The Ukrainization of Ukraine?

In Ukraine, the peasants were revolting against the Revolutionary Party. This ambivalence has run through all communist dealings with Ukraine. Ukrainians had been united by the dream of independence.

Lenin’s first essay in appeasing the Ukrainians was a push in the 1920s for Russia to make everything look more Ukrainian—korenizatsiya, they called it, “getting back to our roots.” The propaganda push involved promoting Ukrainian language, and sponsoring Ukrainian cultural institutions in education and religion. It did not produce the desired effect, so pacification by cultural friendliness gave way to far worse measures, orchestrated by the extraordinarily ruthless Joseph Stalin.