HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

148 ANDREA GRAZIOSIconducted negotiations with the soviets of the German and Austro-Hungarian soldiers who were trying to get home.With the landing of the Entente troops in the Black Sea ports, Piatakov,now the prime minister of the Ukrainian Government, again found himselffacing a broader "West." His reactions of this time lay bare his lack ofunderstanding of the real characteristics of the crisis triggered by the war tothe west of Germany. Misunderstanding the meaning and the scope of themutinies in the Allied troops, he enthusiastically greeted their landing, feelingthat it opened the door to war with the Allies and thus to the revolutionin the West (in its widest sense now). The line he followed during thosedays certainly contributed toward convincing Lenin of the need to removesuch an irresponsible man from his post.In March, news of the revolution in Hungary, headed by his friend BêlaKun, and soon thereafter of revolution in Bavaria seemed to confirmPiatakov's hopes and changed the situation once more. To Piatakov, againsecretary of the KP(b)U, the road to "Europe" (which had again becomeCentral Europe) now seemed wide open. But it soon closed anew, disastrously,and the time had come for the two discoveries mentioned above:that of the need to come to terms with what could be done in the new, isolatedstate; and that of the new state's "Asiatic" dimension. Hopes for the"West" were again fueled briefly during the war against Poland, in whichPiatakov participated, only to be dampened again by a defeat that marked,objectively if not yet subjectively, the beginning of a new phase.During the following year, for the first time we come across a Piatakovwho looks with different eyes toward the West, as to a "technical" model toimitate. This was an obvious consequence of the needs of reconstruction inthe Donbass but also a first step in a new direction. At the subjective level,however, hopes for revolution in Germany were still alive, and the Westwas not yet reduced to a simple technical-industrial model. As we can seefrom articles Piatakov wrote at the time—for example, the one onSpengler—or from his collaboration with some journals of the era that publishedwritings by important Western economists, he still viewed the West,in particular Germany, as a more general cultural reference point.The events of the next months, however, accelerated the progressivereorientation of his attitude toward the West and toward Germany. In April1922 the Treaty of Rapallo was signed. Shortly after, the negotiations concerningforeign concessions were entrusted precisely to Piatakov. InDecember, in the interests of quicker industrial development, he announcedthat he himself was in favor of widening economic relations with the West,thus siding with those who proposed a modification in the monopoly offoreign trade.