The Brest Peace of 1918: the second opportunity for the Ukrainian Central Rada that ultimately went unrealized.

On the late evening of February 9, 1918, in Brest-Litovsk, where the headquarters of the German command on the Eastern Front was located, a separate peace treaty was signed between the Quadruple Alliance countries (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria) and the Ukrainian People's Republic. This was the first peace treaty during the First World War (1914—1918).

The history of the Brest Peace Treaty is complex and fraught with challenges. Peace negotiations in this city began after an initiative announced on December 3, 1917, by the government of Soviet Russia—the Council of People's Commissars, which, in the context of the beginning of a civil war across the vast empire, was forced to seek mutual understanding with the advancing German and Austro-Hungarian troops.

The Eastern Front of the First World War had nearly collapsed from the Russian side. However, the civil war had already engulfed Ukraine, where a Soviet government was declared in Kharkiv, supported by Russian Bolsheviks. Thus, the first step in these negotiations was the signing of an armistice on December 15, 1917, between the Petrograd government and the Quadruple Alliance states. Lenin and Trotsky sought to delay the signing of the treaty, although their promise to conclude peace as soon as possible after nearly three and a half years of bloody war, which claimed the lives of millions, garnered significant support from workers and peasants—not only in Russian provinces but also in Left-Bank Ukraine.

On December 25, 1918, a delegation from the Ukrainian government arrived in Brest, attempting from the outset to adopt an independent position, declaring that Ukraine "recognizes as binding only the peace that will be signed by representatives of the Ukrainian government". The Bolsheviks' delay in signing the treaty was linked to the puppet government's attempt in Kharkiv to seize as much territory in Ukraine as possible with the help of the Red Guards and Baltic sailors. In the event of a definitive victory for the Russian occupiers, the Ukrainian delegation would automatically lose its legitimacy—who would they negotiate with then?

A kind of race began, in which the representatives of the Ukrainian government, lacking any diplomatic experience, proved to be more agile. The Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary, 26-year-old Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UPR, Mykola Liubynskyi, responded to the accusations from the Red Moscowites (whom he considered an illegitimate authority) regarding the complete military defeat of the UPR and the incapacity of the Kyiv delegates: "The loud statements of the Bolsheviks about the absolute will of the peoples of Russia are nothing but crude, demagogic assertions. The Bolshevik government, which dispersed the Constituent Assembly and relies solely on bayonets, will never dare to apply just principles of the right to self-determination in Russia, because it knows well that not only numerous republics—Ukraine, Donbas, the Caucasus, and others—do not recognize it as their government, but the Russian people themselves also denied them this right". (Unfortunately, like many supporters of socialist ideas in Ukraine, Mykola Liubynskyi remained in the Ukrainian SSR in the 1920s, worked at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, was arrested in the "Ukrainian National Center case," and executed in Sandarmokh on January 8, 1938).

In reality, the situation was extremely complicated. After the Bolsheviks completed the occupation of Left-Bank Ukraine at the end of January 1918, following the tragic battle at Kruty, troops led by Lieutenant Colonel Muravyov approached Kyiv and began bombarding the city. On February 8, the very day the peace treaty was signed in Brest between the UPR and the Quadruple Alliance, Red gangs stormed into Kyiv, where a bloody rampage ensued, resulting in the deaths of several thousand residents.

Ukrainian historian Stanislav Kulchytsky noted: "Unlike the later peace treaty (March 3, 1918) with Russia (Bolshevik. — S. M.), the treaty between Ukraine and the Quadruple Alliance did not contain clauses that were humiliating or burdensome for the UPR. The parties renounced mutual claims for compensation for damages caused by the war, exchanged prisoners of war, and committed to restoring mutual economic relations. The obligations of the UPR were quite specific: for the first half of 1918, to supply Germany and Austria-Hungary with 60 million poods of grain, 2,750 thousand poods of meat (live weight), other agricultural products, and industrial raw materials."

Despite the fact that the signing of the treaty in Brest forced the Red Russians to retreat from all Ukrainian territories, the military assistance of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops bore all the hallmarks of occupation. It is hard to disagree with this. Ukraine was divided into two zones. Most of Ukraine, including Crimea and Donbas, fell under Berlin's control, while Podolia, southern Volhynia, Kherson region, and parts of Yekaterinoslav region were under Vienna's control.

On March 1-2, 1918, along with the German troops, the UPR government returned to Kyiv. However, the return of Ukrainian authority, practically on the bayonets of foreign troops, did not evoke much joy among the residents. "After the tragic experience of Bolshevik occupation, the residents of Kyiv received the return of the Central Rada without much enthusiasm. Its helplessness in the face of Soviet troops resulted in mass casualties among the local population. Even less understandable was its alliance with German and Austro-Hungarian troops—assurances that they were coming to Ukraine to 'eliminate disorder and lawlessness' and 'establish order and good governance on our land' did not help. In the eyes of many residents of Ukraine, the Central Rada itself represented the symbol of 'disorder and lawlessness,'" wrote Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak in "An Outline of the History of Ukraine."

Yevhen Konovalets, the future leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, at that time commander of the Sich Riflemen Corps, wrote in his memoirs: "We were most concerned about our faith in the leaders of the then Ukrainian revolutionary movement. They held an unattainable authority in our eyes. And although we felt deeply their reluctance to our idea of an independent and sovereign Ukrainian state, we did not lose faith in them. However, we were quickly forced to take a more critical view of the activities of the Central Rada, as we saw firsthand that their policy was leading the country into an increasing anarchy instead of order, which not only excluded the organization of the Army but also led the state to inevitable ruin... Despite all our inexperience, we clearly saw that the policy of the Central Rada, despite the favorable conditions that arose with the arrival of the Germans, was not aligned with positive state-building."

Already in the text of the first truly "independent" IV Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada, proclaimed on January 25, 1918, there are words that turned out to be an ephemeral dream for the leaders of the UPR, and in the coming years: "With all neighboring states, namely: Russia, Poland, Austria, Romania, Turkey, and others, we wish to live in harmony and friendship, but none of them can interfere in the life of the independent Ukrainian republic."

Our neighbors "interfered," and by the end of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917—1921, the newly created state completed its existence and was divided among Bolshevik Russia, the Second Polish Republic, royal Romania, and democratic Czechoslovakia.

The cooperation between the socialist government of the UPR and the German and Austro-Hungarian military administration led to conflict situations from the very first days. The radical land reform (delayed and very similar in spirit to the Bolshevik one), which distributed landholdings among peasants, was unacceptable to the command of the occupying troops, as it posed a threat to food supplies to Germany and Austria-Hungary. At that time, famine was already rampant in Austria and parts of Germany. The German commander-in-chief Hermann von Eichhorn, seeing the inability of the young and inexperienced Ukrainian officials to fulfill the treaty regarding food supplies, issued an order on April 6, 1918, circumventing the UPR government, regarding the sowing of land. A confrontation began, as a result of which the German military bet on political opponents of the UPR from the ranks of landowners, prosperous peasants, and people with decidedly non-socialist views. Their leader was the well-known military figure, Lieutenant General of the Russian Imperial Army Pavel Skoropadskyi.

And so, on April 28, German officers and soldiers burst into a meeting of the Central Rada, arresting several ministers of the UPR government involved in the abduction of millionaire banker Abram Dobriyi (this interesting story with a detective flavor deserves a separate tale), to which the highest leaders of the government were connected