All-Ukrainian Council of Peasants' Deputies

All-Ukrainian Council of Peasants' Deputies (Vseukrainska rada selianskykh deputativ). Elected by the first of the All-Ukrainian Peasant congresses on 10–16 June 1917, the council consisted of 133 members, who became representatives on the Ukrainian Central Rada. In the summer of 1917, county peasant congresses discussed the question of electing new members, ie, two representatives for each of the 98 counties. On 5–7 July 1917, the first session of the All-Ukrainian Council of Peasants' Deputies moved that the council direct the Ukrainian peasant movement in its entirety and proceeded to recall Ukrainian peasants' representatives from the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Association of Peasants' Deputies. In late July 1917, 212 peasants' deputies took part in the Central Rada. Fifteen of these members formed the Central Committee of the Peasant Association. The second session of the council (15–18 September 1917) demanded that the Russian Provisional Government agree to an increase in the rights of the General Secretariat of the Central Rada and to an expansion of that body's jurisdiction to include all Ukrainian ethnic territories. The third session (1–6 December 1917) spoke out against the Bolsheviks' attempts to seize power and, specifically, against their demands to hold a re-election of the Central Rada. The third session also welcomed the proclamation of the Third of the Universals of the Central Rada.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]