Michael Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918-1921: An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution, 1976.
1. The Ukrainian Revolution
The Central Rada
After the outbreak of the March Revolution and the collapse of the Russian monarchy, the leaders of Ukraine declared the nation's right to self-determination. On March 20, 1917,1 on the initiative of the Society of Ukrainian Progressives (TUP), the Ukrainian Central Rada (Council) was formed, composed of the municipal and cultural organizations of Kyiv and representatives of political parties and professional organizations. It served originally not as a parliament, but as a center of instruction and mutual information. There followed formation of local radas, committees, or other organizations that spontaneously recognized the Central Rada's authority.2
The spirit of the Rada and the nation in general was greatly stimulated by the first purely Ukrainian political demonstration in Kyiv on April 1, 1917, in which tens of thousands participated. The prevailing slogans of the day were "A free Ukraine in a free Russia!" and "Independent Ukraine with its own hetman!" The demonstrators swore before the portrait of Taras Shevchenko not to rest until Ukraine became a free autonomous state. From April 19 to 21, the Rada convoked a Ukrainian National Convention in Kyiv to gain wider support and popular approval for its actions. The convention, attended by about nine hundred representatives of soldiers, peasants, laborers, cultural and professional organizations, and political parties, sanctioned a larger Central Rada of similar composition under the presidency of Hrushevs'kyi. By manifesting national unity and laying the foundation for a government, the convention opened a new period of the national revolution—a political struggle to shape the destiny of the nation.
Cultural and political life was also revived. The press and publishing houses were reopened to meet the demands for printed works, especially textbooks for renascent Ukrainian schools, and organizations for the retraining of teachers were set up. Prosviia societies, libraries, and bookstores were reestablished throughout the country. The old parties were reorganized and new ones were established: the three major ones were the old Democratic Radical party (which in June 1917, became the Ukrainian party of Socialists and Federalists), the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor party, and the newly organized Ukrainian party of Socialist Revolutionaries; a number of minor parties also existed.
There was an especially impressive resurgence of national activity in the Russian Army, and four million soldiers affirmed their Ukrainian nationality and a desire to form their own units. Alongside the soldiers' committees that were organized under the authority of the Executive Committee of the Soviet's Order No. 1 of March 14, 1917, Ukrainian military councils, clubs and other organizations supporting the Rada began to emerge.
It was demanded that the units quartered in Ukraine be composed only of Ukrainians. The initiative for creating separate Ukrainian units came from the Hetman P. Polubotok Military Club, which was founded on March 29, 1917, in Kyiv, by officers Mykola Mikhnovs'kyi, and two brothers, Oleksander and Pavlo Makarenko, and from the Ukrainian Military Organizational Committee. Although these demands were resisted by Russian authorities, on April 1 the First Ukrainian B. Kheml'nyts'kyi Regiment was organized from soldiers temporarily stationed in Kyiv.
The First Ukrainian Military Congress in Kyiv on May 18—25, 1917, consisted of over seven hundred delegates representing nearly one million men from the fronts, the rear, and the fleets. The Second Military Congress of June 18—23 was even more impressive. Despite a ban by Alexander F. Kerensky, minister of war, it was attended by 2,500 delegates representing 1,736,000 men, mostly front-line soldiers.7 Shortly thereafter the First Ukrainian Peasants' Congress in Kyiv on June 10—15 had 2,500 delegates, including many village teachers, from about one thousand rural districts. The First Ukrainian Workers' Congress, which met in Kyiv on July 24—27, consisted of nearly three hundred delegates. The congresses sought to unify and direct the military, peasant, and labor movements and to show support for the Rada. They adopted resolutions urging the Rada to be firm in its demand for territorial autonomy from the Provisional Government, and to issue a proclamation of an independent Ukrainian republic.
The Rada's cautious demand for autonomy of Ukrainian-inhabited territory was rejected by the Provisional Government on the ground that the problem of autonomy should be decided by the Russian Constituent Assembly. Consequently on June 24, 1917, the Rada, without separating from Russia, proclaimed its First Universal:
Let the Ukrainian people on their own territory have the right to manage their own life. Let a National Ukrainian Assembly (Sejm), elected by universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage, establish order and a regime in the Ukraine. Only our Ukrainian assembly is to have the right to issue all laws which are to establish this regime. . . . No one knows better than we what we need and which laws are best for us.9
Four days later the General Secretariat, a Ukrainian government, was established, headed by Volodymyr Vynnychenko, a Social Democrat.
Subsequently, the Provisional Government delegated three ministers, Kerensky, Mikhail I. Tereshchenko, and Irakly G. Tsereteli, to Kyiv for negotiations with the Rada and on July 16 the Provisional Government recognized the autonomy of Ukraine and the formation of separate Ukrainian military units, although the Kadet ministers resigned on the ground that "it put an end to the authority of the Provisional Government in Ukraine." It was, they said, for the "Constituent Assembly to determine the form of government for the Ukraine and not for the Ukraine itself."10 At the same time, the Rada proclaimed its Second Universal, recognizing the All-Russian Constituent Assembly and declaring that it had no intention of separating from Russia. Also under the agreement, the national minorities in Ukraine (Russians, Poles, and Jews) sent their representatives to the Central Rada, which now became a territorial parliament.
All these changes were to be formulated in a Statute of the Higher Government of Ukraine, which the Provisional Government did not confirm, but issued instead on August 17, a "Temporary Instruction" that greatly reduced the scope of the proposed statute. The General Secretariat was to be an organ, not of the Central Rada, but of the Provisional Government, "the membership of which shall be determined by the Government" in agreement with the Central Rada, augmented on an equitable basis with democratic organizations representing other nationalities inhabiting the Ukraine." The number of secretaries was reduced from fourteen to seven, and the legislative power of the Rada was also denied. Moreover, the territory under its jurisdiction was reduced from twelve to five provinces, Kyiv, Volyn', Podillia, Poltava, and Chernyhiv.
The Rada, asserting that the original agreement had been violated, accepted these terms as a basis for further struggle against Russian centralism. As a first step to strengthen Ukraine's position, the Rada consulted with other nations of the former Russian Empire having similar interests. On September 21—28 a congress of ninety-two Ukrainian, Belorussian, Georgian, Jewish, Estonian, Latvian, Don Cossack, Polish, Moldavian, Tatar, and Turkestanian delegates gathered in Kyiv to discuss the transformation of the centralized Russian state into a federation of free states. The congress did form a Rada of Nations headquartered in Kyiv, but the subsequent crisis in Russia reduced it to small importance.
The Provisional Government, in ratifying Ukrainian autonomy, had no intention of honoring the agreement. In Vynnychenko's terms, the Instruction was a truce rather than a peace settlement. The Kerensky government blocked administrative reorganization and Ukrainization of the army, ignored the Secretariat, and tried to administer Ukraine directly. The position of the Secretariat was extremely difficult, for it was responsible not only to the Rada but also to the Provisional Government, and the latter sought to impede its actions.
The weakening of Kerensky's government strengthened the Secretariat. It presented to the nation constructive programs for maintenance of the political rights of the Ukrainian people within a federated Russian republic of equals; termination of the division of the Ukrainian nation caused by the Instruction; the extension of the Secretariat's competence as a fully authorized autonomous government; and finally, the early convocation of the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly to bring the Ukrainian people's struggle for liberation to culmination. However, in dealing with such issues as the agrarian and labor questions, and state control over banking, commerce, and industry, the Secretariat was very circumspect.
The Kerensky government used the coming Ukrainian Constituent Assembly as a pretext to begin legal prosecution of the Rada and the Secretariat and called its members to Petrograd to explain the purpose of "convoking a sovereign Constituent Assembly." This action aroused protest in Ukraine and Vynnychenko, addressing the Third Ukrainian Military Congress, declared that the Secretariat would not enter into relations with Kerensky's government and would only discuss the question of a final delineation of its functions. Moreover: The secretaries-general must declare categorically that they are not officials of the Provisional Government, that the General Secretariat was not established by it, but is the organ of Ukrainian democracy. Because of this the General Secretariat is in no way responsible for its acts before the Provisional Government.14
This chapter of Ukrainian-Russian relations was closed by the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia on November 7, 1917. Although a potential threat to the Rada arose from Russian rightist elements in Kyiv, it was thwarted by the Rada and the socialist groups of the national minorities, who organized a Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. At the same time, the Rada expressed its readiness to fight any attempt to introduce Bolshevik rule in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks began to agitate against the Rada and, whenever possible, tried to seize local governments by force, though without success.
On November 20 the Rada issued the Third Universal, declaring de facto national independence: "We, the Ukrainian Central Rada, carrying out the will of our people, announce that henceforth the Ukraine is the Ukrainian People's Republic."15 Nevertheless, relations with Russia were not broken off:
Without separating the Russian Republic and destroying its unity, we shall firmly establish ourselves on our own land in order that with our strength we may help the rest of Russia ... to become a federation of free and equal peoples. 1"
At that time, however, the statement had no real meaning, for the Rada did not recognize the Bolshevik regime.
The Third Universal proclaimed the democratic principles of freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly; the right of unions to organize and strike; the security of the individual and his property; the abolition of capital punishment and amnesty for all political prisoners; it established an eight-hour work day; acknowledged the right of the government and the workers to control industry; abolished the right of private ownership of land and recognized the land as belonging to all of the people, without compensation to the former owners; and proclaimed the principle of national autonomy for all national minorities in Ukraine.17
One of the greatest obstacles to establishing effective Ukrainian authority was the potential threat represented by the concentration of Russian forces in Ukraine. Early in 1918 there were close to one hundred thousand Russian officers in the main Ukrainian cities, and the movement through Ukraine of active and demobilized soldiers, especially deserters, made it difficult to maintain order. Even prior to the Revolution there were over 195,000 deserters from the front, and on August 1, 1917, there were 365,000; together with those hiding to avoid conscription, the "greens," they totalled approximately two million by October 1, 1917. Worse hit were the provinces adjoining the front, Volyn' and Podillia.
Some of the urban proletariat, lacking a fully developed national consciousness, were more attracted by radical Bolshevik programs than by the Rada's hesitant approach to social problems. In the cities there were large Russian, Jewish, or Polish populations that were either hostile or indifferent to Ukrainian statehood, and officials, industrialists, and the landed aristocracy, largely non-Ukrainians, feared the confiscation of their properties by a Ukrainian government, and so preferred a Russian one.
At the beginning of the Revolution the peasants and soldiers were the strongest supporters of the Rada, but the peasants were only potentially active nationalists; a vast majority of them were far more concerned with the solution of the agrarian question. Some, especially the rural proletariat, because of the Rada's irresoluteness on agrarian reform, were won over by the Bolsheviks.
As for the formation of a national army, there were two feasible alternatives: Ukrainization of the Ukrainian soldiers in the Russian Army or creation of a volunteer force. Both the Provisional Government and the Russian command were opposed to any Ukrainian army. However, many units were spontaneously nationalized by the Ukrainian councils and committees, eventually encompassing nearly a million and a half of the four million Ukrainians in the army, while the creation of volunteer units was not directly within the control of Petrograd. The idea of a regular army was not popular among the major parties in the Rada because they saw in it a threat to the Revolution. Most importantly, the weariness of four years of war and Bolshevik propaganda contributed to the disintegration of the Ukrainized military units. Consequently the concept of an army composed of Free Cossacks and other volunteer units finally prevailed. When Soviet Russian forces invaded Ukraine in January 1918, the nation's armed forces were not so well prepared as they had been some months earlier.
Although the collapse of Kerensky's government favored the course of Ukrainian independence, the establishment of a strong and stable government proved very difficult in an atmosphere of social and economic chaos, the administrative inexperience of the leaders, and the Bolshevik threat. The Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia radically changed the course of the Ukrainian national revolution. Prior to and during 1917, the Bolsheviks had opposed any Russian suppression of non-Russian nationalist movements within the empire and under the Provisional Government were willing to support the Rada in its demand for a separate Ukrainian Constituent Assembly. On June 17, 1917, Lenin, for example, declared:
The Russian Republic does not want to oppress any nation, either in the new or in the old way, and does not want to force any nation, either Finland or Ukraine, with both of whom the War Minister is trying so hard to find fault and with whom impermissible and intolerable conflicts are being created.20
Recognition and encouragement of the nationalities was, however, primarily a political tactic aimed at weakening the monarchy and the Provisional Government and gaining the support of their enemies. Lenin saw nationalism as an ephemeral phenomenon that would yield to the internationalism of the proletariat and the formation of a new state. When this vision did not materialize, and they were faced instead with a myriad of independence movements and the disintegration of the old state structure, the Bolsheviks hastily revised their policy of self-determination. The change was bound to be felt first and most strongly in Ukraine, for that nation, more than any other, by its size, population, geographical location, and natural resources, was considered important to Russian interests. Georgii L. Piatakov, a Russian Jew born in Ukraine, stated bluntly in 1917: "On the whole we must not support the Ukrainians, because their movement is not convenient for the proletariat. Russia cannot exist without the Ukrainian sugar industry, and the same can be said in regard to coal (Donbas); cereals (the black-earth belt), etc."21
At first the Bolsheviks tried to prevent stabilization of the Ukrainian government by spreading incendiary appeals, fomenting class hatred, and sending Bolshevik bands into Ukraine. These actions were to be followed by armed uprisings of Russian soldiers and workers. On December 12, the government discovered a revolt planned for Kyiv on the next day. Its leaders were arrested, and the Russian units involved were disarmed and deported to Russia.22 Subsequently the First Ukrainian Corps, under General Skoropads'kyi (later hetman) and some Free Cossacks,, disarmed the Russian Second Guard Corps led by the Bolshevik Evgeniia B. Bosh, which was moving from the front to aid the uprising in Kyiv. They too were returned to Russia.
The tension between Ukraine and Soviet Russia mounted when the Secretariat ordered troops in Ukraine not to obey the order of the Bolshevik government and denied the right of the latter to negotiate peace for Ukraine. On December 17, the Bolsheviks sent the Rada an ultimatum that "recognized the complete independence of the Ukrainian Republic" but at the same time accused the Rada of disorganizing the front by recalling Ukrainian troops, disarming Bolshevik troops in Ukraine, and supporting General Aleksei M. Kalendin's counterrevolutionary rebellion in the Don Basin. These practices were to be abandoned within forty-eight hours or the Bolshevik government would consider the Rada "in a state of open warfare against the Soviet Government in Russia and in Ukraine."2
Simultaneously the Council of People's Commissars induced the Kyiv Soviet to call an All-Ukrainian Congress of Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants on December 17 in opposition to the Rada. However, the Bolsheviks controlled only 60 of the 2,500 delegates, and the Congress expressed confidence in the Rada, protesting the ultimatum. On December 18 the Secretariat rejected the ultimatum arguing that it was impossible "simultaneously to recognize the right of a people to self-determination, including separation, and at the same time to infringe roughly on that right by imposing on the people in question a certain type oi government.
The Bolshevik delegates, enraged by the unexpected turn of events, walked out of the Congress. Later they and their sympathizers in the Kyiv Soviet, numbering altogether nearly 125, went to Kharkiv, where they joined the Bolshevik-controlled Congress of Soviets of the Donets and Kryvyi Rih basins. This rump group appointed a Central Executive Committee that announced it was henceforth to be considered the sole legal government of all Ukraine. In the name of this puppet regime Lenin's Soviet Russian government waged war against Ukraine.
In early December the Bolsheviks had concentrated troops, mainly workers and sailors from Petrograd and Moscow, near the Ukrainian border under the command of Vladimir A. Antonov. They were later joined by various local elements. The Bolshevik invasion of Ukraine, which began on January 7, 1918, in four separate attacks, was greatly facilitated by insurrections of mostly non-Ukrainian groups in the cities and at railroad stations along their route. The Rada's forces were outnumbered, inadequately equipped, and disorganized by the impact of the Revolution. The Bolsheviks occupied one city after another: Katerynoslav (Ekaterinoslav) on January 10; Poltava, January 20; Odessa, January 30; Mykolaiv (Nikolaev), February 4; and on February 8, after eleven days of heavy bombardment and street fighting, Kyiv was captured and the Rada was forced to evacuate to Zhytomyr.26
In this critical situation the only recourse was to make a separate peace with the Central Powers to obtain their support in defending the country. Consequently, on January 22, 1918, in its Fourth Universal, the Rada announced: "On this day the Ukrainian People's Republic becomes independent, self-sufficient, a free sovereign state of the Ukrainian People."27 This document only confirmed that the political bond between Ukraine and Russia was severed by the Bolshevik invasion.
Aid from the Central Powers, however, was conditional upon cessation of the war against them. France and Britain had granted Ukraine de facto recognition at the end of December 1917 and had tried to persuade the Rada to continue the war against the Central Powers. The Allies, however, were not in a position to give military assistance, for the only access was via Bolshevik-controlled Murmansk and Archangel or Vladivostok.
The Rada feared that the peace negotiations between the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers, begun at the end of December at Brest-Litovsk, might result in Germany's ceding Ukraine to the Bolsheviks. Moreover, the desire for peace was so strong among the Ukrainian population that the Rada would have been "unable to withstand this current, especially if the Bolsheviks managed to conclude peace with the Austro-Germans."29
Under these circumstances, the Rada sent a separate delegation to Brest-Litovsk to make peace with the Central Powers. Although the Russian delegation agreed to the participation of the Ukrainian delegation, its head, Leon Trotsky, tried to discredit it; he even invited a delegation from the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and tried to prove that the Rada no longer existed. The Germans favored Ukrainian participation in the conference because they wanted to secure their supplies and put pressure on the Bolsheviks.
By the peace treaty between the four Central Powers and Ukraine, concluded on February 9, 1918, Ukraine, including Kholm, was recognized as an independent republic. Austria promised to unite Bukovina with East Galicia and set up a new Ukrainian Crown Land with political and cultural rights within the monarchy. In return, Ukraine agreed to provide the Central Powers with at least one million tons of surplus foodstuffs.31
Subsequently, the Rada sought Austrian and German aid in expelling the Russian forces, believing that an adequate force could be composed of the existing Ukrainian units in the Austrian Army and the Ukrainian prisoners held by the Germans. They asked that these troops, estimated at thirty thousand men, be employed in Ukraine. The Central Powers refused, arguing that the time required to bring the troops from other areas was too great, though they undoubtedly were also anxious to assure their own control of Ukraine. Through the ensuing deployment of the Austrian and German armies, Ukraine became in effect an occupied nation.
The Austro-German forces, including some Ukrainian troops, followed the railways, meeting little Bolshevik resistance; by the end of April Ukrainian territory was cleared of Soviet Russian troops. On March 29, 1918, at Baden, an agreement was made on the partitioning of spheres of interest. Germany received northern Ukraine, the Crimea, Taganrog, and Novorossiisk; Austria, the provinces of Podillia, Kherson, and parts of Katerynoslav and Volyn'.33 Authority was vested primarily in the Commander of Heeresgruppe Kyiv, Field Marshal von Eichhorn, while General Wilhelm Groener, German chief of staff in Ukraine, was charged with securing the supplies. The German and Austro-Hungarian diplomatic representative played a secondary role. Austro-German Ukrainian policy in 1918 went through three major phases: cooperation with the Rada; support of the hetman government; and a belated attempt to support the Ukrainian independence movement once the war was lost.
After its return to Kyiv, the Rada government of Vsevolod Holu-bovych, a Socialist Revolutionary who succeeded Vynnychenko on January 30, 1918, faced overwhelming obstacles to the establishment of internal order. The retreating Bolsheviks had looted the banks, damaged the railroads, and flooded the mines. The country swarmed with anarchist, foreign, and reactionary military bands that opposed the Republic. The presence of German and Austrian troops led to strong criticism of the Rada, even though it publicly declared that Ukrainian sovereignty would not be limited, and Hrushevs'kyi assured the people that the troops would remain only so long as they were needed for the liberation of Ukraine.34
The main crisis, however, stemmed from the Rada's socialist policy, especially the land reform law of January 31, 1918. The Rada announced its continuation of the economic reforms outlined in the Third and Fourth Universals, including nationalization of agriculture, industry, and banks; all were intended to weaken Bolshevik propaganda against the "Ukrainian bourgeois government." Given the economic state of the Central Powers, they could hardly be in sympathy with the agrarian reform the Rada was sponsoring. They were concerned solely with having a government that could guarantee the delivery of supplies.
In 1917, rural disorders occurred; the peasants appropriated the lands, and the harvest was not gathered in the normal way. The peasants, m the face of the landowners' intensive reaction, were uncertain as to the future disposal of the harvest and hesitated to cultivate the land.35 The cattle had been either slaughtered or driven off during the Bolshevik occupation. The sugar factories were standing idle.
As spring approached, apprehension mounted among the German and Austrian authorities. Moreover, the conservative wealthy classes, largely non-Ukrainians who were hostile to the Republic, attempted to discredit the Rada and suggested deposing it. The Germans, with supplies scarce and the Ukrainian economy in chaos, were receptive to such approaches. They found it much easier to get supplies from the landlords than from the peasants, who could hide their grain and cattle and were unwilling to relinquish them, especially for paper money.
The Central Powers also doubted the Ukrainian government's capability "either of settling the unrest in the country or of delivering grain to us." The most serious act of intervention occurred on April 6 when von Eichhorn issued an order that caused critical conflicts both in Ukraine and in the Reichstag. The order notified the peasants that
(1) cultivators of the soil would keep the crop and get current prices;
(2) anyone holding land beyond his capacity to cultivate would be punished; (3) where peasants were unable to cultivate all the land and where landowners do exist, the peasants must provide for planting, without prejudicing the rights of the land committees to divide the land. Peasants were not to interfere with the cultivation and land committees were to provide the landowners with horses, machinery, and seed.38
The Rada bitterly resented the Eichhorn order, proclaiming that the German troops had been invited to assist the reestablishment of order, but within the limits indicated by the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Arbitrary interference in the social, political, and economic life of Ukraine, it continued, was completely unwarranted. Eichhorn contended that he was merely reinforcing the previous appeals of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Increasing German interference in Ukrainian affairs placed an added strain upon German-Ukrainian relations. The Rada sought popular support by rescheduling the meeting of a Ukrainian Constituent Assembly, earlier postponed by the Bolshevik invasion, for June 12, but on April 28, the German military authorities dissolved the Central Rada. The next day a congress called by the Union of Landowners in Ukraine proclaimed General Pavlo Skoropads'kyi hetman of Ukraine. Ukrainian conservative elements welcomed the election of the hetman, hoping he would protect Ukraine against the invasion of the Bolsheviks and the Germans' interference in the country's internal affairs.
The Rada fell through a combination of its own inadequacies and unfavorable circumstances. The free general elections in 1917 proved that the Rada reflected the mood and aspirations of the Ukrainian people, but it had failed to translate this mood into a concrete program of administrative, social, and military reform not only because of lack of qualified personnel, both civil and military, but also because it lacked a clear plan and the determination to carry it out. The Rada's irresolution about agrarian reform gave the Bolsheviks a strong propaganda weapon in their promise of land for the peasants. It failed to establish close contact with the cities and its authority in the provinces was scarcely felt. The Rada failed to organize a defensive force capable of defending the independence of the country, thinking in terms of a militia rather than a regular army. It was too often involved in negotiations with the Provisional Government and in trivial ideological disputes among the parties and groups. Because of its broad interpretation of democracy, it did little to prevent the hostile activities of the Bolsheviks and of non-Ukrainian conservatives. Though the Bolsheviks fomented class war, the struggle remained basically a national one— Ukraine versus Russia—and it was not by chance that the Bolshevik occupiers of Kyiv were greeted by a Russian.
The Hetman State
The ouster of the Rada and the establishment of the hetman state opened the second period of the national Revolution, a restoration of the old order. The head of the new government, Pavlo Skoropads'kyi (1873—1945), was a general in the Russian Army and a descendant of the brother of Ivan Skoropads'kyi (hetman from 1709 to 1722). He was trained in the tsar's Page Corps and began his military career as commander of a Cossack company during the Russo-Japanese War. In 1914 Skoropads'kyi went to war as a colonel of the Cavalry Guard and rose rapidly to the rank of major general, serving on most major fronts with Baron Peter N. Wrangel, who was his chief of staff. His sister-in-law was married to Field Marshal von Eichhorn.41 Although Skoropads'kyi was raised in Ukraine on his parents' large estate and was conscious of his nationality, his participation in the Ukrainian national movement dated only from July 18, 1917, with his Ukrainization of the 34th Army Corps (the First Ukrainian Army corps). This unit was to save the Rada from pro-Bolshevik troops at the end of October.43 A month later, on the eve of the Bolshevik invasion, when the nation most needed him and his troops, Skoropads'kyi resigned under pressure from Rada circles, who suspected him of desiring to become military dictator. Their distrust was intensified by his election on October 1917 as honorary head (otaman) of the Free Cossacks, a spontaneous paramilitary movement organized in the summer of 1917 to suppress banditry.
On the day of the Rada's deposition, Skoropads'kyi, as hetman of all Ukraine, issued a manifesto [Hramota] that ordered the dissolution of the Rada and the land committees, and the dismissal of all ministers and their deputies. All other public servants were to remain at their posts. The right of private ownership was restored; all acts of the Rada and the Provisional Government regarding property rights were abrogated. The hetman promised to transfer land from the large estates to the needy peasants at its fair value, to safeguard the rights of the working class (railroad employees in particular), and to provide for election of a parliament.
The proclamation of April 29 was widely resented, but brought no open resistance, mainly because of the presence of German and Austro-Hungarian troops. Some people accepted the new government, hoping it would maintain order and provide security from Austro-German interference and from the Bolsheviks. Among this group were hundreds of thousands of Russians, "the elite of the Russian bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, who had fled to Ukraine from Soviet Russia."45 The refugees regarded Ukraine as a temporary haven and as a base for their struggle against the Bolsheviks to restore the empire. This idea was vividly expressed by a Russified duke, G. N. Leikhtenbergskii:
I accepted "Ukraine" independent and sovereign, as a step, a point in which organizational and creative forces would be concentrated, from which at a certain moment the resurrection of Indivisible, Great Russia could begin.46
The Rada leaders decided to lead a resistance movement, with the principal arm of the struggle transferred to the All-Ukrainian Peasant Union and its partisan units. During the first two weeks of the hetman administration a number of congresses of oppositionists took place in Kyiv. On May 8—10, about twelve thousand delegates of the Second All-Ukrainian Peasants' Congress met illegally in the Holosiiv Forest near the city. On May 13—14, the Second All-Ukrainian Workers' Congress, which included Russian and Jewish delegates in addition to Ukrainians, convened, also illegally. Delegates of both congresses, as well as the UPSR and USDRP, whose congresses met at about the same time, adopted a series of similar resolutions advocating restoration of the Ukrainian People's Republic; convocation of the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly; transfer of land to the peasants without compensation to owners; guarantee of all liberties proclaimed by the Third and Fourth Universals; and formation of local armed groups for an uprising.47
At the outset, the hetman's policy was not radically different from the Rada's, although more moderate. He tried to draw his support from among the middle and smaller property owners, but was dependent on the German and Austrian authorities, who were increasingly influenced by the reactionary upper class.48 Skoropads'kyi wanted a government composed of moderate liberals, and the first prime minister, Mykola Sakhno-Ustymovych, tried to form a Socialist-Federalist cabinet. These overtures to the party were refused more on psychological than ideological grounds. Ustymovych resigned and was temporarily replaced by Mykola Vasylenko, then by Fedir A. Lyzohub, whose cabinet included only one active Ukrainian leader, Dmytro Doroshenko, minister of foreign affairs; other cabinet members were involved in Ukrainian cultural life, but some were hostile to Ukrainian independence. The ministers were not without experience, though some lacked understanding of the social and national spirit of the time.
Similarly, the provincial and local administration was largely staffed by conservatives recruited from the various minorities and the Russian refugees, partly because some Ukrainians refused to join the hetman government and partly because there was a tragic shortage of Ukrainian professional people. Thus the hetman government included a large number of former tsarist officals, from ministers to village police.
The ubiquitous Russian reactionary organizations, which were closely associated with the Volunteer Army and other Russian centers outside Ukraine, enjoyed complete freedom, including publishing newspapers in which they conducted an anti-Ukrainian campaign for restoration of the Russian Empire. There were three major Russian organizations operating in Ukraine, all with headquarters in Kyiv: the Council of State Unification, the Union for Resurrection of Russia, and the Kyiv National Center. The National Center was a sociopolitical organization of all non-Socialist political parties, including the group of Vasilii V. Shulgin, and were the most hostile to the hetman state.50 Their program called for "struggle against Ukrainian independence, support of the Volunteer Army, informing the Entente 'about real conditions in Ukraine.'" Furthermore, the Center ceaselessly told the Entente that "there never was a Ukrainian state; the 'Ukrainians' are not a nation, merely a political party fostered by Austro-Germany."51
Although in these conditions a normal national development was difficult, the hetman made sincere efforts to promote Ukrainian culture. The new Ukrainian National University in Kyiv was converted into a state institution, while a new Ukrainian university in Kamianets-Podils'kyi, a historical and philological college in Poltava, and an academy of sciences in Kyiv were established. Chairs of Ukrainian history, law, language, and literature were founded in the various universities, and new secondary schools were founded or Ukrainized. A system of adult education was organized. A national gallery, a national museum, state archives, a central library, a Ukrainian state theater, and a dramatic school were established in Kyiv. A large fund was allotted for the publication of textbooks, and scholarships created for gifted students. The Ukrainian church was granted some autonomy, though limited by the opposition of the Russified hierarchy. Furthermore, owing to the cooperation of the upper class, the early stages of the hetman period were marked by financial stability and a balanced budget.
The hetman government strove to pursue an independent foreign policy. It sought termination of the guardianship of the Central Powers, with a pledge of their assistance in joining to Ukraine her borderlands, Kholm, Bessarabia, the Crimea, and the Kuban; recognition from neutral states and possibly from the Entente; and a peace settlement that would delimit the border with Soviet Russia.
Austria-Hungary postponed indefinitely ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk because of the secret clause that provided for unification of Eastern Galicia and Northern Bukovina into a separate Ukrainian Crown Land. Additional strain was created when Austrian authorities refused to allow the Ukrainian commissioner to function in the Austrian sections of Kholm and Pidliashshia, which by the treaty were recognized as Ukrainian lands. Although Germany ratified the treaty, German officials made little attempt to understand Ukrainian problems. The Romanian occupation of Bessarabia in March after a secret agreement with Germany was protested by the hetman government and went unrecognized. The question of Crimea was complicated by the Germans, who sponsored a Russian Crimean territorial government, eventually to be reunified with Russia. The hetman considered this a potential threat to Ukrainian independence, and in June he addressed a note to the German representative in Kyiv urging inclusion of Crimea in Ukraine and placed an embargo on all goods entering Crimea except war material and supplies for the Central Powers. As a result, the Crimean government agreed to unite with Ukraine and was granted autonomy.
The hetman sought a union of the Kuban with Ukraine and on May 28 a Kuban delegation came to Kyiv to discuss the union and liberation of the territory from the Bolsheviks. A plan to send a division (15,000 men) under General Natiiv to drive out the Bolsheviks failed because the Germans hampered its implementation, and a ranking Russian official in the hetman War Ministry obstructed Natiiv's movements until Russian troops under General Mikhail V. Alekseev could capture Ekaterinodar in August. Although the Kuban was controlled by Denikin's Volunteer Army, consular representatives were exchanged and a treaty signed in mid-November. In view of the Soviet Russian threat to Ukraine, the hetman was interested in having friendly relations with the government of the Don region, but the achievement of this goal was complicated by territorial conflicts, and by the Russophile policy of the head of the Don government, General Peter N. Krasnov. Though it meant the loss of part of Ukrainian territory and population, the hetman came to terms with the Don government on August 8 in order to secure an ally and reduce the length of the Russian frontier.
The hetman sought a modus vivendi with the Volunteer Army, and asked General Krasnov to mediate between him and Denikin. The hetman agreed to supply the army of the Don, the Volunteer Army, and the Kuban with arms, ammunition, and funds for use against the common enemy. However, Denikin, a proponent of "one, indivisible, Russia," desired the destruction of both bolshevism and Ukrainian independence and demanded a unified government and military command under his own leadership. The hetman complained:
I don't understand Denikin. He is suppressing everything—it is impossible. . . . Return to the Empire and the establishment of Imperial authority is impossible now. Here in Ukraine, I had to choose—either independence, or Bolshevism, and I chose independence.55
Vital to the hetman's foreign policy were the peace negotiations with Soviet Russia and Lenin's government representatives signed an armistice in Kyiv on June 12 that included recognition of the Ukrainian state and an agreement to exchange consuls. However, the Bolsheviks, anticipating Germany's defeat in the west, did not sign the formal treaty, and at the beginning of November, negotiations were suspended. The abortive negotiations provided the Bolshevik delegates with a fruitful opportunity for propagandizing.56
The organization of Ukrainian armed forces was a most difficult problem. An earlier Rada plan for a regular volunteer army, to consist of eight corps of infantry and four and one-half divisions of cavalry, was ordered into effect by the hetman. The infrastructure for a sizable army, including a General Staff, was prepared; general conscription was decreed, but the army remained in embryo to the end of the hetman period. The German authorities and Russian military commanders assigned by the hetman government opposed a strong Ukrainian army as a threat to their positions. Also, most of the Rada's military units had been demobilized by the Germans, and the remaining units had most of the Ukrainian officers replaced largely by Russians. Though Ludendorff complained as early as June that "Ukraine has not yet been successful in building up its own army," only slight changes in Germany's attitude occurred when the hetman visited Emperor Wilhelm II on September 4.
In July the Serdiuk Division, which performed for the hetman a role analogous to that of the Russian guard regiments, was formed from well-to-do peasant volunteers. In August a unit of Sich Riflemen was reinstated in Bila Tserkva.5 The hetman also allowed the formation of a special corps of Russian officers in Ukraine and, later, Russian volunteer groups in the large cities, both as parts of the Ukrainian Army. Russian leaders, with government support, established bureaus to recruit Russian refugee officers for the Volunteer Army, the South Army, the Astrakhan Army, the Saratov Corps, and others. The existence of these Russian formations substantially restricted national life.
The hetman, whose power was erected on a weak foundation, was buffeted by the currents of the Austro-German forces inherited from the Rada, the reactionaries in his government, who were merely tolerating the hetman state as long as circumstances made it necessary, and the revitalized nation with its social and political aspirations. Favoritism toward the upper class had disastrous consequences and governmental policy was marked by a number of reactionary decrees that turned the population, especially the peasants, against the regime. The press was subjected to strict censorship or altogether suppressed; congresses and meeting of parties and organizations were restricted or prohibited; zemstvo institutions and Prosvita associations were severely limited; many national leaders, peasants, and workers were arrested; strikes were banned, and the eight-hour day was abolished.
The regime's reactionary character was most clear in its appointment of local non-Ukrainian landowners as elders of the provincial and district administrations. In May, in an effort to restore agricultural normality, the government ordered restoration to the landowners of all property expropriated during the early stages of the Revolution. The landlords were authorized to use military force to defend or retake their property, to collect compensation for damages, and to introduce compulsory work programs for urgent agricultural projects at wages established by a governmental commission.60
As a result, many landowners undertook punitive expeditions, seizing the expropriated property, including livestock and implements, as well as demanding excessive damages. These expeditions were accompanied by looting, destruction of peasant property, and severe punishments, even executions. The punitive detachments, consisting of former Russian officers, adventurers, and criminals, operated in the name of the hetman government, to its discredit.
Such activities, together with the stepped-up requisitioning of grain and other foodstuffs by the Germans and Austro-Hungarians, led first to passive resistance and sabotage, and then to local revolts. The landlords, appealing to the government and occupation authorities for help, had ready compliance.
Thus the punitive expeditions and peasant uprisings spread and intensified and in some districts neither the state police nor the German detachments were able to control the situation. Partisans attacked isolated military units and guard detachments at railway stations, bridges, and depots. The Germans introduced field courts to deal summarily with the population by issuing collective fines and shooting hostages, at times at the rate of ten Ukrainians for one German. German civil authorities in Ukraine protested to Berlin against the military command's brutality, urging that the interests and moods of the population be taken-into consideration, but with little effect.
The strongest and best organized peasants were in Zvenyhorodka district and the adjacent areas of Kaniv, Uman', and Tarashcha districts in Kyiv province, headed by Mykola Shynkar, former commander of the Kyiv Military District during the Rada period. According to one peasant leader, at the beginning of May there were eighteen separate battalions of peasants numbering about twenty thousand men. Although the government and the German authority in Kyiv were informed of the existence of the peasant organizations, they could not uncover them, and in retaliation punitive detachments brought terror in the villages. This, in turn, provoked major insurrections throughout Zvenyhorodka and Tarashcha districts that spread to other places.63 On June 10, the German ambassador, Baron Mumm, informed the Foreign Office in Berlin:
Conditions in Zvenyhorodka are more serious than has been officially stated. The peasants . . . have driven back German military units, and are temporarily holding them in check. Reinforcements have been sent to this region tonight and it is expected that they will reestablish order.64
According to the hetman's intelligence agent, A. Shkol'nyi, during the June insurrections the peasant battalions had grown to about thirty thousand, with two batteries of field artillery and two hundred machine guns, and new groups were joining each day.
Although the peasants had initial success in seizing territory, they could not stand against regular troops, for they were unorganized, undisciplined, and inadequately armed. Some withdrew or dispersed, while the main body of the Tarashcha peasants, under Hrebenko, crossed into Russian territory. Following the suppression of the uprising, over ten thousand people, both peasants and those from the educated class, which had not participated, were arrested and sent to camps in Germany.
Besides the Ukrainian resistance activities, Russian Communists, Socialist Revolutionaries, and other groups terrorized and sabotaged the occupation forces, the hetman regime, and the population. In mid-morning on June 6, ten large munitions depots exploded in Zvirynets', a suburb of Kyiv, killing or wounding about seventeen hundred persons. The whole suburb was destroyed, and about ten thousand people lost their homes. Eight days later, a big fire of undetermined origin swept over the Podol in Kyiv and on July 31, munitions stores on Dar'nytsia Street in Odessa erupted in a series of explosions that killed several hundred people.
The terror culminated in the assassination of von Eichhorn and his adjutant, von Dressier, on July 30. The assassin, a twenty-four-year-old Russian Left Socialist Revolutionary sailor and two accomplices came into Ukraine at the end of May on orders from the party's Central Committee in Moscow. There was also an abortive attempt to murder the hetman at Eichhorn's funeral. The Eichhorn assassination paralleled the assassination by the same party of Count Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff, the German ambassador to Moscow, on July 6.
The anger of the population against the terror and pillage by the Soviet Russian troops during their brief occupation in February 1918 was so great that the population had welcomed not only Ukrainian, but German and Austrian troops, as liberators. However, the Ukrainian policy of Eichhorn and Ludendorff aligned the people against the Germans and Austrians and, consequently, drove the peasants and workers into the arms of the Bolsheviks. The repressive policies of the hetman and his largely foreign entourage brought into existence self-defense forces—the partisan movement, which acted not only against his regime and its German-Austrian supporters, but subsequently, against the Bolshevik "Red" and anti-Bolshevik "White" Russian forces in Ukraine well into the 1920s.
Notes 1. Dates are new style except in cases where it was impossible to determine from available sources which dating system was used.
2. Pavlo Khrystiuk, Zamitkyi i materiialy do istorii Ukrains'koi revoliutsii, 1917-1920 rr., 1:16.
3. Victor Chernov, The Great Russian Revolution, p. 267; Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy, 1:38.
4. V. Kedrovs'kyi, "Ukrainizovani chastyny i reguliarna armiia," VK, no. 2 (33) (1968), p. 37; N. N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: A Personal Record (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), pp. 113 ff.; George Vernadsky, A History of Russia (New York: New Home Library, 1944), pp. 236—37.
5. Stepan Lazurenko, "Bohdanivtsi na fronti 1917 roku," TR, no. 33 (1965), p. 13.
6. Aleksander Shul'hyn, "The Period of the Central Rada (Council)," in UE, 1:731. According to Kedrovs'kyi the regiment was organized on April 18, 1917 (V. Kedrovs'kyi, "Pochatok ukrainizatsii v rossis'kii armii i Pershyi Ukrains'kyi viis'kovyi z'izd," VK, no. 1 (27) (1968), p. 25.
7. Iakiv Zozulia, Velyka Ukrains'ka revoliutsiia, p. 16.
8. Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy, 1:102, 65—66; Chernov, Great Russian Revolution, p. 276.
9. Robert Paul Browder and Alexander F. Kerensky, eds., The Russian Provisional Government, 1917, 1:383.
10. Frank Alfred Golder, ed., Documents of Russian History, 1914—1917 (New York: The Century Co., 1927), no. 440; Chernov, Great Russian Revolution, pp. 280-81.
11. Browder and Kerensky, Russian Provisional Government, 1:376, 389. 401; Dmytro Doroshenko, "Voina i revoliutsiia na Ukraine," in Revoliutsiia na Ukraine po memauram belykh, ed. S. A. Alekseev, p. 67; Korostovetz, Seed and Harvest, p. 290.
12. V. Vynnychenko, Vidrodzennia natsii, 2:40.
13. Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy, 2 :12.
14. Ibid., 2:41.
15. James Bunyan and H. H. Fisher, comps., The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917— 1918, p. 435.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. David Plotkin [D. Kin], Denikinshchina, p. 9; I. A. Poliakov, Donskie kozaki v bor'be s bol'shevikami: Vospominaniia (Munich, 1962), p. 26; Chernov, Great Russian Revolution, p. 416.
19. Mykola Kovalevs'kyi, Pry dzherelakh borot'by, pp. 312—13.
20.V. I. Lenin, Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publisher, 1964), p. 22.
21. Kiev. Instytut istorii partii, Istoriia KP(b)U (Kiev, 1933), 2:126, as quoted in Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communisim and Nationalism, 1917-1923 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 68.
22. Dmytro Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy (New York: Bulava, 1954), 1 :200— 201.
23. Bunyan and Fisher, Bolshevik Revolution, p. 440.
24. Khrystiuk, Zamitkyi materiialy, 2:69; Bunyan and Fisher, Bolshevik Revolution, p. 441.
25. To make Antonov more appealing to the Ukrainian masses Lenin reminded him of the name of his Ukrainian mother "Ovsienko" and asked him to add it to his name. Thus, Antonov became Antonov-Ovseenko. See Kovalevs'kyi, Pry dzherelakh borot'by, p. 326.
26. Zozulia, Velyka Ukrains'ka revoliutsiia, p. 44; A. A. Gol'denveizer, "Iz Kievskikh vospominanii, 1917-1921 gg.," ARR 6 (1922): 204; Zozulia, Velyka Ukrains'ka revoliutsiia, pp. 52—53.
27. Vynnychenko, Vidrodzennia natsii, 2 :246—47.
28. Arnold D. Margolin, From a Political Diary, pp. 182—83; Vynnychenko, Vidrodzennia natsii, 2: 232-43.
29. U.S., Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918-1919. Russia, 2:660.
30. Louis Fischer, The Soviets in World Affairs, 1:53.
31. Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War (London: Chatto and Windus, 1967), pp. 497-98; John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Forgotten Peace, p. 220; Gustav Gratz and Richard Schulder, The Economic Policy of Austria-Hungary during the War in Its External Relations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928), p. 255.
32. Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy, 2:138—39; D. Doroshenko, "Voina i revoliutsiia na Ukraine," p. 97.
33. Erich von Ludendorff, Ludendorff's Own Story, August 1914—November 1918 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1919), 2:258-59; F. Fischer, Germany's Aims, p. 544.
34. Reshetar, Ukrainian Revolution, p. 119; U.S., Department of State, Papers, 2:675.
35. Vynnychenko, Vidrodzennia natsii, 2 :321.
36. James Bunyan, ed., Intervention, Civil War, and Communism in Russia, April—December 1918, p. 5.
37. Ludendorff, Own Story, 2 :260.
38. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2 :18.
39. Ibid., 2:19; Vynnychenko, Vidrodzennia natsii, 2:323.
40. Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy, 2:135.
41. IAroslav Okunevs'kyi, "Rozmova z arkhykniazem Vil'hel'mom dnia 4. serpnia 1918 roku," Dilo, no. 100 (May 8, 1931), p. 2; I. Osipov, Na prolomie, p. 39; George Stewart, The White Armies of Russia, pp. 51—52; D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:24—26.
42. 40,000 dessiatines, or over 200,000 acres (1 dessiatine equals 2.7 acres).
43. Pavlo Skoropadskyi, "Uryvok zi 'Spomyniv,'" Khliborobs'ka Ukraina 4 (1924) :3; N. M. Mogilianskii, "Tragediia Ukrainy," ARR 11 (1923) :91-92; Kovalevs'kyi, Pry dzherelakh borot'by, p. 318; Korostovetz, Seed and Harvest, p. 290.
44. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:49—50.
45. Max Hoffman, Die Aufzeichnungen (Berlin: Verlag fur Kulturpolitik, 1929), 1:194; A. I. Denikin, Ocherki russkoi smuty, 4:184; V. B. Stankevich, Vospominaniia, 1914-1919 gg. (Berlin: I. P. Ladyzhnikov, 1920), p. 322; V. Miakotin, "Iz nedalekogo proshlogo,"in Revoliutsiia na Ukraine, ed. S. A. Alekseev, p. 223.
46. G. N. Leikhtenbergskii, Vospominaniia ob "Ukraine," 1917—1918, p. 27; see also Stankevich, Vospominaniia, p. 326.
47. Kovalevs'kyi, Pry dzherelakh borot'by, pp. 487—89; Panas Fedenko, Ukrains'kyi rukh u 20 stolitti, p. 149; Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy, 3:14 ff.; D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:43.
48. Dmytro Dontsov, Rik 1918, Kyiv, p. 32; Vasyl' Ivanys, Symon Petliura— Prezydent Ukrainy, 1879-1926, p. 75; G. N. Leikhtenbergskii, "Kak nachalas' 'IUzhnaia Armiia,' " ARR 8 (1923): 166-67.
49. Dmytro Solovei, Vasylenko, Miliukov i samostiinist' Ukrainy v 1918 r. (Winnipeg, 1965), p. 37; Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi, Vybranipratsi, p. 78.
50. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:116—17.
51. Denikin, Ocherki, 4:187.
52. Alexander Shul'hyn, "The Period of the Hetmanate," in UE, 1:750; Maksym Slavins'kyi, Istoriia Ukrainy (Podebrady, 1934), p. 171; Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten Peace, p. 322.
53. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:215 ff.; Theophil Hornykiewicz, ed., Ereignisse in der Ukraine, 1914—1922, 3 :482 ff.; Viktor Andriievs'kyi, Z mynuloho, 2:68; U.S., Department of State, Papers, 2:696; Dontsov, Rik 1918, pp. 22—23; Bunyan, Intervention, pp. 57—58; D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2: 214.
54. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:191—99; Khrystiuk, Zamitky i ma-teriialy, 3:108-110
55. P. N. Krasnov, "Vsevelikoe Voisko Donskoe," ARR 5:237-40; see also Vasyl' Ivanys, Stezhkamy zhyttia, 2:300; A. I. Denikin, "Getmanstvo i Direktoriia na Ukraine," in Revoliutsiia na Ukraine, ed. Alekseev, p. 147.
56. Reshetar, Ukrainian Revolution, pp. 189—92; Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten Peace, p. 324; Shul'hyn, "Period of the Hetmanate," 1: 749; Vynnychenko, Vidrod-zennia natsii, 3 :158—59.
57. Shul'hyn, "Period of the Hetmanate," 1: 751; Ivan Tsapko, "Partyzany na Skhidnii Ukraini: Starobil's partyzans'kyi zahin," Visti, no. 109 (1963), p, 7; Krasnov, "Vsevelikoe Voisko Donskoe," 5 : 236; IEvhen Konovalets', Prychynky do istorii ukrains'koirevoliutsii, p. 16; Denikin, "Getmanstvo i Directoriia na Ukraine," p. 146; Germany, Auswartiges Amt. Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915— 1918, p. 134;D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:381 ff.
58. The Sich Riflemen (Sichovi Stril'tsi) was a military formation organized in November 1917 in Kyiv from West Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia formerly in the Austrian army. Hence some writers call the formation the Kyivan Sich Riflemen. The leading organizers of the unit were colonels IEvhen Konovalets' and Andrii Mel'nyk. As the formation developed from a battalion to a corps many Ukrainians from East Ukraine joined the formation. The Sich Riflemen were the best and most reliable Ukrainian military formation during the Revolution. See Dmytro Herechanivs'kyi, "Pochatky Sichovykh Stril'tsiv," VK, no. 3 (27) (1967), pp. 29 ff.; Dmytro Herechanivs'kyi, "Prykmetni rysy Sichovykh Stril'tsiv (S.S.)," VK, no. 3 (34) (1966), pp. 16 ff.; Hryts' Hladkyi, "Sichovi Stril'tsi (S.S.)," LCK, no. 6 (1935), pp. 4 ff.; Istoriia ukrains'koho viis'ka, pp. 428—49; Oleksander Udovychenko, Ukraina u viini za derzhavnist' (Winnipeg: D. Mykytiuk, 1954), p. 42; Samovydets [pseud.], Nedavna het'manshchyna (Chicago, 1933), p. 55; Ant. Kushchyns'kyi, "Korotka heneza istorii Serdiuts'kykh formatsii," Visti, no. 106 (1962), pp. 69-70.
59. A. Lukomskii, "Iz vospominanii," ARR 5 (1922): 183; Zenon Stefaniv, Ukrains'ki zbroini syly, 1917-1921 rr., 2nd rev. ed. (n.p., SUV, 1947), 1:109; V. I. Gurko, "Politicheskoe polozhenie na Ukraine pri Getmane," in Revoliutsiia na Ukraine, ed. Alekseev, pp. 215—16.
60. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:260; Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy, 3:39; I. Mazepa, Ukraina v ohni i buri revoliutsii, 1917—1921, 1:54—55; Iwan Majstrenko, Borot'bism: A Chapter in the History of Ukrainian Communism (New York: Research Program on the U.S.S.R., 1954), p. 72.
61. Mogilianskii, "Tragediia Ukrainy," 11:97—98; Osyp Nazaruk, Rik na Velykii Ukraini, p. 77; Mykola Kapustians'kyi, Pokhid ukrains'kykh armii na Kyiv-Odesu v 1919 rotsi, 1:13; Antin Krezub, "Mizh Biloiu Tserkvoiu i Motovyliv-koiu," LCK, no. 1 (1930), p. 7; Denikin, "Getmanstvo i Direktoriia na Ukraine," p. 139.
62. Kovalevs'kyi, Pry dzherelakh borot'by, p. 514; Die deutsche Okkupation der Ukraine, pp. 24, 48 ff., as quoted in Pipes, Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 134.
63. Istoriia ukrains'koho viis'ka, p. 424; Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy, 3 : 55; D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:269; Vynnychenko, Vidrodzennia natsii, 3:71; V. Zadoianyi, "Povstans'ka stykhiia," TR, no. 46 (1968), p. 14; I. Kapulov-skii, "Organizatsiia vostaniia protiv getmana," LR, no. 4 (1923), pp. 98—99; S. Paladiichuk, "Spohady pro 'Hrebenkivshchynu,' " VK, no. 1 (27) (1967), p. 35.
64. Die deutsche Okkupation der Ukraine, p. 201, as quoted in Xeniajoukoff Eudin, "The German Occupation of the Ukraine in 1918," The Russian Review 1 (1941): 100.
65. IA. Shelygin, "Partizanskaia bor'ba s getmanshchinoi i avstrogermanskoi okkupatsiei," LR, no. 6 (33) (1928), p. 64.
66. Zadoianyi, "Povstans'ka stykhiia," no. 49, p. 5; V. Aussem, "K istorii povstanchestva na Ukraine," LR, no. 5 (20) (1926), p. 8; Istoriia Ukrains'koho viis'ka, p. 424; Zadoianyi, "Povstans'ka stykhiia," no. 47, p. 14.
67. "Russia's Reign of Terror," The New York Times Current History, 9:76; D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:119—21; Dontsov, Rik 1918, p. 17. Doroshenko gives the figures of 200 killed and 1000 wounded.
68. D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:122—23; William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1918 (New York: Macmillan, 1947), 2:126.
69. I. K. Kakhovskaia, "Delo Eikhgorna i Denikina," in Puti revoliutsii, p. 218; Hornykiewicz, Ereignisee in der Ukraine, 3:181—84; D. Doroshenko, Istoriia Ukrainy, 2:124-25.
70. Kakhovskaia, "Delo Eikhgorna i Denikina," p. 219.