crushing the enemy, gaining each day new territories of the Ukraine to
liberate them from the Bolshevist brigands, bringing with them freedom to
the Ukrainian people as well as the certainty of happy days of living in
a peaceful and orderly state.
The Bolshevist anarchy and maladministration, the horrible Red terror,
the tyranny of the extraordinary inquiry commission [the Cheka] and of
other criminals for whom there is nothing sacred in life - have sapped
our people's strength to the utmost and have flooded our steppes with
human tears and with streams of blood of the innocent.
Amidst a peal of church bells, with bread and salt, with flowers and
tears of joy the weary, oppressed and pillaged Ukrainian people are
greeting you, their valiant warriors, as liberators from the yoke and
from Bolshevist atrocities, as flesh of their flesh and blood of their
blood.
A might national enthusiasm has seized our people at your entry into
villages and towns, and everywhere a festive reception is awaiting you
and all this has been brought about by you, officers and soldiers of the
Ukrainian army!
You are living now through glorious and never to be forgotten moments of
your life, and together with you all peoples inhabiting the Ukrainian
territory are experiencing the same enthusiasm.
The holy crusade for the liberation of the oppressed, regardless of their
nationality, for the rule of law and order under freedom and democracy
and the independence of our republic - these are the ideals in this
struggle.
The union of all democratic forces of all nationalities in the Ukraine,
standing for the independence of our Republic, and their participation in
the reconstruction of the state will warrant our victory over our
enemies, and will guarantee to us an independent life subject to no one.
Our enemies, however, are not sleeping but only watching our every step
in order to sow discord among us in one way or another, and thus to
frustrate the immediate realization of our people's efforts.
The Bolshevists themselves consider the Ukraine Moscow's inheritance
with the difference that formerly it was the heritage of black Moscow,
now of a Red one.
They see that the end of their rule in the Ukraine is already approaching
because the Ukrainian people themselves have risen against them: but they
do not give up yet their hope of subjugating the Ukrainian masses. By
provocations for which they are spending enormous sums of money they want
to divide us from within, hiring criminal elements who are inciting our
soldiers to all sorts of outrages and pogroms against the innocent Jewish
population; in this way they want to stamp our soldiers as
pogrom-mongers, although these soldiers are bringing liberty to all
peoples of the Ukraine.
Our enemies intend thus to split the Ukrainian and Jewish laboring masses
whose ways, in fact, have been bound together by three hundred years of
Russian tsarist yoke.
Our national army must bring equality, brotherhood and freedom to the
Ukrainian as well as the Jewish citizens who are also supporting actively