Standing on guard for freedom

After Mykhailo Hrushevsky issued the 3rd Universal (Decree) proclaiming the creation of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) on Nov. 7 (20), 1917, the Central Rada continued to Ukrainize all spheres of life, and above all to construct Ukrainian statehood. The decree outlined the UNR’S borders: “The territory of the Ukrainian National Republic includes the lands mostly populated by Ukrainians, namely, the Kyiv region; Podillia; Volyn; the Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Katerynoslav regions; Tauris (without the Crimea), and all the parts of the Kursk, Kholm, and Voronezh regions, as well as certain other gubernias where Ukrainians constitute the majority of the population.”

Katerynoslav gubernia comprised almost the entire territory of today’s Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhia oblasts. In other words, the borders of the UNR spanned from Volyn and Pidliashia in the west to Slobozhanshchyna and Donbas, inclusively, in the east. A protest was lodged against the attempts to withdraw Volyn, Galicia, Bukovyna, and the Kholm and Pidliashia regions from the Ukrainian state. This was the beginning of Ukraine’s integrity, and a very important event on this path was the Act of Reunification of the UNR and the ZUNR (Western Ukrainian National Republic) in 1919. The process of the unification of the Ukrainian lands continued after World War II in the Ukrainian SSR whose borders the now independent state inherited.

On Nov. 23 an armistice was declared on the frontlines of the First World War, which crossed Ukrainian territory. Ukraine established its own diplomatic service: the General Secretariat of Interethnic Affairs gave way to the General Secretariat of International Affairs. France and Great Britain announced the appointment of their envoys to the UNR government. In late December a UNR delegation entered into peace negotiations with the Quadruple Alliance (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria).

Laws were adopted on the Central Rada’s exclusive right to pass legislative acts in the UNR, the establishment of the General Court and the Appeal Court, on public prosecution, issuing the Ukrainian national currency — the karbovanets was divided into 100 shahy — on public funds, the main treasury and the UNR State Bank, forming the Army of the UNR on the principles of voluntariness and remuneration, organizing the Military Secretariat, and the Black Sea Fleet and merchant navy. Experts began to draw up a constitution, land code, a law on national and personal autonomy, etc. The UNR announced that all taxes and profits on its territory belong to its treasury. During the elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly in November-December 1917, only 10 percent of Ukrainians voted for the Bolsheviks, while over 75 percent opted for Ukrainian political parties.

The UNR government headed by Volodymyr Vynnychenko was quite dynamic. The General Secretariat resolved to extend its power to all Ukrainian gubernias. It also approved the statute of the Free Cossacks passed on Nov. 17, 1917, a resolution on the mandatory use of Ukrainian as the official language in central and regional government bodies, and passed decisions on the need to reorganize and democratize the Kyiv Military District Headquarters, protect monuments of nature and culture, etc. In early 1918 the General Secretariat was renamed the Council of National Ministers of the UNR, headed by Vsevolod Holubovych.

But by late November the situation in Ukraine had become exacerbated. In late October and early November, the Bolsheviks’ suppression of the self-proclaimed* Russian Provisional Government (which fiercely resisted Ukrainian self-determination and even ordered the Ukrainian leaders to be tried “for separatism” and incarcerated in a Petrograd jail) created a favorable situation for restoring Ukrainian statehood. In the confrontation with the forces that supported the bankrupt Russian leadership the Central Rada cooperated with the Kyiv-based Bolsheviks who were represented in it.

But very soon the Bolsheviks’ attempts to kindle a worldwide revolution based on an erroneous interpretation of internationalism, in which national features, including the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, were regarded as a temporary tactic, as well as fear of the unification of the forces that had not recognized the Council of People’s Commissars (Radnarkom), led to a confrontation with the UNR.

The Radnarkom saw Ukraine’s economy as a mighty lever for Russia’s economic development and the construction of what Vynnychenko called “white-red- blue socialism,” i.e., socialism under the colors of the former Russian Empire. Many Bolsheviks were under the influence of Russian great-power chauvinism that claimed: “There is no such thing as Ukraine. It is a petty bourgeois invention. The khokhols are the very same Russians.” This ignorant and oft-debunked idea frequently prevailed over theoretical conclusions and political declarations, and adversely affected the course of events.

Complicating the situation was the fact that the central gubernias experienced an acute food shortage in late 1917. The UNR leadership tried to help resolve these problems: it sent trainloads of food to Petrograd, Moscow and other Russian cities, as well as to the Northern and Western Fronts, and urged the populace to sell foodstuffs privately to those areas. But payments for these supplies never arrived. Reluctant and simply unable to establish normal and mutually-advantageous economic relations, the Russian leaders decided to take everything they needed from Ukraine by force.

In late November 1917 the Bolsheviks in Kyiv fomented an uprising aimed at toppling the Central Rada. The 1st Ukrainian Guards Division commanded by Col. Y. Kapkan surrounded and disarmed the Bolshevized military units, which were brought to the railway station and sent to Russia. Then on Dec. 3 (16), 1917, Russia’s Council of People’s Commissars issued the “Manifesto to the Ukrainian People with an Ultimatum to the Ukrainian Rada.” Although the manifesto formally recognized the UNR and the national rights of the Ukrainian people, it contained a demand to halt the formation of the Ukrainian army, not allow Russian Cossack regiments that had left the battlefield to the Don, and an end to the disarming of Red Guard detachments. Failure to comply with the ultimatum within 48 hours would result in a state of war between Russia and Ukraine.

On Dec. 4-6 (17-19), 1917, the Ukrainian Bolsheviks and the Central Rada held the 1st All-Ukrainian Congress of Deputies, which was attended by more than 2,000 delegates. The congress classified the Moscow ultimatum as a factor conducive to the breaking of federated relations toward which Ukrainian democracy was striving, and passed a resolution to support the Central Rada. One hundred and twenty-four delegates from 49 councils that disagreed with this stand left the congress and went to Kharkiv. There they united with the congress delegates from the Donbas and Kryvy Rih councils and on Dec. 12 (25), 1917, proclaimed themselves the Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies of Ukraine, with the participation of peasants’ deputies) and proclaimed the establishment of Soviet power in the UNR as part of Russia. They formed the Central Executive Committee of UNR Soviets and the cabinet — the People’s Secretariat. This government represented a minority of the population, which fact was confirmed by the elections to the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly at the end of 1917: out of 172 seats the Bolsheviks won only 34.

At the same time, the Bolsheviks resorted to the tactic of breaking up the Ukrainian national territory into regional republics — Donetsk-Kryvy Rih, Odesa, Tauris, etc., — as parts of a “single and indivisible Russia.” This made it utterly impossible for a sovereign and united Ukrainian state to exist.

The UNR repeatedly urged the Council of People’s Commissars to enter into peace negotiations. A number of Ukrainian Bolsheviks, in particular Artem (Fedor Sergeev), also tried to avert hostilities. But on Dec. 10, 1917, on orders from Commander in Chief Nikolai Krylenko, Soviet Russian troops commanded by M. Muravev, R. Berzin, and R. Sivers launched an offensive on Ukraine from the Northern, South-Western, and Romanian Fronts. Local Red Guards also joined them. They soon seized Kharkiv, Poltava, Odesa, Chernihiv, and Katerynoslav. Muravev’s troops were approaching Kyiv. Thus, UNR troops never crossed over into Russian lands, but instead, military formations of the Russian Council of People’s Commissars’ (Sovnarkom) launched battles in Ukraine.

The military situation did not favor the UNR. The Ukrainian state lacked a regular army, a developed infrastructure, streamlined system of command and operational communications, or a well-developed doctrine of strategy and defense. This situation was by no means caused by differences among the Ukrainian leaders. There was not enough time and funds for military construction. The General Secretariat of Military Affairs, formed in June 1917, had been abolished on the demand of the Provisional Government. Ukrainized military units, committees, and paramilitary militias (“Free Cossacks,” “Haidamaky,” “Sichovyky,” etc.) required a centralized professional command and proper military training. They needed to know how to develop and skillfully apply strategies, tactics, and battlefield techniques. The General Secretariat of Military Affairs, which was only restored in early November, tried to make up for lost time. It set up the General Military Headquarters and appointed army commanders-in-chief. The secretariat was consecutively headed by Symon Petliura, Mykola Porsh, and Oleksandr Zhukovsky. But, as Vynnychenko noted, “the point was not in personalities. Even if Alexander the Great or Napoleon I had been resurrected and wanted to assist the Central Rada or the General Secretariat, this would not have helped.” What weakened the defense of Ukraine’s gained freedom was not only the lack of experience and miscalculations, particularly in the social sphere, and the overall disorder and devastation, but also the catastrophic shortage of time. National defense problems had to be tackled on the go, in the course of the ongoing hostilities.

To speed up the signing of the truce with the Quadruple Alliance, the Central Rada issued the 4th Universal on Jan. 9 (22), 1918, which proclaimed the independent state of Ukraine. This legalized the independent status of the UNR, which had in fact been an independent republic since the 3rd Universal was issued.

The ceasefire on the battlefields of World War I, where most of the regular troops were concentrated, allowed them to be used to combat the new threat. The South-Western and Romanian Fronts were united into a single Ukrainian Front, with its own headquarters. Its 1st Ukrainian Corps, led by Lt.-Gen. Pavlo Skoropadsky, disarmed Bolshevized units that were threatening the UNR and its capital Kyiv from the west and the south. But there were not enough forces to defend the state from the danger coming from the north and the east — there were only some scattered reserve and logistic-support units there.

Also adversely affecting the situation was the circumstance that the UNR was slow to solve acute social problems and truly implement the adopted laws and resolutions, including those concerning the distribution of landlords’ lands. In seeking to do the latter in a civilized, not spontaneous and chaotic, way on the basis of an appropriate law, the Central Rada was late in adopting one. Meanwhile, with the Bolsheviks calling for an immediate seizure of these lands, soldiers (the army mostly consisted of peasants) began leaving their units and heading home to be in time for the distribution of landlords’ properties and lands. Moreover, many soldiers, who had gone through the ordeal of the war, were reluctant to continue fighting.

The signing of the truce with the Quadruple Alliance unleashed a massive and spontaneous wave of demobilization: soldiers abandoned their units and returned home in droves, trying to avoid participating in the new military conflict. Quite a few Ukrainized units fell apart on the spot, announced neutrality, or even switched sides. Many of them were in thrall to illusions of battlefield fraternity: there were soldiers on both sides, who had recently stood shoulder to shoulder in the trenches of World War I. On the other hand, there were inadequate efforts to explain things to them. To make matters worse, the UNR leaders did not expect the conflict to be so cruel and bloody. This was a tragedy for both the victims and the victors. The nations paid a terrible price for their political intolerance, theoretical shortsightedness, and reliance on the use of force in tackling social problems.

With its 4th Universal the Central Rada called on Ukrainians “to stand firmly on guard for the gained freedom and rights of our people and to make every effort to protect our freedom from all enemies of the independent peasant-worker Ukrainian Republic.” But the forces in this conflict were unequal.

In Kyiv the Bolsheviks organized an uprising of the laborers and white-collar workers at the Arsenal plant, railway workshops, and the Southern Russian Plant. The uprising was suppressed, leaving a considerable number of casualties. A short while earlier, one of the Kyiv Bolshevik leaders, L. Piatakov, was arrested and killed without an investigation and trial. All this only aggravated the confrontation. After shelling Kyiv for five days, Muravev’s troops captured the city on Jan. 26, 1918. Several thousand people were killed as the result of the mass terror that was unleashed. Ukrainian print shops, bookstores, and schools were closed, signboards were torn down, and Taras Shevchenko’s portraits were trampled. A person could be arrested or at least accused of counterrevolution for using the Ukrainian language. Bank robberies, the ban on Ukrainian currency, and the arbitrary revision of prices for food and consumer goods led to panic and anarchy. Mass shipments of food to Russia were launched.

The capture of Kyiv by the Bolshevik troops speeded up the negotiations in Brest. On Jan. 27 (Feb. 9), 1918, Ukraine and the Quadruple Alliance signed a peace treaty. This forced the Russian Sovnarkom to stop the war against Ukraine. Under the treaty, Germany and its allies recognized the Ukrainian state’s independence, government bodies, and borders, which outlined the areas populated by the indigenous population, and pledged to return all prisoners of war if they so desired. Ukraine was offered military aid. Troops were to be stationed on the northern borders with Russia pending the ratification of the treaty and stabilization of the situation in the UNR. In return, Ukraine was to supply the Quadruple Alliance countries, for payment, with 60 million poods (one pood = 16.39 kg — Ed.) of grain, about 3 million poods of meat, 400,000 eggs, 37.5 million poods of iron ore, and other products.

At the same time, the Soviet government of Ukraine — the People’s Secretariat — was not able to organize effective work. Even the Kharkiv Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was initially unwilling to recognize it. Ukraine began to break into several parts. January 1918 saw the proclamation of the Odesa Soviet Republic and a few days later, the Donetsk-Kryvy Rih Republic. All these events and changes of political regimes exacerbated the already critical economic situation in Ukraine and further lowered the living standard. As a result of mismanagement, many nationalized factories and mines reduced their output, which boosted unemployment. Many large farms that had once belonged to wealthy landlords were in decline. Peasants looted cattle, implements, and seeds, and dismantled, demolished, or burned down many buildings.

On Feb. 8 (21), 1918, the German and Austrian armies began to march deep into Ukraine. They were accompanied by military units that were still loyal to the Central Rada. Soviet units were retreating. The German and Central Rada units entered Kyiv on March 2, and by late April 1918 the entire territory of Ukraine had come under their control. The Central Rada also returned to Kyiv in early March. The foreign troops, as well as the Central Rada, received quite a cool welcome in the cities and villages of Ukraine. The populace was frustrated with the overall devastation and the plummeting living standards. Having gone through the ordeal of the war, people did not know what to expect from the Germans and Austrians. Public appeals stressed that the foreign allied forces had come to help repel Bolshevik aggression and reinstate the Central Rada as the legitimate government of Ukraine. The German-Austrian command also proclaimed non-interference in Ukrainian affairs.

The Central Rada continued to develop the Ukrainian state. It passed a law introducing the new (Gregorian) calendar on Feb. 16, 1918, which was now the first day of March, Central European Time (CET), and laws on UNR citizenship, land, and the trident as the official state emblem. A new currency, the hryvnia, was introduced, which equaled half the UNR karbovanets that was floated in December 1917. A new administrative and territorial system was set up: gubernias and counties (povity) were abolished, and the UNR was now divided into 32 lands. On March 24, 1918, Ukrainian was proclaimed the official language of Ukraine. With the constitution still in the making, it was planned to convene the all-Ukrainian Constituent Assembly. Cultural development was also high on the agenda.

However, the Central Rada did not succeed in fulfilling all its pledges. The concrete historical conditions were too difficult, and there were also mistakes and miscalculations. In spite of all the failures, the Ukrainian Central Rada and the entire nation were “conquering the sky” in extremely difficult conditions and managed to lay the groundwork for the Ukrainization of all spheres of life in order to revive the nation. None of those who later championed the cause of Ukrainian statehood in various historical periods could ignore the gains and experience of the Ukrainian Central Rada.