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Ukraine, Poland 
 and Russia 
 
 and 
 
 The Right of the Free 
 Disposition of the Peoples 
 
 by 
 .S.iShelukhib 
 
 fr- 
 
 (Former Secretary of Justice of the Ukrainian Republic) 
 
 (With One Map) 
 
 Published by 
 
 Friends of Ukraine, 
 
 345 Munsey Building, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 1919 
 
Foreword 
 
 From the Treaty between Ukraine and Russia 
 
 (Concluded at Pereyaslav on March 14, 1654) 
 
 ARTICLE 1 
 
 First of all, that your Czarian Majesty do 
 deign to confirm our laws and our military 
 liberties, in accordance with the time-honored 
 custom in the army of Zaporogue, which owed 
 obedience to its own particular laws and 
 possessed franchises in property and in justice 
 which neither a voievoda, nor a boyar, nor a 
 stolnik could meddle with in the military tribu- 
 nals, but that members of the military brother- 
 hood be judged by their elders; for where there 
 are three Cossacks, two ought to judge the third. 
 On this article the Sovereign has passed his fiat 
 and the boyars have voted that it be so done in 
 accordance with their petition. 
 
 ARTICLE 6 
 
 And if the Lord Hetman should come to 
 die, which God forbid, (but every man is mortal, 
 and he, the Hetman, the same as the rest) that 
 the Zaporogue army itself, do elect a Hetman 
 from among its number, and make the announce- 
 
ment to his Czarian Majesty, for it is an ancient 
 custom in the army. The Sovereign has ordered 
 and the boyars have voted that it be so done 
 according to their desire. 
 
 ARTICLE 14 
 
 As to Ambassadors, who from time im- 
 memorial came from foreign countries to the 
 Zaporogue army, that it be lawful for the Lord 
 Hetman and for the Zaporogue army to receive 
 them, if they come for a good purpose; that this 
 shall not be disagreeable to His Czarian Majesty, 
 and if anything should be directed against His 
 Czarian Majesty, we would warn him of it. 
 
 The Sovereign has ordered and the boyars 
 have voted: Ambassadors who are bearers of 
 good messages will be received and sent on their 
 way, and the Sovereign will be advised as to 
 what business they came upon and with what 
 manner of answer they were dismissed; but 
 Ambassadors who shall have been sent on busi- 
 ness contrary to the interests of his Majesty will 
 not be dismissed; and as to the Sultan of Turkey 
 and the King of Poland, without an Ukase from 
 the Sovereign, no relation will be entered into 
 with them. 
 
UKRAINE, POLAND and RUSSIA 
 
 POLES AND RUSSIANS AGAINST UKRAINIANS 
 
 It would be a grave error to regard the struggle of 
 the Poles and Russians against the Ukrainians as a result 
 of the European war, or to seek the explanation of it in 
 Bolshevism. The world war has only served to crystal- 
 lize the relations between the Russians, Ukrainians and 
 Poles, and when Russian Bolshevism appeared on the 
 scene the war between these nationalities had been in 
 existence already for a long while. 
 
 The war now going on between these three nationali- 
 ties is only the development of the conflict which already 
 existed before the war of the great powers. It is a war 
 purely national and its source is found in history, its ex- 
 planation in the divergencies of national psychology; in 
 the difference of ideas, of aspirations and of social ten- 
 dencies. 
 
 PRISONS OF NATIONALITIES 
 
 Well before the war the national problems of Aus- 
 tria-Hungary and of Russia were very clearly defined and 
 the national relations were greatly strained. The great 
 war has only given to these problems more poignancy. 
 
 The national yoke in Austria-Hungary and in Russia 
 has shown itself so onerous that these empires have ac- 
 quired the appellation of "the prisons of nationalities." 
 These great imperialist organizations have comprised 
 different nationalities and have only existed in an artifi- 
 cial way, because no internal bond knitted together the 
 nationalities of which they were composed. The subject 
 nationalities aspired to liberty, while the dominant 
 ones expended great energy in order to continue in 
 power and to delay the moment of the dissolution of 
 their empires. A situation like this paralyzed all the 
 creative forces of Austria-Hungary and Russia and little 
 by little prepared for their inevitable fall. The world 
 
 1 
 
war has hastened the moment of the catastrophe with- 
 out, however, causing to disappear the war of national- 
 ities. To avert that war, it would have been necessary 
 before all to bring into action those great modern princi- 
 ples which ought to preside over international relations, 
 a thing that has not been done up to now. 
 
 We know that in Austria-Hungary the dominant 
 nationalities were the Germans, the Hungarians and the 
 Poles; and the subjugated nationalities the Czechs, 
 Ukrainians, the Slovenes, Italians, Slovaks, the Croats, 
 and the Roumanians. In order to obtain the power to 
 subjugate the Ukrainians of Galicia, the imperialistic 
 Poles, wishing to satisfy their national egotism, betrayed 
 the Slav cause. They voluntarily offered their services 
 to the Germans and to the Hungarians and in the Aus- 
 trian Parliament have always ranged themselves against 
 oppressed nationalities, and at every opportunity have 
 placed obstacles in the way of their liberation. 
 
 In Russia the dominant nationality was Russian; all 
 the others were oppressed and persecuted, especially the 
 Ukrainians. Their persecution has been so bitter that 
 they were forbidden even to sing national songs, to em- 
 ploy their orthography and to call themselves Ukrainians. 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF UKRAINIANS IN AUSTRIA 
 AND RUSSIA 
 
 At the moment when the great war broke out, the 
 Ukrainians of Galicia were accused by the Austrian Poles 
 of the crime of high treason in favor of Russia, and their 
 persecution increased. The accused were maltreated in 
 prisons, they were reduced to hunger, were subjected to 
 tortures, were hanged and shot down. In the prison of 
 Talerhof alone more than 3,500 Ukrainians were done to 
 death. 
 
 Many unjust laws were also promulgated against 
 the Ukrainians; for example, that of the fifth of Novem- 
 ber, 1917, by the Emperor Francis Joseph, in which he 
 disposed of the Ukrainian people in a manner that landed 
 proprietors formerly disposed of their serfs. 
 
 In Russia, the very day after the declaration of war, 
 a whole series of instructions and orders were given 
 
 2 
 
against the Ukrainians; their newspapers were sup- 
 pressed, so were their national organizations, while the 
 Poles were permitted their national liberties and the pos- 
 sibility of national resurrection. After the occupation of 
 Galicia, Russia granted many liberties and privileges to 
 the Poles and at the same time subjected the Ukrainians 
 to a regime and persecution so severe that even the offi- 
 cial journal of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian 
 army protested against such treatment. They threw 
 Ukrainians in thousands into the Russian prisons and 
 exiled them to Siberia. The Panslav, M. Sazonoff, prom- 
 ised Roumania to recompense her for her military assist- 
 ance, Banat with the Servians and Bukovina with the 
 Ukrainians, while giving her full liberty of action for the 
 future Roumanization of Ukrainians and Servians. Not 
 only in reactionary centers, but also in the liberal press 
 and in the Duma, governmental measures were used to 
 repress the reawakening of nationalities. 
 
 Even after the revolution the Russian government, 
 composed for the most part of representatives of the 
 parties of the left, did equally their utmost to crush the 
 impulse of the Ukrainian people toward liberty and 
 national rebirth. The Russian populace proceeded to 
 massacre the Ukrainian emigrants in the governments of 
 Samara, of Saratof and of Penza and to despoil them of 
 all their possessions, driving them back toward the 
 Ukraine. Later on, when the Bolsheviki came into power 
 in Russia, they fought against the Ukrainian people, 
 with the object of stamping out their liberty and of re- 
 storing the Russian domination over Ukraine under the 
 Bolshevik form. In this way the national relations be- 
 tween the Poles, the Russians and the Ukrainians have 
 become more and more strained, even to the point of war 
 between Ukraine, Poland and Russia. 
 
 A WAR OF NATIONALITY 
 
 A war of nationality between Ukrainians, Russians 
 and Poles has in truth merited its name since the moment 
 when Russia and Austria-Hungary disintegrated and the 
 new states arose on the ruins of the two empires. 
 
 3 
 
In this war, thrust upon the Ukrainians, the latter 
 have stood always on the defensive, setting up no claim 
 to neighboring territory and consequently attacking none 
 of their neighbors. As to Russia, there is no nationality 
 freed from her yoke and having formed her own state 
 who does not declare her firm resolution never again 
 under any circumstances to be united with Russia. As 
 to Poland, there is no neighboring nation with whom she 
 lives on good terms, and every neighbor of Poland de- 
 clares that she would be better pleased without the honor 
 of being Poland's neighbor. 
 
 All the newly formed states, Ukraine, Lithuania, 
 White Russia, Lettonia, Georgia, wish to maintain their 
 complete independence and have put forth all their efforts 
 to consolidate their independence and to safeguard it. 
 They have even formed a union for the purpose of de- 
 fending their independence against the attacks of Poland 
 and Russia. 
 
 This fact is not due to chance, but to internal causes, 
 the principal of which is found in characteristic traits of 
 Polish and Russian society, in their tendencies and atti- 
 tude toward other nationalities. 
 
 UKRAINE ALWAYS ASPIRED TO LIBERTY 
 
 Since the dawn of history, the Ukrainian* people 
 have proved themselves the protector of democratic or- 
 der. Never have they betrayed that ideal. 
 
 In the sixteenth century the Ukrainian people as- 
 sumed the task of realizing the idea of liberty, equality 
 and fraternity, by forming themselves into an independ- 
 ent and free state. The organization of the association 
 of Zaporogian Cossacks astonished the whole world. 
 Led on by the principle of liberty the Ukrainian people 
 have struggled for the independence of their democratic 
 republic against the Poles and the Russians. That strug- 
 gle caused Voltaire to write, "Ukraine has always aspired 
 to liberty." The realization of that idea is only possible 
 
 The name Ukrainian which others have wished to dispute with 
 the people who have borne it for centuries we meet with in the most 
 ancient documents going back to the twelfth century. The chronicle 
 Hypace of the year 1187, as well as the chronicles of 1189 and 1213, 
 speak to us of this' name as being- universally recognized. 
 
under a democratic regime. With this democratic regime 
 the Ukrainians have laid the foundation of the social 
 structure of their state. It was with this reservation 
 that Ukraine placed herself under the protectorate of 
 the Muscovite Czar, while conserving all her rights as a 
 state, all her institutions, and her entire social organism. 
 Cromwell spoke well when he apprised Hetman Khmel- 
 nitzky, "that never would Muscovy respect Ukrainian 
 liberty." The Ukrainian people, in fact, lost it after a 
 long and painful struggle. Russian politics put in its 
 program the destruction of the Ukrainian culture and 
 the absorption of their nationality by the Muscovites. 
 Here is the reason why the centralizing regime of Mos- 
 cow proceeded to destroy all the Ukrainian institutions 
 and to prevent manifestations of Ukrainian nationalism. 
 But it was impossible or at least difficult to annihilate 
 among the Ukrainian people the national spirit and psy- 
 chology. In Russia, no more than in Austria, where the 
 lot of the Ukrainians was not enviable, have the Ukrain- 
 ian people ever abandoned their national sentiment. 
 Taught by their own history, they have treasured up and 
 elaborated their ideals and have awaited the auspicious 
 moment for their realization. 
 
 THE UKRAINIAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC 
 
 In 1847 was founded the "Brotherhood of Cyril and 
 Method," the object of which was to organize the inde- 
 pendent Ukrainian Republic. It put in its program the 
 diffusion of the same idea among all the Slav races. To- 
 ward 1880 Professor Drahomanov enlarged this program 
 and extended it to all nationalities. The Ukrainian Dep- 
 uties of the first Duma (1906) unfolded a plan for the 
 realization of that idea. Since the beginning of the Revo- 
 lution of 1917 the entire Ukrainian democracy has worked 
 to establish the Ukrainian Republic on lines truly demo- 
 cratic. 
 
 In order to realize this idea in accord with the neigh- 
 boring nationalities, the Ukrainians summoned their rep- 
 resentatives to a Congress which opened its sessions at 
 Kiev, September 21, 1917. The principles on which 
 
 5 
 
THE NEW MAP 
 OF EUROPE 
 
 APPROXIMATE BOUNDARIES OF PEOPLES 
 
 HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER 
 1918 
 
 SLAVS IN STRAIGHT LINES 
 
 fORMER EMPIRE OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 
 
 UKRAINE 
 
 AREA: 330,000 
 square miles. 
 
 POPULATION: 
 45,000,000. 
 
 FORM OF GOVERN 
 MENT: Republic. 
 
 ESTABLISHED: 
 1917. 
 
 A F R I C A 
 
 CAPITAL CITY: 
 Kiev. 
 
Wiim 
 
 BLACK SEA 
 
 IAN 
 
 ^Q JERUSALEM 
 
Ukrainians founded the organization of their state and 
 of their international relations are the same as those 
 enunciated by the greatest thinkers. 
 
 Seneca saw long since that the whole of mankind 
 was composed of nationalities and that a nationality was 
 the result of the harmony of its members, hence a na- 
 tionality is a positive force and the most important factor 
 in the life of humanity and its development. Conse- 
 quently the development of the national conscience al- 
 ways marks a stage of progress in the history of human- 
 ity. Every nationality has the right to an independent 
 existence and to the free development of its faculties in 
 close union with other nationalities without injury to their 
 rights. This idea is based on the solidarity of interests 
 and the union of humanity. Logically we must concede 
 the recognition of the right of self-determination to all 
 peoples, powerful and weak, even though they are more 
 or less civilized. 
 
 The existence of a sovereign state only serves to as- 
 sure the independence and the possibility of the free 
 development of a nationality. Therefore, each state 
 should only establish herself within ethnographical boun- 
 daries, peopled in the majority by her citizens, fellow 
 nationals, with special constitutional guarantees to insure 
 the rights of minorities. The ethnographical principle 
 based on actual facts and figures averts the possibility 
 of imperialism and the development of militarism, while 
 the autonomy of national minorities secures them against 
 vexations and servitude. A strong state should not take 
 advantage of a weak state and use it as a tool for her own 
 interests. Imperialistic designs should be destroyed for- 
 ever. 
 
 THE RIGHT OP SELF-DETER/AINATION 
 The Congress of nationalities at Kiev accepted all 
 these principles as the foundation of national states. Con- 
 sisting of ninety-three representatives from all the na- 
 tionalities living in Russia, it proclaimed in its resoluton 
 of September, 1917 (well before President Wilson had 
 enunciated his fourteen points which were to serve as the 
 basis of a final settlement) : 
 
 8 
 
1. The right of self-determination of peoples within 
 the limits of their ethnic boundaries. 
 
 2. The right of these entities to international rep- 
 resentations. 
 
 3. The abolition of all fetters, political, civil and 
 religious, in international relations. 
 
 4. The right of national minorities. 
 
 Finally, it proclaimed the right of all nationalities 
 in Russia to elect a constituent assembly which, armed 
 with national sovereignty, would have the right of ulti- 
 mately pronouncing on the question of confederation of 
 the peoples of Russia. The federative principle had for 
 its object not only the enfranchisement and union of the 
 peoples of Russia, but at the same time the guarantee of 
 their independence against Germanic domination. (See 
 paragraph 6 of the resolutions of Congress.) 
 
 The Congress gave its unqualified sanction to the 
 action of the Ukrainians, and strengthened their position 
 for the creation of an independent Ukrainian Republic, 
 while opening up broad views of national development 
 to other nationalities. After the Congress, but without 
 any connection therewith, President Wilson made a de- 
 claration developed later on in his speeches on peace, 
 international relations, etc., the principles of which were 
 in perfect accord with the claims of the Congress of Na- 
 tionalities. 
 
 The principle of the delimitation of states according 
 to their ethnographical boundaries found here its prac- 
 tical application. In Point Thirteen President Wilson 
 defined the future frontiers of Poland as embracing only 
 those territories peopled by an indisputable majority of 
 Poles. 
 
 Taking their stand on the principles proclaimed by 
 the Entente Powers, the Ukrainians have included as 
 constituting one single state, the Republic of Ukraine, all 
 the territories peopled by Ukrainians belonging to the 
 former Russia. Within her ethnographical boundaries, 
 Ukraine occupies a territory of 330,000 square miles, 
 with a population of approximately 45,000,000 inhab- 
 
itants. Ukraine would have been able to concentrate all 
 her forces on the internal and external organization of 
 the country had not the Russian and Polish imperialists 
 hindered the work; now, however, Ukraine is obliged 
 to spend her forces in a defensive war against Russia and 
 Poland. 
 
 POLISH ACTIVITIES IN UKRAINE 
 
 In the course of the history of Poland, the Polish 
 population has been divided into two very distinct classes, 
 the aristocrats and the farmers. The aristocrats have 
 assumed the representation of the entire people, have 
 enjoyed liberties of every kind, and have enslaved the 
 farmers. Many in number, they haye vied with one 
 another in pursuit of the pleasures of life and have there- 
 by drained the resources which were necessary for the 
 enslaved agricultural population to carry on their labors. 
 
 Poland within her actual ethnographical boundaries 
 numbers 20,000,000 million inhabitants, of which 15,000,- 
 000 are Poles. To gratify their greed for pleasure, the 
 Polish aristocrats were therefore obliged to conquer ad- 
 jacent countries and to enslave their inhabitants. To 
 assimilate these inhabitants and neutralize centrifugal 
 forces they have created a complete system of Poloniza- 
 tion. Hostile to every democratic principle, they have 
 established a system of the most severe servitude for the 
 national minorities. Thus there has been developed in 
 Poland an exaggerated imperialism having for its ideal 
 a greater Poland stretching from the Baltic to the Black 
 Sea, and in which all the inhabitants would belong to the 
 same nationality while embracing, all of them, one re- 
 ligion only, Catholicism. 
 
 The Poles have displayed the greatest energy in sub- 
 jecting the Ukrainian people. Pacific by nature, they 
 have been obliged to sustain continual struggles with Po- 
 land for the defense of their independence, and Poland, 
 enfeebled, when attacked by her neighbors, saw herself 
 delivered over to "partitions." Despite her misfortune, 
 Poland has bequeathed to her descendants the old ideals 
 of conquest they seek to realize today. 
 
 10 
 
POLISH I/APERIALISA 
 
 There has been elaborated for a long period a pro- 
 gram of Polish activity with regard to the other nation- 
 alities and particularly the Ukrainians. This program 
 was published in 1848 and reprinted in 1862 in the 
 Ukrainian magazine, "Osnowa." One of the articles of 
 the program recommends the Poles to keep the Ukrain- 
 ians in ignorance, to regard all that which was Ukrain- 
 ian religion, language and education, as characteristic 
 of a primitive culture, while at the same time the Ukrain- 
 ian people should be encouraged to accept with the Pol- 
 ish nationality all its culture. The latter was represented 
 as the highest point of progress. In order to subject the 
 Ukrainian people more easily the Poles were advised not 
 to entrust any important position to any Ukrainian. An 
 entire doctrine of imperialism, of chauvinism, of national 
 intolerance, of hate for everything which was not Polish 
 and particularly with regard to everything which was 
 Ukrainian, was propagated. To that doctrine adhered 
 even men of superior intellect, like Henry Sienkiewicz, 
 who devoted the force of his talent to propagating it. 
 
 It is clear that this system of methodical "civilizing" 
 employed by the Polish nation and applied to education 
 and to the formation of a Polish body politic would have 
 disastrous results on the morality of the nation. Far- 
 sighted Poles have seen this and have warned the nation 
 of the pernicious consequences of that deification of the 
 Polish nation, which has annihilated among the Poles the 
 sense of justice, put a drag on the wheels of their prog- 
 ress and caused them to retrograde to eighteenth century 
 conditions. It is therefore natural that in beginning to 
 rebuild their state the Poles have dreamed of conquering 
 adjacent territory and of satisfying their nationalist aims 
 at the expense of the Ukrainians, the Lithuanians, the 
 White Ruthenians and other neighboring peoples. The 
 Poles have many times declared in their publications that 
 Poland should count forty millions of inhabitants. It is 
 also quite natural that the Ukrainian people, who have 
 endured so long the Polish yoke, will never accept, after 
 
 11 
 
having been raised into an independent' state, the doom 
 of being buried again in a servitude so abhorrent. 
 
 Never will the Ukrainians yield their rights to their 
 hereditary foes, even though the Poles, reinforced by 
 sympathizers from among the Lithuanians and the White 
 Ruthenians become more numerous. It is obvious that 
 the struggle now going on exhausts the Ukrainian people, 
 but sustained as they are by the cause of liberty, they 
 will remain ever consecrated, and in such measure will 
 come new strength. Throughout this period will Europe 
 be deprived of peace, and the neighbors of Poland, 
 through her fault, will be totally prevented from work- 
 ing out their internal and external organization and 
 strengthening the foundations of peace and order. 
 
 RUSSIAN I/APERIALIS/A 
 
 While the doctrine of imperialism and the racial 
 hatred were being developed among the Poles by educa- 
 tion, among the Russians the same sentiments originating 
 in their natural character, grew stronger and stronger 
 with the unfolding of the history of their country. But 
 while the Poles stopped short in their dreams of con- 
 quest on the borders of the Baltic and the Black Sea, 
 the Russians saw themselves masters of the whole of 
 Europe and of Asia, saw themselves crossing the Darda- 
 nelles and masters of all seas. One may truly say that 
 the Russians are tainted with megalomania. This fact is 
 recognized even by Russian authors beginning with 
 Samarin and ending with V. Soloviev, who have declared 
 that the Russian people are inclined toward brute force, 
 that they accept things on authority without other ex- 
 planations. The above ideals are for them an object 
 of education. Those who attribute the imperialistic 
 policy ,of Russia to the government alone make a 
 great mistake. The government has always found in 
 the traits peculiar to the Russian national character the 
 support of its imperialism and the source of its power. 
 Peter the Great, Ivan Kalyta, and Andrew Bogolubsky 
 only engendered the incarnation of this spirit of the na- 
 tion of Muscovy. Consequently Russia from the beginning 
 of her existence has only waxed great by subjecting for- 
 
 12 
 
eign nations, by assimilating them and by the domination 
 due solely to brute force. The history of Russia is the his- 
 tory of imperialism, the history of the absorption of other 
 nationalities by violence, in order to make one entire na- 
 tionality to which was given the name of "official nation- 
 ality." For that reason too little attention has been 
 paid to the development of a real popular education. 
 Deprived of substratum, Russia naturally fell to pieces 
 the day when the other nationalities had an opportunity 
 to resume their own existence. In liberating themselves 
 these nationalities made no attack on the nationality who 
 had kept them under her yoke. The Great Russians, 
 however, have put forth their efforts to re-establish that 
 prison into which the newly formed states have no notion 
 of ever entering again. 
 
 TREATY OF UKRAINE WITH RUSSIA 
 
 The Ukrainian people entered into a free union with 
 Russia under personal allegiance to the Czar in 1654, 
 with a reservation for preserving their own republic, their 
 governmental system, and their political and social or- 
 ganization for economic and cultural development. The 
 treaty consecrating that union has not been respected, 
 and the Ukrainians in defense of their independence have 
 not found support in any class of the Russian people. 
 The individual cases which have shown themselves favor- 
 able to the Ukrainian movement have been only the ex- 
 ception ; the political parties, liberal or conservative, have 
 always in practice resisted the awakening of national 
 sentiment in Ukraine, though in theory they compromised 
 with it. 
 
 The Ukrainians have undergone savage persecutions. 
 An impossible gulf has been fixed between the Russian 
 and Ukrainian nationalities. Drahomanov, about 1880, 
 in his work on Historical Poland and the Democracy of 
 Great Russia, drew attention to this phenomenon. Don- 
 zow, Lozynsky, Levynsky, Yefremov and others treated 
 the same question in their publications. The only reply 
 on the Russian part consisted in a continuance of the ag- 
 gression and of the regime of persecutions directed 
 against the Ukrainians. 
 
 13 
 
Voices were raised in the Duma of 1906 against the 
 regime. Necessary measures were taken to prevent the 
 re-election of deputies favorable to the cause of the 
 Ukrainians. Not the Bolsheviki only, but the rest of 
 Great Russians as well, show themselves hostile to the 
 Ukrainian national awakening. The revolution has 
 changed nothing in these relations. 
 
 RUSSIAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND UKRAINE 
 
 The provisional government, composed of liberals 
 and socialists, has always shown itself to be a centraliz- 
 ing and imperialistic power so far as the Ukrainians are 
 concerned. It has taken special measures and passed 
 exceptional laws against the Ukrainian government. In 
 the course of all the meetings and all the assemblies in 
 which the Russians found themselves in the majority, 
 from the extreme left to the extreme right, there pre- 
 vailed the same chauvinism, the heritage of Czarism. 
 
 When Russian Bolsheviki seized the power, they de- 
 clared war on the Ukrainian nationalists even on those 
 who never took part in politics, such as Professor Sumt- 
 sov and Mrs. Yefimenko, on no other ground than that 
 they had greatly contributed to the intellectual develop- 
 ment of the Ukrainian people. 
 
 The other Great Russian party, the reactionaries, do 
 not differ essentially from the Bolsheviks on the Ukrain- 
 ian question. Their attitude before the war is only too 
 well known. Grouped around General Kolchak and 
 General Denikin, they make at this moment every effort 
 to reconstruct the Russia of the former regime, with all 
 its system of enslavement for the Ukrainian people. 
 
 Outside these two parties there is a third, for the 
 moment passive, which is called "The Russian Demo- 
 cratic Party." Its representatives have recently pub- 
 lished a manifesto in which they declare that they do not 
 recognize the Ukrainian government, proclaiming the 
 All-Russian Constituent Assembly and discrediting all the 
 constituent assemblies of the several nationalities. It 
 must not be overlooked that in an All-Russian Constituent 
 Assembly the Great Russians or Muscovites will neces- 
 
 14 
 
sarily be in the majority, and consequently the principle 
 of self-determination of peoples will not exist. The Rus- 
 sians will dispose of the destiny of other nationalities. 
 "Federation" is for these so-called democrats only a mask 
 to conceal their real sentiments, and it does not deceive 
 the intelligent. If they only had the power they would 
 act with regard to Ukraine just as did the Poles, the reac- 
 tionaries and the Bolsheviks. 
 
 UKRAINE AND HER RIGHT TO SELF-DETER- 
 MINATION. 
 
 Each nationality has a right to its own development, 
 which can never be assured except in its own state. The 
 Ukrainian nationality, the Russian and Polish nationali- 
 ties have everything which is necessary from an economic 
 point of view, cultural, social and national, for the found- 
 ing of independent states. Russia and Poland can exist 
 as well without Ukraine as Ukraine can without them. 
 Neither of these states has any rights over Ukraine any 
 more than Ukraine has any rights over them. It is sheer 
 imperialism to occupy the territory of neighbors. The 
 Ukrainian government, which cherishes no such aspira- 
 tions, in order to ensure the rights of national minorities, 
 Great Russians, Poles, etc., has promulgated a law on 
 particular national autonomy. 
 
 Today a war goes on between the Ukrainians and 
 Russians. Russians and Poles not only in the past, but in 
 the present, show that they reject in their international 
 relations the principles approved by the Entente and by 
 the civilized world. In acting thus Poland forgets that it 
 is by grace of these principles that she has been restored 
 and that she has been able to enter into the League of 
 Nations established precisely by the application of these 
 same principles. Further, the Poles actually make use 
 of the assistance brought to them by the Entente for the 
 purpose of directing it against the Ukrainians. The Rus- 
 sian Bolsheviks are strong in the support of Bolsheviks 
 of other nations, the forces of reaction grouped around 
 Kolchak and Denikin, while receiving aid from the En- 
 tente, would restore that former Russia which would in- 
 .evitably engulf Ukraine. 
 
 15 
 
Ukraine, who has commenced to realize the Wilson- 
 ian principles, and who seeks in nowise to make con- 
 quests, is not as yet received into the League of Nations 
 and receives no assistance. Her hope rests entirely on 
 the conviction that there exists an Immanent Justice. She 
 strongly believes in the law of life which abuses the pow- 
 erful when they abuse their power. In that truth she 
 will find the force requisite for the defense of her inde- 
 pendence and of her national liberty. That truth which 
 wills Poland to the Poles, Russia to the Russians, wills 
 equally and with the same force Ukraine to the Ukrain- 
 ians. That truth alone is strong enough to make people 
 strong and to put an end to war. 
 
 16 
 

 
 
 
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