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168-907: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact , was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union , with a secret protocol establishing Soviet and German spheres of influence across Northern Europe. The pact was signed in Moscow on 24 August 1939 (backdated 23 August 1939) by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop . The treaty

336-494: A British-Polish alliance led to a restructuring of strategy towards Moscow. Alfred Rosenberg wrote that he had spoken to Hermann Göring of the potential pact with the Soviet Union: "When Germany's life is at stake, even a temporary alliance with Moscow must be contemplated". Sometime in early May 1939 at Berghof , Ribbentrop showed Hitler a film of Stalin viewing his military in a recent parade. Hitler became intrigued with

504-517: A cultural thaw within Ukraine. In October 1964, Khrushchev was deposed by a joint Central Committee and Politburo plenum and succeeded by another collective leadership, this time led by Leonid Brezhnev , born in Ukraine, as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers . Brezhnev's rule would be marked by social and economic stagnation, a period often referred to as

672-547: A definition of "indirect aggression" became one of the sticking points between the parties, and by mid-July, the tripartite political negotiations effectively stalled while the parties agreed to start negotiations on a military agreement, which the Soviets insisted had to be reached at the same time as any political agreement. One day before the military negotiations began, the Soviet Politburo pessimistically expected

840-507: A dramatic decline in German–Soviet trade. Imports of Soviet goods to Germany fell to 223 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ in 1934 by the more isolationist Stalinist regime asserting power and by the abandonment of postwar Treaty of Versailles military controls, both of which decreased Germany's reliance on Soviet imports. In 1935 Germany, after a previous German–Polish declaration of non-aggression , through Hermann Goring proposed

1008-500: A flurry of suggestions and counterplans on a potential political and military agreement. Informal consultations started in April, but the main negotiations began only in May. Meanwhile, throughout early 1939, Germany had secretly hinted to Soviet diplomats that it could offer better terms for a political agreement than could Britain and France. The Soviet Union, which feared Western powers and

1176-534: A limousine operated by the NKVD to travel to Red Square . The limousine arrived close to Stalin's office and was greeted by Alexander Poskrebyshev , the chief of Stalin's personal chancellery. The Germans were led up a flight of stairs to a room with lavish furnishings. Stalin and Molotov greeted the visitors, much to the Nazis' surprise. It was well known that Stalin avoided meeting foreign visitors, and so his presence at

1344-618: A massive decline of reported Ukrainians in these regions in the 1937 Soviet Census . Upon signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , Nazi Germany and Soviet Union partitioned Poland and its Eastern Borderlands were secured by the Soviet buffer republics with Ukraine securing the territory of Eastern Galicia. The Soviet September Polish campaign in Soviet propaganda was portrayed as the Golden September for Ukrainians, given

1512-809: A military alliance with Poland against the Soviet Union, but this was rejected. In 1936, Germany and Fascist Italy supported the Spanish Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War , but the Soviets supported the Spanish Republic . Thus, the Spanish Civil War became a proxy war between Germany and the Soviet Union. In 1936, Germany and Japan entered the Anti-Comintern Pact . and they were joined

1680-729: A period of the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1923, many factions claiming themselves governments of the newly born republic were formed, each with supporters and opponents. The two most prominent of them were an independent government in Kiev called the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) and a Soviet Russia -aligned government in Kharkov called the Ukrainian Soviet Republic (USR). The Kiev-based UNR

1848-438: A secret German–Soviet pact. On 23 August, a ten-year non-aggression pact was signed with provisions that included consultation, arbitration if either party disagreed, neutrality if either went to war against a third power and no membership of a group "which is directly or indirectly aimed at the other". The article "On Soviet–German Relations" in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia of 21 August 1939, stated: Following completion of

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2016-503: A single pro-Soviet candidate listed for many positions, and the resulting people's assemblies immediately requesting admission into the Soviet Union, which was granted. (The Soviets annexed the whole of Lithuania, including the Šešupė area, which had been earmarked for Germany.) Finally, on 26 June, four days after the armistice between France and Nazi Germany , the Soviet Union issued an ultimatum that demanded Bessarabia and unexpectedly Northern Bukovina from Romania. Two days later,

2184-552: A symbolic nature , elections to the Supreme Soviet were contested every five years. Nominees from electoral districts from around the republic, typically consisting of an average of 110,000 inhabitants, were directly chosen by party authorities, providing little opportunity for political change, since all political authority was directly subordinate to the higher level above it. With the beginning of Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev 's perestroika reforms towards

2352-525: A system, lower-level authorities directly reported to higher level authorities and so on, with the bulk of the power being held at the highest echelons of the Communist Party. Originally, the legislative authority was vested in the Congress of Soviets of Ukraine , whose Central Executive Committee was for many years headed by Grigory Petrovsky . Soon after publishing a Stalinist constitution ,

2520-511: A two-front war, which changed the strategic situation from that in World War I, and that Britain should accept his demands on Poland. On 25 August, Hitler was surprised when Britain joined a defense pact with Poland . Hitler postponed his plans for an invasion of Poland on 26 August to 1 September. In accordance with the defence pact, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland from

2688-617: A variety of ways since the twelfth century. For example, Zaporozhian Cossacks called their hetmanate "Ukraine". Within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , the name carried unofficial status for larger part of Kiev Voivodeship . " The Ukraine" was once the usual form in English, despite Ukrainian not having a definite article . Since the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine , this form has become less common in

2856-664: A year later by Italy , despite Italy having previously signed the Italo-Soviet Pact . On 31 March 1939, Britain extended a guarantee to Poland that "if any action clearly threatened Polish independence, and if the Poles felt it vital to resist such action by force, Britain would come to their aid". Hitler was furious since that meant that the British were committed to political interests in Europe and that his land grabs such as

3024-562: A year. Chernenko was succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. Gorbachev's policies of perestroika and glasnost (English: restructuring and openness ) failed to reach Ukraine as early as other Soviet republics because of the influence of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky , a conservative communist appointed by Brezhnev and the First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986,

3192-558: Is no evidence that agricultural yield could not feed the population at the time, four million Ukrainians were starved to death while Moscow exported over a million tonnes of grain to the West, decimating the population. Within a decade, Ukraine's industrial production had quintupled, mainly from facilities in the Donets Basin and central Ukrainian cities such as Mykolaiv . In 1945, agricultural production stood at only 40 percent of

3360-636: Is now western Ukraine was gained via the Soviet-German Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , with the annexation of Eastern Galicia and Volhynia in 1939, significant portions of Romania in 1940, and Carpathian Ruthenia in Czechoslovakia in 1945. From the 1919 establishment of the Ukrainian SSR until 1934, the city of Kharkov served as its capital; however, the republic's seat of government was subsequently relocated in 1934 to

3528-458: Is one common element in the ideology of Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union: opposition to the capitalist democracies" or that "it seems to us rather unnatural that a socialist state would stand on the side of the western democracies". At the same time, British, French, and Soviet negotiators scheduled three-party talks on military matters to occur in Moscow in August 1939 that aimed to define what

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3696-542: Is part of the Odessa Oblast , which is also now in Ukraine. The pact was terminated on 22 June 1941, when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union, in pursuit of the ideological goal of Lebensraum . The Anglo-Soviet Agreement succeeded it. After the war, Ribbentrop was convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and executed. Molotov died in 1986. The outcome of World War I

3864-501: The 1991 Ukrainian presidential election held on the same day as the independence referendum, 62 percent of voters voted for Leonid Kravchuk , who had been vested with presidential powers since the Supreme Soviet's declaration of independence. On 8 December 1991, Ukraine (at Kravchuk's direction), Russian and Belarus signed the Belovezh Accords which declared that the Soviet Union had effectively ceased to exist and founded

4032-532: The 24th Party Congress talked about "a new historical community of people – the Soviet people", and introduced the ideological tenant of Developed socialism , which postponed communism. When Brezhnev died in 1982 , his position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was succeeded by Yuri Andropov , who died quickly after taking power. Andropov was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko , an ethnic Ukrainian , who ruled for little more than

4200-524: The City of London [British financiers] and the English shopkeepers." The agreement stunned the world. John Gunther , in Moscow in August 1939, recalled how the news of the 19 August commercial agreement surprised journalists and diplomats, who hoped for world peace. They did not expect the 21 August announcement of the non-aggression pact: "Nothing more unbelievable could be imagined. Astonishment and skepticism turned quickly to consternation and alarm". The news

4368-551: The Commonwealth of Independent States as a quasi-replacement. On 21 December 1991, all the former Soviet republics (except Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania and Latvia) signed the Alma-Ata Protocol which reiterated that the Soviet Union had functionally ceased to exist. The Soviet Union formally dissolved on 26 December 1991. The Ukrainian SSR's system of government was based on a one-party communist system ruled by

4536-581: The Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) openly criticised Stalin's russification policies in a meeting in June 1953. On 4 June 1953, Aleksey Kirichenko succeeded Leonid Melnikov as First Secretary of the CPU; this was significant since Kyrychenko was the first ethnic Ukrainian to lead the CPU since the 1920s. The policy of de-Stalinization took two main features, that of centralisation and decentralisation from

4704-485: The Communist Party of Ukraine , a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (KPSS). The republic was one of 15 constituent republics composing the Soviet Union from its entry into the union in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. All of the political power and authority in the USSR was in the hands of Communist Party authorities, with little real power being concentrated in official government bodies and organs. In such

4872-594: The Constitution of Ukraine and interests of the Republic" on 5 October 1991. After Ukrainian independence the Ukrainian SSR's parliament was changed from Supreme Soviet to its current name Verkhovna Rada , the Verkhovna Rada is still Ukraine's parliament. Ukraine also has refused to recognize exclusive Russian claims to succession of the Soviet Union and claimed such status for Ukraine as well, which

5040-695: The English-speaking world , and style-guides warn against its use in professional writing. According to U.S. ambassador William Taylor , "The Ukraine" implies disregard for the country's sovereignty. The Ukrainian position is that the usage of " 'The Ukraine' is incorrect both grammatically and politically." After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II during the February Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd , many people in Ukraine wished to establish an autonomous Ukrainian Republic. During

5208-566: The Era of Stagnation . The new regime introduced the policy of rastsvet , sblizhenie and sliianie ("flowering", "drawing together" and "merging"/"fusion"), which was the policy of uniting the different Soviet nationalities into one Soviet nationality by merging the best elements of each nationality into the new one. This policy turned out to be, in fact, the reintroduction of the russification policy. The reintroduction of this policy can be explained by Khrushchev's promise of communism in 20 years ;

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5376-709: The Karelia and Salla regions in Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union following the Winter War . The Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and parts of Romania ( Bessarabia , Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region ) followed. Stalin's invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis. The territories of Poland annexed by

5544-722: The Katyn massacre , 22,000 members of the military as well as intellectuals were executed, labelled "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" or kept at camps and prisons in western Ukraine and Belarus . In mid-June 1940, while international attention focused on the German invasion of France , Soviet NKVD troops raided border posts in Lithuania , Estonia and Latvia . State administrations were liquidated and replaced by Soviet cadres, who deported or killed 34,250 Latvians, 75,000 Lithuanians and almost 60,000 Estonians. Elections took place, with

5712-465: The Munich Agreement that followed the conference agreed to a German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia in late 1938, but in early 1939 it had been completely dissolved. The policy of appeasement toward Germany was conducted by the governments of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier . The policy immediately raised the question of whether

5880-477: The New York Times reported Japanese anger and French communist surprise over the pact. The same day, however, Tolischus filed a story that noted Nazi troops on the move near Gleiwitz (now Gliwice ), which led to the false flag Gleiwitz incident on 31 August 1939. On 28 August 1939, the New York Times was still reporting on fears of a Gleiwitz raid. On 29 August 1939, the New York Times reported that

6048-595: The New York Times reported a Soviet buildup on its Western frontiers by moving 200,000 troops from the Far East . On 22 August, one day after talks broke down with France and Britain, Moscow revealed that Ribbentrop would visit Stalin the next day. The Soviets were still negotiating with the British and the French missions in Moscow. With the Western nations unwilling to accede to Soviet demands, Stalin instead entered

6216-620: The Red Army invaded Finland, launching the Winter War with the aim of annexing Finland into the Soviet Union. The Soviets formed the Finnish Democratic Republic to govern Finland after Soviet conquest. The leader of the Leningrad Military District, Andrei Zhdanov , commissioned a celebratory piece from Dmitri Shostakovich , Suite on Finnish Themes , to be performed as the marching bands of

6384-835: The Russian Revolution , particularly after the Bolshevik Revolution . The outbreak of the Ukrainian–Soviet War in the former Russian Empire saw the Bolsheviks defeat the independent Ukrainian People's Republic , during the conflict against which they founded the Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets , which was governed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), in December 1917; it

6552-536: The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic during the war, and 2.2 million Ukrainians were sent to forced labour camps by the Germans. The material devastation was huge; Adolf Hitler 's orders to create "a zone of annihilation" in 1943, coupled with the Soviet military's scorched-earth policy in 1941, meant Ukraine lay in ruins. These two policies led to the destruction of more than 28,000 villages and 714 cities and towns. 85 percent of Kiev 's city centre

6720-671: The Russian front . On the other hand, the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact , signed on April 13, 1941, removed the threat from Japan in the east enabling the Soviets to move large forces from Siberia to the fight against the Germans, which had a direct bearing on the Battle of Moscow . The Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions (ATOP) dataset records 185 agreements that are solely non-aggression pacts between 1815 and 2018. According to this data, 29 such pacts were recorded in

6888-464: The Soviet -Ukrainians still experienced food shortages due to the inefficiencies of a highly centralised economy . During the peak of Soviet-Ukrainian agriculture output in the 1950s and early-to-mid-1960s, human consumption in Ukraine, and in the rest of the Soviet Union , actually experienced short intervals of decrease. There are many reasons for this inefficiency, but its origins can be traced back to

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7056-577: The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany is perhaps the best-known example of a non-aggression pact. The Pact lasted until the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa . However, such pacts may be a device for neutralising a potential military threat, enabling at least one of the signatories to free up its military resources for other purposes. For example, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact freed German resources from

7224-611: The Supreme Soviet had failed on its first day of convening to act on the pact. The same day, the New York Times also reported from Montreal , Canada, that American Professor Samuel N. Harper of the University of Chicago had stated publicly his belief that "the Russo-German non-aggression pact conceals an agreement whereby Russia and Germany may have planned spheres of influence for Eastern Europe". On 30 August 1939,

7392-599: The Supreme Soviet of Ukraine declared independence on 24 August 1991 and renamed the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as Ukraine . A referendum on independence was held on 1 December 1991. 92.3% of voters voted for independence nationwide. The referendum carried in the majority of all oblasts, including Crimea where 54% voted for independence, and those in Eastern Ukraine where more than 80% voted for independence. In

7560-438: The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union approved the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin , stating concern for ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians in Poland, ordered the Soviet invasion of Poland . After a short war ending in military defeat for Poland, Germany and the Soviet Union drew up a new border between them on formerly Polish territory in the supplementary protocol of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty . In March 1940, parts of

7728-525: The Third All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets ratified the constitution of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in Kharkiv. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 , several factions sought to create an independent Ukrainian state, alternately cooperating and struggling against each other. Numerous more or less socialist-oriented factions participated in the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic among which were Bolsheviks, Mensheviks , Socialists-Revolutionaries and many others. The most popular faction

7896-417: The Ukrainian SSR , UkSSR , and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine , was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party model , the Ukrainian SSR was governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through its republican branch , the Communist Party of Ukraine . The first iterations of the Ukrainian SSR were established during

8064-572: The World Federation of Trade Unions and the World Federation of Democratic Youth , and since 1949, the International Olympic Committee . Legally, the Soviet Union and its fifteen union republics constituted a federal system , but the country was functionally a highly centralised state, with all major decision-making taking place in the Kremlin , the capital and seat of government of the country. The constituent republics were essentially unitary states , with lower levels of power being directly subordinate to higher ones. Throughout its 72-year existence,

8232-420: The antisemitic Nazis associated ethnic Jews with both communism and financial capitalism , both of which they opposed . Nazi theory held that Slavs in the Soviet Union were being ruled by " Jewish Bolshevik " masters. Hitler had spoken of an inevitable battle for the acquisition of land for Germany in the east. The resulting manifestation of German anti-Bolshevism and an increase in Soviet foreign debts caused

8400-501: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Ukrainian SSR emerged as the present-day independent state of Ukraine , although the modified Soviet-era constitution remained in use until the adoption of the modern Ukrainian constitution in June 1996. Throughout its 72-year history, the republic's borders changed many times, with a general trend toward acquiring lands with ethnic Ukrainian population majority, and losing lands with other ethnic majorities. A significant portion of what

8568-439: The interwar period with spikes in occurrences in 1960, 1970, 1979, and especially the early 1990s where a number of Eastern European states signed pacts following the fall of the Soviet Union . States with a history of rivalry tend to sign non-aggression pacts in order to prevent future conflict with one another. The pacts often facilitate information exchange which reduce uncertainty that might lead to conflict. Additionally,

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8736-425: The successor state to the Russian SFSR and the Soviet Union after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The territories annexed from Romania were also integrated into the Soviet Union (such as the Moldavian SSR , or oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR ). The core of Bessarabia now forms Moldova . Northern Bessarabia , Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region now form the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. Southern Bessarabia

8904-427: The 14th Extraordinary Congress of Soviets in Ukrainian SSR on 31 January 1937. The name Ukraine ( Latin : Vkraina ) is a subject of debate. It is often perceived as being derived from the Slavic word "okraina", meaning "border land". It was first used to define part of the territory of Kievan Rus' ( Ruthenia ) in the 12th century, at which point Kiev (now Kyiv ) was the capital of Rus'. The name has been used in

9072-400: The 1920s the administration of the Ukrainian SSR insisted in vain on reviewing the border between the Ukrainian Soviet Republics and the Russian Soviet Republic based on the 1926 First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union that showed that 4.5 millions of Ukrainians were living on Russian territories bordering Ukraine. A forced end to Ukrainisation in southern Russian Soviet Republic led to

9240-429: The 1940 level, even though the republic's territorial expansion had "increased the amount of arable land ". In contrast to the remarkable growth in the industrial sector, agriculture continued in Ukraine, as in the rest of the Soviet Union, to function as the economy's Achilles heel . Despite the human toll of collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union, especially in Ukraine, Soviet planners still believed in

9408-401: The 1940 level. The slow changes in agriculture can be explained by the low productivity in collective farms, and by bad weather-conditions, which the Soviet planning system could not effectively respond to. Grain for human consumption in the post-war years decreased, this in turn led to frequent and severe food shortages. The increase of Soviet agricultural production was tremendous, however,

9576-442: The 49 Ukrainian, Russian and Moldovan crew were detained by the Kuomintang regime in various terms up to 34 years in captivity with 3 deaths. The "Thaw"  – the policy of deliberate liberalisation – was characterised by four points: amnesty for some convicted of state crime during the war or the immediate post-war years; amnesties for one-third of those convicted of state crime during Stalin's rule;

9744-427: The Congress of Soviets was transformed into the Supreme Soviet (and the Central Executive Committee into its Presidium ), which consisted of 450 deputies. The Supreme Soviet had the authority to enact legislation, amend the constitution , adopt new administrative and territorial boundaries, adopt the budget, and establish political and economic development plans. In addition, parliament also had to authority to elect

9912-405: The German collapse, a multinational Allied-led army intervened in the civil war (1917–1922). On 16 April 1922, the German Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union agreed to the Treaty of Rapallo in which they renounced territorial and financial claims against each other. Each party also pledged neutrality in the event of an attack against the other with the Treaty of Berlin (1926) . Trade between

10080-477: The German occupation. Germany began a campaign of " Germanization ", which meant assimilating the occupied territories politically, culturally, socially and economically into the German Reich. 50,000–200,000 Polish children were kidnapped to be Germanised. Non-aggression pact In the 19th century neutrality pacts have historically been used to give permission for one signatory of the pact to attack or attempt to negatively influence an entity not protected by

10248-433: The Germans. While the war brought to Ukraine an enormous physical destruction, victory also led to territorial expansion. As a victor, the Soviet Union gained new prestige and more land. The Ukrainian border was expanded to the Curzon Line . Ukraine was also expanded southwards, near the area Izmail , previously part of Romania . An agreement was signed by the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia whereby Carpathian Ruthenia

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10416-427: The Kiev Bolshevik group split. Most moved to Kharkov and received the support of the eastern Ukrainian cities and industrial centers. Later, this move was regarded as a mistake by some of the People's Commissars ( Yevgenia Bosch ). They issued an ultimatum to the Central Rada on 17 December to recognise the Soviet government of which the Rada was very critical. The Bolsheviks convened a separate congress and declared

10584-541: The Nazi emissaries stepped off the plane, a Soviet military band played " Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles ". The Nazi arrival was well planned, with all aesthetics in order. The classic hammer and sickle was propped up next to the swastika of the Nazi flag that had been used in a local film studio for Soviet propaganda films. After stepping off the plane and shaking hands, Ribbentrop and Gustav Hilger along with German ambassador Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg and Stalin's chief bodyguard, Nikolai Vlasik , entered

10752-410: The Polish government feared that if the Red Army entered Polish territory, it would never leave. On 19 August, the 1939 German–Soviet Commercial Agreement was finally signed. On 21 August, the Soviets suspended the tripartite military talks and cited other reasons. The same day, Stalin received assurances that Germany would approve secret protocols to the proposed non-aggression pact that would place

10920-462: The Presidium was a powerful position in the republic's higher echelons of power, and could nominally be considered the equivalent of head of state , although most executive authority would be concentrated in the Communist Party's politburo and its First Secretary . Full universal suffrage was granted for all eligible citizens aged 18 and over, excluding prisoners and those deprived of freedom. Although they could not be considered free and were of

11088-453: The Red Army would be parading through Helsinki. After Finnish defenses surprisingly held out for over three months and inflicted stiff losses on Soviet forces, under the command of Semyon Timoshenko , the Soviets settled for an interim peace . Finland ceded parts of Karelia and Salla (9% of Finnish territory), which resulted in approximately 422,000 Karelians (12% of Finland's population) losing their homes. Soviet official casualty counts in

11256-413: The Romanians acceded to the Soviet demands, and the Soviets occupied the territories. The Hertsa region was initially not requested by the Soviets but was later occupied by force after the Romanians had agreed to the initial Soviet demands. The subsequent waves of deportations began in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina . At the end of October 1939, Germany enacted the death penalty for disobedience to

11424-423: The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. With the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty by Russia, it was ultimately defeated by mid-1918 and eventually dissolved. The last session of the government took place in the Russian city of Taganrog . In July 1918, the former members of the government formed the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine , the constituent assembly of which took place in Moscow . With

11592-534: The Soviet Union following the 1939 Soviet invasion east of the Curzon line remained in the Soviet Union after the war and are now in Ukraine and Belarus . Vilnius was given to Lithuania. Only Podlaskie and a small part of Galicia east of the San River , around Przemyśl , were returned to Poland . Of all the other territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939–1940, those detached from Finland (Western Karelia , Petsamo ), Estonia ( Estonian Ingria and Petseri County ) and Latvia ( Abrene ) remain part of Russia,

11760-439: The Soviet Union also needed to secure the frontier in the Soviet–Japanese Border Wars . On 17 September, the Red Army invaded Poland , violating the 1932 Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact , and occupied the Polish territory assigned to it by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. That was followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. Polish troops already fighting much stronger German forces on its west desperately tried to delay

11928-416: The Soviet Union and German Reich issued a joint declaration in which they declared: After the Government of the German Reich and the Government of the USSR have, by means of the treaty signed today, definitively settled the problems arising from the collapse of the Polish state and have thereby created a sure foundation for lasting peace in the region, they mutually express their conviction that it would serve

12096-515: The Soviet Union as "inevitable". Concerns over the possible existence of a secret protocol were expressed first by the intelligence organizations of the Baltic states only days after the pact was signed. Speculation grew stronger when Soviet negotiators referred to its content during the negotiations for military bases in those countries (see occupation of the Baltic States ). The day after

12264-478: The Soviet Union could avoid being next on Hitler's list. The Soviet leadership believed that the West wanted to encourage German aggression in the East and to stay neutral in a war initiated by Germany in the hope that Germany and the Soviet Union would wear each other out and put an end to both regimes. For Germany, an autarkic economic approach and an alliance with Britain were impossible and so closer relations with

12432-534: The Soviet Union to obtain raw materials became necessary. Besides economic reasons, an expected British blockade during a war would also create massive shortages for Germany in a number of key raw materials. After the Munich Agreement, the resulting increase in German military supply needs and Soviet demands for military machinery made talks between the two countries occur from late 1938 to March 1939. Also,

12600-434: The Soviet Union's westernmost border point. According to the 1989 Soviet census , the republic of Ukraine had a population of 51,706,746 (second after Russia). Its original names in 1919 were both Ukraine and Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic ( Ukrainian : Українська Соціалістична Радянська Республіка , romanized :  Ukrainska Sotsialistychna Radianska Respublika , abbreviated УСРР , USRR ). After

12768-473: The Soviet Union. According to the protocol, Lithuania would be granted its historical capital, Vilnius , which was part of Poland during the interwar period . Another clause stipulated that Germany would not interfere with the Soviet Union's actions towards Bessarabia , which was then part of Romania . As a result, Bessarabia as well as the Northern Bukovina and Hertsa regions were occupied by

12936-656: The Soviet Union. The protocol also recognized the interest of Lithuania in the Vilnius region . In the west, rumoured existence of the Secret Protocol was proven only when it was made public during the Nuremberg trials . A week after signing the pact, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland . On 17 September, one day after a Soviet–Japanese ceasefire came into effect after the Battles of Khalkhin Gol , and one day after

13104-603: The Soviet government) did not end before May 1945, the Germans were driven out of Ukraine between February 1943 and October 1944. The first task of the Soviet authorities was to reestablish political control over the republic which had been entirely lost during the war. This was an immense task, considering the widespread human and material losses. During World War II the Soviet Union lost about 8.6 million combatants and around 18 million civilians, of these, 6.8 million were Ukrainian civilians and military personnel. Also, an estimated 3.9 million Ukrainians were evacuated to

13272-605: The Soviet invasion of the Polish Kresy , the secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was modified by the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation , allotting Germany a larger part of Poland and transferring Lithuania, with the exception of the left bank of the River Scheschupe , the "Lithuanian Strip", from the envisioned German sphere to the Soviet sphere. On 28 September 1939,

13440-464: The Soviet radio station at Minsk , allegedly "for urgent aeronautical experiments". Hitler declared at Danzig: Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty . That is guaranteed not only by Germany , but also   ... Russia . In the opinion of Robert Service , Stalin did not move instantly but was waiting to see whether the Germans would halt within the agreed area, and

13608-494: The Soviet republics to secede from the union, which was codified in each of the Soviet constitutions . Accordingly, Article 69 of the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR stated: "The Ukrainian SSR retains the right to willfully secede from the USSR." However, a republic's theoretical secession from the union was virtually impossible and unrealistic in many ways until after Gorbachev's perestroika reforms. The Ukrainian SSR

13776-550: The Soviet state itself. The policy of glasnost , which ended state censorship , led the Ukrainian diaspora to reconnect with their compatriots in Ukraine, the revitalisation of religious practices by destroying the monopoly of the Russian Orthodox Church and led to the establishment of several opposition pamphlets, journals and newspapers. Following the failed August Coup in Moscow on 19–21 August 1991,

13944-440: The Soviets and integrated into the Soviet Union. At the signing, Ribbentrop and Stalin enjoyed warm conversations, exchanged toasts and further addressed the prior hostilities between the countries in the 1930s. They characterised Britain as always attempting to disrupt Soviet–German relations and stated that the Anti-Comintern Pact was aimed not at the Soviet Union but actually at Western democracies and "frightened principally

14112-537: The Soviet–German trade and credit agreement, there has arisen the question of improving political links between Germany and the USSR. There was also a secret protocol to the pact, which was revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945 although hints about its provisions had been leaked much earlier, so as to influence Lithuania. According to the protocol, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland were divided into German and Soviet " spheres of influence ". In

14280-662: The UN on 24 October 1945. In effect, this provided the Soviet Union (a permanent Security Council member with veto powers) with another two votes in the General Assembly . The latter aspect of the 1944 clauses was never fulfilled and the republic's defense matters were managed by the Soviet Armed Forces and the Defense Ministry. Another right that was granted but never used until 1991 was the right of

14448-532: The UN, the Ukrainian SSR was an elected member of the United Nations Security Council in 1948–1949 and 1984–1985. When Stalin died on 5 March 1953, the collective leadership of Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov , Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrentiy Beria took power and a period of de-Stalinization began. Change came as early as 1953, when officials were allowed to criticise Stalin's policy of russification . The Central Committee of

14616-477: The Ukrainian SSR, as part of the general Soviet korenization policy; this involved promoting the use and the social status of the Ukrainian language and the elevation of ethnic Ukrainians to leadership positions (see Ukrainization – early years of Soviet Ukraine for more details). In 1932, the aggressive agricultural policies of Joseph Stalin 's regime resulted in one of the largest national catastrophes in

14784-539: The United States after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine . In September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland and occupied Galician lands inhabited by Ukrainians, Poles and Jews adding it to the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region , lands inhabited by Romanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Bulgarians and Gagauz, adding them to

14952-578: The administrative division within the provinces consisted of cities, urban-type settlements , and villages. Cities in the Ukrainian SSR were a separate exception, which could either be subordinate to either the provincial authorities themselves or the district authorities of which they were the administrative center. Two cities, the capital Kiev , and Sevastopol (which hosted a large Soviet Navy base in Crimea), were uniquely designated "cities with special status." This meant that they were directly subordinate to

15120-437: The administrative divisions of the Ukrainian SSR changed numerous times, often incorporating regional reorganisation and annexation on the part of Soviet authorities during World War II. The most common administrative division was the oblast (province), of which there were 25 upon the republic's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Provinces were further subdivided into raions (districts) which numbered 490. The rest of

15288-490: The agreement would specify on the reaction of the three powers to a German attack. The tripartite military talks , started in mid-August, hit a sticking point on the passage of Soviet troops through Poland if Germans attacked, and the parties waited as British and French officials overseas pressured Polish officials to agree to such terms. Polish officials refused to allow Soviet troops into Polish territory if Germany attacked; Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck pointed out that

15456-410: The capture of Warsaw. Consequently, Polish forces could not mount significant resistance against the Soviets. On 18 September, The New York Times published an editorial arguing that "Hitlerism is brown communism, Stalinism is red fascism ...The world will now understand that the only real 'ideological' issue is one between democracy, liberty and peace on the one hand and despotism , terror and war on

15624-476: The case of German aggression. The Soviets proposed to consider that a political turn towards Germany by the Baltic states would constitute an "indirect aggression" towards the Soviet Union. Britain opposed such proposals because they feared the Soviets' proposed language would justify a Soviet intervention in Finland and the Baltic states or push those countries to seek closer relations with Germany. The discussion of

15792-548: The central Ukrainian SSR authorities and not the provincial authorities surrounding them. However, the history of administrative divisions in the republic was not so clear cut. At the end of World War I in 1918, Ukraine was invaded by Soviet Russia as the Russian puppet government of the Ukrainian SSR and without official declaration it ignited the Ukrainian–Soviet War . Government of the Ukrainian SSR from very start

15960-511: The centre. In February 1954, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) transferred Crimea to Ukraine during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's reunification with Russia (Soviet name for the Pereiaslav Agreement ). The massive festivities lasted throughout 1954, commemorating ( Ukrainian : Переяславська рада ), the treaty which brought Ukraine under Russian rule three centuries before. The event

16128-540: The city of Kiev , the historic Ukrainian capital, and remained at Kiev for the remainder of its existence. Geographically, the Ukrainian SSR was situated in Eastern Europe , to the north of the Black Sea , and was bordered by the Soviet republics of Moldavia (since 1940), Byelorussia, and Russia, and the countries of Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The republic's border with Czechoslovakia formed

16296-492: The city of Vilnius and its environs. On 8 October 1939, a new Nazi-Soviet agreement was reached by an exchange of letters between Vyacheslav Molotov and the German ambassador. The Baltic states of Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania were given no choice but to sign a so-called "Pact of Defence and Mutual Assistance", which permitted the Soviet Union to station troops in them. After the Baltic states had been forced to accept treaties, Stalin turned his sights on Finland and

16464-401: The coming negotiations to go nowhere and formally decided to consider German proposals seriously. The military negotiations began on 12 August in Moscow, with a British delegation headed by the retired admiral Sir Reginald Drax , French delegation headed by General Aimé Doumenc and the Soviet delegation headed by Kliment Voroshilov , the commissar of defence, and Boris Shaposhnikov , chief of

16632-959: The context of association football , the term can imply a deliberate lack of aggression between two teams, such as at the Disgrace of Gijón , which, in Germany, is known as the Nichtangriffspakt von Gijón (lit. "Non-aggression pact of Gijón"). A non-aggression pact can also be a formal agreement or gentlemen's agreement limiting transfers for players between two or more clubs. Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( Ukrainian : Українська Радянська Соціалістична Республіка , romanized :  Ukrainska Radianska Sotsialistychna Respublika ; Russian : Украинская Советская Социалистическая Республика , romanized :  Ukrainskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika ), abbreviated as

16800-502: The dangers of an agreement between the Soviet Union and Germany. The contrasting attitudes partly explain why the Soviets have often been charged with playing a double game in 1939 of carrying on open negotiations for an alliance with Britain and France but secretly considering propositions from Germany. By the end of May, drafts had been formally presented. In mid-June, the main tripartite negotiations started. Discussions were focused on potential guarantees to Central and Eastern Europe in

16968-404: The death of Lenin and the consolidation of his power, Stalin was determined to industrialisation and reversed policy again. As heavy industry and wheat exports boomed, common people in rural areas were bearing a cost. Gradually escalating measures, from raised taxes, dispossession of property, and forced deportations into Siberia culminated in extremely high grain delivery quotas. Even though there

17136-588: The defeat of the Central Powers in World War I , the Bolsheviks resumed its hostilities towards the Ukrainian People's Republic fighting for Ukrainian independence and organised another Soviet Ukrainian government. The Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine was created on November 28, 1918, in Kursk , with the proviisional government assigned to the city of Sudzha . On 10 March 1919,

17304-535: The defeated Central Powers. Eventually, the Red Army ended up controlling much of the Ukrainian territory after the Polish-Soviet Peace of Riga . On 30 December 1922, along with the Russian , Byelorussian and Transcaucasian republics, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). During the 1920s, a policy of Ukrainization was pursued in

17472-605: The effectiveness of collective farming. The old system was reestablished; the numbers of collective farms in Ukraine increased from 28 thousand in 1940 to 33 thousand in 1949, comprising 45 million hectares; the numbers of state farms barely increased, standing at 935 in 1950, comprising 12.1 million hectares. By the end of the Fourth Five-Year Plan (in 1950) and the Fifth Five-Year Plan (in 1955), agricultural output still stood far lower than

17640-476: The establishment of the first Ukrainian mission to the United Nations in 1958; and the steady increase of Ukrainians in the rank of the CPU and government of the Ukrainian SSR. Not only were the majority of CPU Central Committee and Politburo members ethnic Ukrainians, three-quarters of the highest ranking party and state officials were ethnic Ukrainians too. The policy of partial Ukrainisation also led to

17808-821: The face of the Central Powers as the others refused to recognise it. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , the Russian SFSR yielded all the captured Ukrainian territory as the Bolsheviks were forced out of Ukraine. The government of Soviet Ukraine was dissolved after its last session on 20 November 1918. After re-taking Kharkov in February 1919, a second Soviet Ukrainian government was formed. The government enforced Russian policies that did not adhere to local needs. A group of three thousand workers were dispatched from Russia to take grain from local farms to feed Russian cities and were met with resistance. The Ukrainian language

17976-472: The fact that England and France are responsible for the continuation of the war, whereupon, in case of the continuation of the war, the Governments of Germany and of the USSR shall engage in mutual consultations with regard to necessary measures. On 3 October, Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg , the German ambassador in Moscow, informed Joachim Ribbentrop that the Soviet government was willing to cede

18144-566: The famine was caused by a combination of factors, including Soviet policies of compulsory grain requisitions, forced collectivization , dekulakization , and Russification . The General Assembly of the UN has stopped shy of recognizing the Holodomor as genocide, calling it a "great tragedy" as a compromise between tense positions of United Kingdom, United States, Russia, and Ukraine on the matter, while some nations went on to individually categorize it as genocide, including France, Germany, and

18312-628: The first Soviet Republic of Ukraine on 24 December 1917 claiming the Central Rada and its supporters outlaws that need to be eradicated. Warfare ensued against the Ukrainian People's Republic for the installation of the Soviet regime in the country, and with the direct support from Soviet Russia the Ukrainian National forces were practically overrun. The government of Ukraine appealed to foreign capitals, finding support in

18480-414: The general staff. Without written credentials, Drax was not authorised to guarantee anything to the Soviet Union and had been instructed by the British government to prolong the discussions as long as possible and to avoid answering the question of whether Poland would agree to permit Soviet troops to enter the country if the Germans invaded. From April to July, Soviet and German officials made statements on

18648-512: The half of Poland east of the Vistula River as well as Latvia , Estonia , Finland and Bessarabia in the Soviet sphere of influence. That night, Stalin replied that the Soviets were willing to sign the pact and that he would receive Ribbentrop on 23 August. On 25 August 1939, the New York Times ran a front-page story by Otto D. Tolischus , "Nazi Talks Secret", whose subtitle included "Soviet and Reich Agree on East". On 26 August 1939,

18816-415: The idea of allying with the Soviets and Ribbentrop recalled Hitler saying that Stalin "looked like a man he could do business with". Ribbentrop was then given the nod to pursue negotiations with Moscow. Hitler's fierce anti-Soviet rhetoric was one of the reasons that Britain and France decided that Soviet participation in the 1938 Munich Conference on Czechoslovakia would be both dangerous and useless. In

18984-399: The importance of the fact that they had opposed and fought the Germans in various ways for a decade prior to signing the pact. Molotov tried to reassure the Germans of his good intentions by commenting to journalists that "fascism is a matter of taste". For its part, Germany also did a public volte-face regarding its virulent opposition to the Soviet Union, but Hitler still viewed an attack on

19152-480: The independence of Poland, Belgium, Romania, Greece and Turkey. On 6 April, Poland and Britain agreed to formalise the guarantee as a military alliance , pending negotiations. On 28 April, Hitler denounced the 1934 German–Polish declaration of non-aggression and the 1935 Anglo–German Naval Agreement . In mid-March 1939, attempting to contain Hitler's expansionism, the Soviet Union, Britain and France started to trade

19320-553: The latter city. Stalin had decided in August that he was going to liquidate the Polish state, and a German–Soviet meeting in September addressed the future structure of the "Polish region". Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of Sovietisation of the newly acquired areas. The Soviets organised staged elections, the result of which was to become a legitimisation of the Soviet annexation of eastern Poland. Eleven days after

19488-525: The meeting showed how seriously that the Soviets were taking the negotiations. In late July and early August 1939, Soviet and German officials agreed on most of the details of a planned economic agreement and specifically addressed a potential political agreement, which the Soviets stated could come only after an economic agreement. The German presence in the Soviet capital during negotiations can be regarded as rather tense. German pilot Hans Baur recalled that Soviet secret police followed every move. Their job

19656-671: The mid-late 1980s, electoral reform laws were passed in 1989, liberalising the nominating procedures and allowing multiple candidates to stand for election in a district. Accordingly, the first relatively free elections in the Ukrainian SSR were contested in March 1990. 111 deputies from the Democratic Bloc , a loose association of small pro-Ukrainian and pro-sovereignty parties and the instrumental People's Movement of Ukraine (colloquially known as Rukh in Ukrainian) were elected to

19824-583: The modern history for the Ukrainian nation . A famine known as the Holodomor caused a direct loss of human life estimated between 2.6 million to 10 million. Some scholars and the World Congress of Free Ukrainians assert that this was an act of genocide . The International Commission of Inquiry Into the 1932–1933 Famine in Ukraine found no evidence that the famine was part of a preconceived plan to starve Ukrainians, and concluded in 1990 that

19992-430: The neutrality pact. The participants of the neutrality pact agree not to attempt to counteract an act of aggression waged by a pact signatory towards an entity not protected under the terms of the pact. Possible motivations for such acts by one or more of the pacts' signatories include a desire to take, or expand, control of economic resources, militarily important locations, etc. The 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between

20160-509: The newly formed Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , while Budzhak and Bukovina were secured by the Ukrainian SSR. Following the creation of the Ukrainian SSR significant numbers of ethnic Ukrainians found themselves living outside the Ukrainian SSR. In the 1920s the Ukrainian SSR was forced to cede several territories to Russia in Severia , Sloboda Ukraine and Azov littoral including such cities like Belgorod , Taganrog and Starodub . In

20328-483: The newly stable Ukrainian SSR becoming a founding member of the Soviet Union . The government of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was founded on 24–25 December 1917. In its publications, it named itself either the Republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies or the Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets . The 1917 republic was only recognised by another non-recognised country,

20496-513: The north, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia were assigned to the Soviet sphere. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement": the areas east of the Pisa , Narew , Vistula , and San rivers would go to the Soviet Union, and Germany would occupy the west. Lithuania, which was adjacent to East Prussia , was assigned to the German sphere of influence, but a second secret protocol, agreed to in September 1939, reassigned Lithuania to

20664-495: The now-famous front-page picture of Molotov signing the treaty with a smiling Stalin looking on. The same day, German diplomat Hans von Herwarth , whose grandmother was Jewish, informed Italian diplomat Guido Relli and American chargé d'affaires Charles Bohlen of the secret protocol on the vital interests in the countries' allotted "spheres of influence" but failed to reveal the annexation rights for "territorial and political rearrangement". The agreement's public terms so exceeded

20832-662: The other." On 21 September, Marshal of the Soviet Union Voroshilov , German military attaché General Köstring , and other officers signed a formal agreement in Moscow co-ordinating military movements in Poland, including the "purging" of saboteurs and the Red Army assisting with destruction of the "enemy". Joint German–Soviet parades were held in Lviv and Brest-Litovsk , and the countries' military commanders met in

21000-436: The pact signals to third party nations that the rivalry has reduced and that peaceful relations is desired. It has been found that major powers are more likely to start military conflicts against their partners in non-aggression pacts than against states that do not have any sort of alliance with them. [REDACTED]   Achaemenid Empire The term has colloquial usage outside the field of international relations . In

21168-476: The pact was signed, the Franco-British military delegation urgently requested a meeting with Soviet military negotiator Kliment Voroshilov . On 25 August, Voroshilov told them that "in view of the changed political situation, no useful purpose can be served in continuing the conversation". The same day, Hitler told the British ambassador to Berlin that the pact with the Soviets prevented Germany from facing

21336-557: The parliament. Although the Communist Party retained its majority with 331 deputies, large support for the Democratic Bloc demonstrated the people's distrust of the Communist authorities, which would eventually boil down to Ukrainian independence in 1991. Ukraine is the legal successor of the Ukrainian SSR and it stated to fulfill "those rights and duties pursuant to international agreements of Union SSR which do not contradict

21504-409: The possibility of "capitalist encirclements", had little hope either of preventing war and wanted nothing less than an ironclad military alliance with France and Britain to provide guaranteed support for a two-pronged attack on Germany. Stalin's adherence to the collective security line was thus purely conditional. Britain and France believed that war could still be avoided and that since the Soviet Union

21672-427: The potential for the beginning of political negotiations, but no actual negotiations took place. "The Soviet Union had wanted good relations with Germany for years and was happy to see that feeling finally reciprocated", wrote the historian Gerhard L. Weinberg . The ensuing discussion of a potential political deal between Germany and the Soviet Union had to be channeled into the framework of economic negotiations between

21840-407: The ratification of the 1936 Soviet Constitution , full official names of all Soviet republics were changed, transposing the second ( socialist ) and third ( sovietskaya in Russian or radianska in Ukrainian) words. In accordance, on 5 December 1936, the 8th Extraordinary Congress Soviets in Soviet Union changed the name of the republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was ratified by

22008-624: The republic's executive branch, the Council of Ministers as well as the power to appoint judges to the Supreme Court. Legislative sessions were short and were conducted for only a few weeks out of the year. In spite of this, the Supreme Soviet elected the Presidium, the Chairman , 3 deputy chairmen, a secretary, and couple of other government members to carry out the official functions and duties in between legislative sessions. Chairman of

22176-623: The republic's three largest minority groups, which were the Jews, Russians , and Poles . Other ethnic groups, however, were allowed to petition the government for their own national autonomy. In 1924 on the territory of Ukrainian SSR was formed the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic . Upon the 1940 conquest of Bessarabia and Bukovina by Soviet troops the Moldavian ASSR was passed to

22344-501: The rest of the 15 republics, had virtually no say in their own foreign affairs. However, since 1944, the Ukrainian SSR was permitted to establish bilateral relations with countries and maintain its own standing army. This clause was used to permit the republic's membership in the United Nations, alongside the Byelorussian SSR. Accordingly, representatives from the "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" and 50 other states founded

22512-410: The russification policies, and the apparent social and economic stagnation led several Ukrainians to oppose Soviet rule. Gorbachev's policy of perestroika was also never introduced into practice, 95 percent of industry and agriculture was still owned by the Soviet state in 1990. The talk of reform, but the lack of introducing reform into practice, led to confusion which in turn evolved into opposition to

22680-527: The same time. In particular, these amendments allowed the Ukrainian SSR to become one of the founding members of the United Nations (UN) together with the Soviet Union and the Byelorussian SSR . This was part of a deal with the United States to ensure a degree of balance in the General Assembly , which, the USSR opined, was unbalanced in favor of the Western Bloc. In its capacity as a member of

22848-420: The single-purchaser and -producer market system set up by Joseph Stalin . Khrushchev tried to improve the agricultural situation in the Soviet Union by expanding the total crop size – for instance, in the Ukrainian SSR alone "the amount of land planted with corn grew by 600 percent". At the height of this policy, between 1959 and 1963, one-third of Ukrainian arable land grew this crop. This policy decreased

23016-541: The takeover of Czechoslovakia would no longer be taken lightly. His response to the political checkmate would later be heard at a rally in Wilhelmshaven : "No power on earth would be able to break German might, and if the Western Allies thought Germany would stand by while they marshalled their ' satellite states ' to act in their interests, then they were sorely mistaken". Ultimately, Hitler's discontent with

23184-474: The terms of an ordinary non-aggression treaty—requiring that both parties consult with each other, and not aid a third party attacking either—that Gunther heard a joke that Stalin had joined the anti-Comintern pact. Time Magazine repeatedly referred to the Pact as the "Communazi Pact" and its participants as "communazis" until April 1941. Soviet propaganda and representatives went to great lengths to minimize

23352-602: The territory of the Ukrainian SSR and the newly formed Moldavian SSR . In 1945, these lands were permanently annexed, and the Transcarpathia region was added as well, by treaty with the post-war administration of Czechoslovakia. Following eastward Soviet retreat in 1941, Ufa became the wartime seat of the Soviet Ukrainian government. While World War II (called the Great Patriotic War by

23520-479: The third Soviet five-year plan required new infusions of technology and industrial equipment. German war planners had estimated serious shortfalls of raw materials if Germany entered a war without the Soviet supply. On 31 March 1939, in response to Germany's defiance of the Munich Agreement and the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , Britain pledged its support and that of France to guarantee

23688-418: The true interest of all peoples to put an end to the state of war existing at present between Germany on the one side and England and France on the other. Both Governments will, therefore, direct their common efforts, jointly with other friendly powers if the occasion arises, toward attaining this goal as soon as possible. Should, however, the efforts of the two Governments remain fruitless, this would demonstrate

23856-554: The two competing governments, known as the Ukrainian–Soviet War , was part of the ongoing Russian Civil War , as well as a struggle for national independence (known as the Ukrainian War of Independence ), which ended with the territory of pro-independence Ukrainian People's Republic being annexed into a new Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, western Ukraine being annexed into the Second Polish Republic , and

24024-595: The two countries , since close military and diplomatic connections that existed before the mid-1930s had been largely severed. In May, Stalin replaced his foreign minister from 1930 to 1939, Maxim Litvinov , who had advocated rapprochement with the West and was also Jewish , with Vyacheslav Molotov to allow the Soviet Union more latitude in discussions with more parties, instead of only Britain and France. On 23 August 1939, two Focke-Wulf Condors , containing German diplomats, officials, and photographers (about 20 in each plane), headed by Ribbentrop, descended into Moscow. As

24192-516: The two countries had fallen sharply after World War I, but trade agreements signed in the mid-1920s helped to increase trade to 433 million  ℛ︁ℳ︁ per year by 1927. At the beginning of the 1930s, the Nazi Party 's rise to power increased tensions between Germany and the Soviet Union, along with other countries with ethnic Slavs , who were considered " Untermenschen " (subhuman) according to Nazi racial ideology . Moreover,

24360-484: The unification of Soviet nationalities would take place, according to Vladimir Lenin , when the Soviet Union reached the final stage of communism, also the final stage of human development . Some all-Union Soviet officials were calling for the abolition of the "pseudosovereign" Soviet republics, and the establishment of one nationality. Instead of introducing the ideologic concept of the Soviet Nation , Brezhnev at

24528-474: The unification of Ukrainian lands on both banks of Zbruch River , until then the border between the Soviet Union and the Polish communities inhabited by Ukrainian speaking families. At the onset of Soviet Ukraine, having largely inherited conditions from the Tsarist Empire, one of the biggest exporters of wheat in the world, the Ukrainian economy was still centered around agriculture , with over 90% of

24696-399: The war exceeded 200,000 although Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev later claimed that the casualties may have been one million. Around that time, after several Gestapo–NKVD conferences , Soviet NKVD officers also conducted lengthy interrogations of 300,000 Polish POWs in camps that were a selection process to determine who would be killed. On 5 March 1940, in what would later be known as

24864-405: The west. Within a few days, Germany began conducting massacres of Polish and Jewish civilians and POWs, which took place in over 30 towns and villages in the first month of the German occupation. The Luftwaffe also took part by strafing fleeing civilian refugees on roads and by carrying out a bombing campaign. The Soviet Union assisted German air forces by allowing them to use signals broadcast by

25032-518: The workforce being peasants. In the 1920s, Soviet policy in Ukraine attached importance to developing the economy. The initial agenda, War Communism , had prescribed total communisation and appropriation per quota of food from the people by force - further economic damage and a famine claiming up to one million lives ensued. With the New Economic Policy and the partial introduction of free markets, an economic recovery followed. After

25200-616: Was a member of the UN Economic and Social Council , UNICEF , International Labour Organization , Universal Postal Union , World Health Organization , UNESCO , International Telecommunication Union , United Nations Economic Commission for Europe , World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency . It was not separately a member of the Warsaw Pact , Comecon ,

25368-495: Was also censured from administrative and educational use. Eventually fighting both White forces in the east and Ukrainian forces in the west, Lenin ordered the liquidation of the second Soviet Ukrainian government in August 1919. Eventually, after the creation of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine in Moscow, a third Ukrainian Soviet government was formed on 21 December 1919 that initiated new hostilities against Ukrainian nationalists as they lost their military support from

25536-496: Was also the city where the first Soviet Ukrainian government was created in 1917 with strong support from Russian SFSR authorities. However, in 1934, the capital was moved from Kharkov to Kiev , which remains the capital of Ukraine today. During the 1930s, there were significant numbers of ethnic minorities living within the Ukrainian SSR. National Districts were formed as separate territorial-administrative units within higher-level provincial authorities. Districts were established for

25704-593: Was celebrated to prove the old and brotherly love between Ukrainians and Russians , and proof of the Soviet Union as a "family of nations"; it was also another way of legitimising Marxism–Leninism . On 23 June 1954, the civilian oil tanker Tuapse of the Black Sea Shipping Company based in Odessa was hijacked by a fleet of Republic of China Navy in the high sea of 19°35′N, 120°39′E , west of Balintang Channel near Philippines , whereas

25872-661: Was confident that its capitulation could be attained without great effort. The Soviets demanded territories on the Karelian Isthmus , the islands of the Gulf of Finland and a military base near the Finnish capital, Helsinki , which Finland rejected. The Soviets staged the shelling of Mainila on 26 November and used it as a pretext to withdraw from the Soviet–Finnish Non-Aggression Pact . On 30 November,

26040-539: Was destroyed, as was 70 percent of the city centre of the second-largest city in Ukraine, Kharkov . Because of this, 19 million people were left homeless after the war. The republic's industrial base, as so much else, was destroyed. The Soviet government had managed to evacuate 544 industrial enterprises between July and November 1941, but the rapid German advance led to the destruction or the partial destruction of 16,150 enterprises. 27,910 collective farms , 1,300 machine tractor stations and 872 state farms were destroyed by

26208-471: Was disastrous for both the German and the Russian empires. The Russian Civil War broke out in late 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution and Vladimir Lenin , the first leader of the new Soviet Russia , recognised the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Moreover, facing a German military advance, Lenin and Trotsky were forced to agree to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , which ceded many western Russian territories to Germany. After

26376-411: Was handed over to Ukraine. The territory of Ukraine expanded by 167,000 square kilometres (64,500 sq mi) and increased its population by an estimated 11 million. After World War II, amendments to the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR were accepted, which allowed it to act as a separate subject of international law in some cases and to a certain extent, remaining a part of the Soviet Union at

26544-402: Was initially the local Socialist Revolutionary Party that composed the local government together with Federalists and Mensheviks. Immediately after the October Revolution in Petrograd , Bolsheviks instigated the Kiev Bolshevik Uprising to support the revolution and secure Kiev. Due to a lack of adequate support from the local population and governing anti-communist Central Rada , however,

26712-427: Was internationally recognized and supported by the Central Powers following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , whereas the Kharkov-based USR was solely supported by the Soviet Russian forces, while neither the UNR nor the USR were explicitly supported by the White Russian forces that remained, although there were attempts to establish cooperation during the closing stages of the war with the former. The conflict between

26880-416: Was later succeeded by the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1918. Simultaneously with the Russian Civil War , the Ukrainian War of Independence was being fought among the different Ukrainian republics founded by Ukrainian nationalists , Ukrainian anarchists , and Ukrainian separatists – primarily against Soviet Russia and the Ukrainian SSR, with either help or opposition from neighbouring states. In 1922, it

27048-403: Was managed by the Communist Party of Ukraine that was created in Moscow and was originally formed out of the Bolshevik organisational centers in Ukraine. Occupying the eastern city of Kharkov , the Soviet forces chose it as the republic's seat of government, colloquially named in the media as "Kharkov – Pervaya Stolitsa (the first capital)" with implication to the era of Soviet regime . Kharkov

27216-419: Was met with utter shock and surprise by government leaders and media worldwide, most of whom were aware of only the British–French–Soviet negotiations, which had taken place for months; by Germany's allies, notably Japan; by the Comintern and foreign Communist parties; and Jewish communities all around the world. On 24 August, Pravda and Izvestia carried news of the pact's public portions, complete with

27384-414: Was one of four Soviet republics (with the Russian SFSR, the Byelorussian SSR, and the Transcaucasian SFSR ) that signed the Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union . As a Soviet quasi-state , the Ukrainian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 alongside the Byelorussian SSR , in spite of the fact that they were also legally represented by the Soviet Union in foreign affairs. Upon

27552-411: Was so weakened by the Great Purge that it could not be a main military participant. Many military sources were at variance with the last point, especially after the Soviet victories over the Japanese Kwantung Army in the Manchuria. France was more anxious to find an agreement with the Soviet Union than Britain was. As a continental power, France was more willing to make concessions and more fearful of

27720-413: Was stated in Articles 7 and 8 of On Legal Succession of Ukraine , issued in 1991. Following independence, Ukraine has continued to pursue claims against the Russian Federation in foreign courts, seeking to recover its share of the foreign property that was owned by the Soviet Union. It also retained its seat in the United Nations , held since 1945. On the international front, the Ukrainian SSR, along with

27888-413: Was the culmination of negotiations around the 1938–1939 deal discussions , after tripartite discussions with the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France had broken down, and committed neither government would aid or ally itself with an enemy of the other, for the next 10 years. Under the Secret Protocol, Poland was to be shared, while Lithuania , Latvia , Estonia , Finland and Bessarabia went to

28056-489: Was the thanks he got for having done his best for us to get him into prison. We knew perfectly well it was forbidden to take tips." In early August, Germany and the Soviet Union worked out the last details of their economic deal and started to discuss a political agreement. Both countries' diplomats explained to each other the reasons for the hostility in their foreign policy in the 1930s and found common ground in both countries' anticapitalism with Karl Schnurre stating: "there

28224-413: Was to inform authorities when he left his residence and where he was headed. Baur's guide informed him: "Another car would tack itself onto us and follow us fifty or so yards in the rear, and wherever we went and whatever we did, the secret police would be on our heels." Baur also recalled trying to tip his Russian driver, which led to a harsh exchange of words: "He was furious. He wanted to know whether this

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