Rakovsky simultaneously served as Soviet Ukraine's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and a member of the South West Front's Revolutionary Military Council, contributing to the defeat of the White Army and Ukrainian nationalists during the Russian Civil War, while theorizing that "Ukraine was a laboratory of internationalism" and "a decisive factor in world revolution". Rakovsky's presence was also decisive in rallying the dissident Borotbists to the Bolshevik faction's central bodies—he was subsequently confronted with a degree of Borotbist opposition inside his government. According to American politologist Jerry F. Hough, his appointment and policies were evidence of Russification, a program requested by Lenin himself; Rakovsky's view contrasted with that supported by Stalin, who, at the time, was calling for increased Ukrainianization. On 13 February 1919 at the session of Kyiv city council Rakovsky as a head of Ukrainian government stated following: "Decreeing the Ukrainian language as a state language is reactionary and unnecessary".