Book Review: Soviet Politics and the Ukraine
| Author | George S. N. Luckyj |
| Published date | 01 December 1963 |
| Date | 01 December 1963 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206301800415 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
542
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
policy,
techniques
of
diplomacy,
and
the
problems
facing
attempts
to
achieve
intelligent
policies.
Professor
Leopold's
choice
of
the
traditional
starting
point
of
1775
is
regrettable,
because
the
book
thus
omits
any
treatment
of
the
colonial
era
and
its
importance
in
the formation
of
basic
American
attitudes.
Occasionally,
as
in
the
German reoccupation
of
the
Rhineland
in
1936,
there
is
no
statement
of
the
strategic
importance
of
the
event.
Finally,
in
stating
that
by
1960
"in politics
isolationism
was
dead",
Professor
Leopold
is
perhaps
too
sanguine
and
ignores
attitudes
and
a
depth
of
ignorance
which
produce
such
phenomena
as
right-wing
extrem-
ism.
This
good book
could
be
made
more
meaningful
by
a
treatment
of
what
may
be
America's
greatest
danger:
the
internal
problem
of
finding
genuine
and
long-term
support
of
an
intelligent
foreign
policy
once
the
latter
is
somehow
created.
Baker
University
ROBERT
W.
SELLEN
SOVIET
POLITICS
AND
THE
UKRAINE.
By
Robert
S.
Sullivant.
1962.
(New
York:
Columbia
University
Press.
Toronto:
Copp
Clark.
vi,
438pp.
$8.50)
This
book
tells
the
story
of
the
gradual
submission
of
the Ukraine
to the
controls
of
the
Kremlin.
Although nowadays this control
is
complete,
thus
illustrating
the
effectiveness of
Russian
communist
policies,
the
history
of
the
actual
political
game
played
in
the Ukraine
is
as
fascinating for
the
political
scientist
as
it
is
instructive
for
the
general reader.
Committed to
the
theory
of
national
self-determination, Lenin
used
it
fairly
effectively
as
a
weapon
against
resurgent
Ukrainian
nation-
alism,
without ever
allowing
the
Ukrainian
communists
the
autonomy
they
asked.
Stalin,
who
had
at
first
endorsed
"a
localization
program
for
the
republics
in
the
cultural
and leadership
matters
which
went
far
beyond
Lenin's
programs,"
was
responsible
for
the
major
shift
In
Soviet
policies
in
the
Ukraine
in
the
early
1930's.
"Stalin
became
convinced,"
writes Sullivant,
"that
[the minorities]
were
divisive
and
opposed
to
collectivization."
Hence
"nationality
concessions
as
a
means
of
winning
support
seemed less
important,
as
Stalin's
hold
on
the
Party
and
govern-
ment
was
strengthened
and
greater
reliance
placed
on
Russian ele-
ments."
In
the
late
'thirties,
as
a
result
of
the
purges
in
which,
accord-
ing
to
the
author,
the
national
question
did
not
play an
important
role,
"Ukrainization"
was replaced
by
Russification,
and
the
last
semblance
of
Soviet
Ukrainian
political
autonomy
disappeared.
After
the
Second
World
War
political
control
in
the
Ukraine
came
from
the
same
source-
Moscow,
which
has
remained
in
the
dominant
position
in
spite
of
Khrushchev's decentralization
policy
after
1957.
Sullivant
ends
his
excel-
lent
study
of
Soviet
politics
in
the
Ukraine
with
the
prognosis
that
the
pressures
within
the
Ukraine
may
reach
a
new
critical
point
"at
which
Khrushchev
will
be
faced
with the
difficult
alternative
of
returning
to
harsher,
Stalinist
policies
or
of
accepting
a
form
of
party
factionalism
and
administrative
regionalism
which
would
seem
hardly
compatible
with
traditional
principles of
unity
and
centralism".
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