Description:
Written in 1965, Dzyuba analyses the national and cultural policy of the USSR in Ukraine, and describes Russian great-power chauvinism and oppression.
Review Quotes:
During the revolution and the Civil War of 1917-1921, the failure to recognise Russian great-power chauvinism cost the Bolsheviks more than one defeat, and the most painful of them were in Ukraine. This forced them to reconsider their national policy, and it was Ukrainianization that became the model for the policy of korenization ("indigenization") in the USSR which was curtailed under Stalin. The most famous criticism of Soviet policy again came from Ukraine with the book Internationalism or Russification? by the Ukrainian communist Ivan Dzyuba. It became important for a whole generation of Ukrainian dissidents. This book is valuable as a historical document and one should not mechanically transfer the author's conclusions to modern times. Nevertheless, this book should help those who ignore Russian great-power chauvinism to reconsider their views on the problem of nationalism in Eastern Europe.
Taras Bilous, is a Ukrainian historian and an activist of Sotsialnyi Rukh/Social Movement. He is editor for Spilne/Commons: Journal of social critique, and covers the topics of war and nationalism.