Give Lenin his due

Mykola Skrypnyk - true Leninist?

"Communism and the Dilemmas of National Liberation" is a book summarizing the story of so-called Ukrainization in the early Soviet Union.

In 1923, the Bolshevik Party decided on a policy known as "korenizatsiia" or indigenization, a policy which fostered native culture in the non-Russian areas of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to de-Russify them. The policy was a concession to the nationalist aspirations of the non-Russian peoples of the erstwhile Czarist empire.

In the Ukraine, the new line was known as Ukrainization and was carried out with surprising rigour, first by Lazar Kaganovich (!) and later by Mykola Skrypnyk. The latter was the de facto Communist leader of the Ukraine from 1927 to 1933. Ukrainian language and culture was promoted at the expense of Russian, attempt were made to de-Russify Ukrainian workers who had been assimilated into Russian culture, Ukrainian labour unions were supposed to deliberate in Ukrainian although most of their members were Russians, etc. Skrypnyk even demanded to control the Ukrainization process in Northern Caucasus, an area controlled by the Russian republic (RSFSR). He also reminded Stalin that the territory of the Ukrainian SSR should have been extended at the expense of the RSFSR according to a Bolshevik Central Committee decision, a decision never carried out.

Ukrainization and indigenization in general began to be rolled back during the "third period" and was finally discontinued in 1933. Skrypnyk committed suicide rather than being disgraced by a purge or forced recantation. If the terrible famine in the Ukraine at the time was a calculated attempt to destroy Ukrainization remains an open question, at least to this reviewer (the author answers in the affirmative).

James E. Mace's book is interesting, but the author's political blinkers nevertheless prevents him from fully recognizing the central role of Lenin in the adoption of Ukrainization. Mace never mentions the Georgian affair, Lenin's opposition to "autonomization" (actually, a code word for Russification), or Lenin's proposal to turn the Soviet Union into a looser federation. All these positions are clearly related to Lenin's push for indigenization. Nor does the author point out that Lenin connected national equality inside the USSR with a revolutionary strategy for the colonial world, i.e. it was not simply a concession to some Ukrainian middle peasants.

I'm no Communist, but it's obvious that the author's anti-Communism precludes him from seing this. Or maybe he does see it, but consider it beyond the pale. (Pun intended.) Mace compares Skrypnyk to Tito or Gomulka, when a comparison to Lenin might have been more apt, especially since Skrypnyk condemned those who wanted to turn Ukrainization into real nationalism.

Mace refuses to give Vladimir Illich his due. I suppose he prefers St. Vladimir.