This post is archived. Lots of valuable info I learned.
List of Political Families - Russia / Soviet Union
https://www.primidi.com/list_of_political_families/russia__soviet_union
List of leaders of the Soviet Union
https://wikimili.com/en/List_of_leaders_of_the_Soviet_Union
(Sometimes I just archive so the responses don't get erased and not for any other importance or emphasis, this is what I'm doing with the Quora archive links)
How were Ukrainians treated in the Soviet Union?
https://www.quora.com/How-were-Ukrainians-treated-in-the-Soviet-Union?share=1
What was it like to be a Ukrainian in the Soviet Union?
https://www.quora.com/What-was-it-like-to-be-a-Ukrainian-in-the-Soviet-Union?share=1
What was life like in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic?
Ukraine (officially known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in Soviet times) was the Soviet Union’s breadbasket, as well as a key health tourism destination and industrial center. Its sea, climate, nature and hospitality attracted tourists from all over the country.
https://www.rbth.com/history/332352-soviet-ukraine-life-photos
Khrushchev had spent almost his whole life in Ukraine, and had served there first as Chairman of the Council of Ministers and then as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
Soviet Ukraine in the postwar period
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/Soviet-Ukraine-in-the-postwar-period
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 RIGHT HERE FINALLY FOUND IT
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.
So essentially after Stalin got done starving them, Ukrainians enjoyed a huge upswing in political power under Khrushchev and never got a Communist bonk afterwards. This is crazy, if I'm not mistaken the Ukrainians outnumbered the Russians in the Communist Party by over 2:1 in 1958. The prominent Ukrainian families became the Soviet Union deep state after Stalin's destruction.
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.
...
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.
Why Did Russia Give Away Crimea Sixty Years Ago?
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/why-did-russia-give-away-crimea-sixty-years-ago
The transfer of Crimea to the UkrSSR also was politically useful for Khrushchev as he sought to firm up the support he needed in his ongoing power struggle with Soviet Prime Minister Georgii Malenkov, who had initially emerged as the preeminent leader in the USSR in 1953 after Joseph Stalin’s death.
Malenkov - Stalin's Successor
Nikita Khrushchev (1894 – 1971) - who was known widely as "the hangman of the Ukraine".
Andrey Aleksandrovich Zhdanov - Soviet official
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrey-Aleksandrovich-Zhdanov
Andrey Aleksandrovich Zhdanov, (born Feb. 26 [Feb. 14, Old Style], 1896, Mariupol, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died Aug. 31, 1948, Moscow, Russian S.F.S.R.), Soviet government and Communist Party official.
Grigory Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze - Soviet government official
After the Bolsheviks seized power (October 1917), he became commissar extraordinary for the Ukraine area (1918), a member of his party’s Central Committee (1921), and chairman of the Central Committee’s Caucasian bureau (1921). Despite Vladimir Lenin’s objections to his brutal methods (which were approved by Joseph Stalin) and the opposition of the local communist organizations, Ordzhonikidze helped the Red Army conquer Georgia, then merged Georgia with Armenia and Azerbaijan to create the Transcaucasian Federal Republic, which in turn, was compelled to join Russia, Belorussia, and Ukraine to form the Soviet Union (December 1922).
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Grigory-Konstantinovich-Ordzhonikidze
Leonid Brezhnev, in full Leonid Ilich Brezhnev, (born December 19, 1906, Kamenskoye, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukraine]—died November 10, 1982, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Soviet statesman and Communist Party official who was, in effect, the leader of the Soviet Union for 18 years.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonid-Ilich-Brezhnev
Konstantin Chernenko
Chernenko was born to a poor family in the Siberian village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai) on 24 September 1911.[3] His father, Ustin Demidovich (of Ukrainian origin), worked in copper mines and gold mines while his mother took care of the farm work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Chernenko
Mikhail Gorbachev
Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, to a poor peasant family of Russian and Ukrainian heritage.
Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in the village of Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, then in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union.[4] At the time, Privolnoye was divided almost evenly between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians.[5] Gorbachev's paternal family were ethnic Russians and had moved to the region from Voronezh several generations before; his maternal family were of ethnic Ukrainian heritage and had migrated from Chernihiv.
The name 'Ukraine' comes from the word 'ukraina', which means 'borderland' and translates literally as 'the borderlands'. It has always been understood as a borderland region that was used quite frankly as a buffer between competing nations. This region was part of the Russian Empire having varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917 to which permanent residency by Jews was allowed. It was called the Pale of Settlement. Beyond this Jewish residency, permanent or temporary, was mostly forbidden. The 'Pale of Settlement' became a problem in itself , in which it became a big source of corruption affecting conterminous governments. During the Soviet era, Birobidzhan, which is a Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia was established in 1931 during Stalin's regime. I mention this because there has always been an unusual effort to administer to Jewish demands. Jewish communists believed that the Soviet Union's creation of Birobidzhan was the "only true and sensible solution to the national question." The Soviet government used the slogan "To the Jewish Homeland!" to encourage Jewish workers to move to Birobidzhan. The Pale of Settlement was in many ways a predecessor of Birobidzhan. Many Jewish Canadians then gave their support to the Soviet Union by becoming either members or sympathizers with the Communist Party of Canada. Are these the same forces controlling Canada today?
Throughout history Ukraine has acted somewhat like a 'sacrificial metal' does to which trouble first rears its head. When Putin said Ukraine was never a nation with borders, this is what he was referring to. Ukraine has been a place where bad actors are sent ridding governments of troublemakers. It really is a breeding ground for corruption.
I learned this from the Russians With Attitude Podcast, have you listened to this before? This is where I initially heard most Soviet Union leaders families resided in Ukraine during USSR and even after.
I brave search "Birobidzhan"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birobidzhan
[18] - Srebrnik, Henry Felix (1999). Red Star Over Birobidzhan: Canadian Jewish Communists and the "Jewish Autonomous Region" in the Soviet Union. Canadian Committee on Labour History. pp. 129–147.
No fucking way it is absolutely there. Archived.
(Entry 3 Years Ago) https://archive.ph/s7EHj
(Archive Link Now) https://archive.ph/mkQeP
Brave search "Pale of Settlement", also on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
https://archive.ph/YIBxM
[1] Черта оседлости. (tr. "Settlement line") KEE, volume 9, col. 1188–1198 eleven.co.il
No, I did my own research on this a number of years ago. Ukraine has always been a borderland used as a 'buffer' against invading forces. Everyone from Turks to Napoleon to Hitler knows what this means. The Ukraine has never 'really' been a nation because the borders have never been set. It has been constantly overrun by invading armies from all directions through out history. This is why it has this name.