Putin picked the wrong country to court resistance in. The resistance war in 2022 behind Russian occupation lines can be seen in the 1945-1955 war

It is no secret that in 2022 that there is an active Ukraine Partisan movement, which is making life miserable for Russian forces from Kerson to Mariupol, in constant raids. What is not appreciated or remembered is that there was an equally savage 10 year partisan movement from 1945 to 1955

see this

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It’s likely that Ukrainian partisan activity has affected the morale of Russian soldiers, close to 200 of whom have been victims of fatal knifings and shootings. Some Russians appear to think that?learning?a few words of Ukrainian may enable them to survive nighttime attacks. It’s also likely that several assassinations of pro-Russian Ukrainian civilians have dampened the spirits of actual and potential?collaborators.

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This was predated, in terms of a ten year struggle from 1945 to 1955

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Postwar reconstruction, the reimposition of totalitarian controls and terror, and the Sovietization of western Ukraine were the hallmarks of the last years of?Stalin’s?rule. Economic reconstruction was undertaken immediately as Soviet authorities reestablished control over the recovered territories. The?fourth five-year plan, as in the prewar years, stressed heavy?industry?to the detriment of consumer needs. By 1950, Ukraine’s industrial output exceeded the prewar level. In agriculture, recovery proceeded much more slowly, and prewar levels of production were not reached until the 1960s. A?famine?in 1946–47 resulting from postwar dislocations and drought claimed nearly one million casualties.

The prewar system of totalitarian control exercised through the Communist Party and the?secret police?was quickly reimposed.?Khrushchev?continued to head the CP(B)U as first secretary—except briefly from March to December 1947—until his promotion to secretary of the?Central Committee?in?Moscow?in December 1949; he was succeeded by?Leonid Melnikov. Purges in party ranks were relatively mild. However, real and?alleged?Nazi collaborators, former German prisoners of war and repatriated slave workers, Ukrainian “bourgeois nationalists,” and others suspected of disloyalty—essentially hundreds of thousands of people—were sent to concentration camps in the far north and?Siberia.

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As I said, Putin made himself the beneficiary of a fight back situation which has flourished in Ukraine, decade after decade, and it has just gotten started

See this

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/05/putins-nightmare-a-ukrainian-guerrilla-movement-has-emerged/

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Putin’s Nightmare: A Ukrainian Guerrilla Movement Has Emerged

By

Alexander Motyl

Published

May 29, 2022

Soldiers with the Ukrainian army’s 1st Battalion, 95th Separate Airmobile Brigade train with a DShK 12 mm machine gun during their training cycle at the Yavoriv Combat Training Center on the International Peacekeeping and Security Center near Yavoriv, Ukraine on Sept. 6. Yavoriv CTC Observer Coach Trainers, along with mentors from the Polish army and the U.S. Army's 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, led the training for soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 95th Separate Airmobile Brigade during the battalion's rotation through the Yavoriv CTC. The 45th is deployed to Ukraine as part of the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine, an international coalition dedicated to improving the CTC's training capacity and building professionalism within the Ukrainian army. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Eric McDonough, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team)

A new front in the war for Ukraine:?Ukrainian officials had?announced?in early April that they expected a full-scale Ukrainian guerrilla movement to emerge in the late spring. They were right. As the below list of recent partisan activity shows, Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories have mobilized and embarked on the traditional forms of resistance: sabotage, assassinations, and propaganda.

I gathered the data from Ukrainian websites that explicitly identified the perpetrators of these actions as partisans. It is, of course, possible that Ukrainian special forces may have been involved in some of these actions; it is also likely that the data are incomplete, inasmuch as some actions probably went unreported. Even so, the number of guerrilla actions is impressive and bespeaks a trend toward ever-greater partisan activity.

The data indicate that most of the partisan activity is located in and around the city of Melitopol. This conclusion is corroborated by the Institute for the Study of War’s?map?of Assessed Control of Terrain in Ukraine and Main Russian Maneuver Axes.

But that distinction may not last long. The Berdyansk Partisan Army, whose size is unknown, has unleashed an extensive propaganda campaign on Telegram. It has disseminated slogans, provided advice to civilians regarding forms of resistance, and identified the names and addresses of collaborators. It has not, to date, engaged in any kind of active resistance.

It’s likely that Ukrainian partisan activity has affected the morale of Russian soldiers, close to 200 of whom have been victims of fatal knifings and shootings. Some Russians appear to think that?learning?a few words of Ukrainian may enable them to survive nighttime attacks. It’s also likely that several assassinations of pro-Russian Ukrainian civilians have dampened the spirits of actual and potential?collaborators.

The real impact of the partisan movement will be felt if it spreads to most of southern Ukraine, intensifies its efforts, and—most important—coordinates its activities with the counter-offensive the Ukrainian armed forces, bolstered by deliveries of western heavy weaponry, are expected to launch in late July or August.

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Resistance in 1945-1955 in Ukraine against the USSR was, and do not forget, also violent

https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/Soviet-Ukraine-in-the-postwar-period

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Soviet Ukraine in the postwar period

The last years of Stalin’s rule

Postwar reconstruction, the reimposition of totalitarian controls and terror, and the Sovietization of western Ukraine were the hallmarks of the last years of?Stalin’s?rule. Economic reconstruction was undertaken immediately as Soviet authorities reestablished control over the recovered territories. The?fourth five-year plan, as in the prewar years, stressed heavy?industry?to the detriment of consumer needs. By 1950, Ukraine’s industrial output exceeded the prewar level. In agriculture, recovery proceeded much more slowly, and prewar levels of production were not reached until the 1960s. A?famine?in 1946–47 resulting from postwar dislocations and drought claimed nearly one million casualties.

The prewar system of totalitarian control exercised through the Communist Party and the?secret police?was quickly reimposed.?Khrushchev?continued to head the CP(B)U as first secretary—except briefly from March to December 1947—until his promotion to secretary of the?Central Committee?in?Moscow?in December 1949; he was succeeded by?Leonid Melnikov. Purges in party ranks were relatively mild. However, real and?alleged?Nazi collaborators, former German prisoners of war and repatriated slave workers, Ukrainian “bourgeois nationalists,” and others suspected of disloyalty—essentially hundreds of thousands of people—were sent to concentration camps in the far north and?Siberia. A hard-line ideological campaign to stamp out Western influences went hand in hand with a renewed?Russification?drive. Ukrainian writers, artists, and scholars, who in the wartime years had been permitted to develop patriotic themes and?sentiments?in a mobilization effort against the Germans, were now accused of Ukrainian?nationalism?and subjected to persecution and repression. An “anticosmopolitan” campaign destroyed the remaining vestiges of cultural institutions of a Jewish?community?decimated by the?Holocaust.

The?Sovietization?of western Ukraine was a prolonged and violent process. The?UPA, under the leadership of?Roman Shukhevych (killed 1950), continued effective military operations against Soviet troops until the early 1950s. The armed resistance received covert support from the local rural?population, embittered by the?concurrent?forced?collectivization?drive, reminiscent of the 1930s in eastern Ukraine. Also accused of abetting the partisans, and Ukrainian?nationalism?in general, was the Greek Catholic church. In April 1945 Metropolitan?Yosyf Slipy and the entire?hierarchy?in?Galicia?were arrested and later sentenced to long imprisonment (only Slipy survived, to be released in 1963 and sent into?exile?in?Rome). After arrests and intimidation of the?clergy, a synod held in?Lviv?in March 1946—in fact, on Stalin’s orders—proclaimed the “reunification” of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics with the?Russian Orthodox Church. By?analogous?means, the?Greek Catholic church?in Transcarpathia was abolished in 1949. Officially declared “self-liquidated,” the Greek Catholic church maintained a?clandestine?existence through subsequent decades of Soviet rule. Overall, approximately half a million people were deported from western Ukraine in connection with the suppression of the insurgency and nationalist activity, religious persecution, and collectivization.

The period of?Khrushchev

Khrushchev’s ascendancy over his rivals in Moscow after Stalin’s death in 1953 was of particular significance for Ukraine. As first secretary of the CP(B)U, Khrushchev had gained?intimate?knowledge of Ukraine, staffed party and government posts with his own trusted appointees, and become familiar with Ukrainian cultural elites. In contrast to Stalin’s anti-Ukrainian paranoia, Khrushchev harboured few?prejudices?against Ukrainians who adhered to the party line and served the Soviet state with loyalty.

Shortly after the death of Stalin,?Melnikov?was removed as first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, or CPU—as the CP(B)U was renamed in 1952—for “deviations in nationality policy,” specifically, promotion of nonnative cadres and Russification of?higher education?in western Ukraine. His replacement was?Oleksy Kyrychenko, only the second Ukrainian to fill the post. This and accompanying changes in personnel in the party and government boosted morale and confidence, especially as their sphere of competence was also steadily increased. Unionwide celebrations in 1954 of the 300th anniversary of the “reunification” of Ukraine with?Russia?were another sign of the Ukrainians’ rising (though clearly junior) status; on the occasion, the?Crimean Peninsula, from which the?indigenous?Tatar?population had been deported en masse at the end of?World War II, was transferred from the Russian S.F.S.R. to Ukraine. Ukrainian party officials began to receive promotions to central party organs in Moscow close to the levers of power. In 1957 Kyrychenko was transferred to Moscow as a secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU; his place as first secretary of the CPU was taken by Mykola Pidhorny (Nikolay Podgorny), who moved to Moscow as a secretary of the Central Committee in 1963. There was a steady expansion of party membership, which by the end of 1958 exceeded one million, of whom 60.3 percent were Ukrainians and 28.2 percent Russians; more than 40 percent had joined the party after the war.

Khrushchev also introduced a limited decentralization in?government administration?and economic management. These measures?enhanced?the powers and stoked the ambitions of the Ukrainian party and government leaders and?bureaucracy, and this in turn elicited warnings against “localism” from Moscow. Economic recovery in Ukraine continued, with impressive—though diminishing over time—rates of growth in industry. Some?concessions?were made in the provision of consumer goods. Agriculture lagged, however, despite reforms in the administration of?collective?farms to increase productivity.

By 1953 mass terror had abated, and repression came to be applied more discriminately. An amnesty in 1955–56 released the majority of?concentration camp?inmates, and several hundred thousand returned to Ukraine, though many political prisoners continued to serve their long sentences. During the cultural thaw and the?de-Stalinization?campaign that followed?Khrushchev’s secret speech?in 1956, Ukrainian cultural elites pressed more boldly for concessions. Writers who had suffered under Stalin received praise and honours. Qualified rehabilitation was extended to?condemned?figures from the 1920s and ’30s, and historians began to treat previously forbidden topics. Some proscribed literary works were republished, and a number of new periodicals made their appearance, including the first journal since the 1930s devoted to Ukrainian history.

In the latter half of Khrushchev’s reign, however, a distinct trend toward?Russification?reemerged. An educational reform adopted in 1959 initiated a long process of curtailment of Ukrainian-language instruction in schools. In 1961 the new party program emphasized the importance of the?Russian language?for the?integration?of the Soviet peoples and spoke of the diminishing significance of borders between Soviet republics. Party theoreticians evolved the theory of “fusion of nations” that would be accompanied by the disappearance of national languages as Soviet society progressed toward?communism.

Small, clandestine dissident groups began to form in the late 1950s, primarily as discussion circles on Ukrainian political and cultural?alternatives. Some dozen such groups were uncovered by the secret police and their members imprisoned between 1958 and 1964. With open opposition to the party line impossible, defense of the?Ukrainian language?and?culture?was usually expressed indirectly—through?poetry?extolling the mother tongue, complaints about the unavailability of Ukrainian-language textbooks, and calls for subscription to Ukrainian periodicals.

Khrushchev’s last years in power witnessed the rise to prominence of two figures—Petro Shelest and?Volodymyr Shcherbytsky—who between them dominated Ukraine’s political landscape for almost 30 years. The earlier careers of both?encompassed?party work in regional party organizations. In 1961 Shcherbytsky became chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) of Ukraine. Upon the elevation of Pidhorny to Moscow, in June 1963 Shelest succeeded him as party leader in Ukraine, and simultaneously Shcherbytsky lost the premiership and went into eclipse.

Ukraine under Shelest

Until?Leonid Brezhnev?achieved preeminence by the mid-1970s, power in Moscow after Khrushchev’s ouster was shared by a?collective?leadership headed by a triumvirate consisting of Brezhnev,?Aleksey Kosygin, and Pidhorny. Shelest, Pidhorny’s protégé, became a full member of the?Politburo?within a month of Khrushchev’s ouster. However, Brezhnev’s client, Shcherbytsky, shortly reemerged from relative obscurity; he reassumed the premiership in?Kyiv?in 1965 and became a candidate member of the Politburo in Moscow in 1966.

Although the new leadership in Moscow quickly reversed many of Khrushchev’s decentralizing measures, it initially showed greater sensitivity toward the non-Russians. The seeming retreat in Moscow’s nationalities policy, connected with the leadership’s preoccupation with the succession struggle,?facilitated?the three main trends that characterize the Shelest era in Ukraine: the growing cultural revival, greater assertiveness by Kyiv’s political elite, and the development of a large-scale dissident movement.

The cultural revival was built on the hard-won, though necessarily limited, achievements of the de-Stalinization thaw. It was spearheaded by a younger “generation of the ’60s” (shestydesyatnyky) who, without the formative firsthand experience of?Stalin’s?reign of terror, experimented with themes and forms that at times provoked the ire of the preceding generation. More proscribed figures from the past were rehabilitated as literary scholars, and historians explored previously forbidden topics. New?journals?and serials devoted to Ukrainian history made their appearance, and monumental encyclopaedic publications were launched. Such efforts came under severe attack from party ideologues and the?conservative?cultural establishment. Announced publications failed to appear, published works were withdrawn from circulation, and numerous works of art were destroyed. Plans prepared on the ministerial level in Kyiv for a partial de-Russification of?higher education?were never?implemented.

Nevertheless, the cultural achievements were unparalleled since the Ukrainization period in the 1920s. They were made possible by the support of influential segments of the party leadership, most notably Shelest himself. In addition to supporting Ukrainian?culture, Shelest defended the economic interests of Ukraine, pressing for a larger share in the?U.S.S.R.’s?allocation of investment and greater republican control in economic management. These efforts were aimed in part at strengthening the party’s legitimacy in the eyes of the Ukrainian population. During Shelest’s?tenure,?Communist Party?membership in Ukraine grew at a rate double the all-union average to reach 2.5 million by 1971.

From its embryonic beginnings in the late 1950s and early ’60s, the?dissident?movement continued to develop under Shelest. In 1965 the first arrests and trials of 20 dissidents occurred; profiles of these dissenters were circulated clandestinely, and their compiler, the journalist?Vyacheslav Chornovil, was also arrested and imprisoned. The national dissent movement grew rapidly thereafter. It took the form of protest letters and petitions to the authorities, the formation of informal clubs and discussion circles, and public meetings and demonstrations. Increasingly the materials prepared by the dissidents were circulated through?samvydav?(“self-publication”—the Ukrainian equivalent of Russian?samizdat), some of which made its way abroad and was published. An outstanding work in this regard was Ivan Dziuba’s “Internationalism or Russification?”; it was translated and published in several languages. Throughout the 1960s, however, reprisals for dissident activity were generally mild.

Beginning in 1970, there were signs that the relative permissiveness of the Shelest regime was drawing to a close. The head of the?KGB?in Ukraine was replaced. Harsh?rhetoric?about “anti-Soviet activities” and “bourgeois nationalism” increased; tribute was paid to “the great Russian people.” In 1971 Brezhnev’s protégé and Shelest’s rival, Shcherbytsky, was elevated to full member of the Politburo. Between January and April 1972, several hundred dissidents and cultural activists were arrested in a wave of repression that swept Ukraine. In May Shelest was removed as Ukraine’s party leader, succeeded by Shcherbytsky. Shelest continued for another year as a member of the Politburo and a deputy?prime minister?in?Moscow, but in May 1973 he lost all his remaining party and government positions.

Ukraine under?Shcherbytsky

Shcherbytsky’s promotion marked an important step in the consolidation of power in Moscow by his patron,?Brezhnev, and a turning point in Ukrainian postwar politics. Shcherbytsky survived in office 17 years until his resignation in the fall of 1989, a few weeks before his death—long after the death of Brezhnev in 1982 and well into the?tenure?of?Mikhail Gorbachev.

Personnel changes in the party and government followed gradually after Shcherbytsky’s accession to office; many of them involved the removal of Shelest’s supporters and the promotion of cadres associated with the site of Shcherbytsky’s (and Brezhnev’s) earlier career, the?Dnipropetrovsk?regional Communist Party organization. The most significant occurred in October 1972:?Valentyn Malanchuk, who had previously conducted ideological work in the nationally highly charged?Lviv?region, was appointed secretary for?ideology. A purge in 1973–75 removed almost 5 percent of the CPU members from party rolls.

Arrests of national and?human rights?activists continued through 1972–73. The bulk of?samvydav?literature was now produced in labour camps, and much of it made its way abroad, where it was published. Following the signing of the international?Helsinki Accords, with their human rights provisions, in 1975, the?Helsinki Watch Group was founded in Ukraine, headed by the poet?Mykola Rudenko; by the end of the 1970s, its members were almost all in concentration camps or in exile abroad. The expirations of political prisoners’ sentences were increasingly followed by rearrest and new sentences on charges of criminal activity. Incarceration in psychiatric institutions became a new method of political repression.

Political?repression?was accompanied by a broad assault on Ukrainian?culture?and intensification of Russification. Immediately after Shelest’s fall, the circulation of the most popular Ukrainian periodicals was substantially reduced, and most of the new journals and serials started under Shelest ceased publication; a general decline in Ukrainian-language?publishing?and?education?continued during Shcherbytsky’s tenure. For two years after his appointment as secretary for?ideology, Malanchuk supervised a purge of Ukrainian scholarly and cultural institutions, with numerous expulsions from the Academy of Sciences, universities, editorial boards, and the official organizations of writers, artists, and cinematographers. The general trend was unaffected by Malanchuk’s unexpected removal in 1979, which may have been a?concession?to the disaffected cultural?intelligentsia, whose cooperation was needed in the upcoming celebrations of the 325th anniversary of the “reunification of Ukraine with?Russia” that year and the 1,500th anniversary of the founding of?Kyiv?in 1982.

Ukraine’s economic performance continued to deteriorate throughout the 1970s and ’80s. The rates of growth declined, and serious problems beset especially the important ferrous metallurgy and?coal mining?industries. Agricultural production was adversely affected by a series of droughts, a lack of incentives, and excessive centralization in?collective farm?management. Soviet energy policy increasingly?emphasized?nuclear power, and in April 1986 one of the nuclear power plants in Ukraine, at?Chernobyl?just northwest of Kyiv, suffered the worst nuclear accident in history. Dozens died in the immediate aftermath, and tens of thousands were evacuated. An estimated 5 million people were exposed to elevated levels of radiation, and hundreds of thousands received doses that were sufficient to increase the risk of various cancers. Decades after the accident, the incidence of thyroid cancer remained sharply higher among residents of the Chernobyl area than among the general population. Nevertheless, and despite changes in the top leadership in Moscow since 1982, Shcherbytsky remained securely in office.

Ukraine on the path to independence

An upsurge of?nationalism?was the unexpected and unintended?consequence?of?Gorbachev’s attempt to grapple with the?Soviet Union’s?mounting economic problems. Beginning in 1986, Gorbachev launched a campaign for an ill-defined economic?perestroika?(“restructuring”) and called for an honest confrontation with real problems, or?glasnost?(“openness”), which further entailed popular involvement in the process. In the non-Russian republics, these policies opened the opportunity to voice not merely economic but also predominantly national concerns.

In contrast to the rapid growth of mass movements in the Baltic and Transcaucasian republics, in Ukraine the national revival stimulated by?glasnost?developed only gradually. From mid-1986 the Ukrainian press and media, at first cautiously, began to broach long-forbidden topics. While this process expanded and intensified, the spontaneous formation locally of unofficial groups, primarily in?Kyiv?and?Lviv, began in 1987. The year 1988 witnessed the rise of mass mobilization, with the first public demonstrations—in Lviv from June through August and in Kyiv in November—and the emergence of embryonic national organizations. Finally, the national revival in Ukraine entered the stage of overt politicization in 1989.

In the three years 1987–89, new leaders emerged. Especially prominent were many cultural activists from the?shestydesyatnyky?of the Shelest period, as well as former dissidents. The issues that?galvanized?Ukrainian society at this time included such traditional concerns as language,?culture, and history, resurgent interests such as religion, and new concerns over the?environment?and the economy.

Russification and the parlous state of the?Ukrainian language?in schools,?publishing, and state administration received the earliest attention. Fears about the long-term language trends were confirmed by data from the 1989 census: at the same time that Ukrainians had declined as a percentage of Ukraine’s?population, their attachment to Ukrainian as their native language had fallen even more rapidly. Debates over the issue?culminated?in the passage of a?language?law in?autumn?1989 that for the first time gave Ukrainian official status as the republic’s state language.

A campaign to fill in the “blank spots” in history aimed to restore public awareness of neglected or suppressed historical events and figures such as Hetman?Ivan Mazepa, to rehabilitate historians such as Mykhaylo Hrushevsky, and to republish banned works of pre-Soviet historical scholarship. Particularly intense were efforts to introduce knowledge of the?Stalin?period, especially the?Great Famine of 1932–33, which became labeled the “Ukrainian?genocide.” Fresh revelations appeared in the press about mass graves of political prisoners executed in the Stalin era. To honour the victims of?Stalinism?and to promote investigations of the repressions and?famine?of the 1930s, the?All-Ukrainian “Memorial” Society was founded in March 1989 based on already existing local groups.

A religious revival was also under way in 1988, greatly stimulated by celebrations of a millennium of?Christianity?in Kyivan (Kievan)?Rus. Lavish government-supported?Russian Orthodox?solemnities in Moscow were countered with unofficial celebrations throughout Ukraine, including open observances by the proscribed Greek Catholics. As bishops and clergy emerged from the underground, demands grew for the relegalization of the?Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Defections by the clergy and entire congregations from Russian Orthodoxy began in the fall of 1989, and, on the eve of Gorbachev’s visit to the?Vatican?in December, Soviet authorities announced that Greek Catholic?communities?would be allowed official registration. In a parallel development, the formation of an?initiative?group for the restoration of the?Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church?was proclaimed in February 1989 in Kyiv.

Continuing revelations about the scale of the Chernobyl?catastrophe?and mounting evidence of official wrongdoing in its aftermath, combined with fresh disclosures about other disasters and the environmental ruination of Ukraine, engendered a widespread ecological movement. On the initiative of scientists and writers,?environmental?groups were formed in virtually every region, and in December 1987 they joined in a national association,?Zeleny Svit (“Green World”). In the course of 1989, Zeleny Svit evolved into a potent political force led by the writer?Yury Shcherbak. (See also?environmentalism.)

The traditionally passive industrial workers in Ukraine also became organized, especially in the?Donbas. Years of neglect by Moscow resulted in steady deterioration of the coal-mining?industry?and increasingly hazardous working conditions in the mines. Complaints in the form of letters by miners began to appear as early as 1985. But it was only in July 1989 that a spontaneous movement of self-organization by Donbas miners led to a strike.?Concessions?extended by Moscow were insufficient to stem the growing alienation. In the course of the year, the overwhelmingly Russian-speaking miners, with concerns far removed from those of the Ukrainian cultural intelligentsia, began to be drawn to the Ukrainian national movement as a defender of their interests in confrontation with Moscow.

The first significant organization with an overtly political agenda was launched in March 1988. This was the?Ukrainian Helsinki Union, formed by recently released political prisoners, many of whom had been members of the?Helsinki?Watch Group of the mid-1970s. The Helsinki Union’s declared aim was the restoration of Ukraine’s?sovereignty?as the main guarantee of its population’s national and?human rights?and the transformation of the U.S.S.R. into a genuine confederation of states. Headed by?Levko Lukyanenko, with?Vyacheslav Chornovil as an important leader, the Ukrainian Helsinki Union had branches in all regions of Ukraine by 1989.

At all stages, the process of national revival and?autonomous?self-organization encountered bitter resistance from the CPU, which under?Shcherbytsky?remained among the most unreconstructed of the U.S.S.R.’s republican Communist Party organizations. Opposition to the rising democratic forces took the form of?propaganda?attacks in the press and?media, intimidation, harassment, and occasional arrests. Shcherbytsky himself continued firmly in charge of the CPU, in a sign of?Moscow’s fear of destabilization in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the official policies of?perestroika?and?glasnost?inhibited?more-extreme measures, while the example of rapid change in other republics, especially the Baltics, emboldened democratic Ukrainian activists.

Parliamentary democracy

The year 1989 marked the transition from social mobilization to mass politicization of life in Ukraine. Elections to a new supreme legislative body in Moscow, the?Congress of People’s Deputies, brought victory to a significant number of noncommunist candidates. Numerous Communist Party candidates, including highly placed officials, suffered defeat, all the more humiliating in those cases when they ran unopposed. (In these cases, voters crossed off the single name on the ballot; if an unopposed candidate failed to capture more than 50 percent of the vote, the election was declared void and the candidate was barred from running in subsequent races.) The party’s confidence was shaken, and resignations began to rise significantly.

Attempts to organize a popular front received?impetus?in January 1989 under the aegis of the?Writers’ Union of Ukraine. Taking the name Narodnyi Rukh Ukrainy (“Popular Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction,” often shortened to Rukh), to emphasize its congruence with the policies of Gorbachev (particularly perestroika), the front nevertheless ran into hostility from the CPU. Specifically?eschewing?the role of a political opposition, Rukh advocated a program of democratization and support for human, national, and minority rights. The founding congress was held in September and elected a leadership headed by the poet?Ivan Drach.

On September 28, 1989, Shcherbytsky, long rumoured to be ill, resigned as first secretary of the CPU. His successor,?Volodymyr Ivashko, while praising his predecessor and reaffirming the CPU’s basic policy line, made the first cautious references to new political realities and the need for the Communist Party to take these into account. These realities included a rapid institutionalization of national, civic, and religious life that outpaced legal recognition.

The most significant development of 1990 was the beginning of parliamentary?democracy. The first competitive elections to the Ukrainian parliament (which replaced the old-style Supreme Soviet), held on March 4, broke the?Communist Party’s?monopoly on political power in Ukraine. The parliament that met in mid-May had a substantial democratic bloc that, with the defection of numerous communist deputies from strict party?discipline?on particular issues, reduced the CPU’s core majority to 239 of the 450 members. Changes in the political leadership proceeded rapidly and culminated in the parliament’s?election?of the recent CPU secretary for?ideology,?Leonid Kravchuk, as its chairman. On July 16?sovereignty?(though not yet independence) was claimed in the name of the “people of Ukraine”—the entirety of Ukraine’s resident?population?without regard to nationality or ethnicity; the declaration marked the onset of a gradual convergence of views on key issues between the communist majority and the democratic opposition, whose agenda was increasingly adopted by the?pragmatic?Kravchuk.

Gorbachev, faced with a rising tide of?nationalism, had already proposed a renegotiated new union treaty that would extend broad?autonomy?to the Soviet republics while preserving central control of?foreign policy, the military, and the financial system. To forestall the cession of newly asserted?sovereign?rights to Moscow, student-led mass demonstrations and a hunger strike were held in?Kyiv?in October 1990; the protests extracted?concessions?that included the resignation of the premier. In the same month, Rukh, whose membership was growing rapidly, proclaimed as its ultimate goal the total independence of Ukraine. Only the CPU declared its support for Gorbachev’s plans of a new union treaty.

A?coup d’état?organized in August 1991 by hard-line members of Gorbachev’s government in Moscow collapsed within two days. In its wake the Ukrainian parliament, in emergency session, declared the full independence of Ukraine on August 24. The declaration was made subject to popular ratification by a referendum on December 1.

Independent Ukraine

The population of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence in the referendum of December 1, 1991. (About 84 percent of eligible voters turned out for the?referendum, and about 90 percent of them?endorsed?independence.) In an election coinciding with the referendum, Kravchuk was chosen as president. By this time, several important developments had taken place in Ukraine, including the dissolution of the Communist Party and the development (under the newly appointed Minister of Defense Kostiantyn Morozov) of the?infrastructure?for separate Ukrainian armed forces. Ukraine also had withstood political pressure from Moscow to reconsider its course toward independence and enter into a restructured Soviet Union. A week after the independence referendum, the leaders of Ukraine,?Russia, and Belarus agreed to establish the?Commonwealth of Independent States?(CIS). Shortly thereafter the U.S.S.R. was formally disbanded.

Postindependence issues

Following the?dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was commonly regarded as the former Soviet republic (outside of those in the Baltic region) with the best chance of achieving economic prosperity and?integration?with?Europe?as a whole. But by the end of the 20th century, the Ukrainian economy had faltered badly, and social and political change fell short of transforming Ukraine into a wholly European state. Nevertheless, Ukraine registered some important gains in this period. It consolidated its independence and developed its state structure, regularized relations with neighbouring countries (in spite of some?contentious?issues), made some important steps in the process of democratization, and established itself as a member in good standing of the international?community.

State building and diplomacy

President Kravchuk’s immediate priority was?state building. Under his?stewardship, Ukraine quickly established its armed forces and the infrastructure of an independent state.?Citizenship?was extended to the people of Ukraine on an?inclusive?(rather than ethnic or linguistic) basis. Ukraine received widespread international recognition and developed its?diplomatic service. A pro-Western?foreign policy?was instituted, and official pronouncements stressed that Ukraine was a “European” rather than a “Eurasian”?country. The state symbols and?national anthem?of the post-World War I?Ukrainian National Republic were reinstituted. Yet at the same time that independent Ukraine was acquiring the attributes of statehood, it faced a number of contentious issues that severely strained the fledgling country: the nature of its participation in the CIS, nuclear disarmament, the status of?Crimea, and control of the?Black Sea?Fleet?and its port city of?Sevastopol. While inflaming passions on both sides of the border, these issues also helped to define Ukraine’s new relationship with Russia.

Ukrainian leaders perceived the CIS to be no more than a loose association of former Soviet republics and a means of assisting in a “civilized divorce” from the union. In contrast,?Russia?regarded it as a means of retaining some degree of regional integration (under?Moscow’s political domination) and sought to establish it as a supranational body that would succeed the U.S.S.R. These differing views were not clear at the meeting that created the CIS, but within several weeks they had become very evident. Disagreements between Russia and Ukraine ensued as the latter?repudiated?proposals for a CIS army under unified command, a common CIS citizenship, and the guarding of “external” rather than national borders. Remaining vigilant that involvement with the CIS not compromise its?sovereignty, Ukraine participated only as an associate member. However, after more than seven years of independence, with the CIS no longer a real threat to the country’s?sovereignty,?Ukraine?finally agreed to join the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly in March 1999.

end of quote ( note that a LOT of the article was snipped)

Andrew Beckwith, PhD