The destruction of the Kharkiv Borotbist organization, ban on the local party newspaper and arrest of its editor-in-chief made the performance of a temporary Borotbist-Bolshevik agreement impossible and poured much oil on the fire of armed struggle in Ukraine. On February 16, 1920, a revolutionary operations headquarters of an anti- Bolshevik uprising was set up in Hadiach, along with the Insurgent Committee of Left Bank Ukraine which announced liquidation of the Bolshevik revkoms [revolutionary committees] and mobilization of the people. The newly formed Ukrainian military units were placed under the command of Koval. The rebellion spread over Poltava oblast at a lightning speed, spurred by Bolshevik falsifications at local conventions of Soviets, barring Borotbists access to executive committees during elections, and canceling election turnouts if the Borotbists won.
Below are two documents from the Ukr. SSR NKVD archives.
A telegraphic message to the Cheka from Comrade Musiyenko, head of the Hadiach provincial department:
ALL QUIET IN HADIACH AND PROVINCE STOP FEBRUARY 16 NIGHT MILITARY COMMITTEE GUARD COMPANY REBELLED STOP HEADQUARTERS OF THREE PERSONS FORMED NAMELY BOROTBIST KOVAL WHO QUIT PARTY DAY BEFORE COMPANY REBELLION COMMA ANARCHIST BUKHOVETSVSKY AND DMYTRENKO COMMA ONE OF BOROTBIST SUPPORTERS STOP NEWLY ORGANIZED HEADQUARTERS ARRESTED REVKOM MEMBER MUSIYENKO COMMA MILITIA CHIEF SEREDA AND MILITARY COMMISSAR ASSISTANT DOMASHENKO BECAUSE THEY COULD OFFER RESISTANCE STOP... REVKOM PROPOSED HEADQUARTERS LAY DOWN ARMS IMMEDIATELY BUT THEY REFUSED STOP IT TRANSPIRED THAT BUKHOVETSKY IS ANARCHIST STOP HE AND COMPANY WANTED FREE SOVIETS AND HEADQUARTERS ISSUED DIRECTIVE TO THAT EFFECT STOP REVKOM IN TURN ISSUED DIRECTIVE THAT HEADQUARTERS DIRECTIVES ARE NOT TO BE CARRIED OUT COMMA ALL SOVIET OFFICIALS WERE TO REMAIN IN OFFICE AND CONTINUE ROUTINE WORK STOP TO WIN PUBLIC CONFIDENCE BUKHOVETSKY HEADQUARTERS INVITED REVKOM AND PARTY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN COMRADE KYRYCHENKO COMMA BOROTBIST PARTY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN BATSULA COMMA EXPECTING THUS BOLSHEVIK AND BOROTBIST SUPPORT COMMA REPLY RECEIVED WAS RESOLUTE NO STOP NON-PARTY CONFERENCE SCHEDULED FOR FEBRUARY COMMA 23 ELECTIONS ALREADY HELD SO THEY TOOK ADVANTAGE OF SITUATION STOP HEADQUARTERS STEPPED UP CONFERENCE PREPARATIONS AND SUGGESTED CONVOCATION DATE FEBRUARY 18 STOP ON RECEIVING NEWS LITHUANIAN DETACHMENT SENT FROM ZINKIV FEBRUARY 17 NIGHT TO HELP HADIACH REVKOM STOP... REVKOM PRESENTLY ANNOUNCED MARTIAL LAW IN HADIACH AND PROVINCE
The local revkom carried out a formal investigation, accusing the Borotbists of organizing the rebellion. May 5, a telegram was sent to the Cheka:
HADIACH STOP MILITIA CHIEF SEREDA ARRESTED KOVAL COMMA CHAIRMAN AND BOROTBIST PARTY COMMITTEE MEMBERS BATSULA COMMA TIUTIUNNYK AND KOTSURA ON CHARGES OF COUNTERREVOLUTION AND COMPLICITY IN HADIACH REBELLION STOP INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE AVAILABLE STOP ARREST CAUSED NO PROTEST FROM CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
According to Moscow secret police archives, the Ukrainian underground government was exposed in 1920. The underground movement was centered in Poltava where a Ukrainian liberation committee was formed in May, headed by Prof. Pryima. The committee included a political commission presided over by former UNR army officers Balyk and Loiko, and cooperative activist Vashchyn. The commission was made up of an administrative-organizational department (headed by Ninkovsky, deputy chairman of the committee, official of the guberniya educational division), military department (Yurchenko, commandant of the theaters), and finance department (Balyk). The nezalezhnyks [soon to become the Ukapists] delegated Denysenko and Levchenko to the committee; Chubukov-Doroshenko was delegated by the Socialist Revolutionaries. After Pryima joined Petliura, the committee started referring to itself as an underground government, being in command of the Poltava guberniya insurgent council presided over by Sopar-Nelhovsky.
The following excerpt is from a report of the Central Cheka Directorate, dating from 1920: “The insurgent committee of Poltava was formed by Mykhailo Havryk from Galicia. Originally, the organization included Petliura officers Voinov, Borodai, et al. The committee maintained contact with Tiutiunnyk through its member by the name of Kovanko. After the organization was exposed, its leadership, particularly Prof. Pryima (chairman of the so-called Ukrainian Liberation Committee), were arrested. Havrylko made an attempt to receive a pardon... In Lokhvytsia district, the insurgent committee members were Prykhodko, a college student, member of the UKP Party; Semen Kalenychenko and Kozukho (a.k.a. Sirko)... Skliar, alias Vesniansky or Bohmeta, was chairman of the committee of the insurgent organization in Kryvy Rih; Vlasenko was secretary, and the membership included Mykhaylychenko (alias Burlak), Vlasenko, and Fedir Tkachenko (alias Korshun). The local military headquarters was stationed at the village of Hurovtsi. Counterintelligence units were also deployed there.”
The all-Ukraine uprising was coordinated with the joint Petliura- Pilsudski campaign. May 14, 1920, Feliks Dzerzhinsky reported the situation in Moscow: “In view of the Polish advance, all of Ukraine turned into a boiling cauldron. Outbursts of rebellion everywhere. Ukraine is not cleared of the Petliurists.” Rakovsky’s well-known manifesto, supported by the Bolshevik Soviets, read: “The Polish landlords, acting hand in glove with Petliura, have organized a vast espionage-provocateur network in Ukraine and its task is not only collecting intelligence about our military units, but also ruining our mechanism of supplies, preparing bandit-kulak and various other counterrevolutionary actions in our army’s rear.” A number of Bolshevik conferences were then held, condemning the alleged bourgeois nationalists led by Petliura (actually, kind of hard considering that the Ukrainians at the time had practically no bourgeoisie — Ed.). An extraordinary board meeting of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the Ukrainian SSR on May 28, 1920 passed a resolution reading, “The Commissariat board... bearing in mind the specific political conditions in Ukraine, the activities of the counterrevolutionary forces remaining to be crushed, being accompanied by mass kulak uprisings, and also bearing in mind the treacherous attack of the Polish landlardsiura as its mercenary on the Ukrainian working people, has unanimously resolved: The capital punishment shall be applied in Ukraine as before, with regard to the enemies of Soviet power...”
The All-Ukraine Revolutionary Committee condemned and outlawed Hryhoriyiv, Petliura, and Makhno as directly involved in the Polish intrigue. A UNR military counterintelligence report of February 26, 1920 is a graphic illustration of the scope of armed struggle for Ukraine: “...(3) The [railroad] station and the town of Fastiv were raided February 25... (4) Thirteen commissars, ten Cheka men, and the 12,000-strong garrison dispersed when the insurgents seized Poltava. All military property was taken away from Poltava. (5) February 20, Otaman [warlord] Tiutiunnyk seized Uman... (6) Otaman Shepel seized Vinnytsia on February 23; hostilities lasted four days.”
Despite frequent Bolshevik reports of the Ukrainian underground resistance movement being destroyed, the rebellion spread further across Ukraine. March 2, 1920, NKVD informed of a “Petliurist conspiracy” exposed in Poltava and that the headquarters keeping liaison with Katerynoslav and Kharkiv was raided and the staff arrested. The Katerynoslav guberniya Cheka, led by Alpov, meticulously investigated the reasons and progress of the “Petliurist rebellion” in the guberniya. A special report was composed by Leoniuk, deputy chairman of the guberniya revkom: “A conspiracy was exposed in the city of Katerynoslav, aimed at seizing the city and murdering guberniya revkom, Cheka, and other officials. The conspiracy was masterminded by Hutkin-Hrabsky... It later transpired that he had engineered the looting of the Kamyanka finance department. The whole affair most actively involved Meleshko, a noted Petliurist who had organized the Petliurist uprising in the guberniya.” Leoniuk linked this to the “Borotbist conspiracy in Kryvy Rih district, purporting to annihilate local Communist officials and led by Sydenko.” The conspirators, led by Petliurist kulak Kovtun planned to seize Novomoskovsk; in Katerynoslav district, paramedic Levin decided to organize military self- defense. Leoniuk stresses that “banditry is mounting in the guberniya, on a scope that cannot be quantified.”
Insurgent units adhered to Petliura’s and less frequently to Makhno’s ideology. The largest Petliurist formation, led by Klepach, numbered 10,000 men and three armored cars with machine-guns. The NKVD information department reported Borotbists brainwashing Galician units stationed in Odesa. Petliura had contact with Romashka’s detachments in Chernihiv region. Insurgents held counsel in Zinkiv, attended by Makhno. In Odesa, Husak-Husachenko and Heorhy Tiutiunnyk were trying to recruit Red Army units for the UNR army. In fact, Bolshevik reports were alarming at the time: “Banditry is taking on the form of a mass armed movement. Usually such gangs attack at night. There are cases of food-requisition team members being captured and subjected to inhuman torture. Local counterrevolutionary elements are springing to activity, conducting anti-Soviet propaganda.” (From a Poltava-Cheka report of July 1920.) “Several gangs are still active in the Novomoskovsk, Kryvy Rih, and Verkhnio-Dniprovsk districts. Banditry has a Petliurist coloration everywhere. Petliurism is linked to Makhno; both movements are working hand in glove. Makhno’s gangs are packed with Borotbists, among them Matiash and Olelko, former members of Katerynoslav guberniya Borotbist Party committee. Brigandage is spreading in Cherkasy district. Dnipro navigation to Kyiv has stopped. The bandits advanced on Cherkasy in October... A gang is operating in the south of Kozelets district... The situation is serious, there are no forces to combat banditry. The bandits’ motto reads: ‘Power is Ukrainian Unity.’” (From NKVD information- instruction department reports from August 18 and an October 20, 1920 report of the Kharkiv military district headquarters.) “Captured letters of Levchenko’s gang show that that the whole organization is a military unit by nature. Levchenko is linked to Petliura. The gang is called a strike force and regiment. The gang’s otaman had a military headquarters, logistical department, hospital, and a propaganda department. The headquarters issued orders... Some of the captured letters are from Makhno’s people. From them it follows that Levchenko has secret agents in the countryside.” (From the South Front Headquarters report, Poltava region, December 1, 1920). “Combating brigandage, using military, particularly infantry units, does not produce the desired effect... Gangs, when pursued by military units, can always vanish, because they are extremely mobile and not burdened with heavy equipment; they can quickly pack and set off, disappearing in whichever direction” (from a December 5, 1921 report of the Poltava guberniya military council).
On March 20, 1920, recommended by the Comintern, an UKP (borotbist) conference announced the dissolution of the party. Due to its “wrong national orientation,” of the RKP(bolshevik) it dissolved the KP(b)U Central Committee on April 5, 1920. The national Communist struggle had a strong effect on KP(b)U origins. While in February 1919 Khristian Rakovsky, head of the Bolshevik government, responded to question from the audience of the first Kyiv Council meeting, saying that translating documents into Ukrainian “is damaging to the Ukrainian revolution,” in the mid- 1920s the KP(b)U recognized the Ukr. SSR as an independent state with the right to accede to or secede from the USSR. The UKP leaders were idealists. With the first declarations of the Ukr. SSR’s independence in the constitution, they announced “self-liquidation December 24, 1924 (under order from the Comintern — Ed.). Ditto the Ukrainian Social Democrats, heretofore operating deep underground. Most UKP members were re-registered and they would be among the first to implement Skrypnyk’s “Ukrainization” policy, for they sincerely believed the process irreversible.
The change in the KP(b)U course on nationality policy in Ukraine caused a discussion in society; people wanted to know whether the Ukr. SSR was actually an independent polity and how different it was, say, from France or other countries. Andriy Richytsky [former Ukapist leader — Ed.] was convinced that the KP(b)U Ukrainization policy was aimed against Ukrainian chauvinism. And so from the Russification of the proletariat “logically follows the orientation toward the bourgeois intelligentsia.” At the time no one could predict that several years later the Ukrainian beau monde of Kharkiv would be uprooted by the new Kremlin dictator. But it is a different topic rating a separate story. We will talk about the opposition’s participation in Kharkiv’s public and literary life some other time.
(Continued from last issue)
