Military and Political Expansion of Bolshevik Russia into the Western Lands of Ukraine in 1919–1923

Abstract

The purpose of the study – to investigate the peculiarities of the foreign policy of Bolshevik Russia towards the western lands of Ukraine after the World War I, primarily in the period of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic and then (November 1918 – March 1923).

In the course of work are used general scientific and special historical methods of research: causal, historical-comparative, historical-topological, historical-genetic, system analysis, etc.

The scientific novelty is the revelation of the Kremlin’s plans to instil in Halychyna separatist sentiments to the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, to the conciliar Ukrainian People’s Republic, which were to be realized through the proclamation of the puppet Halychyna Socialist Soviet Republic (HSRR; August – September 1920).

The main results of the study. Emphasis is placed on the creation of the Central Provisional Authority of the HSSR – Halychyna Revolutionary Committee headed by V.Zatonskyi and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Eastern Halychyna, which were agreed with the chairman of the Russian Council of People’s Commissars V.Lenin, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Communist Central Committee (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine. It is claimed that the new central and local authorities were formed with the participation and support of brigade and regimental commanders, political commissars of the South-Western Front, one of whose commanders was J.Stalin. Local Revolutionary Committees held subbotniks and voskresniks, organized the expropriation of grain from landowners, money and valuables from wealthy Poles and Jews, and tried to reorganize educational institutions on the Bolshevik model; pressure was exerted on church communities and clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The authorities tried to involve impoverished peasants and burghers, left-wing citizens, representatives of Moscow structures, and recent soldiers of the Red Ukrainian Halychyna Army who were returning to their native homes in the summer of 1920. Conclusions. The “liberation campaign” of the Red Army in Eastern Halychyna, and then in Central and Eastern Europe, was stopped by the armed resistance of the united Polish-Ukrainian army near Lviv and Zamość, on the banks of the Dnister. After the retreat of the Red Army behind Zbruch in September 1920, the Soviet People’s Commissar of Bolshevik Russia, the Central Committee of the RCP(B), and the Central Committee of the CP(B)U tried to instil Bolshevik ideas with the help of Zakordot structures, cells of the Communist Party of Eastern Halychyna, by discrediting the figures of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic, converting to Soviet ideology Ye.Petrushevych.