The Galician Soviet Socialist Republic was a short-lived, self-declared

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

political entity that existed from 15 July to formally 21 September 1920 with the capital in the city of

Tarnopol Ternópil ( uk, Тернопіль, Ternopil' ; pl, Tarnopol; yi, טאַרנאָפּל, Tarnopl, or ; he, טארנופול (טַרְנוֹפּוֹל), Tarnopol; german: Tarnopol) is a city in the west of Ukraine. Administratively, Terno ...

. The

communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comint ...

was established during a successful

counter-offensive In the study of military tactics, a counter-offensive is a large-scale strategic offensive military operation, usually by forces that had successfully halted the enemy's offensive, while occupying defensive positions. The counter-offensive ...

of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

in the summer of 1920 as part of the Polish-Soviet War and in the course of which the Polish-Ukrainian joint military force (Polish Ukrainian Front) was forced to retreat from its positions along the

Dnieper } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...

that it secured earlier in 1920 all the way to the foothills of the

Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretche ...

History

The republic became a buffer zone of the ongoing conflict within the area of the South-Western front of the

. Due to the successful offensive in July 1920, the Soviet government also created the

Polrevkom Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee ( pl, Tymczasowy Komitet Rewolucyjny Polski, Polrewkom; russian: Польревком) (July–August 1920) was a revolutionary committee created under the patronage of Soviet Russia with the goal to e ...

and had intentions of creating the Polish Socialist Soviet Republic. A similar, but less elaborate activity, of the communist

, was related to the North-Western front of the Red Army (the "government" was seated in

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Białystok is located in the Białystok U ...

). The Galician SSR was established on 15 July 1920 when the Galician Revolutionary Committee (Halrevkom), a ''

revkom {{no footnotes, date=May 2016A revolutionary committee or revkom (russian: Революционный комитет, ревком) were Bolshevik-led organizations in Soviet Russia and other Soviet republics established to serve as provisional gove ...

'' (

provisional government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or ...

) headed by

Volodymyr Zatonsky Volodymyr Petrovych Zatonsky ( uk, Володи́мир Зато́нський, russian: Влади́мир Петро́вич Зато́нский ''Vladimir Petrovich Zatonsky''; July 27, 1888 – July 29, 1938) was a Soviet politician, aca ...

(Vladimir Zatonsky) and created on 8 July in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...

under the auspices of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Ukraine (CP(b)U), issued its declaration. The communist government moved to Tarnopol (today

Ternopil Ternópil ( uk, Тернопіль, Ternopil' ; pl, Tarnopol; yi, טאַרנאָפּל, Tarnopl, or ; he, טארנופול (טַרְנוֹפּוֹל), Tarnopol; german: Tarnopol) is a city in the west of Ukraine. Administratively, Terno ...

) in Eastern Galicia on 1 August 1920 upon occupation of the region by the Red Army. The same day the Halrevkom adopted a decree "About establishing of Soviet power in Galicia". The national languages (of equal status) were declared to be Polish,

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

and

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

. With its decrees, the communist government abolished private ownership of the means of production, established an eight-hour workday, separated church from state and nationalised church estates, established a single labour school with seven-year education, and nationalised the land. By the end of August, the Halrevkom tried to conduct elections to establish a permanent Soviet government and convene the All-Galician Congress of Soviets. The Galician Soviet Socialist Republic was severely understaffed, and while released Ukrainian memoirs leave the fate of the erstwhile

ZUNR The West Ukrainian People's Republic (WUPR) or West Ukrainian National Republic (WUNR), known for part of its existence as the Western Oblast of the Ukrainian People's Republic, was a short-lived polity that controlled most of Eastern Gali ...

officials unknown, many do mention that local educated Ukrainians worked for the Soviet administration, being afraid of what letting Poles and Jews dominating every administrative ministry would entail. Exemptions from confiscations such as from the

Prodrazvyorstka ''Prodrazvyorstka'', also transliterated ''Prodrazverstka'' ( rus, продразвёрстка, p=prədrɐˈzvʲɵrstkə, short for , ) was a policy and campaign of confiscation of grain and other agricultural products from peasants at nominal ...

, were also attractive for educated Ukrainians. Bolshevik reports claim that the Western Ukrainian population supported them out of their hatred for

Petlura Symon Vasylyovych Petliura ( uk, Си́мон Васи́льович Петлю́ра; – May 25, 1926) was a Ukrainian politician and journalist. He became the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army and the President of the Ukrainian People' ...

, whose alliance with Poland was seen as betrayal of the Galician state. However, Stephen Velychenko reports that it's yet to be determined just how many Ukrainians worked for the Soviet government, given how the prevalent opinion amongst the Ukrainian population at the time was that Polish rule would be the lesser evil. All

s were officially supposed to be one-half Ukrainian, one-quarter Jewish, and one-quarter Polish, but in reality the ethnicity of the ministry's head determined which language was used and which group was represented in each ministry the most. Borys Kolodii, a clerk in the War Commissariat, described how every official would assign positions to their co-nationals and then impose either Polish or Ukrainian as the de facto office language. The republic’s education and economy staff, as well as the local military district leaders, were overwhelmingly Polish Jews who used Polish as the official language. The Soviet Union had granted Eastern Galicia to Communist Poland as a province - Ukrainian Communists who wanted Galicia to be part of Soviet Ukraine were a minority, and contemporary reports claimed that Poles dominated the Galician revkoms. The majority of Polish Bolsheviks were from former

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. I ...

and wished Galicia to be annexed to a Communist Poland in its entirety. While the Ukrainian staff had to follow the official regulation and operate in all three languages, the Poles and Jews ignored it and used only Polish without any consequences. With the Polish offensive on 15 September, those plans failed and the Halrevkom withdrew from Tarnopol. On 21 September 1920, the republic was officially abolished and its revolutionary committee was transformed into the Galician Bureau of the Central Committee of the

Communist Party of Ukraine The Communist Party of Ukraine, Abbreviation: KPU, from Ukrainian and Russian "" is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 as the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine which was banned in 1991 (accord ...

. With the signing of the

Peace of Riga The Peace of Riga, also known as the Treaty of Riga ( pl, Traktat Ryski), was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, among Poland, Soviet Russia (acting also on behalf of Soviet Belarus) and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish–Soviet Wa ...

in March 1921, the bureau was liquidated. Halrevkom did not control the most important area of East Galicia: the

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...

area with its

oilfield A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presenc ...

s of

Boryslav Boryslav ( uk, Борислав; pl, Borysław) is a city located on the Tysmenytsia (a tributary of the Dniester), in Drohobych Raion, Lviv Oblast (region) of western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Boryslav urban hromada, one of th ...

and

Drohobych Drohobych ( uk, Дрого́бич, ; pl, Drohobycz; yi, דראָהאָביטש;) is a city of regional significance in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Drohobych Raion and hosts the administration of Drohobych urban h ...

Government composition

– chairman *

Mykhailo Baran Mykhailo or Mykhaylo ( uk, Михайло) is a Ukrainian given name, equivalent to English Michael. Notable people with the name include: * Mykhaylo Berkos (1861–1919), Russian and Ukraine artist of Greek origin *Mykhailo Bolotskykh (born 1960), ...

– deputy chairman * Fedir Konar – head of departments of justice and interior * Kazimierz Litwinowicz – secretary *

Ivan Nemolovsky Ivan () is a Slavic male given name, connected with the variant of the Greek name (English: John) from Hebrew meaning 'God is gracious'. It is associated worldwide with Slavic countries. The earliest person known to bear the name was Bulgari ...

– commissar of finances (later head of the department of railways) * Myroslav Havryliv – commissar of enlightenment *

Mykhailo Kozoris Mykhailo or Mykhaylo ( uk, Михайло) is a Ukrainian given name, equivalent to English Michael. Notable people with the name include: * Mykhaylo Berkos (1861–1919), Russian and Ukraine artist of Greek origin *Mykhailo Bolotskykh (born 1960), ...

– commissar of courts * Omelyan Paliiv – commissar of military * Ivan Siyak – secretary of the Sovnarkom (Council of commissars)

References

Notes

Citations

External links