All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee

All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee (Vseukrainskyi revoliutsiinyi komitet). An anti-Bolshevik political-insurgency center that existed from April to July 1919. It was organized in Right-Bank Ukraine by the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party (Independentists) (USDRP) consisting of Yurii Mazurenko, Andrii Richytsky, Mykhailo Avdiienko, Antin Drahomyretsky, and others, who had initially co-operated with the Bolsheviks. The purpose of the committee was to take advantage of the dissatisfaction among Ukrainian peasants with the Bolshevik occupation and, by promoting and co-ordinating local peasants' revolts against the Bolsheviks, to establish an independent Ukrainian Soviet republic, with a government in opposition to both the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic and to Soviet Russia. The organizers of the committee gained the support of other Ukrainian socialist groups. Alongside the committee, the Supreme Insurgent Council and the General Insurgent Staff (A. Richytsky, Y. Mazurenko) were created. The insurgent groups operated out of Skvyra in their attacks against the Red Army. In July 1919 the insurgents joined the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. Some members of the committee were arrested in Kamianets-Podilskyi on charges of plotting a coup against the Directory, but they were soon released. At this time the Central Committee of the USDRP left-independentist faction decided to put a stop to anti-Bolshevik insurrection so as not to facilitate Anton Denikin's White offensive, and the committee was dissolved.

Vasyl Markus

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