Stalinism in Ukraine in the 1940s

Myroslav Shkandrij is an associate professor of Slavic studies at the
University of Manitoba.

At several points in this account, the author laments both the absence
of reliable, “objective,” and “uncommitted” accounts of the
period (based on primary source material) and the lack of research into
nationalism’s role in Western Ukraine’s history. His attempts, in
this book, to rectify these deficiencies are not altogether successful.

The volume developed from a doctoral thesis on the collectivization of
agriculture in Western Ukraine, a territory that came under Soviet rule
in 1939, and then again in 1944. Chapters on the relationship between
Leninism and Stalinism, on World War II, and on wartime collaboration
have been added. The result is a somewhat unsatisfactory collation of
disparate issues under one rubric: Stalinism. The book provides a
well-documented description and analysis of collectivization and its
consequences, and gingerly surveys some controversial issues (notably,
the issue of war criminals), but gives the overall impression of being
spliced together. Furthermore, although it was withdrawn from
publication and reset in order to accommodate new data, history has
outpaced it once more. The narrative is already dated in parts, having
been composed before Ukraine’s declaration of independence in 1991 and
ensuing developments.

Marples overturns some common academic and popular prejudices (the
vicious nature of Ukrainian nationalism, for example), and underlines
the pernicious effect that Soviet historiography has had in shaping
Western attitudes. His style is lucid, and he is at pains to avoid
premature generalizations. By placing the events of the 1940s in a
historical context, by explaining that the kulak was less an economic
than a political category, and by defending the tentative approach of
the Deschкnes Commission (“the historian must regard the current
process of bringing war criminals to justice with skepticism”), his
account is sympathetic to the Ukrainian experience.