National Policy of Ukrainian Soviet State Formations at the Stage of Formation of the Bolshevik Regime (1917–1920)

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyze the state policy towards the national minorities of Ukraine of the Ukrainian Soviet state formations of the period of formation of the Soviet goverment in Ukraine. The author explores the peculiarities of the formation and change of the national policy of the Bolsheviks on the eve of the October coup of 1917 and during the functioning of the Ukrainian People’s Republic of Soviets (UPR Soviets) and the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (USSR). The research methodology is based on a combination of general scientific and special-historical methods of scientific research. Using the method of content analysis, the main Bolshevik legal acts of the period of establishment of the Bolshevik regime are analyzed, which reflect the basic principles and provisions of the national policy of the first Ukrainian Soviet state formations on the territory of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the work is that the author focused on the evolution and functioning of the national policy of the Bolsheviks in Ukraine depending on internal and external factors that were associated with the establishment of the Bolshevik regime of 1917 – 1920’s. Conclusions. We believe that the policy of the Ukrainian Soviet state formations during the period of establishment of the Bolshevik regime towards the national minorities of Ukraine was an indispensable component of the national policy of the Bolsheviks of the RSFSR. The flirtation with the national liberation movements of the former peoples of the Russian Empire through the «right to self-determination» and the «right to national and cultural life» weakened with the stages of Bolshevism in Ukraine, and disappeared altogether with the establishment of the Bolshevik regime. Belief in the rapid and «triumphant» future victory of communism at the initial stage of Soviet rule in Ukraine deprived the Ukrainian Bolsheviks of the opportunity to determine the basic principles and provisions of national and cultural policy toward Ukraine’s ethnic minorities. Preserving the «independent» status of Soviet Ukraine during the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR was nothing more than a tactical step in the process of «convergence» of national Soviet formations in the natural process of victory of communism.