Accomplishments
and failures of the 1918 Pavlo Skoropadskyi reforms
Army
Accomplishments: The Military Ministry, General Headquarters and the
Separate Border Guard Corps were established under the hetman’s rule. He saved
the Central Council’s Zaporizhia Division and the Division of Sirozhupannyky
(Greycoats) from dissolution, and established the hetman’s Serdiutskyi Life
Guard division.
Also, he established eight corps of the regular army, launched
the enrolment of commanders, and provided them with uniforms and weapons. The
first conscription was scheduled to begin on November 15, 1918.
Failures: The
Military Ministry’s human resources policy was ineffective. Commanders were
enrolled based on their professional skills without taking into account their
political preferences. As a result, the hetman army ended up with many
adherents of socialists and one undivided Russia. In hard times, the former
switched to Vynnychenko and Petliura, while the latter jumped ship to Denikin.
Government structure
Accomplishments: Local government branches ruined under the Central
Council were restored from old Russian bureaucrats with province offices
reporting to Skoropadskyi’s headquarters. The State Guard (police) and the
Special Department of Hetman Headquarters (security service) were established.
Security Hundreds operated locally. Law enforcement authorities struggled with
criminals, bandits, anti-state activities of Bolsheviks, anarchists and Russian
chauvinists. Even Skoropadskyi’s opponents admitted that local administration
of the hetmanate were effective.
Failures: Discipline
was weak at the law enforcement units. Reports of Security Hundreds were
controversial. Socialists accused them of terror against peasants, while
memoirists loyal to the hetman wrote that they either exaggerated the scale of
the terror or did not take into account the situation in that time. Local
administrations were operated by old tsarist bureaucrats. Many of them were
opponents of the Ukrainian state.
Industry and finance
Accomplishments: Private ownership of facilities and equipment, commodities
exchanges and free market were restored. The state brought several major
segments of industry back to life. Tax collection and customs service resumed
operation, and state monopoly on sugar and wine making were introduced. Coupled
with railways, they brought the most revenues to the state. Ukraine exited the
ruble zone and national currency – karbovanets and hryvnia – became the only
way of settlement. Ukrainian Public Bank was founded and the first national
budget established.
Failures: Social
initiatives of the Central Council, including an eight-hour workday and the
right to strike, were abolished in the Hetmanate, infuriating the workers. Tax
collection was ineffective in 1918 as the population found ways to massively
evade paying taxes.
Science and education
Accomplishments: Education process was resumed and Ukrainization
thereof began. 150 Ukrainian gymnasiums and many real schools were opened; two
Ukrainian universities were founded in Kyiv and Kamianets-Podilsky, as well as
the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.
Failures: Since
cities had large shares of Russian and Russian-speaking population and
Skoropadskyi was forced to hire many officials of non-Ukrainian origin due to
the lack of qualified civil servants, the choice of the language of education
was delegated to local councils. As a result, education remained in Russian in
all big cities.
Social sphere
Accomplishments: In 1918, Skodopadskyi’s government faced soaring
unemployment (up to 500,000 of the officially registered unemployed),
unorganized demobilization of soldiers and officers of the Russian army,
massive return of servicemen from German and Austrian captivity, and a flood of
refugees from the Bolshevik Russia. To employ all these people, the Council of
Ministers took efforts to develop production, arrange public works, and plan
the development of infrastructure, including floodgates, channels, and
hydroelectric power plants at the Dnipro and Bug Rivers. The expansion of armed
forces was expected to push unemployment down significantly. The families of
those killed in the war and injured during the Bolshevik assault received
benefits from local councils.
Failures: The
government had no time to apply all possible tools to eliminate unemployment.
The jobless joined mobs of anarchists and Bolsheviks. Meanwhile, people grew
more and more frustrated with the impudence of German requisition units and
Hetman’s Security Hundreds in villages, while workers refused to work for 12
hours as set by the government.
Agriculture
Accomplishments: Private ownership of land was restored and the Central
Council’s “socialization” provisions allowing people to take land arbitrarily
were abolished. Land plots ended up in free trade. The Land Bank was
established to issue loans to buy the plots and carry out related transactions.
Despite huge resistance from land owners and part of the government, the Hetman
prepared an agrarian reform restricting land ownership to a certain size and
allowing the excess to be bought and re-sold to peasants. The reform was
supposed to lay the foundation for the class of middle land owners – a rural
social pillar for the Hetman’s regime and a driver of farming.
Failures: Restoration
of land ownership was accompanied by pressure on peasants to force them return
land patches grabbed during the revolution to their previous owners and
reimburse their losses. The Hetman’s government did not have enough time to
complete the agrarian reform.
Culture and arts
Accomplishments: Over seven and a half months with Skodopadskyi in
power, the Public Drama School and Mykola Lysenko Public Music and Drama
Institute were opened; the National Opera House, Ukrainian Public Choir,
National Symphony Orchestra, First and Second National Choirs, the School of
Kobzars, the First Bandura Ensemble, Ukrainian National Theatre, National
Gallery of Images, Ukrainian Public Art Academy, National Archive, National
Library, Historical Museum and more were founded.
Failures: The
Hetman lacked qualified patriotic staff to implement his wide-scale ideas in
terms of culture.
Foreign policy
Accomplishments: Skoropadskyi found a fairly favourable form of
cooperation with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Ukraine was linked with both by
the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed by the Central Council with both. 30
countries all over the world acknowledged the Ukrainian State. It had permanent
embassies in 24. Skoropadskyi established links with the Oblast of the Don
Cossack Host and Ukraine supplied it with weapons and volunteers to fight
against Bolsheviks (to prevent them from reaching Ukraine and Ukrainians from
having to fight with them). Plans were negotiated with the Cuban People’s
Republic to be annexed to Ukraine as a federative republic. Negotiations
continued on the annexation of Chelm Land and Podlachia to the Ukrainian State.
As a result of customs and diplomatic war in October 1918, deals were reached
to annex Crimea to Ukraine as an autonomous republic.
A number of facts prove
that the Hetman was preparing to provide military assistance to ZUNR, West
Ukrainian People’s Republic. For this purpose, the Konovalets unit of Sich
Riflemen was established. It was supposed to leave for Halychyna. It switched
to the UNR (Ukrainian People’s Republic) Directory when the anti-hetman coup
broke out.
Failures: The
population was barely informed of the Hetman’s accomplishments in foreign
policy. People considered him to be Germany’s man. The declaration of the
Federative Decree with Russia on November 14, 1918 (a forced move demanded by
the Triple Entente according to some sources) triggered the anti-hetman coup
that ended Skoropadskyi’s rule.
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