February 16, 1919

Yesterday the Colonel demanded a resume of the present situation, and I have submitted it today with, however, the express reservation that I am not prepared to vouch for any of the alleged facts.

When the fall of Russia became apparent in April, 1917, delegates representing nearly two million Ukrainian front-line soldiers got together and formed an association to cope with the situation and shape their future. At about the same time a sort of parliament, or Rada, was formed in Kiev, and while there was little harmony in their deliberations, a provisional government was constituted. A few days later a certain Petliura demanded of the then shaky government in St. Petersburg the right to constitute a national army and began to enroll Ukrainian regiments. On the eighteenth of June following, the Rada, or parliament, issued its first Universal, or manifesto, formulating the demands of the Ukrainian people in Russia and elsewhere. The principal demand was for the right of the people, without separation from Russia, to organize an autonomous government on its own territory and coupled with it was the announcement that the future form of government would be shaped by a national assembly shortly to be convened.

St. Petersburg, under the provisional government, rejected these demands, and the Ukrainians then announced that as Russia could not give them a stable government, they would do what they could unaided. This brought Kerensky and Tseretelli post-haste to Kiev and after long debates they recognized the right of the Ukrainian groups to self-determination and self-government. As it soon developed, the groups that sat in this body were unfortunately far from harmonious. Some were Social Democrats and some were advocates of national independence, but at least they were united in their detestation of both their enemies, the Bolsheviki and the Tsarists.

Late in October (1917) the Rada called upon the Allies to aid the Ukraine. Russia was crumbling; Kerensky was on his way out; the Bolsheviki were getting the upper hand. Its members asked for an Allied force to aid the national army, to carry on the war against Germany, and to stem the Bolsheviki tide which was threatening to overwhelm all of southern Russia. On November 20 the Rada published its third Universal: it proclaimed the autonomy of the Peoples’ Republic of the Ukraine and gave the war ministry into the hands of Petliura while Vinnichenko remained in charge of foreign affairs. Many Allied officers now appeared in Kiev, but apparently they brought only advice and no munitions. The Allied officers demanded that the war against the Germans be pressed but offered no substantial assistance. Among the Ukrainian soldiers, Bolsheviki tendencies now became apparent. Many withdrew from the front and some spent their time in pillaging. In his desperate plight Vinnichenko asked the Allies, as military aid from them was not forthcoming, to arrange an armistice along the Ukraine front with the Germans to stop the invasion and so to give him a chance to organize his forces to cope with the Bolsheviki, and he demanded the recognition of his regime as the de facto government.

The only result of these negotiations was an unhappy split. Petliura and his group of young soldiers declared that they were ready to fight the Germans to the last. As the old army seemed unreliable, he began to recruit groups of Free Cossacks and peasants who were anxious to defend their little farms against both the Bolsheviki and the Germans. This action weakened the Vinnichenko de facto government, and the civil war between the factions got under way, which has unfortunately continued to the present day.