A military struggle for control of Ukraine waged intermittently in 1917–21
by Ukrainian independentist forces and pro-Bolshevik elements seeking to
establish Soviet rule. The struggle began shortly after the October
Revolution of 1917. Notwithstanding the creation of the Ukrainian National
Republic (UNR) on 20 November 1917, the Bolsheviks planned to seize power in Ukraine
with the aid of Russian or Russified urban elements, Russian garrisons, and
army units stationed near the front. Their armed uprising in Kyiv on 11
December 1917 was unsuccessful, however, and the Bolshevized army units were
deported from Ukraine
in stages. A pro-Bolshevik force under Yevheniia Bosh moving in on Kyiv was
also disarmed by Ukrainian troops under Pavlo Skoropadsky near Zhmerynka and
then sent off to Russia.
December 1917 to April 1918.
Hostilities broke out in Ukraine
after a series of diplomatic maneuvers. On 17 December 1917 the
Petrograd-based Council of People's Commissars issued an ultimatum demanding
that Bolshevik troops be granted the legal right to be stationed on Ukrainian
soil. The ultimatum was rejected by the UNR. The Bolsheviks countered by
proclaiming their own Ukrainian government based in Kharkiv on 25 December,
and then proceeded with a campaign to establish effective military control
over Ukraine.
The Ukrainian forces at that time consisted of a small volunteer detachment
and several battalions of the Free Cossacks. The pro-Soviet forces in Ukraine included Russian army regulars
stationed at the front, a number of garrisoned units, and Red Guard
detachments composed of laborers from Kharkiv gubernia and the Donbas. Their main strength, however, lay in a large
force of Red Guards from Russia,
which had been stationed along the Ukrainian border. On 25 December that
30,000-strong army, led by Volodymyr Antonov-Ovsiienko, set off in four
groups from Homel and Briansk toward
Chernihiv–Bakhmach, Hlukhiv–Konotop, and Kharkiv–Poltava–Lozova.
The invasion by pro-Soviet
forces was accompanied by uprisings initiated by local Bolshevik agitators in
cities throughout Left-Bank Ukraine. The Bolshevik forces occupied Kharkiv
(26 December), Lozova and Katerynoslav (now Dnipropetrovske, 9 January 1918),
Oleksandrivske (now Zaporizhia, 15 January), and Poltava (20 January). The Briansk
group captured Konotop (16 January) and Hlukhiv (19 January). On 27 January
the Bolshevik army groups converged on Bakhmach and then set off under the
command of Mikhail Muravev to take Kyiv.
The Central Rada prepared
for the defense of the capital by sending advance forces of volunteers to Poltava and Bakhmach.
One of those, the Student Battalion, was annihilated by a vastly larger
(4,000 troops) Bolshevik force at the Battle of Kruty, 130 km northeast of
Kyiv, on 29 January. As the Soviet advance continued, an attempt was made to
take Kyiv through an uprising organized by non-Ukrainian workers based at the
Arsenal plant. Fighting broke out on 29 January and continued until 4
February, when the revolt was put down by a newly formed contingent of the
Sich Riflemen and the Free Cossacks. Meanwhile the Bolshevik expeditionary
force continued to move on the capital from Bakhmach and Lubny. On 8 February
the Ukrainian government was forced to evacuate the city. Soviet troops under
Mikhail Muravev's command entered Kyiv on 9 February and then carried out brutal
reprisals against the Ukrainian civilian population.
After taking Kyiv the
Bolsheviks launched an offensive in Right-Bank Ukraine, where they were
engaged in battle mainly with Free Cossack forces. They moved into Volhynia
(led by the former Russian Seventh Army), where they took Proskuriv (now
Khmelnytskyi), Zhmerynka, Koziatyn, Berdychiv, Rivne, and Shepetivka and
forced the Ukrainians back to a Zhytomyr–Korosten–Sarny defensive line.
The tide changed following Ukraine's signature of the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the entry
of German and Austrian troops into the conflict in late February as allies of
the Central Rada. With a Ukrainian command
of Gen K. Prisovsky and Symon Petliura the combined force rolled the
Bolshevik troops out of Right-Bank Ukraine's centers, such as Zhytomyr,
Berdychiv, Koziatyn, and Bucha, before regaining Kyiv on 1 March. Through
March and April the German and Austrian armies took control of Left-Bank
Ukraine, and the troops of Petro Bolbochan and Volodymyr Sikevych took the
Crimea and the Donets Basin. Alarmed by the
changed military situation, Vladimir Lenin ordered his representative in Ukraine,
Grigorii Ordzhonikidze, to Ukrainize (at least ostensibly) the predominantly
Russian forces of Volodymyr Antonov-Ovsiienko and Mikhail Muravev in a bid
for more popular support. The maneuver proved unsuccessful. Continuing
military setbacks gave Soviet Russia little choice but to comply with the
articles of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and to sign a preliminary peace with
the Ukrainian government on 12 June 1918.
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Editorial comment to the maps:
Ukrainian National Republic is labeled on the map as Ukrainian People’s Republic. Both are the
two different variants of translation
December 1918 to
December 1919.
The second phase of the
Ukrainian-Soviet War began with the fall of the German-supported Hetman
government to the forces of the Directory of
the Ukrainian National Republic. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the
unsettled situation by forming a Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government
of Ukraine on 20 November 1918 and starting a military advance into Ukraine
in December with an army led by Volodymyr Antonov-Ovsiienko, Joseph Stalin,
and Volodymyr Zatonsky. The Directory protested the aggression, with
diplomatic notes sent to the Soviet government on 31 December 1918 and on 3,
4, and 9 January 1919. Not having received a reply, the Directory was
compelled to declare war against Russia on 16 January. The
Ukrainian forces at that time consisted of two regular troop formations, the
Zaporozhian Corps and the Sich Riflemen, as well as partisan detachments (see
Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22) led by otamans, such as Nestor Makhno,
Nykyfor Hryhoriv, and Danylo Zeleny. The otamans, however, were politically
unreliable and occasionally sided with the Bolsheviks.
In December 1918 and January
1919 the Bolshevik expeditionary force, aided by some of the otamans,
captured Left-Bank Ukraine, and on 5 February it closed in on Kyiv, where it
forced the Ukrainian government once more to flee from the capital. The
Soviet attack proceeded on several fronts. A northern group moved along a
Mozyr–Korosten and Lunynets–Sarny–Rivne line in an attempt to cut off the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic from
the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) to the west. A
southern group proceeded from the Kremenchuk-Katerynoslav region through
Znamianka toward the Birzula–Koziatyn–Zhmerynka line in an effort to cut off
the UNR troops from possible reinforcement by Entente forces. At a critical
moment Otaman Nykyfor Hryhoriv threw his support behind them. The third
Bolshevik army group proceeded from Kyiv to the Berdychiv–Koziatyn–Zhmerynka
line in an effort to keep the northern and southern wings of the UNR Army
divided.
Click on the minimap for proper
resolution
Editorial comment to the map:
Ukrainian National Republic is labeled on the map as Ukrainian People’s Republic. Both are the
two different variants of translation
UNR soldiers / reconstruction by O.Rudenko
The UNR army launched a
counteroffensive in March, in which it defeated the Soviet forces along the
Berdychiv–Koziatyn line and advanced almost to Kyiv, thereby effectively cutting
off any possibility that the Soviets might march through Romania to Hungary
in order to aid the Béla Kun regime. The Bolshevik forces retaliated in April
(after the withdrawal of Entente troops) by marching on Zhmerynka and
dividing the UNR army's southern flank from the force's main body. The
southern group subsequently lost the support of Otaman Omelian Volokh and was
forced to retreat into Romania,
where it was disarmed (eventually returning through Galicia to Volhynia). At the same
time, the UNR army was pushed back to a small parcel of territory approx
40–50 km wide in the Dubno-Brody region of southwestern Volhynia. Its
position was weakened further with a coup attempt by one of its commanding
officers, Volodymyr Oskilko.
The UNR Army's fortunes
improved as Ukrainian peasants, disgruntled by the Bolsheviks' anti-Ukrainian
policy and high requisition quotas, started to replenish insurgent ranks. But
before the army itself could regroup, it faced an assault by Polish forces in
the Lutsk
region and advances from the Red Army
in the north and southeast that took Rivne, Shepetivka, Proskuriv, and even
Kamianets-Podilskyi. The UNR then reached a peace agreement with the Poles
and reorganized its army into four groups—the Sich Riflemen and the
Zaporozhian Corps, Volhynian Corps, and Southwestern Corps—with a total of
approx 15,000 soldiers. In early June the UNR forces launched an offensive
which retook Podilia and Kamianets-Podilskyi. The Red Army retaliated at the
end of the month with a campaign that regained Proskuriv (5 July) and
approached Kamianets-Podilskyi, which had been made the UNR's provisional
capital. The UNR was then strengthened by the arrival of Yurii Tiutiunnyk
with troops formerly under Nykyfor Hryhoriv, who had worked his way through
the Reds' southern flank. The UNR Army launched a campaign which pushed the
Bolshevik forces back to the Horodok [see Horodok (-4448L-->Khmelnytskyi
oblast)]–Yarmolyntsi–Sharhorod–Dunaivtsi–Nova Ushytsia–Vapniarka line before
being joined by UHA troops who had crossed the Zbruch River on 16–17 July;
their arrival brought together a combined Ukrainian force of nearly 85,000
regulars and 15,000 partisans.
The subsequent campaign to take Kyiv proceeded with victories in Vinnytsia
(12 August), Khmilnyk, Yaniv, Kalynivka, and Starokostiantyniv (14 August),
Berdychiv (19 August), and Zhytomyr (21 August). On 31 August the Ukrainian
troops entered Kyiv, only to discover that soldiers from Anton Denikin's
Volunteer Army had arrived at the same time. Hostilities between the two
forces were narrowly averted when the combined Ukrainian forces pulled out of
the city. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the Ukrainians' standoff with
Denikin's troops to move some of their forces from the Katerynoslav region to
Zhytomyr. Meanwhile the leadership of the UNR and UHA
split over how to deal with Denikin, a situation exacerbated by an outbreak
of typhus among the troops. The UHA leadership finally made a separate peace
with the Volunteer Army on 6 November. The military situation had worsened as
Bolshevik forces, which had made substantial gains in Right-Bank Ukraine's
areas formerly controlled by Denikin's troops, and the Poles moved into the
western reaches of Ukraine.
By the end of November the government and the UNR Army found themselves
hemmed in by Soviet, Polish, and Volunteer Army troops. At a conference on 4
December the army decided to suspend regular military operations in favor of
underground partisan warfare.
Click on the minimap for proper
resolution
Editorial comment to the map:
Ukrainian National Republic is labeled on the map as Ukrainian People’s Republic. Both are the
two different variants of translation
December 1919 to
November 1920.
The UNR Army under the
command of Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko carried out an underground
operation known as the First Winter
Campaign in the Yelysavethrad (now Kirovohrad) region against the Soviet
14th Army from 6 December 1919 to 6 May 1920. In addition to that action the
UNR government concluded the Treaty of Warsaw on 22 April, and then launched
a joint offensive with Polish troops against the Bolsheviks. By 7 May a
Ukrainian division under the command of Marko Bezruchko entered Kyiv, but the
success was short-lived. A Red Army counteroffensive led by Semen Budenny
pushed the combined forces back across the Zbruch
River and past Zamość
toward Warsaw.
After the decisive battle of 15 September the Polish-Ukrainian forces threw
the Bolshevik contingent back as far as the Sharhorod–Bar–Lityn line in
Podilia. The Poles concluded a separate peace with the Soviets on 18 October.
The 23,000-strong UNR force continued fighting until 21 October, when its
position became untenable. The UNR Army crossed the Zbruch
River into Polish-controlled Galicia,
where they were disarmed and placed in internment camps.
Click on the minimaps for proper
resolution
Editorial comment to the maps:
Ukrainian National Republic is labeled on the map as Ukrainian People’s Republic. Both are the
two different variants of translation
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Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko
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Józef Piłsudski and Symon Petliura in Kiev / May 1920
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November 1921.
The final military action of
the UNR against the Soviets was a raid in November 1921 known as the Second Winter
Campaign. The intent of the action was to provide a catalyst for the
formation of partisan groups which would incite a general uprising against
the Bolsheviks in Ukraine.
The commander of the action was Yurii Tiutiunnyk. Two expeditionary forces
were established, Podilia (400 men) and Volhynia (800 men). The Podilia group
advanced as far as the village
of Vakhnivka, in the
Kyiv region, before returning to Polish territory through Volhynia on 29
November. The Volhynia group took Korosten and advanced as far as the village of Leonivka in the Kyiv region. On its
return march it was intercepted by a Bolshevik cavalry force under the
command of Hryhorii Kotovsky, however, and routed in battle near Mali Mynky
on 17 November. Of the 443 soldiers captured by the Soviets 359 were shot on
23 November near the town of Bazar, in the Zhytomyr region, and 84 were
passed on to Soviet security forces.
The Second Winter
Campaign brought the Ukrainian-Soviet War to a definite conclusion. The
partisan movement in Ukraine,
1918–22 remained active until mid-1922, but conventional military action by
regular troops had ceased.
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