Soviet Ukraine: The Struggle for Autonomy

By the fall of 1920, the Soviet Ukrainian government, backed by the Red Army, was in control of most of the nine “Ukrainian” provinces that had formerly been part of the Russian Empire.

It remained unclear, however, to what degree the new Soviet Ukrainian govern­ment was to be similar to, separate from, or subordinate to the all-Russian Soviet government based in Moscow. The answer to these questions was worked out dur­ing the next two decades, that is, from about 1920 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. During this period, two trends evolved in Soviet Ukraine. One was a struggle for political, economic, and cultural autonomy; the other was an effort to integrate all aspects of Ukrainian life in the larger Soviet society.

Although it is true that these two fundamentally conflictual processes often occurred simultaneously, it is possible to make chronological distinctions based on the relative strength of the efforts to achieve autonomy as opposed to integration. In this regard, the years 1920 to 1927 might be considered the high point of the trend toward Ukrainian autonomy. They were followed by a transitional period, from 1928 to 1932, when the central Soviet government and Soviet Ukraine began to redefine their policies and priorities.

The government of Soviet Ukraine

The administrative framework of Soviet Ukrainian society derived from the revo­lutionary era and was founded on the Bolshevik-controlled councils (soviets) of workers,’ peasants,’ and soldiers’ deputies - later, simply the councils (soviets) of workers’ deputies. From the smallest to the largest, each administrative unit - vil­lage, town, city, district (raion), and region (oblast') - had its own council (soviet) of workers’ deputies. The country’s highest legislative unit was a unicameral parlia­ment known first as the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, comprised of workers,’ peasants,’ and soldiers’ deputies, which after 1937 became the Supreme Soviet (Verkhovna Rada) of Soviet Ukraine. When the Congress of Soviets was not in session (it met only twice a year for a few days), its legislative and executive func­tions were carried out by a fifteen-member executive committee. There were also people’s commissariats, or ministries, to administer the various branches of state operation. Finally, there was the Council of People’s Commissars, later the Council of Ministers. The council was headed by a chairman, who was roughly the equiva­lent of a premier in European parliamentary democracies. The council’s role was to formulate legislation introduced in the Supreme Soviet and to carry out policy decisions made by the all-Soviet government in Moscow.

Soviet Ukraine’s relationship to Moscow was of crucial importance, and follow­ing a period of initial vagueness it became clear only in 1922. When Soviet Ukraine’s first constitution was promulgated in March 1919, it was at the same time decided that close economic and administrative ties should be established with Soviet Rus­sia. In practice, this meant that the Soviet Ukrainian commissariats (ministries) of defense, communication, and economy were to be subordinate to the central min­istries in Moscow.

Within the new union, Soviet Ukraine became one of four republics, along with those established in Russia, Belarus, and Transcaucasia. The supreme legislative organ of the state was the Congress of Soviets (later, the Supreme Soviet), com­posed of two chambers: (1) the Soviet of the Union, whose members were elected (one deputy for every 300,000 people) regardless of national or republic origin; and (2) the Soviet of Nationalities, which represented sixty nationalities, with a fixed number of deputies from union republics, autonomous republics, autono­mous regions, and national districts. The Congress of Soviets, later the Supreme Soviet, elected the thirty-seven-member Presidium, which effectively was the high­est permanently functioning organ of state power. The Presidium was headed by a chairman (analogous to a president in other countries), and its role was to direct the state’s major domestic and all foreign affairs. The legislative decisions of the Supreme Soviet were carried out by the Council of People’s Commissars, later the Council of Ministers, the highest organ of state power. The actual functioning of the state administration was carried out by specific commissariats or ministries, which, depending on the portfolio, were all-union ministries or joint union-repub­lic ministries. Within this new governmental structure, deputies and officials from Soviet Ukraine could and did serve in various levels of the republic and all-union governments.

The Communist party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine

Notwithstanding the existence of a Soviet Ukrainian government with various levels of authority, decisions about the relationship between Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia were determined not by the governments of these countries, but rather by the All-Russian Communist (Bolshevik) party in Moscow. From the very beginning, the source of political legitimization in Soviet Ukraine was the Com­munist party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, the CP(b)U. There were elections to the vari­ous Councils of Workers and to the Supreme Soviet, but voters were always given a single slate of candidates, most if not all of whom were Communists. Certainly, all members of the Supreme Soviet’s Presidium and of the Council of Ministers and the heads of the various ministries had to be Communists. Therefore, while the Soviet Ukrainian government may have been a structurally distinct entity, its personnel was drawn from CP(b)U ranks. Since according to Bolshevik practice as determined by Lenin the party was to be a tightly knit body of dedicated profes­sionals following clear lines of command and military discipline, all members were required to carry out party directives. Put another way, government leaders and functionaries were simply carrying out policies determined in Moscow.

CP(b)U policies were not always clear-cut, however, especially during the early 1920s. The party itself seemed foreign to Ukraine. From a low point of fewer than 5,000 members in mid-1918, CP(b)U ranks began to grow again in 1919. The vast majority of new members were drawn not from Dnieper Ukraine, but rather from among the demobilized Russian soldiers who had fought in the Red Army during the revolution. As late as 1922, non-ethnic Ukrainians comprised 77 percent of what then was the 56,000-member CP(b)U.

Regardless of the views of its membership, the CP(b)U was not an independent party, like other Communist parties in Europe, but rather a branch of the All­Russian, later All-Union Communist (Bolshevik) party in Moscow, whose directives it was required to follow. Yet despite the Bolshevik principles of party discipline and subordination to the Moscow leadership, the CP(b)U did include leaders and rank-and-file members who strove to create a party and a Soviet Ukrainian gov­ernment that would be independent of Moscow. Nor was the drive for political autonomy limited to certain elements within the CP(b)U. Post-revolutionary Sovi­et Ukrainian life was still marked by flux and even by a degree of pluralism. And while political parties other than the Communists were banned, Soviet Ukraine had two other Communist parties besides the CP(b)U that for a time functioned openly.

The second Communist party had its beginnings in May 1918, when left-wing members of the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary party formed the non-Bolshe- vik Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary party of Communist Fighters. Associated with the journal Borot'ba (The Struggle) and popularly known as the Borotbists (Borot’bisty), they were a peasant-based party that favored independence from the Russian-dominated Bolshevik leadership. After a failed attempt at accommodation with the CP(b)U, the Borotbists and other left-wing elements formed the Ukrain­ian Communist party of Borotbists. This new party numbered 15,000 members - nearly as large as the CP(b)U, which at the time had about 16,500 members. The Borotbists continued their call for greater autonomy for Ukraine, and in early 1920 they tried to enter the Comintern, or Communist International, the self-pro­claimed Moscow-based Communist leadership of the world socialist movement, as a distinct party.

The third party was known as the Ukrainian Communist party, or the Ukapists for short, a name derived from its Ukrainian initials (UKP). Formed in January 1920, the Ukapists were made up of varied elements: independentists from the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Workers’ party, former Borotbists who did not join the Bolsheviks, and some members of the federalist opposition (lurii Lapchyns’kyi) who had left the CP(b)U. With never more than a few hundred members, the Uka- pists were a Marxist party that adopted the ideology of national Communism. As an opposition group (represented by the newspaper Chervonyi prapor), they criti­cized the policies of the CP(b)U-dominated Soviet Ukrainian government and applied unsuccessfully on two occasions to enter the Comintern. After a second rejection, the Comintern ordered the Ukapist party to dissolve itself, which it did in early 1925. The party’s members were admitted into the CP(b)U.

In such an environment, the only possible way to struggle for autonomy was from within the ranks of the country’s dominant party, the CP(b)U. At the time, opposi­tion to centralism was dubbed “nationalist deviation,” even though such deviation was promoted in Soviet Ukraine by Bolsheviks from the pre-revolutionary era such as Khristiian Rakovskii and Mykola Skrypnyk who had been and remained opposed to Ukrainian nationalism. Those who favored federalism believed that Commu­nism would be enhanced in Soviet Ukraine if the country were allowed to func­tion independently of the new Soviet Russian government and party bureaucracy in Moscow. From his post as head of the government, the former internationalist Rakovskii began in late 1921 to push the limits of federalism by encouraging Soviet Ukrainian diplomatic activity. For instance, between 1920 and 1923 Soviet Ukraine concluded forty-eight international treaties, and it was recognized de jure as a sov­ereign state by nine countries (including Germany, Poland, Italy, and Turkey) and de facto by three others (including Great Britain) and the League of Nations. While it is true that no treaty was signed by the Soviet Ukrainian government which was not approved in advance by Moscow, the very fact that foreign relations were car­ried on at all gave support to those Ukrainian Communists who favored some form of political autonomy or equality in any federal relationship with Russia.

Rakovskii and Skrypnyk also took an active part in discussions within the All-Rus­sian Communist (Bolshevik) party in Moscow regarding relations between the vari­ous Soviet republics. Discussion on that subject intensified in 1922, when the new general secretary of the all-Russian party, Iosif Stalin, began pressing for the unifi­cation of the various Soviet republics. He openly criticized the “right of nations to self-determination,” and he proposed that Ukraine and all other Soviet republics enter the Russian S.F.S.R., albeit with a degree of autonomy. Stalin’s view, known at the time as “autonomization,” was opposed by Bolshevik leaders in the various republics. Even more important was the criticism of Lenin, who considered the approach of Stalin and his supporters tantamount to Great Russian chauvinism and a revival of the idea of a “one and indivisible” (edinaia i nedelimaia) Russia.

In response to Lenin’s criticism, Stalin backed away from autonomization and pretended to side with republic leaders who were calling for the creation of a new state formation. The new state came into being in December 1922 as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - the Soviet Union. Although the republics maintained their distinct identities as theoretically equal members of the new union, the cru­cial question was the relationship between the all-union center in Moscow and the union republics. The dilemma was to be resolved in the course of 1923 during the debates about a constitution for the new state. By this time, Lenin was physi­cally incapacitated (he lost the power of speech in March 1923 and died in January 1924), and Stalin was thereby encouraged to renew his drive to transform the Sovi­et Union into as centralized a state as possible. In the absence of Lenin, the “feder­alist” opposition was left largely to republic leaders, among whom the most outspo­ken were Bolsheviks from Georgia and Soviet Ukraine’s Rakovskii and Skrypnyk.

In the end, Stalin and the centralists won the day. Among other matters, the union government in Moscow was given responsibility for all international rela­tions; internal as well as external trade; the armed forces; economic development (including use of all surface and subsurface natural resources); the judiciary; the monetary and banking system; and taxes at the union, republic, and local levels. With the creation of the Soviet Union and the final passage of its constitution in January 1924, it became clear that any subsequent efforts to obtain serious politi­cal autonomy for Soviet Ukraine would be in vain. The supporters of autonomy therefore turned their attention in another direction - toward culture. The result was the phenomenon known as Ukrainianization.

The policy of Ukrainianization

Ukrainianization was part of an all-Soviet policy known as “indigenization” (kore- nizatsiia). It was implemented over the course of a decade beginning in 1923, whereby the CP(b)U hoped to legitimize its rule in Soviet Ukraine by attracting to its ranks a broader spectrum of the local population. Particular emphasis was given to promoting the Ukrainian language and culture. From the standpoint of the All-Russian Communist party and the CP(b)U, indigenization made logical sense, because if successful it would assure centralized control of the countryside through local, “homegrown” cadres. But in a so-called revolutionary society in which social and economic transformation needed to be carried out in the most

Communism and the Nationality Question

Soviet Ukraine, following the lead of Soviet Russia, was ruled by a Commu­nist party which traced its ideological roots to the nineteenth-century German political philosopher and founder of scientific socialism Karl Marx, and his dis­ciple Friedrich Engels. Marxist philosophy had an enormous impact on social­ists in the former Russian Empire, among whom was the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin. Lenin adapted Marxism to conditions in tsarist Russia by cre­ating his own ideology or “practical guide” to political action, which came to be known as Marxism-Leninism.

Marx and Engels constructed a philosophical system which analyzed human historical development and postulated a universally applicable body of social observations which ostensibly could both describe humanity’s past evolution and predict or determine its future. Among the more important principles of Marx­ist philosophy was that of dialectical materialism. Materialism is a theory assert­ing that only matter exists and that all material phenomena can be observed and scientifically explained. With respect to human society, Marx believed that the most important factor was the economic one - that is, that every individual’s action was determined by his or her economic status and interests. In economic terms, every society consisted of only two categories of people, who were dif­ferentiated by their relationship to the means of production. Some owned the land, capital, factories, and shops; others did not. All societies, therefore, were reducible to two classes of people: the owners or exploiters, and the workers or exploited.

The dialectical aspect of materialism provided the dynamic element in Marx’s philosophy. Everything in life changes all the time, and these changes follow the laws of the dialectic - from thesis, to antithesis, and finally to syn­thesis. Moreover, these “social” laws follow a rigorous and scientifically estab­lished pattern. With regard to historical and socioeconomic evolution, there are several stages through which every society must pass: the slave-owning stage, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and communism. The final and qualitatively highest stage, communism, promised a social setting in which there would be equality among all people and therefore no exploitation by one class of another.

It was this philosophical system of Marx and Engels that Lenin adapted to conditions in Russia. Since the Russian Empire lagged behind more developed societies in western Europe and in terms of social evolution it was somewhere between the stages of feudalism and bourgeois capitalism, Lenin argued that revolution would speed up the unfolding of the inevitable dialectical march of history. Lenin’s ideas on revolution were developed after 1903, following discord within the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ party, which split into the Lenin-led Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. To carry out the revolution that would hasten the evolutionary process and bring about a socialist and eventu­ally a communist society, Lenin created a tightly knit group of dedicated revo­lutionaries, the so-called vanguard of the proletariat. This vanguard would lead the working exploited classes into a new historical era.

When, in November 1917, Lenin’s Bolsheviks somewhat unexpectedly took over the reins of power in the Russian Empire, they emphasized the role of the Bolshevik party as the undisputed leader during a period known as the dicta­torship of the proletariat. This period was supposed to be temporary, to last only until the achievement of a classless, communist society. Among the implica­tions of the dictatorship of the proletariat for Lenin was ruthless party-imposed discipline. The imposition of discipline was justified by ideology and achieved by the creation of an extensive secret police force. As for ideology, Marxism provided a philosophical framework based on scientific “laws.” Since Marxism­Leninism was a science, anyone who opposed it could be proven absolutely and demonstrably wrong. Opponents, whoever they were, either were lacking in knowledge or philosophically misguided (a shortcoming that could be corrected by “re-education” in prisons and forced labor camps), or they were irredeemable class enemies of the new order. And since this new order reflected the inevita­ble march of history, class enemies could justifiably be eliminated, whenever and in whatever way necessary, as obstacles to scientifically predetermined social progress. The elimination of real or suspected class enemies was carried out by a virtual army of secret police, established by the Bolshevik regime as early as 7 January 1918. From that time until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the secret police had several different names: the Cheka (1918), GPU (1922), OGPU (1923), NKVD (1934) NKGB (1941), MGB (1946), and KGB (1954).

Since Marxism-Leninism purported to be an all-inclusive philosophical sys­tem, it is not surprising that, in the context of Russian and eastern European society, it offered ideological guidelines regarding the nationality question. Both Lenin and his Bolshevik colleague Stalin, who most often wrote on this subject, believed from the very outset that the “rights of nations are not an iso­lated self-contained question, but part of the general question of the proletar­ian revolution, a part which must be dealt with from the point of view of the whole.”* Moreover, for the Bolsheviks it was only among the proletariat that nationalities were represented. The bourgeoisie, the feudal aristocracy, and the industrialists, in their view, did not legitimately belong to any nationality.

Since true nationalities consisted exclusively of the proletariat, it followed that the Bolsheviks were opposed to the oppression of nationalities or nation­al minorities living in multinational states or empires. The argument against national oppression was taken up in 1913 by Stalin in a brochure entitled Marx­ism and the National Question, in which he accepted what he called the principle of the “right of self-determination.” “The right to self-determination,” Stalin wrote, “means that a nation can arrange its life according to its own will. It has the right to arrange its life on the basis of autonomy. It has the right to enter into fed­eral relations with other nations. It has the right to complete secession. Nations are sovereign and all nations are equal.”* It might seem from this statement that national interests were more important than class interests. Support, how­ever, would not be given to every national demand. “On the contrary,” contin­ued Stalin, “it is the duty of Social-Democrats [as the Bolsheviks were officially known before the war] to conduct agitation and to endeavor to influence the will of nations so that they may arrange their affairs in the way that will best suit the interests of the proletariat.”*

The seeming contradiction between Bolshevik proclamations on behalf of the right to self-determination of nations and their continued support for the primacy of proletarian class interests can easily be explained in the context of the Marxist dialectical view of history. As Lenin asserted, nationalism and the nationalities it spawned represented just one phase in history, which eventu­ally would “wither away.” In their place would arise a nationless international society of workers, whose common proletarian class interests would unite them and override any linguistic or national differences.

Actually, Lenin identified two types of nationalism: (i) the nationalism of an oppressing country, which was a manifestation of the rivalry induced by the race for colonial markets; and (2) the nationalism of the subjected peoples who were exploited by colonial regimes. When the Leninist equation was applied to eastern Europe, tsarist Russian nationalism represented the oppressive type, Ukrainian nationalism the subjected type. In the end, both forms of nation­alism were considered by Marxist-Leninists simply transitory social phenom­ena of the capitalist era of history. Accordingly, both were to be fought against because they had no intrinsic merit and were reactionary and harmful to the unity of the revolutionary class movement.

Nevertheless, as long as the capitalist (and in some cases imperialist) stage of society’s development had not yet completely vanished, and as long as the new socialist stage was still struggling to replace them, there might be occasion to cooperate with and even foster the subjected type of nationalism, especially if such cooperation would help the cause of socialism. In his writings on impe­rialism, Lenin even speculated that revolutions were likely to occur in areas inhabited by nationally subjected peoples, which he referred to as the “weak­est links” in the capitalist-imperialist system.

It was the potential political value of the subjected type of nationalism that prompted the Russian Bolsheviks and their Ukrainian counterparts to cooper­ate on occasion with Ukrainian National Republic, both in its Central Rada and Directory phases. Moreover, when the second attempt by the Soviet Ukrainian government to rule, between February and July 1919, failed in part because of its inability to appreciate the presumed national interests of the population, Lenin himself, at the Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist (Bolshevik) party in December 1919, submitted a resolution that obligated all party mem­bers “to facilitate in every way the removal of obstacles to the free development of the Ukrainian language and culture.”¹' The Borotbist opposition had been calling for such a policy all along. Now Lenin, although not without oppostion from internationalist elements in the CP(b)U, pushed for use of the Ukrainian language so that it could serve as “a weapon of communist education of the work­ing masses.” Marxist-Leninist ideological arguments finally won out, with the result that on 27 February 1920 the CP(b)U passed a decree guaranteeing the Ukrainian language equal status with Russian in all areas of life.

*J.V.Stalin, Marxism and the Nationality Question [1913] (New York 1935), pp. 1-3, 18-19, and 53. ^Vos'maia konferentsii RKP(b) dekabr' 1919 goda (Moscow 1961), p. 189.

rational and efficient manner - including the practical use of a single mode of communication, the Russian language - why should the Soviet state have been concerned with promoting non-Russian languages and cultures? Would it not have been simpler, and in the long run less problematic, to continue the already well advanced policy of russification begun under the tsars, a policy which could be implemented even more efficiently through the system of universal education promised by the new socialist state?

Some might argue, as certain contemporary Bolshevik leaders did, that as a result of World War I and the Ukrainian revolutionary era (during which millions of Ukrainian peasant recruits interacted with and discovered their differences from other nationalities) a substantial proportion of the rural population became nationally conscious and was therefore beyond assimilation. Notwithstanding this practical reality, the Soviet government’s actions were determined first and fore­most by ideological strictures that were the product of its understanding of Com­munism and the nationality question.

This did not mean that the CP(b)U suddenly had a change of heart from its traditional internationalism and indifference to Ukrainian and other non-Russian cultures and languages. The party, in fact, continued to be dominated by a non­ethnic Ukrainian majority whose leaders were opposed especially to the cultural and linguistic aspects of Ukrainianization. This group was led by the CP(b)U first secretary, the russified Volga German Emmanuil Kviring, and by its second secre­tary, the Ukrainian-born opponent of Ukrainian distinctiveness, Dmitrii Lebed’ (Dmytro Lebed’). Lebid’ espoused the theory of “the struggle of two cultures,” according to which he argued that the “higher” Russian culture of the urban proletariat should remain dominant in society and in no way be replaced by the “lower” Ukrainian culture of the backward countryside. As a way of pushing their point of view, the internationalists accused their opponents, in particular the former Borotbists and nationally conscious Ukrainians Shums’kyi and Blakytnyi, of “nationalist deviation” and tarred them and their supporters with accusations of “Shums’ky-ism.”

Meanwhile, Moscow and particularly Stalin favored Ukrainianism, that aspect of indigenization (korenizatsiia), which, they hoped, would strengthen the CP(b) U’s otherwise weak roots in the countryside. The result was that despite the opposition of Kviring and Lebed’, in the summer of 1923 the CP(b)U adopted a program for Ukrainianization of the party apparatus, schools, and cultural- educational organizations. From that moment, the CP(b)U itself helped to trans­form the Soviet republic it headed into a country that was becoming Ukrainian in fact as well as in name.

The spread of Ukrainianization is reflected in and was fostered by several devel­opments: (i) changes in the governmental leadership and in the administrative and demographic structure of the country, (2) the return of outstanding cultural leaders from the emigration, and (3) remarkable achievements in education and all areas of modern Ukrainian culture.

Ukrainianization, the governing elite, and demographic change

Although Kviring and Lebed’ continued to head the CP(b)U, in July 1923 Vlas Chubar was appointed head of the Soviet Ukrainian government. Chubar was the first ethnic Ukrainian to hold this post, and he was essentially sympathetic to the Ukrainianization program. It was under his leadership that the first public decree on Ukrainianization was promulgated (1 August 1923), which aimed to “guaran­tee for the Ukrainian language a position to which it is entitled because of the numerical and other specific importance of the Ukrainian people on the territory of Soviet Ukraine.”¹

But despite such support from the highest levels of the government, Ukrainian­ization got off to a slow start. In order to speed up implementation of the new pol­icy, in April 1925 the internationalist Kviring was replaced as first secretary of the CP(b)U by Lazar Kaganovich, a Ukrainian-born Jew and trusted associate of Stalin. Kaganovich was sent from Moscow to ukrainianize in a more vigorous manner the party and state apparatus. During the three years of his tenure as first secretary he pursued the task with energy and even pressed for the Ukrainianization of Red Army units stationed in Soviet Ukraine. Former nationalist-minded Borotbists purged from the CP(b)U in 1922 for “nationalist deviation” were brought back into political favor, among them Oleksander Shums’kyi, who was appointed to the influential post of commissar of education, and Hryhorii Hryn’ko, who was made commissar of state planning.

The implementation of Ukrainianization by a party that from its beginnings had been internationalist in orientation was made possible not only as a result of the placement of certain pro-Ukrainian leaders in key positions, but also because of a change in the composition of the rank and file. The indigenization program, after all, meant “rooting” the party in the local region, and this is exactly what hap­pened. For instance, whereas in 1924 only 33 percent of the CP(b)U members were ethnic Ukrainian, by 1933 that figure had nearly doubled, to 60 percent. Simultaneously, the number of ethnic Ukrainians in the Communist Youth League (Komsomol) increased from 59 percent in 1925 to 72 percent in 1933.

A change in the administrative structure of Soviet Ukraine was also, in part, related to the general move in the direction of Ukrainianization. During the early years of Soviet rule, the former tsarist provinces (gubernii) were retained, and a few others added. Moreover, as in tsarist times, the central Soviet government in Moscow often dealt directly with the provinces, thereby bypassing the Ukrainian

U KRAINIANIZATION

The implementation of Ukrainianization followed the promulgation of several internal and public decrees. In June 1923, the Central Committee of the CP(b)U adopted a set of resolutions regarding Ukrainianization in party work, and in July it published a decree that dealt with schools and educational institutions. These guidelines were incorporated into a resolution, dated 1 August 1923, that was adopted by the Council of People’s Commissars and the Ukrainian Executive Committee of the Soviet Ukrainian government. The resolution’s preamble was followed by twenty-six paragraphs outlining the principles of and the means by which Ukrainianization was to be implemented. With regard to language, all government employees who within one year of the decree’s publication still did not know Ukrainian would lose their jobs and be unable to hold any governmental past until they had “a knowledge of Ukrainian” (para­graphs 21 and 22). An excerpt from the preamble of the 1 August resolution follows.

The peaceful conditions that have resulted from the victory over the counterrevo­lution and [1921] famine have made it possible for the Soviet government to extend further the liberating nationality policy which the October [Bolshevik] Revolution began following the removal of rule by landlords and capitalists who, together with the tsarist bureaucracy in Ukraine, functioned not only as exploiters of the work­ers and peasants but also as russifiers who persecuted and oppressed the Ukrainian nationality.

Despite a certain lack of commitment on the part of activists on the cultural front, the Soviet government in Ukraine had during its brief existence achieved much for the development of Ukrainian culture, schools, and publications. Nevertheless, those efforts have not been enough to remove the inequality between the [Russian and Ukrainian] cultures that is the result of centuries of repression.

For that reason, the most pressing task of the government is to remove the ine­qualities in the realm of national cultures.... And to achieve that goal it is necessary to increase the Ukrainianization of the entire government apparatus..

The workers’ and peasants’ government of Ukraine considers it necessary that the state will concentrate its efforts as soon as possible on the spreading of knowledge of the Ukrainian language. The formal distinction that until now has existed between the two most widely used languages in Ukraine - Ukrainian and Russian - is inad­equate. The relatively slow development of Ukrainian schools and Ukrainian culture in general, the lack of suitable textbooks, and the lack of sufficiently trained person­nel have caused a situation whereby the Russian language for all practical purposes is dominant.

In order to remove such inequality, the workers’ and peasants’ government will initiate a series of practical measures which, while respecting the equal rights of the languages of all nationalities in Ukraine, will guarantee for the Ukrainian language a position to which it is entitled because of the numerical and other specific impor­tance of the Ukrainian people on the territory of Soviet Ukraine.

source: Taras Hunczak and Roman Sol’chanyk, eds., Ukrains’ka suspil’no-politychna dumka v 20 stolitti: dokumenty i materiialy, Vol. II (New York 1983), pp. 77-78.

republic governmental level. In 1923, Soviet Ukraine was redivided into fifty-three okruhy (regions), which in turn were subdivided into raiony (districts) that replaced the former tsarist volosti. Finally, in 1925 the provinces (gubernii) were abolished, and the status of Soviet Ukraine was thereby raised. The all-union government in Moscow now had to deal directly with the Soviet Ukrainian government, since there was no possibility of recourse to another administrative entity.

Of even greater long-term importance than administrative changes was what might be called the demographic revolution that had been set in motion, in par­ticular the migration from the countryside to the cities. Since the nineteenth cen­tury, nationalist leaders had been well aware that for their movements to survive they would have to take control of urban areas. In other words, the national cul­ture and language they promoted would have to become the natural vehicle of expression in cities and towns, where the decisions about a country’s administra­tive, economic, cultural, and educational orientation were made. Control of cities, therefore, was of crucial significance to emerging nationalities. In this regard, the Ukrainian movement was helped by the general Soviet policy of industrialization (see chapter 44) and by Soviet Ukraine’s policy of Ukrainianization.

The wartime and revolutionary era, with its attacks on towns and cities and the loss of food produce as a result of the destruction of agricultural exchange rela­tionships, saw a marked decline in Dnieper Ukraine’s overall urban population: from 5.6 million in 1914 to only 4.2 million in 1920. The reconstruction of the 1920s, however, allowed for a rapid growth in the urban population, with the result that by 1928 Soviet Ukraine’s cities had reached their prewar level. This process was to continue: whereas in 1920 only 15 percent of Soviet Ukraine’s population lived in cities, by 1939 the figure had more than doubled, to 36.2 percent.

The influx of ethnic Ukrainians from the countryside, coupled with a return on the part of russified urban dwellers to the identity of their rural forefathers, not only increased the size but also changed significantly the national composition of cities. Whereas in 1920 ethnic Ukrainians represented only 32 percent of the country’s urban population, that figure rose steadily (47 in 1926), to over 58 per­cent by 1939. The percentage of ethnic Ukrainians increased dramatically not only in Kiev (42 percent in 1926) and other Right Bank cities, but also in the industrial east, where Russians had traditionally dominated. Accordingly, by 1933, in three of the five largest industrial centers (Kharkiv, Luhans’k, and Zaporizhzhia) ethnic Ukrainians accounted for over half the population, while in a fourth, Kateryno- slav/ Dnipropetrovs’k, the figure was 48 percent.

The face of Soviet Ukraine’s cities was altered as well. As the CP(b)U Politburo member Volodymyr Zatons’kyi said in summarizing the government’s attitude dur­ing the 1920s: “We will ensure that a Ukrainian... when he goes to the city will not be russified.... And yes, we will repaint [i.e., remove Russian from] the signs in towns.”² Laws passed in 1925 hastened the process whereby the Ukrainian lan­guage came to be used in governmental business and on public signs, posters, and other official forms. The effort to create a new urban environment was symbol­ized by the replacement of many names associated with pre-revolutionary tsarist times: Katerynoslav became Dnipropetrovs’k; Oleksandrivs’k, Zaporizhzhia; lu- zivka, Stalino; Luhans’k, Voroshylovhrad; Bakhmut, Artemivs’k; and lelyzavethrad, Zinovivs’k, then Kirovohrad.

The rise in Ukrainian-language publications was a graphic example of how Ukrainianization spread not only in the cities but also in the towns and villages. In the early 1920s, book production fell far below what it had been during the revo­lutionary years. In 1918, for instance, Ukrainian-language titles accounted for 70 percent of all books, but it was not until 1925 that Ukrainianization reached the book publishing industry, and not until 1930 that Ukrainian-language produc­tion surpassed what had been achieved during the revolutionary era. Ukrainian- language newspapers followed a similar pattern, falling precipitously from 127 titles during the revolutionary era to 30 (in a total circulation of only 9,700 cop­ies) in 1922. The situation gradually began to change so that by 1926, there were 81 Ukrainian-language newspapers, representing 30 percent of total circulation. It was not until 1930 that the language of the press reflected more or less pro­portionally Soviet Ukraine’s national composition. In that year, there were 552 Ukrainian-language newspapers, which accounted for 77 percent of total circu­lation. The high point was reached in 1932, when 92 percent of the country’s newspaper circulation was in Ukrainian (1,278 titles with a 950,000 circulation).³

Ukrainianization and the return of the emigres

The return of prominent Ukrainian-oriented politicians and scholars from the emigration in other parts of Europe and from Polish-ruled Galicia is a second sign that Ukrainianization was taking hold, and those who returned contributed to the implementation of the policy. As early as 1920, the former head of the Ukrain­ian National Republic’s Directory, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, was invited to return home and offered the post of deputy premier and commissar of foreign affairs in the Soviet Ukrainian government. Although he quickly became disillusioned and, after a brief visit, returned to exile in the West, the very fact of the invita­tion seemed to suggest a more tolerant attitude on the part of the Soviet Ukrain­ian government, and prompted much discussion within emigre circles in western and central Europe as well as in Galicia. Many exiles began to consider seriously the possibility of returning to the Ukrainian homeland, even if it were a Soviet one. The policy of Ukrainianization in particular made Soviet rule seem toler­able and even attractive. Among those who returned were former political activists in the Ukrainian National Republic (Pavlo Khrystiuk, Mykola Chechel’, lurii Tiu- tiunnyk) and the West Ukrainian National Republic (Mykhailo Lozyns’kyi, Stepan Rudnyts’kyi), many of them also distinguished scholars who took up leading posi­tions in Soviet Ukraine’s cultural establishment.

By far the most important of those who returned was the renowned historian, former president of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in L’viv, and first president of the Ukrainian National Republic’s Central Rada Mykhailo S. Hrushevs’kyi. Hrushevs’kyi’s arrival in Kiev in 1924 heralded the beginning of achievements in education and culture that are a third manifestation of the spread of Ukrainianiza­tion and that acted to stimulate it further. Hrushevs’kyi’s presence was particularly significant for the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Within the academy, he revived the old historical section of the prewar Ukrainian Scientific Society, and himself headed it as well as the Archeographic Commission. He also revived or founded several new scholarly journals in which he and his disciples published the results of their research.

The academy as a whole, which had been founded in 1918 during the Het- manate, managed to survive a period of retrenchment between 1920 and 1922. In the new environment of Ukrainianization, the number of its full-time research­ers rose to 160 in 1924. During the presidency of the distinguished botanist Volodymyr Lyps’kyi, who was in office from 1922 to 1928, and the tenure of the renowned linguist and Orientalist Ahatanhel Kryms’kyi, who held the post of per­manent secretary from 1918 to 1929, the number of scholarly works published by the academy rose steadily from 22 in 1923 to 136 in 1929. The activity of the academy also promoted work on standardization of the Ukrainian language, in consequence of which in some fields, especially in the natural sciences, Ukrainian was used as a medium in publications for the first time. Moreover, the Ukrainian academy devoted itself to the universal aspects of humanistic learning. It main­tained contacts with other scholarly institutes throughout the world, and it sup­ported research programs, for instance, in Arabic, Iranian, Hebrew, and Byzan­tine culture. In strictly Ukrainian subjects, the most marked advances were made in Ukrainian linguistics (numerous dictionaries were either published or begun) and in history, the field dominated by Hrushevs’kyi and his school. Besides the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, each of the universities (renamed in 1920 institutes of people’s education) had departments in Ukrainian subjects held by leading prewar scholars, such as the historians Dmytro Bahalii at Kharkiv, Mykhai- lo Slabchenko at Odessa, and Oleksander Ohloblyn at Kiev. Thus, the period of Ukrainianization after 1923 made possible the growth of Ukrainian scholarship to its most advanced level so far. Scholars in Soviet Ukraine were able to carry on the traditions established in Austrian Galicia before World War I and were permitted, at least until 1928, to operate in a relatively free intellectual atmosphere.

Ukrainianization in education

The future of scholarship, to say nothing of the Ukrainian nationality in gener­al, depended on the younger generations, whose attitudes would be determined largely by the formal education they received. Here, too, under the direction of the Soviet Ukrainian government, significant progress was made. It was a result of (1) the general Soviet emphasis on education, with its goal of eliminating illiteracy by 1927; and (2) the specific policies of Soviet Ukraine’s Ministry of Education, which after 1923 was given a free hand in carrying out the government’s Ukrainianiza- tion policy. That very year, the first of several education laws was passed decreeing that wherever ethnic Ukrainians predominated, instruction for all children must be in Ukrainian, and that in places where other peoples of Ukraine (“national minorities”) formed compact groups, education in their respective native languag­es was guaranteed. Regardless of the main language of instruction, Ukrainian and Russian were required subjects in all schools throughout Soviet Ukraine.

The results were impressive. By 1933, the total number of students and teachers had increased threefold over prewar levels. Nor were adults forgotten. A wide net­work of literacy schools (likpunkty) was set up throughout the country. The result was a remarkable rise in the level of literacy, which in 1897 had stood at only 28 percent. By 1926, 64 percent of Soviet Ukraine’s total population and 42 percent of its ethnic Ukrainian inhabitants were literate.

As the regime mounted its offensive against illiteracy, there inevitably arose the question of which language to use in the expanding educational establishment. Until 1923, the CP(b)U’s theory of the “struggle of two cultures” favored Rus­sian in the adult schools. With the implementation of Ukrainianization, however, there was a change of policy regarding language, with the result that by 1925, 81 percent of all adult literacy schools reportedly were using Ukrainian. From the standpoint of Ukrainian-language instruction, elementary schools fared even bet­ter. By the 1927-1928 school year, 82 percent of all schools at the elementary level were using Ukrainian, and 76 percent of the total school population was attending Ukrainian-language schools. Looked at in another way, by 1929 over 97 percent of all elementary students in Soviet Ukraine were enrolled in Ukrainian-language schools. The Ukrainianization of secondary schools (profshkoly) was as dramatic. Whereas in 1922 less than 1 percent of the secondary schools used Ukrainian as the language of instruction, by 1929 that figure had risen to 66 percent, with another 16 percent using both Ukrainian and Russian.

At the top of the Soviet Ukrainian educational system was the category, higher educational institution (Vyshchyi Uchbovyi Zaklad), the so-called VUZ, of which there were three types: (1) institutes of people’s education (former universities), (2) technical colleges, and (3) workers’ preparatory schools. The last were designed to prepare underqualified students for full entrance into the institutes (universities). By 1928, over 35,000 students, or nearly 57 percent of the total number enrolled in all three types of VUZy, were ethnic Ukrainians. In part because of the reluc­tance of the teaching staff to give up using Russian, the percentage of students in the VUZy who received instruction in the Ukrainian language increased only gradually, standing at only 42 percent in 1928. But all students were required to study Ukrainian history, language, literature, and economic geography, and well before the end of the decade knowledge of Ukrainian became a requirement for admission to and graduation from all institutions of higher learning. Indeed, by the end of the 1920s a significantly large Ukrainian intelligentsia was being cre­ated for the first time in Dnieper Ukraine. This was a group educated in Ukrainian and now able to pursue careers in urban settings that were becoming increasingly Ukrainian in content as well as form.

Ukrainianization in the arts and literature

The period of Ukrainianization brought profound changes in other areas of cul­ture. All the most modern currents in literature, painting, sculpture, the theater, music, and the cinema made their way into Soviet Ukraine, where artists, whatever their craft, strove to create new forms often based on a combination of traditional motifs and highly avant-garde movements. The 1920s was, after all, perceived as a period of great promise during which an egalitarian sociopolitical system could be created. Such a hope was held in many echelons of Soviet society, and artists in particular were caught up in the spirit of optimism.

The new creative environment was most evident in the experimental Berezil’ Theater (est. 1922) of the director Les’ Kurbas; the modernistic canvases of paint­ers like Mykhailo Boichuk and Anatolii Petryts’kyi; and the musical compositions of Lev Revuts’kyi and Borys Liatoshyns’kyi as well as the writings of the musicolo­gist Mykola Hrinchenko, who called on Ukrainian composers to create a body of work that would be clearly distinguishable from the all-pervading influence of Russian compositions. An entirely new art form, the cinema, also made its appear­ance during the 1920s. The cinema was especially welcomed by Soviet authorities because of its ability to convey political and social messages through the visual medium, accessible to large numbers of illiterate or semi-literate people. One of the world’s foremost directors during this period was the Ukrainian Oleksander Dovzhenko, who not only worked in his homeland but used Ukrainian themes in his most famous films - Zvenyhora (1927), Arsenal (1929), and the internationally acclaimed classic Zemlia (1930).

A particular problem faced by the creative and analytical intelligentsia in Soviet Ukraine was the degree to which new forms of Ukrainian art and literature should diverge from the traditional formal dependence on Russian models. The Central Committee of the CP(b)U itself sounded the clarion call in June 1926 for a dis­tinct Ukrainian mode or form of cultural expression. While supporting the idea of cooperation with the cultures of other peoples, the party nonetheless made it clear that it stood for “the independent development of Ukrainian culture [and] for an expression of all the creative forces of the Ukrainian people. The party stands for the wide utilization by the Ukrainian socialist culture now under construction of all the heritages of world culture, for a decisive break with the traditions of provin­cial narrowness, and for the creation of new cultural values adequate for the crea­tiveness of a great class.”⁴

Several writers made a conscious effort to break out of the mold of Romanti­cism and Realism that dominated Ukrainian literary life in the nineteenth century and, instead, to imbue their work with currents and styles prevalent in avant-garde western Europe. Among them were three poets whose best works coincided with the creatively free decade of the 1920s: the symbolist Pavlo Tychyna, the neo-clas­sicist Maksym Ryl’s’kyi, and the futurist Mykhail (Mykhailo) Semenko.

Other Ukrainian-language writers, in their search for new cultural values that would fashion a socialist culture reflective of the needs of the peasantry and pro­letariat, established literary groups. The best known of the groups were the Asso­ciation of Revolutionary Peasant Writers (Pluh, 1922-1932), founded by Serhii Pylypenko; the Association of Proletarian Writers (Hart, 1923-1925), founded by Vasyl’ Blakytnyi (pseudonym of Vasyl’ Ellans’kyi); and the Free Academy of Proletarian Literature (VAPLITE, 1925-1928), founded by Mykola Khvyl’ovyi. VAPLITE and Khvyl’ovyi in particular carried the cultural implications of the Ukrainianization policy to their farthest. In April 1925, he called for the complete spiritual independence of Ukraine. By this he meant a turn “away from Moscow” toward western Europe, where Ukrainian culture should seek its true inspiration. The stance of Khvyl’ovyi and other writers associated with VAPLITE seemed so radical that they came to the attention of the Russian Communist (Bolshevik) party in Moscow. In 1926, Stalin himself condemned Khvyl’ovyi in a letter to the Ukrainian party first secretary Kaganovich.

Religion

There was at least one element in Soviet Ukraine that would not be used by the government in its program of social transformation - the church. The Bolsheviks had all along adopted Marx’s view that religion was the “opium of the people,” that is, an “ideological” drug fed to the masses by the feudal and capitalist classes to prevent them from resisting their exploitation. In the Soviet Union, the world’s first egalitarian socialist society, “exploitative ideologies” such as religion were to have no place. Atheism, instead, became the offical mode of thought and source of spiritual sustenance. Religion per se was not outlawed, but the activity of all the churches was severely restricted, and some were entirely banned.

Leaving aside the inhospitable environment, the status of Orthodoxy in Soviet Ukraine was complicated by defections from the Russian Orthodox Church - Mos­cow Patriarchate and the creation of alternative churches. One of the grounds of dissatisfaction had to do with the question of autocephaly or independence for the Orthodox in Ukraine. During the revolutionary era, the Russian Ortho­dox Church under Patriarch Tikhon in July 1918 had created an Exarchate of Ukraine, headed by its own metropolitan, which had a degree of autonomy but nonetheless remained jurisdictionally subordinate to the Patriarchate of Moscow. This was not acceptable to the “autocephalist” clergy, who favored an entirely inde­pendent church. Although in January 1919 autocephaly had been supported in principle by the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic, it could not be implemented because of the disruptions of the civil war and anarchy that prevailed throughout 1919 and 1920.

Now the autocephalous movement was able to take advantage of the relative sta-

bility brought about by Bolshevik rule and to renew its activity. The All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council (Rada) in Kiev, which had come into being already in 1917, proclaimed in May 1920 autocephaly (jurisdictional independence) for the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The new body consisted of parishes formed by groups of laypersons (at least twenty were needed to form a parish) who often proceeded to take over existing church buildings, including the Cathedral of St Sophia in Kiev, from the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate. These expropriations were recognized by the Soviet authori­ties, who had previously removed church structures from under the control of the bishops. In fact, as part of its own effort to weaken the Russian Orthodox Church, whose patriarch, Tikhon, refused to reach an accommodation with the new rulers, the Soviet government supported the Ukrainian autocephalists in their effort to institute reform “from below.”

The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church formally came into being with the convocation in October 1921 of a council (sobor) in Kiev, which created a hierar­chy headed by the church’s first metropolitan, Vasyl’ Lypkivs’kyi. His appointment was made in extraordinary circumstances. When no existing canonical Orthodox bishop agreed to consecrate Lypkivs’kyi, the laypersons and clergy who met at the October 1921 council consecrated him using the allegedly early Christian practice of “laying on of hands.” This act of consecration in the absence of a canonical bishop was a radical departure from Orthodox practice, and it alienated certain Ukrainian supporters of autocephaly. Consequently, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was isolated from the rest of the Orthodox world, which con­sidered the manner in which it came into being, and therefore its very existence, uncanonical (against church law).

Such details meant little to the Soviet authorities, who initially allowed the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church to grow. At its height in early 1924, the church, which was based in the capital of Kharkiv, claimed to have between 3 and 6 million followers in 1,000 parishes led by thirty bishops, along with 1,500 priests and deacons. The church attracted particular support among nationally minded intellectuals and other patriots, who believed in its value as a Ukrainian institution. In fact, its defenders believed the Autocephalous Orthodox Church represented the vanguard of a free Ukraine. In other words, it complemented those forces within the new regime that wished to create a distinct Ukrainian entity within a loose Soviet federation.

The Bolsheviks were even more interested in undermining the Russian Ortho­dox Church-Moscow Patriarchate by supporting the so-called Renovationist Church, formed in 1922 by a group of disparate Orthodox factions opposed to Patriarch Tikhon. The Renovationists were fully supported throughout the Soviet Union by the Communist authorities, which gave them church buildings formerly held by the Russian Orthodox Patriarchal Church. The Renovationist movement found support also in Soviet Ukraine, and in 1923 it formed there its own inde­pendent body, the Ukrainian Orthodox (Synodal) Church, popularly known as the Living Church (Zhyva tserkva). Thus, by the early 1920s, Orthodoxy in Soviet Ukraine was divided into three factions: those remaining in the Ukrainian Exar­chate of the Russian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate (the Tikhonites); those in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (the Lypkivtsi); and those in the Orthodox Autocephalous (Synodal) Church (the Renovationists). The relations among the three were marked by recrimination and conflicts over the control of church property.

The Soviet Ukrainian government would have preferred to see Metropolitan Lypkivs’kyi’s Autocephalous Church merged with the more politically pliable Ren­ovationists. When this did not occur, the authorities forced the dissolution of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council and pressured the church to remove Metropolitan Lypkivs’kyi, who was indeed replaced in 1927. This was but the pre­liminary to an increasing exertion of pressure against the Autocephalous Church that would lead to its eventual abolition.

Ukrainianization in the era of transition

The removal of Metropolitan Lypkivs’kyi from the leadership of a nationalist-ori­ented religious body was symbolic of the Soviet regime’s increasing concern with the direction of Ukrainianization. The policy itself was not yet being questioned, rather the manner of its implementation, which depended in part on what it was expected to achieve. Policy makers in the CP(b)U never reached a consensus as to what precisely was the ultimate goal of Ukrainianization.

For some, Ukrainianization was a means of giving legitimization to the Com­munist regime without threatening the unified and centralized nature of the Sovi­et Union. Adherents of this view strongly supported the indigenization aspects of Ukrainianization. Others saw Ukrainianization as a means of transforming the country and its inhabitants into a nationally conscious Ukrainian entity that would further justify the creation of a Soviet Ukrainian republic that was largely autono­mous with respect to, if not independent of, Soviet Russia. Adherents of this view supported in particular the cultural, educational, and ideological activity of indi­viduals and institutions working to raise the level of a distinct Ukrainian cultural life.

The dilemma of finding the “right track” for Ukrainianization was addressed by the CP(b)U as early as the summer of 1926, when Kaganovich presented a report to the party’s Central Committee entitled “On the Results of Ukrainianization.” Although the report gave unqualified praise for the achievements in education, governmental administration, and the building of the party, it nonetheless criti­cized writers like Khvyl’ovyi and Mykola Zerov for their efforts to free Ukrainian literature from Russian influence, efforts which it stated were somehow linked to the “growth of capitalism” that was occurring as a result of the New Economic Policy (see chapter 44). The first casualty of the party’s ideological redirection was the commissar of education and active ukrainianizer Oleksander Shums’kyi, who was removed from his post in early 1927. This measure was followed by the condemnation for “nationalist deviation” of the entire leadership of the Commu­nist party of Western Ukraine and its expulsion from the Comintern in early 1928 (see chapter 46).

In fact, the year 1928 heralded a transitional period for Soviet Ukraine. While the policy of Ukrainianization was still in force, and many achievements in Ukrain­ian culture and in the greater extension of Ukrainian language use were still to come, it also was becoming clear that the CP(b)U had begun to back away from the “radical” ukrainianizing policies of the mid-i92os. The next five years, from 1928 to 1932, would determine whether Soviet Ukraine would be allowed to con­tinue to set for itself policies that would sustain a distinct Ukrainian life, or wheth­er the country would lose control of its destiny and become further integrated into the Soviet Union.