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138 ANDREA GRAZIOSIUkraine between April and June 1919. Kviring's position was now vindicatedby the great peasant jacquerie (partly stimulated by the insane agriculturalpolicies implemented by that alliance between the Left and theproto-Stalinists that held power in Kiev). The assault launched by the"peasant ocean" on a Bolshevik power whose local composition was, as wehave just seen, rather interesting from the standpoint of later developments,confirmed to Piatakov, Voroshilov, Rukhimovich, Kosior et al. that themost dangerous enemy of the new power was the "ukrainskaiakrest'ianskaia stikhiia," the militant spear-head of the only social force stillpresent in "Russia" that could open the way for the restoration of capitalism.Paradoxically, then, the lesson that the experience of those monthstaught to the leaders of the Southern front—and to Stalin as their head—was the opposite of that which the nationalist leaders learned. The latter sawthe peasants as the weak point of the national movement; for the former, theUkrainian countryside became instead the symbol of and the breedingground for hostile "nationalism." 26The crisis of the second Bolshevik Ukrainian government coincided withPiatakov's definitive move to a hypercentralist position: already at theEighth Congress, although siding with Smirnov on military matters, he hadexalted centralism against the national demands. In April, once again secretaryof the KP(b)U, he opposed negotiations with the Ukrainian Soviet parties(i.e., those favorable to the new power). Between May and June, heaccelerated negotiations with Moscow to centralize most of the Ukrainiancommissariats' powers in the Russian ones. Soon after, his collaborationwith Trotsky began. Thus Piatakov's Rakovskian, bureaucratic-^mperial"option, mentioned in the second section above, has also been corroboratedon the "national" plane.After the second half of 1919, except for the interval in the Donbass during1921, Piatakov was no longer in Ukraine and he no longer dealt directlywith the nationality question. His experiences, however, can be used forsome other reflections on the evolution of the nationality question in theUSSR.In the section on "Despotism," we mentioned the coalition of Stalin andthe leadership of the KP(b)U in opposition to the Trotskyites and the firstsigns of a possible alliance between the Stalinists and the "national" wing ofthe Ukrainian party. In 1921-1922, these signals were contradicted first bythe purges directed by Lebed' and then, and above all, by the great clashesat the end of 1922 over the nationality question, which saw the defeat of26See also fh. 34.