Historian Every Saturday. Bolshevism and the "Ukrainian question" (H. Yefimenko, part 1) (20.01.2024)
An academic lecture by historian Hennadiy Yefimenko (the “Historian Every Saturday” series, part 1) on Bolshevism and the “Ukrainian question” during the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1919. Key points for the article: the genesis of the Bolshevik slogan on the right of nations to self-determination (the 1913 Poronin conference), its purely theoretical character (the right was proclaimed, but the Bolsheviks agitated against acting on it), and how, in 1918–1919, the Bolsheviks framed Soviet Ukrainian statehood as a forced concession to the strength of the national movement rather than a “gift.” Complements part 2 of the same series (source 2024-02-03) in the article on the myth that “Lenin created Ukraine.”
Key moments
- 08:41 The 1913 Poronin conference: Lenin initiated the slogan on the right of nations to self-determination "up to secession"
- 10:05 This slogan was a purely theoretical construct; any attempts to act on it were strangled at the root
- 11:25 Lenin's letter to Shaumyan (1913): proclaiming the right does not mean agitating for it — on the contrary, agitate against it
- 23:02 Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia (1917): state recognition of the right to secede — and the concessions ended there
- 46:00 A separate CP(b)U was created as a "regional organization of the RCP(b)"; the first capital of Soviet Ukraine was Sudzha/Belgorod