Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T09:01:51.928Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reconciling the Irreconcilable? Left-Wing Ukrainian Nationalism and the Soviet Regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2019

Christopher Gilley
Christopher Gilley*
Affiliation:
Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: gilleycr@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the attempts by left-wing Ukrainian nationalists to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable: Ukrainian nationalism and Soviet socialism. It describes how leftist Ukrainian parties active during the Revolution and Civil War in Ukraine 1917–1921 advocated a soviet form of government. Exiled members of the two major Ukrainian parties, the Social Democrats and the Socialist Revolutionaries, then took this position further, arguing in favor of reconciliation with the Bolsheviks and a return to their homeland. After the Entente recognized Polish sovereignty over Eastern Galicia and Soviet Ukraine introduced a policy of Ukrainization in 1923, many West Ukrainian intellectuals took up this call. The Great Famine of 1932–1933 and the Bolsheviks’ purge of Ukrainian Communists and intellectuals all but ended the position. However, it was more the Soviet rejection of the Sovietophiles that ended Ukrainian Sovietophilism than any rejection of the Soviet Union by leftist Ukrainian nationalists. Thus, an examination of the Ukrainian Sovietophiles calls into question the accounts of the relationship between Ukrainian nationalism and the Soviet Union that have common currency in today’s Ukraine.

Keywords

Revolution and Civil War 1917–1921Soviet UnionSovietophilismUkrainian emigrationUkrainian nationalism
Type
Special Issue on Ukrainian Statehood
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , May 2019 , pp. 341 - 354
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Bachyns’kyi, Iuliian. 1928. Bolshevyts’ka revoliutsiia i Ukraïntsi. Krytychni zamitky. Berlin.Google Scholar
Behei, Ihor. Iuliian Bachyns’kyi: sotsiial-demokrat i derzhavnik. Kyiv: Оsnovni Tsinnosti.Google Scholar
Borshchak, Ilko. 1923. “Polski pliany suproty Ukraïny za Napoleona v svitli suchasnykh podiï.” Nova hromada (3–4): 45-50.Google Scholar
Bruski, Jan-Jacek. 2000. Petlurowcy. Centrum Państowe Ukraińskiej Respubliki Ludowej na wychodźstwie (1919–1924). Krakow: Aracana.Google Scholar
Gilley, Christopher. 2006a. “‘The “Change of Signposts” in the Ukrainian Emigration: Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi and the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 54 (3): 345–374.Google Scholar
Gilley, Christopher. 2006b. “Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s Mission to Moscow and Kharkov.” The Slavonic and East European Review 84 (3): 508–537.Google Scholar
Gilley, Christopher. 2009. The “Change of Signposts” in the Ukrainian Emigration . A Contribution to the History of Sovietophilism in the 1920s. Stuttgart: ibidem.Google Scholar
Gilley, Christopher. 2014. “The Ukrainian Anti-Bolshevik Risings of Spring and Summer 1919: Intellectual History in a Space of Violence.” Revolutionary Russia 27 (2): 109–131.Google Scholar
Gilley, Christopher. 2017 “Fighters for Ukrainian Independence? Imposture and Identity among Ukrainian Warlords, 1917–22.” Historical Research 90 (247): 172–190.Google Scholar
Hardeman, Hilda. 1994. Coming to Terms with the Soviet Regime. The “Changing Signposts” Movement among Russian Émigés in the Early 1920s. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Himka, John-Paul. 2013. “Interventions: Challenging the Myths of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian History.” The Convolutions of Historical Politics, edited by Alexei Miller and Maria Lipman, 211–238. Budapest and New York: CEU Press.Google Scholar
Himka, John-Paul. 2015. “Legislating Historical Truth: Ukraine’s Laws of 9 April 2015.” http://net.abimperio.net/node/3442/.Google Scholar
Horodyns’kyi, Ivan. 1924. “Pid znakom ‘radianshchyny’.” Nova hromada (2–4): 55–55.Google Scholar
Hrushevs’kyi, Mykhailo. 1920a. “Mizh Moskvoiu i Varshovoiu.” Boritesia-poborete! (2): 1–18.Google Scholar
Hrushevs’kyi, Mykhailo. 1920b. “Ukraïns’ka partiia sotsiialistiv-revoliutsioneriv ta iï zavdannia.” Boritesia-poborete! (1): 1–51.Google Scholar
Kasianov, Georgiy. 2015. “Ukraine between Revolution, Independence, and Foreign Dominance.” The Emergence of Ukraine. Self-Determination, Occupation, and War in Ukraine, 1917–1922, edited by Wolfram Dornik, 76–131. Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press.Google Scholar
Kharchenko, A. 1923a. “Do domu!.” Nova hromada (1): 16–22.Google Scholar
Kharchenko, A. 1923b. “Ukraïns’ka vyzvol’na problema.” Nova hromada (3–4): 42–44.Google Scholar
Kharchenko, A. 1924. “Lysty do emihrantiv.” Nova hromada (2–4): 22–31.Google Scholar
Krushelnyts’kyi, Antin. 1923. “Shkil’ne pytannia na Ukraïni.” Nova hromada (1): 54–75.Google Scholar
Krushelnyts’kyi, Antin. 1930a. “Dva natsionalizmy.” Novi Shliakhy (7–8): 208–222.Google Scholar
Krushelnyts’kyi, Antin. 1930b. “Trahediia pomylok.” Novi shliakhy (4): 257–298.Google Scholar
Levyns’kyi, Volodymyr. 1920a. Iedyna nedilyma Sovits’ka Rosiia?, Kyiv and Vienna: Nova Doba.Google Scholar
Levyns’kyi., Volodymyr. 1920b. Sotsiialistychna revoliutsiia i Ukraïna. Kyiv and Vienna: Nova Doba.Google Scholar
Lozyns’kyi, Mykhailo. 1927. Uvahy pro Ukraïns’ku derzhavnist. Vienna: Iednist’.Google Scholar
Mace, James E. 1983. Communism and the Dilemmas of National Liberation. National Communism in Soviet Ukraine 1918–1933. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.Google Scholar
Marples, David. 2007. Heroes and Villains. Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine. Budapest and New York: CEU Press.Google Scholar
Melnyts’kyi, M. 1923. “Kudy ity?” Nova hromada (1): 33–40.Google Scholar
Palamar, Hryhorii. 1920. “Svitova reaktsiia i sotsiialistychna revoliutsiia.” Nova doba (2): 1–2.Google Scholar
Plokhy, Serhii. 2005. Unmaking Imperial Russia. Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the Writing of Ukrainian History. Toronto et al: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Pruts’kyi, A. 1924. “Smienovekhovshchyna.” Nova hromada (5–6): 1–13.Google Scholar
Rublov, O. S. 1997. “Shliakhamy na Solovky: radianske desiatyrichchia Mykhaila Lozynskoho. Ukraïns’kyi istorychnyi zhurnal (4): 103–135.Google Scholar
Rudling, Per Anders. 2011. The OUN, the UPA and the Holocaust: A Study in the Manufacturing of Historical Myths. Pittsburgh, PA: Carl Beck Papers.Google Scholar
Schnell, Felix. 2013. “Die erwartete Nation. Imperien, Bauern und Konjunkturen des Nationalen in der Ukraine (Zarenreich und Sowjetunion).” Journal of Modern European History 11 (3): 375–396.Google Scholar
Shkandrij, Myroslav. 1992. Modernists, Marxists and the Nation The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s. Edmonton, Canada: CIUS Press.Google Scholar
Shrah, Mykola. 1920. “Slova i dila sotsiialistiv v natsionalnii spravi.” Boritesia-poborete! (2): 18–50.Google Scholar
Sukhyi, Oleksii. 1995. Mykhailo Lozyns’kyi: vchenyi, hromads’kyi diiach, polityk, L’viv.Google Scholar
Velychenko, Stephen. 2015. Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red. The Ukrainian Marxist Critique of Russian Communist Rule in Ukraine 1918–1925. Torontо, Canada: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Vityk, Semen. 1923a. “Halychyna i velyka Ukraïna.” Nova hromada (2): 1–23.Google Scholar
Vityk, Semen. 1923b. “Ukraïna i svitoï podiï.” Nova hromada (1): 3–16.Google Scholar
Vityk, Semen. 1923c. “Zhovten.” Nova hromada (3–4): 1–9.Google Scholar
Vityk, Semen. 1924. “Svoïm chy chuzhim?” Nova hromada (2–4): 9–21.Google Scholar
Vynnychenko, Volodymyr. 1920. Ukraïns’ka derzhavnist. Kyiv and Vienna: Nova Doba.Google Scholar
Vynnychenko, Volodymyr. (1920) 1990. Vidrodzhennia natsiï. 3 vols. Kyiv and Vienna: Nova Doba.Google Scholar
Vysochans’kyi, Petro. 1923. “Suveren zakhidnikh ukraïns’kykh zemel’.” Nova hromada (1): 22–33.Google Scholar
Vysots’kyi, Oleksandr. 2004. Ukraïns’kyi sotsial-demokraty ta esery: dosvid peremoh i porazok. Kyiv: Osnovni tsinnosti.Google Scholar
Wehrhahn, Torsten. 2004. Die Westukrainische Volksrepublik. Zu den polnisch-ukrainischen Beziehungen und dem Problem der ukrainischen Staatlichkeit in den Jahren 1918 bis 1923. Berlin: Weißensee.Google Scholar
Westrate, Michael T. 2016. Living Soviet in Ukraine from Stalin to Maidan. Under the Falling Red Star in Kharkiv. Lanham: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Zakon Ukraïny Pro zasudzhennia komunistychnoho ta natsional-sotsialistychnoho (natsystskoho) totalitarnykh rezhimiv v Ukraïni ta zaboronu propahandy ikh symboliky. http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb2/webproc34?id=&pf3511=54670&pf35401=336722/.Google Scholar
Zakon Ukraïny Pro pravovyi status ta vshanuvannia pamiati bortsiv za nezalezhnist Ukrainy u XX stolittii. http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb2/webproc34?id=&pf3511=54689&pf35401=336904/.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

Tsentral’nyi Derzhavnyi Arkhiv Hromads’kykh Ob’iednan’, Kyiv [TsDAHO—Central State Archives of Public Organizations, Kyiv]. Fond 1, Opys 16. Protokoly zasidan’ Politbiuro, Orgbiuro i Sekretariatu TsK Kompartiï Ukraïny i materialy do nykh. “Okrema papka” [Minutes of the Sittings of the Politburo, Orgburo and Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and Material for Them. “Separate File”]. Fond 1, Opys 20. Dokumenty viddiliv TsK KP(b)U [Documents of Sections of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolshevik)]. Fond 8. Tsentraly’ni Komitet Ukraïns’koï Komunistychnoï Partiï (UKP) i ïï Huberns’ki Komitety [The Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party [UKP] and its Regional Committees].Google Scholar
Tsentral’nyi Derzhavnyi Arkhiv Vyshchykh Orhaniv, Kyiv [TsDAVO—Central State Archives of the Supreme Bodies of Power and Government, Kyiv]. Fond 4. Narodnyi komisariat zakordonnykh sprav USSR [People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic].Google Scholar