¹ Ukraine is the second largest of the Soviet republics with a present population of approximately 50 millions of which about 42 millions are Ukranians. After World War I, the country was divided between the Soviet Union, Poland, Rumania and Czechoslovakia. As a result of World War II, all Ukrainian territories came under the rule of the Kremlin, and were made parts of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, which is a member of the United Nations.

² For the detailed story see Vernadsky, G., Bohdan, Hetman of Ukraine (New Haven, 1941).Google Scholar

³ Mazaryk, T. G., The Spirit of Russia (New York, 1919), p. 304.Google Scholar

⁴ Doroshensko, D., History of the Ukraine (Edmonton, 1939), p. 591.Google Scholar

⁵ The major non-Russian nationalities in the former Russian empire such as the Ukrainians, Byelo-Russians, Georgians, Azerbaijans, Armenians, Kasakhs, etc. have a long history of struggle aaginst Russian imperialism and oppression. However, former historians and Tsarist representatives abroad refer to them as Russians, despite the difference of culture and languages. This oversimplification of the real facts caused much confusion in the Western world in the past. Even today many responsible individuals refer to the Soviet Union simply as Russia.

⁶ Hrushevsky, M., The History of Ukraine (New Haven, 1945), p. 526.Google Scholar

⁷ The Seventh (April) Conference of the All-Russian Social-Democratic Labor (Bolshevik) Party, held on May 7–12, 1917 adopted a resolution on the National Question in which the policy toward non-Russian peoples was formulated. Among other points, the resolution stressed: “The right of all nations forming part of Russia to freely secede and form independent states shall be recognized. To negate this right or to fail to take measures guaranteeing its practical realization, is equivalent to supporting a policy of seizure and annexation.…”

⁸ Stalin, J. V., “Counter-revolution and the People of Russia,” Sotchineniya, Vol. 3 (Moscow, 1946), p. 207.Google Scholar

⁹ The American Ambassador in Russia, Francis, informed the Secretary of State on July 16, 1918: “… Cause (of the resignation of the Cadet Ministers) attributed is that Minister of War, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Posts and Telegraphs who returned yesterday from Ukraine had granted that province concessions with which Cadet party unable to agree.…” Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Russia 1918, Vol. II (Washington, 1932), p. 646.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Professor Masaryk, former President of the Czechoslovakian Republic and a well known authority on Russia, comments on the easy Bolshevik victory: “The way for Lenin's regime had been prepared by the Provisional Government and by Kerensky, both of whom showed administrative incapacity and entrusted wide spheres of action to bad and incompetent men.… Lenin was a logical consequence of Russian illogicality.” The Making of a State, Memories and Observances, 1914–1918 (London, 1927), p. 176.Google Scholar

¹¹ On December 12, 1917, the Secretary of State for International Affairs, of the Ukraine, Shulgin, despatched notes to the Allied powers informing them about the desire of the Ukrainian Government to enter into friendly relations with the free States as an independent power. Foreign Relations of the United States, Russia, Vol. II, op. cit., p. 650.Google Scholar

¹² In his report “On National Factors in Party and State Development” Stalin stated: “Do not forget such reserves as those constituted by the oppressed peoples, who remain silent, but whose very silence exerts pressure and decides much. This is often not felt, but these peoples live, they exist, and they must not be forgotten. Yes, Comrades, it is dangerous to forget them. Do not forget that if in the; rear of Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel and Yudenich we had not had the so-called ‘aliens,’ the oppressed people who disorganized the rear of these generals by their tacit sympathy for the Russian proletarians—comrades, this is a specific factor in our development, this tacit sympathy, which nobody hears or sees, but which decides everything—if it were not for this sympathy, we would not have nailed a single one of these generals. While we were advancing on them, cheir rear was disintegrating. Why? Because these generals depended on the colonizing elements among the Cossacks, they held out to the oppressed peoples the prospect of further oppression, and the oppressed people were therefore forced into our arms while we held aloft the banner of the liberation of these oppressed peoples. That is what decided the fate of these generals; those are the factors which, although thy are obscured by the victories of our armies, in the long run decided everything. This must not be forgotten.” XII. Siezd Rossijskoji Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B), Stenograpcheskij otchet, April 17–25, 1923 (Glavpolitprosvet, Moscow, 1923), p. 455.Google Scholar

¹³ Both the Soviet ultimatum as well as the answer of the Ukrainian Government is cited in Bunyan, James and Fisher, H. H., The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1918 (New York), pp. 437–438.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Stalin's article, “What is Ukrainian Rada?” Pravda, 12 29 (15 old style), 1917.Google Scholar

¹⁵ At the time when Bolshevik forces terrorized and looted the people of the Ukraine, Stalin wrote: “The people of Russia should know, that the idea of invasion of a foreign territory is strange to the Russian revolution. All people should know, that in contrast to the imperialist policy of national oppression, the Soviet government practices the policy of total liberation.” Pravda, 12 31 (old style), 1917Google Scholar. Cf. Stalin, J. V., Sotchineniya, Vol. IV (Moscow, 1947), p. 25.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Foreign Relations of the United States, Russia, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 655–657.Google Scholar

¹⁷ The full text of the Fourth Universal is cited in Bunyan, James and Fisher, H. H., op. cit., p. 444.Google Scholar

¹⁸ For a detailed story on the Brest-Litovsk Peace, see Wiheeler, John W., Brest-Litovsk, The Forgotten Peace (New York, 1939).Google Scholar

¹⁹ For an official report on the Ukrainian-German conflicts as read by German Deputy Scheidemann in the Reichstag Committee in Berlin, see Foreign Relations of the United States, Russia, Vol. II, op. cit., p. 684.Google Scholar

²⁰ Winston S. Churchill attached great importance to this alliance as is obvious from his book, The Aftermath (New York, 1929), pp. 277–278.Google Scholar

²¹ Stalin's preface to his “Sbornik statei,” 1920. Cf. Sotchineniya, Vol. IV (Moscow, 1947), p. 372.Google Scholar

²² Zatonsky further declared: “At present, Russianism received even more rights and began to flourish with a new strength. It exists everywhere and especially among the masses of our Party members; it exists not only in the border regions such as Turkestan among the Russian colonizing elements, who were forced to accept Communism, but it exists here in Moscow in our Central administration.… We have to erase from the minds of our comrades the image of the Soviet Federation as a Russian one, since the question is not whether it is a Russian but whether it is a Soviet Federation. When for example, Rumania or Germany or any other country becomes a member of the Soviet Federation will it also be called ‘Russian?’ Of course not! …” X. Siezd Rossijskoji Communisticheskoji Partipi (B), March 8–16, 1921, Stenograficheskij otchet (Moscow, 1921), p. 110.

²³ Ibid., pp. 114–115.

²⁴ “The Immediate Tasks of the Party in Connection with the National Problem” Resolution adopted by the Tenth Congress.

²⁵ XI. Sjezd Rossijskoji Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B) March 27-April 1922, Stenograficheskij otchet (Partizdat, Moscow), p. 31.

²⁶ The Russian Communist Party was in a position to adopt any resolution, since the great majority of the Party members were Russians. At the eleventh Congress, for example, when the question of amalgamation of the republics was raised and the resolution for strict centralization approved, the delegates consisted of 341 Russians, 77 Jews, 10 Tartars, 12 Armenians, 9 Georgians, 19 Latvians, 8 Kirghizs and 46 others.

²⁷ XII. Sjezd Rossijskoji Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B), op. cit., p. 441.Google Scholar

²⁸ “… Smenovechovzy—former members of the White Army who now recognized the victory of the Red Army as a national victory, the deliverance of Russia from western Europe, and the birth of a new Russian empire of Asiatic orientation … (p. 137) The name ‘Smenovechovzy’ has been coined after a collection of essays entitled ‘SmenaVech,’ ‘the change of signposts’ (Prague, 1931). A collection of essays published in 1909, called ‘Vechi’ advocated a change of policy by the Russian intelligentsia. In the ‘Smena Vech’ the change was to take the form of recognizing Bolshevism as a national government.” (pp. 386–387) Gurian, W., Bolshevism: Theory and Practice (New York, 1932).Google Scholar

²⁹ XII. Sjezd Rossijskoji Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B), op. cit., p. 442.Google Scholar

³⁰ Ibid., p. 522.

³¹ Ibid., pp. 528–534.

³² Cf. Stalin, J. V., Sotchineniya, Vol. V (Moscow, 1947), p. 265.Google Scholar

³³ At the twelfth Congress the delegates were composed as follows: 60.8% Russians, 11.3% Jews, 7.1% Latvians and Estonians, 4.7% Ukrainians, 2.7% Georgians, 2.4% Armenians, 1.2% Byelo-Russians, 1.7% Kirghizs, 1% Tartars, 7.1% others.

³⁴ For the story of Stalin's seizure of power see: XIV. Sjezd Wsesojuznoji Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B), December 18–31, 1925, Stenograficheskij otchet (Partizdat, Moscow, 1926), pp. 207–298.Google Scholar

³⁵ J. V. Stalin's letter “To Comrade Kaganovich and other members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (B) of Ukraine,” dated April 26, 1926, first published in a complete form in Sotchineniya, Vol. VIII (Moscow, 1948), pp. 149–154.Google Scholar

³⁶ Cf. Sciborsky, Mykola, Ukraine and Russia (New York, 1940), p. 43.Google Scholar

³⁷ XVI. Sjezd Wsesojuznoji Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B), June 26-July 13, 1930, Stenograficheski otchet, Partizdat (Moscow, 1930), p. 108.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid., p. 109.

³⁹ Ibid., p. 243.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 243.

⁴¹ Sciborsky, , Ukraine and Russia, op. cit., p. 51.Google Scholar

⁴² XVII. Sjezd Wsesojuznoji Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B), January 26-February 10, 1934, Stenograficheskij otchet (Partizdat, Moscow, 1934), p. 30.Google Scholar

⁴³ Stalin's report, ibid., p. 32.

⁴⁴ Describing the tactics of the Ukrainian opposition, Postishev concluded: “The Ukrainian nationalists have an interesting system of distributing their units. Take for example the People's Commissariat of Education. Its director was Yavorsky; Yavorsky went, then came Ozersky; Ozersky went, then came Konyk; all of them proved to be members of the Ukrainian Military Organization, and its leaders at that. Or take the case of the one wirh the power of attorney in the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. There you had Maximovich; Maximovich went, then came Petrenko; Petrenko went, then came Tur—again all members of the UWO (Ukrainian Military Organization), even of its directing clique. It was the same in all the places which they controlled. They maintained the principle of always substituting their own people. Once they got control of a responsible department, they would not let it out of their hands.” Postishev's report, ibid., p. 70.

⁴⁵ Pravda, 07 25, 1937.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ XVIII. Sjezd Wsesojuznoji Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B), March 10–21, 1939, Stenograficheskij otchet (Partizdat, Moscow, 1939), p. 169.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 173.

⁴⁸ The real meaning of the Soviet promises, alliances and retreats was dearly explained by Stalin in his article on “Strategy and Tactics,” 1924. He wrote: “The revolutionary will accept a reform in order to use it as a means wherewith to link legal work with illegal work, in order to use it as a screen behind which his illegal activities in the revolutionary preparation of the masses for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie may be intensified. This is what the revolutionary utilization of reforms and agreements in an imperialist environment means.” Stalin, J. V., Sotchineniya, Vol. VI (Moscow, 1947), p. 166.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ According to various information from behind the iron curtain, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) is still operating in small detachments especially in the Carpathian mountains.

⁵⁰ Department of State Bulletin, “Repatriation of U. S. and Soviet Citizens” (Washington, 1945), Vol. 14, p. 443.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Mosely, P. E., “Soviet Policy and Nationality Conflicts in East Central Europe,” The Soviet Union, a Symposium, Gurian, W., ed. (Notre Dame, 1951), p. 68.Google Scholar

⁵² Stalin's decision to return to the Tsarist policy of Russification should be considered as a severe blow to all non-Russian peoples of the Soviet Union, especially if one recalls his statement of what such promotion of Russian chauvinism would mean: “Every attempt to deviate toward great Russian chauvinism is an endeavor to ignore national differences of language, culture and mode of life; an endeavor to prepare the way for the liquidation of the national republics and regions; an endeavor to undermine the principle of national equality.” Stalin's report at the XVI. Sjezd Wsesojuznoii Communisticheskoji Partiyi (B), (June 26-July 13, 1930) cf. Sotchineniya, Vol. XII (Moscow, 1949), p. 362.Google Scholar

⁵³ Litvin, , “About the History of the Ukrainian People,” Bolshevik, No. 7 (Moscow, 1947), pp. 44–45.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ “Against Ideological Distortions in Literature,” Editorial, Pravda, 07 2, 1951, p. 2.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Sosyura's letter to the editors of Pravda, Pravda, 07 10, 1941, p. 4.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Pravda, 07 13, 1951.Google Scholar