7 Paragraph:

4. Go back to exercises 1 and 2. Can you answer the questions now?

5. Find in the text the words meaning:

1. невдалі державотворчі зусилля; 2. формування паралельних дер-

жавних структур; 3. починаючи з липня 1917 р; 4. більшовицька Росія;

5. заснування партійних організацій; 6. українська територія; 7. ке-

рівництво; 8. Комуністична партія (більшовиків) України; 9. Українська

Соціалістична Радянська Республіка; 10. радянський уряд; 11. осідати;

12. офіційно проголошувати; 13. формування владних структур;

14. Радянська Україна; 15. покладати виконання зовнішньополітич-

них функцій; 16. певною мірою; 17. Народне секретарство міжна ці о-

нальних справ; 18. Народне секретарство міжнародних справ; 19. пе ре-

творювати на; 20. з самого початку; 21. на чолі з; 22. Раду народних

ко місарів; 23. Керівник; 24. зовнішньополітичне відомство радянської

України; 25. змінювати на посаді; 26. розгорнути мережу власних ди-

пломатичних представництв; 27. уряд УСРР; 28. представники УСРР;

29. іноземні дипломатичні посланники при уряді радянської України;

30. переважно; 31. виконувати торговельні та консульські функції;

32. діяльність Наркомату закордонних справ УСРР; 33. спря-

мована в основному; 34. розвиток дипломатичних відносин з ін-

шими державами; 35. вдосконалення внутрішнього законодавства;

36. в межах компетенції наркомату; 37. підтримка контактів з пред-

ставництвами іноземних держав в УСРР; 38. кардинально змінитися;

39. зовнішньополітичні, економічні та торговельні зв’язки; 40. пере-

йти у підпорядкування; 41. союзний центр; 42. позбавивити пра-

ва; 43. власна зовнішньополітична діяльність; 44. згортання апарату;

45. приймати постанову; 46. передавати повноваження; 47. союзний

наркомат; 48. незважаючи на; 49. активні спроби; 50. народний

комісар закордонних справ; 51. протидіяти рішенню; 52. за ініціати-

вою; 53. приймати звернення; 54. Політбюро ЦК РКП(б); 55. прохан-

ня; 56. злиття; 57. переглянути питання; 58. офіційно ліквідовувати;

59. скасування; 60. настійне клопотання; 61. посольства СРСР

за кордоном; 62. українські представники; 63. призначатися

урядом; 64. фактична і формальна державність; 65. Втратити; 66. по-

збутися можливості; 67. Втратити; 68. на довгі роки; 69. формувати і

втілювати; 70. власна зовнішня політика.

6. Fill in the blanks in the sentences below with the English equivalents

of the words and word-combinations from exercise 5.

1. The 1920s state-___________ efforts in Ukraine were unsuccessful. 2. The

Bolshevik Russia started the for mation of _____________ state structures

in Ukraine back in 1917. 3. Russia _____________ the Bolshevik party

organizations in Ukraine. 4. The leadership of the Communist (Bolshevik)

Party of Ukraine ____________ in Kharkiv. 5. The Communist (Bolshevik)

Party of Ukraine _____________ the formation of the Ukrainian Socialist

Soviet Republic in 1919. 6. The Bolsheviks started the formation of ____

_______ structures of Soviet Ukraine. 7. At first the exercise of “foreign

_________ func tions” was entrusted to Peo ple’s Secretariat of __________

Affairs. 8. Later the Secretariat of Interethnic Affairs was _____________

___ into the Secretariat of ____________ Affairs. 9. The new Secretariat

was ___________by Volodymyr Zatonsky. 10. Christian Rakovsky, who

had _____________ the Russian delegation at the talks with the Ukrainian

People’s Republic (with the capital in Kyiv) under Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi

in May-October 1918, became the Chairman of the _______________

of People’s Commissars of the Ukrain ian SSR (with the capital in Kharkiv)

and the head of the foreign _____________ establishment of Soviet Ukraine

in January 1919. 11. The Russia-supported Ukrainian SSR attempted to create

a ______________ of diplomatic missions. 12. However the Bolshevik

Ukrainian SSR’s diplomatic _______________ were limited to Poland, Austria,

Germany and Czechoslovakia, where the Ukrainian repre sentatives’

functions were mostly trade-________ and consular. 13. The competence

of the People’s Com missariat of Foreign ___________ of the Ukrainian

SSR included, among other things, the improvement of __________

legislation. 14. The People’s ___________ of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian

SSR was allowed to __________ contacts with foreign states’ mis sions, but only with those present in the Ukrainian SSR. 15. The ______________ of

the Union of Soviet Socialist Re publics changed the situation ____________

__. 16. The new state ___________ the Ukrainian SSR of the right to conduct

its own ____________ policy. 17. Moscow acquired complete ___________

__ over all foreign policy, economic and ___________ ties of Ukraine. 18. In

1922 the ______________ Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrain ian

SSR was dismissed. 19. The Central _______________ of the Bolshevik

Party ______________ all the powers of the Ukrain ian Commissariat of __

_____________ Affairs to Moscow. 20. Some officials in Ukraine attempted

to _____________ the dismissal de cision and filed requests to ____________

it, but their attempts were ___________ and the Commissariat of Foreign

Affairs of the Ukrain ian SSR was ______________. 21. From the time the

Ukrainian foreign office was liquidated until 1936 Ukraine had had its ____

_____ with limited functions, ____________ by its government at the USSR

_______________. 22. Due to the new situation Ukrainne lost its ________

and actual __________. 23. For many years Ukraine had been __________ of

a possibility to form and ______________ its own foreign policy.

7. Render the following proper names and realia into English.

А. КП(б)У, УСРР, УРСР, Польща, Австрія, Німеччина, Чехо-Словач-

чина, Союз Радянських Соціалістичних Республік, ЦК КП(б)У,

НКЗС УСРР, НКЗС СРСР.

Б. Харків, Варшава, Берлін, Прага.

В. Володимир Затонський, Християн Раковський, Микола Скрипник.

8. Work in pairs. Reproduce the texts on the Ukrainian diplomacy

during the first phase of the Soviet period (1917 – 1936). to your partner.

Use the headlines below as the backbone for your story.

0. Bolshevik Russia party organizations in Ukraine and the parallel public

structures

1. Proclamation of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic: Two Ukraines

2. Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrain ian SSR and its foreign policy

3.Three main tasks of the People’s Com missariat of Foreign Affairs of the

Ukrainian SSR

4. A drastic change of the situation

5. Dismissal of Staff of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the

Ukrain ian SSR

6. Limited Ukrainian representation at the USSR embassies abroad until 1936

7. No foreign policy for Ukraine for many years to come

9. Read the text (adapted from the article by Yuryi SHAPOVAL in The

Day of April 27, 2004) and answer the following questions: What diplomatic,

political and other measures related to Ukraine were taken by

Nikita Khrushchev during his rule in Ukraine?

Polish Spy Khrushchev

Marquis Adolphe de Custine wrote that a closer look at one’s destiny

shows it to be an evolution of one’s character. However, let me first explain

the heading. Joseph Stalin called Nikita Khrushchev jokingly a Polish

spy. Khrushchev, when retired from Soviet leadership, told playwright

Mikhail Shatrov, “Stalin treated me better than the others. Some at the Politburo

even believed I was his favorite. Indeed, only my son’s (i.e., Leonid

Khrushchev’s) wife was arrested. Sometimes he would call me Polish spy

Khrushchevski and order me to dance. That’s about all. No comparison to

how he treated the others or the things he made them do.”

At this point, one is tempted to exclaim, O tempora! O mores! However,

those familiar with the epoch in which Khrushchev lived and made his career,

are not likely to be surprised to know that the wife of the son of a favorite

of the Red dictator was serving a term in a prison camp, and that the

father-in-law considered himself lucky. Or that he, a noted political figure,

did not mind being addressed as a Polish spy or dancing during all-night

parties at Stalin’s dacha with vodka flowing and the table groaning under

food. Nor would he utter a word of protest when his daughter-in-law was

arrested on trumped-up charges, telling himself he was lucky not to be implicated,

that nothing had happened to his wife (unlike the wives of Molotov

and Kalinin).

BIOGRAPHY

After the Stalin epoch, Khrushchev was the first Communist leader to try

to destroy the stereotype image of a grim-faced reticent Bolshevik ruler. He

proceeded to cultivate an open lifestyle, appearing in public with his wife

and family members, sharing memories. September 27, 1959, appearing on

NBC during his official visit to the United States, he said that his grandfather

was an illiterate serf, his landlord’s property could be sold and even

traded for a dog, as often happened at the time; that his father was a coal

miner, and that he had also worked at a mine, as a metalworker; that he

had taken part in the civil war; later, the Soviet government had sent him to study at a rabfak [educational establishment in existence during the first

years after the Russian Revolution, set up to prepare workers and peasants

for higher education]. After that he had enrolled in the Industrial Academy,

and that now he was entrusted by the people with the high post of Chairman

of the Council of Ministers.

Needless to say, the above statement betrays a number of simplifications and

demagoguery (which Khrushchev often resorted to). His biography, nevertheless,

continues to reveal little-known facts if not mysteries. Thus, numerous

biographers and authors of encyclopedia articles still believe that he was

born April 17, 1894. Not exactly. At one time I succeeded in establishing

that, proceeding from the certificate of birth, he was actually born on April

15. I shared the discovery with Sergei Khrushchev, his son with whom we

have been good friends and cooperated for many years. He and his son, Nikita

Khrushchev’s grandson, that is, checked my information when visiting

Kalynivka (Khrushchev’s home village) and confirmed it.

Nikita Khrushchev cuts an interesting historical figure. Nor it seems coincidental

that noted personalities like Nikolai Gumiliov, Kim Il Sung,

Dzhokhar Dudayev, even Alla Pugacheva were born on the same date, albeit

in different years. These names are surrounded with myths and all kinds of

stories. At one time, publications appeared to the effect that Nikita Khrushchev

came from the Romanov dynasty of Russia. Even now many believe

that Khrushchev was of Ukrainian parentage, that he was also a Bolshevik

hard-liner, and that he almost always hated Stalin.

Untrue. He came from a Russian family, although he lived in Ukraine, from

January 1938 to December 1949, heading the local party organization. In

February 1944, he was appointed Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars

[government] of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. However,

it was some time before he had joined the Bolsheviks. Moreover, in the

1920s, while in Yuzovka, in the Donbas, marking the start of his political

career, he supported the Trotskyites for a while. He had to state the fact in

an official questionnaire, in 1937, at the peak of the Great Purges, and then

mentioned it in his memoirs.

His attitude to Stalin also varied. He worshipped him at first, he owed him his

career which soared in the mid-1930s, after meeting his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva

at the Industrial Academy in Moscow. She told Stalin about Khrushchev

and arranged for their meeting. Earlier in 1917, Khrushchev happened

to meet Lazar Kaganovich, who would also put in a good word for his old

friend with the General Secretary of the Communist Party (VKP{b}).

Without doubt, Khrushchev’s place and role in political history cannot be

fully comprehended, using the so-called fragmentary approach. Different

periods in his life and career are like pieces of a historical and political mosaic

that must be placed in a certain way to form a complete picture. Otherwise

there is a high risk of snatching certain elements to construe something

someone wants to have instead of the truth.

He was certainly among those responsible for the crimes committed during

the Stalin epoch. Khrushchev tried to hide his complicity after coming

to power. In particular, he instructed Ivan Serov, head of the KGB (his

post was formally Chairman of the Committee for State Security under the

Council of Ministers of the USSR), to remove all incriminating records

from Ukraine. In February 1965, Leonid Brezhnev received a letter to the

effect that a large number of files had been withdrawn from the archives

of the Institute of Party History under the Central Committee of the Communist

Party of Ukraine; and that the said files “described how ruthlessly

Nikita Khrushchev dealt with Party cadres and Soviet Ukrainian intellectuals.”

Although the letter appeared after Khrushchev’s ousting, it was truthful

enough even on the crest of the anti-Khrushchev wave. Such documents

were removed in several phases. Thus, a cover letter dated December 31,

1949, has an appendage listing 52 pages of documents. After Khrushchev’s

forced retirement, all such documents were transferred to the Politburo archives,

and later became part of the closed Russian presidential archives

where they remain.

Of course, Khrushchev could not remove all of the documents. Many are

still in Ukraine, providing sufficient evidence that during Stalin’s lifetime

Khrushchev was an obedient subordinate, and that his loyalty won him the

dictator’s trust lasting until Stalin’s death in March 1953. Khrushchev was

responsible for the implementation of Stalin’s political course in Ukraine. He

was still there during the last year of Yezhov’s campaign of purges, also

when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed, and when Halychyna, Volyn, and

Bukovyna were made part of Soviet Ukraine, respectively, in 1939 and 1940,

followed by a Bolshevik terror in those western territories; he was there during

the postwar famine of 1946-47 and the campaign against “Ukrainian

bourgeois nationalism.” At that period, he was directly involved in the complicated

issue of Polish-Ukrainian relationships.

POLISH MOTIFS

Khrushchev remained convinced to his dying day that the Molotov-Ribbentrop

Pact was historically inevitable. Under the pact, Soviet troops entered

Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Nikita Khrushchev took part

in the campaign, although he felt bad about the dictators’ conspiracy and

feared its consequences. He wrote in his memoirs that he felt the same way

about Stalin’s campaign against the Communist Party of Poland and its

components in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. In 1938, these parties

were disbanded as resolved by the Executive Committee of the Communist

International (a.k.a. Komintern). Recalling his stay in Western Ukraine,

Khrushchev wrote, “Mostly good people from among the local Poles cooperated

with us. They were time-tested Communists. Very many of them,

after being liberated by our Soviet Army, found themselves in Soviet prison

camps. Sad but true.”

Pressured by Khrushchev, the Ukrainian Politburo passed a resolution on October

2, 1940, titled “On the Facts of Erroneous Attitude to Former Members

of the CP of Poland.” The document instructed the party authorities in the

western regions to overcome “indiscriminate political distrust” of former Polish

Communists, and to more actively enlist them in public activities. Khrushchev,

of course, meant to defend his people among the Polish party members,

yet doing so under the circumstances took quite some courage.

In 1944, Polish motifs became once again evident in Khrushchev’s

endeavors. In June, he addressed Stalin, proposing the formation of Kholm

oblast. “I believe that, after liberation, our Soviet administration should be

organized in the regions populated mostly by Ukrainians and Russians, so

we could proclaim these territories part of the Soviet Union and join them to

Soviet Ukraine, at the right time. “The following regions should be joined

to Soviet Ukraine: Chelm, Grubeszow, Zamoscie, Tomaszow, Jaroslaw,

and several other populated areas adjacent to the above territories. They

could eventually constitute Kholm oblast as part of the Ukrainian SSR, with

Kholm becoming the regional center.”

Khrushchev knew Stalin’s character very well; forestalling accusations of

Ukrainian nationalism, he explained that the addition of these territories to

Ukraine would make it possible to even out the frontier. No accusations

were forthcoming, but he did not receive the authorization, either. Instead,

the Kremlin decided, in the interests of big-time politics, have the Ukrai54

nians living in the territories going to Poland “voluntarily” move to Soviet

Ukraine, and the Poles living in the Soviet Union move to Poland. Under

the circumstances, it would be too dangerous for Khrushchev to insist on his

proposal, so once again he acted as a “devoted pupil of Comrade Stalin.”

Formally, the resettlement was to begin September 9, 1944, in Lublin where

the Soviet Ukrainian government and the Polish National Liberation Committee

had signed an agreement on the evacuation of the Ukrainian population

from Poland and the Polish from Ukraine. Nikita Khrushchev signed

it on behalf of the Soviet Ukrainian government, and Edward Osubka-

Morawski did on behalf of the PNLC.

A number of researchers regard this as strange, considering that the Soviet

Union had never entrusted Ukraine with signing any other such agreements

(including the one on Transcarpathian Ukraine, signed by the Soviet

and the Czechoslovak government in 1945). Actually, it was a time bomb

which is still armed. The 1944 agreement simulated the establishment of the

Ukrainian-Polish frontier, with Moscow outwardly looking on. In addition,

the Soviet Union reserved room for maneuver; if the anti-Hitler coalition

countries turned out too principled, Moscow would say it did not sign the

agreement. Ukraine did. At the same time, the Kremlin had actually provoked

an aggravation in Polish-Ukrainian relationships, but was not legally

responsible.

As it was, Khrushchev had to handle the resettlement campaign. He responded

sharply to the Polish side procrastinating evacuation arrangements. September

29, 1944, he reported to Stalin: “The Poles, especially in Lviv and

mostly intellectuals being in contact with the Polish emigre government in

London, have spread word that the frontier issue remains to be finally resolved;

therefore, people should not leave the country. We know that the

emigre government in London has instructed its organizations in Lviv and

other cities in Western Ukraine to refrain from evacuating, promising that it

will arrange for Lviv and other cities to be made part of the Polish state at

the peace conference.”

In view of this, Khrushchev suggested the following political course with regard

to the Poles in the western Ukrainian region: “Instruction and the textbooks

at all higher and secondary educational establishments must be only

in Ukrainian and Russian. In the Soviet Union, schools were organized for

Polish children with instruction in Polish, using Polish textbooks, meaning

that these children are brought up in the spirit of the Polish bourgeois democratic

state. The Poles raised the matter of setting up such schools in Lviv. We

refused and proposed to institute in all Ukrainian and Polish schools the curriculum

adopted by the People’s Commissar [minister] of Education of the

Ukrainian SSR. We further consider it necessary to nullify the Resolution of

the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR ‘On the Prohibition

of Enlistment of Polish Residents of the Western Region in the Industries

of the Eastern Regions of the Ukr. SSR and Other Republics of the Soviet

Union.’ It is necessary to enlist the Polish population in the fulfillment of

all obligations imposed on the rest of the population of Soviet Ukraine. This

means that we will enlist Polish residents, men as well as women living in the

western regions of the Ukrainian SSR, in the industries, defense construction,

and other projects, on a par with the Ukrainian population.”

Resettlements dating from the Treaty of Lublin rate a different story. Suffice

it to say that, according to statistics, 812,688 persons were transferred from

Ukraine to Poland in October 1945, while 472,635 had moved from Poland

to Soviet Ukraine by March 1947. Khrushchev’s plan to join ethnic territories

to Ukraine fell through, although he did not insist on it. This is another

fact contradicting his image as a Polish spy.

10. Write a 300-word essay on the diplomatic activity of Ukraine during

the Soviet period (1917–1947).