MEANWHILE IN TAGANROG … (12)
Yuri Piatakov in 1916
Members of the Ukrainian Military Revolutionary Committee, Volodymyr Zatonsky, Yuriy Kotsyubynsky, Andrei Bubnov, in 1918
(12) This account is based mainly on Pipes; Formation and Arthur E.Adams: 'Bolshevik administration in the Ukraine: 1918', Review of Politics, Vol.20, No.3, July 1958.
The Bolsheviks in Taganrog were divided into two main, mutually very hostile, tendencies - the Kievans, led by Piatakov and Zatonsky, for whom the task was to liberate the whole Ukraine from the Germans and Skoropadsky, and the Easterners, representing Kharkov and Ekaterinoslav, for whom the main enemies were the Whites in the Don Basin and Kuban. The controversy went back to January 1918 when the Kharkov Communists had summoned a Congress of Soviets of the Left [Eastern] Bank [of the Dnieper] and proclaimed a separate Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic, independent of Kiev. Now they too had been expelled from their territory. The Easterners believed that German occupation would last a long time and be very difficult to dislodge. The priority then was to keep the party and party agitation alive among the industrial working class, mainly concentrated in the eastern regions. The Kievans wanted to try to take the lead in the mounting peasant agitation throughout the whole area. The controversy also took in party organisation. The Kievans argued for a separate Ukrainian party in a federal relationship with the Russian party, having its own representation in the recently declared Third International. They wanted a 'Ukrainian Bolshevik Party' in opposition to the Easterners who wanted simply a Ukrainian branch of the Russian Bolshevik party. The Kievans predominated. The end result was the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine - KP(b)U.
The Kievan demand for a separate Ukrainian party was not the product of any great nationalist fervour. Piatakov had indeed, prior to 1917, opposed Lenin's attempts to convert the party to the principle of self-determination. It was more a matter of practical politics. They were quite conscious of Ukrainian peasant hostility to Russia and they were also conscious of Lenin's reluctance to support an agitation in Ukraine that would bring the Bolsheviks into conflict with the Germans. Nonetheless there was an influx of Ukrainian nationalists into - or into alliance with - the KP(b)U. According to Pipes (p.134): 'In June 1918 there was a further break within the USD and USR parties; the left wing elements of both passed over to the Bolsheviks and participated in the Second all-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. The Left SR's even formed a separate party under the name Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Fighters (USR Borobisty, or simply Borobisty, as they were henceforth called) …'
The process, already underway prior to June, greatly strengthened the hand of the Kievan 'left wing' at the First Congress of the KP(b)U in Moscow in July (according to Adams. Pipes says June but July seems to make more sense) when the Kievans narrowly secured agreement for an alliance with the peasantry. However, on Lenin's insistence, they lost the right to act as a Communist Party separate from the Russian Communist Party, with a right to join the Third International on a par with foreign parties: 'Such independence in party matters Lenin would not tolerate. Homogeneity of the Communist movement and strict unity of its command had been cardinal tenets of his long before he had come to power, and perhaps the only principles to which he remained loyal all his life. The summer of 1918 was a period when Moscow undertook to bring into line the numerous provincial Communist party organisations which had grown up in the course of the Revolution and early Civil War, and which had taken advantage of the lack of contact between the centre and the borderlands to attain local autonomy.' (Pipes, p.135).
The Bolsheviks sent out their call for an uprising in August but it proved to be a total failure. Both Pipes and Arthur Adams use the word 'fiasco'. Essentially they were irrelevant to the peasant uprisings that were already taking place and which aimed to secure self government over local areas, large or small. What the Bolsheviks were offering was a new national government which was precisely what the peasants didn't want, especially a national government formed by Socialists hostile to the principle of private property, the very basis of the peasant movement. Eudin's account quotes German authorities who saw the whole anarchy of the countryside as Bolshevik inspired and quotes a call to rebellion by the 'Military Revolutionary Committee of the Kiev Guberniya' issued in June, announcing the creation of a nine member 'Committee of Revolt', outlining tactics for partisan warfare. But despite the Bolshevik-sounding rhetoric this could have been the work of the dissident left wing of the Ukrainian Socialist revolutionaries, soon to become the 'Borobisty', uninhibited by the doubts and hesitations of Moscow. At the end of July they succeeded in assassinating the German Field Marshall von Eichorn, and nearly succeeded with the same bomb in killing Skoropadsky.
THE GERMANS AND SKOROPADSKY
Skoropadsky with Free Cossacks and Germans
Eudin quotes the German general Hermann von Kuhl on the success or otherwise of the German occupation of Ukraine:
'Now, it cannot be denied that the hopes we had set upon the Ukraine were disappointed to a certain extent.... It seems that the organization which was adopted with the object of exploiting the country did not answer the purpose. It has been pointed out that in place of the numerous official bodies, which consisted of men from the weak Government of the Ukraine, German and Austro-Hungarian delegates, and the commanding officers of the German and Austrian army-groups, a strict military authority would have undoubtedly accomplished more. It has been shown how much harm was done by reckless interference by the Austrians. The transport difficulties were also hard to overcome. It was constantly pointed out to the Supreme Command that the military forces occupying the Ukraine were too small and must be strengthened if we were to obtain from the country the expected benefits.... [Nevertheless], Austria was saved from starvation. The deliveries of meat for us were considerable, and, above all, the horses supplies were of great importance. Finally, it must be remembered that the organizations of exports was just beginning to work and to take full effect when we had to evacuate the Ukraine in the autumn of 1918…' (p.103, lacunae in Eudin's original).
Skoropadsky was Germany's choice for hetman of Ukraine. There was actually a rather interesting Austrian alternative - the Archduke Wilhelm von Habsburg, nephew of the Emperor, Karl. He adopted a Ukrainian persona under the name Vasyl Vyshyvany, he spoke Ukrainian like a native and had joined and fought with the Galician-Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. He had the support of the Uniate Church. (13) The Sich Riflemen were present with the Austrians in South-Western Ukraine and they embodied the possibility of uniting Russian and Austrian Ukraine, albeit under Austrian hegemony.
(13) Jaroslaw Pelenski: 'Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky and Germany (1917-18)' in Hans-Joachim Torke and John-Paul Himka (eds): German-Ukrainian relations in historical perspective, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1994, pp.69-83. Discussion of Archduke Wilhelm, p.75.
Although food and raw materials were an immediate motive for the German/Austrian intervention, there was the wider geopolitical intention of separating Ukraine from Russia. To quote Eudin (p.105): 'Soviet Russia was officially at peace with Germany, yet underneath the facade of diplomacy, Imperial Germany endeavoured to establish her power on a firm basis by creating a series of states stretching from Finland to the Caucasus, with the intention of isolating Soviet Russia from Europe.'
The case is developed by Peter Borowsky, a German historian closely associated with Fritz Fischer and his 'Revisionist' account of Germany's war aims. (14) Borowsky (p.87) quotes a statement from the German Foreign Office soon after Skoropadsky's installation, explaining why the Germans shouldn't support the Russian Whites:
'In Russia we have only one interest, namely promotion of the forces of disintegration, the long-term weakening of that country. This was also Bismarck’s policy toward France in 1871 when he opposed the re-establishment of the French monarchy. Our policy must be the establishment of good relations with the newly formed independent states that are in the process of breaking away from Russia, in particular, Ukraine, Finland, and the new government in the Caucasus. It is there that we must anchor our influence and attempt to suppress any tendency toward federation with Russia.' (15)
(14) Peter Borowsky: 'Germany's Ukrainian policy during World War I and the revolution of 1918-19' in Torke and Himka: German-Ukrainian relations, pp.84-94.
(15) Subsequent quotes pp.87-91.
Borowsky comments:
'Germany’s support for Lenin in Moscow and Skoropadsky in Kiev were only in apparent contradiction. In reality they were two sides of one coherent policy to weaken Russia through its division into two or more independent states which, because of their different social system, would be hostile to each other, thus making the re-establishment of the Russian empire an impossibility.'
Zbigniew Brzezinski wasn't the first person to think of it!
In pursuit of this policy the Germans were genuinely concerned to improve the quality of government in the Ukraine:
'if the only point of the military presence was to guarantee grain supplies, then maintaining German troops in Ukraine, which cost 125 million marks per month, would have been economic and political nonsense, quite apart from the use to which these troops could have been put on the western front. The complex organizational work in connection with grain production and delivery, as well as attempts by German economic officials to have Skoropadsky introduce a Stolypin-type agrarian reform in Ukraine, all support the thesis that in this area the Germans were engaged in long-term planning and organization.'
There was a serious drive to improve the rail network in Ukraine:
'After long, drawn-out negotiations involving the Russian Syndicate, a German Syndicate for the Reconstruction of the Ukrainian Railway System was established on 10 July 1918. It included the Diskontogesellschaft, the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, and the banking houses of Warburg, Mendelssohn, and Lenz. This syndicate joined with the Research Group for the Re-establishment of the Railway System in Ukraine (established the previous month by Russian-Ukrainian bankers), each contributed 50 per cent, and the new company was called the Ukrainian Railway Development Company (AG für die Entwicklung des Eisenbahnwesens in der Ukraine).'
The problem for the German government was that it did not have the means to pursue these projects and German private capital was, understandably, lukewarm:
'The situation in the Ukrainian coal industry was so desperate that Germany not only received no coal from Ukraine but was forced to deliver some of its own coal to that country. The need to get the Ukrainian coal industry on its feet again, and the necessity for private capital investment, offered German capital a unique opportunity to gain a foothold in that industry, particularly since there was no competition from other foreign investors or creditors. As in the case of the railways, the German state showed more interest than private German capital did. Although Wiedfeldt (16) and the other economic experts in Kiev continued to point out the importance of German investment and German loans to Ukrainian industry to establish a foothold for Germany in both Ukraine and Greater Russia, the German banks were cautious. In view of the unclear military situation they were unwilling to take any unnecessary risks.
(16) Otto Wiedfeldt was a director of the Krupp steelworks, present as representative of the German Economic Ministry.
'The withdrawal of Ukraine from the rouble zone was one of the most important of Germany’ s economic and political goals in Ukraine. According to Ambassador Mumm, on 17 May 1918, “the establishment of its own currency, independent of the rouble, is an essential aspect of the maintenance of Ukraine’s separation from Russia.” In May 1918 German financial experts in Kiev, in co-operation with the Ukrainian government, introduced the new independent Ukrainian currency, although there were numerous financial, political, and technical difficulties involved with this decision. On 18 May 1918, the decision was made to establish a share-based issuing bank. Wiedfeldt called on German bankers to participate. Parallel to the creation of a Ukrainian currency and the founding of a Ukrainian central bank, Ukrainian branches of the big Russian banks were dissolved. The big German banks were offered a participatory role, but in spite of all the efforts of Wiedfeldt and the Reich’s Economic Ministry, they were extremely reluctant to become involved.'
The Germans tried to maintain their presence in Ukraine even after the signing of the armistice:
'On 10 October 1918, after the German offer of armistice had been sent to Wilson, Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, Wilhelm Solf, sent the German representatives in Kiev an outline of Germany’s policy in Ukraine. According to this programme: "1. Ukraine as an independent state and our preferential position within that state must be maintained as far as possible. 2. The German-Ukrainian peace treaty will not be affected by the general peace treaty"'
To this end they tried to arrange a union between Skoropadsky and what might be called the constitutional opposition (with the Grain Party at the heart of it):
'This fundamental goal of German foreign policy in the east, the weakening of Russia, was not dropped by the government of Prince Max von Baden, which assumed office in Berlin at the beginning of October 1918. A Programme for the East, drawn up by Rudolf Nadolny on 5 November Ì918, which the whole cabinet, including its social democratic members, approved the same day, stated: “As far as our eastern policy is concerned, our fundamental goal remains, within the framework of the Wilson points and the demands of the Entente, to decentralize Russia with the help of the nationality principle and to create for ourselves in the entire eastern territories as much political sympathy and freedom of movement as possible.” To reach this goal, diplomatic relations with Bolshevik Russia were to be broken off (which happened the next day), and German troops were to remain in the occupied eastern territories as long as possible.'
The policy became redundant with the 'German revolution', the collapse of the German army and the seizure of power by Skoropadsky's more militant opponents on 14th December 1918. This will be discussed in the next episode of this series but in the meantime a word should be said for Skoropadsky. He was of course almost entirely dependent on the Germans and he faced increasing turmoil in the rural areas but at least over the Summer, in the words of the Russian language Wikipedia account, 'Ukraine, and especially Kyiv, represented a kind of "island of stability" and became the center of attraction for all those fleeing the Bolsheviks from Petrograd, Moscow and other regions of the Russian Empire.' For all the difficulties of supplying Germany, people arriving in Ukraine from Russia marvelled at the abundance of food that was available. (17)
(17) At least that is the picture drawn in Irina Ratushinskaya's historical novel The Odessans (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1996).
An effort was made to organise a Ukrainian regular army, mostly led by former officers of the Russian Imoerial army who were present in Kiev in large numbers. Skoropadsky also established - for the first time in Russian Ukraine - a network of Ukrainian language cultural institutions, such as already existed in Galicia. The Russian language Wikipedia talks of: 'the opening of new Ukrainian gymnasiums, the introduction of the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian history and Ukrainian geography as compulsory subjects in school. Ukrainian state universities were established in Kiev and [Austrian occupied - PB] Kamenetz-Podolsky, the Faculty of History and Philology in Poltava, the State Ukrainian Archive, the National Gallery of Art, the Ukrainian Historical Museum, the National Library of the Ukrainian State, the Ukrainian Drama and Opera Theatre, the Ukrainian State Capella, the Ukrainian Symphony Orchestra, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.' A political tradition that saw him as a potential monarch of an independent state was to continue until his death in 1945.