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Ukrainian Nationalism and the Fall of Shelest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

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In May 1972, Petr Efimovich Shelest, first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, was demoted and transferred to Moscow in the shadowy post of deputy premier. He continued to hold his seat in the Politburo in a kind of lame duck existence, until he was prematurely pensioned off eleven months later. No official charges were placed against him immediately, and most foreign observers attributed his fall to his hard-line views on foreign policy at the moment of budding detente. He was reported to have argued heatedly in the Politburo against the Nixon visit, and his removal on the eve of that occasion was seen as a means of getting him out of the way as the President’s host in Kiev. It was also recognized that Shelest was in trouble for his failures in party administration and his inability to stem the tide of intellectual dissent in the largest non-Russian republic. But the official charges that were eventually brought against him were of a different magnitude. He was accused not only of failing to maintain the norms of Leninist nationality policy, but of actively fostering the intensification of divisive Ukrainian nationalism.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1975

References

1. Shelest, P. Iu., Ukraine nasha radians'ka (Kiev, 1970)Google Scholar.

2. “Pro seriozni nedoliky ta pomylky odniiei knyhy,” Komunist Ukrainy, 1973, no. 4, pp. 77-82. There is an English translation in Digest of the Soviet Ukrainian Press, 1973, no. 5, pp. 1-6 [hereafter DSUP]. The excerpts given here are of my own translation.

3. Komunist Ukrainy, 1973, no. 5, pp. 21-41. Shelest is not called by name, but the language closely follows the wording of the earlier charges. There has been speculation that Shcherbitskii is the author of the article denouncing Shelest, possibly because of the similarity of language. But the article is unsigned, and it seems likely that the denunciation of so important a figure was collectively planned—hence the authorship is attributed here to Shelest's “critics.“

4. For speculation on Shelest's fall, see “Hawk's Wings Clipped—the Fall of Shelest,” Radio Free Europe Research, Communist Area, no. 1421, May 24, 1972; Roman, Kupchinsky, “The Re-Stalinization of the Ukraine,New Politics, 10, no. 3 (1973) : 71–80Google Scholar; “The Fall of Shelest : New Sign of Turmoil in Ukraine,” Ukrainian Quarterly, 29, no. 2 (1973) : 117-23; Kantorovich, N., “Zakat Petra Shelesta,” Novoe russkoe slovo, May 3, 1973 Google Scholar.

5. There is, of course, an all-important exception to this rule : there is no ban on references to the distinctiveness or superiority of the Great Russians. Stalin's toast to the Russian people at the end of World War II is only one in a long line of such tributes which have become standard in speeches by Russian and non-Russian leaders alike. In a recent example at the Twenty-fourth Party Congress, Brezhnev began by crediting Soviet achievements to all nationalities, but “above all the great Russian people.” He continued by declaring that “the revolutionary energy, unselfishness, diligence and profound internationalism of the great Russian people have rightly won them the sincere respect of all the peoples of the Soviet homeland” (Pravda, March 31, 1971).

6. These developments are surveyed in my book, The Great Friendship : Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1969), pp. 225-28.

7. “Shelest's ‘Oh, Ukraine, Our Soviet Land'—a Heresy ?, “Radio Free Europe Research, Communist Area, no. 1843, July 16, 1973. Earlier, the book had received favorable reviews in Ukrainian publications. It was reviewed in Literaturna Ukraina by Iu. Smolych (March 12, 1971) and again by V. Kozachenko (March 30, 1971); by Academician Iampols'kii, S. in Ekonomika radians'koi Ukrainy (no. 4, 1971)Google Scholar and Nosenko, O. in Raduha (no. 6, 1971)Google Scholar.

8. The novels were Ivan Bilyk, Mech Areia, Roman Ivanychuk, Mal'vy, and Iu. Kolisnychenko and S. Plachynda, Neopalyma Kupriia. They all offended party critics on the sensitive question of Russian-Ukrainian relations, but “corrective” reviews only caught up with them two years or more after publication, by which time the ideological damage had been done. Such delays in criticism are symptomatic of the comparative relaxation of controls in the Ukraine for which Shelest was condemned.

9. Komunist Ukrainy, 1973, no. 4, p. 78.

10. Shelest, , Ukraino nasha radians'ka, p. 22 Google Scholar.

11. This criticism is similar to the charges against poet V. Sosiura in 1951. His popular poem, “Love the Ukraine,” was said to have extolled “the wide open spaces of ancient Ukraine” to the exclusion of the new industrial Ukraine (Pravda, July 2, 1951).

12. Two recent Soviet surveys, at the extremes of length and detail, have been used as yardsticks. The first is Diadichenko, V. A., Los, F. E., Spitskii, V. E., Istoriia ukrainskoi SSR. Uchebnik dlia 7-8 klassov, 5th ed. (Kiev, 1966)Google Scholar, whose coverage of Ukrainian history up to the revolutionary movement is about the length of the Shelest sketch, and at a comparable popular level. For finer points the Istoriia ukrainskoi SSR, 2 vols. (Kiev, 1969) is used. Both are collectively written and edited and thus presumably contain interpretations acceptable to the party. There are many nonconforming Ukrainian accounts which are closer to Shelest's interpretations. Some of them are discussed below.

13. Shelest, , Ukraino nasha radians'ka, p. 25 Google Scholar.

14. Diadichenko, , Istoriia, pp. 38–39Google Scholar; Istoriio ukrainskoi SSR, 1 : 234-37.

15. Tezisy o 300-letii vossoedineniia Ukrainy s Rossiei (1654-1954) (Moscow, 19S4). The theses are first paraphrased and then quoted. The word-for-word repetitions suggest that either the author was slavishly following formula and filling space, or possibly that there were two versions in rough draft and neither was taken out ( Shelest, , Ukraino nasha radians'ka, p. 25 Google Scholar).

16. Diadichenko, , Istoriia, pp. 28–29Google Scholar; Istoriia ukrainskoi SSR, 1 : 210-39.

17. Diadichenko, , Istoriia, p. 32 Google Scholar. The two-volume survey is more discriminating, but not in disagreement : “a great role in the liberation war was played by the Cossacks, principally the small landholders,” but at the same time, “the main and decisive force in the popular war was the oppressed peasantry” (Istoriia ukrainskoi SSR, 1 : 215).

18. Diadichenko, , Istoriia, p. 32 Google Scholar; Istoriia ukrainskoi SSR, 1 : 213 ff.

19. Shelest's lack of attention to the class struggle within the Zaporozhian Sich does violence to the “friendship of peoples” concept in another way not mentioned in the critique. According to the formula, dual alliances were formed on a class basis in non- Russian areas, even before annexation. “Official Russia” allied with native leaders, while “democratic Russia” allied with the common people. Each allied group followed its class interests—the former desiring to rule and exploit, the latter seeking liberation from multiple oppressions. Employing this formula, most clearly stated by the historian A. V. Piaskovskii in the late 1950s, it is argued that the peoples never harbored ill feelings against each other : Their resistance was to “tsarism,” not Russia (see A. V. Piaskovskii, “K voprosu o progressivnom znachenii prisoedineniia Srednei Azii k Rossii,” Voprosy istorii, 1959, no. 8, pp. 21-46; Tillett, , The Great Friendship, pp. 253–59Google Scholar). Applied to the Sich in the period of the “liberation” war, the formula has the Ukrainian people fighting shoulder to shoulder in perfect accord with the Russian people. At the same time, the formula avoids another pitfall inimical to Soviet nationality policy : Khmelnitskii does not become an unqualified hero and thus a probable focus of a nationalist cult. His historic act in uniting the Ukraine to Russia was pursued out of an interest in enhancing his own power. After the union he seized lands, portioned them out among the starshyna, and so oppressed the peasantry that there was a popular uprising against him in 1657, the year of his death (Istoriia ukrainskoi SSR, 1 : 246-54).

20. Shelest, , Ukraino nasha radians'ka, pp. 20 and 22Google Scholar.

21. The persistence of nonconforming nationalist views on Cossack history can be seen in the works of one of the most prominent of contemporary Ukrainian historians in the Soviet Union, F. P. Shevchenko. His book on Ukrainian-Russian relations, although published in a period of increasing party controls, represents the Cossack state as a highly advanced state, and union with Russia is termed “unification” rather than “reunification.“ The book raises some questions about whether this union fully realized the highest aspirations for Ukrainians and even casts doubt on the solid pro-Russian orientation of Ukrainians at the time ( Shevchenko, F. P., Politychni ta ekonomichni si/iasky Ukrainy s Rosieiu v seredyni XVII st. [Kiev, 1959])Google Scholar. In spite of heavy criticism of this book and subsequent articles, Shevchenko remained, except for one brief period in the late 1960s, the editor of the Ukrains'kyi istorychnyi shurnal until 1972. Shevchenko's nonconforming views have been documented in Ivan M. Myhul's unpublished dissertation, “Politics and History in the Soviet Ukraine : A Study of Soviet Ukrainian Historiography, 1956-1970“ (Columbia, 1973).

22. Apanovych, O. M., Zbroini sili Ukrainy pershoi polovyny XVIII st. (Kiev, 1969)Google Scholar.

23. O. M., Apanovych, “Peredumovy ta naslidky likvidatsii Zaporiz'koi Sichi,” Ukrains'kyi istorychnyi shurnal, 1970, no. 9, pp. 23–35Google Scholar.

24. The author of a Gogol study, O. I. Karpenko, was advised that Gogol should not be taken seriously, since he had been guilty of idealizing Cossack society (Literaturna Ukraina, July 20, 1973, quoted in DSUP, 1973, no. 9, p. 10). V. Zaremba, author of a biography of the poet and folklorist Ivan Manzhura, was rapped for a long digression giving Manzhura an imagined identity with the Cossacks. Pointing out that Zaremba ignored the class struggle and oppressive practices of the hetmans, the reviewer asks : “What purpose does Zaremba's lack of objectivity serve? Is its aim to show that the troubles and misfortunes suffered by Ukraine were brought by others, rather than its own Ukrainian feudal lords?” (Raduha, 1973, no. 6, in DSUP, 1973, no. 12, pp. 15-17).

25. E. I., Druzhinina, “Po povodu odnoi broshiury,Voprosy istorii, 1972, no. 11, pp. 203–5Google Scholar, reviewing M., Kytsenko, Khortytsia v heroitsi i lehendakh, 2nd ed. (Dnepropetrovsk, 1972)Google Scholar.

26. Shelest, , Ukraino nasha radians'ka, p. 91 Google Scholar.

27. Ibid., pp. 96 and 99.

28. Diadichenko, , Istoriia, pp. 71 and 96Google Scholar; Istoriia ukrainskoi SSR, 1 : 401-2, 431, 522, 718; contrast with accounts in Istoriia ukrainskoi SSR, vol. 1 (Kiev, 19S3), pp. 474-506, 573-602.

29. Shelest, , Ukraino nasha radians'ka, pp. 17–18, 100, 101Google Scholar.

30. For a summary of information on this question from Ukrains'kyi visnyk, see “Dragnet on Ukrainian Art and Culture,” Radio Free Europe Research, Communist Area, no. 1049, June 23, 1971.

31. Zbigniew Brzeziński, “Political Implications of Soviet Nationality Problems, “ in Edward, Allworth, ed., Soviet Nationality Problems (New York : Columbia University Press, 1971, pp. 70–87 Google Scholar; Mary Matossian, “Communist Rule and the Changing Armenian Cultural Pattern,” in Erich, Goldhagen, ed., Ethnic Minorities in the Soviet Union (New York : Praeger, 1968, pp. 185–97 Google Scholar; Anna Procyk, “The Search for a Heritage and the Nationality Question in Central Asia,” in Edward, Allworth, ed., The Nationality Question in Soviet Central Asia (New York : Praeger, 1973, pp. 123–33 Google Scholar.

32. Several of Shelest's speeches on these themes are included in Shelest, P. Iu., Idei Lenina peremahaiut (Kiev, 1971)Google Scholar.

33. Quoted in DSUP, 1969, no. 3, p. IS.

34. Nationalism in literature is discussed in Lucky, George S. N., “The Ukrainian Literary Scene Today,” Slavic Revieiv, 31, no. 4 (December 1972) : 86369 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Myhul, “Politics and History in the Soviet Ukraine… .” See especially section 3, chapter 1, “The Rewriting of Ukrainian Feudal History,” pp. 99-162. Myhul divides Soviet Ukrainian historians into “detractors” (conforming) and “rehabilitators” (nonconforming) and shows that the latter were not brought under party control in the decade of the sixties.

36. “Struggle in the Kremlin,” Sozrict Analyst, 1, no. 8 (June 8, 1972) : 2-6. These views are supported and put into a rational narrative by samizdat information reaching the West after this article was completed. Ukrains'kyi visnyk, nos. 7 and 8 (Spring 1974), contain lengthy remarks about the fall of Shelest. Smoloskyp Publishers of Toronto are planning to publish an English translation, and have given excerpts in a press release (AI-13) of January 30, 1975. According to this account, party vigilance increased from the time of the Twenty-fourth Party Congress, which it labels a “congress of chauvinist-Russifiers.” Shelest's final mistake was his intervention at the November 1971 plenum of the Central Committee to save V. Kutsevol, first secretary of the Lviv obkom, whom Suslov wanted to sack for failures in “internationalist and atheistic education of the masses.” Although momentarily successful, Shelest soon lost control of the KGB in the Ukraine, whose head, V. Fedorchuk, joined Shcherbitskii in showering complaints on Moscow. There was a wave of ideological resolutions, meetings, a press campaign, and many arrests. Shelest was summoned to Moscow to a Politburo meeting, put in the “penal chair,” and accused of “provincialism and national narrow-mindedness.” The Politburo's cautious policy of letting him down easy was dictated by the fact that Shelest still had the support not only of a majority of the obkotn first secretaries in the Ukraine, but also received a sympathetic hearing from non-Russian party leaders. He remained under KGB surveillance and was not allowed to return to the Ukraine.