representatives in Petrograd. They too were unable to make up their
own minds. On the one hand, they felt very strongly that they had an
obligation to the Provisional Government because of the sacrifices that
Russia had made in the common war. On the other, they were themselves
sending representatives to be present in Kiev and the other national
states but they refused to express themselves definitely as to what
they desired to see set up on the ruins of the Empire. Under these
circumstances it was difficult for the young governments to know on
what diplomatic support they could rely or what policy would be most
effective and practical.
The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks promised for a while to clear
up conditions. No one believed that the Bolshevik party would be able
to maintain itself long in power but at the same time it made all talk
of a federal Russia purely theoretical and placed upon Ukraine and
the Rada the task of maintaining law and order in its own territory,
of solving the economic problems of the country, and of setting up a
generally efficient government. This was an overpowering task, for the
political revolution and the agrarian movement were moving along at a
rapid pace. Disorder reigned in the country and there was no time to
bring together the various conflicting points of view.
At the same time the curious political philosophy of the Bolsheviks was
complicating the situation still further. The Soviets were perfectly
willing to grant independence to Ukraine or to any of the other border
territories, but they insisted that the power could only be turned
over to true representatives of the workers and peasants, i.e. the
Bolsheviks themselves, since all other elements of the population
were clearly counter-revolutionary and not typical of the ideals of
the workers and peasants. As most of their leaders in Ukraine were of
non-Ukrainian origin, this meant that the Ukrainians as a people were
to be governed by the Russians, who alone were able to speak for the
Ukrainian population.
This novel philosophy forced the Rada to take definite action, and
on November 7/20, it issued the Third Universal, which declared that
“from this day on, Ukraine becomes the Ukrainian People’s Republic.”
There is a definite ambiguity in this phrase, for in Ukrainian the
word “Narodna” means both “People’s” and “National.” It expressed both
the idea of a government of the Ukrainian people as a separate nation
and also the idea of the government as one preeminently of the common
people, i.e. those who were concerned with the vague but revolutionary
agrarian program. As a matter of fact the term had become a slogan
in all the area affected by the Russian Revolution and like all such
slogans with an indefinite and unclear meaning, it created as much
confusion as it did agreement.
Under the terms of this declaration the Council attempted to establish
a definite government. It passed certain liberal regulations on land
ownership for the benefit of the peasants, it instituted the eight
hour day, granted amnesty to political prisoners, and also called for
the holding of a Pan-Ukrainian Congress, to be composed of elective
members, to found a constitutional government. This election was to be
held on January 9, 1918 and the Constituent Assembly was to meet on
January 22.
It stands to reason that the Bolsheviks had no intention of allowing
such an Assembly to meet, for they well knew that the Council and the
Ukrainian people were opposed to the excesses of the Bolsheviks and
their system of massacring their opponents, and that any expression of
the wishes of the people would establish some other form of government.
As a result they continued their policy of trying to disintegrate the
Council and of arousing discontent in all possible quarters. By sending
Bolshevik bands, composed largely of non-Ukrainians, into the country,
by spreading incendiary appeals to the people, by fomenting class
hatred in every way, they succeeded in keeping the country stirred up
and in preventing the stabilization of conditions.
Then they induced the Kiev Soviet, composed chiefly of non-Ukrainian
workers in some of the factories, to demand the calling of an
All-Ukrainian Council of Soviets on December 5/17. The Council saw
to it that this was not a mere rump convention of the Bolsheviks, as
Stalin had planned, but was widely representative of all the leftist
elements of Ukraine which were grouped in Soviets or Councils. As a
result, the Bolshevik resolutions were voted down and the following
was adopted: “The meeting of the Ukrainian Councils emphasizes its
definite decision that the Central Council in its further work stand
solidly on guard over the achievement of the revolution, spreading
and deepening without halt the revolutionary activity to safeguard
the class interests of a laboring democracy and call together without
delay the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly, which alone can reveal the
true will of all democratic Ukraine. The meeting of the Councils of
Peasants’, Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates of Ukraine in this manner
expresses to the Ukrainian Central Council its full confidence and
promises it its absolute support.” The resolution went on to say, “On
paper the Soviet of People’s Commissars seemingly recognizes the right
of a nation to self-determination and even to separation, but only
in words. In fact, the government of Commissars brutally attempts to
interfere in the activities of the Ukrainian government which executes
the will of the legislative organ of the Central Council. What sort
of self-determination is this? It is certain the Commissars will
permit self-determination only to their own party; all other groups
and peoples they, like the Tsarist regime, desire to keep under their
domination by force of arms. But the Ukrainian people did not cast
off the Tsarist yoke only to take upon themselves the yoke of the
Commissars.”
This resolution, adopted in December, 1917, expresses with rare nicety
the entire policy of Soviet thought on its relations with other peoples
and groups and it would have been well for Ukraine, had the sober
judgment of these Councils prevailed. It would have saved a great deal
of anguish and bloodshed in the coming years.
When the Bolsheviks saw that they were unable to control the assembly
which they had inspired, Stalin sent an ultimatum to it, demanding
unconditional submission within forty-eight hours. At the same time,
the Bolshevik members, some 150 out of about 2000, under the leadership
of two Russians, Sergeyev of the Don basin and Ivanov of Kiev, and a
Ukrainian Communist, Horowitz, moved to Kharkiv and there proclaimed a
Ukrainian Soviet Republic and called themselves the Secretaries of the
new government instead of Commissars. They at once received support
from the Russian Bolsheviks and opened a civil war.
It is noticeable that throughout 1917 there had been far less disorder
in Ukraine than there had been in Russia. There had been none of those
revolts that had characterized the situation in Petrograd and adjacent
areas since the very beginning of the revolution. During this year
Ukraine alone of the territory of the former Empire had been relatively
peaceful. The Council had been gradually assuming power and endeavoring
to make the transition from the old to the new. It had seen the passage
of large numbers of demoralized soldiers but it had escaped the main
part of the violent scenes that had gone on elsewhere.
Now all this was changed. The Bolsheviks definitely began an invasion
of the country and this added to the trials of the Council. The
changing conditions on the Eastern front now brought Ukraine into the
international scene. It was impossible to hold elections with the chaos
in the country. Finally, to solve the situation, on January 9/22, the
Council announced in a Fourth Universal the complete independence of
Ukraine and declared that, “From to-day the Ukrainian People’s Republic
becomes the Independent, Free, Sovereign State of the Ukrainian People.”
It had taken almost a year to bring the council to this decision. As
in the case of the United States, the vast majority of the people did
not realize in the beginning the issues involved. For a century many
of the best and most patriotic minds of Ukraine had dreamed of a great
federation of the Slavs or of a reorganized Russia which would give
equal rights and liberties to all classes of the population. They had
sought this from each of the governments since the Revolution and had
failed to obtain it from any. Federation had never appealed to any
party in the Russian Revolution. The conservative Cadets, men like
Milyukov and his friends, Socialists like Kerensky, Bolsheviks like
Lenin and Stalin, all in their own way demanded that there should be
a centralized state. Just as the Russian intelligentsia in the field
of thought throughout the nineteenth century refused to admit the
possibility of a cultural development in Ukraine apart from Russia,
just as Peter the Great and Catherine could not admit that they had to
deal with a situation different from that prevailing in Moscow and St.
Petersburg, so the revolutionary leaders held fast to the same idea.
The Council had wasted months in futile discussion and negotiations at
a time when they could have been profitably employed in building up
local institutions and restoring order. Now when it became clear that
war and organized war was to be the order of the day, they finally
acted and Ukraine appeared again as an independent state with its
capital at Kiev.
CHAPTER TWENTY
_FOREIGN RELATIONS_
This struggle to win for Ukraine a position first as a federated state
in a new Russia and secondly as a completely independent country was
not proceeding in an atmosphere of peace and quiet. The First World
War was still going on with the forces of the Triple Entente and the
Central Powers locked in a terrific struggle.
England and France had welcomed the Russian Revolution, because they
believed that Russia after the fall of the Tsar would carry on the war
against Germany and Austria-Hungary more successfully. It took them
only a few weeks to realize that the collapse of Russia had imposed
on them a still heavier burden. They could not understand that the
Russian Revolution had been a collapse because of excessive strain and
war weariness and it is quite a question how far the Russian leaders
realized this themselves. At all events Lenin and Trotsky called for
immediate peace and this, as much as their program of social reforms,
won them a sympathetic hearing in many quarters. It brought them into
conflict with the representatives of England, France and the United
States, which were working to keep Russia in the war against the
Central Powers.
There were two other factors which were overlooked. The first was the
question of supplies. With Turkey in the war, it was impossible to send
supplies to the Russian or any other armies operating in what was the
old Russian Empire except by way of Murmansk and Archangel on the north
or Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. For example, it was impossible for
the Ukrainian army, which was confronted with the German forces in the
south, to receive any supplies except across Bolshevik-held territory.
They could secure only those supplies that were left on their own
soil at the time of the beginning of the Revolution. The failure of
the Russian offensive of Kerensky had reduced these, and the troops
opposing the Bolshevik bands were relatively unarmed.
The second factor was the meaning of this war-weariness. It was
opposed to fighting against the Central Powers. It was opposed to the
preservation and maintenance of discipline. Yet with each advance in
demoralization, the willingness to fight in scattered bands against a
new enemy increased. The fanatic Bolsheviks, who refused to continue
the war for any reason against the Central Powers, were only too ready
in small bands to attack Ukraine. Part of this lay in the belief that
there was still food in Ukraine and that this food was necessary for
Moscow and Petrograd. Part of it lay in their equally fanatical belief
that they were the real spokesmen of the laborers and peasants. At the
same moment when they were opening negotiations to end the war with
Germany and Austria-Hungary, they were commencing a war in Ukraine and
in many other sections.
Allied diplomacy was singularly ineffective. After welcoming the
Revolution, England, France and the United States were unable to induce
the Provisional Government to continue the war effectively. They were
opposed to a peace between Russia or any part of it with the Central
Powers. They were willing to cooperate with the Ukrainian Council or
any other government that would continue the war. They were willing
to recognize the Council as the de facto government of Ukraine and
threatened it, if it made peace. They were willing to oppose the
Bolsheviks, when they talked peace. On the other hand, the military
missions that appeared in Kiev did not have the power to guarantee
that they would continue to recognize the Council after the war and
they most assuredly had no plans for supplying the Ukrainian army and
making it able to oppose the Bolsheviks successfully, much less the
Germans and Austro-Hungarians, if they decided to resume the offensive.
What might have been done in Archangel or Vladivostok was impossible in
Kiev, with Ukraine barred from access to Allied supplies and assistance
by the Central Powers on the west and the Bolsheviks on the north and
east. Ukraine was fighting a war on two fronts, and relations between
the Germans and the Bolsheviks were such that peace between Germany
and the Bolsheviks might result in Germany turning over Ukraine to the
Bolsheviks as the price of peace. Again this threat, the words of small
military missions were little defence, especially when the Ukrainian
leaders knew of the widespread propaganda that had been directed
against them abroad by imperial Russia for nearly four years.
In the meanwhile conditions were becoming more critical in the country.
The Council suffered from the same misconceptions that had ruined
the Provisional Government. It was or felt itself unable to check
barely concealed Bolshevik propaganda because of its interpretation of
democracy. Its leaders, busied with negotiations with the Provisional
Government, had not been able to use all their energies in building
up a firm kernel of organization and in strengthening their own armed
forces to a point where they could be sure of their unqualified
support. Far too often resolutions that were adopted became dead
letters almost as soon as they were passed. Regulations on the
distribution of land, and others, were more honored in the breach than
the observance. Despite the efforts of many of the members, it could
hardly be said that many of the difficulties were being overcome.
As a result when the Germans and Austro-Hungarians met with the
Bolshevik envoys at Brest Litovsk in December, 1917, it became clear
that the only hope of the Council was also to make peace with the
Central Powers and use the next months as a breathing space during
which they could strengthen their internal order and prepare themselves
for the next round with the Bolsheviks. They were aware that this might
be an expensive move, but between that and the annihilation of Ukraine
there was no real choice.
Accordingly, the Council decided to send three delegates to represent
Ukraine at the Brest Litovsk meetings. The delegates selected were
three young men, Levitsky, Lubinsky and Sevryuk, former students
of Prof. Hrushevsky. They had had little training in international
meetings. Their youth surprised the German representatives,
General Hoffmann and his associates, and amused Count Czernin, the
Austro-Hungarian representative. He could not imagine young men
appearing in important posts and Ukrainians anywhere at all, for he
represented those elements in his country which were most hostile to
the progress of the Ukrainians in Galicia. To the especial annoyance of
Czernin they put forth claims not only to independence but to the whole
of Eastern Galicia, and also the province of Kholm.
These claims appeared preposterous to the delegates of the Central
Powers but they also touched on the weak spot of both Germany and
Austria-Hungary. The representatives of the two powers were not
friendly. Both Germany and Austria-Hungary had their own ideas as to
the future of eastern Europe and each wished to secure the lion’s share
for his own country, although the Austrians were well aware of the fact
that nothing was well at home, especially since the death of Francis
Joseph, who had at least been able to put up a brilliant facade to
cover his policy of avoiding a settlement of all questions. Besides
that, the delegates had taken the trouble to pass through Lviv on their
way to Brest Litovsk and were well aware of the situation in Eastern
Galicia, probably better than Count Czernin himself.
On the other hand, Trotsky, as the leader of the Bolshevik delegation,
argued bitterly that the Germans and Austrians should not receive the
Ukrainian delegation at all. They denied that Ukraine existed and that
the Council represented the will of the workers and peasants. Later he
brought to the meeting representatives of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic
from Kharkiv in an endeavor to strengthen his own case and kept
reporting victories of the Bolsheviks over the troops of the Council.
It was a strange conference, for all parties knew the issues at stake
and none dared to move toward the desired goal. The Germans wanted
peace with the Bolsheviks in order to be able to move the bulk of their
forces to the Western Front for the campaign of 1918. They also, and
still more the Austrians, wanted to secure food from Ukraine. Trotsky
and the Bolsheviks also wanted peace. They hoped thereby to create
disorder in the German and Austrian armies and hoped for a revolution
by the masses of the population of those countries. They also wanted
the opportunity to master Ukraine and secure the food which they
needed for their capitals. The Ukrainian delegates, supported later
by Vsevolod Holubovich, the Prime Minister, were willing to turn over
a certain amount of grain, provided they could secure a guarantee of
the liberty of their country and means of self defence against the
Bolshevik attacks.
Under these conditions a settlement was finally reached. Ukraine under
the Council was recognized as a sovereign state and promised to send to
the Central Powers at least a million tons of supplies. Trotsky, after
receiving the German terms, announced that there was neither peace
nor war between the Central Powers and the Bolsheviks, for he took
the attitude that there could be no peace between a territorial state
and an international government of workers and peasants and really
demanded civil war in Germany. The Austrians, having compelled the
Ukrainians to give up their claim to Galicia and to Kholm, sided with
the Germans but were far less willing to take any action to make the
treaty effective. The conference ended on February 11.
In the meanwhile Bolshevik pressure on Kiev had increased and the
Council was compelled to retreat from Kiev to Zhitomir to the west, and
Trotsky could feel that he had more or less succeeded in his endeavors.
When, however, the Germans, taking advantage of the situation that was
left by the Bolsheviks, commenced to advance, a new wave of desire for
war swept over the Bolsheviks and it took all of Lenin’s power to make
them accept the terms that Trotsky had refused, for the passage of each
day left more Bolshevik territory in the hands of the Germans.
By March 1, the German troops had advanced into Ukraine and had
restored the Council to Kiev. They set up Field Marshal Eichhorn as
the practical head of the occupation forces and also of the new state,
along with Baron Mumm as representative of the German Foreign Office.
They also sent General Groener to Kiev to secure supplies.
The Council was now put in another unpleasant situation. The presence
of German troops created discontent. Order had been restored but the
Council continued its policy of endless debate and found it difficult
to agree on the legislation that was to be enacted. The old debates
between the right and the left were intensified, although the Council
decided that they would maintain the social reforms instituted by
the Third and Fourth Universals and also proceed to the holding of
elections for a Constituent Assembly which would meet on July 12, 1918.
The collection of supplies proceeded slowly. 1917 had been a disturbed
year and the harvest had not been properly gathered. The peasants were
not disposed to turn over their supplies to the Germans, even in
return for money, and the high hopes with which the Germans and the
Austrians had entered the country vanished with each day’s failure to
secure the needed food. At the same time, the German military machine
had no sympathy with and little understanding for the attempts of the
Council to fumble toward a democratic constitution and improve the
conditions of the people.
In an endeavor to create a more favorable situation, the Germans turned
to the society of the Khliborody (the Agriculturists). This was a group
of the former estate holders, Russian and Ukrainian alike, who had in
their store-houses a certain amount of supplies. These conservatives
were naturally opposed to the desires of the peasants to secure land
and they were willing to see the Council removed.
Through them the Germans made an arrangement with General Pavel
Skoropadsky, a general in the Russian army, but a descendant of that
Skoropadsky who had been appointed Hetman by Peter after the revolt of
Mazepa. It was apparently believed that Skoropadsky, by assuming the
title of Hetman, could rally to his support the sentiments of at least
the propertied classes and perhaps part of the peasants. The details
were all set. Then, on April 28, German soldiers under the orders of
Field Marshal Eichhorn invaded the meeting of the Council and summarily
dispersed it. The next day they formally proclaimed Skoropadsky Hetman
of the Ukraine and commenced to make the new order effective.
Skoropadsky went through the motions of ruling for about seven months
and during this time Ukraine remained relatively peaceable. Kiev and
the other cities were filled with Russian refugees from the Bolsheviks.
These people appreciated the restoration of order and the freedom from
massacre and pillage, but they had no use for the Ukrainian state and
liked to believe that Skoropadsky was only waiting for the downfall of
the Bolsheviks to bring Ukraine back again into Russia. Attempts were
made to restore the former rights of the landowners and the old order
as it had existed prior to 1917. As a result, dissatisfaction grew
among the masses and more and more order had to be maintained by the
Germans. This became less effective after the murder of Field Marshal
Eichhorn on July 30, for his successor was far less able to handle both
the Ukrainians and the representatives of the German Foreign Office.
At the same time Germany continued to work with the Bolsheviks, much
to the annoyance of the Russians in Ukraine, the Ukrainians and
Skoropadsky himself. The Hetman secured incontrovertible proof that
the Bolshevik delegates at Kiev, Rakovsky and Dmitry Manuilsky, who
were ostensibly drawing up peace terms between Ukraine and Moscow, were
spending huge sums of money in Bolshevik propaganda, but he could not
secure permission to curb their activities. Similarly when the German
ambassador in Moscow, Count Mirbach, was murdered, Germany took no
steps to punish the Bolsheviks and continued to lay emphasis on the
need of maintaining good relations with them.