THE STRUGGLE OF THE NATIONALITIES 123
collapse of Ukrainian agriculture must be looked for in the
steps taken by Moscow and the suppression of local freedom
and initiative by Moscow centralism.
What was Postyschev's answer? He shouted in Skrypnik's
face that it amounted to high treason to say things of the kind
from a public platform, on which the attention of millions of
Communists and non-Communists was centred. It was not
the attitude of individuals, he went on, that had altered; the
trouble was that the enemies, party card in hand, had been
hiding "behind Skrypnik's broad back" to prepare and carry
out their destructive work. Skrypnik's argument that Moscow
had dissolved the local bodies in order to centralize everything
was described as "hostile gossip."
Postyschev then proceeded, amidst the thunderous applause
of his adherents, to attack Skrypnik's activities and personality.
He claimed that it was Skrypnik's own department, the Com-
missariat of Education, which contained the greatest number of
"harmful counter-revolutionary and nationalistic elements,"
and that no steps had ever been taken against these "poisoners"
and "spies." He further declared that Skrypnik's sins were
not confined to his actions, but appeared also in his writings
on the national question and on cultural reconstruction, and,
indeed, were manifested in the entire administration of his
department. Thus, before an applauding crowd of his partisans,
he openly poured scorn on one of the founders of Bolshevism
and the vice-president of the Council of People's Commissaries
of the Ukrainian Soviet State!
Thus Skrypnik was branded from the platform of his own
party Congress, and before the whole Soviet public, as a class
enemy and as a protector, indeed a leader, of all the counter-
revolutionaries and agents of the foreign anti-Commtmists.
Such was the reply to his protests in the name of the Ukraine.
•His career, of course, was ended; Moscow had delivered him
over to public contempt. With Him his adherents were con-
demned, and it was only a logical conclusion when, a few days