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Russian Studies in History

ISSN: 1061-1983 (Print) 1558-0881 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mrsh20

Indigenization before Indigenization

Serhiy Hirik

To cite this article:

Serhiy Hirik (2017) Indigenization before Indigenization, Russian Studies in

History, 56:4, 294-304, DOI: 10.1080/10611983.2017.1396821

To link to this article:

https://doi.org/10.1080/10611983.2017.1396821

Published online: 29 Jan 2018.

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Russian Studies in History,

vol. 56, no. 4, 2017, pp. 294–304.

ISSN: 1061-1983 (print)/ISSN 1558-0881 (online)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1080/10611983.2017.1396821

ERHIY

IRIK

Indigenization before Indigenization

The Integration of

“National

Cadres” into the Party and

State

Apparat

of the UkrSSR and BSSR (1919–1923)

The Author traces how the former members of local Ukrainian,

Belorussian, and Jewish national-communist groups were absorbed by

the ruling Bolshevik party as well as the state

apparat

of Soviet Ukraine

and Belarus. He analyzes in what areas of cultural and economic policy

this process was more active. The role of former national-communist

activists in the changes of the ruling party's policy is also examined.

The official policy of indigenization [korenizatsiia] began in April 1923;

that is, after the end of the Twelfth Congress of the RCP(b). The Congress’s

resolution,

“On

the Nationalities Question,” prescribed that the numbers of

national cadres in the leadership of the republics be increased and the

“Korenizatsiia

do korenizatsii: Integratsiia

‘natsional’nyhkh

kadrov’ v partiinyi i

gosudarstvennyi apparat USSR i BSSR (1919–1923).” Published with the author’s

permission.

This publication was made possible in part by a grant from Carnegie

Corporation of New York. The statements made and views expressed are solely

the responsibility of the authors. This publication acknowledges financial support

from RFFI, project

“Politicization

of the Language of Religion and Sacralization of

the Language of Politics during the

“Civil

War” era,” No. 17-81-01042.

Serhiy Hirik, candidate of science in history, is a senior lecturer in the MA in

Jewish Studies program at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and

senior researcher at the State Research Institution

“Encyclopedia

Press” (Kyiv,

Ukraine).

Translated by Stephan Lang.

294

RUSSIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY 295

opportunity to use local languages in discourse with organs of power be

ensured:

“10.

[…] the congress recommends to party members in the capa-

city of practical measures to strive to attain that:

“[…]

e) the organs of the national republics and oblasts be built

predominantly out of local people, who know the language, every-

day life, morals, and customs of the corresponding peoples;

“f)

special laws be issued that would ensure the use of the native

tongue in all state organs and in all institutions serving the local

other-nationality [inonatsional’noe] population and national mino-

rities, laws pursuing and punishing with all revolutionary severity

all violators of nationality rights and in particular the rights of

national minorities.”

However, in practice, the processes of indigenization in the republics that

had been formed on the territory of the former western borderlands of the

Russian Empire had been launched significantly earlier. In the Ukrainian SSR,

one can speak of the first manifestations of the future policy of

Ukrainianization (as well as of Yiddishization in places of compact habitation

of Jews) as early as 1920, and in individual cases even in 1919. They first took

place in the Belorussian SSR also in 1920. The question of changing the cadre

aspect of nationalities policy, the essence of which

“consisted

of recruiting

[privlechenii] the local non-Russian population into the state and party institu-

tions of the national union republics and oblasts,”

had already been raised at

the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1921.

At first, the leaders of the territorially Ukrainian organizations of the

RCP(b) did not show interest in recruiting national cadres—and in particular

persons who had come out of the Ukrainian parties—to leadership work in

the party of the Bolsheviks and the organs of power created by it. Individual

steps of such a kind that had taken place at the end of the years 1917–1918,

in particular the forming of the first soviet government of the Ukraine with

the participation of such Ukrainian luminaries [deiateli] as Vasilii [Vasyl’]

Shakhrai, and later Evgenii Neronovich [Ievhen Neronovych] and Iurii

Lapchinskii [Iurii Lapchyns’kyi], had performed the role of strictly tactical

maneuvers. Real powers at the local level belonged to old party cadres,

among whom were of course Ukrainians and people who had come from

the Ukraine, but their origin and level of fluency in the language did not have

particular significance for [their] appointment. Furthermore, a resolution,

“On

the Attitude Toward Other Parties,” had been adopted at the first congress of

the CP(b)U in Moscow in July 1918, stating:

“No

cooperation with petty-

296 RUSSIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY

bourgeois parties (Mensheviks, Russian SRs, Ukrainian SRs, Ukrainian

Social-Democrats, Bundists, etc.), ruthless struggle with them.”

The proclamation of the UkrSSR [Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic] in

March 1919 and the adoption of its first constitution did not entail serious

changes in the Bolsheviks’ nationalities policy. It proved impossible to dis-

cover preconditions for changing the cadres or cultural policy of the ruling

party in the party and state documents of the time. However, the mere fact

that representatives of local political forces (first and foremost the Borotbists)

were allowed to participate in the Third All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets,

and that agreement to take their amendments into account in the final text of

the congress’s resolution on the land question was articulated, indicates that

the policy of the Bolsheviks was undergoing changes. Even at this early time,

some representatives of the Borotbist party leadership were already expres-

sing thoughts about a possible organizational merger with the Bolsheviks.

The corresponding thesis was articulated in the resolution on Aleksandr

Shumskii’s [Oleksandr Shums’kyi] report on the state and tactics of the

party, adopted at the First (Fifth) Congress of the UPSR concurrently with

the renaming of this political force as the UPSR (communists) and a declara-

tion on its switching over to a

“communist

platform”:

“In

connection with the

existence in the Ukraine of the CPUB communist party [that is, the CP(b)U

—S.H.],

which is practically identical with the U.P.S.-R.C., the fifth congress

considers it imperative to establish with it as close contact and coordination

of work as possible with the aim of preserving the unity of the proletarian

front. Taking this into consideration, the congress proposes to the C.C. of the

party to adopt measures [so] that henceforth, party work in the center and

locally would when possible be coordinated with the corresponding organs of

the C.P.B.U. and a foundation would be prepared for the full merger of these

two detachments [otriady] of communism in the Ukraine.”

At the same

time, in the sphere of nationalities policy at the beginning of 1919 there were

numerous occurrences of the manifestation of a desire to underscore the

finality of the resolution of the

“nationalities

question,” the main role of the

Russian language and the secondary one of the Ukrainian, and so on.

The

logical outcome of such actions was a refusal to get cooperation with local

national parties on track.

Spirited negotiations took place over the course of the following months

between representatives of the Bolsheviks and the Borotbists on the entry

of the latter into the republic’s government, with varying success. In May

they were crowned by the agreement of the ruling party to grant the latter

several places in the Council of People’s Commissars. What was being

spoken of was the posts of people’s commissars of justice, finance, and

enlightenment [education], as well as several deputy people’s commissar

RUSSIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY 297

positions. This step can easily be considered a preparation for the further

incorporation of representatives of this political force into the party and

administrative

apparat.

An analogous assessment can be made too about

the fact of the subsidizing [dotirovaniie] by the Bolsheviks of the party

newspapers of the Ukrainian and Jewish national parties that were continu-

ing legitimate activity on the territory controlled by the red forces (these

parties were given the name

“soviet,”

inasmuch as they were making

declarations about their switch over to a

“soviet

platform” and taking part

in elections to soviets on the local level).

Cooperation with the Borotbists in the UkrSSR government continued

for just three months. It was cut short by the advance of the forces of

Denikin, who took Kiev on August 31, 1919. The republican organs of

power in evacuation did not function. Until the moment of restoration of

soviet power in the Ukraine, the leadership organs of the CP(b)U did not

make efforts to get relations with the Borotbists back on track. Despite this,

precisely in August–September 1919, representatives of the Borotbist lea-

dership in Moscow first entered into direct discourse with the RCP(b) CC

and the Comintern’s Executive Committee.

At the same time, the rapprochement between the Bolsheviks and the

Borotbists in the summer of 1919 ought to be seen first and foremost as a

tactical union—without a demonstration of desire to cooperate with indivi-

dual local political forces, it would be extremely complicated to stabilize the

power of the CP(b)U for a more [or] less lengthy time. Attempts by

representatives of the UPSR/UPSR(c)/UCP(b) in the republic’s Council of

People’s Commissars to conduct a limited Ukrainianization of recordkeeping

[delovodstvo] in the regions and the putting forward of analogous demands to

the Bolsheviks constantly ran up against stiff resistance on the part of

representatives of the latter.

Only the events of the second half of 1919, in

consequence of which the former territory of the UkrSSR ended up being

under the control of Denikin and partly of the Directorate, changed the policy

of the Bolsheviks of the Ukraine on the nationalities question, thanks to

which the takeover of the Ukrainian and Jewish national parties of the

Ukraine became possible—and desirable, inasmuch as the CP(b)U was

experiencing a cadres famine, being in need of representatives [deiateli]

fluent in the Ukrainian language and knowing the local conditions.

After the restoration of the power of the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine,

negotiations with the Borotbists about the latter’s participation in running

the republic were started anew from square one. The reason for this became

the tough position of the Borotbists on the question of the formation of a

Ukrainian Red Army, into the makeup of which the Borotbist partisan units

were supposed to be integrated. Only in the middle of December 1919 did

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