Conclusions

The Ukrainian Revolution was possible, first of all, due to external factors: the collapse of the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian empires, which left a power vacuum for new political forces to fill.

Why did Ukrainians fail to achieve independence? There are several reasons:

1. Disunity. Ukrainian leaders paid more attention to the struggle for power than to fighting against Ukraine’s enemies.

2. Lack of cooperation and understanding between West and East Ukrainians. That brought them into the camps of their enemies. The Galician Army was an ally of the Whites and the Reds, who were Petliura’s major enemies. Petliura, in his turn, became an ally of Poland, the major enemy of West Ukrainians.

3. Most Ukrainians were indifferent to the idea of Ukrainian statehood. Their national consciousness was not sufficiently developed at that time to urge them to risk their lives for Ukrainian statehood. They were more interested in enriching themselves than in achieving independence or establishing order. That fact explains why anarchy dominated the countryside. Many historians note that in contrast to Russians our people do not want to be submitted to a single leader, they do not like tyranny but at the same time, it is very difficult for them to be united around some leader for achieving a common goal.

4. Lack of political experience. The leaders of the Central Rada and the Directory did not know how to organize an efficient economic and political structure. They sincerely believed in utopian socialist ideals (naïve romanticism).

5. Unfavorable external circumstances. Poles, Russians (the Whites and the Reds), and the victorious Entente were against Ukraine’s independence.

6. Inability to solve the land problem. The Ukrainian leaders in contrast to the Bolsheviks failed to provide the peasantry with land. That was the decisive factor explaining the failure of Ukrainian politicians to create independent Ukraine.

It should be noted that in contrast to East Ukrainians the unfavorable external circumstances (Poland and the Entente) played the main role in West Ukrainians’ failure to get independence. The Galician army was well-disciplined and strong. The population was nationally conscious and ready to sacrifice much for obtaining statehood. The bureaucratic apparatus worked efficiently. West Ukrainian leaders showed much more unity in solving important problems than their eastern counterparts. Many of them had political experience obtained under Austrian rule. The major problem was the relatively small number of West Ukrainians (3,5 mln.) compared with that of the Poles (18 mln.) who had considerable financial and military support from the Entente.

Despite numerous mistakes and its eventual fall, the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-20 played a great role in Ukrainian history. Ukrainian statehood and independence, a dream of many generations of Ukrainian patriots, became a historical fact. Thanks to it Bolshevik Moscow could not ignore the Ukrainian question. It allowed Ukrainians to have statehood (the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic), though limited and formal. That formal statehood, however, provided Ukrainians with judicial basis for getting independence in 1991.

One of the most important results of the Revolution and the Civil War in Ukraine was the growth of national consciousness among all groups of the society. Before this time it was limited to a part of the intelligentsia.

1 Symon Petliura, for example, called on Ukrainians to fulfill their duties of Russian citizens.

2 Parish is an area that has its own church and priest.

3 During WWI the German-sounding St. Petersburg was renamed in the Russian-sounding Petrograd.

4 ‘Universal’ is the historic name used by the Cossack hetmans for their decrees.

5 Jews were heavily over-represented in the Bolshevik party in relation to their number in the empire. Many of them took Russian surnames: Trotsky (Bronshtein), Zinoviev (Apfelbaum), Kamenev (Rozenfeld), etc. Lenin’s grandfather was also a Jew (Blank).

6 The meaning of “Land” was that the peasants (over 80% of the population) were to receive lands taken from landlords.

7 This event came down into history as the ‘October Revolution,’ since it happened in October according to the Julian calendar, which was official in Russia at the time (until 1918).

8 The republic with the same name was earlier proclaimed by the Central Rada.

9 Some historians accuse the Central Rada of sending the youth to a futile death.

10 The German head of staff General V. Grener said, “The Central Rada is not a government, but rather a mixture of dreamers and idealists-socialists, who possess neither respect nor power in Ukraine.”

11 He was disguised as a wounded German officer.

12 Bolsheviks expropriated the ‘extra’ food from peasants for the Red Army and cities.

13 That is why many people in the West considered Petliura to be a violent anti-Semite. Petliura was killed in emigration by a Jew as punishment for pogroms in Ukraine.

14 Since the Galician army lacked senior officers the government decided to hire Russian, German and Austrian officers to serve in the Galician army. Many responded.

15 Most of these lands were not under control of the ZOUNR. Only part of Galicia was under the control of the ZOUNR at the time.

16 The Allies (Entente) allowed Polish troops to occupy Ukrainian territories only till the Zbruch River, which served as a border between the former Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires.

17 Because of that famous inscription Makhno’s money is unique and thus very popular with collectors all around the world.

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