The Ukrainian great-bourgeoisie is composed of representatives of foreign nationalities (Russians, Jews, Poles). They were opposed to the Central Rada because they saw in it a power destructive to the integrity of the "Russian Empire." Without attacking them seriously in the sphere of social politics, the Central Rada paid very little attention to the great-bourgeoisie, and on the other hand showed itself more definite and determined than the Russian Provisional Government in respect to such cardinal questions of the Revolution as the question of the land and the tei/mination of the war.
The Central Rada did not take its support from the working population of the cities. The urban workmen did not entirely trust the Central Rada because they saw in it mainly representatives of the interests of the middle peasants of the Ukrainian village. Nationally, too, the working classes were not at one with the Rada, consisting as they did for the most part of Russians, Poles and Jews. The Ukrainian Soviet delegates were in their general standpoint nearer to the Russian Central Committee of the Soviet labor delegates than to the Central Rada. Nevertheless the workmen as a class and the Jewish workmen in particular supported the Central Rada in their endeavors after national autonomy, which would make possible an unrestricted cultural and social development of the Ukrainian forces, without, however, breaking with the All-Russian revolution.
The Jewish Labor Bund often played the role of mediator between the Ukrainian national movement and the Russian revolutionary democracy. The Jewish workmen and laborers, the support of the Jewish socialistic parties, were afraid of the extravagances of the Bolshevistic rule and saw in the Central Rada a power greater than the Provisional Government. Besides the Central Rada was in its political structure a democratic force, which at the same time guaranteed
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
the cultural needs of the national minorities by the law of autonomy in the sphere of national culture. Representatives of the Jewish socialistic party belonged to the Secretariat (Council of Ministers) of the Central Rada.
The tendency of the Central Rada to favor separation from Russia forced the Jewish parties into opposition. The Jewish Labor Bund abstained from voting on the third manifesto ("Universal"), which opened wide the doors to the separatist tendencies of the Ukrainian movement. This resulted in the recall of the socialistic representatives in the Secretariat. A critical moment in the relations between the Jewish socialistic parties and the Central Rada was on the occasion of carrying out the fourth manifesto, which proclaimed the "independence" of the Ukraine, denoting a complete break with Soviet Russia.
The fourth manifesto was really called forth by the pressure of German imperialism upon Soviet Russia. It meant for the Ukraine a separate peace with Germany at the expense of Russia, and a protection against the danger of the Soviet. The manifesto was regarded with disfavor by the Ukrainian proletariat, because they could not reconcile themselves to an economic, political and moral separation from Russia. Moreover the proletariat sensed in the fourth manifesto a tendency to reaction externally (union with Germany) as well as internally. The lower middle class circles in the cities were opposed to the manifesto for similar reasons. Fear of Bolshevism lamed their activity. Nevertheless their attitude to the new ways upon which the national movement had entered was negative. The fourth manifesto repelled the socialistic parties of the Ukrainian cities from the Central Rada. The latter continued to find support in the broad stratum of the great and middle peasants, who were only loosely connected with the Russian revolution and for the time being had no serious economic interests in the warexhausted cities in general or in the Russian Soviet cities in particular.
In the debate on the fourth manifesto in the Central Rada, the Jewish labor parties spoke against it. The mere appearance on the platform of the wellknown leader of the Bund, Liber, who was to speak in the name of the Jewish Labor Bund, called forth a storm of indignation. He was regarded as an advocate of centralization and an opponent of the Ukrainian national movement. The Jewish Labor Bund voted against the manifesto. The united Jewish socialistic party and the labor party of the Poale Zion abstained from voting, but expressed themselves in strong criticism of the manifesto.