Authors

Discussion

In the 1920s Ukraine, the Bolsheviks initiated a unique minorities experiment aimed to gain trust of Ukraine’s diverse population and make them eager contributors to the process of building of socialism. A comprehensive set of measures to promote ethnic identification was conceived. Nonetheless, the respective minority communities, although having benefited from the right to education and cultural development in their native tongues, did not necessarily become loyal to the Soviet state, and generally continued to resist and oppose Soviet state power. Especially peasants of minority background opposed Soviet land redistribution initiatives, which involved communities’ resettlement and land collectivization.

Moreover, when collectivization and famine of the early 1930s threatened their livelihood, ‘Western’ minorities used their national identities to petition to leave the country, thus undermining the entire Soviet propaganda effort. This paper will examine different forms of popular resistance among the minority populations to Soviet authorities, with a particular focus on minorities’ resistance to Soviet collectivization (both attempts to create minority collective farms and cooperatives, and the “classic” collectivization after 1929).