Vasyl' Shakhrai

Who was Vasyl' Shakhrai?

Vasyl' Shakhrai was a Ukrainian political activist and Soviet revolutionary during the Russian Revolution. He was noted as an advocate of National Communism and did not support the October Revolution.

Shakhrai joined the Bolsheviks after completing his training at the Military Academy in Poltava in 1917, while some sources claim that he was already Bolshevik since 1913. He was one of the few Ukrainians amongst the Poltava Bolsheviks. At the time the Bolsheviks were in a unified organisation with the local Mensheviks, but Shakhrai supported Serhii Mazlakh, a Jewish Poltava Bolshevik who successfully ousted the Mensheviks by August 1917.

Shakhrai and Mazlakh were then elected editors of the weekly newspaper. By this time Shakhrai was advocating Ukrainian nationalism. Although this caused concern amongst the predominantly Jewish local Mensheviks, he gained support amongst the local Bolsheviks, who felt that it helped gain support amongst the largely anti-Russian Ukrainians of the region. Shakhrai was elected as a delegate to both the First All-Ukrainian Consultative Conference of the CPU and the First All Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. He was also appointed the People's Commissar for Military Affairs in the Soviet Ukrainian government. In this capacity he accompanied Trotsky to Brest Litovsk for the treaty negotiations there in March 1918.