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The Soviet Collectivization of Western Ukraine, 1948-1949

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David R. Marples
David R. Marples*
Affiliation:
Radio Liberty
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Extract

Western Ukraine comprises those areas of Ukraine annexed by the Soviet Union after September 1939. They are (1) Galicia, made up of the Soviet oblasts of Lviv, Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk), Drohobych (now part of Lviv oblast) and Ternopil; (2) Volynia, made up of Rivne and Volyn oblasts; (3) Bukovyna (Chernivtsi oblast); and (4) Transcarpathia (Zakarpatska oblast). In the interwar period, the Galician and Volynian territories were governed by Poland, Chernivtsi was part of Romania and Transcarpathia was ruled by Czechoslovakia. Whereas the former areas were all annexed by the USSR after the invasion of Eastern Poland in 1939, Transcarpathia became part of the Soviet Union only in June 1945.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , spring 1985 , pp. 24 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities of the USSR and Eastern Europe, Inc. 

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References

1 On Western Ukraine in the interwar period, see Kubijovyč, V., Western Ukraine within Poland, 1920-1939 (Chicago, 1963); Horak, S., Poland and Her National Minorities (New York, 1961); and B. M. Babyi, Vozziednannia zakhidnoi Ukrainy z Ukrainskoiu RSR (Kiev, 1954). The best works covering the area for the postwar years up to 1953 are Y. Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine After World War II (New Brunswick, N. J., 1964); J. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 2nd. ed. (Littleton, Col., 1980); and R. S. Sullivant, Soviet Politics and the Ukraine, 1917-1957 (New York, 1962).Google Scholar

2 Biggart, J., “The Collectivisation of Agriculture in Soviet Lithuania,” East European Quarterly, 9 (1975): 53–75; E. Jacobs, “The Collectivization of Agriculture in Right-Bank Moldavia,” Ph.D. dissertation, London School of Economics, 1979; J. Labsvirs, “A Case Study in the Sovietization of Baltic States: Collectivization of Latvian Agriculture, 1944-1956.” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1959; R. Taagepera, “Soviet Collectivization of Estonian Agriculture: The Deportation Phase,” Soviet Studies, 1 (1980): 379-97. To date nothing has appeared in the West about the process in Western Belorussia.Google Scholar

3 See Marples, D. R., “The Soviet Annexation of West Ukraine and the Collectivization of Agriculture, 1939-1941,” , University of Alberta, 1980, p. 130.Google Scholar

4 At the end of 1947, only about 7.5% of West-Ukrainian households were reported as collectivized. See Sotsialistychna perebudova i rozvytok silskoho hospodarstva Ukrainskoi RSR, vol. 2 (Kiev, 1968), p. 256. [Referred to hereafter as Sots. pereb.]Google Scholar

5 On the effects of the 1946 famine in Ukraine, see Sas, I. K., “Vysvitlennia sotsialistychnoho budivnytstva v zakhidnykh oblastiakh Ukrainskoi RSR,” Ukrainskyi istorychnyi zhurnal, 4 (1960): 105. [Referred to hereafter as Uk. ist. zh.]Google Scholar

6 Three decrees, published on 27 September, 19 October and 24 November 1944 all focused on the weaknesses and “mistakes” made in the West-Ukrainian party organizations. By February 1945, about 20,000 party members had reportedly been sent into Western Ukraine (mainly from Eastern Ukraine). See Denysenko, P. I., “Vidbudova ekonomiky i kultury v zakhidnykh oblastiakh Ukrainskoi RSR (1944-1945 rr.),” Uk. ist. zh., 5 (1964): 94.Google Scholar

7 Wädekin, K.-E., Agrarian Policies in Communist Europe (The Hague, 1982), pp. 27–28; Jacobs, op. cit., pp. 422-25.Google Scholar

8 Radianska Ukraina, 25 September 1948.Google Scholar

9 The best work on Transcarpathia and its historical development in English is Magocsi, P. R., The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948 (Cambridge, Mass., 1978).Google Scholar

10 See Armstrong, , Ukrainian Nationalism, pp. 294-95.Google Scholar

11 Leninizm torzhestvuie (Lviv, 1957), p. 193.Google Scholar

12 See Armstrong, , op. cit., 300.Google Scholar

13 Pravda Ukrainy, 15 January 1949.Google Scholar

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17 In Volyn oblast, for example, which may be taken as representative of Western Ukraine, a Soviet source admits that in 691 out of 1,074 kolkhozy established by 1949, “the organization of work was on a low technical level,” and the accountants in particular lacked the necessary preparation. See Zistorii kolektyvizatsii silskoho hospodarstva zakhidnykh oblastei Ukrainskoi RSR (1939–1950) (Kiev, 1976), p. 416 [Referred to hereafter as Zist.]; and Stoliarenko (1958), p. 68.Google Scholar

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22 Ukrainian Bulletin (New York), 15 September 1948.Google Scholar

23 Radianska Drohobychchyna (Drohobych, 1957), p. 129.Google Scholar

24 Radianska Ukraina, 9 September 1948.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 24 November 1948.Google Scholar

26 Information of the newspaper Vilna Ukraina, 26 November 1948, “Pro ekskursii kolhospnykiv skhidnykh oblastei URSR dlia zapozychennia peredovoho dosvidu i oznaiomlennia z zhyttiam kolhospnykiv,” cited in Z ist., p. 361.Google Scholar

27 Radianska Ukraina, 24 November 1948.Google Scholar

28 See, for example, Istoriia selianstva Ukrainskoi RSR (Kiev, 1967), vol. 2, p. 391; and M. K. Ivasiuta, Narysy istorii kolhospnoho budivnytstva v zakhidnykh oblastiakh Ukrainskoi RSR (Kiev, 1962), p. 102.Google Scholar

29 Ivasiuta, , op. cit., p. 47.Google Scholar

30 Butsko, M. O., KPRS: orhanizator vsenarodnoi dopomohy trudiashchym zakhidnykh oblastei URSR v vidbudovi i dalshomu rozvytku narodnoho hospodarstva (1944-1950 rr.) (Kiev, 1959), p. 93.Google Scholar

31 Radianska Ukraina, 25 November 1948.Google Scholar

32 Ukrainian Bulletin, 15 December 1948.Google Scholar

33 Radianska Ukraina, 27 July 1948.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 14 July 1948.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 22 December 1948.Google Scholar

36 Pravda Ukrainy, 30 January 1946.Google Scholar

37 Report of the agricultural section of Lviv oblast committee CPU, 2 December 1949, “Pro khid kolektyvizatsii v oblasti,” cited in Z ist., p. 396.Google Scholar

38 Stoliarenko, V. P., “Borotba komunistychnoi partyi za sotsialistychne peretvorennia ta dalshyi rozvytok silskoho hospodarstva zakhidnykh oblastei URSR.” In Z istorii zakhidnoukrainskykh zemel (1960), p. 63.Google Scholar

39 Resolution of the XVI Congress of the CPU on the report of the CC CPU, 28 January 1949, “Pro zavdannia v orhanizatsiino-hospodarskomu zmitsnenni kolhospiv zakhidnykh oblastei URSR,” cited in Z ist., p. 73.Google Scholar

40 On the kulak question, see Marples, D. R., “The Kulak in Postwar USSR: the West Ukrainian Example,” Soviet Studies, xxxvi (4) (October 1984: 560-70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Arkhiv misii UPA, folio 6, no. 5, p. 1.Google Scholar

42 Ibid. Google Scholar

43 See, for example, Davies, R. W., The Soviet Collective Farm [The Industrialization of Soviet Russia 2] (London, 1980), pp. 101-02.Google Scholar

44 Information of Transcarpathia oblast committee CPU to the CC CPSU, 8 December 1948, “Pro khid kolektyvizatsii v oblasti v 1948 r.,” cited in Z ist., p. 370.Google Scholar

45 Narysy istorii Zakarpatskoi oblasnoi partiinoi orhanizatsii (Uzhhorod, 1980), pp. 162-63.Google Scholar

46 On the insurgents, see Bilinsky, Y., The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine After World War II (New Brunswick, N. J., 1964), pp. 111-40.Google Scholar

47 Radianska Ukraina, 25 September 1948.Google Scholar

48 Bohodyst, , op. cit., pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

49 Arkhiv misii UPA, folio 6, no. 1, pp. 8–10.Google Scholar

50 Radianska Ukraina, 6 March 1948.Google Scholar

51 Pravda Ukrainy, 15 January 1949.Google Scholar

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53 Arkhiv misii UPA, folio 6, no. 1, pp. 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Slon had evidently been reinstated by 29 November 1950; witness the report given under his name at the Stanislav committee plenum on this date, cited in Z ist., pp. 450-51.Google Scholar

55 See Sullivant, , Soviet Politics in the Ukraine, p. 273.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., p. 275.Google Scholar

57 See, for example, McCauley, M., The Soviet Union Since 1917 (London, 1981), pp. 135-36.Google Scholar

58 On the formation of the MTS in Western Ukraine (the decree has never been published), see Ivasiuta, op. cit., p. 132.Google Scholar

59 Note of the deputy chief of the West-Ukrainian section of the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture, Chereshniuk, P., 17 September 1948, “Pro velyki peretvorennia v zakhidno-ukrainskomu seli,” cited in Z ist., p. 347.Google Scholar

60 Sots. pereb., vol 2, p. 259.Google Scholar

61 Korbonski, A., Politics of Socialist Agriculture in Poland: 1945-1960 (New York, 1965), p. 135. For a reference to the Cominform, see Jacobs, op. cit., pp. 422-25.Google Scholar

62 A report of an UPA scouting mission in Horodok raion (Lviv oblast) points out that in February 1948, the raion authorities demanded that “not less than 50% of peasant households had to be collectivized by the spring of 1948,” and the rest by the end of the year. It is probable that this was the Soviet policy for the entire Western Ukraine. See Arkhiv misii UPA, folio 7, no. 8, p. 6.Google Scholar

63 Vyltsan, M. A., Danilov, M. P., Kabanov, V. V. and Moshkov, Iu. A., Kollektivizatsiia selskogo khoziaistva v SSSR: puti, formy, dostizheniia (Moscow, 1982), p. 327.Google Scholar

64 Beliazo, E. P., “Sotsialisticheskoe pereustroistvo selskogo khoziaistva zapadnykh oblastei BSSR.” In Tridstat let po sotsialisticheskomu puti: Tezisy dokladov i soobshchenii vsesoiuznoi nauchnoi konferentsii, posviashchennoi problemam kollektivizatsii selskogo khoziaistva Pribaltiki, zapadnykh oblastei Ukrainy, Belorussii i Moldavii, vol. 1 (Vilnius, 1979), pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., p. 79.Google Scholar

66 Taagepera, , op. cit., p. 387.Google Scholar

67 See, for example, Cherednychenko, V., Natsionalizm proty natsii (Kiev, 1970), pp. 157-67, a virulent anti-UPA tract.Google Scholar

68 Sots. pereb., vol. 2, p. 259.Google Scholar

69 Jacobs, , op. cit., p. 509.Google Scholar

70 See, for example, Korbonski, , op. cit., pp. 159-91, and especially pp. 189-90.Google Scholar

71 Jacobs, , op. cit., p. 509.Google Scholar

72 In Drohobych oblast, for example, the MTS political sections, upon formation, at once began a purge of “kulak elements” in kolkhozy. See Radianska Drohobychchyna, p. 128.Google Scholar

73 See, for example, Ivasiuta, , op. cit., p. 145.Google Scholar