Soviet Nationality Policy, Urban Growth, and Identity Change in the Ukrainian SSR 1923–1934

A study of the impact of industrial revolution on national consciousness in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

George O. Liber (Author)

9780521522434, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 8 August 2002

316 pages, 2 maps
23 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.509 kg

"Liber's stimulating, balanced, and well-researched narrative demonstrates this and poses further problems for future scholarship. It deserves to be widely read." Myroslav Shkandrij, Journal of Ukrainian Studies

In the early 1920s the Bolsheviks, who were overwhelmingly urban, proletarian, and Russian, believed that rapid industrialization would dissolve the non-Russian national identities and create a solid base of support for the new political order. By the end of the decade, however, the social changes initiated by rapid economic development strengthened national assertiveness. This book analyzes the precarious relationship between Soviet legitimacy-building and the consequences of rapid industrial development in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the most populous non-Russian republic in the USSR, during the 1920s and 1930s. The author shows how the interplay between industrialization, urbanization, and Soviet preferential policies produced a modern, urban Ukrainian identity. This, he argues, explains why the Stalinist leadership changed its course on the nationality question in the 1930s and gave precedence to the Russians in the USSR.

List of tables
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
A note on transliteration
Maps
Introduction
Part I. Periphery and Center: 1. The Ukrainian environment, 1861–1921
2. The Bolshevik response
Part II. Social Changes: 3. Urban growth and national identity
4. The working class and the trade unions
5. Communist Party membership
Part III. Political consequences: 6. The transformation of the urban Ukrainian identity
7. The ideological challenge of Ukrainian national communism
Part IV. Center's Reaction: 8. Shifting the anchors of legitimacy
9. Scorching the harvest, 1930–1934
Conclusion
Appendices
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], European history [HBJD]