Ukrainian Central Committee on Ethnic Issues
Annotation
This statement by the Ukrainian Communist Party was an attempt to respond to growing expressions of nationalist sentiment within the Ukrainian population, while also seeking to maintain control over the expression of dissenting views and preventing inter-ethnic conflicts, especially between the majority Ukrainians and minority Russians and Jews.
This source is a part of the Nationalities and the Breakup of the Soviet Union, 1989-2000 teaching module.
Text
Ukrainian Central Committee on Ethnic Issues
The Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee notes . . . increasing attention to perfecting
interethnic relations and the patriotic and internationalist education of the population. . . . The main
efforts are aimed at creating within people a responsibility for successfully accomplishing the tasks set by
the [Communist Party] with the aim of restructuring all spheres of life in our multinational socialist state.
The notion of problemfree relations among socialist nations and nationalities, and the nihilist approach
to national achievements are being overcome and, under conditions of democratization and glasnost,
experience is being accumulated in defending internationalist values. The forms and methods of patriotic
and internationalist education are being perfected. The mass media are exerting an appreciable influence
on the shaping of people's nationalist and internationalist sentiments. Public initiative has increased, the
working people are boldly raising and openly discussing sore problems. Party committees are developing
a calm and wellconsidered dialogue, and cooperating with all forces, based on the positions of socialism,
proletarian internationalism, and of restructuring Soviet society. Measures are being taken to settle acute
problems that might complicate the situation, particularly in the sphere of national culture and language. .
. . Attempts by nationalistminded political extremists to sow interethnic dissention [sic], to artificially
aggravate the nationality problem, and to impose on the working people their point of view which goes
against internationalist ideology and the principles of socialism has been rebuffed . . . it is essential to
resist more vehemently the manifestations of both national nihilism and national narrowmindedness and
selfishness, the attempts to direct sound national sentiments into the nationalist channel, and to use
democracy for purposes that go against democracy and restructuring.
Source: "Ukrainian Central Committee on Ethnic Issues," Pravda Ukrainy, January 13, 1989. Trans.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).
Credits
"Ukrainian Central Committee on Ethnic Issues," Pravda Ukrainy, January 13, 1989. Trans. Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).