Lesson 2

Liberation efforts of 1914-1921. Revival of the Ukrainian state.

Ukraine between the two World Wars.
Plan
1. Ukrainians in the First World War.
2. Revolution in Ukraine.
3. Ukraine in the first years of USSR.
4. Industrialization of Ukraine. Collectivization.
5. The famine. Great Purge

1. Ukrainians in the First World War

World War I also known as the First World War was a global military
conflict which involved most of the world's great powers,[1] assembled in two
opposing alliances: the Allies of World War I centred around the Triple
Entente (initially consisted of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia)and
the Central Powers (initially consisted of the German Empire, the Austrian-
Hungarian Empire), centred around the Triple Alliance.[2] More than 70 million
military personnel were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. [3] More
than 15 million people were killed, making it one of thedeadliest conflicts in
history.[4] During the conflict, the industrial and scientific capabilities of the main
combatants were entirely devoted to the war effort.
The assassination, on 28 June 1914, of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, is seen as the immediate trigger
of the war, though long-term causes, such as imperialistic foreign policy, played a
major role. The archduke's assassination at the hands of Serbian nationalist Gavrilo
Princip resulted in demands against the Kingdom of Serbia.[5] Several alliances that
had been formed over the past decades were invoked, so within weeks the major
powers were at war; with all having colonies, the conflict soon spread around the
world.
By the war's end in 1918, four major imperial powers—
the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires—had been
militarily and politically defeated, with the last two ceasing to exist as autonomous
entities.[6] The revolutionized Soviet Union emerged from the Russian Empire,
while the map of central Europe was completely redrawn into numerous smaller
states.[7] The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such
conflict. The European nationalism spawned by the war, the repercussions of
Germany's defeat, and the Treaty of Versailles would eventually lead to the
beginning of World War II in 1939.[
 Upon the outbreak of the First World War, the name Ukraine was used only
geographically, as the term did not exist nationally. The territory that made up the
modern country of Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire with a notable
southwestern region administered by Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the border
dating to the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
However as the border did not undermine the ethnic composition of Europe,
both Empires towards the latter 19th century, on the tide of rising national
awareness of the period attempted to exert their influence on the adjacent territory.
For the Russian Empire, viewed Ukrainians as Little Russians and had support of
the large Russophile community among the Ukrainian population in Halychyna.
Austria on the contrary supported the late-19th century rise in Ukrainian
Nationalism. Ultimately for both empires Western Ukraine was but a pawn in a
major standoff for the Balkans and the Slavic Orthodox population it harboured.
Religion also played a key role in the standoff. When Russia and
Austria partitioned Poland at the end of the 18th century, they inherited
largelyEastern-rite Catholic populations. Russia went to great lengths to revert the
population to Orthodoxy, often peacefully, but at times forcibly (as took place
in Chelm)
The final factor was that by 1914, Ukrainian nationalism had matured to a
point where it could significantly influence the future of the region. As a result of
this nationalism and of the other main sources of Russo-Austrian confrontations,
including Polish and Romanian lands, both empires eventually lost these disputed
territories when these territories formed new, independent states.
The Russian advance into Halychyna began in August 1914. During the
offensive, the Russian army successfully pushed the Austrians right up to
the Carpathian ridge effectively capturing all of the lowland territory, and fulfiling
their long aspirations of annexing the territory.
Ukrainians were split into two separate and opposing armies. 3.5 million
fought with the Imperial Russian Army, while 250,000 fought for theAustro-
Hungarian Army. Many Ukrainians thus ended up fighting each other. Also, many
Ukrainian civilians suffered as armies shot and killed them after accusing them of
collaborating with opposing armies.
The Ukrainian Austrian internment was part of the confinement of enemy
aliens in Austria during World War I. Central Camp Talerhof(German: Thalerhof)
was a concentration camp operated by the Austro-Hungarian imperial government
between 1914 and 1917 in the Austrian province of Styria.
Central Camp Talerhof 1914-1917
Over twenty thousand Ukrainian Moscophiles were arrested and imprisoned
in the camp and in the fortress of Terezín, Bohemia. The camp housed
primarily Russophile individuals and families from Halychyna. All were suspected
of collaboration with the advancing tsarist Russian Armythat had
invaded Halychyna at the outset of World War I.
The first group of prisoners was transported to Talerhof by soldiers of
Austrian regiment of Graz on September, 4, 1914. Until the winter of 1915, there
were no barracks in Talerhof; prisoners slept in the open air on the ground.
On November, 9, 1914, according to the official report of Field Marshal
Schleer, there were 5700 Ukrainians and Lemkos in Talerhof. In total, 20,000
people were prisoners from September 4, 1914 to May 10, 1917.
In the first year and a half, three thousand prisoners died. In addition, tens of
thousands of Ukrainians and Lemkos were victims of reprisals carried out by
Austro-Hungarian authorities in the Western Ukraine during World War I. In May
1917, the camp was closed by order of EmperorCharles I (r. 1916-1918).

Modern Ukraine's borders superimposed on the 1912

administrative division of the Russian and Austrian Empires

Eastern Front on the verge of conflict in 1914

 Eastern Front, September 1914.

The consequences of the First World War of 1914-1918 for Ukrainians, who
had to fight for both belligerent parties, were tragic. During the whole war
Halychyna appeared the arena of the biggest and bloodshed battles on the Eastern
front, its population got awful damages from destructions and devastation, caused
by the war actions, and roughness of Russian and Austrian command.
But together with physical losses the war even greater worsened the fate of
Ukrainians, who did not have own state, which could defense their particular
interests. The great amount of Ukrainians (in Russian army it was amounted 3.5
mln of Ukrainian soldiers and 250 thousand served in Austrian forces) fought and
died for empires, which not only ignored their nation interests, but also active tried,
as in particular Russia, to eliminate their national movement. The worst was that
Ukrainians as the participants of fight from both parties were forced to kill each
other.
All Ukrainian cultural establishments, cooperative and periodic editions were
closed by order of tsar authority of Russia. There were implemented restrictions to
use Ukrainian language and made attempts to apply Russian language at schools.
Especially massive attacks had Greece Catholic Church – the symbol of western
Ukrainian originality. Hundreds of Greece catholic priests were removed to Russia,
instead there were put Orthodox priests, who inclined peasants to Orthodoxy.
Metropolitan Andrew Sheptitskiy, who refused to save himself from the Russians
by escape, was arrested and taken to the city Suzdal. But Russians had no time to
execute finally their plans, as the Austrians launched to counter-offensive and up to
the May 1915 retook the most part of eastern Halychyna. Going back, tsar forces
took in hostages several hundreds of outstanding Ukrainian figures and evacuated
thousands of people, including many Russophiles, role of which in Ukrainian
policy finished.
2. Revolution in Ukraine
 3. Map of the West Ukrainian People's
Republic

During World War I the western Ukrainian people were situated between
Austria-Hungary and Russia. Ukrainian villages were regularly destroyed in the
crossfire. Ukrainians could be found participating on both sides of the conflict.
In Halychyna, over twenty thousand Ukrainians who were suspected of being
sympathetic to Russian interests were arrested and placed in Austrian
concentration camps, both in Talerhof, Styria and inTerezín fortress (now in
the Czech Republic).
The brutality did not end with the end of the First World War for Ukrainians.
Fighting actually escalated with the beginning of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The revolution began a civil war within the Russian Empire and much of the
fighting took place in the Ukrainian provinces. Many atrocities occurred during the
civil war as the Red, White, Polish, Ukrainian, and allied armies marched
throughout the country. The Jewishsuffered the most as Cossack gangs raped,
looted, and massacred many Jewish communities. Other villages experienced
raping, looting, and killing but not to the same scale as the Jewish communities.
There were two attempts during this period where the Ukrainians tried to
become their own state. One was at the city of Kiev and the other inLviv but
neither gained enough traction to work and they both failed.
The 1919 Treaty of Versailles gave away Ukrainian land to other European
countries. In the west, Halychyna and western Volyn» were given toPoland.
The Kingdom of Romania received the Bukovina province.
Czechoslovakia gained Uzhhorod and Mukachevo. The remaining central
and eastern Ukrainian provinces were given to the Soviet Union. As a result of
World War I and the Russian Civil War, Ukrainians saw all of their land given to
other countries and 1.5 million had lost their lives.
With the collapse of the Russian and Austrian empires following World War
I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ukrainian national movement for self-
determination emerged again. During 1917–20 several separate Ukrainian states
briefly emerged: the Central Rada, the Hetmanate, the Directorate, the Ukrainian
People's Republic and the West Ukrainian People's Republic. However, with the
defeat of the latter in the Polish-Ukrainian War and the failure of the Polish Kiev
Offensive (1920) of the Polish-Soviet War, the Peace of Ryha concluded in March
1921 betweenPoland and Bolsheviks left Ukraine divided again. The western part
of Halychyna had been incorporated into the newly organized Second Polish
Republic, incorporating territory claimed or controlled by the
ephemeral Komancza Republic and the Lemko-Rusyn Republic. The larger, central
and eastern part, established as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in March
1919, later became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, when it was formed
in December 1922.
News about the collapse of Russian tsar regime reached Kyiv on March 13
1917. For several days the representatives of the most important establishments
and organizations of the city founded Executive committee, which had to keep
order and act on the behalf of Temporary government ofRussia. At the same time
Kyiv Rada of working and soldiers deputies became the center of radically
disposed lefts. But opposite to the events inPetrograd, in Kyiv the third active
person came out the arena: on March 17 Ukrainians founded Central Rada. It was
established by moderate liberals from the Association of Ukrainian progressives
under the leading of Evgen Chykalenko, Sergiy Efremov and Dmytro Doroshenko
together with social demokrates at the head of Volodymyr Vynnychenko and
Symon Petlyura. Mykhaylo Hrushevskiy – well known, authoritative figure, who
returned from deportation, was elected the president of the Central Rada. So unlike
Russians, in Kyiv the Ukrainians of all ideal persuasion gathered in one
representative body.

Ukrainian Central Rada

Mykhailo Hrushevsky
 Hrushevsky on fifty hryvnia note

When defenselessness of the Temporary government became more obvious,

the Central Rada decided to use its advantages. To gain the recognition of the
highest political force in Ukraine, on June 19 1917 it issued the First universal,
which declared: “So be Ukraine free. Not separating finally from Russia and not
breaking connections with Russian state, let’s Ukrainian people receive the right to
dispose on their own their life on their land”. Volodymyr Vynnychenko, who took
responsibility to govern Ukraine, headed General Secretariat, consisting mainly
from social democrats.
On November 7 (October 25 according to Julian stile) 1917 in Petrograd the
Bolsheviks threw off the Temporary government and took authority in their hands.
The Bolsheviks mainly concentrated in the industrial centers of Russia and
in Ukraine they had scantly influence, mostly in Donbas. So among almost 2
million workers of Ukrainians the supporters of the Bolshevik accounted tiny
percent. Besides, as Bolshevik’s program was mainly turned to proletariat, among
which the Ukrainians were slightly represented, it attracted them a little.
As most of Russians in Ukrainians, the Bolsheviks with enmity attituded to
the Ukrainian movement. For one of outstanding Bolshevik Christian Rakovskiy it
was problematically to define even the fact of existence of Ukrainian nation. About
the spread of such facts inside the party evidenced one of few outstanding
Ukrainian Bolshevik Mykola Skripnik: “For the most members of our
party Ukraine did nit exist as national unit”.
But the leader of the Bolshevik’s party and revolution and the head of the
government of Russia Volodymyr Lenin was too much careful politicians, to allow
such approaches to form the party’s course. He understood that the nationalism
was powerful force, which the party could user. It is why he formulated rather
tangled state that the Bolshevik should acknowledge and accept the execution of
the right of oppressed nations for the cultural development and self-government,
till the time – in that place there was very important warning – while it did not
hindered proletarian revolution. For example, if Ukrainian nationalism led to the
separation of Ukrainian workers from Russian, and that according to Lenin
constituted bourgeois nationalism, with which it was necessary to fight. In other
words, in theory national aspiration of Ukrainians was not defined and in practice
they were through away.
After the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, the question about who would
govern Ukraine arose. As they had not enough power for defeatingCentral
Rada and supporters of the Temporary government in Kyiv, which gathered around
the army headquarters, the Bolsheviks decided to maintain good relations with
Ukrainians for some time, trying at the same time to be through with army
headquarters.
But Bolsheviks were stunned when the Central Rada declared, that it took the
supreme power in all nine provinces, where the Ukrainians amounted the majority.
Formally it was confirmed by its Third universal dated July 7 1917, which declared
the establishment of autonomousUkrainian Republic. Still not dare to break off
relations with Russia, the Central Rada declared about of its aim – to create in
former Russian empire federation of free and equitable nation.

Map of the Ukrainian

People's Republic

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

 Vladimir Lenin addressing a crowd in 1920.

From northern east 12 thousand Bolshevik forces at the head of commanders

Volodymyr Antonov-Ovsientko and Myhail Muravyov moved to Ukraine. Against
them the Ukrainian military Minister Symon Petlyura had scattered in different
places 15 fighters, consisting of peasant army of “free Cossacks”, former prisoners
of war from Halychyna and several hundreds of Kyiv gymnasia pupils, which went
to front straight from the school.

Symon Petliura

To the east from the city Kruty (modern Chernigiv region) in the last great
fight with the approaching forces of Muravyov faced detachments of Petlyura.
After desperate fights the Ukrainians had to step back. 300 of gymnasium pupils
got into encirclement, they all died, their death got honorable place for them in the
Ukrainian national pantheon.
Seven incomplete years of war and social distempers led subordinated to
Bolsheviks territories of former Russian empire to the state of ruins. Only
in Ukraine battles, shootings and epidemics, connected with the First World and
civil Wars, took over 1,5 people. Shortage of food, fuels, unemployment forced
hundred thousand people to go out from city to village. Industrial production was
almost cut off.
3. Ukraine in the first years of USSR

Flag Coat of arms

 The Moscow Kremlin, the official residence of the government of the USSR.

Soviet Union administrative divisions, 1989

Geographic location of various ethnic

groups within the Soviet Union in 1941

The Soviet Union is traditionally considered to be the successor of

the Russian Empire and of its short-lived successor, The Provisional
Government under Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov and then Alexander Kerensky. The
last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled until March, 1917 when the Empire was
overthrown and a short-lived Russian provisional government took power, the
latter to be overthrown in November 1917 by Vladimir Lenin. From 1917 to 1922,
the predecessor to the Soviet Union was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist
Republic (RSFSR), which was an independent country, as were other Soviet
republics at the time. The Soviet Union was officially established in December
1922 as the union of theRussian (colloquially known as Bolshevist
Russia), Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics ruled
by Bolshevik parties.
On December 28, 1922 a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from
the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and
the Belorussian SSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the
Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. These two documents were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of
the USSR and signed by heads of delegations - Mikhail Kalinin, Mikha
Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze and Grigory Petrovsky, Aleksandr
Chervyakov respectively on December 30, 1922. On February 1, 1924, the USSR
was recognized by the British Empire. Also in 1924, a Soviet Constitution was
approved which further legitimized the December 1922 union of the Russian
SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Belarusian SSR, and the Transcaucasian SFSR to
form the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR).
The intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the
country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was
performed according to Bolshevik Initial Decrees, documents of the Soviet
government, signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs
was the GOELRO plan, that envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet
economy based on total electrification of the country. The Plan was developed in
1920 and covered a ten to 15 year period. It included construction of a network of
30 regional power plants, including ten large hydroelectric power plants, and
numerous electric-powered large industrial enterprises.] The Plan became the
prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was basically fulfilled by 1931.
Subordinated to Moscow communist party fully controlled the Ukrainian
soviet government, though it could not dismiss or swallow it up. So till 1923 soviet
government of Ukraine separately from soviet Russia maintained foreign relations
(it concluded 48 own agreements), had foreign trade and even began to initiate the
ground of separate Ukrainian army.
With the purpose to demonstrate voluntariness of union, Lenin suggested to
give each republic consisting Russia the right of free exit from it. This term was
stipulated in the constitution of 1924. Prerogatives of the government were
determined in such way: some operations remained exclusively in the area
of Ukraine’s responsibilities, others were divided between Ukrainian and Russian
(Moscow) ministers, and others were solved by union government. Such way the
Ukrainian soviet government on the territory of republic theoretically had
jurisdiction under agriculture, internal affairs, legislation, education, health defense
and social providing. External affairs, army, fleet, transport, foreign trade,
communication were referred to exclusively competence of union government,
located in Moscow.
Joining to the structure of Soviet Union, Ukrainian republic became the
second its component in size. It took territory of 450 thousand square km. and had
population over 26 mln people. The capital of the country became Kharkiv, which
as against Kyiv, was not closely connected with former national governments.
The first facilities of Ukrainian government in the field of culture and
education had the purpose to extend the use of Ukrainian language, especially in
the party and government. Necessity of this was obvious: in 1922 on one member
of Comparty of Ukraine referred seven of those who spoke Russian, and in the
government this proportion amounted one to three. In August 1923 with the
purpose to eliminate this disproportion party and government officials received
direction to pass specially organized courses of Ukrainian language. To those who
did not manage to pass it successfully threatened dismissal. In 1925 the officials
received direction to use Ukrainian language in all government letters and
publications. In 1927 it was announced that all party documentation should be in
Ukrainian. Contrary to the absence of significant enthusiasm in numerous
nonukrainian members of the government and the party, new policy gave striking
affect. If in 1922 less than 20 % were handled in Ukrainian, in 1927 it were 70 %
of such documents.
Similar rebirth felt Ukrainian press, which was cruelty oppressed by tsar
regime and for which the first steps of soviet authority were not the best. In 1922
among all published books in Ukraine only 27% were issued in Ukrainian, among
all newspapers and documents in Ukrainian published only 10 items. Up to 1927
more than a half of books published in Ukrainian, in 1933 from 433 newspapers of
the republic 373 were issued in Ukrainian. Ukrainian.
4. Industrialization of Ukraine. Collectivization.
This period of the Soviet Union was dominated by Joseph Stalin, who
sought to reshape Soviet society with aggressive economic planning, in particular a
sweeping collectivization of agriculture and development of industrial power. He
also constructed a massive bureaucracy, which arguably is responsible for millions
of deaths as a result of various purges and collectivization efforts. During his time
as leader of the USSR, Stalin made frequent use of his secret police, GULAGs (the
government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union ),
and nearly unlimited power to reshape Soviet society.

Joseph Stalin

At the 15th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in

December 1927, Stalin attacked the left by expelling Leon Trotsky and his
supporters from the party and then moving against the right by
abandoning Lenin's New Economic Policy which had been championed by Nikolai
Bukharin and Alexei Ivanovich Rykov. Warning delegates of an impending
capitalist encirclement, he insisted that survival and development could only occur
by pursuing the rapid development of heavy industry. Stalin remarked that
the Soviet Union was "fifty to a hundred years behind the advanced countries"
(the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, etc.), and thus must
narrow "this distance in ten years." In a speech foreboding World War II, Stalin
declared, "Either we do it or we shall be crushed."
To oversee the radical transformation of the Soviet Union, the party, under
Stalin's direction, established Gosplan (the State General Planning Commission), a
state organization responsible for guiding the socialist economy toward accelerated
industrialization. In April 1929 Gosplan released two drafts that began the process
that would industrialize the primarily agrarian nation. This 1,700 page report
became the basis the First Five-Year Plan for National Economic Construction,
or Piatiletka, calling for the doubling of Soviet capital stock between 1928 and
1933.

"Let's Turn the Five-Year-Plan into a Four-Year

One" (Gustav Klutsis, 1930)
The new economic system put forward by the first Five−Year plan entailed a
complicated series of planning arrangement. The first Five−Year plan focused on
the mobilization of natural resources to build up the country's heavy industrial base
by increasing output of coal, iron, and other vital resources. Despite the high
human cost, this process was largely successful, and caused long−term industrial
growth more rapid than any country in history.
The mobilization of resources by state planning augmented the country's
industrial base. From 1928 to 1932, pig iron output, necessary for further
development of the industrial infrastructure rose from 3.3 million to 6.2 million
tons per year. Coal, the integral product fueling modern economies and
Stalinist industrialization, successfully rose from 35.4 million to 64 million tons,
and output of iron ore rose from 5.7 million to 19 million tons. A number of
industrial complexes such as Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk,
the Moscow and Gorky automobile plants, the Urals and Kramatorsk
heavy machinery plants, and Kharkov, Stalingrad and Cheliabinsk tractor plants
had been built or were under construction.
In real terms, the workers' standards of living tended to drop, rather than rise
during the industrialisation. Stalin's laws to “tighten work discipline” made the
situation worse: e.g. a 1932 change to the RSFSR labor law code enabled firing
workers who had been absent without a reason from the work place for just one
day. Being fired accordingly meant losing “the right to use ration and commodity
cards” as well as the “loss of the right to use an apartment″ and even blacklisted for
new employment which altogether meant a threat of starving. Those measures,
however, were not fully enforced, as managers often desperately needed to hire
new workers. In contrast, the 1938 legislation, which introduced labor books,
followed by major revisions of the labor law, were enforced. For example, being
absent or even 20 minutes late were grounds for becoming fired; managers who
failed to enforce these laws faced criminal prosecution. Later, the Decree of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 26 June 1940 “On the Transfer to the Eight-Hour
Working Day, the Seven-day Work Week, and on the Prohibition of Unauthorized
Departure by Laborers and Office Workers from Factories and Offices″ replaced
the 1938 revisions with obligatory criminal penalties for quitting a job (2–4 months
imprisonment), for being late 20 minutes (6 months of probation and pay
confiscation of 25 per cent) etc.
Based largely on these figures the Soviet government declared that Five
Year Industrial Production Plan had been fulfilled by 93.7 percent in only four
years, while parts devoted to heavy−industry part were fulfilled by 108%. Stalin in
December 1932 declared the plan a success to the Central Committee, since
increases in the output of coal and iron would fuel future development.
During the second five−year plan (1933–37), on the basis of the huge
investment during the first plan, industry expanded extremely rapidly, and nearly
reached the plan. By 1937 coal output was 127 million tons, pig iron 14.5 million
tons, and there had been very rapid developments in the armaments industry.
While undoubtedly marking a tremendous leap in industrial capacity, the
first Five Year Plan was extremely harsh on industrial workers; quotas were
difficult to fulfill, requiring that miners put in 16 to 18−hour workdays. Failure to
fulfill the quotas could result in treason charges. Working conditions were poor,
even hazardous. By some estimates, 127,000 workers died during the four years
(from 1928 to 1932). Due to the allocation of resources for industry along with
decreasing productivity since collectivization, a famine occurred. The use of forced
labor must also not be overlooked. In the construction of the industrial complexes,
inmates of labor camps were used as expendable resources. But conditions
improved rapidly during the second plan. Throughout the 1930s, industrialization
was combined with a rapid expansion of education at schools and in higher
education.

Prisoner labour at the construction of

Belomorkanal, 1931–33

From 1921 until 1954, during the period of state−guided, forced

industrialization, it is claimed 3.7 million people were sentenced for alleged
counter−revolutionary crimes, including 0.6 million sentenced to death, 2.4 million
sentenced to labor camps, and 0.7 million sentenced toexpatriation. Other estimates
put these figures much higher. Much like with the famines, the evidence
supporting these high numbers is disputed by some historians, although this is a
minority view. The peak of the repressions was during the great Purge of 1937–8,
and it had the effect of greatly slowing down production in 1937.

Gulag prisoner
population statistics from 1934 to 1953

In 1928 Ukraine received over 20% of the total investments that meant that
from 1500 new industrial enterprises, established in the USSR, 400 of them
accounted for Ukraine. Some of those plants were huge. Dnieproges, erected in
1932 by the force of 10 thousand workers, was the biggest hydroelectric power
station in Europe. New metallurgical plant in Zaporizhye and tractor plant in
Kharkiv was the biggest in their area. In Donetsk and Krivoy Rog’s basins so many
plants were established, that the whole district looked like vast building site.
 Flag of Soviet Ukraine.
In spite of those shortages the first five-year plan achieved striking success.
In 1940 the industrial potential of Ukraine in eight times exceeded the level of
1913 (in Russia – in nine times). Productivity of labor also increased (though
wages generally decreased). Thus if the whole USSR from the fifth of the biggest
industrial country in the world turned to the second, Ukraine (which under the
production power approximately was equal toFrance), turned to one of the leading
industrial countries in Europe.

Comparative Growth: Industrial Production Average Annual Growth (%)

Collectivization in the Soviet Union was a policy pursued

under Stalin between 1928 and 1940. The goal of this policy was to consolidate
individual land and labour into collective farms (Russian: з, kolkhoz,
plural kolkhozy). The Soviet leadership was confident that the replacement of
individual peasant farms by kolkhozy would immediately increase the food supply
for urban populations, the supply of raw materials for processing industry, and
agricultural exports. Collectivization was thus regarded as the solution to the crisis
of agricultural distribution (mainly in grain deliveries) that had developed since
1927. This problem became more acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its
ambitious industrialization program.
 Peasants having lunch in a commune.

Already in the early 1930s over 90% of agricultural land was "collectivized"
as rural households entered collective farms with their land, livestock, and other
assets. The sweeping collectivization often involved tremendous human and social
costs while the issue of economic advantages of collective farms remains largely
undecided.
The idea of collective farms was seen by peasants as a revival of serfdom.

Soviet propaganda poster: "Comrade, come and join

the kolkhoz!"

The Soviet Communist Party had never been happy with private agriculture
and saw collectivization as the best remedy for the problem. Lenin claimed "Small-
scale production gives birth to capitalism and the bourgeoisie constantly, daily,
hourly, with elemental force, and in vast proportions."Apart from ideological
goals, Stalin also wished to embark on a program of rapid heavy industrialization
which required larger surpluses to be extracted from the agricultural sector in order
to feed a growing industrial work force and to pay for imports of machinery. The
state also hoped to export grain, a source of foreign currency needed to import
technologies necessary for heavy industrialization. Social and ideological goals
would also be served though mobilization of the peasants in a co-operative
economic enterprise which would produce higher returns for the State and could
serve a secondary purpose of providing social services to the people.
Faced with the refusal to hand grain over, a decision was made at a plenary
session of the Central Committee in November 1929 to embark on a nationwide
program of collectivization.
 In November 1929, the Central Committee decided to implement accelerated
collectivization in the form of kolkhozes and sovkhozes. This marked the end of
the New Economic Policy (NEP), which had allowed peasants to sell their
surpluses on the open market. Stalin had many so-called "kulaks" transported to
collective farms in distant places to work in agricultural labor camps. It has been
calculated that one in five of these deportees, many of them women and children,
died. In all, 6 million peasants lost their lives to the conditions of the transportation
or the conditions of the work camps. In response to this, many peasants began to
resist, often arming themselves against the activists sent from the towns. As a form
of protest, many peasants preferred to slaughter their animals for food rather than
give them over to collective farms, which produced a major reduction in livestock.
Collectivization had been encouraged since the revolution, but in 1928, only
about one percent of farm land was collectivized, and despite efforts to encourage
and coerce collectivization, the rather optimistic First Five Year Plan only forecast
15 percent of farms to be run collectively.
The situation changed incredibly quickly in the fall of 1929 and winter of
1930. Between September and December 1929, collectivization increased from
7.4% to 15%, but in the first two months of 1930, 11 million households joined
collectivized farms, pushing the total to nearly 60% almost overnight.
To assist collectivization, the Party decided to send 25,000 "socially
conscious" industry workers to the countryside. This was accomplished during
1929–1933, and these workers have become known as twenty-five-
thousanders ("dvadtsat'pyat'tysyachniki"). Shock brigades were used to force
reluctant peasants into joining the collective farms and remove those who were
declared kulaks and their "agents".
Agricultural work was envisioned on a mass scale. Huge glamorous columns
of machines were to work the fields, in total contrast to peasant small-scale work.
Due to high government quotas peasants got, as a rule, less for their labor
than they did before collectivization, and some refused to work. Merle
Fainsod estimated that, in 1952, collective farm earnings were only one fourth of
the cash income from private plots on Soviet collective farms. In many cases, the
immediate effect of collectivization was to reduce output and cut the number of
livestock in half. The subsequent recovery of the agricultural production was also
impeded by the losses suffered by the Soviet Union during World War II and
the severe drought of 1946. However the largest loss of livestock was caused by
collectivization for all animals except pigs. The numbers of cows in the USSR fell
from 33.2 million in 1928 to 27.8 million in 1941 and to 24.6 million in 1950. The
number of pigs fell from 27.7 million in 1928 to 27.5 million in 1941 and then to
22.2 million in 1950. The number of sheep fell from 114.6 million in 1928 to 91.6
million in 1941 and to 93.6 million in 1950. The number of horses fell from 36.1
million in 1928 to 21.0 million in 1941 and to 12.7 million in 1950. Only by the
late 1950s did Soviet farm animal stocks begin to approach 1928 levels.
Despite the initial plans, collectivization, accompanied by the bad harvest of
1932–1933, did not live up to expectations. The CPSU blamed problems
on kulaks (Russian: fist; prosperous peasants), who were organizing resistance to
collectivization. Allegedly, many kulaks had been hoarding grain in order to
speculate on higher prices.
The Soviet government responded to these acts by cutting off food rations to
peasants and areas where there was opposition to collectivization, especially in
the Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of those who opposed collectivization were
executed or sent to forced-labor camps. Many peasant families were forcibly
resettled in Siberia and Kazakhstan into exile settlements and a significant number
died on the way.
On August 7, 1932, the Decree about the Protection of Socialist
Property proclaimed that the punishment for theft of kolkhoz or cooperative
property was the death sentence, which "under extenuating circumstances" could
be replaced by at least ten years of incarceration. With what some called the Law
of Spikelets ("За н с а "), peasants (including children) who hand-
collected or gleaned grain in the collective fields after the harvest were arrested for
damaging the state grain production. Martin Amis writes in Koba the Dread that
the number of sentences for this particular offense in the bad harvest period from
August 1932 to December 1933 was 125,000.
Between 1929 and 1932 there was a massive fall in agricultural production
and famine in the countryside. Stalin blamed the well-to-do peasants, referred to as
'kulaks', who he said had sabotaged grain collection and resolved to eliminate them
as a class. Estimates suggest that about a million so-called 'kulak' families, or
perhaps some five million people, were sent to forced labor camps. Estimates of
the deaths from starvation or disease directly caused by collectivization have been
estimated as between four and ten million. According to official Soviet figures
some 24 million peasants disappeared from rural areas with only an extra 12.6
million moving to state jobs. The implication is that the total death toll (both direct
and indirect) for Stalin's collectivization program was on the order of twelve
million people.
In 1945 Joseph Stalin confides to Winston Churchill at Yalta that 10 million
people have died in the course of collectivization.
5. The famine. Great Purge.
The origins of the word Holodomor come from the Ukrainian words holod,
‘hunger’, and mor, ‘plague’, possibly from the expression moryty holodom, ‘to
inflict death by hunger’. The Ukrainian verb "moryty" (м рити) means "to poison
somebody, drive to exhaustion or to torment somebody". The perfect form of the
verb "moryty" is "zamoryty" — "kill or drive to death by hunger, exhausting
work". The neologism “Holodomor” is given in the modern, two-volume
dictionary of the Ukrainian language as "artificial hunger, organised in vast scale
by the criminal regime against the country's population." Sometimes the expression
is translated into English as "murder by hunger or starvation."

The famine affected the Ukrainian SSR as well as the Moldavian ASSR (a
part of the Ukrainian S.S.R. at the time) between 1932 and 1933. However, not
every part suffered from the Holodomor for the whole period; the greatest number
of victims was recorded in the spring of 1933. It is believed that over 12 million
Ukrainians died in this small time period.

Child victim of the Holodomor

The first reports of mass malnutrition and deaths from starvation emerged
from 2 urban area of Uman - by the time Vinnytsya and Kiev oblasts dated by
beginning of January 1933. By mid-January 1933 there were reports about mass
“difficulties” with food in urban areas that had been undersupplied through the
rationing system and deaths from starvation among people who were withdrawn
from rationing supply according to Central Committee of the Communist Party of
Ukraine Decree December 1932. By the beginning of February 1933, according to
received reports from local authorities and Ukrainian GPU, the most affected area
was listed as Dnipropetrovsk Oblast which also suffered from epidemics
of typhus and malaria.Odessa and Kiev oblasts were second and third respectively.
By mid-March, most reports originated from Kiev Oblast.
By mid-April 1933, the Kharkiv Oblast reached the top of the most affected
list, while Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Vinnytsya, Donetsk oblasts and
Moldavian SSR followed it. Last reports about mass deaths from starvation dated
mid-May through the beginning of June 1933 originated from raions in Kiev and
Kharkiv oblasts. The “less affected” list noted the Chernihiv Oblast and northern
parts of Kiev and Vinnytsya oblasts. According to the Central Committee of the
CP(b) of Ukraine Decree as of February 8 1933, no hunger cases should have
remained untreated, and all local authorities were directly obliged to submit reports
about numbers suffering from hunger, the reasons for hunger, number of deaths
from hunger, food aid provided from local sources and centrally provided food aid
required. Parallel reporting and food assistance were managed by the GPU of the
Ukrainian SSR. Many regional reports and most of the central summary reports are
available from present-day central and regional Ukrainian archives. There is
documentary evidence of widespread cannibalism during the Holodomor. The
Soviet regime of the time even printed posters declaring: "To eat your own
children is a barbarian act."

The reasons for the famine are a subject of scholarly and political debate.
Some scholars view the famine as a consequence of the economic problems
associated with radical economic changes implemented during the period of Soviet
industrialization. However it has been suggested by other historians that the famine
was an attack on Ukrainian nationalism engineered by Soviet leadership of the
time and thus may fall under the legal definition of genocide.

By the end of 1933, millions of people had starved to death or had otherwise
died unnaturally in Ukraine, as well as in other Soviet republics. The total estimate
of the famine victims Soviet-wide is given as 6-7 million or 6-8 million.
The Soviet Union long denied that the famine had ever taken place, and
the NKVD (and later KGB — the public and secret police organization of the
Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including
political repression, during the era of Stalin) archives on the Holodomor period
opened very slowly. The exact number of the victims remains unknown and is
probably impossible to estimate even within a margin of error of a hundred
thousand.Numbers as high as seven to ten million are sometimes given in the
mediaand a number as high as ten or even twenty million is sometimes cited in
political speeches.

One reason for estimate variance is that some assess the number of people
who died within the 1933 borders of Ukraine; while others are based on deaths
within current borders of Ukraine. Other estimates are based on deaths of
Ukrainians in the Soviet Union. Some estimates use a very simple methodology
based percentage of deaths that was reported in one area and applying the
percentage to the entire country. Others use more sophisticated techniques that
involves analyzing the demographic statistics based on various archival data. Some
question the accuracy of Soviet censuses since they may have been doctored to
support Soviet propaganda. Other estimates come from recorded discussion
between world leaders like Churchill and Stalin. For example the estimate of ten
million deaths, which is attributed to Soviet official sources, could be based on a
misinterpretation of the memoirs of Winston Churchill who gave an account of his
conversation with Stalin that took place on August 16, 1942. In that
conversation,Stalin gave Churchill his estimates of the number of "kulaks" who
were repressed for resisting collectivization as 10 million, in all of the Soviet
Union, rather than only in Ukraine. When using this number, Stalin implied that it
included not only those who lost their lives, but also forcibly deported.

A number of difficulties exist when attempting to estimate casualty rates.

Some estimates include the death toll from political repression including those who
died in the Gulag, while others refer only to those who starved to death. In
addition, many of the estimates are based on different time periods. Thus, a
definitive number of deaths continues to be a source of great debate.
 The Soviet archives show that excess deaths in Ukraine in 1932-1933
numbered 1.54 million. In 1932-1933, there were a combined 1.2 million cases
of typhus and 500,000 cases of typhoid fever. All major types of disease, apart
from cancer, tend to increase during famine as a result of undernourishment
lowering resistance and generating unsanitary conditions; thus these deaths
resulted primarily from lowered resistance rather than starvation per se. In the
years 1932–34, the largest rate of increase was recorded for typhus, which is
spread by lice. In conditions of harvest failure and increased poverty, the number
of lice is likely to increase, and the herding of refugees at railway stations, on
trains and elsewhere facilitates their spread. In 1933, the number of recorded cases
was twenty times the 1929 level. The number of cases per head of population
recorded in Ukraine in 1933 was already considerably higher than in the USSR as
a whole. But by June 1933, incidence in Ukraine had increased to nearly ten times
the January level and was higher than in the rest of the USSR taken as a whole.

Rate of population decline in Ukraine and

South Russia. 1929-1933.The map was created according to the datas of the localities
affected by the Holomodor and extrapolated to the post-WW2 administrative
divisions. For example, in the Moldavian SSR, only Transnistria have been affected
by the Holodomor. In the Odessa Oblast, the Bugeac was not affected by the
Holomodor.
To honour those who perished in the Holodomor, monuments have been dedicated
and public events held annually in Ukraine and worldwide. The first public
monument to the Holodomor was erected and dedicated outside City Hall in
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1983 to mark the 50th anniversary of the famine-
genocide. Since then, the fourth Saturday in November has in many jurisdictions
been marked as the official day of remembrance for people who died as a result of
the 1932-33 Holodomor and political repression.

A monument in the capital

of Ukraine - Kiev
In 2006, the Holodomor Remembrance Day took place on November 25.
President Viktor Yushchenko directed, in decree No. 868/2006, that a minute of
silence should be observed at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on that Saturday. The
document specified that flags in Ukraine should fly at half-staff as a sign of
mourning. In addition, the decree directed that entertainment events are to be
restricted and television and radio programming adjusted accordingly.
 A Holodomor monument in Calgary, Canada
In 2007, the 74th anniversary of the Holodomor was commemorated in Kiev for
three days on the Maidan Nezalezhnosti. As part of the three day event, from
November 23-25th, video testimonies of the communist regime's crimes in
Ukraine, and documentaries by famous domestic and foreign film directors are
being shown. Additionally, experts and scholars gave lectures on the
topic.Additionally, on November 23, 2007, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a
set of two commemorative coins remembering the Holodomor.
As of September 2009, Ukrainian schoolchildren will take a more extensive course
of the history of the Holodomor and OUN and UPA fighters.

"Light the candle"

event at a Holodomor memorial in Kiev, Ukraine
Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political
repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in
1936–1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and
Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the
persecution of unaffiliated persons, characterized by widespread police
surveillance, widespread suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and executions.
According to the archive data, in 1937–38 the number of death sentences was
681,692 and many more died in GULAG labor camps.
The term "purge" in Soviet political slang was an abbreviation of the
expression purge of the Party ranks. In 1933, for example, some 400,000 people
were expelled from the Party. But from 1936 until 1953, the term changed its
meaning, because being expelled from the Party came to mean almost certain
arrest, imprisonment, or even execution.

The former NKVD

Headquarters on Lubyanka Square designed by Aleksey Schusev. Now serves
the FSB.

The political purge was primarily an effort by Stalin to eliminate challenge

from past and potential opposition groups, including left and right wings led
by Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin, respectively. Following the Civil War and
reconstruction of the Soviet economy in the late 1920s, the "temporary" wartime
dictatorship which had passed from Lenin to Stalin seemed no longer necessary to
veteran Communists. Stalin's opponents on both sides of the political spectrum
chided him as undemocratic and lax on bureaucratic corruption. These tendencies
may have accumulated substantial support among the working class by attacking
the privileges and luxuries the state offered to its high-paid elite. The Ryutin
Affair seemed to vindicate the Stalin's suspicions. He therefore enforced a ban on
party factions and banned those party members who had opposed him, effectively
ending democratic centralism. In the new form of Party organization, the Politburo,
and Stalin in particular, were the sole dispensers of communist ideology. This
necessitated the elimination of all Marxists with different views, especially those
among the prestigious "old guard" of revolutionaries. Communist heroes
like Tukhachevsky and Béla Kun, as well as Lenin's entire politburo, were shot for
minor disagreements in policy. The NKVDwere equally merciless towards the
supporters, friends, and family of these heretical Marxists, whether they lived in
Russia or not. The most infamous case is that of Leon Trotsky, whose family was
almost annihilated, before he himself was killed in Mexico by NKVD
agent Ramón Mercader, who was part of an assassination task force put together
by Special Agent Pavel Sudoplatov, under the personal orders of Joseph Stalin.
Another official justification was to remove any possible "fifth column" in
case of a war, but this is less substantiated by independent sources. This is the
theory proposed by Vyacheslav Molotov, a member of the Stalinist ruling circle,
who participated in the Stalinist repression as a member of the Politburo and who
signed many death warrants. Stalin's vehemence in eliminating political opponents
may have had some basis in, and was definitely given official justification by, the
need to solidify Russia against her neighbors, most notably Germany and Japan,
whose governments had previously invaded, and now openly threatened, Soviet
territory. A famous quote of Stalin's is "We are 50 or 100 years behind the
advanced countries. We must make good this lag in 10 years. Either we do it, or
they crush us." The Communist Party also wanted to eliminate what it perceived as
"socially dangerous elements", such as ex-kulaks, ex-"nepmen", former members
of opposing political parties such as the Social Revolutionaries, and
former Tsarist officials.
Repression against perceived enemies of the Bolsheviks had been a
systematic method of instilling fear and facilitating social control, being
continuously applied by Lenin since the October Revolution, although there had
been periods of heightened repression, such as the Red Terror, thedeportation of
kulaks who opposed collectivization, and a severe famine. A distinctive feature of
the Great Purge was that, for the first time, the ruling party itself underwent
repressions on a massive scale. Nevertheless, only a minority of those affected by
the purges were Communist Party members and office-holders.The purge of the
Party was accompanied by the purge of the whole society.
In the 1920s and 1930s, two thousand writers, intellectuals, and artists were
imprisoned and 1,500 died in prisons and concentration camps. After sunspot
development research was judged un-Marxist, twenty-seven astronomers
disappeared between 1936 and 1938. The Meteorological Office was violently
purged as early as 1933 for failing to predict weather harmful to the crops. But the
toll was especially high among writers. Those who perished during the Great Purge
include:
The great poet Osip Mandelstam was arrested for reciting his famous anti-
Stalin poem Stalin Epigram to his circle of friends in 1934. After intervention
by Nikolai Bukharin and Boris Pasternak (Stalin jotted down in Bukharin's letter
with feigned indignation: “Who gave them the right to arrest Mandelstam?”),
Stalin instructed NKVD to "isolate but preserve" him, and Mandelstam was
"merely" exiled to Cherdyn for 3 years. But this proved to be temporary reprieve.
In May 1938, he was promptly arrested again for "counter-revolutionary
activities". In August 2, 1938, Mandelstam was sentenced to five years in
correction camps and died on December 27, 1938 at a transit camp near
Vladivostok. Boris Pasternak himself was nearly purged, but Stalin is said to have
crossed Pasternak's name off the list, saying "Don't touch this cloud dweller."

1938 NKVD arrest photo of the poet Osip Mandelstam, who died in NKVD custody.
Officially his death was of natural causes, but it is possible that he was murdered.

Writer Isaac Babel was arrested in May 1939, and according to his
confession paper that contained blood stain he "confessed" to being a member of
Trotskyist organization and being recruited by French writer Andre Malraux to spy
for France. In the final interrogation, he retracted his confession and wrote letters
to prosecutor's office that he implicated innocent people, but to no avail. Babel was
tried before an NKVD troika and convicted of simultaneously spying for the
French, Austrians, and Leon Trotsky, as well as "membership in a terrorist
organization." On January 27, 1940, he was shot in Butyrka prison.

Butyrka prison, 1890s

Writer Boris Pilnyak was arrested on October 28, 1937 for counter-
revolutionary acitivies, spying and terrorism. One report alleged that "he held
secret meetings with (Andre) Gide, and supplied him with information about the
situation in the USSR. There is no doubt that Gide used this information in his
book attacking the USSR." Pilnyak was tried on April 21, 1938. In the proceeding
that lasted 15 minutes, he was condemned to death and executed shortly afterward.
Theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold was arresed in 1939 and shot in
February 1940 for "spying" for Japanese and British intelligence. In a letter
to Vyacheslav Molotov dated January 13, 1940, he wrote: "The investigators began
to use force on me, a sick 65-year-old man. I was made to lie face down and beaten
on the soles of my feet and my spine with a rubber strap... For the next few days,
when those parts of my legs were covered with extensive internal hemorrhaging,
they again beat the red-blue-and-yellow bruises with the strap and the pain was so
intense that it felt as if boiling water was being poured on these sensitive areas. I
howled and wept from the pain. I incriminated myself in the hope that by telling
them lies I could end the ordeal. When I lay down on the cot and fell asleep, after
18 hours of interrogation, in order to go back in an hour's time for more, I was
woken up by my own groaning and because I was jerking about like a patient in
the last stages of typhoid fever." His wife, the actress Zinaida Raikh, was
murdered in her apartment by NKVD agents. She was stabbed 17 times, two of
them through the eyes.
Georgian poet Titsian Tabidze was arrested on October 10, 1937 on charge
of treason and was tortured in a prison. In a bitter humor, he named only the 18th-
century Georgian poet Besiki as his accomplice in anti-Soviet activities. He was
executed on December 16, 1937. His friend and poetPaolo Iashvili, having earlier
been forced to denounce several of his associates as the enemies of the people, shot
himself with a hunting gun in the building of the Writers’ Union. (He witnessed
and even had to participate in public trials that ousted many of his associates from
the Writers' Union, effectively condemning them to death. When Lavrenty
Beria further pressured him with alternative of denouncing his life-long friend
Tabidze or being arrested and tortured by the NKVD, he killed himself.)
In early 1937, poet Pavel Vasiliev is said to have defended Bukharin as "a
man of the highest nobility and the conscience of peasant Russia" at the time of his
denunciation at the Pyatakov Trial(Second Moscow Trial) and damned other
writers then signing the routine condemnations as "pornographic scrawls on the
margins of Russian literature." He was promptly shot on July 16, 1937.
Jan Sten, philosopher and deputy head of the Marx-Engels Institute was
Stalin's private tutor when Stalin was trying hard to study Hegel'sdialectic. (Stalin
received lessons twice a week from 1925 to 1928, but he found it difficult to
master even some of the basic ideas. Stalin developed enduring hostility toward
German idealistic philosphy, which he called "the aristocratic reaction to the
French Revolution") In 1937, Sten was seized on the direct order of Stalin, who
declared him one of the chiefs of Menshevizing idealists. On June 19, 1937, Sten
was put to death in Lefortovo prison.
On July 30, 1937 the NKVD Order no. 00447 was issued, directed against
"ex-kulaks" and other "anti-Soviet elements" (such as former officials of
the Tsarist regime, former members of political parties other than the communist
party, etc.).

Katyn massacre 1943 exhumation. Photo

made by Polish Red Cross delegation.

The implementation was swift. Already by August 15, 1937, 101,000 were
arrested and 14,000 convicted.
 According to the declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, the
NKVD detained 1,548,367 victims, of whom 681,692 were shot - an average of
1,000 executions a day. Historian Michael Ellman claims the best estimate of
deaths brought about by Soviet Repression during these two years is the range
950,000 to 1.2 million, which includes deaths in detention and those who died
shortly after being released from the Gulag as a result of their treatment in it. He
also states that this is the estimate which should be used by historians and teachers
of Russian history. According toMemorial society
On the cases investigated by the State Security Department of NKVD
(GUGB NKVD):
o At least 1,710,000 people were arrested
o At least 1,440,000 people were sentenced
o At least 724,000 were executed. Among them:
 At least 436,000 people were sentenced to death
by NKVD troikas as part of the Kulak operation
 At least 247,000 people were sentenced to death
by NKVD Dvoikas' and the Local Special Troykas as part of
the Ethnic Operation
 At least 41,000 people were sentenced to death by
Military Courts
Among other cases in October 1936-November 1938:
o At least 400,000 were sentenced to labor camps by Police
Troikas as Socially Harmful Elements (с циа ьн -
вредныйэ емент, СВЭ)
o At least 200,000 were exiled or deported by Administrative
procedures
o At least 2 million were sentenced by courts for common
crimes, among them 800,000 were sentenced to Gulag camps.
Some experts believe the evidence released from the Soviet archives is
understated, incomplete or unreliable. For example, Robert Conquestsuggests that
the probable figure for executions during the years of the Great Purge is not
681,692, but some two and a half times as high. He believes that the KGB was
covering its tracks by falsifying the dates and causes of death of rehabilitated
victims.
Percentage of people with Ukrainian as their native language according to 2001 census (in regions).

Ukraine
produces the fourth largest number of post-secondary graduates in Europe,
while being ranked seventh in population.
Ethnic Ukrainians in Ukraine (2001)
Ukrainian administrative divisions by monthly salary

About number and composition population of UKRAINE

by data All-Ukrainian population census'2001 data
 The peculiarity of the national structure of the population
of Ukraine is its multinational composition. According to All-
Ukrainian population census data, the representatives of more
than 130 nationalities and ethnic groups live on the territory of
the country.
The data about the most numerous nationalities of Ukraine
are mentioned below:
as % to the
Total result 2001
(thousand as % to
persons) 200 198 1989
1 9

Ukrainians 37541.7 77.8 72.7 100.3

Russians 8334.1 17.3 22.1 73.4

Belarussians 275.8 0.6 0.9 62.7

Moldavians 258.6 0.5 0.6 79.7

Crimean in 5.3
Tatars 248.2 0.5 0.0 times more

Bulgarians 204.6 0.4 0.5 87.5

Hungarians 156.6 0.3 0.4 96.0

Romanians 151.0 0.3 0.3 112.0

Poles 144.1 0.3 0.4 65.8

Jews 103.6 0.2 0.9 21.3

in 1.8
Armenians 99.9 0.2 0.1 times more

Greeks 91.5 0.2 0.2 92.9

Tatars 73.3 0.2 0.2 84.4

Gipsies 47.6 0.1 0.1 99.3

Azerbaijanians 45.2 0.1 0.0 122.2

 Georgians 34.2 0.1 0.0 145.3

Germans 33.3 0.1 0.1 88.0

Gagausians 31.9 0.1 0.1 99.9

Other 177.1 0.4 0.4 83.9

The part of Ukrainians in the national structure of
population of region is the largest. it accounts for 3.754.700
people. or 77.8% of the population. During the years that have
passed since the census of the population ‘1989. the number of
Ukrainians has increased by 0.3% and their part among other
citizens of Ukraine has increased by 5.1 percentage points.
Russians are the second numerous nation of Ukraine.
Since 1989 their number has decreased by 26.6% and at the
date of the census it accounted for 8.334.100 people. The part of
Russians in total population has decreased by 4.8 percentage
points and accounted for 17.3%.
 Ukrainian History: Chronological Table

References:
1. Де арація пр державний суверенітет У раїни. Прийнята Вер вн ю Рад ю
У раїнсь ї РСР 16 ипня 1990 р у. - К. 1991.
2. А т пр г шення неза ежн сті У раїни, прийнятий Вер вн ю Рад ю
У раїни 24 серпня 1991 р у. - К. 1991.
3. К нституція У раїни. Прийнята на п'ятій сесії Вер вн ї Ради У раїни 28
червня 1996 р у. - К. 1996.
4. Крип'я евич І. П. Іст рія У раїни. - Львів, 1990.
5. П нсь а-Васи ен Н. Іст рія У раїни. Т. 1-2.-К. 1992.
6. Andrew Wilson. The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation. Yale University
Press; 2nd edition (2002).
7. Anna Reid. Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine. London,
Orion Books; 4th impression (1998, preface 2003).
8. Mykhailo Hrushevsky. History of Ukraine-Rus’ in 9 volumes.
9. Orest Subtelny. Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press
(1988).
10. Paul Robert Magocsi. A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press (1996).