Revolutionary Ukrainian Party
The Revolutionary Ukrainian Party ( Революційна українська партія , РУП ) was the first political party in that time the Russian Empire associated Central and Eastern Ukraine . The party was founded by the Ukrainian student associations in Kharkiv in 1900 as a secret revolutionary organization. The RUP was a parent party from which later several Ukrainian parties, mostly socialist and social democratic parties , emerged.
Political program
Initially, the RUP's political program was a speech by Kharkiv lawyer Mykola Michnowskyj , which he had given in 1900 on the occasion of the celebrations for the birthday and anniversary of the death of the Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko (March 9 and 10) in Kharkiv and Poltava . Michnowkyj was not a member of the RUP, but wrote his speech on behalf of their leadership and as their political program. In the speech the demand was made for “a unified, indivisible, free, sovereign Ukraine from the Carpathian Mountains to the Caucasus” and the next goal was to “regain the rights granted to us by the Constitution of Perejaslav 1654 Extension of their validity over the whole territory of the Ukrainian people ”. In 1902 the right-wing nationalist wing split off from the RUP because of the abandonment of the goal of complete political independence for Ukraine and founded the Ukrainian People's Party (UNP) under the leadership of Mykola Michnowskyj. At the same time, the party left criticized the “lack of socialism” in the initial party program, which initially excluded all economic and social issues. In 1903 this led to the split off from the Ukrainian Socialist Party (USP), which was also founded in 1900 and later merged with the RUP .
In 1903 the RUP had turned away from the demand for a completely independent Ukrainian state in favor of mere national autonomy for Ukrainians within the Russian Empire. Since this turning away from the nationalist positions, the RUP increasingly assumed the features of a social democratic party. In the same year she published her new programmatic principles on the basis of the Erfurt program of the SPD of 1891 in the party newspaper “Haslo” ( Die Parole ) . In 1904 her representative took part in the congress of the Socialist International in Amsterdam .
The first party congress of the RUP in 1904 brought about the split in the party: a cosmopolitan minority joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party in 1905 and existed as an autonomous Ukrainian section until 1913. The nationalist majority under the leadership of Mykola Porsch and Symon Petlyura changed at the 2nd party congress changed its name to the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' Party (USDRP) and adopted the party program based on the Erfurt program of the SPD with the demand for national autonomy for Ukraine .