Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic - Central Executive Committee of the USSR, 1928
From the Archives
The struggle for Soviet power in Ukraine began simultaneously with the struggle for it in other parts of the former Russian Empire. But the peculiar development of events (national movement, Hetmanship, Petliurism, etc.) led to the fact that the actual formation of the Ukrainian SSR took place only in January 1919, when, after the overthrow of the hetman's power, a provisional workers' and peasants' government was organized.
The Ukrainian SSR was formed on the territory of eight provinces of the former empire (Kharkov, Chernihiv, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav, Kherson, Podolsk, Volyn and Kyiv) and three counties of the former Tauride province: Dnieper, Melitopol and Berdyansk, covering 86 counties with 1,652 volosts. The total area occupied by it reaches 452 thousand square meters. km, which is 2.1% of the area of the entire Union and 9.4% of its European part. At first, the administrative-territorial structure of the Ukrainian SSR was extremely unstable. In 1925, a transition was made to a three-stage system of government (village council, district, region) with the abolition of provinces, and national administrative-territorial units were organized: the Autonomous Moldavian SSR was formed at the end of 1924, 366 national village councils, 7 national districts were allocated ; in addition, it is planned to allocate 5 more districts. Currently, the Ukrainian SSR is divided into 40 districts, 625 districts and 10,733 village councils. The Moldavian ASSR is also part of the Ukrainian SSR.
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Ukraine, according to the 1926 census, equals 29 million people. Comprising 2.1% of the entire Soviet Union in terms of territory and being 9.5 times smaller than the European part of the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR concentrates within its borders about 20% of the population of the Union, being only 2½ times smaller than the European part of the RSFSR in this indicator. Among other parts of the Union, Ukraine is one of the most densely populated - 64.2 people per 1 sq. km, while in the European part of the RSFSR - 19.3 people. The most densely populated regions of Ukraine are the right-bank forest-steppe (87.6 people per 1 sq. km) and the left-bank forest-steppe (74.4 people per 1 sq. km). The steppe is inhabited less frequently than other parts of Ukraine - 45.9 people. per 1 sq. km, but even then it surpasses almost all regions of the USSR in its density. The urban population in the Ukrainian SSR is, as in the European part of the RSFSR, 18.5%. According to its national composition, Ukraine is a relatively homogeneous entity. Ukrainians make up 80.0% of the total population, 9.2% are Russians, 5.4% are Jews, and 1.6% are Poles. 1.4% Germans, 0.9% Moldovans, 0.4% Greeks, 0.3% Bulgarians, 0.3% Belarusians and 0.5% others.
Among the rural population, Ukrainians make up 87.5%, in the cities they are left with only a relative majority - 47.2% of the total urban population: Russians in cities make up 25.0% of the population, among the rural population - only 5.5%, Jews in the city - 22.9%, in the countryside - 1.5%, Germans in the city - 0.6%, in the countryside - 1.5%; Poles among the urban population - 1.8%, among the rural - 1.6%; Moldovans are almost exclusively a rural population, they make up 1.0% of the total rural population of the Ukrainian SSR, while in the city they are only 0.2%.
In the west, next to the Ukrainians, often even in the first place, there are Jews, in the east - Russians. After the revolution, a gradual absorption of Ukrainians into the cities and a more even distribution of Russians and other nationalities are planned. However, until now, as a rule, Ukrainians predominate in small towns and are in the minority in larger ones.
A characteristic feature of Ukraine, or more precisely, of its western part, is the so-called agrarian overpopulation. This is evidenced by tens of thousands of migrants who annually left the northern provinces of Ukraine before the war. And despite this, the overall rate of population growth (mainly due to natural increase) was very significant. The problem of agrarian overpopulation and redundancy of labor remains one of the most important to this day.
The industrialization of Ukraine, entirely associated with the 19th century, began with the birth here, on the one hand, of the sugar industry (the first factory was founded in 1825), on the other hand, mining and metalurgy, associated with the mineral wealth of the Donbass (coal and ore), which quickly became the basis of its economy and turned it into an area with definitely emerging industrial development trends by the beginning of the world war: at the same time, Ukraine, both in terms of the predominant occupation of the population and in terms of the role of agriculture in the total production of the Republic, is predominantly an agricultural country.
Agriculture is the main activity of the vast majority (almost ⅘) of the population of the Ukrainian SSR.
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To the trade unions in the Ukrainian SSR, a total of 1,930,000 people were organized (as of April 1, 1927), which is 6.7% of the total population, as in the entire USSR. But the distribution of individual trade unions in the Ukrainian SSR differs significantly. The number of land and forest workers in Ukraine is 12.0% against 11.4% in the USSR. A large proportion of industrial workers (without builders): in Ukraine - 38.7%, and in the Union as a whole - 35.2%, and the nature of Ukrainian industry is immediately noticeable here; miners in Ukraine account for 11.1% of the total number of trade union members, while in the Union as a whole they make up only 4.5%, metalworkers - 11.9% (Ukraine) and 8.9% (USSR); sugar producers - 4.3% (here they are 78% of the total number in the USSR) against 1.1% (USSR). Builders among members of trade unions of the Ukrainian SSR - 5.9%, transport workers - 15.0%, including railway workers - 11.1%; there are relatively fewer mental workers in Ukraine, there are 23 of them.
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Public education. According to the 1926 census, the literacy rate of the Ukrainian population itself is somewhat lower than that of other nationalities. Thus, among Jews, 72.3% are literate, Germans - 60.2%, Russians - 45.1%, and Ukrainians - 41.3%.
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