Battle of Kyiv (1918)
| History of Ukraine |
|---|
 |
The Battle of Kyiv of February (O.S. January) 1918 was a Bolshevik military operation of Petrograd and Moscow Red Guard formations directed to capture the capital of Ukraine. The operation was led by Red Guards commander Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov as part of the Soviet expeditionary force against Kaledin and the Central Council of Ukraine. The storming of Kyiv took place during the ongoing peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk on 5–8 February 1918 (23–26 January in the Julian calendar). The operation resulted in the occupation of the city by Bolshevik troops on 9 February and the evacuation of the Ukrainian government to Zhytomyr.
Background
The objective of the 1918 Battle of Kyiv was to install Soviet power in Ukraine. During the winter of 1917/18 the revolutionary formations of Russia installed Soviet power in governorates of Kharkiv, Yekaterinoslav (modern day Dnipro), and Poltava, Kyiv was next. The general command directed onto Kyiv was under the command of Mikhail Muravyov. On 27 January [O.S. 14 January] 1918, the government of Ukraine announced Kyiv under a siege and appointed Mykhailo Kovenko as the military commandant of the city's defence. With the approach of the advancing Soviet forces the city's Bolsheviks instigated an uprising at the Arsenal factory, which was extinguished in seven days on 4 February [O.S. 22 January] 1918.[citation needed]
Battle
The Bolshevik protest in the city greatly eased the advancement of the Soviet forces, drawing several Ukrainian formations out of adjacent provinces. The Kyiv garrison was greatly demoralized by Bolshevik propaganda and Soviet advances across the territory of Ukraine. Ukrainian regiments were depleted, and some either announced their neutrality or were eager to side with the Bolsheviks.[citation needed]
Bolshevik forces attacked the city from Bakhmach and Lubny. On 8 February, the Ukrainian government was forced to abandon the city. On 9 February General Muravyov took control of the city and instituted a reign of Red terror[1] of brutal reprisals against Kyiv's population[2] that would last twenty days.[3]
Aftermath
On 8 February [O.S. 26 January] 1918, the same the day Bolshevik forces captured Kyiv, the Central Rada signed the Peace of Brest with the Central Powers.[3] In cooperation with the UPR military, the Rada allowed the German and Austro-Hungarian forces to occupy Ukraine, which began a few days later.[3] The Soviet forces panicked as soon as they heard of the Central Powers' intervention, and all Bolshevik government and party organisations immediately began evacuating eastwards in a hurry.[3] The Soviet leadership fled from Kyiv towards Poltava around 11/24 February, and one week later on 3 March [O.S. 18 February] 1918, the Central Powers and UPR troops entered Kyiv.[3] The Soviets had only been in control of the capital for 20 days, and did not even offer token resistance to the Centrals as they chaotically retreated.[3]
Ukrainian People's Army forces under Symon Petliura, along with German and Austro-Hungarian troops, would retake Kyiv on 1 March.[4] The Bolshevik government recognized Ukraine's independence on 3 March.[citation needed]
Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks attempted to regroup in eastern Ukraine. The new situation caused disagreements between the various Soviet factions.[5] The expelled left-leaning Kyivan Bolsheviks sought to ally themselves with the peasant masses and engage in partisan guerrilla warfare without Russian help, and urged on their communist comrades in Kharkiv to try and retake the capital from the Rada, Germans and Austro-Hungarians.[6] However, the right-leaning Kharkiv and Katerynoslav (Dnipro) Bolsheviks expressed separatist tendencies, striving to break with Kyiv and rather "join the Russian federation" for various socio-economic and political reasons, arguing that the rest of Ukraine lacked an industrialised proletariat, and that complete subordination to the central communist party organs in Moscow was necessary.[6] These internal divisions within the Ukrainian communist movement weakened their overall capabilities. The left-wing faction would prevail for the time being at the Second All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Katerynoslav on 17–19 March 1918, where it was decided that all of Ukraine would be united in a single Ukrainian Soviet Republic, separate from Soviet Russia, with its own separate communist party.[7] However, just a few weeks later in April, the Central and UPR troops expelled all Bolshevik forces from the remaining territory of Ukraine, forcing them to flee to Moscow after all.[8]
Subsequently, during May to October 1918, peace negotiations were held between Soviet Russia and Ukraine.[citation needed]
Order of battle
Muravyov forces
- Commander in Chief Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov
- 1st Army Colonel Pavel Yegorov
- 2nd Army Colonel Reingold Berzin
List of formations
- Red Guards of Bryansk 800 soldiers / Russians
- Red Guards of Moscow (Moscow river neighborhood) 200 soldiers / Latvians/ Russians
- Red Guards of Kharkiv 500 soldiers / Jews/ Russians
- Donbas Red Guards of Dmitry Zhloba 300 soldiers / Russians/ Ukrainians/ Jews
- Red Guards of Putilov Factory 60 soldiers / Jews/Russians/ Ukrainians
- 1st Petrograd Red Guard formation 1,000 soldiers / Latvians/ Russians
- Red Guards of Petrograd (Moscow district) 500 soldiers / Latvians/ Russians
- Kharkiv Red Guards of Aleksandr Belenkovich 150 soldiers / Jews/ Russians/ Ukrainians
- Red Cossacks of Vitaly Markovich Primakov 198 soldiers / Russians/ Ukrainians
- Bryansk battery 92 soldiers / Russians
- Armoured train of Moscow 100 soldiers / Russians
- Red Guards formations of local settlements / Jews/ Russians
- Underground workers of Arsenal (Cave monastery) / Russians/ Ukrainians
Composition by nationality: Russians - 88%; Jews - 7%; Ukrainians - 5%
Ukrainian forces
- City commandant Mykhailo Kovenko
- Haidamaka Host of Sloboda Ukraine Symon Petliura—400 soldiers
- 2nd Cadet School Battalion—110 "Black Haidamakas"
- Free Cossacks formations
- Artillery division—3 batteries
- Sich Riflemen of Halych Battalion Yevhen Konovalets—500 soldiers
- Doroshenko Regiment—200 soldiers
- Remnants of Bohdaniv Regiment Oleksandr Shapoval
- Haidamaka Host of Sloboda Ukraine Symon Petliura—400 soldiers
References
- ^ Orest Subtelny (2009). Ukraine: A History (4th ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 353. ISBN 978-1-4426-4016-0. LCCN 2009504897. OCLC 432401499. OL 24009136M. Wikidata Q104049525.
- ^ Arkadii Zhukovsky, "Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21", in Roman Senkus; Oleh Havrylyshyn; Frank Sysyn; et al. (eds.), Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Wikidata Q87193076
- ^ a b c d e f Pipes 1997, p. 130.
- ^ (in Ukrainian) The world's first monument to Colonel of the UPR Army Bolbochan was unveiled in Kyiv, The Ukrainian Week (5 October 2020)
- ^ Pipes 1997, pp. 130–131.
- ^ a b Pipes 1997, p. 131.
- ^ Pipes 1997, pp. 131–132.
- ^ Pipes 1997, p. 132.
Bibliography
- Pipes, Richard Edgar (1997). The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–1923, Revised Edition. Harvard University Press. p. 392. ISBN 978-0-674-41764-9. Retrieved 25 April 2025.
External links
- 1918 Chronicles. Institute of History of Ukraine.
- War between Russia and Ukraine in 1917-18. Institute of History of Ukraine
- War between Bolsheviks and the government of Ukraine in 1917-18. Military Literature.
- Great Britain. Parliament. The parliamentary debates from the year 1803 to the present time.
- Battle for Kyiv: Petliura against Muravyov