THE HETMANATE
Pavel Skoropadsky
At the end of 1918, it was Petliura who led the forces that overthrew Skoropadsky. But at the end of 1917 it would have looked as if Petliura and Skoropadsky were allies. In the wake of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd, Skoropadsky had placed his First Ukrainian Regiment under the Rada, despite his own dislike of the Rada's Socialist policies. He backed Petliura's policy of trying to develop a Ukrainian regular army, against Vynnychenko's policy of a people's militia, and of obstructing the movement of Bolshevik forces through Ukraine to combat the Don Cossacks - though his motives were probably less Ukrainian nationalist and more anti-Bolshevik. Like Petliura he was regarded with suspicion by Hrushevsky and Vynnychenko. According to the Russian language Wikipedia entry for 'Skoropadsky, Pavil Petrovich' (machine translation):
'After the removal of Semyon Petliura from the post of General Secretary of Military Affairs and the appointment of Nikolai Porsh in his place , Skoropadsky's relations with the leaders of the UCR deteriorated completely. The combat general, who was awarded the highest military awards, could not understand why the actual problems of organizing the army were being solved by a person who had never had anything to do with it.
'All the efforts of Skoropadsky to prove the necessity of the existence of the Ukrainian regular army were in vain. Corps Skoropadsky on the eve of winter was without food, winter clothes and shoes. This attitude demoralized the fighters, and they began to go home. Experiencing constant pressure from the leadership of the Central Rada, on the eve of 1918, General Skoropadsky was forced to resign from the post of ataman - commander-in-chief of the troops of the Central Rada. At the same time, he also left the post of commander of the 1st Ukrainian Corps [18] . With the departure of Skoropadsky from the post of commander in chief, the Ukrainian army practically collapsed.' (11)
(11) Unless otherwise stated the source for this section will probably be the Russian language Wikipedia accounts for Skoropadsky, Petliura, Mikhnovsky, Lipinsky, the Ukrainian Democratic Grain Party and Ukrainian Peoples Community. All quotes machine translated.
Skoropadsky was thus more than simply a creation of the Germans. He could be said to represent that section of Ukrainian political opinion that supported independence or autonomy but opposed the radical economic reforms of the Socialist revolutionaries and Social Democrats. In particular he had, initially at least, the support of the 'Ukrainian Democratic Grain Party'. This was formed - as the Ukrainian Democratic Party - in Lubny, Poltava region, at a constituent assembly in June 1917 attended by some 1,500 peasants and twenty landlords. Its basic principle was respect for private property. Its programme was worked out by Vyacheslav Lipinsky. According to the account in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine Dmytro Dontsov was a prominent member. Lipinsky and Dontsov were the leading theorists of the two most prominent factions in post war Ukrainian politics in Poland - Lipinsky as theorist of 'Ukrainian hetman nationalism', arguing for a constitutional monarchy with Skoropadsky as first monarch, Dontsov for 'integral nationalism', which was the founding doctrine of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists.
Another prominent member of the Grain Party was Mykola Mikhnovsky. Mikhnovsky had been implicated in an attempted coup against the Rada after the Second Universal which he judged too soft with regard to the Provisional government. As a result he was so to speak exiled to the Romanian front but with the October Revolution he returned, settling in the Poltava region which was the stronghold of the Grain Growers Party. According to his Russian language Wikipedia entry: 'Mykola Mikhnovsky began to lean towards the monarchical principle of organizing power in Ukraine, and now, having cast aside socialist illusions, he linked the future of Ukraine with the implementation of a democratic grain-growing program.'
The Wikipedia account continues:
'In his Memoirs, Pavel Skoropadsky mentioned that everyone he asked to evaluate Mikhnovsky was warned not to invite Mikhnovsky to any position in power in any situation. Skoropadsky himself could not understand why there was such a unanimous negative attitude towards Mikhnovsky. He himself "did not see anything bad in Mikhnovsky, except for his extreme chauvinistic Ukrainian line of thought." Despite this, the hetman seriously considered Mikhnovsky as a candidate for the post of prime minister of the Ukrainian state. He was impressed by his anti-socialist views and his recognition of the right of peasants to private ownership of land. Pavel Skoropadsky did not forget that the Ukrainian Democratic Grain Grower Party played a big role in the overthrow of the Central Rada .
'Skoropadsky recalled these events as follows:
'"From the Poltava province , from several councils, several hundred grain growers arrived in Kiev, who belonged to the UDCP [the grain party - PB], and as far as I remember, Sergey Shemet headed them. The grain growers demanded changes to the Third Universal of the Central Rada, in which, as is known, private property was liquidated. The appearance of genuine peasants, people of the earth, people invincible ... caused a strong impression in Kyiv. On the one hand, the enemies of the Rada raised their heads, on the other hand, even greater confusion appeared in the ranks of the Central Rada ... these peasants were unconvinced [sic. Should surely be 'convinced' - PB] independentists, supporters of independence ... who went through the school of Mikhnovsky ... the creation of Ukraine and small private property was their motto, although they rejected everything."'
The primary aim of the Germans and Austrians was to feed their own population and army in defiance of the British-imposed blockade. The primary ambition of the peasantry was to possess land. Here we should note an important distinction to be drawn between the Ukrainians and Great Russians. The Russian peasantry had a tradition going back several centuries of organisation in communes managing their affairs by collective decision. The Ukrainians had a much more strongly established tradition, going back to Cossack days, of individual possession. the point is made by Steven Guthier (Ukrainian Nationalism, pp.31-2):
'In 1917, Ukrainians were predominantly a peasant people. The Imperial Russian Census of 1897 indicated that 87 percent of Ukrainians gained their livelihood from farming; only 2.4 percent lived in towns with twenty thousand inhabitants or more. By 1926, 86 percent of Ukrainians were still agriculturalists, and 94 percent lived in communities with a population of less than twenty thousand. Social and economic conditions rendered the Ukrainian peasantry difficult material for political mobilization. The fact that most Ukrainians were dispersed among numerous small villages made it difficult for the small nationalist elite to reach and organize the bulk of its constituency. An inadequate school system and the prohibition of instruction in the Ukrainian language resulted in high illiteracy rates in the countryside. In 1897 only one-seventh of rural Ukrainians were literate, and by 1926 only two-fifths were. Illiteracy further limited the nationalists' accessibility to the peasantry via the popular press. Moreover, as peasants, the mass of Ukrainians had very limited resources - of money or materiel - to contribute to the support of the nationalist movement.
'The ramifications for Ukrainian nationalism arising from its predominantly peasant base were not altogether negative. In the village, the Ukrainian peasant was not exposed to the intense Russianizing pressure which denationalized so many Ukrainians in the cities and industrial centers. The village remained the preserve of Ukrainian ethnicity; 88 percent of the region's peasants were ethnically Ukrainian, and 93 percent of all Ukrainians were krest'iane ['Christians' - the term used officially to classify peasants - PB]. The great mass of Ukrainians therefore possessed a common class identity which reinforced their linguo-cultural distinctiveness from the other nationalities which populated the region.'
Hence the economic policy of the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries diverged from that of the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries:
'The essential feature of the UPSR's position on land reform was its acceptance of individual farming. Neither Ukrainian S.R.'s nor Ukrainian peasants shared their Russian counterparts' attachment to communalism. The prevalence of hereditary plots and the weakness of the commune in the Ukraine fostered a strong proprietary attitude among the peasantry. Moreover, the proportion of middle and prosperous peasants in the village population was one of the highest in European Russia. Any serious attempt to enforce communal ownership or equalization of holdings was bound to generate stiff resistance among the Ukrainian peasantry.'
Mędrzecki (Germany and Ukraine, p.58) outlines the problem as it was experienced by the Rada prior to Skoropadsky's coup:
'as early as December 1917 and January 1918, the provisional committees (in the gubernias, districts, volosts, and cities) that were engaged in the purchase and distribution of agricultural products started signaling greater difficulties in carrying out their tasks. A wave of raids on land properties across the country made it impossible to purchase further deliveries of grain from landowners. Moreover, peasants seized and divided among themselves the grain that was earlier bought and stored in warehouses (at properties, train stations, etc.). The requisitioned grain was either divided among the poorest families, which until then did not consume much of it, processed into alcohol in a countless number of primitive distilleries, which were common in village houses, kept in the most astute hiding places for “a rainy day,” or given out to the soldiers who helped with the restoration of order in the properties. The remaining, usually small, part of the spoils was intended to be sold at much higher prices than the official ones. The lords of the manor sold their own grain only when necessary and at exorbitant prices. In large towns and cities provisioning difficulties were rising and were accompanied by a burgeoning black market.
'The German invasion did not contribute to an amelioration of the situation. Most of the warehouses and properties were looted. In practice, the only dispenser of the grain were the peasants for whom the reserves of grain were a kind of insurance in case of catastrophe. The UNR authorities were in a very difficult position. Grain was indispensable for supplying cities and meeting export obligations. On the other hand, it was out of the question to forcibly take away grain from farmers, who constituted the fundamental social group creating the base of Ukrainian statehood. There were only two options left - appeals and reliance on the actions of the provisional committees. Both of them, once tried out, proved to be completely ineffective. Besides, in some major cities there appeared problems with the distribution of even the most limited rations of bread. To solve the problems, a new plan was invented. In the middle of April the State Grain Office was established. That institution was to be composed of representatives of the state administration, local governments, the Central Powers, intermediaries, grain traders, and agricultural producers. It meant an abandonment of the principle of the state’s monopoly over the trade in grain products and an attempt to draw the Russian, Ukrainian, and Jewish bourgeoisie into cooperation with the UNR. Before Skoropadskyi’s coup it was not possible for the State Grain Office to start its operations as the future hetman adopted it for his own purposes.'
This population, refractory as it was to 'its own' government, was hardly likely to put up with German efforts to seize its production. In May a Ukrainian Peasant Congress resolved (Eudin: German Occupation, p.98):
'To reject with contempt the Hetman's self-styled authority, which was created by the nobles, large estate owners, village kulaks, and capitalists, and which [has? - PB] no support or recognition from the democratic groups of the Ukraine, and call the peasants to a decisive, uncompromising armed struggle against Hetman's regime ....
'To insist that the Central Powers refrain from interference in the economic and political affairs of the Ukrainian People's Republic and to protest against and to condemn strongly: the active interference, by means of military superiority of representatives of foreign powers, in the class struggle in the Ukraine; the dispersion of the Ukrainian parliament; and the establishment of a Hetmanship in the Ukraine, which can only appeal to a small group of landowners and capitalists hostile to the Ukrainian People's Republic and to all the achievements of the revolution.'
Although the Germans regarded this as a result of Bolshevik agitation - and though undoubtedly there was Bolshevik agitation at work - it would be more accurate to regard it as a distinctly peasant strand of Ukrainian nationalism that had developed spontaneously but was given a language by the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries. Steven Guthier (p.33) quotes the leader of the UPSR, Mykola Kovalesky, as saying:
'The Russians want to foist upon you, I said to the peasants, the socialization of land, that is, to transfer ownership of land to individual village communities and to abolish in this way your farms; you will no longer be masters of your own land, but will be workers on community land. The argument that Russian socialists "want to boil peasants in the capitalist cauldron," that is, to deprive them of independent status as proprietors and to transform them into proletarians, had special strength. Along with this I cited Karl Marx, Plekhanov, and even Lenin. With this "capitalist cauldron" I created a terrifying image of the future regime of the Ukraine, when Russian socialists would have succeeded in realizing their program not only in Russia but also in the Ukraine.'
The conflict between the various elements trying to build a state and develop an economically rational - profitable - agriculture, and a peasantry at last feeling able to free itself of Russian and Polish landlords and Jewish middlemen, had been developing since 1917 and, with the tough methods employed by the Germans, was reaching the stage of a civil war that was going to continue for several years (and arguably flared up again with the final defeat of the property owning peasantry in the collectivisation drive of 1929-33).