Temporary states during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922)Anders…

Temporary states during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922)

Anders Kvernberg (Oslo, 2018)

The Russian civil war (Oct. 1917-summer 1922) pitted Reds (communists), Whites (tsarists led by Wrangel, Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenitch) & Greens (armies of peasants facing Whites & Reds) against each other. In this chaos, many states have a brief independent life.

The largest is the Far Eastern Republic, a Bolshevik puppet state (from which Green Ukraine seceded). The smallest are the Republic of Perloja, limited to a Lithuanian village, presided over by a veteran of the Tsarist army, & the Soviet Republic of Naissaar, proclaimed in a fort on an Estonian island in December. 1917 by 82 Bolshevik sailors (hunted by the Germans on February 24, 1918).

The German occupiers signed a first treaty in Brest-Litovsk on February 9. 1918 with Ukraine then a second on March 3 with the Bolsheviks. Germany seizes Poland, Lithuania & Courland while Finland, Estonia, Latvia & Ukraine become independent under German control.

The Ukrainian People’s Republic (non-Bolshevik), autonomous since the spring of 1917, was overthrown by the coup d’état of the conservative general Skoropadsky. With German support, he established the Hetmanate (April–Dec. 1918) and was then ousted from power during an uprising led by Simon Petliura & his (non-Bolshevik) Ukrainian People’s Army. The Ukrainian republic was restored until 1921, not without first having to fight the libertarian Ukraine (or Makhnovshchina), a revolutionary peasant movement led by Nestor Makhno, who capitulated to the Bolsheviks in August 1921.
Other states on Ukrainian territory are the Bolshevik Republic of Odessa, the Lemko Republic, the Komańcza Republic (or Eastern Lemko Republic) & the Hutsul Republic. At the same time, in the east of Ukraine, the anti-Bolshevik Don Cossack Republic was formed.

No state survived the creation of the USSR on December 30. 1922.