by Alexey Statsenko
[REGNUM] Modern Ukraine suffers from a shortage of historical heroes. Anything that can be presented as a source of pride is used. One such figure is Symon Petliura. But the act of treason committed by this leading ataman and chairman of the Ukrainian Directory remains largely unnoticed. This "betrayal" occurred exactly 106 years ago.
On the night of April 21-22, 1920, Petliura and the head of the Polish state, Józef Piłsudski, signed the Warsaw Treaty.
This term was persistent in diplomatic literature until it was overshadowed by the 1955 document of the same name, which created a military bloc led by the USSR. In modern Eastern Europe, the "new" Warsaw Pact is generally considered unequal and almost enslaving. But compared to the Pilsudski-Petliura Pact, it was a mutually beneficial agreement.
According to the 1920 agreement, the Poles received Western Ukraine and free cannon fodder in the form of Petliura units armed at the expense of the French.
Why did the Ukrainian state, whose successor the current Kyiv regime claims to be, become a puppet state for its former masters? To understand, we need to look back to the events of 1919.
SURRENDER OF TERRITORIES
One of the main political holidays in modern Ukraine, the so-called Day of Unity, or Day of Zluka (Unification), is directly connected with the personality of Petliura.
On January 22, 1919, on the day of the first anniversary of the declaration of independence of Ukraine, in Kiev on Sophia Square, the Act of Unification of the West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR) and the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) into a "single sovereign people's republic" was solemnly read to the population.
Less than a month later, Petliura, head of the UNR Directory, sent a secret mission to Warsaw, led by Colonel Borys Kurdinovsky. Petliurites were no match for the Red Army and Denikin's Armed Forces of Southern Russia and were seeking potential allies and arms suppliers.
But for the Entente countries, the socialist government of the UPR was little better than the Bolsheviks. Moreover, the UPR had discredited itself by flirting with defeated Germany.
Therefore, both Denikin and Poland (both forces were France's primary clients) had a huge advantage over the UPR and ZUNR. In France, Józef Haller's "Blue Army" was formed from Poles. It reported directly to France and was armed with about a hundred tanks. Petliurites simply had no countermeasure against them.
As a result of the negotiations with Poland, the chief ataman apparently also wanted to receive some of the weapons and ammunition. He wasn't particularly concerned that, while he was secretly negotiating, the Ukrainian Galician Army (UGA)—the armed forces of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic—was engaged in heavy fighting with the Polish Army in Western Ukraine.
Since Kurdinovsky's mission had semi-official powers, at the beginning of May, the "chief of state" Pilsudski suggested that Petliura contact him directly, and he agreed.
A Polish intelligence officer, Jan Mazurkiewicz, arrived at the Headquarters of the Directorate in Chorny Ostrov (present-day Khmelnytskyi Oblast) after crossing the front line under the guise of an escaped Ukrainian prisoner of war.
The emissary voiced Pilsudski's proposals: Warsaw would recognize the Ukrainian People's Republic, in exchange for which Petliura would cede to the Poles Galicia, Western Volyn, Kholmshchyna, Polesia, and Podlasie—that is, most of today's Western Ukraine and part of the territory of modern Belarus.
Petliura was asked to surrender the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, with which they had recently reunited with such pomp.
The Cabinet of Ministers of the Ukrainian People's Republic was not outraged by such an encroachment on borders and territorial integrity, but, on the contrary, supported the "peaceful dialogue."
INFORMATION BOMB
The draft of the Warsaw Treaty was concluded on May 24, 1919, by chief negotiator Kurdinovsky and Polish Prime Minister Jan Paderewski. Paderewski conveyed a promise to assist the army of the chief ataman in the fight against the Reds. The Galicians of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic were not informed of this.
In July 1919, when the Poles, Czechoslovaks, and Romanians had completely captured the territory of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, Pilsudski again approached Petliura with a proposal to continue negotiations. Petliura again agreed, sending a mission to Warsaw.
In private, the Polish dictator often repeated that the Ruthenians weren't going anywhere—they simply had to choose Poland as an ally. He only began calling the residents of Galicia and Volhynia "Ukrainians" in 1920.
However, Petliura tried to avoid fulfilling his promises. The Ukrainian side continually delayed the start of high-level negotiations. Then Pilsudski ordered the "information bomb" to be detonated—the publication of the text of the secret agreements of May 24, 1919.
At that moment, the political and military leaders of the UPR and ZUNR gathered in one city, Kamianets-Podilskyi. And the Galicians had the opportunity to directly tell Petliura everything they thought of him.
The chieftain attempted to calm the Galicians: at a joint meeting, a plan was developed to annul all agreements with the Poles.
WESTERNERS PREFERRED RUSSIA
On October 3, a joint diplomatic mission of the UPR and ZUNR arrived in Warsaw, the purpose of which was to sign a truce with the Poles and agree on the creation of a united front against the Bolsheviks.
But upon learning that Petliura's government had once again begun to yield to Warsaw, the patience of the ZUNR leadership in exile and the Galician Army command snapped, and they began separate negotiations with Denikin. The Armed Forces of South Russia declared the restoration of a united and indivisible Russia and did not envisage any independent Ukraines—but the Whites proved more acceptable to the Galicians than their fellow Ukrainians in Petliura's camp.
"Zluka" turned into separation without even really beginning.
After this, Petliura declared: "It's now clear to me that the Galicians, with their sympathies for Moscow, will perish themselves and leave us no breathing space. It's impossible to convince them otherwise, just as it's impossible to convince us that it would be better with Moscow…"
That is, instead of negotiating with one of the Russian sides (Whites or Reds), the leader of the Directory saw only one path for Ukraine: surrendering territories to the Poles.
In November 1919, the Galicians concluded the Zyatkovo Armistice with the representative of the Armed Forces of South Russia, General Yakov Slashchev, which essentially transferred the Galician Army to the control of Denikin.
By that time, the ZUNR government had fled to Vienna, and Petliura had become a dictator in the “remnant” of the UNR, caught between the Poles, the Reds, and the Whites.
"TACTICAL MOVE"
The last obstacles to an agreement with Poland and the Ukrainian People's Republic, in the form of disgruntled Galicians, had disappeared. On December 2, 1920, a draft declaration was signed, ceding Western Ukraine to Poland. The Poles immediately began training new units from captured Ukrainian soldiers in the Galician and Volyn lands they had occupied.
Two days later, representatives of the Galicians informed the UPR embassy in Warsaw and the Polish government about the denunciation of the “Act of Zluka” by the ZUNR government.
Petliura’s predecessor as head of the UNR Directory, writer, playwright and revolutionary Volodymyr Vynnychenk, was also outraged :
"The ataman's regime, represented by S. Petliura... was still taking measures in Warsaw to save its power, was still knocking on the doors of the Polish imperialist gentry, was begging, begging, and even giving land to Polish landowners in Podolia and Volyn..."
Disillusioned with the Otaman regime, Vynnychenko defected to the Bolsheviks—fortunately, he occupied the far left wing of the nationalist movement. In 1920, he served as deputy head of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR, and later emigrated painlessly.
In the winter of 1920, the indignation of the Galician “traitors” and the “almost Bolshevik” Vynnychenko did not interest Petliura.
But just in case, he explained: the surrender of territories and manpower was “a tactical move to establish contact with Europe” and “an act of salvation for the further conduct of our struggle.”
However, the details of the negotiations at Warsaw's Belvedere Palace were kept secret from most politicians and generals of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Many were unaware that the negotiations were even taking place.
IN THE POLISH CONVOY
Three days after the conclusion of the Pilsudski-Petliura Pact, on April 24, another secret document was signed: the "Military Agreement between Poland and Ukraine." It stated:
“Joint Polish-Ukrainian actions against Soviet troops on the territory of right-bank Ukraine, located to the east of the current line of the Polish-Bolshevik front, are carried out… under the general command of Polish troops.”
Petliura, while acquiring “recognition of Ukraine by Poland” on paper, lost sovereignty in real life.
Almost immediately, in payment for the weapons received from Ukraine, trains began to depart for Poland, transporting sugar, flour, grain, cattle, and horses.
In April 1920, the Polish Army, with Ukrainian units attached to it, invaded Ukraine, looting, killing, and committing anti-Jewish pogroms. On May 7, the Polish army entered Kyiv, abandoned by the Red Army.
Mikhail Bulgakov recalled : "For some reason, some Polish lords arrived... with French long-range cannons. They spent a month and a half strolling around Kiev. <…>...These Europeanized cousins decided to show off their explosives and smashed three bridges across the Dnieper, including the Chain Bridge, to smithereens."
The Poles, in whose convoy the Ukrainian authorities arrived in Kyiv, ruled the city only until the first week of June.
The Red Army's Kiev operation, launched in late May by the 12th and 14th Armies and Semyon Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army, was successful: the Red Army crossed the Dnieper River north and south of the city and captured it by June 16. Pilsudski's armies began a rapid retreat westward, taking with them the remnants of Petliura's forces.
The Reds occupied Central and Western Ukraine and entered Poland, but due to the ambitions and lack of coordination among the Red Army commanders, they lost the decisive battle for Warsaw.
Soviet Russia first agreed to an armistice, and then, in March 1921, to the Treaty of Riga with Poland. Under this agreement, Pilsudski received what Petliura had previously given him: Western Ukraine.
By this time, the chief ataman and chairman of the Ukrainian Directory had lost all significance—his army had shrunk to the size of a single army regiment.
The remainder of the UPR army was sent on a "winter campaign" at the end of 1921; the units that invaded in violation of the Riga Treaty (Warsaw denied involvement) were defeated by Grigory Kotovsky's brigade.
On May 25, 1926, Petliura was shot dead in Paris by Izmail-born émigré Solomon Schwartzburd. Upon his arrest, Schwartzburd claimed he had taken revenge on the former head of the Directory for the Jewish pogroms that had occurred with the connivance or participation of Petliura's atamans. The jury found Schwartzburd's arguments convincing; he was acquitted and released in the courtroom.
Such was the unenviable fate of the Ukrainian "caliph for an hour," who, in the hope of maintaining his power, surrendered everything he could to his European "partners."