Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

UKRAINIAN NATIONAL UNION. Founded at Kiev in July–August 1918, as the successor to the Ukrainian National-State Union following the departure from the latter of some center-right parties (including the Ukrainian Democratic Agrarian Party) and the adherence to it of some left-wing parties (including the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labor Party and the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries), this body served as a coordinating center for a number of Ukrainian political parties and professional organizations. Even more openly critical of the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii than its predecessor had been, the aim of the union was the reestablishment of the Ukrainian National Republic. Its first chairman was Andrii Nikovskii, who was succeeded by Volodymyr Vynnychenko on 18 September 1918. As his authority crumbled, on 5 October 1918 Skoropadskii agreed to the inclusion of five union ministers in the cabinet of Fedir Lyzohub. At the same time, however, the union was instrumental in the founding (at one of its meetings on 13–14 November 1918) of the Ukrainian National Republic Directory, which would stage a successful uprising against the Hetman soon afterward. Following the overthrow of the Skoropadskii regime, the union was headed by Nikita Shapoval (14 November 1918–January 1919).

UKRAINIAN PARTY OF INDEPENDENTS-SOCIALISTS. This small Ukrainian nationalist party was founded in December 1917, at Kiev, on the basis of several radical factions of the former Ukrainian People’s Party. It campaigned from its birth, largely through its weekly newspaper Samostiinyk (“The Independentist”), for an independent Ukrainian republic and drew its support from the Ukrainian military and intelligentsia. The chairman of the party was A. Makarenko.

In 1917–1918, although it advocated a social program based on the peasants’ ownership of the land and workers’ ownership of factories, the party was, in fact, antisocialist and therefore opposed the Ukrainian Central Rada and criticized its land-socialization policies and its liberal position with respect to the ethnic minorities, accusing it of “demagogy.” In 1918, the party spoke also against the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii, describing the latter as “a national traitor” for welcoming so many Russians into his government and army, and took the initiative in the creation of the Ukrainian National State Union in May of that year. With the collapse of the Hetmanate in December 1918, the party took five ministerial posts in the first cabinet created by the Ukrainian National Republic Directory. In the succeeding cabinet the party supplied the minister of war (A. Shapoval), the minister of marine (M. Bilinskii), the minister of state control (D. Simoniv), and the minister of religion (I. Lipa), but boycotted the later (socialist) ministry of Borys Martos, accusing it of “Bolshevism,” and supported the attempted coup against the directory by Ataman Volodymyr Oskilko in April 1919. The Party of Independents-Socialists was subsequently persecuted by the forces of Symon Petliura and lost most of its influence. By late 1919, the party’s complexion had changed, and it supported suggestions for a tactical alliance with the Whites to fight Bolshevism. Most of its leading members went into emigration in 1919–1920. Thereafter, the party was centered in Vienna (from 1922 under the name the Ukrainian People’s Party) but soon disintegrated.