In the meanwhile, with the approaching downfall of Germany, the Ukrainians again aspired to independence. Volodymyr Vynnychenko tried to rally the forces of the Rada by appointing a Direktoria composed of members of the various Ukrainian Socialist parties. He wanted to continue the general policy of the government as it had been before the time of Skoropadsky. More important for the Ukrainian cause was, however, the work of Simon Petlyura, for at the first sign of the weakening of the forces of Skoropadsky, he went to Bila Tserkva and won over one of the crack regiments of Skoropadsky’s forces, the Rifles of the Zaporozhian Sich. With this as a nucleus, he started a revolt which ultimately carried him and the Direktoria into Kiev as Skoropadsky left for exile. Petlyura was to be for the next years the dominant figure in the Ukrainian movement. A man of simple origin, he had secured an education and was making his living as a bookkeeper and writer when the Russian Revolution started. He had some military training and developed a considerable talent for leadership. Unlike most of the other leaders, he was more a man of action than a thinker and in the troublous times ahead, it was these qualities rather than thought and logic that were needed most for the new state. Petlyura and Vynnychenko differed violently on many subjects, and with each week the struggle became more intense. Petlyura felt that Vynnychenko’s policies, while Ukrainian in essence, were blurring the line between Ukrainian nationalism and Bolshevism. He was suspicious of too radical reforms and sought support rather from those elements of the state that laid the main stress on independence. Furthermore he believed that it was necessary to secure as much of the German military equipment as possible from the retreating German armies, and he won the good will of the peasants who had been angered by the German requisitioning of supplies by encouraging them to attack the retreating forces. Thus the actions of his troops seriously upset the plans of the more or less Bolshevized German armies and became a real menace to the hopes of the Bolsheviks for the taking over of the country on the German retreat. The victorious Allies now had the opportunity to intervene effectively in the general situation. They were able to send troops into Ukraine and South Russia through Romania. They were also able to land them at the Black Sea ports. For the first time since 1914, the southern gate of Russia and Ukraine was opened to the democratic nations. The future rested on their ability to formulate a program, make their own conditions, and see that they were carried out.