The Kremlin’s Tools for the Russification of Sovietized Ukraine during the Formation of a Totalitarian System
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/uhj2024.06.149Keywords:
two-channel structure of the Russian-Soviet system of government, “state independence” of national Soviet republics in the propaganda arsenal of communobolshevism, “Bolshevik” and “Petliura” varieties of Ukrainization, the technology of Russianization of enslaved UkraineAbstract
The purpose of the article is to analyze the key instruments of Russification of the Sovietized Ukraine at the stage of the formation of the totalitarian system. Using the two-channel structure of the state created by Lenin, the Bolsheviks were able to Sovietize the democratic national republics that emerged after the overthrow of the autocracy. Under the condition of establishing a constitutional Soviet power vertical dependent on the unconstitutional party vertical, these republics were granted fictitious independence. Under pressure from the powerful liberation movement, Kremlin leaders abandoned the idea of merging the conquered Ukraine with Russia and recognized its fictitious independence. An effective tool for absorbing Ukraine in the first decades of the so-called “socialist construction” was the use of the idea of Ukrainization, borrowed from the state-building experience of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. While remaining a de-Russification, Bolshevik Ukrainization disseminated Russian cultural achievements and the values of world civilization selected by Leninist ideologues in the Ukrainian language. The population of enslaved Ukraine was pushed into a distorted world created by the leaders of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) — All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). The achievements of Ukrainian history and culture were pushed out of the consciousness of Ukrainians. Bolshevik Ukrainization became a means of atrophy of the national identity of Ukrainians, a means of their Russification.
The methodology consists of applying a critical rethinking of the standard provisions of Marxism-Leninism, which asserted the inextricable link between the totalitarian regime created in the USSR and the revolutionary Marxism of the era of the Manifesto of the Communist Party by K. Marx and F. Engels, and, above all, the provisions of Russian-Soviet propaganda, which used the concepts of “state independence” and “Ukrainization” giving them a meaning opposite to the commonly used one.
Scientific novelty. The article substantiates the conclusions of the latest national historiography, including those expressed by the author, concerning the policy of the Kremlin leaders in Sovietized Ukraine during the formation of a totalitarian system.
The main conclusion is the thesis about the immortality of the Ukrainian nation, which did not lose its identity during the decades of the Russian-Soviet totalitarian system and made a worthy contribution to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The historical traditions of the liberation movement of the fighters for Ukrainian independence play a significant role in the current Russо-Ukrainian war.
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