Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party

The Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party, also known as Esdeky and SDPists, was the leading party of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The party was reformed in 1905 at the Second Congress of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party and was pursuing Marxism through the Social Democratic Party of Germany's Erfurt Program as well as national and cultural autonomy. Party leaders were Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Symon Petliura, Mykola Porsh, Dmytro Antonovych, Lev Yurkevych, Mykhailo Tkachenko, and Mykola Kovalsky. The party identified its priority by resolving national matter and pushing its struggle for social liberalization of working class to the secondary set. In the spring of 1905, in his polemics with Dmytro Antonovych that was covered on pages of the party publishing Pratsia, Mykola Porsh argued his opinion about dependence of social and economic oppression from national. He insisted that for overcoming the social oppression foremost is necessary to solve the national issue. In Soviet propaganda, the party was identified as a petty bourgeoisie nationalistic party that was renamed as Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party to deceive people. Vladimir Lenin characterized the party as "representatives of the most low-grade, stupid and reactionary nationalism" who betray "interest not only democracy in general, but its own fatherland, Ukraine." History With the ongoing Revolution of 1905 the party was reformed based on already existing Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP) based from Kharkiv in December 1905 at the 2nd Party Congress of RUP. The party adopted the Erfurt Program of Social Democratic Party of Germany. In December 1905, the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labour Party (USLDP) decided to join the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, provided it was recognised as the sole representative of the Ukrainian proletariat, within the RSDLP. The Fourth (Unity) Congress of the RSDLP rejected the proposal which the USDLP spokesman had made for the immediate discussion of the terms of a merger, and referred the matter to the Central Committee for decision. At the USDLP party congress in June 1907 the party adopted its resolution that was similar to ultimatum urging RSDLP to recognize Ukrainian autonomy, Ukrainian Social-Democracy must have its representative in the Central Committee of RSDLP, and accept USDLP as the RSDLP's national organization of Ukrainian proletariat. No agreement was reached on a merger.