Ukrainian central council as revolutionary parliament of Ukraine

The composition of the Small Council was established based on proportionality between the factions that constituted the CCU. The non-partisan Chairman of the Council had deputies from four Ukrainian parties, two executive secretaries of the Presidium belonged to the USRP, and two to the USDLP. In August 1917, out of 65 members of the Small Council, 35 belonged to Ukrainian parties, 15 to Jewish parties, 10 to Russian parties, and 4 to Polish parties [27, p. 44]. Most of the seats in the Small Council - 14 - were held by the USDLP and USRP. Quantitative parity in the Small Council between these parties was maintained until the beginning of 1918. On behalf of the faction of Ukrainian socialists-revolutionaries, Shrag proposed “re-electing the Small Council in proportion to the composition of the Central Council at the next plenary session” [25, p. 105]. This reorganisation took place at the ninth session. Commenting on this event, the newspaper Narodna volia reported on January 24, 1918: “In the reorganized Small Council, the factions of the Socialist Independents, the People's Socialists, and the Moldovans (Romanians) are given one seat each. The rest of these seats are given in the Small Council to the Socialist-Revolutionary Faction. In total, the Small Council should have 82 members in accordance with the factional composition of the large council”. Thus, at the beginning of 1918, the Ukrainian SRs doubled their representation in the Small Council, the leadership of the CCU was in their hands, and they headed the Council of People's Ministers.

The Small Council absorbed the organic features of a parliamentary institution, but its meetings were more productive than the general meeting (sessions). Most of the most important political decisions of the CCU were made by the Small Council. Only after the proclamation of the Third Universal, the Small Council adopted laws: on the establishment of a court in Ukraine on behalf of the UPR, on elections to the Constituent Assembly of the UPR, on amnesty, on the exclusive right of the CCU to issue legislation, on the establishment of the General Court, on the Ukrainian Academy of Arts, on UPR state funds, on the Ukrainian State Bank, etc. Legislative work was further developed after the declaration of independence of the UPR by the Fourth Universal. The Small Council passed laws on the ratification of the Brest Peace Treaty, the UPR State Flag, the UPR Citizenship, the issuance of State Treasury insignia, the election of judges, the UPR administrative- territorial structure, the Gregorian calendar, and Central European Time. The quintessence of the legislative activity of the Small Council was the approval of the Constitution of the UPR (Statute on the state system, rights, and freedoms of the UPR) on April 29, 1918.

A sign of the CCU's attraction to parliamentary forms of the organisation was the status of deputies - members of the CCU. Firstly, the CCU was maintained at the expense of the UPR. Members of the CCU were not subject to responsibility for voting, for opinions expressed, or in general for activities related to the performance of the duties of CCU members both in and out of the parliament itself. Members of the CCU had immunity against arrest, prosecution, and trial without the permission of the CCU. In many ways, the effectiveness of the legislative body depends on its powerful internal system [28]. An important structural element subordinate to the Small Council was the permanent and temporary commissions of the CCU. They were established at the first meeting of the CCU: financial, legal, school, propaganda, editorial, printing, demonstration, and information bureaus [11]. At that time, the functions of the commissions were not defined, and only their heads were approved. The legal status of the commissions was outlined in the order. Commissions were established by the Small Council as needed to conduct and resolve specific cases and to prepare various issues for committee meetings and sessions of the CCU. They were under the guidance and supervision of the Small Council. Members of the commissions, their chairmen, may not have been members of the CCU [12, p. 72].

The organisational bases of the commissions' work were also improved. They were created if necessary in a composition that was determined separately each time. Depending on the importance and complexity of the problem, the main task of the commissions was to prepare decisions for the sessions of the CCU and meetings of the Small Council. Drafts of relevant decisions were distributed in advance to the members of the CCU. The first meeting of the newly established commission was convened by the Presidium of the Small Council. It elected the chairman and the scribe. The commissions were given the right, if necessary, to co-opt other members with an advisory vote. At the end of the work, a rapporteur was elected from the commission. The particular issue was considered at the session of the CCU or Small Council only after the report of the relevant commission. The commission meetings were open. If there was a need for closed meetings, the issue was decided by a two-thirds majority of votes. Only members of the Small Council, its deputies, secretaries- general, and individual specially invited persons could attend the closed meetings.

On August 9, 1917, the rules of procedure of the Small Council and its commissions were approved at the fourth session of the CCU. It absorbed all the previous practice of organising and operating the Small Council and commissions, contained two innovations regarding the technical aspects of the rules of procedure: first, speeches were not limited in time; secondly, it was established that the next session of the CCU is convened no later than one month after the previous one. The agenda is sent out in two weeks, in a shorter time it was reported by telegraph. Employees of the CCU were united in an office headed by the director and their assistant. The office was divided into 6 departments: general, codification, publishing, accounting, library, and economic. In turn, the general department consisted of 6 subdivisions (office, stenography, personnel, address, information, and expedition), economic - of 3 subdivisions (garage, printing house, commandant's office), and the publishing house had the editorial board of the newspaper “Visti Ukrainskoi Tsentralnoi Rady”. The office of the CCU operated based on the Statute [29, p. 30-31], according to which all its employees were members of the general meeting of the office headed by the staff committee. Such meetings were supposed to be convened annually, only they made changes to the Statute, removed employees from their posts, established monetary funds from employees' contributions, monitored working conditions, etc.

CONCLUSIONS

The creation of the CCU marked the beginning of the era of revolutionary parliamentarism in Ukraine. The first effective steps on the path of state creation were the transformation of the CCU from a socio-political centre into a representative body. This transformation occurred as a result of the convocation in April 1917. The Ukrainian National Congress, which elected the CCU and granted the right to co-opt new members, continued the process of establishing the CCU as a representative body. In general, the CCU was established on general democratic principles, based on the specific historical conditions of the time, since its composition provided territorial representation, representation of political parties and socio-political movements, which made it a representative body, although it was never elected based on universal suffrage, which would give it indisputable legitimacy. However, this procedure for establishing the CCU made it a body that represented the will of the Ukrainian people, and therefore allowed solving constituent problems, such as the issue of changing the state structure of Russia, declaring the autonomy of Ukraine, subsequently the UPR, determining the form of government, declaring its independence and sovereignty, adopting regulations of international importance.

The transformation of the CCU into the Revolutionary Parliament of Ukraine in those conditions, in addition to a kind of expansion of its composition, which made it a representative body of the Ukrainian people, an expression of their will, took place by the Central Council acquiring the features of a parliamentary institution through improving its structure, organisational and legal forms of activity, clear regulation of work, determining the status of members. The competence of the CCU as a parliament covered the most important issues of the state-legal, socio-economic, and cultural life of Ukraine, its actions in the international arena. The form of work of the CCU was the general meeting, and in the period between them - the Committee (Small Council). Thus, the Small Council adopted laws on ratification of the Brest Peace Treaty, on the State Flag of the UPR, on the citizenship of the UPR, on the issuance of State Treasury insignia, on the election of judges, on the administrative-territorial structure of the UPR. The quintessence of the legislative activity of the Small Council was the approval of the Constitution of the UPR (Statute on the state system, rights, and freedoms of the UPR) on April 29, 1918. Thus, the foundation of the Central Council of Ukraine, the difficult path to its transformation into a representative body - a kind of revolutionary parliament - ensured the development of state processes and contributed to the establishment of an independent Ukrainian state during the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-1921.

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