result of want of careful consideration - is not the way of the Ukrainian
Cossacks. I most positively order that all those who are instigating you
to pogroms be thrust out of the army, and as traitors to the fatherland
be handed over to the court. Let the court punish them according to
their crimes by giving them the severest lawful penalty.
The Government of the Ukrainian Democratic Republic recognizing the harm
done to the state by the pogroms has issued an appeal to the whole
population of the Ukraine to withstand all attempts of the enemies who
might arouse it to anti-Jewish pogroms.
I command the whole army to obey this appeal and to provide for its
widest dissemination among comrades-in-arms and among the population.
This Army Order is to be read to all division, brigades, regiments,
garrisons and squadrons of the Dnieper and Dniester armies, as well as
the partisan detachments.
The Commander-in-Chief:
Petliura.
The Chief of Staff of the Supreme
Commander:
Junakiv.
F. Pigido (ed.), Material Concerning Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during
the Years of the Revolution (1917-1921): Collection of Documents and
Testimonies by Prominent Jewish Political Workers, The Ukrainian
Information Bureau, Munich, 1956.
HOME DISINFORMATION PETLIURA 504 hits since 25Mar99
Symon Petliura Appeal to Ukrainian Army 27Aug1919 To sow discord among us
Let the death sentence overtake the perpetrators of pogroms and
provocateurs. I demand the strictest discipline from you so that not even
a hair of an innocent's head be touched.
Appeal of the Commander-in-Chief,
Petlura,
to the Ukrainian Army.
Soldiers of the Ukrainian Army!
The Ukrainian Republican People's Army of the Dnieper and Dniester
territories, now united into one army, is advancing victoriously, is
crushing the enemy, gaining each day new territories of the Ukraine to
liberate them from the Bolshevist brigands, bringing with them freedom to
the Ukrainian people as well as the certainty of happy days of living in
a peaceful and orderly state.
The Bolshevist anarchy and maladministration, the horrible Red terror,
the tyranny of the extraordinary inquiry commission [the Cheka] and of
other criminals for whom there is nothing sacred in life - have sapped
our people's strength to the utmost and have flooded our steppes with
human tears and with streams of blood of the innocent.
Amidst a peal of church bells, with bread and salt, with flowers and
tears of joy the weary, oppressed and pillaged Ukrainian people are
greeting you, their valiant warriors, as liberators from the yoke and
from Bolshevist atrocities, as flesh of their flesh and blood of their
blood.
A might national enthusiasm has seized our people at your entry into
villages and towns, and everywhere a festive reception is awaiting you
and all this has been brought about by you, officers and soldiers of the
Ukrainian army!
You are living now through glorious and never to be forgotten moments of
your life, and together with you all peoples inhabiting the Ukrainian
territory are experiencing the same enthusiasm.
The holy crusade for the liberation of the oppressed, regardless of their
nationality, for the rule of law and order under freedom and democracy
and the independence of our republic - these are the ideals in this
struggle.
The union of all democratic forces of all nationalities in the Ukraine,
standing for the independence of our Republic, and their participation in
the reconstruction of the state will warrant our victory over our
enemies, and will guarantee to us an independent life subject to no one.
Our enemies, however, are not sleeping but only watching our every step
in order to sow discord among us in one way or another, and thus to
frustrate the immediate realization of our people's efforts.
The Bolshevists themselves consider the Ukraine Moscow's inheritance
with the difference that formerly it was the heritage of black Moscow,
now of a Red one.
They see that the end of their rule in the Ukraine is already approaching
because the Ukrainian people themselves have risen against them: but they
do not give up yet their hope of subjugating the Ukrainian masses. By
provocations for which they are spending enormous sums of money they want
to divide us from within, hiring criminal elements who are inciting our
soldiers to all sorts of outrages and pogroms against the innocent Jewish
population; in this way they want to stamp our soldiers as
pogrom-mongers, although these soldiers are bringing liberty to all
peoples of the Ukraine.
Our enemies intend thus to split the Ukrainian and Jewish laboring masses
whose ways, in fact, have been bound together by three hundred years of
Russian tsarist yoke.
Our national army must bring equality, brotherhood and freedom to the
Ukrainian as well as the Jewish citizens who are also supporting actively
the government of the Ukrainian Democratic Republic. All their parties,
i.e.: Bund, Obyednantsi, Poalej-Zion and People's Party are standing on
the principles of the independence of the Ukraine, and are participating
in the reconstruction of the republic.
