The First World War broke out and it ruined the two empires that controlled Ukraine. The principles of the United States, the Fourteen Points of Wilson, the message of self-determination for all peoples, resounded through Ukraine and once more there was proclaimed in 1919 a united sovereign Ukrainian Republic. The ideals that the Kozaks had had in common with the Americans two and a half centuries earlier once again found their voice on Ukrainian territory and for a while it seemed as if a final solution of the future of Ukraine had been reached. Again there came disaster. The democratic powers could never make up their minds as to their course of action. A century and a half of absence from the councils of the world, a century and a half of hostile propaganda denying the very existence of Ukraine was too heavy a burden for the restored Ukrainian Republic to carry. Ukraine found an inadequate and a biased hearing abroad. The ghosts of the past were present everywhere. The country had no influential friends. There was no one to supply her with sufficient arms and ammunition. There was no one to extend diplomatic support and Ukraine fell. Communism backed by Moscow conquered the country and Ukraine became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, included in the Soviet Union and ruled by Russian Communists. The national spirit did not die. Millions of the population perished in famines artificially created to break their spirit. Those of the cultural leaders who remained loyal to their belief and their traditions were executed or died by their own hand to escape a worse fate. Millions of people were deported for no other reason than their belief in their rights as human beings. Everything was done to eat out the heart of the Ukrainian spirit and to give it a Russian Communist aspect. Then came the Second World War and Ukraine became a battleground to be swept over by the German and the Red Armies. Again there came devastation, deportations and executions. Both armies acted to eliminate the native population and to stifle all national life and thought. No one has yet estimated the cost in Ukrainian lives and wealth but enough is known now to show that the old spirit of Ukraine has not been eliminated. There are still people who live and hope that Ukraine can be restored to its people. It makes no difference if all the forces of propaganda are mobilized to call the patriots bandits. Their struggle still goes on and even if it seems hopeless, it can hardly be more so than many times in the past.