The reconquest of Ukraine was begun in the summer, but still the Ukrainian People's Republic is in power only in Podolia, Volhynia, and in the government of Kiev, as far as the city of Kiev and the district of Uman. In this territory, I think I can say with confidence, the dangers are now passed and overcome.
The government of the Ukrainian People's Republic is willing to redress all wrongs committed against the Jews in Ukraine, even when these wrongs have been committed by its worst enemies, but it must decline any moral responsibility for innocent blood, to prevent the shedding of which it has done its utmost.
The Ukrainian Government not Criminally Negligent.
But the question arises: Has not the Ukrainian government been criminally negligent? It has not. The directorate— the present Republican government which has overthrown the Hetman regime — immediately after having assumed the power, re-enacted the national autonomy law, and called upon the population of Ukraine to regard the Jews as friends and as allies of Ukrainian democracy. Proclamation after proclamation aga^^st pogroms and order after order against evildoers have been issued. Millions of rubles in damages have been paid and hundreds of murderers and provocators have been executed. There has been no Ukrainian government without Jewish secretaries being in it. Many of them are well known Jewish labor leaders ; all of them are true Jews in whose word the Jewish world can have the utmost confidence.
I deeply regret to say the government did not succeed even in exterminating all outlaw gangs. Some day it will be shown how they made their narrow escapes. Many a cutthroat found refuge by hissing the flag of Bolshevism or the image of Saint Russia. I instance only the most notorious cases of Machno and Grigoriev. Machno's bands were surrounded by the punitive forces of the Ukrainian government early in winter, after they made their first appearance in and around Katerinoslav, but they were rescued by the rapidly progressing Bolshevist advance. After having supported the Bolshevists, Machno joined Denikin and left Denikin to establish himself again independently. While changing his allegiance, he never stopped harassing Jews.
The unspeakable Grigoriev revolted against the Ukrainian government which tried to check his pogrom activities and went over to the Bolshevists and was appointed Bolshevist commander in south Ukraine. Then he betrayed the Bolshevists and is now traitorously gathering the reactionary forces around him, the very same forces that had driven the Ukrainian people to revolution.
Strongest Possible Government Under the Circumstances.
The government of the Ukrainian People's Republic is not powerful enough. But there is no government anywhere and there has never been a government which would prove stronger in these circumstances.
The Ukrainian People's Republic was set up thirty months ago. The Directorate — the present government of the Ukrainian People's Republic — assumed the control eleven months ago.
They are expected to organize and to reconstruct a country which has been disorganized and exhausted and corrupted by more than a century of czarist misrule. They are expected to assert the principles of right and humanity and to safeguard peace and security in spite of continuous war, and revolution within and without. They are expected to do this while assaulted by three powers, each of them superior in arms, money, diplomacy, and propaganda. They are expected to do it while they have to bar the invading Bolshevist Russia. They are expected to do it while they are facing the eastward march of Polish imperialism to the west and the counter-revolutionary Russia to the east, both of them being supported and supplied with all the resources of western Europe. They are expected to do it without any support from anywhere, with a peasant army in rags, with only a strong will to protect their country for their weapon.
Reliance in Final Victory for the People of Ukraine.
It will be done. We rely on the people of Ukraine and on the final victory of justice and democracy, no matter how many times and by whom they were betrayed. But it could not be done right away.