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Today the problem of partial occupation of the territory of Ukraine is acute regardless of the time of the First or Second World Wars, and given the current Russian-Ukrainian war. The annexation of Crimea, the occupation of certain areas of the Ukrainian Donbass with the proclamation of fake "LPR-DPR", an attempt to declare the same "state fakes" in southern Ukraine during the full-scale Russian war against our state in February 2022 encourage reflexive analogies primarily with statehood in Ukraine. Consequently, a new problem in Ukrainian scientific thought regarding the nature of Soviet statehood in Ukraine as an occupation is relevant. The purpose of the article, which does not claim to be empirical or factual, is to investigate the political and legal nature of Soviet statehood in Ukraine as an occupation in accordance with the criteria developed in science to assess the nature of the occupying power. According to the author, the most obvious aspects of the analysis of the problem mentioned in the title are the spread of Soviet statehood in Ukraine and, in particular, laying the foundations of the Soviet political and legal systems and the national composition of Soviet authorities in the USSR. And the chronological periods of the actual formation in Ukraine of Soviet statehood (1917-1921) and its spread to Western lands (1939-1940 and 1945). The thesis is proposed that the Soviet statehood in Ukraine was not "local" ethnocultural, that is, one that was organically formed in the middle of Ukrainian society, hence - was not specifically Ukrainian national. Instead, it was introduced and implanted from outside as a cover for aggression against the Ukrainian People's Republic, and more broadly as an implementation of the centuries-old Russian imperial doctrine of Ukraine's political takeover. It is proved that from the very beginning of the uprising in Ukraine, Soviet statehood developed within the framework of "another" Soviet Russian totalitarian state and the legal system. The mechanisms of the introduction of Soviet statehood in the Ukrainian lands after the collapse of the Romanov empire are considered. It was established that they had signs of Russian occupation with armed interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. It is substantiated that, in essence, the form of Soviet occupation of Western Ukrainian lands was their Sovietization of a complex of socio-economic, political, national-cultural and repressive-punitive measures aimed at the absorption of the annexed territories. As a result, it is thought that it would be wrong to neglect the formal state status of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic - a direct consequence of its occupation. At that time, Ukraine had clear but formal signs of statehood: its own territory, state symbols, parliament, government, and even membership in the United Nations and its subsidiaries. It is believed that even such a lame state status of the USSR potentially provided Ukraine with a path to independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Establishment of Ukrainian national legislation in the domain of socioeconomic relations (1917-1921) will always remain a relevant issue, given the everpresent need for historical legitimization of the modern Ukrainian State and the historical continuity between today's process of Ukrainian State-building and Ukrainian national state formations in the times of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921. Currently, as well as 100 years ago, the Ukrainian legislator mainly focuses on legislative regulation of the socio-economic domain - land and labor relations. This article does not claim to be all-embracing in empirical or factual terms. Its main purpose is to examine the specific features of statutory regulation of land and labor relations in the new Ukrainian statehood of the revolutionary era as the process of laying the foundations of national land, labor and social legislation. It is argued that the real process of developing the legal fundamentals for regulation of socio-economic issues of the new Ukrainian national statehood began immediately after the Third Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada (UCR). For the first time, it published the UCR's social program, defined the legal policy waymarks of the proclaimed Ukrainian State, including in the field of legal settlement of land and labor issues. An attempt at legislate settlement of the latter is viewed through the prism of ideological approaches which were demonstrated, on the one part, by both socialist Ukrainian People's Republics, and, on the other part, by the non-socialist Ukrainian Hetman State. In particular, the land issue is studied from the perspective of the course of legislative measures supporting land allocation and reallocation. As for the domain of land relations, the article analyzes basic land laws of the UCR, the Directorate, and the Hetmanate. The first ones rested upon socialist principles aimed at elimination of private ownership of land, its nationalization, etc., and the second ones detailed the specifics of acquiring title to land for various social strata of the population. The author concludes that by implementing this law, the Hetman's government intended to resolve the socio-political task of setting up the middle class of peasants - owners who were to become its support. The author notes the controversial nature of the labor factor as one of the socio-economic factors in the process of formulation and evolution of the legal policy of Ukrainian national governments, as well as low efficiency of the "labor" policy proper. The author substantiates the opinion that legislative regulation of labor relations, which was combined with attempts at resolving numerous social problems by statutory means, also laid the foundations of Ukrainian national social legislation. The author believes that the overall situation with legislative resolution of the land problem and underestimation of critical issues relating to efficient legislative settlement of labor relations had a significant impact on the success/failure of Ukrainians in the development of their own national statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]