With the formation of the USSR (30 December 1922), VTsIK was downgraded to a republican body, with equivalents elected in the other Soviet republics, and a new Central Executive Committee of the USSR was created, also chaired by Kalinin. (Prior to that date, Ukrainian and other congresses of Soviets had elected representatives to VTsIK.) Following the adoption of the 1936 (“Stalin”) Constitution, this in turn was replaced by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR.
The chairmen of VTsIK (and thereby titular heads of state of Soviet Russia) were L. B. Kamenev (26 October–8 November 1917); Ia. M. Sverdlov (8 November 1917–16 March 1919); M. F. Vladimirskii (acting, 16–30 March 1919); and M. I. Kalinin (30 March 1919–15 July 1938).
VYNNYCHENKO, VOLODYMYR (14 July 1880–6 March 1951). A pivotal figure in the Ukrainian revolution, the Ukrainian author and politician Volodymyr Vynnychenko was born into a peasant family at Veselyi Kut, Kherson guberniia, and schooled at the Elizavetgrad Gymnasium. He enrolled in the Law Faculty of Kiev University in 1900, but was expelled two years later for his political activity among workers of the city and was banned from entering any other educational establishment. In 1905, he became a founding member of the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labor Party and editor of its journal, Borot′ba (“The Struggle”), but spent the years 1906–1914 abroad (mostly in Paris and Lemberg), so as to escape the attention of the tsarist authorities.
For most of the First World War, Vynnychenko dwelled illegally near Moscow, but in March 1917 he returned to Kiev and was elected vice president of the Ukrainian Central Rada. On 15 June 1917, he was elected head of its executive, the General Secretariat, while at the same time serving as general secretary (i.e., minister) of internal affairs. When the Rada declared Ukraine’s independence from Russia, on 9 January 1918, Vynnychenko became chairman of the Council of People’s Ministers of the Ukrainian National Republic, again retaining control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but resigned on 17 January 1918. From 18 September to 14 November 1918, he headed the Ukrainian National Union and was one of the leaders of the revolt against the regime of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii. On 14 November 1918, he was elected chairman of the Ukrainian National Republic Directory, but resigned again on 10 February 1919, as he was bitterly opposed to what he perceived as the increasingly Rightist, militarist, and pro-Allied policies of the directory in general and of Symon Petliura in particular. He moved thereafter into emigration, basing himself in Vienna, as leader (from February 1920) of the Foreign Group of the Ukrainian Communist Party (UCP) and editor of the newspaper Nova Doba (“The New Era”).
In May 1920, Vynnychenko journeyed to Moscow (later traveling to Khar′kov for talks with Cristian Rakovski) and attempted a reconciliation with the Bolsheviks (who hoped to rally Ukrainian socialists to their cause, as the Soviet–Polish War flared on Ukrainian territory). But after four months of negotiations regarding the future governance and borders of Ukraine proved to be fruitless (as had earlier talks between Vynnychenko and the Soviet government brokered by Béla Kun at Budapest in April 1919), he emigrated permanently in September 1920, initially settling in Vienna, from where he excoriated the Soviet regime for its centralism, bureaucratism, insensitivity to Ukrainian interests, and abandonment of Communist principles. For this he was severely criticized by the UCP leadership and was forced to wind up the Foreign Group and cease publication of its newspaper. Vynnychenko then moved to France, and for the next 30 years largely devoted himself to literary work. During the Second World War, he refused Nazi invitations to collaborate against the USSR, for which he was confined to a concentration camp. This experience had a deleterious impact on his health, and he subsequently died at Mougins (near Cannes).
Vynnychenko was a widely published (and much translated) author of modernist novels, plays, and short stories, as well as historical works, including a three-volume history of the Ukrainian revolution, Vidrodzhdenia natsii (“The Rebirth of the Nation”), published in Vienna in 1920. His works were banned in the USSR, but have attracted much attention since the independence of Ukraine. His distinctly Leftist credo has, however, made him a somewhat awkward hero for the contemporary Ukrainian nationalists (and he has been far less celebrated in his homeland than Mykhailo Hrushevsky, for example), although in 2005 his image was used on a 2-grivna coin and on a 45-kopiyka stamp in Ukraine.
W
Wakhitov (Vakhitov), Mullanur Mullacan ulı (10 August 1885–19 August 1918). One of the foremost Tatar revolutionaries of the civil-war era, Mullanur Wakhitov was born into the family of a worker in a trading firm at Kazan′ and was involved with social-democrat study circles in the city from an early age. After graduating from the local Realschule (1907), he studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnical Institute (expelled in 1910) and graduated from the Law Department of St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Institute (1916). In 1917, he was active in the revolutionary movement in Kazan′, as a journalist and in helping to organize the Muslim Socialist Committee.
During the October Revolution, Wakhitov participated in the establishment of Soviet power at Kazan′ and soon afterward was elected to the Constituent Assembly by the Muslim caucus of his home city. His industriousness, efficiency, and radical edge brought him to the notice of the central authorities, including V. I. Lenin, and in January 1918 he was named head of the Central Muslim Section of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities, where he was one of the initiators of the idea of a Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Republic. He was also a member of the Central Military Collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs, assisting in the formation of Muslim units in the Red Army. In sum, although he had not formally joined the Bolsheviks, Wakhitov was the most powerful Muslim figure in the Soviet regime during the first months of its existence. From July 1918, he worked also as extraordinary commissar for supplies in the Volga region; during the following month, as commander of the 2nd Tatar-Bashkir Battalion, he participated in the Reds’ failed defense of Kazan′ against the People’s Army of Komuch and the Czechoslovak Legion. He was captured by enemy forces on 7 August 1918 and executed by firing squad 12 days later. Some sources have it that his last words were “Communism cannot be killed!”
WAR COMMUNISM. This was the term applied retrospectively by V. I. Lenin (in the spring of 1921) to describe the Bolsheviks’ economic policies during the civil wars. He specifically applied it to the period from May–June 1918 to March 1921, to differentiate it from the earlier period (from the October Revolution to May–June 1918), which he said was characterized by “state capitalism” and workers’ control. Lenin’s transparent purpose was to argue that the most extreme economic policies (especially food requisitioning, or prodrazverstka) had been forced upon the regime by counterrevolution, the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion, rapacious German imperialism (following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk), and Allied intervention, and that these measures were only intended to be temporary in nature. However, some historians have argued that War Communism was, at least for some Bolsheviks, an ideal form of economic management that they sought to realize at the earliest opportunity.