1922

1922 6 February
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee in Moscow abolishes the VCheKa and creates the State Politi-cal Directorate (GPU) attached to the People's Commi-ssariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD RSFSR). These changes were echoed in Kharkiv, the then capital of the Ukrainian SSR: by a decision of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee of 22 March 1922 the All-Ukrainian Cheka was abolished, replaced by the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR attached to the republican NKVD. Its local organs were gubernial departments attached to gubernial executive committees, and they operated on the basis of a special government regulation confirmed by the Presidium of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.
23 June
After discussing the question “About Political Statements of the Professorate,” the Politburo of the CC CP(b)U proposes to the People's Commissariat of Education that the GPU “apply expulsion outside the borders of the federation as one of the repressive measures against activist elements of the professorate.” This was a key part of the deportation of intellectuals, which was being organized throughout Bolshevik Russia. By 3 August 1922 the GPU had drawn up the Ukrainian section of a list that included 77 individuals, among whom were 47 staff members of institutes of higher learning (including 32 professors), representing Kharkiv, Kyiv, Katerynoslav, Odesa, and Kam'ianets-Podilsky. This list was approved by the CCCP(b)U and the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee. On 9 August 1922 this “list of the anti-Soviet intellectuals, compiled by the GPU of Ukraine,” was examined and confirmed at a meeting of a special committee of the CC RCP(b) in Moscow. Arrests took place during the night of 17-18 August. However, the Chekists believed that the Ukrainian emigration would ecstatically welcome an expansion of its ranks of intellectuals and would then become an even more cohesive unit, which would require more complex work on the part of the GPU to disorganize the ?migr? community. This idea was supported by D. Lebid, the secretary of the CCCP(b)U, who on 7 September 1922 reported to Stalin, Valerian Kuibyshev, and Viacheslav Molotov about the arrests. In his report he wrote that it was completely senseless to deport Ukrainian professors from the USSR because there was already a rather powerful immigrant grouping abroad. Lebid thus requested that deportation be restricted to far-flung regions of the Soviet Union. In sum, many candidates for deportation from the USSR remained just that. Among them were academician Serhii Yefremov and Volodymyr Chekhivsky, both of whom would play key roles in the future trial of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” (SVU). In January 1923 the GPU initiated the approval of a decision by the Politburo of the CCCP(b)U about carrying out the next “purge of politically harmful and anti-Soviet elements” in institutes of higher learning.
26 July
confirmed an instruction on the order of designating intelligencers. This document contained a recommendation for those implementing it to use terror to create conditions for intelligencers, whereby once they became informants for the Bolshevik authorities, they could save their lives by exposing “bandits” in effect, instead of being executed, they would become hostages. A key requirement was creating conditions in villages in which “bandits” and intelligencers would have every reason to fear denunciations from the poor. It was foreseen that half the confiscated property of a kurkul [kulak, i.e., a so-called “wealthy” peasant] would end up in the treasury of the Committee of Poor Peasants as a reward for each denunciation. A network was created of p'iatykhatnyks and desiatykhatnyks, i.e., one intelligencer assigned to five or ten houses belonging to “wealthy” peasants. Any intelligencers committing violations would be mercilessly executed.
30 December
The I Congress of Soviets of the USSR confirms a declaration on the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and a union treaty. The union is composed of four republics: the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Belarusian SSR, and the Transcaucasian Federated Soviet Republic (Azerbaidzhan, Armenia, Georgia). 1923 4-10 April
The VII Conference of the CP(b)U approves the Ukrainization of state institutions.
12 April
The All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian SSR passes a resolution on administrative-territorial reforms; the creation of districts and raions to replace gubernias, counties, and volosts.
17-25 April
With respect to the national question, the XII Congress of the RCP(b) approves the policy of “indigenization in the area of national relations, passed to a significant degree under pressure from 'national Communists'.” This policy stemmed from the fact that the Bolshevik government was not thoroughly grounded in outlying areas and therefore had to be “indigenized.” It was declared that tsarist Russia had exploited the non-Russian nations, and the USSR had inherited economic and cultural inequality between the Russian and non-Russian republics. This necessitated speeding up the development of the non-Russian republics through their industrialization, training of cadres selected from representatives of indigenous nationalities, expanding education in native languages, developing national cultures, publishing, etc.

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Although the Communist Party proclaimed that it must struggle against both Russian chauvinism and local nationalism, initially the main stress was laid on the struggle against great-state (Russian) chauvinism. The policy of “indigenization,” which in Ukraine took the form of “Ukrainization,” had an impact on the development of the non-Russian nations of the USSR, since in practice this signified de-Russification. Among the achievements that may be credited to this policy are the flowering of the arts, particularly in literature, theater, music, and cinematography, a sharp increase in literacy and education at all levels, and the creation of high-profile research institutions in the spheres of humanities and the natural and technical sciences.
1 August
The resolution on Ukrainization passed by the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee and the Radnar-kom of the Ukrainian SSR.

In 1921-1922 the grain deficit of the steppe gubernias of Ukraine stood at nearly 35 million poods [1 pood=36.11 lbs.], yet 27 million poods of grain were shipped to the RSFSR. Although the grain deficit in 1922-1923 stood at 20 million poods, nearly 18 million were shipped from the Ukrainian SSR: 2,5 million to the RSFSR and more than 15 million exported abroad. In 1921 Ukrainian villages were teeming with anti-Bolshevik rebel groups. It was then that Moscow decided to deal decisively with this movement “with the aid” of famine, and began confiscating meager food supplies even from peasants living in the famine-stricken southern gubernias. As a result, the political activism of the peasantry sharply decreased, and the insurgent leaders were deprived of support.

By a decision of the party organs, a campaign was launched to appropriate church valuables allegedly in order to aid the starving. However, this operation concealed an anti-clerical thrust that was revealed in a letter written by Lenin to the members of the Politburo of the CC RCP(b) on 19 March 1922. In this letter, which was first published only in the 1990s, Lenin writes:
“Precisely now and only now, when people are being eaten in starving localities and hundreds, if not thousands, of corpses are lying about on the roads, we can (and therefore must) carry out the requisitioning of church valuables with the most rabid and merciless energy and without stopping in the face of suppressing any kind of resistance.”
V. I. Lenin, Neizvestnye dokumenty [Unknown Documents], Moscow, 1999, p. 516.

In many areas the chief expropriator was the GPU. Army troops were also actively engaged, and the process of requisitioning church valuables was reminiscent of a military operation. The campaign, which ended in late July 1922, netted the Bolsheviks 3 poods, 3 pounds, and 75 zolotniks of gold, more than 3,105 poods of silver, 125 gold karbovantsi [Ukrainian currency], 8,615 silver karbovantsi, 858 diamonds generally weighing 1469 carats, and other precious stones and metals. The confiscated church wealth was valued at more than 834,000 gold karbovantsi.