UKRAINIAN NATIONAL-STATE UNION. This umbrella organization of center and center-right political parties (including the Ukrainian Democratic Agrarian Party, the Ukrainian Party of Independents-Socialists, and the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists) and professional unions was active at Kiev from May to July 1918. Its primary aim was to defend Ukrainian independence against any threat of the restoration of Russian authority. Consequently, on 24 May 1918 it submitted a statement to Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii that was critical of the dominant position in his government of representatives of Russian political parties (Kadets, Octobrists, etc.). The union also attacked the regime’s dissolution of the zemstvos and its restoration of prerevolutionary institutions of local government. However, Skoropadskii ignored all appeals from the union, which reorganized itself as the Ukrainian National Union in July–August 1918.
UKRAINIAN NATIONAL UNION. Founded at Kiev in July–August 1918, as the successor to the Ukrainian National-State Union following the departure from the latter of some center-right parties (including the Ukrainian Democratic Agrarian Party) and the adherence to it of some left-wing parties (including the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labor Party and the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries), this body served as a coordinating center for a number of Ukrainian political parties and professional organizations. Even more openly critical of the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii than its predecessor had been, the aim of the union was the reestablishment of the Ukrainian National Republic. Its first chairman was Andrii Nikovskii, who was succeeded by Volodymyr Vynnychenko on 18 September 1918. As his authority crumbled, on 5 October 1918 Skoropadskii agreed to the inclusion of five union ministers in the cabinet of Fedir Lyzohub. At the same time, however, the union was instrumental in the founding (at one of its meetings on 13–14 November 1918) of the Ukrainian National Republic Directory, which would stage a successful uprising against the Hetman soon afterward. Following the overthrow of the Skoropadskii regime, the union was headed by Nikita Shapoval (14 November 1918–January 1919).
UKRAINIAN PARTY OF INDEPENDENTS-SOCIALISTS. This small Ukrainian nationalist party was founded in December 1917, at Kiev, on the basis of several radical factions of the former Ukrainian People’s Party. It campaigned from its birth, largely through its weekly newspaper Samostiinyk (“The Independentist”), for an independent Ukrainian republic and drew its support from the Ukrainian military and intelligentsia. The chairman of the party was A. Makarenko.
In 1917–1918, although it advocated a social program based on the peasants’ ownership of the land and workers’ ownership of factories, the party was, in fact, antisocialist and therefore opposed the Ukrainian Central Rada and criticized its land-socialization policies and its liberal position with respect to the ethnic minorities, accusing it of “demagogy.” In 1918, the party spoke also against the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii, describing the latter as “a national traitor” for welcoming so many Russians into his government and army, and took the initiative in the creation of the Ukrainian National State Union in May of that year. With the collapse of the Hetmanate in December 1918, the party took five ministerial posts in the first cabinet created by the Ukrainian National Republic Directory. In the succeeding cabinet the party supplied the minister of war (A. Shapoval), the minister of marine (M. Bilinskii), the minister of state control (D. Simoniv), and the minister of religion (I. Lipa), but boycotted the later (socialist) ministry of Borys Martos, accusing it of “Bolshevism,” and supported the attempted coup against the directory by Ataman Volodymyr Oskilko in April 1919. The Party of Independents-Socialists was subsequently persecuted by the forces of Symon Petliura and lost most of its influence. By late 1919, the party’s complexion had changed, and it supported suggestions for a tactical alliance with the Whites to fight Bolshevism. Most of its leading members went into emigration in 1919–1920. Thereafter, the party was centered in Vienna (from 1922 under the name the Ukrainian People’s Party) but soon disintegrated.
UKRAINIAN PARTY OF SOCIALISTS-FEDERALISTS. Originally called the Ukrainian Party of Autonomist-Federalists, this political party was formed at Kiev in April 1917, by former members of the liberal-democratically inclined Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party and the Society of Ukrainian Progressives. Among its members were a number of experienced and respected political activists who were to play a leading role in the Ukrainian Central Rada and the governments of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), although a minority of its members served in the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii. The party was active in the formation of the Ukrainian National Republic Directory in November 1918, and from May–October 1920 one of its leaders, V. K. Prokopovych, chaired the Council of People’s Ministers of the Ukrainian National Republic. With the collapse of the republic, the party became centered in Prague, where it cooperated with the government-in-exile of the UNR.
Ukrainian party of socialists-revolutionaries. This political party was formed at Kiev, on 4–5 April 1917, by the merger of a number of groups of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries that had been active in Ukraine since the beginning of the century. Mykhailo Hrushevsky worked closely with the party, but was not formally a member. Key elements of the program of the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries (UPSR) were the advocacy of cultural and political autonomy for Ukraine and the socialization of the land (without compensation to private landowners). Utilizing the revived Peasant Union to boost its organization, and reaching out to the masses through its publications Narodna volia (“The People’s Will”) and Borot′ba (“The Struggle”), the party became the chief representative of peasant interests in Ukraine during the revolutionary period and boasted more than 75,000 members.
In 1917–1918, the UPSR held a majority of the seats in the Ukrainian Central Rada and controlled numerous secretariats (ministries) in the government of Volodymyr Vynnychenko. However, following the coup of 29 April 1918 that led to the establishment of the Ukrainian State of P. P. Skoropadskii, the party split at its clandestine fourth congress (13–16 May 1918): the right wing advocated legal opposition to the Hetmanate, while the left advocated armed resistance in collaboration with the Bolsheviks. The Leftists won, and after the overthrow of Skoropadskii, formally reconstituted themselves as the Ukrainian Party of Socialist-Revolutionary Borotbists (Communists), while the Right assumed the old party name in April 1919. The Borotbists subsequently merged with the Moscow-controlled Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, while the new UPSR provided numerous members of the governments of the Ukrainian National Republic.
In emigration (chiefly in Prague, Vienna, and Paris), the UPSR underwent numerous further divisions during the 1920s and ceased to exist as a unitary organization. Most members remained in opposition to the Soviet government (e.g., the Prague group of N. Iu. Shapoval and the Vienna group of N. Zalizniak and N. Kovalevskii), but in 1924 a section of the party headed by Hrushevsky returned to the Soviet Union, where they and other remnants of the party would fall victim to the Terror of the 1930s. For example, members of the UPSR Central Committee featured in the trial of the “Ukrainian National Center” in February 1931, and many other arrests, exiles, and executions were to follow.