Patriotism and the Soviet Empire: Ukraine Views the Socialist States of Eastern Europe, 1956-1985 Zbigniew Wojnowski UCL PhD in History 2 Zbigniew Wojnowski Declaration I, Zbigniew Wojnowski, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. .......................... .......................... Date Signature 3 Zbigniew Wojnowski Abstract This thesis explores the repercussions of the establishment of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe in the USSR itself, especially Ukraine. In order to trace the changing character and claims of national and supra-national identities in the different regions of Ukraine, I identify various „official‟ contexts in which Soviet citizens discussed and observed developments in the satellite states. I argue that Soviet portrayals of Eastern Europe were inconsistent and even contradictory, shaped as they were by complex interactions between party officials in Moscow, Kyiv, and the provinces. From the Hungarian uprising in 1956 to the Solidarity crisis in the early 1980s, CPSU leaders perceived ethnic diversity as a threat to Soviet stability. They sponsored various images of the people‟s democracies to promote Soviet patriotism, which they mobilised to bridge or even obliterate ethnic divisions in the USSR. Yet they never agreed upon a common definition of the Soviet „patriot‟, outlining various roles which workers, non-Russian intellectuals, and west Ukrainians would play in the unified „Soviet‟ community. Influenced by events in the people‟s democracies, they variously framed „Soviet‟ identity in ethnically exclusive East Slavic terms or in the rhetoric of „working class solidarity‟. My thesis demonstrates that the „diffusion‟ of ideas across borders, alongside modernisation and social mobilisation, was a crucial factor which contributed towards the rise of Soviet patriotism in Ukraine. Through contrasting a homogeneous „Soviet nation‟ to other peoples of Eastern Europe, party leaders inadvertently encouraged Soviet Jews, Poles, Hungarians, and Ukrainians to protect their linguistic and cultural interests more vigorously. However, with „official Ukrainianness‟ increasingly confined to the sphere of low- culture, most residents of the republic downplayed their ethnic identities and identified themselves as „Soviet‟. Thus, they sought to ease access to information and obtain material benefits from the state. 4 Zbigniew Wojnowski Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….3 Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………5 Note on Spelling and Transliteration…………………………………………………6 List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………7 Introduction………………………………..…………………………………………8 Chapter One. De-Stalinisation and Soviet Patriotism: Ukrainian Reactions to East European Unrest in 1956……………………………………………………………57 Chapter Two. National Supremacy: Soviet Travels in Eastern Europe…………...106 Chapter Three. A Matter of Soviet Pride: The Prague Spring and the Rupture of Soviet Identities in Ukraine………………………………………………………..139 Chapter Four. Soviet Patriots and the Cossacks: Poland as a „National Enemy‟ in Soviet Ukraine……………………………………………………………………..192 Chapter Five. The Elites and the Workers: Polish Solidarity and the Unifying Force of Soviet Patriotism in Ukraine……………………………………………………229 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………265 Appendix A………………………………………………………………………..274 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….283 5 Zbigniew Wojnowski Acknowledgments There are many people without whom I would never have been able to complete this thesis. My supervisor, Susan Morrissey, has brought out the best in me. She has provided detailed and insightful feedback, given me the confidence to defend my point of view, and helped me to keep my head above water as I was drowning in the sea of archival documents. Andrew Wilson, Polly Jones, Geoffrey Hosking, Richard Butterwick, Rory Finnin, Kristin Roth-Ey, Volodymyr Dmytruk, Volodymyr Kulyk, and Natalia Rubliova have commented on my work at different stages, inspiring me to delve deeper into the intricacies of Soviet and Ukrainian history. I have also learnt a great deal from other postgraduate students at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and colleagues I met during conferences and research trips. My friends and relatives in the UK, Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Canada have kept me sane during the last four years (here I should also thank the Lord John Russell). In particular, I would like to mention my housemates Claire Shaw, Anna Prymakova, Dragana Obradovic, Alex Nice and Digby Levitt who have patiently put up with my rambling on about Soviet Ukraine. I would further like to express gratitude to my undergraduate students who, in asking insightful questions and showing enthusiasm for the subject, have not let me lose sight of the broader problems in East European history. Library and archive staff at SSEES, the British Library, RGANI, GARF, TsDAHO, DAKO, DALO, DAOO and SWPW have been very helpful. I am especially grateful to Liudmila Ivanovna Stepanich who told many a fascinating story over lunch in the RGANI canteen. I would also like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies which have provided funding for this project. Last but not least, I would like to express heartfelt thanks to my parents and sister who have always been supportive and encouraging. 6 Zbigniew Wojnowski Note on Spelling and Transliteration I use the Library of Congress transliteration system for Russian and Ukrainian. Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak terms have been anglicised to exclude diacritics. For the sake of consistency, all place names in Ukraine are given in the Ukrainian version. They therefore differ from some well-established forms which the English reader may be accustomed to: I have, for example, chosen to write Kyiv, L‟viv and Odesa rather than Kiev, L‟vov and Odessa. Wherever the sources allow me to ascertain that a particular individual lived in Soviet Ukraine, I cite names, patronymics and surnames in the Ukrainian form. I thus refer to Volodymyr Shcherbyts‟kyi rather than Vladimir Shcherbitskii. In ambiguous cases, such as the member of the CPU Central Committee in Kyiv Mykola Pidhornyi who then became better known as Nikolai Podgornyi after moving to the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow, I provide both versions. 7 Zbigniew Wojnowski List of Abbreviations CDSP – Current Digest of the Soviet Press CPC – Communist Party of Czechoslovakia CPSU – Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPU – Communist Party of Ukraine CPWU – Communist Party of Western Ukraine DAKO – Derzhavnyi arkhiv Kyivs‟koi oblasti (State Archive of Kyiv Oblast) DALO – Derzhavnyi arkhiv L‟vivs‟koi oblasti (State Archive of L‟viv Oblast) DAOO – Derzhavnyi arkhiv Odes‟koi oblasti (State Archive of Odesa Oblast) DSUP – Digest of the Soviet Ukrainian Press GARF – Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation) KhTS – Khronika tekushchikh sobytii (Chronicle of Current Events) MS – Materialy samizdata (Samizdat Materials) PUWP – Polish United Workers‟ Party RGANI – Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (Russian State Archive of Contemporary History) SDS – Sobranie dokumentov samizdata (Collection of Samizdat Documents) SWPW – Stowarzyszenie wspolpracy Polska-Wschod (Union for Cooperation between Poland and the East) TsDAHO – Tsentral‟nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv hromads'kykh ob‟‟ednan‟ Ukrainy (Central State Archive of Social Organisations of Ukraine) 8 Introduction The establishment of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe had far-reaching and unexpected consequences in the USSR itself, especially the western borderlands. Between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s, as the people‟s democracies diverged from the Soviet model and yet remained close „socialist‟ allies of the USSR, they provided a testing ground for Soviet policies and ideas, as well as an example of socio-political innovation which, as Roman Szporluk puts it, „subverted the position of the Soviet Union as the one prototype of the socialist future of mankind‟.1 In this way, the „outer empire‟ inspired diverse attitudes towards the Soviet regime among the population of the USSR and, more broadly, gave rise to different notions of what it meant to be Soviet. Eastern Europe helped to imbue the concept of Sovietness with undertones of power and international prestige. As early as the 1940s, the Soviet media began to claim that the people‟s democracies were grateful to their Soviet „liberators‟, with foreign workers admiring the Soviet social system and Stalin.2 After the mid-1950s, the rising mass media coverage of the socialist camp, the emerging ideology and practices of international travel and the celebration of particular historical anniversaries fostered a widespread sense of Soviet superiority. Official narratives stressed the importance of the „Soviet people‟ in guiding Eastern Europe on the path of progress, protecting the satellite states from „west German revanchism‟ and „American imperialism‟, as well as rebuking „anti-Soviet‟ opinions and attitudes which arose in the outer empire. They thus depicted the countries of the Warsaw Pact as reliant on the USSR for ideological guidance, economic help and military security. The authorities implied that the USSR was more powerful, stable and advanced than its junior partners from the socialist camp. At the same time, however, events and developments in the outer empire undermined the image of