V. I.

Lenin

1918

18

TELEGRAM TO L. M. KARAKHAN [1]

Karakhan
Russian Peace Delegation
Brest-Litovsk
Copy to Supreme Commander-in-Chief Krylenko

I received your telegram concerning the report from the
members of the Revolutionary Committee of the 8th Army
—Kuzmin and
Reizon. [2] I am passing this telegram on to the Commander-in-Chief with my advice: not to give
way to the provocation of the Kiev Rada, not to trust it,
and to act in an armed, organised and most resolute way
against the Rumanian counter-revolutionary command, against the Kaledinites and their accomplices in the Kiev
Rada.

Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
Transmitted by direct line.— Ed .

[2]
Kuzmin and Reizon reported provocatory acts by the Ukrainian
Central Rada and the counter-revolutionary command of the
Rumanian Front aimed at demoralising and disarming the 8th
Army.

The Ukrainian Central Rada —a counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist organisation. After the victory of the October
Revolution it proclaimed itself the supreme organ of the “
Ukrainian People’s Republic” and began an open struggle against
Soviet power.

At the First All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets held in Kharkov
in December 1917, the Ukraine was proclaimed a Soviet

Republic. The Congress declared the power of the Central Rada
overthrown. The Council of People’s Commissars of the R.S.F.S.R.
recognised the Ukrainian Soviet Government as the sole legitimate government of the Ukraine. In January 1918, Soviet troops
in the Ukraine launched an offensive and on January 26 (
February 8) seized Kiev and deposed the bourgeois Rada.

The Central Rada, routed and driven from the territory of
the Soviet Ukraine, and having no support among the working
masses, allied itself with the German imperialists in order to
overthrow Soviet power and restore the bourgeois regime in the
Ukraine. During the peace negotiations between the Soviet
Republic and Germany, the Rada sent its delegation to Brest–
Litovsk and behind the back of the Soviet delegation concluded a
separate peace with Germany, by which it undertook to supply
Germany with Ukrainian grain, coal and raw materials in return
for military assistance in the struggle against Soviet power. In
March 1918 the Rada returned to Kiev with the Austrian and
German invaders and became their puppet. At the end of April
the interventionists dismissed the Rada, realising that it was
incapable of suppressing the revolutionary movement in the
Ukraine and ensuring delivery of the required food supplies.