Volodymyr Vynnychenko, leader of the Ukrainian Social Democrats, regarded
the governmental officials of the new Government as ‘Ukraino-zher’
(Ukrainophobes)
and ‘Russian little Russians’. He remained convinced that after the coup on April 29,
1918, there was no Ukrainian statehood, as well as the Ukrainian bourgeoisie [15]. P.
Khrystyuk, Social Democrat and former Minister of the Interior of the Ukrainian
People’s Republic, used the following words to describe the Hetmanate: ‘The Polish –
Jewish – little Russian bourgeoisie’, ‘only the form of Ukrainian statehood’ [16]. And
the prominent Socialist-Revolutionary M. Shapoval regarded the Hetman’s regime as
the enemy of the Ukrainian people, the dictatorship of the Russian bourgeoisie and
tsarist officers, the Russian monarchy under the false slogan of Hetmanate [17].
Mykhailo Hrushevsky, head of the Central Rada, described P. Skoropadsky as
‘incapable to anything’, ‘a completely denationalized and unpopular man’, and cited
facts that had to prove his anti-Ukrainian policy: the administration and the board went
into the hands of Russian-reactionaries and the organization ‘Protofis’, advocating for
united Russia, the Ukrainian language was substituted by Russian, the official name of
the state was changed – the words ‘People’s Republic’ were replaced by ‘State’ [18].
In course of time quite a lot of Ukrainian activists, who sincerely believed at the
very beginning in intentions of Hetman, started to feel disappointment in his policy, as
well as in him personally.
The proclamation by Pavlo Skoropadsky on November 14,
1918 of the Federation of Ukraine and Russia meant for many of them the cease of co-
operation with him forever.
Russian factor in the national project of Pavlo Skoropadsky. P. Skoropadsky
agreed with the allegations of using the Russian forces to create Ukraine. But only
because of the fact, in his opinion, that it was impossible to create anything serious by
merely Ukrainian forces, since a small cultural class of Ukrainians was a misfortune of
the Ukrainian people. He opposed ‘narrow-Ukrainian ideas’ and noted that there were
many people who loved Ukraine and wished cultural development for their country,
but these people were of Russian culture, and they would not betray ever their own
culture for the sake of the Ukrainian one. He remained convinced that Ukraine could
flourish only when the Russian and the Ukrainian culture would have free
development, and if ‘we now abandon the first culture, we will be only a litter for other
nations and we never will be able to create anything great’ [19].
One can agree with P. Skoropadsky that the representatives of the Ukrainian
political parties and organisations not only did not have the necessary experience of
state building, but also generally showed little awareness of the state administrative
work in the financial, economic, military, diplomatic and other spheres. Especially the
shortage of qualified personnel was experienced among the higher echelons of power,
and therefore Hetman often had to appoint ex-officials or representatives of the Russian
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