Vasyl' Matviyovych Shakhrai was a Ukrainian political activist and Bolshevik revolutionary during the Russian Revolution. He was а founder of what came to be called National Communism.

National communism is a term describing various forms in which Marxism–Leninism and socialism has been adopted and/or implemented by leaders in different countries using aspects of nationalism or national identity to form a policy independent from communist internationalism. National communism has been used to describe movements and governments that have sought to form a distinctly unique variant of communism based upon distinct national characteristics and circumstances, rather than following policies set by other socialist states, such as the Soviet Union.