Western Ukraine prior and after being joined to the Ukrainian SSR: the economic aspect
November 15 marked the anniversary of the law joining Western Ukraine to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and USSR. Different attitudes toward that date notwithstanding, it remain in Ukrainian history. Much has been spoken and written about the political aspect of that event. But what did Western Ukraine get economically?
For twenty years (1919-39), almost six million Western Ukrainians in Halychyna and Volyn remained part of Poland B in contrast to Poland A, the central and western regions, and had first hand experience of the western neighbor’s firm economic and cultural embrace. They could not expect the Poles to be overly friendly, considering decades of confrontation and animosity. National oppression was manifest in the economic domain, as ethnic Ukrainians were paid less (sometimes by half) than the Polish average, worked longer (sometimes 14-16) hours, and were assessed higher taxes (official statistics point to over one hundred of them, including on chimneys, dogs, and for the police). For a long time they were barred access to government jobs, even at the powiat (smaller than a typical American county) level.
However, the agrarian reform began by the Polish government in 1919 produced the strongest impact. It included the formation of a system of Polish settlers in Ukrainian territories who often became leading politicians with high government posts. 85,000 Polish families had settled in what is currently Volyn and Ternopil regions by 1928 (a total of some 200,000 families had settled in Western Ukrainian villages and almost 100,000 in cities and towns), each being allocated 8-10 hectares, accounting for 31.5% of the local arable lands. In other words, 75% of the land was held by Poles or Polonized Ukrainians in 1928, leaving 16% of the Ukrainians landless.
Characteristically, the Polish government continued its typically colonial policy of prewar Austria-Hungary between the world wars, emphasizing the export of raw materials and semifinished goods characteristic of underdeveloped industries. 80% of the Western Ukrainian population consisted of peasants and only 8% were workers employed in industries. A mere 5% of the industrial enterprises were located in Western Ukraine and Belarus (4,500, of which 2,000 less than five persons on payroll), consuming 1% of all electricity generated in Poland. It is hard to say that the Polish government regarded Western Ukraine even as a raw materials appendix. Before 1939, only 1/8 of the natural resources had been explored: primarily deposits of oil, gas, and potassium salts.
In other words, the Western Ukrainian economy had a clearly colonial character, affecting its structure and dynamics, slowing industrial growth, preserving handicrafts and cottage industries aimed mostly at the extraction of raw materials and their primary processing, depleting natural resources, keeping the industries at low energy consumption levels, and turning these territories into a market.
Still, it would be erroneous to assume that Western Ukrainians quietly tolerated their lot. Local businessmen gradually made their names, their reputation spreading across Poland. For example, Levytsky and Terletsky were on the supervisory board of a corporation controlling Polish oil imports and exports. A well known survival strategy for Ukrainians in Poland before World War II was a self-sufficient economic policy, formulated as “each with his own, by his own, and for his own” (people). In other words, Ukrainians, knowing there was no one to help them except themselves, relied on their own resources and tried to help each other. However, because of property stratification, the poorest Ukrainians interpreted that policy as “each robs his own people for his own benefit.”
Several powerful Ukrainian associations, unions, even banks emerged, in particular the Ukrainian Association of Merchants (over 1,000 members), Ukrainian Agricultural Union (Soiuz ukrayinskykh khliborobiv made up of large landowners (almost 700 members owning some 500,000 acres), Ukrainian Stone House Owners’ Union (there were at least 400 such structures in Lviv alone), Silsky Hospodar Ukrainian Farmers’ Association (uniting mostly medium and petty landowners), and Ukrainian insurance companies led by the Dnister Company.
Western Ukrainians, however, concentrated on the cooperative movement. In addition to developing the economy, its main function, the movement extended to self-government, economic self-defense, economic and general education, etc. Cooperative organizations provided the peasantry with considerable consulting assistance, teaching them better farming methods, financially supporting agricultural improvement associations like Silsky Hospodar (1,683 local study groups with 107,000 members) and School of Young Agriculturists (455 study groups). Ukrainian cooperatives quickly formed a developed network. Thus, credit unions associated into the Central Bank (Lviv), while rural consumers and trade associations formed the Central Union effectively supplying Western European markets with meat products, eggs, and legumes. Local trade cooperatives united into People’s Trade.
Maslosoyuz [Butter Union] was the name of a dairy producers’ association. Poles admitted that it was so strong it dictated dairy market prices all over Poland. Its annual turnover amounted to 15 million zlotys (a tremendous sum during the period). Maslosoyuz’s 250 milk processing plants kept Poland supplied with butter and had enough left to export to Britain, Austria, Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, and even Palestine.
There was an organization uniting all Ukrainian cooperatives, training employees and generally supervising the Auditing Ukrainian Association of Cooperatives. This spurred a rapid increase in the number of cooperatives in Western Ukraine: from 581 in 1921 to 4,000 in 1939. The Polish authorities, of course, did their best to obstruct the Ukrainian cooperative movement, finding faults with the books and records, technologies, hygiene, etc.
Therefore, it is safe to assume that a Ukrainian national front of sorts took shape in Poland between the wars, manifest in a variety of associations, unions, etc., whose key objective was the economic survival of the ethnic Ukrainian community at large. And to an extent they did succeeded.
However, the Great Depression of 1929-33 reduced to nothing the process of stabilization in 1924-28, and Poland probably suffered the worst. Considerable material and manpower losses during World War I and the liberation struggles resulted in Poland reaching its 1913 level only 1928. Some 20% of the dwelling and production premises were destroyed, 38% draft horses and 77% swine lost in Halychyna alone. 1933 saw the peak of the industrial and agricultural crisis in Poland. Production had dropped by 30-40% and budget revenues by 40%. Unemployment was of a disastrous scale (practically 50% of the workforce), being one of the reasons for cutting wages by an average of 30% and increasing production quotas by 32%. Ukrainians were not the only victims; Poles were in as hard and at times even harder conditions. Thus, a kilo of pork sold at 1.5 zlotys in the Polish industrial regions; in Volyn, it stayed at 15 groszy [one-hundredth of a zloty]. The population’s declining buying capacity led to a decline in industrial output. This, in turn, boosted the costs of industrial goods. In 1933, a plow sold at 43-44 zlotys (the equivalent of 130 kilograms of rye or a pair of boots). A saw or an ax sold at some 4 zlotys, a kilo of soap at 2.15 zlotys (6.4 kilos of rye), a kilo of salt was traded for a kilo of rye. One had to work 35-40 days to earn 100 zlotys — or sell 300 kg of rye. Thus one hectare of land cost six or seven pairs of good boots.
Poland suffered from the depression of the early 1930s the worst and was the last European country to get over it. Its economy registered the 1928 level only in late 1938. A situation had developed that should cause revolutionary outbursts, yet most ethnic Ukrainians showed no support for Bolshevik campaigns and even condemned them. Suffice it so say that, even at the best of times, the Communist Party of Western Ukraine never had more than 10,000 members (including sympathizers), compared to seven million Ukrainian residents. The Communists, nevertheless, harbored their views on a lot of important issues, especially in the economic realm. Their unorthodox stand even caused the CPWU’s dissolution by the Comintern in 1938 (actually, the CPWU was disbanded as part of the abolition of the Communist Party of Poland, of which it was a constituent part — Ed.). The economic and political situation in the neighboring Soviet Ukraine was the best counterrevolutionary propaganda for Ukrainians in Poland, especially during the two organized famines of 1921-22 and 1932-33.
Then came the “glorious” September of 1939. The sudden invasion, by 500,000 Red Army officers and men, of Western Ukraine and White Russia at first inspired hope; local Ukrainians saw it as a long-awaited end to the Polish economic and cultural yoke. In part their hopes came true. Newly formed peasant committees handed out confiscated landlord plots, cattle, farming equipment, and seed. Urban residents were given nationalized apartments of Polish bourgeois who had fled. In other words, the new government began by treating “socialist construction” with a velvet glove, at first keeping it in a direction opposite to the contemporary understanding of the doctrine. The peasantry received 1.2 million hectares of arable land (all farms with more than 5 hectares had to part with it plots; 2.5 million ha. were confiscated in all), 84,000 horses, 76,000 cows, etc.
The Red authorities did the handing out easily, knowing that several years later all those people would return everything to the collective farms. But at that stage the Bolsheviks did their utmost to win popularity with the masses. At school, children were given property from landlord palaces, festive tables were laid for whole villages, revolutionary meetings were held every day. This fake populism was successful at first, but both peasants and workers quickly figured out what the new regime was all about. Toward the end of September people sang a popular song with different words:
“Play, concertina, a fiery tune,
Let the fools drink and make merry,
[Instead of the original “People, make merry, be happy!”]
Now that the Kremlin stars are here
To make our land their slave.”
[Instead of “To bring light to our dark land”]
What changed the people’s attitude so quickly was that the Bolsheviks soon attacked their class enemy. Mass purges turned into undisguised pillage. Regular Soviet troops arrived accompanied by thousands of NKVD men and 1,500 state and party functionaries formally introduced as “Soviet and Party activists armed with extensive experience in socialist construction.” Needless to say that they received all the key posts. At times metalworkers and engineers were appointed chairmen of collective farms, without having the slightest idea about farming. People originating from Western Ukraine were barred access to executive posts until the mid-1950s.
From the fall of 1939 to the spring of 1941, the Soviet “liberator” succeeded in purging and deporting (without benefit of trial) almost 10% of the population: 1,200,000 residents, transporting most to settlements in Siberia and Kolsky Peninsula. Other more refined deportation methods were applied. Thus, 20,000 jobs were made available to unemployed Western Ukrainians in eastern regions (mostly in the Donbas mines). Actually, considerably more people were deported than originally planned.
A large-scale cleanup operation against those disliked by the new regime was meant to secure Western Ukraine’s “democratic” accession to the Soviet Union. Among others, the task was assigned the Military Council of the Ukrainian Front presided over by Front Commander Sem С n Timoshenko and council member (actually First Secretary of the Communist Party {bolshevik} of Ukraine — Ed.) Nikita Khrushchev, meaning that the task was actually handled by military intelligence. The council formally set the date of elections to the Popular Assembly in Lviv and worked out the election bylaws. The latter considerably restricted the “class enemy’s” civil rights, forbidding their nomination, etc. However, severe repression and mass informing did not prevent more than 400,000 voters (courtesy of official statistics, meaning there were more) from casting their ballots against the Communist nominees.
Most of the electorate took Bolshevik pie-in-the-sky at its face value. After all, the new authorities had initiated significant positive social and economic changes. By the German attack, thousands of hospitals and polyclinics had been opened; school and college instruction, official paperwork, legal proceedings, the press, etc., were in Ukrainian. Industries had undergone fundamental adjustments, the property of big capitalists and landlords nationalized, new industries started in the regions, and unemployment eliminated. But the Ukrainians had to pay a terrible price for all those positive changes: hundreds of thousands of lives. Unemployment was often eliminated by liquidating and deporting jobless people, Ukrainization was carried out alongside the wiping out of the entire Ukrainian political and cultural infrastructure — Prosvita societies, Shevchenko Scientific Society, etc. — and gradually turning genuine Ukrainian cultural values into kitsch. And what about the atheistic campaigns, tearing down or closing of churches?
Soviet controlling authorities were constantly vigilant for “self-sufficient” economic effort. To this end the exchange of semifinished goods and rotation of experts — completely illogical from a pragmatic standpoint — were instituted (components of sophisticated products were manufactured all over the USSR, so that putting together a tractor or a bus turned into a battle with bureaucrats in charge of supplies in related industries; last but not least, this made the finished product cost considerably more). Such “integration,” often verging on the absurd (when products made by a neighboring factory were shipped off thousands of kilometers away and the one needing them had to make do with often inferior supplies from elsewhere), was intended to make the Soviet republic increasingly dependent on the Moscow Center, reinforced by uniform oil supplies. It was thus all the components of the Union were reliably subordinated to Moscow’s political and economic interests. The arsenal of this policy was immense, ranging from physical destruction and deportation to being awarded for “meritorious service.” In fact, 8,000 leading collective farmers received important government decorations in the “reunited” Western Ukrainian territories, including 46 Heroes of Socialist Labor and 149 recipients of the Order of Lenin. The old imperial divide- and-rule strategy proved quite effective.
Thus the euphoria of positive economic transformations of the first years of Soviet “liberation” wore off as time passed. Now it became clear that the Western Ukrainian territories were transformed from one “sovereign colony” into another, albeit with a different status. Those territories were regarded strictly as a cheap source of raw materials. Such sharp zigzags in the economic development of the western and the rest of Ukrainian territories resulted in this country being ranked in the fifties in terms of world development in the late 1980s (e.g., humanitarian development, average life span, per capita GDP, etc.), among the developing countries, despite its powerful economic potential.
