The Soviet empire

TIBOR SZAMUELY

Internationalism or Russification? Ivan Dzyuba edited by M. Davies (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 42s)-

The Chornovil Papers compiled by Vyacheslav Chornovil (McGraw-Hill 45s)

For many years the reality of Soviet colonial- ism has been hidden from the western public, largely through the workings of the 'liberal' double standard, according to which the only form of oppression is that of whites over coloured peoples, and the sole type of empire the overseas variety. The publication of these two books goes a long way towards shattering the conspiracy of silence. Both deal with the Ukraine : the second largest country in Europe after Soviet Russia herself, with a population equal to that of France, which produces more coal, oil, iron-ore, steel, natural gas and grain than any European country except Russia— and which is the biggest and most important colony existing today in the world. The fact that it occupies a seat at the UN is an indica- tion, not of its statehood, but of the state of our demented globe.

Ivan Dzyuba is a well-known young Ukrainian literary critic; his book, an exhaus- tively documented study of the theory 'and practice of Soviet nationalities policy in the Ukraine, couched in impeccable marxist- leninist terms, was written at the end of 1965 and sent to the First Secretary of the Ukrainian Central Committee and the Chairman of the Ukrainian government. For his pains Dzyuba was taken into custody and, after being released, thrown out of his job.

Internationalism or Russification? paints a horrifying picture of the effects of fifty years of Soviet rule in the Ukraine. Lenin had promised the Ukrainians full national sover- eignty, complete equality, unimpeded develop- ment of national culture : what they received was mass-murder, terror, intensified Russifica- tion and second-class status.

Perhaps the most damning indictment of all is provided by the figures which show the gradual physical extermination of a people. By 1913 the Ukrainian population had reached thirty-seven million—forty-six years later, in 1959, it was still thirty-seven million. And if we take into account the annexation in 1939 of Galicia. never before a part of the Russian empire, with its six or seven million Ukrainians, then we see that in the forty-two years after the revolution the Ukrainian nation had decreased by 15-20 per cent. Surely a case without parallel in our century—except for the European Jews, and also a few other bene- ficiaries of Soviet leninisr nationalities policy.

As Dzyuba convincingly shows, the sys- tematic onslaught against the Ukrainian nation continues unabated. The methods may have changed, the object remains the same: the obliteration of Ukrainian nationhood: Young men and women are 'encouraged' to emigrate and their places rapidly filled by Russians, settling mainly in the .cities. The Russian in- habitants of Ukrainian cities, 'the spiritual heirs of ten generations of colonisers,' are the new ruling class of the Ukraine. As a re- sult 'the linguistic division in the Ukraine coincides with social and social-cultural divisions': the division between the city and the countryside. 'The Ukrainian language is in a certain sense opposed, as the language of the "lower" strata of the population, to the Russian language, as the language of "higher," "more educated" strata of society.' So much for the land of socialism, with its absence of class and national divisions.

In many higher educational institutions in the Ukraine itself there are more Russian than Ukrainian students. This is not surprising : teaching there is conducted in Russian, as are entrance examinations. So, in fact, is almost every other public activity of any importance in the `sovereign' Ukraine: government busi- ness, party and trade union activities, economic administration, the greater part of newspaper and book publishing, all secondary technical and professional education—even instruction in kinderga rtens.

In short, the Ukraine is being Russified. Part and parcel of this attitude is the un- ceasing orgy of chauvinistic, blatantly im- perialist propaganda, the glorification of Tsarist colonial conquests and oppression—`although,' Dzyuba bitterly remarks, 'nowadays even the colonisers of Africa are ashamed to speak openly of it.' Russian conquests, declares the `Leninist' party, have always been progressive; indeed, these were not really conquests at all, but voluntary accessions, the anniversaries of which are endlessly celebrated. What next, inquires Dzyuba : perhaps 'a celebration of the voluntary resettlement of the Crimean Tartars?' (deported en masse to Siberia by Stalin). Curiously enough, as the book shows, Soviet eulogies of the 'fraternal friendship of nations under the leadership of the great Russian people,' repeat, almost word for word, the pro- nouncements of various eighteenth and nine- teenth century Tsars and their ideologues. However, says Dzyuba, even though the old Russian state was more oppressive than western overseas empires, it certainly seems to have been better than the present 'union of Socialist nations.' Its colonialist propaganda

was more restrained : 'Declarations of a kind which even the official Russifiers of pre- revolutionary times did not often permit them- selves have now become quite common and "natural."' Although the study. of Ukrainian culture was not exactly encouraged under the Tsars, neither was it acti'vly, hindered—and therefore infinitely more was ,achieved in this field before the revolution:thap since. 'And, finally, in Tsarist Russia—Alike the

one could at least openly criticise the actions of the government. Who today,' 'asks Dzyuba, would dare to censure Russian colonialism as frankly as Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Aksakov, Tolstoy and other nineteenth cen- tury writers did?

What, then, is the worth of all the present- day constitutional trappings of-'sovereignty' and `equality'? None whatsoever : ,:„These are verily 'sovereign" governments in the Republics, without their native language in the administra- tion, without international contacts, and with- out even the right to intervene in the economy of their own terrritory.' Were any western observer to put it so bluntly, he would be met

with howls of disbelief and viciously attacked as a 'cold warrior.'

The implementation of Soviet nationalities policy, writes Dzyuba, is entrusted to the KGB.

Even the slightest expression of discontent is treated as 'bourgeois nationalism' and severely punished. None the less, a great upsurge of nationalist feeling has begun in the Ukraine.

If Ivan Dzyuba limits himself to analysing the reasons for the Ukraine's discontent, Vyaches- lay Chornovil supplies some of the facts about the growing resistance movement in the re. public. (Excerpts from The Chornovil Papers appeared recently in the western press.) In the autumn of 1956 dozens of (mainly young) Ukrainian intellectuals were arrested

by the KGB, and sentenced—fairly leniently, by

Soviet standards—to five or six years in prison camp for the crime of 'Ukrainian nationalism.'

Unlike the recent Moscow writers' trials, not a word was published about these proceedings —yet every detail became known to the public.

Crowds gathered outside the courtrooms to cheer the prisoners. Chornovil himself, as a promising young journalist, was called upon to provide false testimony against some of his friends. He refused—and, horrified by what he had witnessed, started collecting all the avail- able facts concerning this latest wave of com- munist terror. Like Dzyuba, he disdained secrecy—and in November 1967, while 'pro- gressive' western public opinion was jubilantly lauding the fiftieth anniversary of the October revolution, he was secretly sentenced to eighteen months' hard labour.

Chornovil's book contains biographies of twenty of the condemned men and women, together with a wide selection of documents: court proceedings, letters from camp, unpub- lished manuscripts etc. Its evidence has since been confirmed and complemented by the mass of new material now pouring out of the Ukraine and the Russian prison camps where Ukrainians are held. Its author, himself a product of Soviet communism, writes with passion, disillusionment and repugnance: 'The highest material saturation, without free thought and will, does not constitute com- munism. It constitutes a great prison, in which the food rations for prisoners have been in- creased . .

These books will tell the western reader much of the truth about communism which has previously been kept hidden from him.

They will also help to explain why today the Soviet leadership is frantically trying to sup- press any sign of freedom of thought : whether in Russia herself, or the Ukraine, or Czecho- slovakia.