The war ensued soon after the October Revolution, when the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin dispatched the Antonov's expeditionary group to Ukraine and Southern Russia.

Soviet historical tradition viewed the Bolshevik victory as the liberation of Ukraine from occupation by the armies of Western and Central Europe, including that of Poland.

[1]: 340  During the war, Ukrainian activists in Russia were treated as enemy agents, and newspapers and cultural organisations were shut down by the authorities.

[2]: 202–203 [clarification needed] In response to the February Revolution in March 1917, political and cultural organisations in Kyiv created a council, the Central Rada, and in April the 900 delegates elected Mykhailo Hrushevsky as its leader.

Those at the front continued to fight for the Russians, but were keen to return home, following promises by the Central Rada that land would be redistributed.

[2]: 207  In the south of Ukraine, Nestor Makhno began his anarchist activity, disarming deserting Russian soldiers and officers.

[2]: 207–208 The Central Rada proclaimed four Universals, declaring Ukrainian autonomy on 23 June 1917 (stating that "Ukraine should have the right to order their own lives in their own land”),[4]: 99 [3] issuing recognition agreements between the Central Rada and the Provisional Government in Petrograd on 16 July, and announcing the creation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) was created on 20 November.

[4] The Central Rada's authority didn't extend beyond the urban centres,[3]: 99  and following the proclamations, it was faced with external attacks and an internal workers' uprising.

[2]: 207, 209–210  In late December 1917 the Communist Party of Ukraine set up the rival Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic—initially also called the Ukrainian People's Republic—in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko had established his headquarters.

In return for much needed food supplies and agricultural products, Germany and Austria promised to provide the UPR with military assistance against the Bolsheviks.

[9][2]: 210–211  Two days later the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, which formally ended hostilities on the Eastern Front.

[2]: 210–211  Despite these victories, civil disturbances continued throughout Ukraine, where local communists, peasant self-defence groups, and insurgents refused to submit to the Germans.

The Central Rada politicians refused to cooperate with Skoropadsky, and he was unpopular with the workers, who felt suppressed by the actions of his regime.

[2]: 212 After the defeat of Germany on the Western Front in November 1918, most of the German troops stationed Ukraine had no wish to remain there in support of the Hetmanate, Skoropadskyi, in an effort to appease the Allies, signed the Federal Charter [uk], which stipulated that Ukraine would be part of a future federal Russia.

[2]: 212 [3]: 102  On 1 November, Lviv fell to the West Ukrainians, but after it was retaken three weeks later by the Polish forces, the WUPR government moved to Ternopil and soon afterwards to Stanyslaviv.

[4] Almost immediately after the defeat of Germany, Lenin's government annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk—which Leon Trotsky described as "no war no peace"—and invaded Ukraine and other countries of Eastern Europe that were formed under German protection.

The defeat of Germany had also opened the Black Sea to the Allies, and in mid-December 1918 some mixed forces under French command were landed at Odesa and Sevastopol, and months later at Kherson and Nikolayev (Ukrainian: Mykolaiv).

Yet, on 2 April, Louis Franchet d'Espèrey ordered Philippe Henri Joseph d'Anselme to evacuate Odessa within 72 hours.

The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) was forced to retreat into Eastern Galicia along the Polish border, from Vinnytsia to Kamianets-Podilskyi, and finally to Rivne.

"[20] By winter, the tide of war reversed decisively, and by 1920 all of Eastern and central Ukraine except Crimea was again in Bolshevik hands.

[citation needed] Again facing imminent defeat, the UPR turned to its former adversary, Poland; and in April 1920, Józef Piłsudski and Symon Petliura signed a military agreement in Warsaw to fight the Red Army together.

Just like the former alliance with Germany, this move partially sacrificed Ukrainian sovereignty: Petliura recognised the Polish annexation of Galicia and agreed to Ukraine's role in Piłsudski's dream of a Polish-led federation in Central and Eastern Europe.

Immediately after the alliance was signed, Polish forces joined the Ukrainian army in the Kyiv offensive to capture central and southern Ukraine from Bolshevik control.

The Poles, exhausted and constantly pressured by the Western governments and the League of Nations, and with its army controlling the majority of the disputed territories, were willing to negotiate.

[25][26][27] In 1922, the Russian Civil War was coming to an end in the Far East, and the Communists proclaimed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as a federation of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Transcaucasia.

The Ukrainian Soviet government was nearly powerless in the face of a centralized monolith Communist Party apparatus based in Moscow.

[30] Songs such as "Oi u luzi chervona kalyna" ("Oh, the guilder rose in the meadow, bent down") and "Hei vydno selo pid horoyu" ("Look, a village at the foot of the mountain") that were adapted or written for the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, became widely popular in Ukraine at the time.