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Social Change and National Consciousness in Twentieth-Century Ukraine

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Social Change and National Consciousness in Twentieth-Century Ukraine KRAWCHENKO BOHDAN SOCIAL CHANGE AND NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY UKRAINE Soviet leaders are constantly alert to the danger of unrest among the nations which make up the Soviet Union. Whether discontent will pose a serious challenge to Russian domination of the USSR will largely depend on developments in Ukraine. Among the fifteen republics comprising the Soviet Union, Ukraine is second only to Russia in population and in economic and political importance. But rapid social change, integration into the USSR and the experience of intensive Russification policies have surely affected the national allegiances of Ukrainians. Is mobilisation around national demands therefore unlikely? Pursuing this question, the author examines the effects of social and political change in twentieth-century Ukraine on the national consciousness of Ukrainian workers, peasants, the intelligentsia and political elite. Dr Krawchenko argues that the modernisation of Ukrainian society has produced a new structure of national consciousness, one which should not be mistaken for a weakening of that consciousness. For the modern Ukrainian, the source of national discontent is socio- economic, rather than cultural. The crisis in Ukrainians’ social mobility and the republic’s lagging economic development are some of the factors which have contributed to the formation of the USSR’s most restive working class, intelligentsia and political elite. Faced with mounting contradictions in Ukraine, the Russian leaders of the USSR have attempted to resolve the problem by accelerating Russification and central control over the institutions of the republic. Rather than solving the problem, these policies have generated new national conflicts. Dr Bohdan Krawchenko is Director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta. Born in Germany, he emigrated to Canada as a child, and was educated at Bishop’s University, Canada, the University of Toronto, and at the Univer- sities of Glasgow and Oxford. Dr Krawchenko has specialised in the study of the Soviet working class and has published widely on this theme. Articles by him on the social structure of Ukraine have appeared in several scholarly journals. He is editor of Ukraine after Shelest. SOCIAL CHANGE AND NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY UKRAINE Bohdan Krawchenko Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies University of Alberta in association with St Antony’s College, Oxford THE CANADIAN LIBRARY IN UKRAINIAN STUDIES A series of original works and reprints relating to Ukraine, issued under the editorial supervision of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton Copyright © 1985 Bohdan Krawchenko First published in 1985 by The Macmillan Press Ltd, London First paperback edition 1987 Printed and bound in Hong Kong Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Krawchenko, Bohdan, 1946- Social change and national consciousness in twentieth-century Ukraine (The Canadian library in Ukrainian studies) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-920862-46-2 1. Ukraine-Social conditions -20th century. 2. Nationalism-Ukraine-History- 20th century. I. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. II. Title. III. Series. HN530.U5K73 1986 306'. 094771 C86-091487-9 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner Distributed by the University of Toronto Press 5201 Dufferin St. Downsview, Ontario Canada M3H 5T8 In memory of my mother Antonina Matviivna Zinova 1914-80 Contents List of Tables ix Preface xi Technical Note xii Glossary xiii Map xvi Introduction xvii 1 UKRAINIAN SOCIETY ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION 1 Population 1 The Town 3 The Peasantry and the National Movement 21 The Dilemma of Leadership 29 The Working Class 39 Conclusion 44 2 UKRAINIAN SOCIETY IN THE 1920s 46 Population 46 The Town 47 The Village 56 The Working Class 72 Education 86 Book Publishing and the Press 94 The Party 98 The Bureaucracy 105 Conclusion 111 3 UKRAINIAN SOCIETY IN THE 1930s 1 13 Population 113 Urbanisation 116 Class Structure 120 Education, Book Publishing and the Press 134 The Party 141 Conclusion 151 vii viii Contents 4 UKRAINE IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR 153 5 UKRAINIAN SOCIETY AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR 171 Population 171 Urbanisation 178 Problems of National Identity 186 Class Structure 202 Education, Book Publishing and the Press 219 The Party 242 Dissidents 250 Conclusion 253 CONCLUSION 255 Notes and References 259 Index 320 , List of Tables 1.1 National composition of Ukraine by region, 1897 4 1.2 Urban population of Ukraine by region, 1897 8 1.3 National composition of Ukraine’s urban population by region, 1897 10 1.4 Distribution of Ukrainian urban population according to size of town, 1897 11 1.5 Representation of Ukrainians in occupations, 1897 44 2. 1 National composition of Ukraine by region, 1926 48 2.2 Changes in the rate of urbanisation of Ukraine according to region, 1897-1928 50 2.3 National composition of Ukraine’s urban population by region, 1926 51 2.4 Changes in the national composition of Ukraine’s urban population according to size of town, 1897-1926 52 2.5 Nationality data on Ukraine’s trade union membership, 1926, 1929 78 2.6 Representation of major nationalities in occupational structure of Ukraine, 1926 107 3 . 1 National composition of the population of Ukraine 1926-39 115 3.2 Class structure of Ukraine according to nationality, 1939 133 5 . 1 National composition of the population of Ukraine 1795-1970 173 5.2 National composition of Ukraine according to region, 1926-70 176 5.3 Changes in the rate of urbanisation of Ukraine according to region, 1959-70 180 5.4 Distribution of the urban population of the major national groups in Ukraine according to size of town, 1959 181 5.5 National composition of urban population of Ukraine by oblast’, according to size of town, 1959 182 5.6 National composition of the urban population of Ukraine according to region, 1959-70 183 IX , X List of Tables 5.7 Nationality of immigrants to urban centres of Ukraine 184 5 . 8 Ukrainians - national identity data according to region 1970 190 5 . 9 Mother-tongue identification of Ukrainians according to region, 1959-70 194 5.10 Class structure of the population of Ukraine, 1939-70 204 5.11 Class structure of Ukrainians in the Ukrainian SSR, 1939-70 205 5.12 Ukrainians’ share of a given social class, 1939-70 206 5.13 National composition of the Vuzy student population of Ukraine, 1955-71 224 5.14 National composition of students attending specialised secondary educational establishments, 1955-71 226 Preface I should like above all to thank Archie Brown of St Antony’s College, Oxford, for his patience and assistance, as well as Victor Swoboda of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, for his numerous suggestions. A very special debt of gratitude is owed to John-Paul Himka of the University of Alberta. I also benefited from many discussions with the late I. L. Rudnytsky and Roman Petryshyn. M. R. Lupul, Director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, provided support and en- couragement. My late mother, Antonina Zinova, and my father, Oleksander Krawchenko, who lived through much of the period under study, were my constant sounding-boards. I could not have com- pleted this work without the advice of my wife, Kim Fraser; but I am solely responsible for all the errors and omissions which remain. Edmonton, Canada BOHDAN KRAWCHENKO xi Technical Note A simplified Library of Congress system of transliteration, omitting all diacritics, will be used. Geographical names within the current boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR are transliterated from the Ukrain- ian following contemporary Soviet orthography: Kiev Dnieper, the Crimea, Odessa, Donbass and Transcarpathia are exceptions. Towns are identified in the various chapters by the name current in the period under study with their contemporary equivalents, where applicable, given in brackets the first time they are mentioned. Proper names of Ukrainians will be transliterated from the Ukrain- ian. Names of prominent figures (such as Trotsky, Mazeppa) will be written in their customary English form. Dates, unless otherwise specified, refer to the new calendar. All measurements, unless other- wise indicated, refer to the metric system. xii Glossary cc Central Committee chinovnik official or functionary in pre-revolutionary Russia CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPU Communist Party of Ukraine dvoriane nobility DVU Derzhavne vydavnytstvo Ukrainy, State Publishing House of Ukraine edinonachalie one-man management Gosplan Gosudarstvennaia planovaia komissiia; State Planning Commission guberniia province intelligent member of the intelligentsia komnezamy Komitety nezamozhnykh selian; Committees of Poor Peasants kustar’ peasant engaged in domestic or cottage industry likpunkt Punkt likvidatsii nepys’mennosty. Centre for the Elimination of Illiteracy miasteczko small town in the Polish Commonwealth mishchany townsmen Narkomos Narodnii komisariiat osvity. People’s Commissariat of Education NEP Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika; New Economic Policy xiii ' xiv Glossary NKVD Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del; People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs obkom oblastnoi komitet; party oblast committee obrok quit-rent okruh region (similar to departement) ONR Orhanizovanyi nabir robitnykiv\ Organized Recruitment
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