other criminals for whom there is nothing sacred in life - have sapped
our people's strength to the utmost and have flooded our steppes with
human tears and with streams of blood of the innocent.
Amidst a peal of church bells, with bread and salt, with flowers and
tears of joy the weary, oppressed and pillaged Ukrainian people are
greeting you, their valiant warriors, as liberators from the yoke and
from Bolshevist atrocities, as flesh of their flesh and blood of their
blood.
A might national enthusiasm has seized our people at your entry into
villages and towns, and everywhere a festive reception is awaiting you
and all this has been brought about by you, officers and soldiers of the
Ukrainian army!
You are living now through glorious and never to be forgotten moments of
your life, and together with you all peoples inhabiting the Ukrainian
territory are experiencing the same enthusiasm.
The holy crusade for the liberation of the oppressed, regardless of their
nationality, for the rule of law and order under freedom and democracy
and the independence of our republic - these are the ideals in this
struggle.
The union of all democratic forces of all nationalities in the Ukraine,
standing for the independence of our Republic, and their participation in
the reconstruction of the state will warrant our victory over our
enemies, and will guarantee to us an independent life subject to no one.
Our enemies, however, are not sleeping but only watching our every step
in order to sow discord among us in one way or another, and thus to
frustrate the immediate realization of our people's efforts.
The Bolshevists themselves consider the Ukraine Moscow's inheritance
with the difference that formerly it was the heritage of black Moscow,
now of a Red one.
They see that the end of their rule in the Ukraine is already approaching
because the Ukrainian people themselves have risen against them: but they
do not give up yet their hope of subjugating the Ukrainian masses. By
provocations for which they are spending enormous sums of money they want
to divide us from within, hiring criminal elements who are inciting our
soldiers to all sorts of outrages and pogroms against the innocent Jewish
population; in this way they want to stamp our soldiers as
pogrom-mongers, although these soldiers are bringing liberty to all
peoples of the Ukraine.
Our enemies intend thus to split the Ukrainian and Jewish laboring masses
whose ways, in fact, have been bound together by three hundred years of
Russian tsarist yoke.
Our national army must bring equality, brotherhood and freedom to the
Ukrainian as well as the Jewish citizens who are also supporting actively
the government of the Ukrainian Democratic Republic. All their parties,
i.e.: Bund, Obyednantsi, Poalej-Zion and People's Party are standing on
the principles of the independence of the Ukraine, and are participating
in the reconstruction of the republic.
I know myself how the representatives of the Jewish population have
helped our army and supported our legal republican government.
The enemies of our state, the Bolshevists, are shooting down not only the
Ukrainian but also the Jewish people, depriving the others of the barest
means of living.
I have the highest esteem for the sacrifices made during this war upon
the altar of the fatherland by the Jewish population.
From the reports by the commanders of our brave divisions and corps as
well from reports by State Inspectors I have already learned that the
Jewish population brought help to our wounded and sick soldiers, in the
hospitals which had been built hastily 3-5 kilometers behind the
battlefronts.
I have been touched deeply by tears of thankfulness in the eyes of our
soldiers for the loving care and human aid given them by Jews, and I have
noted with satisfaction how the soldiers of our army were standing guard
at the shops and stores of Jews in order to protect them against
plunderers.
The restoration of a bridge at Starokonstantyniv - which had been
destroyed by the Bolshevists - by the Jewish population in an exceedingly
short time, as well as their help with foodstuffs and underwear testify
also to the loyal conduct of Jews in relation to our army.
I am convinced and I ardently hope that in the future such help on the
part of Jews will occur ever more frequently and that they will continue
to further the cause of peace in our country.
The Minister for Jewish Affairs has by a series of measures already
exercised some influence upon the Bolshevist circles of Jews so that many
of them no longer support Bolshevism, since they consider it now to be
their ruin.
Together with you I call upon the Jewish citizens to go with us and to
support wholeheartedly our army and our government; then we shall be able
to affirm that the government of the Ukrainian Democratic Republic and
you, its army, will finish that great responsible work which you are now
doing - destroying the power of the Bolshevists and building up our
independent republic in which each nationality enjoys full rights and a
peaceful life.
Officers and soldiers of the Ukrainian Army! The Ukrainian-Jewish
laboring masses see in you their liberation, and future generations will
not forget your services rendered to them; history will with pride record
on its pages your achievements in this struggle. Beware of provocations,
and have no mercy on provocateurs or on those who execute pogroms, or
incite the weakest among you to this action.
Let the death sentence overtake the perpetrators of pogroms and
provocateurs. I demand the strictest discipline from you so that not
even a hair of an innocent's head be touched.
Bear in mind that you are the elite sons of your great nation which wants
to live its independent life and to be subjugated by no one, and
therefore keep an unflinching watch on its interests as well as on the
interests of all those who help you and are well-disposed to you and to
the liberation of your people.
Those who are guilty before the Ukrainian people and before the republic,
no matter what their nationality, shall suffer the severest punishment
according to law prevailing in the territory of the Ukrainian republic;
to the innocent, however, you must bring liberation from the hated
Bolshevist yoke.
The Republic's and my own cordial thanks to and high esteem for your
martial bravery, devotion, and self-sacrifice which your offer upon the
altar of the fatherland, while liberating our Ukraine and the
nationalities living there - including the Jews - from the Bolshevists.
May God help us in the great and sacred cause of liberating the nations
from the heavy yoke of the Bolshevists!
August 27, 1919
Commander-in-Chief: Petlura.
(Ukraina, September 2, 1919.)
F. Pigido (ed.), Material Concerning Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during
the Years of the Revolution (1917-1921): Collection of Documents and
Testimonies by Prominent Jewish Political Workers, The Ukrainian
Information Bureau, Munich, 1956, pp. 70-72.
HOME DISINFORMATION PETLIURA 836 hits since 23Mar99
Arnold Margolin The Ukraine and the Policy of Entente 1921 Russian and Ukrainian pogroms compared
If the beginning of the demoralization of the Ukrainian army was at its tail,
by Denikin's army the poison of demoralization came from the head.
EXTRACTS
from the book by Arnold Margolin
"The Ukraine and the policy of the Entente"
(Memorandum by a Jew and a citizen).
Publisher C. Efron. Berlin, 1921. Chapter XXIV. Pages 310-315.
Pogroms of the period of the Directorate, and of Denikin's Army. Parallels.
- Nations and Governments.
I have before me the report on pogroms, prepared by the Relief Committee
for the Victims of Pogroms, at the Russian Red Cross in Kiev. It is
stated in the report that there were no pogroms during the rule of the
Central Council, or of Skoropadsky, or during the first two months of the
Directorate's rule. Pogroms began after defeats that had been inflicted
upon the troops of the Directorate by the Bolsheviks. The heavier the
defeats and the farther Petlura's army was compelled to retreat, the more
cruel was their vengeance upon the innocent Jewish population whom they
identified with Communists. The slogan: "down with Jews and Communists,"
or "all Jews are Communists" were raised throughout the Ukraine and
provoked pogroms everywhere.
This explanation of the origin of pogroms is quite identical with the
statement made in Temnytsky's and Vasylko's telegram of August 1, 1919.
In the course of centuries the entire population of Russia had been
listening to accusations by the government of Jews being responsible for
all the evils in the world. The ignorant masses believed even the
legends about the ritual murder of Christian children by Jews, while even
the "specialists" in this subject were declaring that Jews kill only
boys. Karab-Tchevsky tells us in the first part of his memoirs ("What My
Eyes Saw") that his mother had already in his childhood read to him the
New Testament, and when it came to the torturing of Jesus Christ, his
nurse or housemaid would exclaim: "the hideous Jews, they surely killed
Christ by torture!" (p. 23).
The pogroms of the years 1880 in Kishinev and Homel, came as the result
of false rumors and of promises of exemption from punishment for
plundering during three days. This time, however, the participation of
Jews in the Bolshevist movement was no more a rumor, but a fact which it
was very easy to exaggerate. On the other side, the impunity for
plundering lasted this time not only three days, but indefinitely on
account of the absence of any authority that could stop the plundering.
For, what authority could exist during the panic of retreat before
Trotsky's army? ... Under such conditions a favorable atmosphere was
created for the rapacious instincts of the demoralized segments of the
army, as well as for the development of the ideological barbarity of
Semesenko and for the provocateurs from the Russian Black-Hundred camp,
who were pogrommongers by conviction and wished at the same time to
discredit the Ukrainian movement by branding it as being guilty of