This reflection was written as part of the Eduard Zub Scholarship Program, established by the family of Eduard Zub and sponsored by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, the Charitable Foundation of the Alchevsky-Beketov Family, and V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. It forms part of a broader dissertation research project, Ukrainian National Communism in the Ukrainian SSR as a Political and Sociocultural Phenomenon, conducted at the Department of Ukrainian History, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. The research supervisor is Roman Liubavskyi, Ph.D. in History, Associate Professor, and Acting Head of the Department of Ukrainian History.
Amid decommunization and the rise of postcolonial theory in Ukraine, the topic of Ukrainian national communism has long remained susceptible to insinuations, as it straddles the line between Soviet and national political visions. It is indisputable that, during the Ukrainian Revolution, Marxist ideas became a tool for the Ukrainian intellectual elite to confront Russian Bolshevism, which bordered on traditional Great Russian chauvinism. In this context, analyzing colonial conceptions — in which the political thinking of early 20th-century Ukrainian Marxists was shaped, particularly the image of “Little Russia” (Малоросія, Malorossia) as a specific imperial construct — takes on fundamental importance.
This research project focuses on analyzing inter-party communication between the Ukrainian and Jewish national-communist parties in the Ukrainian SSR, as well as on studying Ukrainian national communism as the initial stage in the formation of an anti-colonial vision in the Ukrainian SSR.
National communism can be defined as a hybrid political and intellectual movement whose essence lies in combining the ideas of national independence and Marxism, adapted to the region’s national specifics and taking its ethnolinguistic boundaries into account.
Historians note that the image of “Little Russia”, invented in the Russian Empire, was purely colonial. Yet, according to Benedict Anderson’s theory[1] of “imagined communities”, this image should be seen as the result of forming a specific collective memory among Ukrainians about their past and the place and role of Ukrainian territories within the Russian Empire — an evolution that became the first stage in Ukrainian nation-building. During this period, the first discussions began about granting autonomy to Ukrainian lands and the broader use of the indigenous language in the public sphere (education, legislation, periodicals, etc.)[2]. Stepan Velychenko identifies linguistic and cultural assimilation, as well as economic exploitation, as the main hallmarks of Russian rule in Ukrainian lands[3]. At the start of the 20th century, Western European intellectuals described these and similar adverse processes as “colonialism”[4].
When discussing colonialism, it is important to recognize that economic exploitation is not the sole means by which a metropolis influences its colony. A defining feature of imperialism is the transformation of the local sociocultural space. In other words, the metropolis frequently intervenes in both the public and private spheres of the titular nation within its territory, denying it the right to define its national and ethnolinguistic boundaries. Therefore, analyzing colonialism in the Ukrainian context is impossible without addressing the practices of communist state-building, which, despite professed internationalism, often replicated imperial models of political control. Researcher Stanislav Kulchytskyi contends that the union of nine Soviet states was connected to the imperial center in two ways: first, and most obviously, through the dictatorship of the Russian Communist Party; and second, through the subordination of the economic forces of the “peripheries” to the Russian center[5]. The most consistent leftist critique of this imperial logic was offered by Ukrainian Marxists, who sought to interpret Ukraine’s situation through the lens of imperialism[6]. Within this same imperial context, the problems of national minorities were also examined, particularly through a colonial critique of the Soviet project. For Jewish left-wing movements in Ukraine, the issue of imperialism was inextricably tied to questions of national autonomy, language rights, and political representation within the Soviet project, creating common ground for inter-party dialogue.
One of the most revolutionary communist groups during the anti-Bolshevik struggle consisted of Ukrainian Marxists, including leaders of the Ukrainian Communist Party and Vasyl Shakhrai, a key theorist of Ukrainian national communism[7]. To most accurately describe the political relationship between Ukraine and Russia, Ukrainian and Jewish Marxists — or national-communists — turned to the concept of “imperialism”, which aptly reflected the realities of Ukrainian territories. For members of the Ukrainian Communist Party, addressing Ukraine’s national and economic characteristics was essential for shaping a new political system[8]. These Ukrainian communists, in fact, opposed joining the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, whose political program was clearly at odds with their ideological principles. It is important to note that Ukrainian Marxists regarded Ukraine, both before and after the October Revolution, as a Russian colony — serving mainly as a site for resettlement or a potential economic resource, despite its very different internal sociocultural context. Theoretical conceptions of imperialism were validated by social practice, especially in the transformation of urban space and the linguistic hierarchy in Ukrainian cities.
The absence of a state border between Ukrainian and Russian territories led to increased migration of the Russian working class into Ukraine. Simultaneously, Russian officials regarded Russian culture as superior, a belief further strengthened by the earlier implementation of imperial legislation regulating language use in public spaces. For a long time, Russian language dominated the media, education system, administrative offices, and more. Because of these circumstances, Russian workers arriving in Ukrainian cities did not feel like a minority and saw no need to learn a foreign language, as the Ukrainian urban environment was extremely comfortable for them[9]. Paradoxically, Ukrainian peasants who moved to Ukrainian cities in search of work were forced to adapt to a new environment and learn a different language. This situation is somewhat reminiscent of the Irish in Great Britain, as ethnic Ukrainians had to integrate into the imperial environment, which often led to assimilation[10].
In this context, it is especially important to analyze how the colonial policies of the Soviet center shaped interactions among various stateless communities in the Ukrainian SSR, particularly Ukrainians and Jews, who were compelled to seek common political strategies under Russian imperial domination. One of the fundamental yet under-researched features of Ukrainian national communism was its inclusivity, which was particularly evident in inter-party cooperation with Jewish national communist organizations. The examples of cooperation between the Ukrainian Communist Party (Borotbists) and the Jewish Communist Party “Poale Zion” are especially revealing. Analysis of these contacts suggests that the “inclusion” of the Jewish community in the Ukrainian vision of “Sovietism” significantly influenced the formation of a new sociocultural temporality in the Ukrainian SSR. A striking example of this trend is found in Serhii Mazlakh and Andrii Richytskyi — Jews by origin — who, under various circumstances, openly opposed the colonial policies of the Russian Bolsheviks in Ukraine, condemned the restoration of Russian imperialism, and fought against its rule in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, for which they later became victims of Soviet repressive policies.
Between 1919 and 1920, the Borotbists began close cooperation with the Jewish Communist Party, which today can be described as a Jewish national-communist party[11]. The Borotbists and the Jewish Communist Party “Poale Zion” exchanged political literature and held lectures, the results of which were later published in the newspaper Borotba, among other outlets[12]. This inter-party cooperation reflected efforts to find allies for the successful implementation of the Borotbists’ Soviet construction project at a tactical level. One such ally was a group of Georgians who asked the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) to help establish a separate Georgian Communist Party that would maintain close ties with Ukrainian communists in Kyiv[13]. Nevertheless, in 1919, Vasyl Ellan-Blakytnyi emphasized that the Borotbists sought to establish equality among all nations and to develop the national cultures of so-called “underdeveloped” peoples[14]. These principles align with those set out in the draft Constitution of the World Federation of Soviet Republics, which states in Article 4 that every people accepting ethno-geographical unity has the right to join the Federation[15]. The main common ground in inter-party contacts lay in the desire to adapt Soviet-style development to the ethnolinguistic boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR, considering all the region’s national and economic characteristics[16]. The Borotbists believed that one of the main tasks of communist construction was to foster friendly relations among the socialist republics, in order to elevate the cultures of “small” and stateless peoples and ultimately create a single international culture[17]. According to literary scholar Yaryna Tsymbal, Yiddish-language publishing flourished in the 1920s, particularly in Kharkiv. At the same time, at the invitation of People’s Commissar Oleksandr Shumskyi (a member of the Borotbists’ faction), Aron Vorobeychyk — a Jewish educator who taught Yiddish and literature at a local educational institution — arrived in Kharkiv from Riga[18].
At the same time, they played a leading role in driving the cultural and artistic revival. Not only did they lead the literary movement of the 1920s — represented by figures such as Vasyl Elan-Blakytnyi, Mykhailo Yalovyi, Oleksandr Mizernytskyi, Serhii Pylypenko, Volodymyr Koriak, Mykola Khvylovyi, and others — but they also fostered the professional development of Ukrainian and Jewish writers by involving them in various literary groups and as members of editorial boards of literary journals. Party members succeeded in creating an environment where national and cultural revival could flourish and a new post-revolutionary culture could emerge. For instance, the Borotbists became key actors in the cultural modernization of the Ukrainian SSR, particularly in literary studies and the humanities [19].
It was precisely the inclusive nature of the Ukrainian national-communist project — which envisioned interethnic political cooperation and an autonomous interpretation of Soviet-style state-building — that made it especially vulnerable to the Soviet center. In the Ukrainian SSR, Stalin’s genocidal regime manifested its totalitarian policies through systematic oppression aimed at destroying the political, national, ethnic, and cultural autonomy of the local population. This led to mass persecution, deportations, and the physical extermination of representatives of groups such as the Jewish political movement. The Soviet authorities absolutely rejected any form of independent political activity within the Ukrainian SSR, viewing national/ethnic movements that did not conform to the official ideological framework as obstacles to the “class struggle.” The cultural aspect of this repressive process was evident in the curtailment of Ukrainization, the unification of cultural policy, and the imposition of the canons of “all-Soviet” culture, which was fundamentally rooted in Russian linguistic and historical dominance.
A telling example occurred during Oleksandr Shumskyi’s 1926 speech at a Politburo meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks). During the meeting, an unnamed participant observed [in Russian — tr. note]: “And those who can speak Ukrainian did not speak… Because they are marginalized and driven into a corner within the party and constitute a minority…not to mention their influence. Because a Russian communist dominates the party…”[20]. This brief episode highlights the Bolsheviks’ failure to uphold the principles of national policy, which they claimed to pursue under the guise of Ukrainization. Beginning in the late 1920s, the Russian Bolshevik leadership increasingly depicted Ukrainian communists as advocates of a “nationalist deviation”, effectively criminalizing any attempt at an autonomous interpretation of the Soviet project in Ukraine. Repression against Ukrainian cultural, scientific, and party figures became a means to eliminate intellectual circles capable of producing alternative narratives. As a result, Ukrainian party members issued an official appeal to the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, protesting “the cessation by the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks leadership of repressions against Ukrainian functionaries”[21]. Earlier, party members had already appealed to the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks), criticizing the restoration of a “united and indivisible Russia”, and condemning the arrests and deportations of party members, despite prior agreements on “friendly relations with the party” and Ukraine’s right to autonomy[22]. The Kharkiv branch of the Ukrainian Communist Party attributed these actions by the Russian Bolsheviks to fear of the party’s influence and agitation in the Ukrainian SSR and was prepared to wage a legitimate struggle[23]. Specifically, UCP members protested the communist authorities’ oppression of the Ukrainian Jew Andrii Richytskyi, the exile of Heorhii Lapchynskyi, the closure of the party newspaper Chervonyi Prapor, and mass arrests[24].
Thus, research on national communism in the Ukrainian SSR shows that inclusive and autonomous practices not only shaped alternative political narratives but also provided a means to critique Russian great-power chauvinism. In the present context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, examining the issue of cultural genocide is especially relevant. It allows us to trace the continuity of imperial practices — from Soviet-era unification policies to Russia’s current efforts to deny the existence of Ukrainian history, culture, and political agency. Studying Ukrainian national communism enables a critical re-examination of both the Soviet past and contemporary forms of Russian neo-imperialism.