 After the February Revolution Skrypnyk arrived from one of his exiles to Morshansk (Tambov Governorate) to Petrograd where he was elected as a secretary of the Central Council of Factories Committees.During the October Revolution Skrypnyk was a member of the MilRevKom of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.In December 1917, Skrypnyk was elected in absentia to the first Bolshevik government of Ukraine in Kharkiv ("Respublika Rad Ukrayiny"), and in March 1918 Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin appointed him its head.