Energías

The Crimea also became a stronghold for the White movement. The local Bolshevik party was so weak on the peninsula that it was

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, August 1914 (Trans. Michael Glenny) (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 465.

Oliver H. Radkey, Russia Goes to the Polls: The Elections to the All- Russian Constituent Assemblv. 1917 (London: Cornell University Press,

1990), p. xi. According to McNeal, non-Cossacks made up 56 percent of the population of the Don region by 1910. McNeal, Tsar and Cossack, p.

14.

See map in V. Kubijovyc et. al., "Don Region," Encylopedia of Ukraine. I(A-F), p. 720.

forced to remain united with the Mensheviks until April 1917, when a separate Bolshevik party was established in Sevastopol’. Most of the region's soviets were dominated by Russian Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, while city dumas were dominated by the Kadet party.^® In Tavriia as a whole, the Socialist Revolutionaries won over half of the vote in the Constituent Assembly elections, while Ukrainian and Muslim (i.e. Crimean Tatar) parties had roughly equal strength (twelve percent each). The Bolsheviks garnered only a fraction (less than three percent) of the provincial vote.^^

The orientation of the Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol', was somewhat different. The sailors, traditionally conscripts from Ukrainian provinces, gave a relatively high level of support to the Ukrainian parties (25 percent) in the elections, although the Russian SRs were the most popular party (42 p e r c e n t ) . T h e Black Sea Fleet, hence, was a strategic wedge for the Ukrainian national movement in a province where pro- Ukrainian parties were relatively weak. In March of 1918 the Soviets declared the founding of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Tavriia, which was to be a full-fledged Soviet republic on a par with the Ukrainian SSR and the Russian SFSR. It only existed for a month before it was

dissolved by the Germans.

Istoriia mist i sil Ukrains'koi RSR: Krvms'ka oblast', p. 34. In Tavriia the Bolsheviks won a mere 3 percent of the vote as compared to 57 percent for the Socialist Revolutionaries(SRs) and 12 percent support each for the Muslim and Ukrainian parties. Guthier, "The popular base of Ukrainian nationalism in 1917,"p. 45.

Ukrainian parties received 12,898 (25 percent) votes out o f a total of 52,629. The Bolsheviks received 10,771(20 percent), while the SRs received the largest share, with 22,251(42 percent) votes. Radkey, Russia Goes to the Polls, p. 38.

On the Crimea during the 1920s and 1930s, see Heorhii Kas'ianov, "Kryms'ka ARSR: 1920-30-ti roky," Filosofs'ka i sotsiolohichna dumka. 1990, 7, pp. 74-81.

Throughout the entire revolutionary period, the Crimean Tatars refused to support the Bolsheviks or the Whites, preferring to follow their own national leadership, the more radical members of which envisioned the re-establishment of Turkish suzerainty over the peninsula. The Crimean Tatar national party, the "Milli-Firka," established a Tatar parliament or "Kurultai," but it was dissolved by the German occupation forces. The Crimean government installed by the Germans, which included representatives of the Milli-Firka, signed an agreement with Petliura's government which would have made the Crimea an

autonomous republic within Ukraine.^"^

Even though the Ukrainian National Republic initially made no claims to Crimean Territory, it did demand ownership of part of the Black Sea Fleet. Ukrainian sailors supported these pretensions by raising the Ukrainian flag on many of the fleet's ships, while other sailors raised the Russian, Communist and Anarchist flags.

In April of 1919, the Bolsheviks managed to gain temporary control over the Crimea. At this time, the CC RCP(b) ordered the

creation of the Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic, which survived a mere 75 days before White forces gained control over the territory (June 1919).

Heorhii Kas'ianov, "Kryms'ka ARSR: 1920-30-ti roky," p. 74.

Later, in April 1918, when Ukrainian forces marched into Crimea, the Ukrainian flag was ordered raised on all Black Sea ships. Shortly

thereafter, the fleet passed into German control, but in June, many of the fleets ships were scuttled, in accordance with a decree by Lenin. What remained of the fleet was eventually transferred by the Germans to the Hetman government (November 1918), and subsequently taken over by the Entente's forces. See Kryp'iakevych, 1. P. Istoriia Ulâains'koho viis'ka (2 Volumes) (Kiev: Pam'iatky Ukrainy, 1992), 2, pp. 437-438.

It was led by D.I. Ul'ianov, Lenin's brother/^ For the rest of the Civil War, the peninsula remained a stronghold of the Russian White

movement. Once again, the Crimea earned the distinction of being the site of a memorable struggle to defend the "motherland." For the

vanquished Whites the defence of the peninsula was one of the last great struggles to save mother Russia from Bolshevism. For the Bolsheviks, the fight to clear the Whites from Crimea (later commemorated in the film "Two Comrades") was, in Lenin's words, "One of the most brilliant chapters in the history of the Red Army."^^

At the end of this legendary campaign against the Whites, the Crimean Soviet republic was not revived. Instead, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established within the jurisdiction of the RSFSR (18 October, 1921). Hence, Crimea was

recognised as a Russian territory, but also as a region distinctive enough to warrant "autonomy" within the Russian Soviet Republic (RSFSR).