In 1917 the Russian Empire officially incorporated over one hundred nationalities and ethnic groups, which by 1926, under a more accurate census definition, had risen to one hundred and ninety-four. There were crucial factors in 1917 that worked in favor of the creation of national consciousness such as the war; the new freedom of propaganda and agitation; the forced involvement of villages in national politics; the collapse of old values and authority; and the search for new authoritarian guides. In 1917, the growth of political consciousness was also significant as many non-Russian peasants were drawn into revolutionary politics and gave new content to traditional organizational forms and created new institutional links with organizations from the soviets to the Constituent Assembly. It is in this period of instability that many non-Russian groups were starting to have nationalistic feelings and seek autonomy and independence from Russia. Finland and Ukraine were two of them. Finland was able to achieve its independence in 1917 whereas Ukraine was unable to do so. The Grand Duchy of Finland was already an autonomous part of the Russian Empire from 1809 and 1917; this helped create a greater national unity and identity, which was aided by the support of other countries such as Germany. Moreover, the Eduskunta, the parliament of Finland, at the time had no clear lines of direction and authority from Russia, which had many problems from within during that period, and thus it declared its independence. Whereas Ukraine was unable to become an independent state with the collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires because of a range of internal and external factors that were largely out of its control. Opposed from without by Russian Bolsheviks, Russian Whites and various neighboring countries, written off by the Versailles powers, opposed from within by indigenous Bolsheviks, and unable to deal with pressing social questions or establish its rule over the country and unable to build an enduring political base in urban areas or amongst the peasantry, Ukraine nationalism was far weaker than the forces against it. This essay thus aims to explain in more detail why no enduring government was established in Ukraine during this period and what factors, on the other hand, allowed Finland to do what Ukraine was unable to achieve.
The majority of Ukraine was a colony of Tsarist Russia for over two and half centuries. In Moscow’s thinking there was no Ukraine only the southern province known as Malorossia ‘Little Russia’ and to maintain this position Ukraine was subjected to systematic institutional discrimination through policies of Russification. In 1897, Ukrainians numbered over 22 million, the largest non-Russian group in the Russian Empire. They were predominantly rural people whose lives were focused in village, in fact in 1897, 93% of all Ukrainians were peasants; and only 2.4% per cent lived in urban settlements over 20,000, which were dominated by non-Ukrainian populations. Although Ukrainians comprised 72.6% of the total population of Ukraine, with Russians and Jews comprising 11.8 and 8.3% respectively, the proportions were radically different in towns and cities, with Ukrainians comprising 30.3% of the urban population, and Russians and Jews comprising 34 and 27% respectively. Only just over five per cent of Ukrainians lived in urban areas, compared to 38% of Russians and 45% of Jews, and they were concentrated in the smaller towns. Only one seventh of Ukrainians were literate and there was no instruction in the Ukrainian language. Before 1917, the autocracy had rejected the very notion of a separate Ukrainian nationality and had vigorously repressed attempts by the Ukrainian intelligentsia to instill national consciousness among the peasantry. A ban on Ukrainian-language publications was enforced before 1905. The small Ukrainian press, which survived, faced the constant threat of suppression if there was any suspicion of a nationalist message. Instruction in the Ukrainian language was not permitted in schools, even at primary level, until 1917. The electoral law revision, which accompanied Stolypin's coup, effectively eliminated Ukrainian representation in the Third and Fourth Dumas. Thus, in the decade before the revolution, Ukrainian nationalists were unable to use the schools, the press, or the State Duma as a forum for national education and agitation. In 1917, Ukrainian nationalists took advantage of the deterioration of central authority in the Russian Empire to make a bid for Ukrainian self-determination. However social and economic conditions rendered the Ukrainian peasantry difficult material for political mobilization. The fact that most Ukrainians were dispersed among numerous small villages made it difficult for the small nationalist elite to reach and organize the bulk of its constituency. On the other hand, the historian Steven Guthier argues that the ramifications for Ukrainian nationalism arising from its predominantly peasant base were not altogether negative. In the village, the Ukrainian peasant was not exposed to the intense Russianizing pressure, which denationalized so many Ukrainians in the cities and industrial centers. However, it is clear that the class structure of Ukraine was very distorted and this led to disunity at a time when national unity was fundamental to achieve independence.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
The Ukrainian Central Rada, a body representing Ukrainian organizations in the Russian Empire, was formed in Kiev in the first week of March 1917. It soon demanded autonomy for Ukraine. The all-Russian Provisional Government rejected its first proposals and in response, the Rada unilaterally declared autonomy in its First Universal on 10th June. The government reversed its policy and sent a delegation to Kiev to negotiate. On 3rd July, the Rada and the government reached an agreement on Ukrainian autonomy. However, on 4th August the government defined the autonomous Ukraine’s prerogatives rather narrowly, betraying the hopes of the Ukrainian nationalists. Although the Rada and the Provisional Government formally recognized each other, they did not establish mutual trust and a working relationship prior to the government’s fall in the October Revolution. This controversy, as Johannes Remy argues, contributed to the eventual defeat in the Revolution of both sides.
The authors of a recent collective monograph on the Ukrainian revolution claim that while the Ukrainians negotiated and acted in good faith, none of the Russian political groups was prepared to accept Ukrainian autonomy. On the other hand, V. I. Bondarenko claims that it was the Rada, which negotiated in bad faith, as the government was not at all opposed to Ukrainian autonomy, but only wanted to solve this question lawfully. Remy instead argues that there were substantial disagreements within both the Rada and the government. This in turn created a lack of trust and prevented fruitful co-operation, even between those Ukrainian and Russian leaders who might otherwise have reached an agreement. Ukraine turned to the Central Powers for help, and the Rada was closed down in 1918. Ukraine was then ruled by Skoropadsky, who, with German support, established a dictatorship, the Hetmanate, in which he wielded considerable personal power. Other than the German occupying authorities, his main political support was the Alliance of Landowners, which was composed of Russified intermediate and large landowners who had little sympathy with the Ukrainian national movement. German grain requisitions provoked large-scale peasant resistance in the summer of 1918. Skoropadsky later moved closer to the Russian nationalists, forming a cabinet comprised mainly of Russian monarchists, and, to the outrage of the Ukrainian nationalists, issued a proclamation which called for the establishment of an all-Russian federation, the final goal of which would be the restoration of Great Russia. All of these internal and external factors had an impact on the fate of Ukraine autonomy, which would then return under the Soviet Union. Altogether Russia’s economy was deeply dependent upon Ukrainian agricultural and industrial products thus it was not going to give autonomy so easily, a totally different destiny was seen in Finland.
Finland in 1900 was very different from the republic that it is today. It was first a part of the Swedish realm since the Middle Ages and later it had passed to Russia under the name of Grand Duchy of Finland. Alexander I explicitly stated that his intention had been to give the Finnish people a political existence ‘so that they would not consider themselves conquered by Russia, but joined to it by their own self-evident interest’. D.G. Kirby argues that despite the attempts of Alexander’s successors at the end of the century to curb the autonomy of the Grand Duchy, this framework remained substantially intact and was to provide the basis for the independent state which emerged out of the chaos of the revolution which destroyed the old empire. Autonomy gave Finland a certain political status: it remained to find a national identity. In the evolution of the Finnish national movement the most important literary event in the early nineteenth century was the publication in 1835 of the first edition of Lonnrot’s ‘Kalevala’. There is no doubt that its greatest significance was in the inspiration, it gave to the movement for national independence. A Finish historian acknowledged that “Finland was an entity by itself which could no longer become Sweden and ought never to become Russian. In other words, we felt that we were Finns, members of the Finnish nation”. Above all else, the Grand Duchy retained its autonomy, its special status within the Russian Empire, which had developed into a more or less fully-fledged identity. This special status had come under attack from Russian nationalists, but Finland had not been subject to Russification as had the Baltic provinces in the 1880s. All of these factors allowed Finland’s national feelings to spread quickly and to ask for independence.
With the outbreak of the First World War Finland promptly became an important strategic outpost of the Russian Empire, since superior German naval forces barred Russia’s normal exit to the outside world through the Baltic Sea and communication could be maintained with Britain and France. In view of Finland’s newly acquired importance, the Russian Government would have been advised to have made its peace with the Finns and to have sought their friendly cooperation in the war with the Central Powers. Instead, it used the outbreak of the war as an excuse for intensifying Russification. In an unofficial Finnish contact on the 26th of November 1917 with the German General Headquarters it was stated that: “Finland is pro-German and during the world had served the Central powers in a modest way. Finland will and must unconditionally break away from Russia and create an independent state in close association with Germany as, in our view it is in political, economic and cultural interest to Germany too”. In fact, in 1914 already many young Finns had gone secretly to Germany, where they formed a battalion. In the meantime, the collapse of the Russian Tsardom in 1917, led to the almost complete collapse of the machinery of Russian control over Finland. The historian Smith. C. Jaya argues that the revolution in 1917 in Finland can be divided into three main stages. In the first, which extended from the fall of the Tsar to the dissolution of the Red Diet, all Finns, both socialists and non-socialists, were generally united in the effort to obtain the maximum possible amount of freedom from Russia. In the second phase, the national struggle become secondary to the social struggle between the Social Democrats and the middle class and peasant parties. Finally, there was a third period, during which the Finnish Red Guard come to blows with the nationalist Protective Corps and, as a consequence, civil war broke out between the north of Finland and the South where a Socialist Worker Republic had been established in Helsinki. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, were ardent partisans of granting at once, the maximum demands of the Finns, including complete independence. “The right of all the nations forming part of Russia freely to secede and form independent states must be recognized”. Lenin seems to have been impressed by the rapid progress made by the Finnish Social Democrats between 1905 and 1917. After a long process Finnish independence was adopted on 6th December 1917 and Lenin himself, who was dealing with more important problems in Russia at the time, approved it.
In conclusion, there are many reasons why Ukraine did not become an independent nation during this period but Finland did. The provisional government was faced with many issues relating to nationality. In terms of Finland, even before the Revolution, the Imperial government had curtailed traditional Finnish autonomy. Although the provisional government restored traditional autonomy, it was no longer sufficient for the Finns, who now demanded either broader autonomy or full independence. Many Ukrainians perceived the Provisional Government’s reluctance to grant autonomy as a manifestation of Russian imperialism and claimed that the Revolution had not changed the fundamental attitude of Russia’s rulers towards Ukraine. The Western powers were interested in the national movement and struggles only because they could gain particular economic interests and Ukraine suffered more because of this as it was seen as a vassal state. As for internal factors, Ivan Rudnytsky says that the essential problem facing Ukraine was that “the crystallization of a modern Ukrainian nation was markedly retarded”, unlike Finland, where ‘national formation preceded the attainment of political independence’. The failure of the Rada was due to “the underdevelopment of the Ukrainian national movement”, and it “was forced to begin state building before the process of nation building had been completed”.
Stuck on your essay?
