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89-458: "The Civil War is lost definitely. For a long time Russia has been travelling on its own path, not our path ... Either recognize this Russia, hated by you all, or stay without Russia, because a 'third Russia' by your recipes does not and will not exist ... The Soviet regime saved Russia - the Soviet regime is justified, regardless of how weighty the arguments against it are ... The mere fact of its enduring existence proves its popular character, and

178-773: A Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent 11 years at hard labour. After the Revolution, I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it. Kaplan referenced the Bolsheviks' growing authoritarianism, citing their forcible shutdown of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, the elections to which they had lost. When it became clear that Kaplan would not implicate any accomplices, she

267-584: A Ukrainian emigre journal called Nova Hromada (first published in July 1923) to encourage this trend. The Soviets referred to this movement as a Ukrainian Smena Vekh, as did its opponents among the Ukrainian emigres, who saw it as a defeatist expression of Little Russian Russophilia . For this reason, the actual proponents of the trend rejected the label of Smenovekhovtsy . Russian Civil War [REDACTED] White movement The Russian Civil War

356-714: A number of vacant seats in the Soviets and Central Executive for the Menshevik and Left Socialist Revolutionaries parties in proportion to their vote share at the Congress. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was also approved by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists , both groups were in favour of a more radical democracy . From mid-1917 onwards, the Russian Army ,

445-565: A political and geographical concept in Russia, referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine , especially the territory of the Cossack Hetmanate . Accordingly, derivatives such as "Little Russian" ( Russian : Малоросс , romanized :  Maloross ) were commonly applied to the people, language, and culture of the area. A large part of the region's elite population adopted a Little Russian identity that competed with

534-757: A result of the Polish–Soviet War ), Armenia , Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army. By 1921, Soviet Russia had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus , although anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s. The armies under Kolchak were eventually forced on a mass retreat eastward . Bolshevik forces advanced east, despite encountering resistance in Chita , Yakut and Mongolia . Soon

623-635: A strong imprint on the specifics of the Civil War. During the Russian Civil War, the White movement functioned as a big tent political movement representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to the Bolsheviks—from the republican-minded liberals and Kerenskyite social-democrats on the left through monarchists and supporters of a united multinational Russia to

712-707: A surge in support for the Bolsheviks , who took control of the soviets , which until then had been controlled by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Promising an end to the war and "all power to the Soviets", the Bolsheviks then ended dual power by overthrowing the Provisional Government in late October, on the eve of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies , in what would be

801-404: Is an embodiment of this stereotype; his Surzhyk -speaking drag persona Verka Serduchka has also been seen as perpetuating this demeaning image. Danylko himself usually laughs off such criticism of his work, and many art critics argue that his success with the Ukrainian public is rooted in the unquestionable authenticity of his presentation. Tchaikovsky 's Symphony No 2 in C minor, Op 17,

890-691: The Central Powers also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Soviet Russia. The Bolsheviks initially consolidated control over most of the former empire. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an emergency peace with the German Empire , who had captured vast swathes of the Russian territory during

979-537: The Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) decided to liquidate criminal recklessness associated with anarchists and disarm all anarchist groups in the face of their militancy. From early 1918, the Bolsheviks started physical elimination of opposition, other socialist and revolutionary fractions. Anarchists were among the first: Of all the revolutionary elements in Russia it is the Anarchists who now suffer

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1068-841: The Czechoslovak Legions overthrew Bolshevik rule in Siberia , the Urals and the Volga region in late May-early June 1918 and the center of SR activity shifted there. On June 8, 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the All-Russian Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly ( Komuch ) in Samara and declared it the new supreme authority in the country. The Social Revolutionary Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia came to power on 29 June 1918, after

1157-463: The French equivalent Petite Russie , is a geographical and historical term used to describe Ukraine . At the beginning of the 14th century, the patriarch of Constantinople accepted the distinction between what it called the eparchies of Megalē Rosiia (Great Rus') and Mikrà Rosiia (Little Rus'). The jurisdiction of the latter became the metropolis of Halych in 1303. The specific meaning of

1246-500: The Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia consisted of only 6 of the 19 former eparchies . It later lost its ecclesiastical associations and became a geographical name only. In the 17th century, the term Malorossiya was introduced into Russian. In English the term is often translated Little Russia or Little Rus’, depending on context. The Russian-Polish geographer and ethnographer Zygmunt Gloger in his "Geography of historic lands of

1335-613: The Russian Revolution , which was one of the key events of the 20th century . The Russian monarchy ended with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II during the February Revolution , and Russia was in a state of political flux. A tense summer culminated in the October Revolution , where the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government of the new Russian Republic . Bolshevik seizure of power

1424-658: The Soviet Union would not last and would give way to a revival of Russian nationalism . Smenovekhovtsy supported co-operation with the Soviet government in the hope that the Soviet state would evolve back into a "bourgeois state". Such cooperation was important for the Soviets , since the whole Russian " White diaspora" included 3 million people. The leaders of smenovekhovstvo were mostly former Mensheviks , Kadets and some Octobrists . Nikolay Ustryalov (1890–1937) led

1513-738: The Ukrainian anarchists of the Makhnovshchina and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , were involved in conflict against the Bolsheviks. They, as well as non-ideological green armies , opposed the Bolsheviks, the Whites and the foreign interventionists. Thirteen foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied intervention , whose primary goal was re-establishing the Eastern Front of World War I . Three foreign nations of

1602-633: The Volunteer Army began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against the Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well. Little Russia Little Russia , also known as Lesser Russia , Malorussia , Little Rus' , and

1691-465: The 20th century when the modern term Ukraine started to prevail, while Little Russia gradually fell out of use. The term Little Russia is now anachronistic when used to refer to the country Ukraine and the modern Ukrainian nation, its language, culture, etc. Such usage is typically perceived as conveying an imperialist view that the Ukrainian territory and people ("Little Russians") belong to "one, indivisible Russia." Today, many Ukrainians consider

1780-521: The Bolshevik Party who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections. As a result, the Bolsheviks banned each opposition party when it turned against the Soviet government. In some cases, bans were lifted. This banning of parties did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced under the Stalinist regime. In December 1917, Felix Dzerzhinsky

1869-608: The Bolshevik police. The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground agency organizing democratic resistance to the Bolshevik dictatorship, composed of the Popular Socialists, Right Socialist Revolutionaries, and Defensists, among others. They were tasked with propping up anti-Bolshevik forces and to create a Russian state system based on civil liberties, patriotism, and state-consciousness with

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1958-654: The Bolsheviks: in the Voronezh Oblast, the Red Guards killed sixteen peasants during the pacification of the village, while another village was shelled with artillery in order to force the peasants to surrender and in the Novgorod Oblast the rebelling peasants were dispersed with machine-gun fire from a train sent by a detachment of Latvian Red Army soldiers. While the Bolsheviks immediately denounced

2047-453: The Civil War (1917–1922), During interrogation by the Cheka , she made the following statement: My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against

2136-743: The Old Poland" ( Polish : "Geografia historyczna ziem dawnej Polski" ) describes an alternative view of the term "Little" in relations to Little Russia where he compares it to the similar term of " Little Poland ". The expression μικρὰ Ρωσσία is found as early as 1292, in writings of Codinus . The term was used by Patriarch Callistus I of Constantinople in 1361 when he created two metropolitan sees : Great Rus' in Vladimir and Kiev and Little Rus' with its centers in Galich ( Halych ) and Novgorodok ( Navahrudak ). King Casimir III of Poland

2225-606: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Vyshensky addressed "the Christians of Little Russia, brotherhoods of Lviv and Vilna ," and Kopystensky wrote "Little Russia, or Kiev and Lithuania." The term was adopted in the 17th century by the Tsardom of Russia to refer to the Cossack Hetmanate of Left-bank Ukraine , when the latter fell under Russian protection after the 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav , after which it

2314-760: The Red Army split the Don and Volunteer armies , forcing evacuations in Novorossiysk in March and Crimea in November 1920. After that, fighting was sporadic until the war ended with the capture of Vladivostok in October 1922, but anti-Bolshevik resistance continued with the Muslim Basmachi movement in Central Asia and Khabarovsk Krai until 1934. There were an estimated 7 to 12 million casualties during

2403-633: The Republic: Great plan! Finish it with Dzerzhinsky. While pretending to be the "greens" (we will blame them later), we will advance by 10–20 miles (versts) and hang kulaks, priests, landowners. Prize: 100.000 rubles for each hanged man. Leonid Kannegisser , a young military cadet of the Imperial Russian Army , assassinated Moisey Uritsky on August 17, 1918, outside the Petrograd Cheka headquarters in retaliation for

2492-482: The Russian Church would become independent after declaring autocephaly in 1448, and Μικρὰ Ῥωσσία ( Mikrà Rhōssía – Little Rus’), which beginning in 1458 would have its own metropolitans who were approved by the patriarch of Constantinople. Initially Little or Lesser meant the nearer part, as after the division of the metropolis (ecclesiastical province) in 1305, a new southwestern metropolis in

2581-601: The Russian people were a union of three branches—Great Russia, Little Russia, and White Russia—under the sole legal authority of the Moscow Tsars. The term Little Russia has been used in Ukrainian chronicles by Samiilo Velychko , in a chronicle of the Hieromonk Leontiy (Bobolinski), and in Thesaurus by Archimandrite Ioannikiy (Golyatovsky). The usage of the name was later broadened to apply loosely to

2670-586: The SR Nikolai Avksentiev and some followers were arrested for organizing a conspiracy. This was the first time Bolsheviks used this kind of repression against a socialist party. Izvestia said the arrest was not related to his membership in the Constituent Assembly. On January 4, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee made a resolution saying the slogan "all power to the constituent assembly"

2759-651: The Soviet government for ensuring Russia's unity and for preventing attacks from the neighbouring countries, especially during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921. Conservative émigrés such as those in the Russian All-Military Union (founded in 1924) opposed the Smenoveknovstvo movement, viewing it as a promotion of defeatism and moral relativism , as a capitulation to the Bolsheviks , and as desirous of seeking compromise with

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2848-461: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and opposed Trotsky's insistence that no one try to attack German troops in Ukraine. According to historian Marcel Liebman , Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either took up arms against the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , or participated in sabotage, collaboration with

2937-727: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: the United Baltic Duchy , Duchy of Courland and Semigallia , Kingdom of Lithuania , Kingdom of Poland , the Belarusian People's Republic , and the Ukrainian State . Following Germany's Armistice in World War I in November 1918, the states were abolished. Finland was the first republic that declared its independence from Russia in December 1917 and established itself in

3026-542: The White Guard (Бѣлая гвардія / Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya ) or White Guardsmen (Бѣлогвардейцы / Белогвардейцы, Belogvardeytsi ). When the White Army was created, the structure of the Russian Army of the Provisional Government period was used, while almost every individual formation had its own characteristics. The military art of the White Army was based on the experience of World War I, which, however, left

3115-658: The Young Russians ( Mladorossi ) and the Eurasians ( Evraziitsi ). As with the Smenovekhovtsy, these movements did not survive after World War II . Ukrainian émigrés also fostered a movement in favour of reconciliation with the Soviet regime and of return to the homeland. This included some of the most prominent pre-revolutionary intellectuals such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi (1866–1934) and Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880–1951). The Soviet Ukrainian government funded

3204-411: The adjectives "Great" and "Little" in this context is unclear. It is possible that terms such as "Little" and "Lesser" at the time simply meant geographically smaller and/or less populous, or having fewer eparchies . Another possibility is that it denoted a relationship similar to that between a homeland and a colony (just as " Magna Graecia " denoted a Greek colony). The name term went out of use in

3293-404: The bloodthirsty kulaks and that we will continue to do so ... Yours, Lenin. P.S. Find tougher people. In a mid-August 1920 letter, having received information that in Estonia and Latvia, with which Soviet Russia had concluded peace treaties, volunteers were being enrolled in anti-Bolshevik detachments, Lenin wrote to E. M. Sklyansky, deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of

3382-426: The chaos of the revolution. In May 1918, the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia revolted in Siberia. In reaction, the Allies began their North Russian and Siberian interventions . That, combined with the creation of the Provisional All-Russian Government , saw the reduction of Bolshevik-controlled territory to most of European Russia and parts of Central Asia . In 1919, the White Army launched several offensives from

3471-410: The country as a one-party state with all opposition parties outlawed. A simultaneous demonstration in favor of the Constituent Assembly was dispersed with force, but there was little protest afterwards. The first large Cheka repression involving the killing of libertarian socialists in Petrograd began in April 1918. On May 1, 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and

3560-418: The country, leading to a situation of dual power . The Russian Republic was proclaimed in September of the same year. The Provisional Government, led by Socialist Revolutionary Party politician Alexander Kerensky , was unable to solve the most pressing issues of the country, most importantly to end the war with the Central Powers. A failed military coup by General Lavr Kornilov in September 1917 led to

3649-433: The deposed Tsarists, or made assassination attempts against Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. Liebman noted that opposition parties such as the Cadets and Mensheviks who were democratically elected to the Soviets in some areas, then proceeded to use their mandate to welcome in Tsarist and foreign capitalist military forces . In one incident in Baku , the British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of

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3738-477: The disarray to push for national independence. In March 1921, during a related war against Poland , the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia sought to re-conquer all newly independent nations of the former empire, although their success was limited. Estonia , Finland , Latvia , and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine , Belarus (as

3827-470: The east in March, the south in July, and west in October. The advances were later checked by the Eastern Front counteroffensive , the Southern Front counteroffensive , and the defeat of the Northwestern Army . By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts. Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used

3916-422: The elections with the majority of the seats, after which Lenin's Theses on the Constituent Assembly argued in Pravda that formal democracy was impossible because of class conflicts, conflicts with Ukraine and the Kadet-Kaledin uprising. He argued the Constituent Assembly must unconditionally accept sovereignty of the soviet government or it would be dealt with "by revolutionary means". On December 30, 1917,

4005-420: The ensuing Finnish Civil War between pro-independence White Guards and pro-Russian Bolshevik Red Guards from January–May 1918. The Second Polish Republic , Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia formed their own armies immediately after the abolition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the start of the Soviet westward offensive and subsequent Polish-Soviet War in November 1918. In the European part of Russia

4094-593: The events that would officially catalyze the Red Terror , Vladimir Lenin had sent telegrams "to introduce mass terror" in Nizhny Novgorod in response to a suspected civilian uprising there, and to "crush" landowners in Penza who resisted, sometimes violently, the requisitioning of their grain by military detachments: Comrades! The kulak uprising in your five districts must be crushed without pity ... You must make example of these people. Do all this so that for miles (versts) around people see it all, understand it, tremble, and tell themselves that we are killing

4183-458: The execution of his friend and other officers. On August 30, the SR Fanny Kaplan unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Lenin, who sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power. As a result of the failed attempt on Lenin's life, he began to crack down on his political enemies in an event known as the Red Terror . More broadly, the term is usually applied to Bolshevik political repression throughout

4272-629: The fact that during the Russo-Polish wars, Ukraine had only a geographical meaning, referring to the borderlands of both states, but Little Russia was the ethnonym of Little (Southern) Russian people. In his prominent work Two Russian nationalities, Kostomarov uses Southern Rus and Little Russia interchangeably. Mykhailo Drahomanov titled his first fundamental historic work Little Russia in Its literature (1867–1870). Different prominent artists (e.g., Mykola Pymonenko , Kostyantyn Trutovsky , Nikolay Aleksandrovich Sergeyev, photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky , etc.), many of whom were native to

4361-453: The goal to liberate the country from the "Germano-Bolshevik" yoke. On May 7, 1918, the Eighth Party Council of the Socialist Revolutionary Party commenced in Moscow and recognized the Union's leading role, putting aside political ideology and class for the purpose of Russia's salvation. They decided to start an uprising against the Bolsheviks with the goal of reconvening the Russian Constituent Assembly. While preparations were under way,

4450-399: The government to heed Dzerzhinsky's lobbying for greater terror against opposition. The campaign of mass repressions would officially begin thereafter. The Red Terror is considered to have officially begun between 17 and 30 August 1918. Protests against grain requisitioning of the peasantry were a major component of the Tambov Rebellion and similar uprisings; Lenin's New Economic Policy

4539-497: The group. On March 26, 1922, the first issue of Nakanune ( Russian : Накануне , lit.   'On the eve', the Smenovekhovtsy newspaper) was published; Soviet Russia's first successes in foreign policy were praised. Throughout its career, Nakanune was subsidised by the Soviet government. Alexey Tolstoy had become acquainted with the movement in the summer of 1921. In April 1922, he published an open letter addressed to émigré leader Nikolai Tchaikovsky , and defended

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4628-483: The historical belonging of its dictatorship and harshness." The ideas in the publication soon evolved into the Smenovekhovstvo movement, which promoted the concept of accepting the Soviet regime and the October Revolution of 1917 as a natural and popular progression of Russia's fate, something which was not to be resisted despite perceived ideological incompatibilities with Leninism . Smenovekhovstvo encouraged its members to return to Soviet Russia , predicting that

4717-436: The late 15th century as distinguishing the "Great" and "Little" was no longer necessary since the church in Moscow was no longer tied to Kiev. However, with the rise of the Catholic Ruthenian Uniate Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , Orthodox prelates attempting to seek support from Moscow revived the name using the Greek-influenced spelling: Malaia Rossiia ("Little Russia"). Then, "Little Russia" developed into

4806-399: The local Ukrainian identity. The territories of modern-day southern Ukraine , after being annexed by Russia in the 18th century, became known as Novorossiya ("New Russia"). After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, and with the amalgamation of Ukrainian territories into one administrative unit (the Ukrainian People's Republic and then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ),

4895-511: The most ruthless and systematic persecution. Their suppression by the Bolsheviki began already in 1918, when — in the month of April of that year — the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery "liquidated" the whole organisation. It was the beginning of Anarchist hounding, but it was sporadic in character, breaking out now and then, quite planless, and frequently self-contradictory. On 11 August 1918, prior to

4984-452: The name Little Rus ' was first used by the Eastern Orthodox clergy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, e.g. by influential cleric and writer Ioan Vyshensky (1600, 1608), Metropolitan Matthew of Kiev and All Rus' (1606), Bishop Ioann (Biretskoy) of Peremyshl , Metropolitan Isaiah (Kopinsky) of Kiev, Archimandrite Zacharias Kopystensky of Kiev Pechersk Lavra , etc. The term has been applied to all Orthodox Ruthenian lands of

5073-410: The new Soviet regime. Repeatedly, the Smenoveknovtsi faced accusations of ties with the Soviet secret-police organisation OGPU , which had in fact been active in promoting such ideas in the émigré community. On the Smenovekhovstvo movement in October 1921, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin commented: "The Smenovekhovtsy express the moods of thousands of various bourgeois or Soviet collaborators, who are

5162-431: The participants of our New Economic Policy ." Representatives of the Smenovekhovtsy who settled in the Soviet Union did not survive the end of the 1930s; almost all the former leaders of the movement were arrested by the NKVD and executed at a later date. There were other émigré organizations which, like the Smenoveknovtsy , argued that Russian émigrés should accept the fact of the Russian revolution. These included

5251-404: The parts of Right-bank Ukraine when it was annexed by Russia at the end of the 18th century upon the partitions of Poland . In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Russian Imperial administrative units known as the Little Russian Governorate and eponymous General Governorship were formed and existed for several decades before being split and renamed in subsequent administrative reforms. Up to

5340-416: The possibility that Communist revolutionary ideas would spread (a concern shared by many Central Powers). Hence, many of the countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". The British and French had supported Russia during World War I on a massive scale with war materials. After

5429-409: The rebellion as orchestrated by the SRs, there is actually no evidence that they were involved into peasant violence, which they deemed as counterproductive. The Western Allies armed and supported opponents of the Bolsheviks . They were worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good on their threats to default on Imperial Russia's massive foreign debts and

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5518-411: The reorganization of the Red Guards into a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in order to create a more effective fighting force. The Bolsheviks appointed political commissars to each unit of the Red Army to maintain morale and to ensure loyalty. In June 1918, when it had become apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would not suffice, Trotsky instituted mandatory conscription of

5607-546: The rural peasantry into the Red Army. The Bolsheviks overcame opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription units by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance. The forced conscription drive had mixed results, successfully creating a larger army than the Whites, but with members indifferent towards communist ideology . The Red Army also utilized former Tsarist officers as "military specialists" ( voenspetsy ); sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty. At

5696-412: The second Revolution of 1917. The initial stage of the October Revolution which involved the assault on Petrograd occurred largely without any human casualties . Despite the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, they lost to the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election , and the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the Bolsheviks in retaliation. The Bolsheviks soon lost

5785-427: The start of the civil war, former Tsarist officers formed three-quarters of the Red Army officer-corps. By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers. The White movement (Russian: pre–1918 Бѣлое движеніе / post–1918 Белое движение , romanized : Beloye dvizheniye , IPA: [ˈbʲɛləɪ dvʲɪˈʐenʲɪɪ] ) also known as the Whites ( Белые , Beliye ),

5874-424: The successor-organisation of the old Imperial Russian Army , started to disintegrate; the Bolsheviks used the volunteer-based Red Guards as their main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka (the Bolshevik state secret police ). In January 1918, after significant Bolshevik reverses in combat, the future Russian People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Leon Trotsky headed

5963-541: The support of other far-left allies, such as the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , after their acceptance of the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk presented by the German Empire. Conversely, a number of prominent members of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had assumed positions in Lenin's government and led commissariats in several areas. This included agriculture ( Kolegaev ), property ( Karelin ), justice ( Steinberg ), post offices and telegraphs ( Proshian ) and local government (Trutovsky). The Bolsheviks also reserved

6052-588: The term as "the malaise of statelessness". The same inferiority complex has been said to apply to the Ukrainians of Galicia with respect to Poland ( gente ruthenus, natione polonus ). The related term Madiarony has been used to describe Magyarized Rusyns in Carpathian Ruthenia who advocated for the union of that region with Hungary . The term "Little Russians" has also been used to denote stereotypically uneducated, rustic Ukrainians exhibiting little or no self-esteem. The uncouth stage persona of popular Ukrainian singer and performer Andriy Mykhailovych Danylko

6141-414: The term disparaging, indicative of Russian suppression of Ukrainian identity and language. It has continued to be used in Russian nationalist discourse, in which modern Ukrainians are presented as a single people in a united Russian nation . This has provoked new hostility toward and disapproval of the term by many Ukrainians. In July 2021 Vladimir Putin published a 7000-word essay, a large part of which

6230-402: The term started to recede from common use. Today, the term is anachronistic, and many Ukrainians regard its usage as offensive. The toponym is adapted from the Greek term, which was used in medieval times by the patriarchs of Constantinople from the beginning of the 14th century. The Byzantines accepted the distinction between Μεγάλη Ῥωσσία ( Megálē Rhōssía – Great Rus' ), where

6319-400: The terms Little Russia and Little Russian in his historical works, applied the term Little Russianness to Russified Ukrainians, whose national character was formed under "alien pressure and influence" and who consequently adopted the "worse qualities of other nationalities and lost the better ones of their own". Ukrainian conservative ideologue and politician Vyacheslav Lypynsky defined

6408-412: The territory of modern-day Ukraine, used Little Russia in the titles of their paintings of Ukrainian landscapes. The term Little Russian language was used by the state authorities in the first Russian Empire Census , conducted in 1897. The name Ukraine was reintroduced in the 19th century by several writers making a conscious effort to awaken Ukrainian national awareness . But it was not until

6497-583: The treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. To meet that danger, the Allies intervened with Great Britain and France sending troops into Russian ports. There were violent clashes with the Bolsheviks. Britain intervened in support of the White forces to defeat the Bolsheviks and prevent the spread of communism across Europe. The German Empire created several short-lived buffer states within its sphere of influence after

6586-558: The ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds on the right. The Russian Constituent Assembly had been a demand of the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government, which kept delaying it. After the October Revolution the elections were run by the body appointed by the previous Provisional Government. It was based on universal suffrage but used party lists from before the Left-Right SR split. The anti-Bolshevik Right SRs won

6675-771: The uprising in Vladivostok . At the Fifth All–Russian Congress of Soviets of July 4, 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had 352 delegates compared to 745 Bolsheviks out of 1132 total. The Left SRs raised disagreements on the suppression of rival parties, the death penalty, and mainly, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks excluded the Right SRs and Mensheviks from the government on 14 June for associating with counterrevolutionaries and seeking to "organize armed attacks against

6764-473: The very end of the 19th century, Little Russia was the prevailing term for much of the modern territory of Ukraine controlled by the Russian Empire , as well as for its people and their language. This can be seen from its usage in numerous scholarly, literary and artistic works. Ukrainophile historians Mykhaylo Maksymovych , Mykola Kostomarov , Dmytro Bahaliy, and Volodymyr Antonovych acknowledged

6853-479: The war was fought across three main fronts: the eastern, the southern and the northwestern. It can also be roughly split into the following periods. The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice, or roughly March 1917 to November 1918. Already on the date of the Revolution, Cossack General Alexey Kaledin refused to recognize it and assumed full governmental authority in the Don region, where

6942-551: The war, mostly civilians. The Russian Empire fought in World War I from 1914 alongside France and the United Kingdom ( Triple Entente ) against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire ( Central Powers ). The February Revolution of 1917 resulted in the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia . As a result, the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government was established, and soviets , elected councils of workers, soldiers, and peasants, were organized throughout

7031-499: The workers and peasants" (though Mensheviks had not supported them), while the Left SRs advocated forming a government of all socialist parties. The Left SRs agreed with extrajudicial execution of political opponents to stop the counterrevolution, but opposed having the government legally pronouncing death sentences, an unusual position that is best understood within the context of the group's terrorist past. The Left SRs strongly opposed

7120-541: Was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought the communist Bolsheviks , also known as the Reds , in the Russian Civil War and that to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations of rebels both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until roughly World War II (1939–1945). The movement's military arm was the White Army (Бѣлая армія / Белая армия, Belaya armiya ), also known as

7209-508: Was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the liberal-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution , as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Soviet Union in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of

7298-644: Was appointed to the duty of rooting out counter-revolutionary threats to the Soviet government . He was the director of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (aka Cheka ), a predecessor of the KGB that served as the secret police for the Soviets. The Bolsheviks had begun to see the anarchists as a legitimate threat and associate criminality such as robberies , expropriations and murders with anarchist associations. Subsequently,

7387-547: Was called "the king of Lechia and Little Rus'." Yuri II Boleslav used the term in a 1335 letter to Dietrich von Altenburg , the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights , where he styled himself as dux totius Rusiæ Minoris . According to Mykhaylo Hrushevsky , Little Rus' was associated with the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia , and after its downfall, the name ceased to be used. In the post-medieval period,

7476-523: Was counterrevolutionary and equivalent to "down with the soviets". The Constituent Assembly met on January 18, 1918. The Right SR Chernov was elected president defeating the Bolshevik supported candidate, the Left SR Maria Spiridonova (she would later break with the Bolsheviks and after the decades of gulag , she was shot on Stalin's orders in 1941). The Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule

7565-625: Was devoted to expounding these views. The concept of "Little Russianness" ( Ukrainian : малоросійство , romanized :  malorosiistvo ) is defined by some Ukrainian authors as a provincial complex they see in parts of the Ukrainian community due to its lengthy existence within the Russian Empire. They describe it as an "indifferent, and sometimes a negative stance towards Ukrainian national-statehood traditions and aspirations, and often as active support of Russian culture and of Russian imperial policies". Mykhailo Drahomanov , who used

7654-602: Was executed in Alexander Garden . The order was carried out by the commander of the Kremlin, the former Baltic sailor P. D. Malkov and a group of Latvian Bolsheviks on September 3, 1918, with a bullet to the back of the head. Her corpse was bundled into a barrel and set alight. The order came from Yakov Sverdlov , who only six weeks earlier had ordered the murder of the Tsar and his family. These events persuaded

7743-590: Was introduced as a concession. The policies of "food dictatorship" proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in May 1918 sparked violent resistance in numerous districts of European Russia : revolts and clashes between the peasants and the Red Army were reported in Voronezh , Tambov , Penza , Saratov and in the districts of Kostroma , Moscow , Novgorod , Petrograd , Pskov and Smolensk . The revolts were bloodily crushed by

7832-424: Was not universally accepted, and the country descended into civil war. The two largest combatants were the Red Army , fighting for the establishment of a Bolshevik-led socialist state headed by Vladimir Lenin , and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army , which functioned as a political big tent for right - and left-wing opposition to Bolshevik rule. In addition, rival militant socialists, notably

7921-641: Was referred to as Malorossiia . From 1654 to 1721, the official title of Russian tsars contained the language (literal translation) "The Sovereign of all Rus' : the Great , the Little, and the White ." The term Little Rus ' has been used in letters of the Cossack hetmans Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Ivan Sirko . Innokentiy Gizel , Archimandrite of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra , wrote that

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