It arose in May 1918 after the split in the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party on the basis of supporting the Soviet regime in Ukraine.
Its leaders, among others, were Vasyl Ellan-Blakytny, Hryhoriy Hrynko, Ivan Maistrenko and Oleksander Shumsky.
[citation needed] At the Borotbists' conference in the middle of March 1920, a decision was passed to dissolve the party.
[4] After 1920 the history of the Borotbists took the form of a struggle between the two trends: the centralist Russophile element, and the 'universal current' of Ukrainian communists.
Stalinist centralism and its partner Russian nationalism destroyed senses of equality between the republics.