Politics and Society in Soviet Ukraine 1953-1980
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OUTICS AND SOCIETY H BORYS LEWYTZKYJ The author of numerous books and scholarly articles, Borys Lewytzkyj is an established authority on Soviet affairs. Born in Vienna in 1915, he became well known as a publicist and journalist as chief editor of the newspaper Nove Selo (1936-9) in Lviv. During the Second World War, he was active in the Ukrainian Democratic Revolutionary Party (UDRP), led by Ivan Mitringa, which took part in the resistance movement against the German occupants. Emigrating to Munich after the war, Dr. Lewytzkyj became joint-editor of the UDRP organ Vpered from 1949 to 1956, contributing a variety of articles about contemporary life in the USSR. Since 1952, he has supplied informa¬ tion to the West German Social Democratic Party about Soviet affairs. Dr. Lewytzkyj has his own private research bureau in Munich. Continued on back flap POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN SOVIET UKRAINE 1953-1980 Borys Lewytzkyj Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies University of Alberta Edmonton 1984 Copyright ® 1984 Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Second Printing, 1987 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Lewytzkyj, Borys. Politics and society in Soviet Ukraine, 1953-80 (The Canadian library in Ukrainian studies) Includes index. ISBN 0-920862-31-4 (bound). — ISBN 0-920862-33-0 (pbk.) 1. Ukraine—Politics and government—1917- 2. Ukraine—Social conditions. I. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. II. Title. III. Series. DK508.8.L49 1984 947\71085 C83-091489-7 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. Cover design: Sherryl Petterson Index: Lubomyr Szuch Printed in Canada Distributed by the University of Toronto Press 5201 Dufferin St. Downsview, Ontario Canada M3H 5T8 Contents Preface ix Chapter One: From Stalin’s Death to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU (1953-6) 1 Chapter Two: The Impact of the Twentieth CPSU Congress 11 Chapter Three: Cultural Unrest and Economic Reform 41 Chapter Four: Khrushchev’s Fall and Shelest’s Career 92 Chapter Five: Shcherbytsky Heads the CPU 147 Chapter Six: Society 169 Conclusion 203 Index 207 Preface Among the fifteen republics which constitute the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic is second only to the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in importance. With only 3 per cent of Soviet territory, Ukraine, according to the latest census results, accounts for 19 per cent of the Soviet Union’s population. Ukraine plays a leading economic role in the multinational state, accounting for one-fifth of Soviet national income. Its per capita output of coal, gas, ferrous metals, diesel locomotives, tractors and combine harvesters is higher than that of any Western European country. It produces over 50 per cent of the Soviet Union’s iron ore, about half of its coke and iron, 40 per cent of its steel and about one-third of its coal. Over 20 per cent of the Soviet Union’s agricultural produce is produced by Ukrainian farmers in¬ cluding more than 23 per cent of field crops and 21 per cent of livestock. In grain and milk production Ukraine is second in the USSR. In this study, however, economic issues, though not ignored, are secondary to the republic’s political, social and cultural development in the twenty-five-year period after Stalin’s death in 1953. Soviet leaders maintain that the nationality problem has been solved satisfactorily and even recommend their treatment of the non-Russian peoples as a model for other multinational states. So far no country in the socialist camp has accepted this “export offer.” Czechoslovakia follows its own nationality policy and the Yugoslav solution is almost the antithesis of the Soviet model. Undeterred, Soviet propaganda proclaims that Moscow’s example is being emulated with great success in the Third World. In Biafra the Soviet Union did all it could to annihilate the separatist movement. In Iraq it helped to “solve” the perennial Kurdish problem by supplying weapons to crush the rebels. In Ethiopia the battle against the Eritrean liberation movement is being fought with Soviet aid. In each case the Soviet Union has tried to subjugate the national groups within its unitary client-states to the central pro-Soviet regimes. Clearly it has not X Borys Lewytzkyj promoted national self-determination and independent development. This book analyzes Moscow’s nationality policy in the Ukrainian republic in recent years. Part one covers three distinct historical phases. The first phase (1953-64) coincides approximately with the period when Nikita Khrushchev enjoyed supreme power. It analyzes the consequences of Khrushchev’s policies for the Ukrainian SSR. The second phase began with the period preceding Khrushchev’s fall (in October 1964) and lasted until 1972. It encompasses the leadership of Petro Shelest, who was elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CC CPU) in 1963. The third phase, beginning with Shelest’s fall in 1972, saw the ascendancy of hard-line policies and increased centralism and Russification. This shift to the right in Soviet policy emerged with particular clarity after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. It was symbolized by the much-quoted concept of the “Soviet people” as a new historical national entity: an idea that is used to promote the assimilation of the peoples of the USSR. Part two analyzes events and developments in the social, economic and cultural life of contemporary Ukraine. Part three reviews and summarizes parts one and two. Many aspects of Ukrainian history have been treated only briefly, and some topics have been omitted altogether. The course taken by the Ukrainian economy from 1953-78, for example, justifies a separate study. I have merely highlighted the main developments in this field. This study is based mainly on Soviet source material from the author’s archives rather than the works of Western specialists. I wish to thank my assistant, Elwine Sprogis, my translator, Roy Glashan, Dr. Bohdan Krawchenko, David Marples and Peter Matilainen of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, and many colleagues who have given me the benefit of their professional advice and helped me to obtain additional source material. Borys Lewytzkyj Munich, January 1982 Chapter One From Stalin’s Death to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU (1953-6) The Situation in Ukraine, March 1953 Until Stalin’s death in March 1953, a hard-line ideological policy was in force aimed at eradicating all possible Western influence in the arts and sciences, in education and literature, and in other fields. The policy was enunciated by Stalin’s close associate, Andrei Zhdanov, immediately after the Second World War, and thus bore the name Zhdanovshchina. Although Zhdanov died in 1948, the course he charted continued up to Stalin’s death. The policy was justified as follows: During the war years several million people lived in the territory temporarily occupied by the enemy. Millions were deported to Germany by Hitler’s fascists. Many members of the Soviet Army were prisoners of war. The Hitlerite fascists tried to influence these people ideologically. During the anti-fascist liberation campaign Soviet troops advanced far into the West, and elements of the armed forces remained on the territory of capitalist states, where the forces of reaction strove to influence the Soviet soldiers by all manner of methods. The Hitlerite fascists left behind bourgeois-nationalist groups in the western regions of Ukraine and Belorussia and in the Baltic republics to conduct anti-Soviet agitation among the population. A pernicious ideological influence was exerted on the Soviet people through all these and 2 Borys Lewytzkyj other channels. The majority spurned the reactionary bourgeois views that such elements tried to impose on them, but part of the population lacked ideological education and displayed an uncritical attitude toward capitalist conditions.1 Since the Germans had occupied virtually all Ukraine, the campaign to eradicate “Hitlerite” influence in the republic was widespread. The Zhdanov policy was implemented through several decrees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).2 Similar decrees approved by the Ukrainian central party organs in 1946-8 criticized national deviation in literature, drama, music and historical scholarship.3 In consequence, hundreds of intellectuals were persecuted, among them such outstanding literary figures as Maksym Rylsky, Volodymyr Sosiura and Ostap Vyshnia.4 Integral to Zhdanovshchina was the concept of the Russian people as the “master race.” This was initiated on 24 May 1945 during a Kremlin reception for officers at which Stalin offered a “historic” toast: “I drink to the health of the Russian people not only because it is a leading people but also because it possesses a clear understanding, a steadfast character and patience.”5 During Zhdanovshchina a wave of “Great-Russian chauvinism” acquired grotesque forms and elicited considerable derision abroad. The party ordered Soviet scientists to prove that the most important discoveries in human history were made by Russians. Soviet historians were forced to glorify tsarist policies and colonial conquests and to label reactionary the movements against Russification. Historians in the national republics were obliged to maintain that annexation by tsarist Russia represented not imperialist expansion but “voluntary union.” In the last years of Zhdanovshchina, the campaigns against “cosmopolitans,” “bourgeois nationalists” and “Zionists” intensified. The number of Jews in Ukraine was then relatively high (840,300 according to the 1959 census), and exhortations to “struggle against Jewish bourgeois nationalists and Zionists” fell on fertile soil. Agitation against Zionists soon turned into anti-Semitism, with purges of alleged Zionists in government and the persecution of Ukrainian Jews. Prominent victims of this “struggle” were L.