Ukrainian Communist Party

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The Ukrainian Communist Party (Ukrainian: Українська Комуністична Партія, Ukrayins’ka Komunistychna Partiya) was an oppositional political party in Soviet Ukraine, from 1920 until 1925. Its followers were known as Ukapists (укапісти, ukapisty), from the initials UKP.

The UKP was formed by splitting off from the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party in January 1920. It was a Marxist opposition party, operating separately from the dominant Communist Part (bolshevik) of Ukraine, and criticizing the governing party through its newspaper, Chervonyy Prapor. The membership of several hundred was made up of Ukrainian Social-Democrat Independentists, former Borotbists, and dissidents from the CP(b)U, like Yuriy Lapchynsky. The Ukapists were in favour of Ukrainian independence from Bolshevik Russia.

The UKP tried to gain admittance into the Comintern in 1925, and by being refused was forced to dissolve. Some members joined the Bolshevik CP(b)U, including leaders Mykhaylo Tkachenko and Yuriy Mazurenko, in order to maintain some influence on Ukrainian politics. These former Ukapists were purged during the cleansing of non-Bolshevik politicians and other "bourgeois nationalists" in 1931–34, to be executed or exiled to Siberia.

[edit] References

• Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine, pp 532, 565–66. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.
• Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History, 1st edition, pp 383–4. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-8390-0.