Regulation of the course towards Ukrainization

Borisenok Elena Yurievna

(Not a Marxist Leninist, definitely not a Stalinist - a Historian, academician)

In the Ukrainian SSR, the fate of the intensive variant of the Ukrainization policy was finally decided. As Kosior said at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, various “counter-revolutionary elements".

The latter were to be eradicated by numerous "purges" of the party - a powerful tool for "strengthening the combat capability of the Ukrainian party organization in its struggle to hold a general

party line against the remnants of the kulaks, against opportunism and nationalism". Announced as early as December 1932, the “purge” gradually covered the entire Ukrainian Communist Party and continued intermittently for several years. Meeting with the regional Kyiv activists, D.Z. Manuilsky at the end of May 1934 stated that during the purge it was necessary to pay special attention to the state of affairs in national and cultural life, to a number of institutions that have the high rank of academies, institutes, scientific associations, in which class-hostile ideology often finds refuge. In 1933 alone, the number of the Ukrainian party organization decreased by 109,556 people.

The purge of the People's Commissariat of Education was also actively carried out. During 1933, 200 people were "cleaned" from his apparatus, all leaders were replaced in the regional departments of the people's commissariat, and 90% in the district departments. 4,000 teachers were fired as class-hostile elements. 270 scientists and teachers were repressed in the research institutions of the People's Commissariat of Education and universities, and 210,220 in pedagogical institutes. Deputy People's Commissar of Education of Ukraine A.A. Khvylya, who was directly involved in personnel purges, in the article "Educate the Young Communist Generation", published in "Komunist" on July 27, 1933, defined the results of his activities as follows: hostile elements - the Petliurists, the Makhnovists, the White Guards, the Kurkul underdogs.

And on August 5, 1933, in the same newspaper, in the article “Meet the new academic year in a Bolshevik way,” Khvylya wrote that the People’s Commissariat for Education of the Ukrainian SSR “gave instructions to all regions to revise the composition of the heads of schools in order to "drive out the class-hostile elements, drive out the Petliura-nationalist elements.

In Ukraine, as in the whole country, a suffocating atmosphere of mutual distrust prevailed. The mass repressions of the 1930s took place against the backdrop of a growing military danger, and the motive for the destruction of the "fifth column" was actively introduced into the public consciousness. Hundreds of thousands of economic, party, and military workers were arrested. The Soviet and party leadership of the national republics was rapidly changing and subjected to repression. The atmosphere of general suspicion created the conditions for the spread of denunciations. In this regard, the appearance of such figures as P.T. Nikolaenko. According to the well-known Russian researcher O.V. Khlevnyuk, she became "one of those exalted victims of Stalin's teaching on the intensification of the class struggle, who everywhere imagined enemies and spies" 222. Nikolaenko's biography was typical: a laborer, she joined the party in 1920, worked as a zhenorg, studied. In 1935, while working in a museum town in Kyiv, she accused one of the employees of stealing the exhibits. The director did not support Nikolaenko, and she began to denounce him too. Nikolaenko was sent to the graduate school of the Association of Marxist-Leninist Scientific Institutes (UAMLIN), where she also exposed the "enemies". After the party organization of the Association expelled Nikolaenko from the party, statements followed that enemies settled in WAMLIN. Nikolaenko filed an application addressed to Stalin, and in April 1936 the Party Control Commission decided to reinstate her in the party. However, in Kyiv, it is not possible to restore Nikolaenko were in a hurry. Stalin became aware of Nikolaenko. At the February-March 1937 plenum, he devoted an entire paragraph to it in his speech, pointing out that “ordinary people sometimes turn out to be much closer to the truth than some high institutions".

Indeed, if earlier in Ukraine, at the official level, distinctions were made between “great-power chauvinism” and “local nationalism” and it became clear where the “main danger” came from, now the situation has changed. The resolution of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U dated November 3, 1934, spoke of "the new tactics of Russian great-power chauvinists and Ukrainian nationalists, supported by the entire counter-revolution", which consists in creating a common bloc on the "platform of separating Ukraine from the USSR", "weakening the positions of the USSR and the return of the power of the landlords and capitalists. Over the past year, the document pointed out, the CP(b)U "waged a resolute struggle to finish off and further uproot the remnants of counter-revolutionary elements - Ukrainian nationalists and Trotskyists". At the same time, “wrecking work ... of the remains of the defeated counter-revolutionary bloc of nationalists and Trotskyists was facilitated by the direct harboring of them by the opportunist, liberalizing rotten elements, even available within individual party organizations.

During the 1930s, any party or Soviet worker in the country risked falling under the suspicion of "competent authorities". The resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U dated May 26, 1933 “On the purge of the party” referred to the presence within the party organizations of Ukraine of “alien, degenerate elements, kulak agents, representatives of counter-revolutionary bourgeois nationalism, double-dealers who hide their real aspirations under cover for a false formal recognition of the general line parties". The Decree of December 3, 1934 was also sustained in a similar spirit, which again spoke of the presence "within individual Party organizations" of various "rotten opportunist, liberalizing elements", directly linked with nationalists and Trotskyists.

In Ukraine, the accusation of "concealing" and "assisting" the "counter-revolutionary bloc of nationalists and Trotskyists" posed a particular danger.

Reporting at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine on January 26-30, 1936, on the results of the verification of party documents, Postyshev stated: “During 1933 and 1934, we defeated the Skrypnikovshchina, Uvists (i.e., members of the UVO - E.B..), organizations of Borotbists, Trotskyists, a bloc of nationalists with Trotskyists, organizations of Polish and German nationalists. At the same time, in Ukraine, the Trotskyists “were and are conducting their counter-revolutionary work here, in a bloc with various nationalist and other counter-revolutionary organizations. When the main danger in the Ukraine was great-power chauvinism, they formed a bloc with the great-power leaders. ... And when Ukrainian nationalism became the main danger in Ukraine, Trotskyists blockade with nationalists in Ukraine.

As a result of the "purges" carried out, the national composition of the party and Soviet workers changed. Thus, in the resolution of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine on the results of the purge of the Kharkiv regional party organization of October 29, 1936, the need to nominate Ukrainian Bolshevik cadres for party work was explained by a decrease in their numbers: “In the composition of the first secretaries of the Republic of Kazakhstan in 1933, Ukrainians were 59% , in 1934 - 46.9%, in 1935 - 44.5%, as of 1.1.36 only 31%". The same situation has developed in the Dnepropetrovsk region. At the resolution of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U on the results of the purge of this regional party organization, also adopted on October 29, 1936, cited the following figures: - 55% of the first secretaries of the Republic of Kazakhstan were Ukrainians, in 1936 - 34% remained. In the composition of the chairmen of the RIKs - in 1933, Ukrainians were 66%, and in 1936 - 53%”.

The Ukrainian leadership paid special attention to the educational, scientific and cultural spheres. In October 1933, the Ukrainian National State Institute of Pedagogy and the All-Ukrainian Society "Teacher-Marxist" were criticized. They were “littered with counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist Petliurist elements (Badan, Vitek, Prystupa, Kanyuk), who led the main departments and sections of the institute” and were “a legal base for the counter-revolutionary activities of bourgeois nationalist elements”, in particular, “forced Ukrainization national minorities".

Indeed, scientific and educational institutions were especially suspicious for the party leadership: “The Central Committee of the CP(b)U believes that the activity of the remnants of the counter-revolutionary bloc of nationalists and Trotskyists in individual scientific and educational institutions over the past year is a direct result of insufficient vigilance on the part of individual party organizations”. Party organizations were not vigilant enough. VUAMLIN, Institute of Red Professors, Kharkov University, Lugansk Institute of Public Education, which allowed "the joint development by Ukrainian nationalists and Trotskyists of anti-Soviet textbooks and other literary works on socio-economic disciplines, published in 1931-1932." It was about works on political economy, philosophy, the theory of the Soviet economy, the history of Ukraine by such scientists as I. Gurevich, M.V. Chichkevich, P.S. Osadchiy, M.I. Svidzinsky and others. At the same time, the Central Committee of the CP(b)U emphasized that "the wrecking work of the remnants of the defeated counter-revolutionary bloc of nationalists and Trotskyists" was facilitated due to "their direct harboring by the opportunist, liberalizing, rotten elements that still exist within individual party organizations".

Nationalist tendencies were also found in the editorial board of the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia, where "class enemies, wreckers and counter-revolutionaries ... used the SSE as their organizational and financial base" , as well as in a number of cultural institutions. Thus, the artistic director of the theater "Berezil" L. Kurbas, under the slogan of "independent art", allegedly pursued a policy of isolating the theater from "our Soviet socialist reality".

On October 5, 1933, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U approved the decision of the People's Commissariat for Education of the Ukrainian SSR, which stated that the theater "could not take its rightful place in the creation of Ukrainian Soviet art", and Kurbas "knocked down the theater to the position of Ukrainian nationalism", "often showed Soviet reality is caricatured. On March 22, 1935, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine decided to rename the Kharkiv theater "Berezil" to the theater. Shevchenko.

On May 12, 1933, the writer M.E. was arrested. Yalovoi, the first resident of VAPLITE, head of the political department of Ukrgosizdat. The next day, N. Khvylevoy committed suicide. In a letter prepared to the Central Committee of the CP(b) by the members of VAPLITE (O. Dosvitny, Khvyleva, Yalova), it was said that the “deviations from the party line” that emerged during the literary discussion were used by “elements hostile to the proletarian revolution”, but this happened against desires of the WAPLITE members, and therefore “now we resolutely break with those of our mistakes that gave rise to the enemies of the Communist Party to join us." From the libraries of Ukraine, works of a “nationalist nature” by B.D. Antonenko-Davidovich, D.P. G ordienko, N.G. Kulish, F.I. Kapelgorodsky, I.N. Lakizy, A. Olesya (A.I. Kandyby), V.P. Pidmogilny and others.

At the January session of the VUAN 1934, the People's Commissar of Education V. P. Zatonsky, speaking with a report “On national-cultural construction and the struggle against nationalism”, accused Grushevsky of defending the “farm Ukrainians”, Krymsky - of sabotage, Yavorsky - of hiding the activities of enemies in the UAAMN. At this session, Galicians M.S. were expelled from the academy. Wozniak, F.M. Kolessa, K.I. Studinsky and V.G. Shchurat, as well as the famous philosopher V.A. Yurinets and the founder of Ukrainian geographical science S.L. Rudnitsky 244

At the same time, the "cleansing" of the teaching staff of schools from "nationalist elements" took place. In April 1934, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U created special commissions from representatives of party and Komsomol organizations, the People's Commissariat of Education and state security agencies, which were supposed to check national districts and schools by June 1 and clear them of "anti-Soviet elements." Preparatory work in this direction has already been carried out, and, as already mentioned, in the period from March 1933 to January 1934. about 4,000 “nationalist” teachers were fired from schools, and the “purge” affected primarily Polish and German educational institutions.

During the period of the struggle against “bourgeois nationalism”, the main attention was directed to the Western Ukrainian emigrant communists, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trotskyists, Bundists and, of course, former Borotbists and Ukapists. The latter were treated with particular care. In February 1933, an article by P.P. Lyubchenko "On "National Bolshevism", in which a sharply negative assessment was given to attempts to combine communist and national ideas. “National Bolsheviks began to be called the Ukapists, Shumskyists, Razlomovites from the KPZU and a number of other nationalist groups that had opposed the Comintern in their time, with whom our party waged a decisive struggle as nationalist groups” 246- wrote Lyubchenko. He further emphasized that “all the so-called examples of “national Bolshevism” received their assessment from the party and the Comintern, but the Comintern and the party never qualified, did not call them “national Bolshevism”. The Comintern never intended to label various nationalist currents, various nationalist deviators, as "National Bolsheviks." The Comintern stood in the position of exposing the nationalist essence of each such current...". Two months later, another article appeared in the magazine under the characteristic heading “In the struggle against which petty-bourgeois Ukrainian nationalist parties the CP(b)U ensured the victory of the proletarian revolution in Ukraine.” “Ukrainian nationalist parties - USDRP, UPSR, together with other bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, came out with great activity to fight the Bolsheviks in the revolution of 1917, against the establishment of Soviet power in Ukraine, for the establishment of Ukrainian power.

bourgeoisie, the power of landowners and capitalists,” wrote the author of the article M. Zagretsky. At the same time, it was emphasized that “all the best elements” of the Borotbists and Ukapists were accepted into the CP (b) U, however, “in the course of the further class struggle”, the nationalist elements of the remnants of these parties “more and more entered the class-hostile camp, becoming one of the constituent parts of the Ukrainian counter-revolution".

As a result of purges and repressions, the number of CP(b)U was significantly reduced. As of April 1937, there were 296,643 registered communists in the CP(b)U, which is 253,790 fewer than on January 1, 1933, while only 8 remained in the CP(b)U, 2% of those who joined the party before 1920 250 T. Martin drew attention to the fact that during the period of repression “the connection between indigenization and national communism was broken”: terror was directed “against three main categories of the population: national communists, Ukrainian specialists in the field of culture (teachers and experts in the field of national policy in particular) and, finally, Western Ukrainian emigration”.

The correction of the indigenization course provided for changes in the education system. The fight against nationalism, including in the system of the People's Commissariat of Education, could not but affect educational institutions in which teaching was conducted in the language of national minorities. If in the second half of the 1920s the Central Committee of the CP(b)U forcibly created schools for the national minorities of the Ukrainian SSR with teaching in their native language and proudly reported this at party forums, then in the mid-1930s party leaders were preoccupied with cases “forcing the Ukrainian and Russian population to send their children to Polish, Czech and other national schools". The leitmotif of numerous speeches by party leaders in the press was the thesis of "forced Ukrainization", which led to the forcible displacement of the Russian language from school education. Such "distortions of the Leninist national policy" led to the national isolation of both Ukrainians and representatives of other national minorities in the Ukrainian SSR and created favorable conditions for the activities of both Ukrainian and German, Polish and other nationalists.

Such statements were not accidental: the top leadership feared that national minorities (especially Germans and Poles) could be used by foreign governments against the USSR. For the Soviet leadership, a landmark event was the campaign to help starving Soviet Germans in Germany. Both Moscow and Kharkov did not at all want the Germans to turn to Berlin for help, or the Poles to Warsaw, especially after the German-Polish non-aggression pact was concluded in January 1934. The logical outcome of such sentiments was the eviction in 1935 from the border regions to the eastern regions of Ukraine of "unreliable elements."

Two years earlier, it was about correcting the "violations" in the national policy, in particular, about the excessive increase in the number of schools for national minorities. As stated in the report of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U for the period from the XI to the XII Congress of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, carried out in 1933 by order of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, the census of children of zero, first and second groups revealed that "children Russians were provided with education in their native language only by 41%; in Kherson there was not a single group of junior concentration for the children of Russian workers. In the Olshansky district (Bulgarian) there was an attempt to completely Ukrainize the second concentration, while for 50% of the students their native language is Bulgarian. In Moldovan schools (N.-Odessa district) they taught in the Ukrainian language. The number of 7-year-olds for children of national minorities did not provide education in their native language. There were such twists as forced Jewishization: in Zinovievsk, by order of the head. RONO did not accept Jewish children in Russian and Ukrainian schools. In the Kalinindorf region, compulsory study of the Hebrew language was introduced in German and Ukrainian schools, etc.” In addition, “the matter of training teachers for national schools, especially Russian ones, was ignored: there was only one sector (Kyiv), where there were ninety-five students with graduation in 1932-33. - 13 people; in 1931-32 there were two pedagogical technical schools for Russian schools, 324 students” where there were ninety-five students with graduation in 1932-33. - 13 people; in 1931-32 there were two pedagogical technical schools for Russian schools, 324 students” where there were ninety-five students with graduation in 1932-33. - 13 people; in 1931-32 there were two pedagogical technical schools for Russian schools, 324 students”.

On August 2, 1933, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine ordered the People's Commissariat of Education to prepare materials on the redistribution of the "school network in national section" . After conducting the census and checking the work of schools, the new leadership of the People's Commissariat of Education, headed by Zatonsky, began to reform the network of schools. Between the 1932/1933 and 1933/1934 academic years, the number of so-called mixed schools changed. The number of Ukrainian-Russian schools increased (from 169 to 387), but the number of Ukrainian-German (from 46 to 30) and Ukrainian-Polish (from 64 to 44) schools decreased 256. Significant changes have also taken place in Kharkov schools. According to the Kharkiv regional ONO, in September 1933 the number of Ukrainian schools in the city decreased (from 44 to 30), the number of Russian schools increased (from 10 to 20), the number of mixed Ukrainian-Russian schools also increased (from 25 to 39). The number of national minority schools did not change: 5 Jewish, 1 Polish, 1 Tatar and 1 German school continued to operate in Kharkiv. increased and the total number of schools - from 88 to 98.

Work was carried out to check the schools of national minorities. The corresponding resolution of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, addressed to cultural propaganda. The Central Committee and the organs of the GPU came out on December 13, 1933. The inspectors who went to the places reported on the possibility of changing the language of instruction in schools. So, the materials of the check in May 1934 of the Polish schools in the Kyiv region (22 schools in total) contained the conclusions that the Polish schools were “planted artificially”, the Polish population was assimilated, the native language of the children is not Polish, but Ukrainian. However, “despite not knowing the Polish language”, “all Polish children go to Polish schools, single activists, party members and workers send their children to Ukrainian schools”, which was explained by “national isolation and religiosity of the population”, agitation of local teachers etc.

After checking the Deputy People's Commissar of Education A.A. Khvylya reported to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine that in a number of districts of the Kyiv and Vinnitsa regions "there are schools where children are taught in Polish at a time when they do not understand it and their native language is Ukrainian." Referring to the forced Polonization of Ukrainian children in these areas, the People's Commissariat of Education asked for a directive on the transfer of schools for "children of Ukrainian Catholics" into their native language 260. As a result, on June 10, 1934, the Orgburo adopted a decision “On the implementation of the resolution of the November plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the CP(b)U and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U of December 13, 1933 “On the personnel of national minority schools”, in which Polish teachers were accused of counter revolutionary and forcible Polonization of the Ukrainian village. On June 16, 1934, the Ukrainian Politburo adopted a resolution "On Polish Schools", according to which schools were transferred to the Ukrainian language of instruction in those areas where the population considered Ukrainian as their mother tongue.

On August 16, the Kyiv Regional Committee reported that work had already been carried out in 14 districts out of 34, as a result, out of 79 Polish schools in these 14 districts, 43 schools "by decision of parent meetings and the PKK are being transferred to the Ukrainian language of instruction, in 23 schools the Polish language of instruction remains". By the end of August, the regional committee planned to complete work in the rest of the districts. As a result, during 1934, 135 out of 291 Polish schools in the Vinnitsa region were reorganized into Ukrainian ones, and seventy out of 153 Polish schools were reorganized in the Kiev region. On April 4, 1935, the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U adopted a resolution "On the reorganization of German and Polish schools in the border areas", and at the end of 1935, only 35 Polish schools remained in the Vinnitsa region.

The fight against nationalism led to a “spontaneous wave of de-Ukrainization”, especially in eastern Ukraine: factory newspapers were translated from Ukrainian into Russian, all office work in Donetsk was translated into Russian by the city authorities, and teachers in mixed Ukrainian-Russian schools tried to teach in Russian 265. Opponents of Ukrainization, taking advantage of the unfolding campaign against nationalism, sought to take revenge, which could not pass by the attention of the republican authorities. In September 1935, a decree of the People's Commissariat for Education signed by Khvyly condemned attempts to conduct extracurricular work in a Ukrainian school in Russian. In the resolution it was a question of school No. 8 of Nikolaev which management just undertook similar kind of actions. All directors and supervisors Ukrainian-medium schools were warned that they were personally responsible for maintaining order in the school, including ensuring that extracurricular activities were conducted in Ukrainian.

The party authorities followed the Ukrainization of periodicals very strictly. So, in September 1933, the Kharkov Politburo decided that the newspapers of the Southern and Ekaterininsky Railways were to be published in two languages, and the newspaper of the political department of the Southwestern Railway was to be published in Ukrainian. In February 1934, the Central Committee of the CP(b)U received a memorandum stating that this decision was ignored: the newspapers of all three railways continued to be published in Russian. The Politburo returned to the question of the language of railway newspapers in March and November 1934. Finally, on March 4, 1935, another resolution of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U was adopted, concerning the language of railway newspapers, after which newspapers nevertheless began to be published in Ukrainian 267. Another case is also very interesting. On August 27, 1935, the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U considered the request of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Committee for the language of publication of the Shturm magazine. The regional committee asked to revise the decision of the Central Committee on the translation of this journal into Ukrainian and allow it to be published in two languages ​​- Ukrainian and Russian. However, the secretariat of the Central Committee was adamant: it offered the Dnepropetrovsk regional committee to publish a journal in Ukrainian, but "in as an exception", "outstanding works of Russian writers print in the original language.

In the eastern regions of the Ukrainian SSR, local authorities tried to draw the attention of higher authorities to the "excesses" of the Ukrainization policy. For example, on September 25, 1933, the Dnepropetrovsk City Committee checked the state of Ukrainian studies courses. The adopted resolution stated that the courses "for a long time and to this day have been the focus of Ukrainian nationalist counter-revolutionary propaganda, where class-hostile and nationalist elements have dug in," and the state of Ukrainization in the city is unsatisfactory. The Bureau of the City Committee demanded "a sharp change in this most important area of ​​work so that, on the basis of a resolute and irreconcilable struggle for the correct implementation of the Leninist national policy, a struggle on two fronts, against great-power chauvinism and Ukrainian nationalism, which has intensified recently"269 ​​. The memorandum on the state of the regional courses emphasized that the course teachers “were financially interested in letting as many people as possible and creating as many groups as possible”, as a result of which “persons who completed the course of Ukrainian studies last year were massively involved in Ukrainization, they took away certificates of completion of these courses and forced them to re-Ukrainize, arguing that they had already forgotten everything that they had taken earlier, that they were obliged to know literature.

Therefore, some studied in a row for 3-4 years.

However, the efforts of the Dnepropetrovsk City Committee to combat counter-revolutionary elements did not bring the expected success. On December 22, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U stated that the bureau of the Dnepropetrovsk city committee of the CP(b)U, and especially the secretary of the city committee Comrade Levitin, did not react to signals about the clogging of the Dnepropetrovsk University with nationalist and Trotskyist elements and did not take measures to defeat them , moreover, embarked "on the path of open defense of these elements (Yagnetinskaya, Brokhin, Komarovsky, etc.)". Levitin was removed from work, as well as the head of cultural propaganda Dnepropetrovsk regional committee of Segalovich.

The party leadership of the Ukrainian SSR sought to show that the fight against "Ukrainian nationalism" and "purges" did not mean the end of the Ukrainization policy. At the November plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine in 1933, S.V. Kosior stated that the fight against nationalist elements does not at all mean a change in the course adopted at the 12th Congress: “The great-power Russian chauvinists and Ukrainian nationalists are trying to interpret the party’s decisive struggle against the Petliura elements as a revision of national policy. We must give the most merciless rebuff to these slanderous and provocative trying..." “The further implementation of the Bolshevik Ukrainization is inextricably linked with the international education of the masses,” said the leader of the Ukrainian communists, “should take place on the basis of an unremitting struggle on two fronts - against the great Russian chauvinism and Ukrainian nationalism..."

P.P. spoke about the same. Postyshev at the January plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine in 1936: “The enemies have always tried and are trying to present the matter in such a way that we here in Ukraine did not beat nationalists, not counter-revolutionaries, not spies and saboteurs, but supposedly Ukrainians. ... We have always said that only by defeating the nationalists can we to truly open the way for genuine Ukrainian cadres.

On January 24, 1934, Pravda published a report by P.P. Postyshev at the XII Congress of the CP(b)U, designed to convince the public of the high rates of Ukrainization in the Ukrainian SSR. In particular, it was said that in 1933 there were 21970 schools in the Ukrainian SSR, in which 5 million children studied, of which 4.5 million were in the Ukrainian language, 350 thousand people studied at workers' faculties, in technical schools and institutes of Ukraine, of which 55% - Ukrainians; 89% of all newspapers in Ukraine were published in Ukrainian; more than half of the 2,000 graduate students of various research and educational institutions were Ukrainians. No fewer high rates were achieved in the course of the policy of nominating Ukrainians to leading positions in Soviet institutions: 54% of the presidium of district executive committees, 50.3% of the presidium of city councils, 72% of the entire management staff of the district's workers were Ukrainians. The same applied to the national composition of the working class: Postyshev claimed that in 1929 Ukrainians by nationality made up 47.9% of the working class of Ukraine, and now - 56.1%.

Explaining the tasks facing the CP(b)U, in addition to pointing out "Bolshevik vigilance against the nationalist counter-revolution" and "exposing to the end Skrypnik's nationalist deviation", Postyshev pointed out not only the need to educate the CP(b)U and the broad masses of workers and collective farms in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, but also the wide deployment of creative work "in the field of building Soviet Ukrainian culture." The latter task was understood as “training and educating Ukrainian Bolshevik cadres and promoting them to all areas of socialist construction”, “raising to a new, qualitatively higher level of theater, cinema, press, radio”, etc., as well as “expanding work on cultural services in the native language of the national minorities of Ukraine”.

To demonstrate the invariance of the Ukrainization course, on May 3, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U instructed S.V. Kosior, N.N. Popov, P.P. Lyubchenko to develop a draft resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine on the organization of checking the state of Ukrainization in the central institutions. T. Martin emphasizes that in May 1934 the cultural propaganda department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to take tough measures against the “de-Ukrainizers”. The prepared draft resolution demanded "from all communists who know the Ukrainian language to use it in their work at meetings and in speeches." In addition, "all employees who either do not know Ukrainian or know it unsatisfactorily should continue to study Ukrainian on their own." Every employee of a state or cooperative organization was required to know the Ukrainian language in order to: “a) accurately understand written and oral instructions; b) follow instructions and c) write grammatically correctly. A special commission was set up to edit this resolution, but it has never been published.

Such attention to the Ukrainian language on the part of the party leadership was not accidental. Secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U N.N. Popov drew attention to the tendencies existing “in the provinces” to “identify the excesses of Ukrainization with Ukrainization itself”: “Some comrades think that the elimination of excesses [Ukrainization] means the elimination of Ukrainization. Speaking at the regional congress of councils of the Kiev region on January 11, 1935, P.P. Postyshev stressed the need to "force the advancement of proven Bolshevik cadres to the construction sites of the Soviet Ukrainian culture." Listing the achievements of Ukrainian Soviet culture, Postyshev indignantly remarked: “In the face of these achievements, what is the yapping of counter-revolutionary nationalist mongrels about the fact that after the defeat of the nationalists, Ukrainian culture has died out? It's them -Ukrainian and Russian nationalists allied with European fascism tried to impede the development of Ukrainian Soviet culture.

However, it is obvious that the party authorities were concerned about the ongoing attempts of de-Ukrainization, especially in the eastern regions. On September 10, 1935, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine considered the issue "On Ukrainization in the regions." The Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine believed that the Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa regional committees "are not sufficiently engaged in the matter of Ukrainization", and "in a number of Soviet, cultural, trade union and other institutions there is a clear violation of the party line in the matter of Ukrainization." Head of agitprop Z.A. Ashrafyan was instructed to organize a special survey of these areas, check the Soviet apparatus: what language the correspondence is in, accepted resolutions, what language is used, in what language meetings are held. It was also supposed to pay attention to departments of executive committees, city councils, schools, trade unions, party education and all cultural institutions, as well as for Komsomol and pioneer work and the work of party apparatuses of regional committees, district committees and city committees.

On October 9, 1935, the Central Committee received a note "On the state of Ukrainization in the Dnepropetrovsk region." The survey revealed "undoubtedly insufficient work on the promotion of Ukrainian personnel to leading party work ": out of six heads of departments of the regional committee there was only one Ukrainian. Slightly better was the case with Ukrainian cadres in Soviet bodies: in the plenum of the regional executive committee of 170 people, only 55 Ukrainians, in the presidium of the regional executive committee of 16 members of Ukrainians - 4, out of nine candidates of Ukrainians -3. The work of the apparatus of the regional committee was carried out mainly in Russian (in separate documents of the regional committee and part of the materials of cultural propaganda were issued in Ukrainian), correspondence with district and primary party bodies was also carried out in Russian, “visitors are spoken in Russian, meetings are held in Russian language". The state of Ukrainization in the Komsomol was assessed extremely negatively. The press was sharply criticized, mainly for the fact that in the newspapers most of the materials were published in Russian, under Ukrainian names. The mass cultural enlightenment work was also criticized: “At the plant. Petrovsky during the working Olympiad (September of this year) out of forty numbers there were only 8 Ukrainian”, “On factory them. Lenin in the repertoire of the choir circle - almost exclusively Russian and Classical Songs”, radio broadcasts were broadcasted from, and attention was paid to the promotion of Ukrainian personnel [12]. At the same time, the inspectors concluded that the “general weakening of Ukrainization” in party organizations happened in 1934-1935.

Finally, a survey of the Odessa region demonstrated the "complete absence of the Ukrainian language in business communication, work and life" in Odessa and Nikolaev. “In all party bodies, Soviet and public organizations with which the brigade had a chance to meet, in the Regional Committee and its departments, the City Park Committee, the District Committee, the regional committee and the City Committee of the LKSMU, in the Regional Committee, the regional narrosvet, Gordnarprosvet, at factories ... business and everyday language is only Russian , - the members of the verification commission were indignant.

“Only a few units speak Ukrainian.” True, the Ukrainian language was the language of official correspondence, but "oral conversations, notes, telephone conversations - all this is conducted in Russian". Mass party work at the factory was also carried out, as a rule, in Russian, it was also the case with the pioneer and trade union cadres of our party and Soviet workers, “still imbued with the spirit of irony and skepticism on the issue of Ukrainian culture and the Ukrainian public” (Stalin), wrote Ashrafyan. -... Individual city committees, party committees, heads of individual enterprises not only did not understand by this time the gigantic scope and unprecedented turn of Ukrainian Soviet culture and statehood (especially after the defeat of the nationalists and Skrypnik's national deviationism), but also did not draw political conclusions for themselves regarding practical mastering this movement.

Regional party organizations were severely criticized, especially since the republican leadership paid special attention to supporting Ukrainian cadres: it was directly said about the cultivation of real Soviet Ukrainian cadres, both party and non-party in a resolution adopted by the plenum of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U on November 22, 1933. The party authorities continued the course of training Ukrainian specialists in general, and scientific personnel in particular: party, Soviet bodies, cultural institutions, etc. were "blooded out" by the purges. So, on October 28, 1933, the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, considering the issue of the results of recruitment to the Institute of Red Professors, emphasized the need for a more careful attitude to ensuring the selection of this institution by Ukrainian workers. The planning commission of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (the new name of VUAN since 1936), reporting on the results of the second five-year plan, proudly announced an increase in the number of Soviet scientific personnel: among scientists and other workers.

Institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR Ukrainians - 60%. In the autumn of 1935, a additional recruitment to the Institute of Red Professors: on October 27, the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to organize, within 10 days, the selection of 5 best Ukrainian students (members of the Communist Party of Ukraine (b)U), and also 10 Komsomol members - Ukrainians - the best students of senior courses of universities. In March 1936, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U proposed "to identify young Ukrainian cadres of graduate students, assistants" who could be "nominated for associate professors and professors of medical institutions". On March 15, 1936, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U recognized the need to “expand the law faculties at the Kiev State University and the Kharkov Institute of Soviet Construction and Law. To staff these faculties mainly with Ukrainians”.

The practice of nominating Ukrainians to leadership positions continued. On February 26, 1935, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U adopted a resolution "On the nomination of Ukrainian personnel", in which the department of leading party bodies, together with regional committees, was ordered to submit at least 120-150 people (Ukrainians) to the secretariat of the Central Committee for promotion to the posts of secretaries of the PKK and 120 people to be nominated for the posts of heads of the REC. At the same time, from among the Ukrainians - the secretaries of the PKK and the heads of the RIC - a "list of comrades with detailed personal characteristics who could be nominated for regional and central party and Soviet work" was to be drawn up. Finally, all departments of the Central Committee were to “together with the regional committees and city party committees, review the composition of the bureau of party committees, as well as the assets of higher educational institutions and outline for promotion to leading party and Soviet work, proven and capable youth".

Ukrainian cadres strengthened not only the party and Soviet apparatus. In the spring of 1935, the Central Committee of the CP(b)U issued a resolution "On improving the training and retraining of Ukrainian newspaper personnel", which prompted the regional party organizations to engage in "wide involvement of Ukrainian personnel in the leadership of the press." For example, The Donetsk regional committee of the CP(b)U pointed out to the secretary of the Starobelsky district committee V. Pelevin the need to “strengthen the editorial board with strong Ukrainian communists” and proposed to allocate 42 Ukrainian correspondents for city and regional newspapers, who provided information about the state of affairs in the districts of Starobelsk Okrug.

As a result, the Organizing Bureau and the secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine in August 1935 - April 1936. several times considered the issues of nominating Ukrainian personnel to leadership positions in various departments. Special commissions were created, which were supposed to submit their proposals for the nomination of Ukrainian personnel as soon as possible (usually it was about one month). Ukrainians were to be nominated for the positions of assistant prosecutors, prosecutors of the People's Commissariat of Justice, members of the Supreme Court, regional prosecutors and their deputies, to the people's commissariats and regional departments as heads of departments, head. departments and group leaders (Narkommestprom, Narkomkhoz, Glavdortrans, Upolnarkomsvyaz), to the central office and senior positions in the regional departments of health protection, to the positions of directors and their deputies in research institutes Narkomzdrav, finally, in the system of Narkompros and Oblnarpros.

However, the promotion of Ukrainian cadres was not limited to a one-time campaign: this issue continued to receive attention in the following years. On October 29, 1936, the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U considered the issue of the results of the purge of the Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk regional party organizations. Particular attention was paid to the national composition of the leading cadres. The secretariat noted that “the Kharkiv party organization did not comply with the order of the XII Congress of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine on the nomination of Ukrainian Bolshevik cadres for party work. In the composition of the first secretaries of the Republic of Kazakhstan in 1933, Ukrainians were 59%, in 1934 - 46.9%, in 1935 - 44.5%, as of 1.1.36 only 31% remained...” 314 The same criticism was voiced against the Dnepropetrovsk leaders: “...the Central Committee of the CP(b)U notes that the party organization of the Dnepropetrovsk region is unsatisfactorily following the repeated instructions on the nomination of Ukrainian Bolshevik cadres to the leading party Soviet and other work. As part of the first secretaries of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the chairmen of the RECs Dnepropetrovsk region - the percentage of Ukrainians over the past 3 years has been systematically decreasing: in 1933 - the first secretaries of the Republic of Kazakhstan were 55% Ukrainians, in 1936 - 34% remained. In the composition of the chairmen of the RIKs - in 1933, Ukrainians were 66%, and in 1936 - 53%”.

Thus, the Decree of December 14, 1932, introduced significant changes in the social life of the Ukrainian SSR. Repressions against “Ukrainian nationalists” were directed, as T. Martin rightly notes, against national communists, Ukrainian specialists in the field of culture (teachers and specialists in the field of national policy in particular) and, finally, Western Ukrainian emigration 316. However, for the party leadership, this did not mean the end of the Ukrainization policy. People from non-Bolshevik parties, who always aroused suspicion among the Bolsheviks, were excluded from its holding. Leadership in the national area had to move to "genuine Ukrainian cadres", the road to which was opened by the policy of nominating indigenous people to leadership positions. Speaking at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U in January 1936, P.P. Postyshev declared: “In the course of 1933 and 1934 we defeated the Skrypnikovshchina, the Uvists, the organizations of the Borotbists, the Trotskyists, the bloc of nationalists with the Trotskyists, the organizations of Polish and German non-nationalists in Ukraine. ... Enemies all the time tried and are trying to present the matter in such a way that we here in Ukraine beat not nationalists, not counter-revolutionaries, not spies and saboteurs, but supposedly Ukrainians. We have always said that only by defeating the nationalists can one truly open the way for genuine Ukrainian personnel".

In the same spirit, Postyshev's report was sustained at the plenum of the Kyiv regional party committee on January 5-7, 1937. “During the first years of the existence of Soviet power in Ukraine, as you know, the centers of the Ukrainian counter-revolution abroad, as you know, transferred to Ukraine, under the guise of Soviet people and even under the guise of party members, a significant number of their supporters from the former Petliurites and other agents of the nationalist counter-revolution from Galicia, who dispersed throughout the Soviet apparatuses, and partly penetrated even into the party and even in the party apparatus, ”Postyshev argued. However, Postyshev did not limit himself to criticism of the nationalists: the accusation was also made against “Russian great-power and great-power deviators who had made their way into the party, both in the Soviet apparatus and within the party.” Their "double-dealing tactics" consisted in the fact that they were "in words. recognized the national policy of the party, in words they recognized the task of Ukrainization, but in deeds they frustrated it and sabotaged these tasks." The conclusion was quite logical: “In Ukraine, we should first of all promote Ukrainian cadres, Ukrainian Bolshevik cadres. Do we now have few Ukrainian Bolsheviks among the workers and collective farmers? Work in this regard done.? Don. Is it enough? Far from enough."

However, at the beginning of 1937, Postyshev was removed from the post of secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U and first secretary of the Kyiv regional committee and was transferred to Kuibyshev, where he was elected first secretary of the Kuibyshev regional committee. This was due to the next round of repressions in the USSR. On January 13, 1937, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the unsatisfactory party leadership of the Kyiv Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (b)U and shortcomings in the work of the Central Committee CP(b)U”, which dealt with the infestation of these organizations by “enemies of the people”. Already on January 16, Kaganovich arrived in Kyiv, and a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP (b) U was held. The Kiev Politburo considered “completely correct” the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in relation to Postyshev, recognizing the responsibility of both the Politburo and First Secretary Kosior for the clogging of the apparatus of the Central Committee, the Kyiv regional committee, and a number of other regional committees by Trotskyist elements, scientific and cultural organizations. At a meeting of the activists of the Kyiv party organization on January 17, 1937, the new head of the Kyiv regional committee Kudryavtsev informed the party activists about the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and Kaganovich delivered a diatribe, in which, on the one hand, he drew attention to the “exceptional infestation by Trotskyists of the party apparatus, and on the other hand, he again spoke about national cadres. Kaganovich called the national policy "the most subtle, complex", which requires "especially vigilant and especially attentive and the right approach". He insisted: “the problem of national cadres, national culture, the problem of educating national cadres remains in all its strength,” and it was precisely because of “the underestimation at this stage of the national question, the problem of national cadres” that it turned out so many Trotskyists in ideological posts.

The ongoing repressions by no means eliminated the need for a Ukrainization policy. Finally, at the XIII Congress of the CP(b)U on May 27 - June 3, 1937, Kosior summed up the work done on Ukrainization. The leader of the Ukrainian communists noted "the great growth of Ukrainian national Soviet culture in all areas of the life of the Ukrainian people", "the growth of new Ukrainian cadres of technical and scientific intelligentsia": "We, the Central Committee of the CP (b) U during this time continued the line towards further Ukrainization, due to the onslaught on those elements that work in our apparatus, and which still do not know the Ukrainian language, we forced them to learn the language. A person who does not know the language of the people cannot work in our apparatus... Everyone who works in Ukraine must know the language of the Ukrainian people.” 326. The following figures were presented in the report: among pupils of primary schools, seven-year-olds and ten-year-olds, the percentage of Ukrainians is 80%, the percentage of children who study in Ukrainian schools, this figure reached 83%. According to Kosior, “The press in Ukraine is also almost entirely Ukrainized, with the exception of some of the special scientific and technical publications and, of course, press in the languages ​​of national minorities".

Kosior again emphasized that the fight against nationalism did not mean a fight against Ukrainian culture: “We, comrades, in 1933, at the beginning of 1934, as you know, dealt a crushing blow to the nationalist elements, and then the shortcomings of these nationalists raised a fuss that this was a reprisal against Ukrainization, with Ukrainian culture, etc. And now experience has shown that cleaning our theater, our entire cultural front from nationalist elements is only to the benefit of Ukrainian culture, the Ukrainian people. Ukrainian culture only benefited from this, moved forward more quickly.

However, the "purges" did not pass without a trace of the party organization of the republic. As evidenced by the act of surrendering cases to S.V. Kosior N.S. Khrushchev of January 28-29, 1938, the number of CP (b) U on January 1, 1938, was 199653 members of the CP (b)U and 84499 candidates. At the same time, "the lack of leadership in the departments of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U" was noted. There were heads in the cultural propaganda department, the department of agriculture, the department of industry and transport, the Administration of Affairs, and the Special Sector. In the department of leading party bodies, schools, science, trade, press, cultural and educational, there were only deputy heads of departments. Of the one hundred full-time instructors in the departments of the Central Committee, there were only fifty-one people; there were no first secretaries in Chernigov, Vinnitsa, and Moldavian regional committees, second secretaries in Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk regions, there were no third secretaries in all regions, with the exception of Vinnitsa region. There were supposed to be eighty-two heads of departments of the regional committees, but 31 positions remained unfilled. Of the 577 first secretaries of city committees, district committees, 82 people were missing, 108 people were missing second secretaries, and 188 people were missing third secretaries. There were no chairmen of regional executive committees in Vinnitsa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, Chernihiv regions, Moldavian ASSR. There were not enough first secretaries of city committees and district committees (62 people out of 495 were missing), there were no editors in the regional newspapers of the Zhytomyr and Nikolaev regions, there were no people's commissars in the People's Commissariat of Education, People's Commissariat of Finance, People's Commissariat of Education, People's Commissariat of State Farms, People's Commissariat of Trade, People's Commissariat of Health, People's Commissariat of Social Security, People's Commissariat of Justice and the Supreme Court, where the duties of people's commissars are performed by first deputies. Finally, there was no chairmen of the Committees for the Arts and Physical Education. So many vacancies could be filled only by attracting new personnel, and the emphasis was on Ukrainian personnel, despite the processes of centralization and unification unfolding in the country.