The Radical Party ideology was based on the political thought of Mykhailo Drahomanov, an eastern Ukrainian thinker who spent part of the nineteenth century in western Ukraine.

Although the Radical party advocated socialism in its ideology, it considered itself different from western socialists who were beholden to the ideas of Karl Marx because western socialism was based on the industrial proletariat while the Radical party was focused on the peasantry.

It was also opposed to the Austrian government, to mainstream Ukrainophiles who were loyal to Austria, and to Ukrainian attempts to cooperate with Polish authorities.

The Radical Party was founded in Lviv on October 4, 1890, by a group of Ukrainian activists including the poet Ivan Franko, the publisher Mykhailo Pavlyk, and others.

It was involved in founding reading rooms and cooperatives, organizing women's groups, and training and politicizing Ukrainian peasants.

A third faction which included most of the Radical Party's most prominent members such as Ivan Franko became increasingly disenchanted with socialist ideas and more focussed on national concerns.

On the eve of World War I, the Radical party established sporting societies and paramilitary groups that would serve as the basis for the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, an all-Ukrainian unit within the Austrian army.

[1] Following the war, the territory up to the Zbruch river became part of the Polish state with the Treaty of Riga.