IN NOVEMBER, 1917, when the Bolsheviks came into power in Russia, there already existed in the Ukraine a separate government called the Central Rada, i.e., Council. This government was a coalition of left-wing parties which cherished radical political and economic views and a general aspiration to see the Ukraine established as an autonomous or even an independent republic. The Bolsheviks had no part in this government and in fact regarded it with distrust and contempt. They had proclaimed on November 15, 1917, that the nationalities of the old Russian Empire had the right of self-determination, but it soon appeared that this generous declaration was not all it seemed. According to the Bolsheviks, the existing governments in the Ukraine and elsewhere in Russia did not truly represent the people, whose will, they maintained, could be expressed only by the Bolsheviks themselves or those who accepted their program. The application of this interpretation of self-determination proceeded in the Ukraine along two lines. First, the Bolsheviks held a congress of Soviets in Kiev and later set up in Kharkov a People's Secretariat as a rival government to the Rada. The second, and more efficient line was an attack on the Ukrainian Rada with the Red Guards from Soviet Russia. It began with an ultimatum in which the Bolshevik government denounced the Rada for its refusal to recognize the Soviets and the Soviet power in the and was followed by an advance of the Red Guards.l The Central Rada replied by proclaiming the independence of the Ukraine, but its forces were too weak to uphold it, and on January 26, 1918, after a severe bombardment, Kiev fell to the Soviet forces. While these events were taking place in the Ukraine, peace negotiations were going on at Brest-Litovsk between Germany and her allies and Soviet Russia. The Rada had also sent representatives to this meeting, where, to the great annoyance of the Soviet delegates, they negotiated separately with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. These negotiations produced on February 9, I918, a treaty by which the Central Powers recognized the independence of the Ukraine with the Central Rada as its government. The