Soviet nationality policy, urban growth, and identity change in the Ukrainian SSR, 1923-1934

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 this 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. George Liber traces the impact of rapid urban growth upon the implementation of Soviet preferential policies, korenizatsiia.

This plan advocated the equality of non-Russian and Russian languages and cultures and sought to integrate non-Russians into the Soviet state by promoting them into leading positions in the party, the government, and trade unions. The author shows how the interplay between industrialization, urbanization, and korenizatsiia 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.

Soviet nationality policy, urban growth, and identity change in the Ukrainian SSR 1923-1934 examines a significant stage in the early development of the USSR. Many of the issues addressed by George Liber contributed to the end of the Soviet Union and still haunt the current post-Soviet leadership. This book will be read by students and specialists of Soviet, post-Soviet and Ukrainian studies, history, and sociology.