The Creation of the Soviet Union

Although Lenin and the Bolsheviks had been slow to recognize the importance of nationalism, they treated it with circumspection once they gained power. On the one hand, they came out in favor of national self-determination during the Civil War, “even to the point of separation and formation of independent states.” On the other hand, they attempted to crush national movements, arguing that they were led by “bourgeois elements” that would not and could not act in the interests of the working class.

Although the Moscow-based Communist party completely controlled the Ukrainian Soviet government, it was not in a position to dismantle or absorb it. The precedents militating against this move were too great. At Brest-Litovsk, Bolshevik Russia had recognized the Central Rada and its General Secretariat as the sovereign government of an independent state. If they had gone so far as to recognize the sovereignty of a Ukrainian “bourgeois” government, the Bolsheviks could hardly do less for a Ukrainian Soviet government. Therefore, the Ukrainian Soviet government had to be treated, at least in theory, as if it were a sovereign power. Consequently, up to 1923, the Soviet government of Ukraine conducted foreign relations separately from Soviet Russia (concluding forty-eight treaties on its own), carried on foreign trade, and even began to lay the foundations for a separate Ukrainian Soviet army.

Precedents notwithstanding, there were also important groups among the Bolsheviks in Ukraine that agitated for Ukrainian Soviet statehood. They consisted mostly of the Borotbisty and Ukapisty, who had broken away in 1919 from the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary and Ukrainian Social Democratic parties, respectively, and had gone over to the Bolsheviks.

The several hundred Ukapisty underwent a similar experience. They, too, tried to steal the Bolsheviks’ thunder by copying them. Calling themselves the Ukrainian Communist party, they attempted, also without success, to gain admittance into the Communist International. In 1925 they were forced to disband and a number of them, including their leaders Mykhailo Tkachenko and lurii Mazurenko, joined the Bolshevik party for the same reasons as did the Borotbisty: to influence the Ukrainian policies of the party from within.

Unlike these latecomers to the Bolshevik ranks with their divided loyalties, there were a few longtime Ukrainian members of the party who sincerely wanted communism to succeed in Ukraine. They believed that the best way to achieve this goal was to “Ukrainianize” bolshevism in order to make it more appealing to Ukrainians. This meant, first and foremost, that the Soviet government would also have to be a Ukrainian government.

The above-mentioned views and attitudes were not only widespread among pro-Soviet Ukrainians; they also flourished among the members of the newly formed Soviet governments in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Even Moscow agreed that the ad hoc military alliances and mutual-aid pacts that had formally linked the Soviet republics (the Red Army and the party were the actual forces that held them together) during the Civil War were no longer adequate. Therefore, in the final months of 1922 the party began a major discussion in Moscow on what the permanent form and nature of the relationship between the Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics should be.

Because he was gravely ill, Lenin’s participation in these important debates was limited. This circumstance allowed Josef Stalin, the increasingly powerful commissar for nationalities and general secretary of the party, to play a key role. Although a Georgian by birth, Stalin was an avowed centralist and antinationalist. With the backing of many Russian members of the party, he proposed that the non-Russian republics be absorbed into a single Russian Soviet socialist state. To appease the nationalities, he offered them cultural autonomy within the Russian republic. The proposal caused a furor among the non-Russian Bolsheviks.

At this point, Lenin stepped in. He realized that if a Russian Soviet state were to swallow up the other Soviet republics, it not only would erode the very weak support the Bolsheviks had in the non-Russian republics, but also would create a very poor impression of the Soviet system among the colonial peoples of the world. If Russian nationalism and centralism endangered the prospects for global revolution, Lenin declared himself ready “to challenge Great Russian chauvinism to mortal combat.”² He proposed, therefore, that all the Soviet republics form a “union of equals.”

To demonstrate that the union was voluntary, Lenin proposed that every republic have the right of secession from the union. And this point was enshrined in the Soviet constitution of 1924. Governmental prerogatives were so arranged that certain affairs remained the exclusive domain of a given republic; other jurisdictions were to be shared by both republican and all-union ministries; still others were to be handled by the all-union government alone. Thus, the Ukrainian Soviet government had, in theory, exclusive jurisdiction in its republic over agriculture, internal affairs, justice, education, health, and social welfare. It was to share authority with the all-union government over matters relating to food, labor, finance, inspections, and national economy. Foreign affairs, the army and navy, transport, foreign trade, and communications were to be the exclusive domain of the all-union government based in Moscow.

But, on Lenin’s insistence, a crucial qualification was made to this plan. The all-important right to secede, that ultimate proof of a republic’s sovereignty, could be exercised only if the Communist party agreed to it.

Although the non-Russians, Ukrainians in particular, had serious reservations about them, Lenin’s proposals were clearly preferable to those put forth by Stalin. Therefore, on 30 December 1922, they were endorsed by the representatives of the Russian, Belorussian, Transcaucasian, and Ukrainian Soviet republics and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) came into being.

Upon its entry into the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian republic constituted its second-largest component (the Russian republic being the largest by far). It encompassed a territory of 450,000 sq. km and a population of over 26 million. Kharkiv was selected as the capital of the republic because it was not as closely associated with former national governments as was Kiev. Originally, the republic was divided into 12 gubernii; in 1925 an administrative reorganization created 41 okruhy; and in 1939 it was reorganized again into 15 oblasti. Of the more than 5 million non-Ukrainians in the republic, many inhabited the 12 administrative regions set aside for them.

Various interpretations have been offered to explain why the USSR took on a pseudo-federal form. Some Western scholars argue that this was a clever camouflage for the Russian center’s reassertion of control over the non-Russian periphery. Others believe that the federal structure was a concession that the victorious, yet weak, Soviet regime had to make to the nascent national consciousness of the non-Russian nationalities. Soviet authors view their federal system as a successful attempt to create a new and better structure within which various nationalities could coexist harmoniously and develop freely.

But the structure of the USSR did not allow the various nationalities to conduct their affairs as they desired. Ultimate decision-making regarding Ukraine still rested with Moscow, not Kharkiv. Nor had Ukrainians as a whole been consulted about the very formation of the union. Basically, the tiny and predominantly Russian party decided what the relationship between Ukraine and Russia would be.

It would be inaccurate to say, however, that the Ukrainians and other non-Russian nationalities emerged empty-handed from the Soviet federal arrangement. Under the tsars, Ukrainian language, culture, and national identity had been viciously suppressed. The very boundaries of Ukraine had been ill defined and it had been called by such vague terms as “the Southwest” or “Little Russia.” Under the Soviets, in contrast, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (URSR) became a well-defined national and territorial entity, possessing its own administrative center and apparatus. Thus, the Ukrainians finally obtained a territorial-administrative framework that reflected their national identity. It was something they had not had since the Cossack Hetmanate of the 18th century.