From Legal Marxism to ethical socialism: the economist who pioneered business cycle theory
At the April 1900 Pskov meeting to organize Iskra, he sat alongside Lenin, Martov, and Struve — but he never actually joined the underground Social Democratic movement.
A leading exponent of Legal Marxism, Tugan-Baranovsky gained international recognition with his 1894 Industrial Crises in Contemporary England, which pioneered an endogenous theory of capitalist business cycles. Together with Pyotr Struve he advanced Marxist economic-historical analysis against the Narodniks and attended the 1900 organizational meeting of Iskra, but later broke with orthodox Marxism toward an 'ethical socialism' grounded in Kantian ethics, laying the theoretical foundations of the cooperative movement. After the February Revolution he served as finance minister in the Ukrainian Central Rada and was a founding member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; his cycle theory influenced Keynes, Robertson, and Kalecki.
Career timeline
1888Graduated Kharkov University, Candidate of Sciences in natural sciences
1894Published Industrial Crises in Contemporary England, MA in political economy from Moscow University
1895–1899Privatdozent in political economy, St. Petersburg University
1898Published The Russian Factory in Past and Present, doctorate from Moscow University
1900Participated in the Iskra organizational meeting (Pskov)
1901–1905Worked in Poltava zemstvo, wrote Outlines from the Recent History of Political Economy
1906–1913Privatdozent and professor at St. Petersburg University and Polytechnic Institute
1909–1917Editor-in-chief of Vestnik Kooperatsii (Cooperative Digest)
1917.8–11Finance Minister (Secretary) of the Ukrainian Central Rada
1918Founding member, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; head of socio-economic department
Historian who wrote Ukraine as a distinct historical subject, and chairman of the Central Rada
In March 1917 the Central Rada elected him chairman in absentia while he was still in exile in Moscow, and his return raised hope for uniting the democratic forces.
The historian whose History of Ukraine-Rus wrote Ukraine as a distinct historical subject, he chaired the Central Rada in 1917 and 1918. He returned to Soviet Ukraine in 1924 and died under surveillance in 1934.
Career timeline
1890Graduated Kyiv University, gold medal for graduation thesis
1894Professor of history at Lviv University
1897Chairman of the Shevchenko Scientific Society (1897–1913)
1917Chairman of the Central Rada (1917–1918), elected in absentia
1919Founded the Ukrainian Sociological Institute in Vienna
1924Returned to Soviet Ukraine, academician of VUAN
1929Full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
1931Arrested on charges of counter-revolutionary activity
Ukrainian independence leader who headed the People's Republic but whose role in pogroms remains fiercely contested
Do not separate the fate of Ukraine from the fate of Russia. If Russia suffers defeat, the consequences of this catastrophe will also affect Ukraine.
A social-democratic journalist from Poltava who rose from military secretary of the Central Rada in 1917 to commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian People's Army and head of the Directorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic. He fought to defend Ukrainian independence against Bolsheviks, White armies, and Poland, but was forced into exile, first in Poland and then Paris, after defeat in 1920. An estimated 50,000 Jews were massacred by forces under his command, and whether he was unable or unwilling to stop the killings remains fiercely disputed. In 1926 he was assassinated in Paris by the Jewish anarchist Sholem Schwarzbard, who called it vengeance for the pogroms.
Career timeline
1900–1917Activist in the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party and USDRP; journalist leading the Ukrainian national movement
1917.5–1917.12Secretary of Military Affairs, Central Rada; led organization of Ukrainian armed forces
1918.1–1918.3Commander of Haydamaky Kish; suppressed Bolshevik Arsenal uprising in Kyiv
1918.11–1919.2Chief of Military Forces, Directorate of Ukraine
1919.2–1920.12Head of the Directorate and Supreme Commander, Ukrainian People's Army
1920.4Signed Warsaw Treaty with Poland, forming anti-Bolshevik alliance
1924–1926Published weekly Tryzub from exile in Paris
Ukrainian Social Democratic writer who led the Rada's General Secretariat and the Directory
Just as you created the dictatorship of workers and peasants in Russia, we must create a dictatorship of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine.
A Ukrainian Social Democratic writer, he led the Central Rada's General Secretariat in 1917 and retook Kyiv as first chairman of the Directory in 1918. Arguing for talks with the Soviets he broke with Petliura and resigned in 1919, dying in France in 1951.
Career timeline
1905Co-founder of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' Party
1917Vice-president of the Central Rada and first head of its General Secretariat
1918.01Premier of the Ukrainian People's Republic, soon resigned
1918.12Retook Kyiv as chairman of the Directory
1919-1920Wrote the memoir Rebirth of a Nation
1920Deputy head of the Ukrainian SSR Sovnarkom; soon re-emigrated
Pioneer of Ukrainian national communism, the original 'Shumskyism'
In April 1926, Shumsky met Stalin privately in Moscow for over two hours, demanding Kaganovich's replacement by Ukrainian Vlas Chubar and accelerated Ukrainization. Stalin's resulting Politburo letter condemned 'Shumskyism' as nationalist deviation — a watershed in the suppression of Ukrainian national communism.
A symbol of Ukrainian national communism and the prototype of 'Shumskyism': the demand for substantive republican autonomy against Moscow's centralism. A Borotbist who rose to the CP(b)U Politburo, he drove the de-Russification of Ukraine's cities and proletariat and the promotion of Ukrainian cadres as People's Commissar of Education (1924–1927). His 1926 confrontation with Stalin led to his condemnation for 'nationalist deviation' and removal from all posts; his name became shorthand for the suppression of Ukrainian autonomy within the Soviet system. Arrested in 1933, he endured the Solovki camps and Krasnoyarsk exile before the NKVD murdered him upon release in 1946; rehabilitated in 1958.
Career timeline
1908Joined the Ukrainian Social Democratic Spilka
1917–1919Left-wing UPSR leader, then Borotbist Central Committee member
1919People's Commissar of Education, Ukrainian SSR (first term)
1920Led Borotbist merger into CP(b)U; Politburo & Orgburo member, Comintern ECCI member
1921–1923Plenipotentiary of the Ukrainian SSR to Poland
1924–1927People's Commissar of Education (second term); led Ukrainization drive
1927Condemned for 'Shumskyism'; rector in Leningrad
1933–1946Arrested, imprisoned, exiled; killed by NKVD upon release (rehabilitated 1958)
Ukrainian nationalist leader who commanded the Sich Riflemen and built the UVO and OUN
Rotterdam, 23 May 1938: a Ukrainian-style box of chocolates handed over by his trusted contact Pavel Sudoplatov concealed a time bomb made in Moscow.
A Ukrainian military and political leader from Zashkiv in Austrian Galicia. After captivity in Russia during the First World War, he organized the Sich Riflemen in Kyiv in 1917 and became a leading commander of the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Following defeat in the independence war, he led the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) in exile and united several nationalist groups into the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in Vienna in 1929, becoming its first leader. He connected émigré organizations across Europe and North America and sought international support for Ukrainian independence, but was assassinated in Rotterdam in 1938 by a bomb delivered by NKVD operative Pavel Sudoplatov, who had infiltrated the OUN. In 1929 he obtained Lithuanian citizenship and a passport, giving his émigré activity a legal basis, while his national and political identity and the aim of his movement remained consistently Ukrainian independence.
Career timeline
1914–1915Served in the Austro-Hungarian army; captured by Russia after the Battle of Makivka
1917–1920Organized and commanded the Sich Riflemen of the Ukrainian People’s Republic
1920–1929Cofounded and led the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO)
1929–1938Founding leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)
1938.05Assassinated in Rotterdam in Pavel Sudoplatov’s bombing operation
Ukrainian otaman who took Odesa for the Reds, then turned to revolt and pogrom
Proclaiming revolt in his May 1919 Universaл, he cried: "Ukrainian people! Take power into your own hands. Let there be no dictatorship of any one man or any one party."
The Ukrainian otaman who took Odesa for the Soviets in the spring of 1919, he rose against them in May and his troops massacred Jews at Yelysavethrad and elsewhere. He was shot by Makhno's men in July.
Career timeline
1901–1907Volunteered for the imperial army, fought in the Russo-Japanese War, and won three Crosses of St George.
1914–1916Served as an officer on the Southwestern Front in World War I, rising to staff-captain.
1918Led peasant partisans in Kherson province against the Austro-German occupiers and the Hetmanate.
1918–1919Served as chief of the Kherson Division of the Ukrainian People's Republic (Directory).
1919-02Went over to the Red Army, commanding the 1st Zadniprovska Brigade and then the 6th Ukrainian Soviet Division, and took Odesa in April.
1919-05Led the Hryhoriv uprising against the Red Army in May.
