December 4 [17], 1917

On December 4 [17], 1917, the Council of People's Commissars discussed the question
of relations with the Ukrainian Central Rada in connection
with its counter-revolutionary activities.
The Council of People's Commissars resolved to address a
manifesto to the Ukrainian people and an ultimatum to the Ukrainian
Rada; the drafting of the documents was entrusted to a commission consisting of:
Lenin, J. Stalin, and L. Trotsky. Having begun work, Lenin
sketched out the main provisions of the manifesto, which were then
developed in more detail in the draft manifesto to the Ukrainian people.
The final text was published in Works, vol. XXII, pp. 424–
423. The concluding part of the draft manifesto, not written by
Lenin, is not reproduced here.
For the history of negotiations with the Ukrainian Rada, see Works, vol. XXII,
p. 594, note 59.
10956
* MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE MANIFESTO
TO THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE.
[December 16 [3], 1917, 2:30–6 p.m.]

1. The interests of the unity and fraternal union of workers and all
the toiling and exploited masses in the struggle for socialism,
as well as formal decisions of the Soviets and their Congress (I)* oblige
us, the Council of People's Commissars, unequivocally, as the socialist
government of Russia, to recognize the right of self-determination of nations, oppressed
by Tsarism and Great Russian bourgeoisie, up to separation.
2. Therefore, we recognize the Ukrainian People's Republic, its right to separate completely from Russia or to enter
into a treaty with the Russian Republic on Federation and any
other arrangement of mutual relations.
3. In view of the struggle between the Rada and the Soviets in Ukraine,
we recognize at the present time the representatives of the Ukrainian
people and the free Ukrainian Republic, the Ukrainian Soviets, as
organizations of the revolutionary struggle of the Ukrainian
toiling and exploited masses against the exploiters.
We see in the Rada, on the basis of all the data we have,

* The manuscript contains an obvious error; in reality, it refers to the II Congress of Soviets;
the published text indicates the II Congress of Soviets. Ed.

an organization of ambiguous politics, gravitating towards an agreement with the bourgeoisie.
4. We have not taken a single step against the Finnish bourgeois republic, which remains bourgeois for the time being, in the sense of restricting national rights and national independence of the Finnish people, and we will not take any steps restricting the national independence of any nation whatsoever from among those who were part of or wish to be part of the Russian Republic.
5. We accuse the Rada
(a) of non-recognition of the Soviet power of the Soviets in Ukraine,
'which is tantamount to supporting the bourgeoisie in Ukraine against the toiling and exploited masses.'
(b) of ambiguous bourgeois politics in relation to peace: non-participation in negotiations on armistice and peace despite our invitation.
(c) of ambiguous bourgeois-landlord policy in relation to the confiscation of landlord lands in Ukraine.
or 4?

bis: everything that concerns national rights and national
independence is recognized for the Ukrainian people by the Council of People's Commissars immediately, without limitations and unconditionally.
10956
* DRAFT MANIFESTO TO THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE.
[December 16 [3], 1917, between 2:30 and 6 p.m. Petrograd.]
The interests of the unity and fraternal union of workers and toilers,
exploited masses in the struggle for socialism, as well as the recognition
of these principles by numerous decisions of the organs of revolutionary democracy, the Soviets, and especially the 1st * All-Russian
Congress of Soviets, prompt the Socialist Government of Russia, the Council of People's Commissars, to once again confirm

* See note on p. 59. Ed.

DRAFT MANIFESTO TO THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE

the right to self-determination for all nations that were oppressed by Tsarism and the Great Russian bourgeoisie, up to the right of these nations to separate from Russia.
Therefore, we, the Council of People's Commissars, recognize the People's Ukrainian Republic, its right to separate completely from Russia or to enter into a treaty with the Russian Republic on Federative and all other mutual relations between them.
Everything that concerns national rights and national independence of the Ukrainian people is recognized by us, the Council of People's Commissars, immediately, without limitations and unconditionally.
Against the Finnish bourgeois republic, which remains bourgeois for the time being, we have not taken a single step in the sense of restricting the national rights and national independence of the Finnish people, and we will not take any steps restricting the national independence of any nation whatsoever from among those who were part of or wish to be part of the Russian Republic. *
We accuse the Rada of the fact that, hiding behind national phrases, it is pursuing an ambiguous bourgeois policy, which has long been expressed in the Rada's non-recognition of the Soviets and Soviet power in Ukraine (among other things, the Rada refused to convene, at the request of the Soviets of Ukraine, a regional congress of Ukrainian Soviets immediately). This ambiguous policy, which deprives us of the opportunity to recognize the Rada as the plenipotentiary representative of the toiling and exploited masses of the Ukrainian Republic, has brought the Rada in very recent times to steps that signify a break in any possibility of agreement.
Such steps were, firstly, the disorganization of the Front.
The Rada moves and recalls Ukrainian units from the Front with unilateral orders, thus destroying the single common Front until demarcation, achievable only through an organized agreement between the governments of both republics.
Secondly, the Rada has begun disarming the [Russian] Soviet troops located in Ukraine.
Thirdly, the Rada provides support to the Cadet-Kaledin conspiracy and rebellion against the Soviet power. Referring falsely to the supposedly autonomous rights of the "Don and Kuban," concealing in this way the Kaledin counter-revolutionary actions,

* See "Main Provisions of the Manifesto," paragraph 4, p. 60. Ed.

LEPESHINSKY COLLECTION
which are at odds with the interests and demands of the vast majority of the working Cossacks, the Rada allows troops to pass through its territory to Kaledin, refusing to allow troops against Kaledin.
Taking this path of unprecedented betrayal of the revolution, the path of supporting the worst enemies of both the national independence of the nations of Russia and the Soviet power, the enemies of the toiling and exploited masses, the Cadets and the Kaledinites, the Rada would force us to declare war on it without any hesitation, even if it were already a fully formally recognized and indisputable organ of the supreme state power, an independent bourgeois Ukrainian republic.
At the present time, in view of all the circumstances outlined above, the Council of People's Commissars is forced to state:

A. M. Kaledin was a general who, at the end of November 1917, with the help of the "volunteers" of General Alekseev, began the fight against the Soviets.
11360
ORDER ON THE DISARMAMENT OF UKRAINIAN AND GERMAN TROOPS CROSSING THE BORDER.*
[April 17, 1918]
The gubernias of: Kursk, Oryol, Tula, Voronezh, the Don Cossack Region, and Crimea, even according to the unilateral statement of the Kiev Rada, reproduced and certified in the Radio of the German Government of March 29,2 are part of the Russian Federative Soviet Republic. In view of this, military operations being conducted in Ukraine must not extend to their territory. Troops of both warring parties crossing into this territory are therefore subject to immediate and unconditional disarmament.
This order must be transmitted by the local Soviets to the heads of military units for immediate execution.
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin).

* Printed from the original, typed on a typewriter with the handwritten signature of Lenin. Ed.