Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

UKRAINIAN SOVIET ARMY. This Red force came into existence according to a decree of the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of Ukraine of 30 November 1918. It was formed from the 1st and 2nd Insurgent Divisions operating on Ukrainian territory, as well as several other smaller formations, both regular and irregular. On 27 December 1918, a special collegium (chaired by F. A. Artem) was formed within the military section of the Ukrainian government to oversee the creation of the army. By the end of 1918, the army numbered more than 20,000 men and was engaged in capturing towns across northern and eastern Ukraine from forces of the Austro-German intervention and the Ukrainian Army. It took Khar′kov on 3 January 1918, and the following day was included among the forces of the Red Army’s Ukrainian Front.

The commander of the Ukrainian Soviet Army was V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko (from 30 November 1918). Its chief of staff was V. Kh. Aussem.

UKRAINIAN SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC. The first attempts to establish a Soviet regime in Ukraine occurred soon after the October Revolution, when Bolsheviks at Kiev attempted a coup on 29 November 1917. However, they were defeated and disarmed by forces loyal to the Ukrainian Central Rada and were obliged to retire to Khar′kov, which had just been occupied by Red forces under V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, and where the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets (11–12 December 1917) was summoned. It pronounced the founding of the Ukrainian People’s Republic of Soviets and formed a government (the People’s Secretariat) that had an exclusively Bolshevik complexion. In late January 1918, in the opening stage of the Soviet–Ukrainian War, Red forces commanded by M. A. Murav′ev drove the Rada from Kiev, but they in turn were driven out of Ukraine in February–March 1918, in the wake of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (27 February 1918), by Austro-German forces and units of the Ukrainian Army.

Soviet forces reentered Ukraine in November 1918, as the Central Powers withdrew and the collapse of the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii became imminent. This time a Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government (renamed the Council of People’s Commissars on 10 March 1919) was established at Sudzha and proclaimed the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, but in the course of 1919, Soviet forces were again driven from Ukraine by the advance of the White Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR), which captured Kiev on 31 August that year. When the AFSR collapsed, Kiev was again captured by Soviet forces (on 16–17 December 1919), but they were obliged to withdraw from the Ukrainian capital once more, on 6–8 May 1920, with the arrival of Polish and Ukrainian forces at the beginning of the active stage of the Soviet–Polish War. Moscow’s hold over Ukraine—but not Eastern Galicia (Western Ukraine), which went to Poland—was, however, confirmed by the Treaty of Riga (18 March 1921) that brought an end to that war and offered Polish recognition of the Ukrainian SSR (thereby dooming the cause of Ukrainian nationalists).

Following the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR became a constituent part of the Soviet Union in 1923. Its capital was initially sited at Khar′kov, until 1934, when that function was transferred to Kiev (which had by then been purged of most traces of the nationalist cause). The state ceased to exist on 1 December 1991, following Ukraine’s independence.

UKRAINIAN–SOVIET WAR.See SOVIET–UKRAINIAN WAR.