Polish (Polish Executive Committee) and Russian organisations (Labor People’s
Socialist Party), which had an influence in the relevant National Ministries, also
disagreed with Hetman’s actions. However, unlike Jews, the Law on Personal-National
Autonomy for the Polish and Russian population of Ukraine did not make a value under
new historical conditions. After all, the Poles and the Russians did not consider
themselves as national minorities.
The views of the Polish elite were directed to the West, where the statehood-
building forces of the Second
Rzeczpospolita
had been forming. They were mostly
concerned about the protection of their own landholdings from the socializationof land,
as well as about Hetman’s position regarding the Eastern Galicia and the territorial
affiliation of such regions as Kholmshchyna (
Chełm Land
) and
Pidljasije
(
Podlasie
).
With this in mind, they started to abide by the neutrality of most decisions of the new
Government. Russians, regardless of political preferences, were hardly accustomed to
the idea that from dominating nation they had become a minority. Moreover, they were
hardly worried about the collapse of a single Russian state,
in
one of whose parts the
Ukrainian ‘samostiinyky’ (pro-independent activists) started to dominate
.
As for the various socialist parties that condemned the ethnic policy of the new
Government, they, in the first days of Hetmanate’s existence, began to label Hetman
Skoropadsky and his associates as a reaction and counterrevolution that restored the
orders of the Russian Empire.
R. Abramovych, one of the leaders of
Jewish socialist party
‘Bund’ stated on May
15, 1918 in the newspaper ‘Jewish Worker’ that the national autonomy of Jews was
also lost along with the Central Rada, since the Jewish financial bourgeoisie did not
need it. He summed up: ‘The campaign against democracy would also drown Jewish
democratic accomplishments’ [12]. S. Yefremov and A. Nikovsky, leaders of the
Ukrainian Socialist-Federalists, back in the first half of May described the Hetman’s
Government on the pages of the daily newspaper ‘New Council’ as a non-Ukrainian,
paradoxical, ‘woven from surprises and political careerism’ and ‘formed from reaction
and for reaction’ [13]. Already on July 12, the Ukrainian Socialist-Federalists noted
the destruction, in their opinion, of one of the best achievements of the revolution in
Ukraine – the National-personal autonomy. They also assumed that such a decision of
the authorities would bring in the future a complete chaos in national relations in
Ukraine and
‘throw
straw on that national struggle
and enmity, which
the national-
personal autonomy hammered and squeezed’ [14].
Skoropadsky’s ethno-national course was also hardly criticized by the leadership
of the
Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party
and the
Ukrainian Socialist-
Revolutionary Party, which
were out of control of the state as a result of Hetman’s
coup. They emphasized that the power in Ukraine belonged to the non-Ukrainian
elements, aimed at destroying the Ukrainian national movement and statehood.
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