Outline History of the Ukrainian Communist Party (Independentists): An Emancipatory Communism 1918–1925

Abstract

This article examines an aspect of the Russian and East European Revolutions that has been largely overlooked by historians. That of the Independentist Ukrainian Marxists who challenged both the Russian Communists and the Ukrainian nationalists in their quest for an independent Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. Originating in Ukrainian Social-Democracy, the Nezalezhnyky (Independentists) anticipated many of the ideas of the communist oppositions' who sought to reassert the libertarian goals of the revolution. Struggling first within the Ukrainian Peoples Republic then the Ukrainian SSR, their campaign had international ramifications and gained the support Bela Kun's Soviet Hungary. In 1919, commanding a section of the Red Army the Nezalezhnyky led a pro-soviet rebellion larger and far more serious than the Kronstadt uprising. Organised as the Ukrainian Communist Party, between 1919–1925 they were the last legal-opposition party in the USSR. In the face of harassment they were the only communists to exp...