On the Forced Ukrainization - 1926 Stalin
From The Letter To Comrade Kaganovich* and Other Members Of Central Committee Of The Communist Party Of Ukraine
"In the statements of the Comrade Shuysky** has some right thoughts.
It is true that a broad movement for Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian public began and is growing in Ukraine.
It is true that we cannot give this movement into the hands of elements that are alien to us under any circumstances.
It is true that a number of communists in Ukraine do not understand the meaning and importance of this movement and therefore do not take measures to acquire it.
It is true that it is necessary to make a fracture in the personnel of our party and Soviet workers, still permeated by the spirit of irony and skepticism in the issue of Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian public.
It is true that it is necessary to carefully select and create frames of people who can master the new movement in Ukraine. All of these are very true. But Comrade Shuysky makes at least two serious mistakes.
First of all, he confuses the Ukrainianization of our party and Soviet apparatus with the Ukrainianization of proletariat.
It is possible and necessary to Ukrainianize our party, state and other apparatuses serving the population while keeping a known pace. But you can't Ukrainianize proletariat from above. You cannot force Russian working masses to abandon the Russian language and Russian culture and recognize Ukrainian as their culture and language. This is contrary to the principle of the free development of nationalities. It would not be national freedom, but a peculiar form of national oppression.
There is no doubt that the composition of the Ukrainian proletariat will change as the industrial development of Ukraine develops, as Ukrainian workers influx into industry from neighboring villages.
There is no doubt that the composition of the Ukrainian proletariat will be Ukrainianized, just as the composition of the proletariat, say, in Latvia and Hungary, which at one time had a German character, then began to be latinized and maderized. But it's a long, strenuous, natural process.
Attempting to replace this elemental process with the violent Ukrainianization of the proletariat from above means to carry out utopian and harmful politics that can cause anti-Ukrainian chauvinism in the Ukrainian layers of proletariat.
I think that Comrade Shuysky misunderstands Ukrainianization and is not considered this last danger.
Secondly, quite correctly emphasizing the positive nature of the new movement in Ukraine for Ukrainian culture and society, Comrade Shuysky does not, however, see the shadow sides of this movement.
Comrade Shuysky does not see that with the weakness of the indigenous communist cadres in Ukraine, this movement, led entirely and next to non-communist intelligence, may take on places the nature of the struggle for the alienation of Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian public from the culture and public of the Soviet Union, the nature of the fight against "Moscow" in general, against Russians in general, against Russian culture and its superiority his achievements - against Leninism.
I will not prove that such a danger is becoming more and more real in Ukraine. I would just like to say that even some Ukrainian Communists are not free from such defects.
I mean such a well-known fact, as the article of the famous communist Hvylevy*** in the Ukrainian press. Hvylevy's demands for "immediate de-russification of proletariat" in Ukraine, his opinion that "from Russian literature, from its style Ukrainian poetry should run away as soon as possible", his statement that "the ideas of proletariats are known to us even without Moscow art", his passion for some kind of messianic role of Ukrainian "young" intelligence, his brave and a non-Marxist attempt to tear culture away from politics - all this and much like that sound in the mouth of the Ukrainian communist now (cannot help but sound) more than strange.
At a time when Western European proletarians and their communist parties are full of sympathy for "Moscow", to this citadel of the international revolutionary movement and Leninism, while Western European proletarias look with admiration at the flag waving in Moscow, Ukrainian communist Hvyleva has nothing else to say in favor of "Moscow" except to call Ukrainian figures should flee from Moscow "as soon as possible." And this is called internationalism!
What to say about other Ukrainian intellectuals of the non-communist camp if the Communists begin to speak, and not only speak, but also write in our Soviet press in the language of Comrade Wavy ?
Comrade Shuysky does not understand that it is possible to master a new movement in Ukraine for Ukrainian culture only by fighting the extremes tov. The wavy one in the communist ranks. Comrade Shuysky does not understand that only in the fight against such extremes can we transform the rising Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian society into Soviet culture and society. "
April 26, 1926
Stalin
Notes :
* L. M. Kaganovich was the general secretary of the KP(b)U, I at that time. V. Stalin sent him to Ukraine to fight against the excesses of Ukrainianization.
** Alexander Yakovlevich Shuysky (1890-1946) - former leftist aesser, in 1924-1927 was the head of the Narcotics Committee of Ukraine.
*** Mikola Khvyleva (real name Nikolay Grigorievich Fitilev, 1893-1933) was a Ukrainian novelist, poet, publicist. The theorist of Ukrainian national communism and the author of the slogan "Away from Moscow! » (Ukraine) Get the hell out of Moscow! ). He was sharply critical of Russian literature, both past and present, and urged Ukrainian writers to look to the West instead. He considered the nineteenth century classics of Russian literature to be shot through with "passive pessimism" and populated by "cadres of 'superfluous people', or, to put it simply, parasites, 'dreamers', people 'without any given responsibility', 'whimperers', 'grey little people' of the 'twentieth rank'", and therefore useless as a model for the Ukrainian literature of the twentieth century. He adopted the slogan "Death to Dostoyevskism! Up with the cultural renaissance!"
In 1926 Joseph Stalin, wrote to the Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party:
"At a time when the proletarians of Western Europe and their Communist Parties are in sympathy with "Moscow", this citadel of the international revolutionary movement and of Leninism, at a time when the proletarians of Western Europe look with admiration at the flag that flies over Moscow, the Ukrainian Communist Khvilevoy has nothing better to say in favor of "Moscow" than to call on the Ukrainian leaders to get away from "Moscow" "as fast as possible". And that is called internationalism! What is to be said of other Ukrainian intellectuals, those of the non-communist camp, if Communists begin to talk, and not only to talk but even to write in our Soviet press, in the language of Khvylovy?" (Palko, Olena ; "Mykola Khvyl'ovyy and the making of Soviet Ukrainian literature".)
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