to press its advantage. Intent on gaining recognition as the highest political authority in Ukraine, on 23 June it issued its First Universal (manifesto), which proclaimed: “Let Ukraine be free. Without separating entirely from Russia, without severing connections with the Russian state, let the Ukrainian people have the right to order their own lives in their own land.”³ Shortly thereafter, the Central Rada announced the formation of the General Secretariat, which was to function as the executive branch of government. Headed by Vynnychenko and composed of eight ministries, most of which were held by Social Democrats, the General Secretariat took over responsibility for the administration of Ukraine.

These measures infuriated the Russians in Ukraine and the Provisional Government in Petrograd. In mid July, the latter sent a delegation, led by Aleksander Kerensky, to Kiev to negotiate. But weakened by the disastrous failure of its offensive in Galicia, the Russians were forced, although with strong qualifications, to recognize the General Secretariat as the administration of five Ukrainian provinces (Kiev, Poltava, Podilia, Volhynia, and Chernihiv). This recognition marked the high point of the Central Rada’s influence and authority.

On the promise of far-ranging cultural autonomy, Russian and Jewish parties in Ukraine reluctantly agreed to join the Central Rada. At this point, the Central Rada consisted of 822 seats, about one-fourth of which were held by Russian, Jewish, Polish, and other non-Ukrainian parties. Ideologically, it leaned heavily to the left. With an agreement, albeit shaky, reached with both the Provisional Government and the minorities, the Central Rada was now free to take on the task of governing.

The Central Rada, however, was soon found sorely lacking in leadership. When the Provisional Government attempted to back away from its recognition of Ukrainian autonomy, the Central Rada wasted its time in endless debates about the extent of its authority – neglecting in the process such pressing problems as the maintenance of law and order, the provisioning of the cities, and the functioning of the railroads.

Equally damaging was the ideological narrowness of the young, inexperienced Ukrainian politicians, most of whom were in their 20s and 30s. Caught up in their own revolutionary rhetoric, they were intent on dissociating themselves from the old order. A case in point was their attitude toward the military. In summer 1917, about 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers spontaneously reorganized themselves into all-Ukrainian units that swore allegiance to the Central Rada. In a controversial case, General Pavlo Skoropadsky placed at the disposal of the Central Rada a Ukrainized corps of 40,000 men that was admirably disciplined and equipped when compared to the demoralized Russian troops. However, his gesture was rejected on two counts: first, the ideologues in the Central Rada argued that the revolution eliminated the need for standing armies, and second, they pointed out that Skoropadsky was a rich landowner and therefore untrustworthy. Their attitude toward bureaucrats was similar: they were regarded as the embodiment of the old, repressive “bourgeois” state and Vynnychenko, the head of government, called them the “worst, most harmful people.”⁴

But it soon became apparent that without an army and a bureaucracy, government was impossible. Disorder and anarchy spread through Ukraine. Matters worsened in July when the Russian army in Galicia disintegrated, inundating Ukraine (which had been the immediate hinterland of the huge southwestern and Romanian fronts) with millions of heavily armed, radicalized, rampaging soldiers. Their impact was, in the words of a Central Rada member, “worse than that of the Tatar hordes,” and it graphically exposed the impotence of the Central Rada.⁵