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From The Merchant of Revolution, Z. A. B. Zeman and W. B. Scharlau, 1965
The call-up of the Turkish Army was followed by Helphand's first wartime experiment in subversion against the Tsarist r&eactue;gime. In Vienna and in Lvov, the Ukrainians—also known as the Ruthenes, whose western settlements extended into the Habsburg Empire—had set up a society called the Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine ; after the outbreak of the war, it began to agitate extensively in the press and in the camps of the Russian prisoners of war. The Union aimed at the establishment of the Russian Ukraine as an independent state, and it soon began to receive protection and financial support from official quarters in
Vienna and Berlin. The Austrian and the German Governments were now favouring, eagerly but without much discrimination, a variety of activities aimed at the weakening of the Tsarist Empire. They put considerable sums at the disposal of the Union, and then placed it under the control of the Foreign Ministry in Vienna.7
Towards the end of September, the Union put forward a plan for direct military action against Russia. It was suggested that an expeditionary force should be dispatched to the Ukraine where it would incite rebellion, behind the front, against Tsarist rule. Two of the Union's leaders, Marian Basok-Melenevski and Dr. Leo Hankiewicz, left Vienna for the Balkans ; they intended to explore the situation in the area surrounding the region of their proposed action, as well as to secure additional assistance. The heads of the Austrian diplomatic missions to Constantinople and to Sofia were advised by the foreign Ministry of the impending arrival of the two Ukrainians, and asked to assist them in every way.
Melenevski had known Helphand since the Iskra days at the turn of the century, and Helphand's attitude to the war had been received with special attention by the socialist contingent inside the Ukrainian Union. It was therefore Helphand, rather than Pallavicini, the Austrian Ambassador, whom Melenevski at once sought out in Constantinople.
Helphand was ready to assist his Ukrainian friends. First, he gave Melenevski a letter of introduction to the editors of the big Constantinople newspapers ; towards the end of October, the printed the first proclamation by the Union, and the Austrian Ambassador at once reported to Vienna on this initial success of Melenevski's mission. At the same time, the Armenian and the Georgian socialists also declared themselves for the independence of their countries. They, too, found encouragement from Helphand. His house in Constantinople became the
meeting-place of both the nationalist and the socialist conspirators against the Tsarist Empire.
At the same time—late in October 1914—Basok-Melenevski asked Helphand for his permission to publish, by the Ukrainian Union, his article "For Democracy—Against Tsarism'. Helphand gladly gave his consent, and then proceeded to use the opportunity to formulate his attitude to the question of national revolutions. He did so in a special preface to the pamphlet, the translation of his essay, which appeared in Constantinople in December 1914. He perceived the revolutionary energy in nationalism, and he was prepared to harness it for the purpose of the overthrow of the Tsarist régime. The experience of the year 1905 had shown, he explained, that the greatest reserves of power at the disposal of the autocracy lay in the tight administrative centralization of the Russian Empire. The socialist opposition could, in his opinion, achieve success only if it allied itself with the national minorities. The centralized, autocratic state had to be replaced by a 'free union of all the nations of the large Empire'.
He told Basok-Melenevski, without much ado, that he thought it pointless for the national leaders to continue to organize their activities in exile ; Helphand maintained that the revolutionary movement would remain ineffectual if it confined itself purely to the traditional pastimes of exile. The work performed on the spot, in Russia, was what mattered. In this respect, however, there existed no differences between the two men. The Union's plans for the dispatch of its own private army to Russia met with Helphand's full approval.
In the course of the preparations for the expedition, Melenevski introduced Helphand to Dr. Zimmer, who was now supervising the activities of the Union on behalf of the Austrian and German diplomatic missions.
London New York Toronto :
Oxford University Press, 1965.
General Ukrainian Council (Zahalna ukrainska rada). . . .
According to the council's program, Ukrainian territories under Russian rule were to form an independent Ukrainian state while the Ukrainian territories under Austria-Hungary were to become merely autonomous and unified into a single Ukrainian region. The presidium was the executive body of the council. It consisted of a president (Kost Levytsky), three vice-presidents (Mykola Vasylko, Lev Bachynsky, replaced later by Yaroslav Vesolovsky, and Mykola Hankevych, replaced later by Volodymyr Temnytsky), a deputy from the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (Oleksander Skoropys-Yoltukhovsky, replaced by Mariian Melenevsky), and a secretary (Temnytsky). Yevhen Olesnytsky, Stepan Rudnytsky, Stepan Tomashivsky, Stanyslav Dnistriansky, and Lonhyn Tsehelsky served as special advisers to the council. The imperial manifesto of 4 November 1916, which established the Polish Kingdom and sanctioned an autonomous, Polish-dominated Galicia within Austria-Hungary, undermined the position of the council; subsequently, leadership in Ukrainian political life passed to the Ukrainian parliamentary representation.
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/G/E/GeneralUkrainianCouncil.htm
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