The Ukrainian War of Independence was a series of conflicts in Ukraine which occurred from November 1917 to November 1921 as Ukrainian nationalists fought to create an independent Ukrainian state amid the anarchy of World War I and the Russian Civil War. While the Ukrainian People's Republic initially succeeded in obtaining its independence, most of Ukraine was conquered by the Bolshevik Red Army, resulting in the creation of the Ukrainian SSR; an independent Poland seized most of western Ukraine in the concurrent Polish-Ukrainian War.
Background[]
During World War I, Ukraine was in the front lines of the Entente powers of the Russian Empire and Romania and the Central Powers of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, and, by early 1917, the Brusilov Offensive resulted in the Imperial Russian Army pushing into Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. However, the February Revolution of 1917 resulted in the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and the declaration of the Ukrainian People's Republic in Kiev a month later. The Russian Provisional Government's failed Kerensky Offensive enabled the Imperial German Army to launch a counterattack which recaptured all territories lost in the Brusilov Offensive and caused the near-complete disintegration of the Imperial Russian Army and the Russian government. Many deserting Ukrainian officers and soldiers switched their loyalty to the Central Rada in Kiev, while the anarchist Nestor Makhno's Black Army disarmed the Russian soldiers and officers who crossed the Haychur River next to Huliaipole. At the same time, Bolshevik activism grew in the Donbass region as socialist trade unions launched frequent strikes.
War[]
The October Revolution in Petrograd in November 1917 led to a wave of unrest which spread across the former Russian Empire, and the Kiev Bolshevik Uprising of 8-13 November 1917 resulted in the Bolsheviks and Central Rada expelling the Russian army from the Ukrainian capital. The Central Rada assumed power in Kiev, while, in late December 1917, the communist Bolsheviks established the rival Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in Kharkov. On 22 January 1918, the Central Rada declared Ukrainian independence and broke ties with Russia, which was now governed by a Bolshevik government.
Early in the war, the Bolsheviks overran Poltava, Aleksandrovsk (Zaporizhzhia), and Yekaterinoslav (Dnipro) by the end of January 1918, as the Rada had a limited army at its disposal. Local Bolsheviks also formed Soviet governments in Odessa and Donetsk-Krivoy, while Makno's supporters established the "Free Territory" of Makhnovia. On 9 February 1918, the Reds entered Kiev, forcing the Central Rada to evacuate to Zhytomyr as Romanian forces annexed Bessarabia. Most remaining Russian Army units either joined the Bolsheviks or the Ukrainian army, but Colonel Mikhail Drozdovsky's Volunteer Army instead marched across the whole of Novorossiya to the River Don, defeating the Makhnovists in the process.
Faced with imminent defeat, the Central Rada turned to the Central Powers for assistance. The 9 February 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk led to a truce between the Ukrainians and Germans, and the Imperial German Army then drove the Bolsheviks out of Ukraine in Operation Faustschlag, taking Kiev on 1 March 1918. Two days later, the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending hostilities with the Central Powers and leaving Ukraine in Germany's sphere of influence. In April 1918, the Ukrainian People's Army took the Donetsk Basin, while Ukrainian and German troops cleared the Crimea of Bolsheviks, the Ukrainians and the Austro-Hungarian Army took Odessa on 13 March 1918, and the Germans took Yekaterinoslav on 5 April 1918 and Kharkov three days later. By April 1918, all Bolshevik gains in Ukraine were lost.
However, local Bolsheviks, the peasant Green Armies, and the anarchist Black Army refused to subordinate to Germany. On 29 April 1918, the German-backed former Imperial Russian general Pavlo Skoropadsky launched a successful coup against the Central Rada, proclaiming the conservative Ukrainian State with himself as Hetman. Skoropadsky reversed many of the previous regime's socialist policies, and he transformed Ukraine into a neutral state. The Hetmanate enjoyed relative peace until November 1918, when Germany's defeat on the Western Front led to the German withdrawal from the Ukraine. Skoropadsky left Kiev with the Germans, and the Hetmanate was then overthrown by the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party's "Directorate".
Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik government in Moscow then annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and invaded Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe. The Ukrainians of Austro-Hungarian Eastern Galicia formed the West Ukrainian People's Republic with the objective of joining the rest of Ukraine, but the Poles of the region gave their allegiance to the new Second Polish Republic. By October 1919, the Polish Army conquered Galicia in the Polish-Ukrainian War. In December 1918, French-led Entente forces were landed at Odessa and Sevastopol to prevent a Bolshevik takeover, but the unclear motive of the expedition and supply difficulties eventually forced the French to withdraw. In early 1919, most of eastern and central Ukraine fell to a Red Army offensive. On 5 February 1919, Kiev once again fell to the Bolsheviks, and, on 15 March 1919, the Ukrainian SSR was re-established in Kiev. The Ukrainian People's Republic was forced to relocate to Rivne, but a White Russian offensive in Southern Russia and the Urals allowed the Ukrainians to regroup. Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army and Don Army captured Eastern Ukraine from the Soviets in the summer of 1919, but, by 1920, the Soviets once again recaptured all of eastern and central Ukraine apart from Crimea. The Bolsheviks also betrayed and defeated the Maknhovist insurgents.
In April 1920, the Ukrainian nationalist leader Szymon Petlyura formed a military alliance with the Polish military dictator Jozef Pilsudski to fight the Soviets, recognizing the Polish annexation of Galicia and agreeing to join Pilsudski's future Polish-led Intermarium confederation. On 7 May 1920, a Polish-Ukrainian offensive reached Kiev, but, in May, the Soviet general Mikhail Tukhachevsky launched an offensive which drove the Poles from the Ukraine, except for Lwow. In August 1920, the Poles turned the tide at the Battle of Warsaw, driving back the Soviets as the Whites launched another offensive in southern Russia.
The Bolsheviks were forced to seek a truce with Poland, partitioning Ukraine. On 21 November 1920, Petlyura's remaining 23,000 soldiers were pushed into Polish territory by a Bolshevik offensive, and the 18 March 1921 treaty between Soviet Russia and Poland ended Poland's alliance with Ukraine. In 1921, the Reds overran the Crimea, forcing Wrangel to evacuate his army to Constantinople. On 17 November 1921, the last guerrillas remaining loyal to the Ukrainian Directorate were surrounded by Bolshevik cavalry at Korosten and destroyed, ending Ukrainian resistance to the Bolshevik takeover.