1920

1920 February
Under pressure from the Bolsheviks, Anton Denikin withdraws from Southern Ukraine.
May
The last UNR government on Ukrainian lands is formed.
29 May
The Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine [CC CP(b)U] circulates an address “To All Gubernial Committees and Political Departments of the Army and Navy,” which states that after being defeated in the armed struggle, the “counterrevolutionaries carried their struggle against Soviet rule into another sphere, they are striving to penetrate every apparatus of military, economic, and administrative rule in order to halt and destroy all the efforts of the Workers-Peasant government to organize the civic-economic life of the Republic.” The address stated further that since “the struggle against this form of counterrevolution is particularly important,” the CC CP(b)U “first of all obliges all commi-ssars and communists working in the army to be permanent intelligencers [i.e., spies, agents] of special departments. Second, [the CC CP(b)U] suggests that for the work of the Special Department all political departments of the army and navy, as well as the Political Administration of the Republic and important party organizers, should dispatch the most responsible, experienced and veteran party workers.”
23 June
After studying the latest report on the Red Army's successful offensive against Warsaw, Lenin sent a cipher communication to Joseph Stalin: “The situation in the Co-mintern [Communist International, also called the Third International] is excellent. Zinoviev, Bukharin, and I too think that it is necessary to incite revolution in Italy at once. My personal opinion [is] that for this it is necessary to Sovietize Hungary and possibly also Czechoslovakia and Romania…”
November
Bolshevik offensive against Wrangel's armies in the Crimea.
21 November
The army of the UNR crosses the Zbruch River to the territory of the Polish state, where it is interned in camps.
28 November
Mass executions of Russian officers ordered to appear for registration begin in the Crimea, sanctioned by the Crimean Revolutionary Committee. The total number of victims exceeds 50,000 people. During the Red terror 29,000 people were shot in Sevastopil and Balaklava alone. This number included more than 500 stevedores, who had loaded Wrangle's army ships.
4 December
The VCheKa prepared a document that noted in particular: “Communism and religion are mutually exclusive…No other apparatus but the VCheKa will be able to demolish religion…In the last while in its plans for the disintegration of the church the Cheka is focusing all its attention on the multitudes of clergymen. Only through it, by means of proper, intensive, painstaking work will we be able ultimately to destroy and demolish the church…”
28 December
A “Worker-Peasant Alliance Treaty” on military and economic cooperation between the Ukrainian SSR and the RSFSR [Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic] is concluded.

“We shall cite a description of the feats of the commandant of the Kharkiv Cheka [Stepan] Saienko, who attained particular renown during the occupation and evacuation of Kharkiv by the Bolshe-viks in 1919. Hundreds of people were handed over to that sadist and mani-ac…Saienko's favorite method: he would stick a dagger one centimeter into the body of a person being interrogated and then turn it inside the wound… Next, the same eyewitness recounts the execution of several prisoners by Sa-ienko that same evening. Drunk or dru-gged on cocaine, Saienko appeared in the cell at 9:00 p.m. accompanied by…Staff-Captain Klochkovsky, 'he ordered Psheni-chny, Ovcharenko, and Belousov to go into the courtyard, where he stripped them naked and with his friend Klochkovsky began to cut and stab them with daggers, at first striking blows at the lower part of the body and gradually rising higher and higher. After finishing the execution, Sa-ienko returned to the cell all bloodied, with the words: “You see this blood? Everyone who goes against me and the Workers-Peasant Party will get the same thing.”
(S. P. Melgunov, Krasnyi terror v Rossii, 1918-1923 [Red Terror in Russia, 1918-1923], Moscow, 1990, pp.122-123).

A resolution of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee of 17 March 1920 inaugurated the operations of the Central Directorate of Extraordinary Commissions to Combat Counterrevolution, Speculation, and Official Crimes within the Radnarkom [Council of People's Commissars]. This directorate was not an organ of the NKVD [People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs] but was subordinated to the Radnarkom. Together with Red Army and special forces units, the Chekists played a decisive role in actions directed against Ukrainian insurgents, which were accompanied by terrorist acts against the peasantry, the murder of hostages, and the destruction of political opponents of the Bolshevik regime. During Denikin's occupation of Ukraine, commissions composed of civic leaders and foreigners were created to investigate Chekist crimes. The commissions' findings were corroborated by testimony by eyewitnesses. In keeping with directives issued by the Moscow leadership, the Politburo of the CC CP(b)U studied the question of reorganizing the All-Ukrainian Cheka and decided to change it to the State Political Directorate [GPU]. This was supported by a 22 March 1922 resolution of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.