Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)

The Communist Party of Ukraine (, КПУ, KPU; ) was the founding and ruling political party of the Ukrainian SSR operated as a republican branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).Pyrih, R. Communist Party of Ukraine, the Soviet period (КОМУНІСТИЧНА ПАРТІЯ УКРАЇНИ РАДЯНСЬКОЇ ДОБИ). Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. 2007

Founded as the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine (CP(b)U) in 1918 in Taganrog, then part of Ukrainian Soviet Republic, it was the sole governing party in Ukraine as part of the Soviet Union. While the anti-Bolshevik Ukrainian People's Republic had its own political parties of socialist ideologies, the Communist Party of Ukraine was created out of the party of Russian Bolsheviks in Ukraine known as the RSDRP(b) – Social-Democracy of Ukraine. The party was denied the right to have a separate party statute and was governed by the statute of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1952, the party was renamed as the Communist Party of Ukraine.

Like all other CPSU republican branches, the CPU was committed, in accordance to the CPSU party statute, to adherence to Marxist–Leninist ideology based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx, and formalized under Joseph Stalin. The party had pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized and a planned economy was introduced. Prior to the adoption of central planning in 1929, Lenin had introduced a mixed economy, commonly referred to as the New Economic Policy, in the 1920s, which allowed to introduce certain capitalist elements in the Soviet economy after the disastrous experience of war communism.

On 30 August 1991, the Communist Party was outlawed in Ukraine. After the ban was lifted in 1993, the Communist Party of Ukraine was re-created in Donetsk under the leadership of Petro Symonenko. Following the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, all communist parties on the territory of Ukraine were outlawed and banned, with the ideology being criminalized.The Communist Party of Ukraine statute (Статут Комуністичної партії України) . Communist Party of Ukraine (www.kpu.ua)

History

Russian Bolsheviks in Ukraine The party traces its beginning to committees and party's cells of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) that existed at the end of the 19th century in all bigger cities and industrial centers on Ukrainian territory which was part of the Russian Empire.Yurchuk, V., Kuras, I. Communist Party of Ukraine (КОМУНІСТИЧНА ПАРТІЯ УКРАЇНИ). Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia. Under influence from the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in Saint Petersburg, in 1897 such organization was also formed in Kyiv and Yekaterinoslav which also were taking part in preparation and convocation of the 1st Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898. With release of newspaper Iskra in December 1900 in Germany, on territory of Ukraine spread out a network of the Lenin's Iskra group and organizations.

Among the most notable activists in Ukraine during that period were Ivan Babushkin, Rosalia Zemlyachka, Pyotr Krasikov, Isaak Lalayants, Friedrichs Lengniks, Maxim Litvinov, Grigory Petrovsky, Mykola Skrypnyk (Nikolay Skripnik), Dmitry Ulyanov, Vasiliy Shelgunov, Alexander Schlichter, Alexander Tsiurupa, and others. Following the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (1903) in social-democratic organizations has developed a struggle between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. On behalf of Vladimir Lenin, in 1904 Vatslav Vorovsky with Lalayants and Levitskiy created in Odessa the Southern Bureau of the RSDLP that led activities of Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Nikolayev committees, brought together around itself Bolshevik organizations of the South, conducted great deal of work in preparation to the 3rd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905.

During the 1905 Russian Revolution, Bolsheviks in Ukraine played only a minor role. In more than 50 cities and settlements Soviets of working deputies were created. In December 1905, Bolsheviks led number of armed uprisings in Ukraine, among which were in Horlivka, Alexandrovsk (Zaporizhia), Kharkiv. Kyiv, Mykolaiv and many other cities were covered with strike action. In course of the revolution the RSDLP organizations in Ukraine grew significantly and in 1907 they were accounted for over 20,000 men. In 1905, the Ukrainian Social Democratic Spilka joined the RSDLP. Organizers and leaders of party's activities during this time were Comrade Artyom (Fyodor Sergeev), Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, Miron Vladimirov, Kliment Voroshilov, Serafima Gopner, Sergey Gusev, Lidia Knipovich, Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, Grigory Petrovsky, Nikolay Skripnik, Alexander Schlichter, Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, and others.

During the following period of government reaction in 1907–10, Bolshevik organizations in Ukraine have suffered significant losses, yet continued their revolutionary activities. Guided by decisions of the 1912 Prague Conference, those Bolsheviks carried out work to expand and strengthen ties with the masses, their international upbringing, preparing workers to new revolutionary battles, were exposing supporters of what was labeled as "liquidationism", "otzovizm" (recalling representatives from the State Duma), and bourgeois nationalism. During the years of World War I (1914–18), the Bolsheviks of Ukraine propagated the Lenin's slogan of transforming the imperialist warBrian Becker. From inter-imperialist war to global class war: Understanding distinct stages of imperialism. Liberation School. 20 July 2018First Imperialist War. Living Marxism.The First Imperialist. The critical review of the official version (Первая империалистическая. Критика официальной версии). KPRF.ru. 2 August 2018Aleksandr Gorianin. About actual characteristics of the World War I: imperialist or what other? (О действительном характере Первой Мировой войны: империалистическая или какая-то иная?). Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 19 February 1997 into a civil war and fought against "social chauvinism and revolutionary defeatism."

During the 1917 February Revolution, known as the February bourgeois democratic revolution in communist jargon, the Bolshevik organizations guided by the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party claimed that they led the struggle of the working people against monarchy, and after Nicholas II's abdication led a struggle for the masses against whom communists named as conciliators and bourgeois nationalists. The process of differentiation of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in the joint organizations of the RSDLP intensified and as well as the process of creation of independent Bolshevik organizations that in July 1917 accounted for around 33,000 men.

According to Yevgenia Bosch, the Kyiv party organization after the February Revolution accounted for only near 200 members and it mainly was concentrated on elections to the Soviet of Workers' Deputies. The performance of the party organization was far from stellar and huge advantage in the soviet (council) was secured by what Bosch called "petty bourgeois parties". The majority in the soviet was formed by Mensheviks. The soviet's executive committee (ispolkom) was also dominated by Mensheviks and Bundists, while Bolsheviks managed to have own representative Maks Savelyev. The Kyiv party organization chose not to participate in elections to the Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies due to lack of relations with local military. Also the Kyiv Bolsheviks chose to ignore the All-Ukrainian National Congress that was convened on proposition of the Central Council of Ukraine on . The most important role for the organization was participation in the 1 May street demonstration to the point that the Bolsheviks decided to conducted own one in spite that the event was already organized by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies.

Unlike any other Bolshevik organizations in Ukraine that adopted the Lenin's April Theses without discussions, on 23 April 1917, the Kyiv party cell approved resolution in which it called the April Theses "yet insufficiently substantiated and developed".Kulchytskyi, S. The Lenin's April Theses (КВІТНЕВІ ТЕЗИ В.ЛЕНІНА). Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. 2007 On 28 April 1917, at the city's assembly Bolsheviks stated that those theses require further discussion and promised to publish them in their newspaper. They never did. At the 7th All-Russian conference of Bolsheviks where the theses were adopted practically unanimously, the Kyiv Bolsheviks, led by Yurii Pyatakov and who had other thought, did not dare to oppose Vladimir Lenin.

Struggle for establishment of the Soviet power in Ukraine

Following the "July Days" and the semi-legal 6th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, Bolsheviks of Ukraine began to prepare the workers for an armed uprising "for Soviet power" (, ). Big help was provided to them by the Central Committee of the Petrograd-based RSDLP(b) that maintained connection with more than 50 of its party organizations in Ukraine. Active role in the preparation process of the masses to the "Socialist Revolution" (October Revolution) was conducted by Vasiliy Averin, Yevgenia Bosch, Kliment Voroshilov, Yan Gamarnik, Serafima Gopner, Vladimir Zatonsky, Andrei Ivanov, Emanuel Kviring, Yuriy Kotsiubynsky, Dmitriy Lebed, Grigory Petrovsky, Vitaly Primakov, Fyodor Sergeyev, , and others. During the summer of 1917 on territory of modern Ukraine were formed two regional (oblast) branches of the RSDLP(b) of Southwestern Krai and Donets-Krivoi Rog Basin and later in the fall the bureau of the RSDLP(b) military organizations of the Southwestern Front (due to ongoing World War I). According to Yevgenia Bosch, the regional branch of the RSDLP(b) was supposed to consist of 7 guberniyas (Governorates): Kyiv, Chernihiv, Podolia, Volhynia, Poltava, Kherson, and Yekaterinoslav. Also membership of the party in Ukraine grew significantly in 1917 from 7,000 in April to 50,000 in October. Following the October Revolution in Petrograd, at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets among its delegates, there were 65 Bolsheviks from Ukraine.

The very next day after the October Revolution, on 8–13 November (26–31 October by old style), 1917 Bolsheviks in Kyiv, who have been headquartered at the Mariinskyi Palace, attempted to secure power in Kyiv with less success and, after the Bolshevik's victory over the Kyiv Military District garrison, the authority in Kyiv was secured by the liberal democratic Regional Committee in Protection of Revolution in Ukraine where important role played the Central Council of Ukraine. In a week the Central Council adopted its "Third Universal" where it condemned the Bolshevik coup-d'état and declared Ukraine in federative union with the social democratic Russian Republic (instead of the communist Soviet Russia). In response to that on 26 November 1917, the Bolshevik Sovnarkom published its manifesto to the all population "About struggle with counter-revolutionary insurgency of Kaledin, Kornilov, Dutov, and supported by the Central Rada (О борьбе с контрреволюционным восстанием Каледина, Корнилова, Дутова, поддерживаемым Центральной Радой)".

On 16—18 December (3—5 by old style), 1917, the regional congress of the RSDLP(b) of the South-West region was held in Kyiv, and on 18—19 December (5—6), the regional conference of the RSDLP(b) of the Donets-Kryvyi Rih basin was held in Kharkiv. They called on the workers to fight against the Ukrainian Central Council.

Communist Party of Ukraine Establishment