Walking Back the Stalin Years

The USSR desperately needed a more humane face if it was to have any hope of staying together after Stalin. As with any charismatic and brutal strongman throughout history, as soon as the dreaded ruler dies, the forcibly united peoples of his empire immediately start agitating for their freedom.

Khrushchev was quick to get rid of Stalin’s henchman, Melnikov, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and replace him with Kyrychenko, an actual Ukrainian! Kyrychenko came from the historically pro-Russian eastern edge of Ukraine. He was, nonetheless, undeniably Ukrainian. Khrushchev tasked him with reversing the Stalinist approach by appointing Ukrainian administrators and reintroducing Ukrainian language courses (and Ukrainian academics) in the universities. This seemed to appease the Ukrainian public.

People developed a grudging acceptance of the new administration, and young Ukrainians began to join the Ukrainian Communist Party in unprecedented numbers. Ukraine had one million Communist Party cardholders in 1958—about 60% of whom were Ukrainian. It was a no-brainer. If you wanted to get an office job, you had to join the Party. How loyal these new yuppy conscripts would be to the USSR was a moot point.

Khrushchev was not a Ukrainian hero, however. He inherited Lenin’s arrogant dismissal of religion. From the viewpoint of an astute politician, he recognized alternative power and authority structures when he saw them. An unofficial “five-year-plan” from 1960-1965 saw thousands of Orthodox Churches closed. Religion was removed from the everyday world of ordinary Ukrainians, and Khrushchev anticipated that this would facilitate widespread conversion to communism.