The Ukrainian Constituent Assembly ( uk, Українські Установчі Збори) was a planned All-National Congress which was supposed to confirm the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these pr ...

of the

Ukrainian People's Republic The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR), or Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), was a country in Eastern Europe that existed between 1917 and 1920. It was declared following the February Revolution in Russia by the First Universal. In March 1 ...

and establish a new political system. The Assembly was supposed to be the supreme state power and

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

to which were to be organized by the Central Council (also known as the Central Rada), which would hold its sessions between the meetings of the Assembly. The Assembly was suspended because of the Bolshevik aggression in the

Ukrainian–Soviet War The Ukrainian–Soviet War ( uk, радянсько-українська війна, translit=radiansko-ukrainska viina) was an armed conflict from 1917 to 1921 between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Bolsheviks (Soviet Ukraine and S ...

(part of the

Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...

) of December 25, 1917 that led to a

proclamation of Ukrainian independence The act of restoration of the Ukrainian state or proclamation of the Ukrainian state of June 30, 1941 was announced by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) under the leadership of Stepan Bandera, who declared an independent Ukrain ...

by the IV

Universal Universal is the adjective for universe. Universal may also refer to: Companies * NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company ** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal ** Universal TV, a t ...

Overview

The idea for an All-National Congress surfaced after the

February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and some ...

, but was strongly opposed by the

Russian Provisional Government The Russian Provisional Government ( rus, Временное правительство России, Vremennoye pravitel'stvo Rossii) was a provisional government of the Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately ...

which interpreted it as separatism on the part of the Central Council. In its very first Universal the Central Council declared that only the All-National Congress has "the right to approve all laws" in Ukraine.

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' ( uk, Енциклопедія українознавства, translit=Entsyklopediia ukrainoznavstva), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was creat ...

br>
At its sixth session (August 18–22, 1917) the Central Council recognized the importance of the organization of such an institution and held a forum for an electoral system and the convening of the assembly.

Reactions

After the sixth session of the Central Council the most influential party in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

, the Kadets, resigned from the Ukrainian council in protest at the arranging of the All-National Congress. By the end of September several other parties of national minorities such as the

Mensheviks The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions em ...

of the

RSDRP The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...

, the

Socialist-Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (the SRs, , or Esers, russian: эсеры, translit=esery, label=none; russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров, ), was a major polit ...

, and the Bund protested against a Ukrainian Constituent Assembly. The Minor Rada (the Executive Committee of the Central Council) tried to find a compromise due to those protests and declared that the National Assembly would be confirmed by the

All-Russian Constituent Assembly The All Russian Constituent Assembly (Всероссийское Учредительное собрание, Vserossiyskoye Uchreditelnoye sobraniye) was a constituent assembly convened in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. It met fo ...

. The compromise resulted in some reconciliation among the members of the Central Council which elected a commission to design the laws that would govern the Constituent Assembly. Nonetheless, on 30 October 1917 the

accused the Ukrainian government of separatism, suspended funding of the General Secretariat, and declared its intention to turn to the courts. A special delegation to

Petrograd Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

was organized to negotiate the issue, however its mission was suspended and later canceled due to the Bolshevik coup-d'état in the capital.

Developments

On October 12, 1917 the

Central Rada The Central Council of Ukraine ( uk, Українська Центральна Рада, ) (also called the Tsentralna Rada or the Central Rada) was the All-Ukrainian council (soviet) that united deputies of soldiers, workers, and peasants deputie ...

passed the fundamental laws on elections to the assembly. It also instructed the Minor Rada to confirm the laws and organize the elections. The III Universal of the Central Rada (November 20, 1917) designated January 9 as election day while the first convention of the assembly was scheduled to take place on January 22. The Universal also decreed that until the assembly convened the legislative power of the Ukrainian autonomy remained the

. The law on the Constituent Assembly was ratified on November 29, 1917. There were expected to be 301 deputies which was around 1 per 100,000 constituents. The appointed head of the electoral commission was M.Moroz.

References

Bibliography

* Khrystiuk, Pavlo (1921). "Записки і матеріали до історії української революції 1917—1920 pp." (Notes and materials to the history of the Ukrainian Revolution 1917-20). Vol I-II. Vienna. * Doroshenko Dmytro (1932). "Історія України 1917—1923" (History of Ukraine 1917-23). Vol I "Доба Центральної Ради" (The times of the Central Rada). Uzhhorod 1932, New-York 1954. *Reshetar, J. (1952). "The Ukrainian Revolution 1917—1920". Princeton 1952. *

External links