The Communist Party of Western Ukraine 1919-1929
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JANUSZ RADZIEJOWSKI Tjje OMMUNIST PARTY OF ESTERN UKRAINE —1919 -1929- WBm. The Communist Party of Western Ukraine 1919-1929 THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF WESTERN UKRAINE 1919-1929 Janusz Radziejowski Translated by Alan Rutkowski Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies University of Alberta Edmonton 1983 THE CANADIAN LIBRARY IN UKRAINIAN STUDIES A series of original works and reprints relating to Ukraine, issued under the editorial supervision of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton. Editorial Board: Bohdan Bociurkiw, Carleton University (Social Sciences) George S. N. Luckyj, University of Toronto (Humanities) Manoly R. Lupul, University of Alberta (Ukrainians in Canada) Ivan L. Rudnytsky, University of Alberta (History) • I 11 I I I * Copyright © 1983 Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Radziejowski, Janusz, 1925— The Communist Party of Western Ukraine, 1919-1929 (The Canadian library in Ukrainian studies) Translation of: Komunistyczna Partia Zachodniej Ukrainy, 1919-1929. Includes index. Bibliography: p. ISBN 0-920862-25-X (bound). ISBN 0-920862-24-1 (pbk.) 1. Komunistychna partiia ZakhidnoT Ukrainy—History. I. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. II. Title. III. Series. JN6769.A562R313 324.243802 C83-091109-X All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Cover design: Keith Kobylka Printed in Canada by D. W. Friesen & Sons Ltd. Distributed by the University of Toronto Press 5201 Dufferin St. Downsview, Ontario Canada M3H 5T8 Dedication page Contents List of Abbreviations ix Introduction xiii Chapter One: The Formation of the Communist Movement in Western Ukraine, 1918-1923 1 Chapter Two: Internal Stabilization in the CPWU, 1923-5 30 Chapter Three: The Second Congress of the CPWU and the Fourth Conference of the CPP, October-November 1925 57 Chapter Four: Ideological Discussion (1926-7) and the Emergence of Selrob 75 Chapter Five: The National Question in Soviet Ukraine 108 Chapter Six: Factional Struggle and Split, 1927-8 127 Chapter Seven: The CPWU and the Secessionists, 1928-9 170 Conclusion 202 Bibliography 205 Index 219 / Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from University of Alberta Libraries https ://arch i ve. o rg/detai Is/co m m u n istpartyof OOradz List of Abbreviations AAN Archiwum Akt Nowych (Central Archives of Modern Records), Warsaw CA KC PZPR Centralne Archiwum KC PZPR (Central Archives of the CC PUWP), Warsaw CC Central Committee ECCI Executive Committee of the Communist International CP(B)U Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine (Komunistychna partiia [bilshovykiv] Ukrainy, KPbU) CPEG Communist Party of Eastern Galicia (Komunistychna partiia Skhidnoi Halychyny, KPSH) CPG Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) CPP Communist Party of Poland (Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza, KPSS) CPU Communist Party of Ukraine (Komunistychna partiia Ukrainy, KPU) CPWB Communist Party of Western Belorussia (Kamunistychnaia partyia Zakhodniai Belarusi, KPZB) CPWU Communist Party of Western Ukraine (Komunistychna partiia Zakhidnoi Ukrainy, KPZU) CWPP Communist Workers’ Party of Poland (Komunistyczna Partia Robotnicza Polski, KPRP) FCP French Communist Party (Party Communiste Francais, PCF) X Communist Party of Western Ukraine IRSD International Revolutionary Social Democracy (Internatsionalna revoliutsiina sotsiialdemokratiia, IRSD) NBCG Non-Party Bloc for Co-operation with the Government (Bezpartyjny Blok Wspolpracy z Rzadem, BBWR) OUN Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv, OUN) PA IIP TsK KPU Partarkhiv Instytutu istorii partii TsK KPU (Party Archives of the Institute of the History of the Party [attached to the Kiev] CC CPU), Kiev PPP Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe—PSL) PSP Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Sosjalistyczna, PPS) PUWP Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR) PWP People’s Will Party (Partiia Voli naroda, PVN) RCP(B) Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (Rossiiskaia kommunisticheskaia parti [bolshevikov], RKPb) SDKPL Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (Socjaldemokracja Krolestwa Polskiego i Litwy, SDKPiL) SR Socialist Revolutionary UCP Ukrainian Communist Party (Ukrainska komunistychna partiia, UKP) UCP(B) Ukrainian Communist Party (Borotbists) (Ukrainska komunistychna partiia [borotbistiv], UKPb) UCY WU Union of Communist Youth of Western Ukraine (Zwi^zek Mlodziezy Komunistycznej Ukrainy Zachodniej, ZMK UZ) ULP Ukrainian Labour Party (Ukrainska Partiia Pratsi, UPP) UMO Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrainska viiskova orhanizatsiia, UVO) UNDU Ukrainian National Democratic Union (Ukrainske narodno-demokratychne obiednannia, UNDO) UNLP Ukrainian National Labour Party (Ukrainska narodno-trudova partiia, UNTP) UPCC Union of the Proletariat of City and Countryside Abbreviations xi (Zwigzek Proletariatu Miast i Wsi, ZPMiW) URP Ukrainian Radical Party (Ukrainska radykalna partiia, URP) USDP Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (Ukrainska sotsiialdemokratychna partiia, USDP) USRP Ukrainian Socialist Radical Party (Ukrainska sotsiialistychna radykalna partiia, USRP) WAP im. F. Dzierzynskiego Wojskowa Akademia Polityczna im. Feliksa Dzierzynskiego (Feliks Dzierzynski Military Political Academy), Warsaw WUPR West Ukrainian People’s Republic (Zakhidno-ukrainska narodnia respublyka, ZUNR) Introduction At the end of the First World War Ukrainians were divided among the new states forming in East Central Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia and an enlarged Romania. To varying degrees in each of these states, the Ukrainians were caught up in a revolutionary ferment, which, engendered by the powerful impact of events in Dnieper Ukraine, expressed deep-seated, and often conflicting, national and social aspirations. On both their ethnic territory and abroad, Ukrainians began to demand their rights. With the February Revolution in Russia, the Ukrainian question became an increasingly important issue in international politics, debated at the time of bilateral treaties (e.g., Brest Litovsk), during the negotiations of the Versailles treaty, on numerous occasions in the League of Nations, and in both the Communist International and Socialist Workers’ International. Outside Soviet territory, the Ukrainian problem was most salient in Poland. In the interwar period it was the subject of heated controversy. Contemporary historians, however, have given little attention to this subject. There has been hardly any work on the significance of the Ukrainian question and the Ukrainian Communist movement for the history of the Polish revolutionary left. Yet, unless one is familiar with the problems of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine (CPWU) and its early history, it is impossible to understand many aspects of the Polish Communist movement. It is especially difficult to appreciate fully the posi¬ tions taken by the Polish party on a number of fundamental political prob¬ lems of interwar Poland, particularly the national question. The CPWU was in the beginning a strong, relatively independent formative influence on Communist political thought in Poland. Historians deliberately stayed clear of the CPWU. The rehabilitation accorded the Communist Party of Poland (CPP) and its affiliated organizations in 1956 was not extended to the West Ukrainian party xiv Communist Party of Western Ukraine because of the openly oppositionist stance of its leadership toward the Comintern in the late 1920s. Full rehabilitation came only in 1963 with the publication of an article in the central organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) entitled “Za pravilnoe osveshchenie istorii Kommunisticheskoi partii Zapadnoi Ukrainy,” Kommunist, no. 10 (1963). Before 1963, Soviet historical works on West Ukrainian Communism were characterized by “depersonification”; they were chronicles of events rather than party history. One interesting work, however, was Mykola Kravets’ Narysy robitnychoho rukhu v Zakhidnii Ukraini v 1921-1939 (Kiev, 1959). Kravets described both the working-class movement (strikes, mass demonstrations) and the party (dates of conferences and congresses, excerpts from some resolutions). He omitted, however, not only the disputes and conflicts, but the internal life of the party as a whole. Several other works on the revolutionary movement in Western Ukraine dealt with the party minimally, neglecting its relations with the CPP, and failing to mention that the CPWU was an affiliate organization of the Polish party. After the appearance of the rehabilitating articles in Kommunist, the Soviet scholar Ievhen Halushko published Narysy ideolohichnoi ta orhanizatsiinoi diialnosti KPZU, 1918-1928 (Lviv, 1965), for its time one of the best monographs on the CPWU. I discussed it at length in the quarterly Z pola walki, no. 4 (1966): 169-74, and later in the Ukrainian periodical Nasha kultura (Warsaw), no. 1 (1978): 12-14. O. Karpenko’s work on the precursors of the Communist movement in Western Ukraine, “Do pytannia pro vynyknennia i orhanizatsiine oformlennia Komunistychnoi partii Skhidnoi Halychyny,” in Z istorii zakhidnoukrainskykh zemel, vol. 2 (Kiev, 1957), also