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distinctively nationalist colouring, but the widespreaddemands for liberal reforms and decentralization gavea further impetus to the Ukrainian nationalist movement.It was allowed the possibility of more open developmentin Russia, and the reaction after 1907 did not go thewhole length, being prepared to favour Ukrainiansagainst Poles (cf. p. 221).None the less the tsarist government, if it was lessrepressive of everything Ukrainian, continued to befundamentally opposed to anything in the nature evenof cultural autonomy for the Ukrainians, as being likelyto prove but a stepping-stone to some kind of home rule,which in turn might encourage separatist ideas. Owingto the immense importance of access to the Black Seaand of the new industrial south all Great Russians, andnot the government only, viewed with suspicion thedevelopment of a specifically political movement amongthe Ukrainians; and these same two factors were ofcardinal importance for the Provisional Government in1917 and, still more so, for the Soviet regime.How wide and how deep the political nationalistmovement was by 1917 is a matter of acute controversy.On the whole, the tangled history of the next few yearssupports the view that the solid basis behind theUkrainian nationalist movement in Russia lay rather inthe administrative and cultural fields than in the politiconational.What was widely and deeply resented seemsto have been tsarist misgovernment and oppressionrather than the idea of a continued common life with theGreat Russians. The Ukrainians in Russia may havebeen a nation in the making, but scarcely a nation made.Events suggest that their politicians were nationalist, butnot national leaders.The Ukrainian question was further complicated byits international aspects and the rivalry between Russiaand Austria-Hungary, with Germany behind her. TheAustrian electoral reform of 1907 (cf. p. 247) gave afurther outlet to Ukrainian political activities in easternGalicia, where a well-organized nationalist movement hadgrown up and the Ukrainian majority, mostly Uniat butwith some Orthodox, were united against the Poles231