Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

UKRAINIAN PARTY OF SOCIALISTS-FEDERALISTS. Originally called the Ukrainian Party of Autonomist-Federalists, this political party was formed at Kiev in April 1917, by former members of the liberal-democratically inclined Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party and the Society of Ukrainian Progressives. Among its members were a number of experienced and respected political activists who were to play a leading role in the Ukrainian Central Rada and the governments of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), although a minority of its members served in the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii. The party was active in the formation of the Ukrainian National Republic Directory in November 1918, and from May–October 1920 one of its leaders, V. K. Prokopovych, chaired the Council of People’s Ministers of the Ukrainian National Republic. With the collapse of the republic, the party became centered in Prague, where it cooperated with the government-in-exile of the UNR.

Ukrainian party of socialists-revolutionaries. This political party was formed at Kiev, on 4–5 April 1917, by the merger of a number of groups of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries that had been active in Ukraine since the beginning of the century. Mykhailo Hrushevsky worked closely with the party, but was not formally a member. Key elements of the program of the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries (UPSR) were the advocacy of cultural and political autonomy for Ukraine and the socialization of the land (without compensation to private landowners). Utilizing the revived Peasant Union to boost its organization, and reaching out to the masses through its publications Narodna volia (“The People’s Will”) and Borot′ba (“The Struggle”), the party became the chief representative of peasant interests in Ukraine during the revolutionary period and boasted more than 75,000 members.

In 1917–1918, the UPSR held a majority of the seats in the Ukrainian Central Rada and controlled numerous secretariats (ministries) in the government of Volodymyr Vynnychenko. However, following the coup of 29 April 1918 that led to the establishment of the Ukrainian State of P. P. Skoropadskii, the party split at its clandestine fourth congress (13–16 May 1918): the right wing advocated legal opposition to the Hetmanate, while the left advocated armed resistance in collaboration with the Bolsheviks. The Leftists won, and after the overthrow of Skoropadskii, formally reconstituted themselves as the Ukrainian Party of Socialist-Revolutionary Borotbists (Communists), while the Right assumed the old party name in April 1919. The Borotbists subsequently merged with the Moscow-controlled Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, while the new UPSR provided numerous members of the governments of the Ukrainian National Republic.

In emigration (chiefly in Prague, Vienna, and Paris), the UPSR underwent numerous further divisions during the 1920s and ceased to exist as a unitary organization. Most members remained in opposition to the Soviet government (e.g., the Prague group of N. Iu. Shapoval and the Vienna group of N. Zalizniak and N. Kovalevskii), but in 1924 a section of the party headed by Hrushevsky returned to the Soviet Union, where they and other remnants of the party would fall victim to the Terror of the 1930s. For example, members of the UPSR Central Committee featured in the trial of the “Ukrainian National Center” in February 1931, and many other arrests, exiles, and executions were to follow.

Ukrainian Party of Socialists-RevolutionarIES (Borotbists).See BOROTBISTS.