The future of Russia in the wake of the October Revolution and the Brest-Litovsk treaty as seen by the New York Times in February 1918
THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
So at the point which we've now reached the Provisional Government in Petrograd recognised the Ukrainian Rada as legitimately wielding limited power over five Russian provinces mostly on the West ('right') bank of the Dnieper. The Rada itself claimed authority over more or less the whole present day Ukraine - Ekaterinoslav included, as well as present day Zaporozhia, the Donbass area. Even that fell short of a maximal demand that would have included the Kuban area and therefore virtually the whole of the Russian Black Sea coast. The Rada, however, was unable to exercise anything like even the limited authority it had been given by Petrograd. Pipes (Formation of the Soviet Union, pp.66-7) quotes Dmytro Doroshenko, at the time a member of the small Rada and governor of the Chernihiv gubernia, as saying:
'None of the General Secretaries ever appeared outside Kiev, despite resolutions of the General Secretariat to the contrary. To the provinces were sent neither orders, not instructions, nor information, but only proclamations. Kiev would not even answer questions. Provincial governors [such as himself - PB], coming to Kiev, could not without much trouble, obtain personal interviews on urgent matters with the head of the secretariat.' (1)
(1) Richard Pipes: The Formation of the Soviet Union, Cambridge Mass, Harvard University Press, 1964, pp.66-7. Doroshenko had been a member of the Society of Ukrainian Progressives and subsequently became, in 1918, minister of Foreign Affairs in the German-supported hetmanate of Pavel Skoropadsky. He went into exile in 1919 but continued writing extensively on Ukrainian history, taking academic posts in Vienna, Prague, Munich, Berlin, Warsaw, and finally in Winnipeg. During the Second World War he was based in German occupied Prague. Politically he remained faithful to Skoropadsky's monarchist tradition.
The real 'action' was occurring outside the remit of the Rada - in the army, with Ukrainians refusing to accept orders not given in the Ukrainian language or by Ukrainian officers, and by the peasantry, dispossessing landlords, killing or other wise persecuting Jews, and organising into spontaneous bands of 'free cossacks' which might or might not team up with the political projects of the Bolsheviks, the White Russians or the Ukrainian nationalists.
This wildness seems to distinguish Ukraine from the rest of Russia. According to Pipes:
'In the winter of 1918-19, when the Civil War got underway in earnest, the Bolsheviks ruled all of Great Russia, with a population of some 70 million. The territories controlled by Kolchak and Denikin had only 8 or 9 million inhabitants each. This immense preponderance in population - 4:1 and even 5:1 in the Bolsheviks' favour - gave the Red Army a much larger mobilisation base. The Communists had within their borders all the manpower they needed: when in the critical engagements of 1919 they suffered heavy losses from casualties and desertions, they had only to call up more peasants, put them in uniforms, hand them rifles, and ship them to the front … Nor was the more-than-tenfold preponderance in numbers the Red Army's only manpower advantage. By controlling Great Russia, the Communists ruled an ethnically homogeneous population. The Whites, by contrast, operated from territories inhabited largely by non-Russians who either took little interest in the outcome of the Civil War, or else, for their own national reasons, preferred a Red victory. A high proportion of White forces consisted of Cossacks more eager to gain independence for their own homelands than to build a Russian Empire …' (2)
(2) Richard Pipes: Russia under the Bolshevik Régime, London, Harvill/HarperCollins, 1994, pp.11-12.
The 'Cossacks' he's referring to are of course the Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks, much better structured than the 'Free Cossacks' of the Ukraine who evoked the Cossack-Haidamaki tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but had no real continuity with it.
Doubtless Pipes's vision of a homogenous Russian peasantry easily accessible to mobilisation would have to be modified if examined in detail but the mere fact that that could be said marks a clear distinction from the Ukraine where it would be completely unthinkable.
According to the Russian language Wikipedia the first Free Cossacks came into existence soon after the February revolution (machine translation):
'In mid-March 1917, the peasant Nikodim Smoktiy from the village of Gusakovo in the Zvenigorod region organized the Gusakov Hundred. Later, the peasants decided to convene a Cossack congress in Zvenigorodka , Kiev province [now in Cherkassy oblast, south of Kyiv province, on the West bank of the Dnieper - PB], and develop a statute of organization for it. In early April, all the elected hundred commanders arrived at the congress and adopted the statute of the organization " Free Cossacks " (according to other sources, the district congress of the Zvenigorod region took place only at the end of July 1917) …
'Initially, the goals of the Free Cossacks were "protection of the freedom of the Ukrainian people" and the maintenance of public order, which was threatened by bands of deserters promoted by the Bolsheviks. The formation of subdivisions took place according to the territorial principle: volosts formed hundreds, volost hundreds (companies) of counties made up a kuren (battalion); kurens of counties (districts) - a regiment, regiments of provinces - a kosh (division). The officers were elected. Weapons were acquired through tax collection.
'In 1917, the Free Cossack movement spread to Kiev, Volyn, Kherson, Poltava, Chernihiv provinces. The paramilitaries consisted mainly of peasants (as a rule, former soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the Russian Imperial Army), as well as workers, in particular in Kiev. About 60,000 organized descendants of Ukrainian Cossacks were represented at the All-Ukrainian Congress of the Free Cossacks in Chyhyryn on October 16-20, 1917. Russian General Pavel Skoropadsky … took over the leadership of the Free Cossacks by October 1917.'
According to the English language wikipedia account of Skoropadsky this took place on October 3rd (it rather curiously isn't mentioned in the Russian language Wikipedia account). So, whichever calendar is being used it precedes the Bolshevik seizure of power (October 25/November 7). Skoropadsky was a highly decorated general in the Russian army descended from the brother of Ivan Skoropadsky, hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks in the eighteenth century. According to Xenia Eudin: 'After the death of Hetman Ivan Ilich Skoropadsky in 1722, no hetmanship was recognised by the Russian Tsars.' (3)
(3) Xenia Joukoff Eudin: 'The German occupation of the Ukraine in 1918', The Russian Review, Vol 1, No 1, Nov 1941, p.96. Following the Wikipedia account, Ivan Skoropadsky was the loyalist successor of Ivan Mazepa who had gone into rebellion against Peter I.
Pavlo Skoropadsky was the commander of the 34th Army Corps of the Russian army. In August 1917, on the orders of General L.G.Kornilov, appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief in July, following the failure of Kerensky's June offensive, the 34th Army Corps was 'ukrainised.' Russian soldiers and officers were transferred to other parts of the army and the corps was renamed the First Ukrainian Corps of the Russian Republican Army, still under Skoropadsky's command (Russian Wikipedia account). It is likely that his hetmanship of the Free Cossacks was a very nominal affair. Sloropadsky's importance is that he was to become 'Hetman' of Ukraine during the German occupation in 1918 and thus come closer than the Rada ever did to presiding over the whole territory. The importance of the Free Cossacks is that from early 1917 the Ukrainian peasantry was organising itself independently both of what we might call the official nationalism of the Rada in Kiev and of the different Russian political parties that were contending for power, and that in doing so they were evoking the Cossack/haidamaki tradition. All tendencies recognised that the peasantry was where the substance of the society lay and that they had to be won over.
In the early days of the October revolution, the Rada had co-operated with the Bolsheviks, for example 'using its influence with the railroad personnel in order to prevent all the reactionary military units from leaving the confines of the Ukraine, including the Rumanian and Southwestern fronts, for the suppression of the uprisings in Petrograd and Moscow.' (Pipes: Formation, p.70). But both the Bolsheviks and the Rada were very undecided as to whether or to what extent they could support each other. From the Bolshevik point of view, on the one hand Ukrainian separatism weakened the Provisional government, on the other hand it would weaken them once they got firm control of Russia. From the Ukrainian nationalist point of view, on the one hand the Bolsheviks were clearly rivals for power, on the other hand the revolution gave them the opportunity to free themselves from the restrictions imposed on them by the Provisional Government.
After initially condemning the Petrograd rising 'the Rada finally decided to throw its forces into the struggle on the side of the Bolsheviks' demanding 'the withdrawal from Kiev of all reinforcements which the government had brought into the city during the previous weeks to suppress the anticipated Bolshevik coup. At the same time, Ukrainian patrols occupied strategic points in the city and prevented pro-government units from liquidating the centres of rebel resistance …
'While the fighting for the city was still in progress, the General Secretariat took steps to enlarge the scope of its authority. Several Secretariats, previously vetoed by the Provisional Government, were added, and an announcement was made to the effect that the jurisdiction of the Rada extended over additional provinces.' (Pipes: Formation, p.72).
It was in this context that the Rada, on November 6/19, issued its 'Third Universal', proclaiming full political autonomy for Ukraine as the 'Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), albeit in a federal relationship with Russia. Though taken by surprise by this, the Bolshevik controlled soviets in Kiev, Ekaterinoslav, Odessa and Nikolaev recognised the authority of the Rada. Quoting Pipes (Formation, pp116-7):
'The Kharkov Soviet alone refused to do so, and not only pledged allegiance to the Bolshevik government in Petrograd, but as the month went on assumed an increasingly hostile attitude toward the Ukrainian political centre. The authority of the Rada over the whole country was as ineffective after the proclamation of the Republic as it had been in the days of the provisional Government. In most towns the Rada had at its disposal volunteer haidamak detachments, an asset of somewhat dubious value since, as future events were to show, they deserted the Rada in some very critical moments. The rural areas continued to rule themselves in isolation from the rest of the world.'
The Bolsheviks were still committed to convening a Constituent Assembly, and elections for this opened on November 12/25. The results in Ukraine revealed a sharp distinction between town and country, industrial workers and peasants but among the peasants there was overwhelming support for the Ukrainian populist parties, particularly the Ukrainian Social Democrats and Revolutionary Socialists running on a common ticket as 'Ukrainian Socialists' - 1,256, 271 in Kiev province, 749,860 in Poltava, 656,116 in Podolia, 569,044 in Volhynia, 556,012 in Ekaterinoslav, 484,456 in Chernihiv. Only 114,000 in Kherson but there Ukrainian Social Revolutionaries running on a common ticket with the Russian Social Revolutionaries gained 493,000 votes. In Kharkov it seems the 'Ukrainian Socialists' did not run but the joint Ukrainian and Russian Social Revolutionary ticket won 795,558. I need to stress that these are figures for the province as a whole, so mostly the rural areas, not the towns where in general the all-Russian parties - Bolsheviks, Social Revolutionaries running independently of the Ukrainian SRs, Kadets, Jewish Nationalists - did better in a numerically much smaller population. (4)
(4) Figures and discussion from Steven L.Guthier: 'The Popular base of Ukrainian Nationalism in 1917', Slavic Review, Vol.38, No 1, March 1979, especially the chart on p.36.
Relations between the Rada and the Bolsheviks, always strained, took a nose dive when, at the end of November (OS), the Rada, suspecting a possible coup, arrested the leading Bolsheviks and expelled the military units loyal to them. According to the Russian language Wikipedia account of Simon Petliura, the Prime Minister, Vynnychenko, was to blame him for the conflict.
The re-established secretariats had included Military Affairs with Petliura as Secretary-General. Petliura, independently of the Bolsheviks and against their wishes, set about trying to construct a Ukrainian national army by encouraging Ukrainian soldiers to leave the various fronts and gather in Kiev. Which meant that Ukrainians on the front now had a 'choice' between obeying Petliura and the Rada, claiming to be the government of Ukraine, or obeying the new Bolshevik government in Petrograd, still committed to continuing the war. In addition to its problems with the Germans Petrograd was now also faced with a Don Cossack rebellion led by General Aleksei Kaledin, joined on 15th November (Old Calendar, I think) by Mikhail Alekseyev. Alekseyev had been Chief of Staff of the army under Nicholas and as such had played an important role in persuading Nicholas to resign. Subsequently he served as Chief of Staff under Kerensky and arrested General Kornilov on suspicion of wanting to organise a rebellion. Kornilov was soon to join him and Kaledin in helping to organise the Don rebellion.
On 4/17 December the government in Petrograd sent the Rada an ultimatum complaining against the disruption of the army at the front and the disarming of 'Soviet regiments and the Workers Red Guard in the Ukraine' but also demanding that they prevent the movement of troops to the Don region and 'agree to aid the revolutionary army in its fight against the counterrevolutionary Kadet-Kaledin rebellion …
'In the event that no satisfactory answer to these questions will be forthcoming within 48 hours, the Council of People's Commissars will consider the Central Rada in a condition of open war against the Soviet government in Russia and the Ukraine.'
In reply the Rada's General Secretariat declared that it supported the right of the Don Cossacks to return to their homeland. By contrast they would not permit the Russian Communists the use of their territory to wage war against the right of the Don Cossacks to self determination. They did not recognise the Council of Peoples Commissars as the legitimate government of all Russia. (Pipes: Formation, pp.119-20).
In a further twist to the story, the Kievan Bolsheviks had placed their hopes in the summoning of a Congress of Soviets in Kiev which they naturally thought they could dominate. The Rada agreed to the holding of the Congress but in the event managed to pack it with their own supporters - 'virtually every Ukrainian co-operative and military and political organisation in the country sent at least one representative, with the result that on the appointed day the Ukrainian delegates simply flooded Kiev. When the Congress of Soviets opened, 2,500 delegates demanded admission. The handful of Bolshevik representatives - a hundred at most - was lost in a crowd of pro-Rada deputies.' A reading of the Petrograd ultimatum provoked a storm of indignation and a resolution which concluded:
'Declaring that the reply of the General Secretariat given on December 17 [NS] is the proper answer to the attempt of the Peoples Commissars to violate the rights of the Ukrainian peasants, workers and soldiers, the All-Ukrainian Congress of Peasants', Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies deems it necessary to take all measures in order to prevent the spilling of brotherly blood and appeals warmly to the peoples of Russia to stop, with all means at their disposal, the possibility of a new shameful war.' [Pipes: Formation, pp.121-2]
The Bolsheviks walked out of the meeting and went to Kharkov, where the Petrograd government was gathering its forces for a confrontation with the rebels in the Don.