Looks like Spring Fever is in full swing in Ukraine again.
In Kiev they want to prohibit to speak Russian in public places. The are calling the proposed law for "On overcoming the consequences of the Soviet occupation in the linguistic field", actively forgetting the forced Ukrainiasation of Ukraine by Kaganovich and Co in the 1920-1930s
http://www.aif.ru/politics/world/v_kieve_hotyat_zapretit_govorit_na_russkom_v_obshchestvennyh_mestah_smiAbout 60% of the population of Kiev speaks Russian (maybe more). When I visited Kiev about 2 years before the coup d'etat, I hardly ever hear Ukrainian while walking the streets of Kiev...
Pavel Kuzenkov:
Bolsheviks were the first to create a Ukrainian State, with such attributes as Ukrainian language, with Ukrainian science, with Ukrainian economy. That was an ingenious move. By doing that, they disarmed everyone. Only the genius of Lenin could think of it.
In 1921, while speaking at the 10th summit of the Party in Moscow, Iosif Stalin - the People's Commisar on the affairs of nationalitis, proclaimed:
"Even if in some cities of Ukraine there are still dominating Russian elements, with the course of time those cities will inevitably become Ukranised."
Victor Shedrin:
It was Lenin's thesis: self-determination of nations up to and including separation. And if Ukrainian people decided to become a part of the Soviet Union, then the Ukrainian nation has a right to exist.
Alois Voldan:
Initially the strengthening of Ukrainian identity started not in Galicia, but in Kharkov, in Soviet Ukraine. The policy of indigenisation and suchlike. Assistance in light of Lenin's national policy. Support of the Ukrainian language.
In April 1923, during the 7th Conference of the Ukrainian Communist Party, it was announced about the start of the Ukrainisation policy.
Everything got Ukrainised: state offices, legal procedures, schools, higher education, newspapers, theatres.
The Ukrainian language was studied in schools. Ukrainisation was conducted even somewhat cockily, also including on the Russian territories, which were added to Ukraine by Lenin. By the way, why did he do it? Precisely so as to close the subject of Ukrainian separatism once and for all.
If the Ukrainian nationalists of today studied history, they would have gathered not under the portraits of Stepan Bandera, but under that of the Stalin's People's Commisar - Lasar Moiseevich Kaganovich. It was he, who with an iron fist mercilessly formed the Ukrainian nation from the Malorossian peasants. Beat a Ukrainian identity into the youth.
It was thanks to Lasar Moiseevich, that by 1929 over 80% of schools, 55% of factory-proffesional schools, and 30% of universities conducted their education in Ukrainian language.
While by 1931, 90% of newspapers and 85% of journals of the Ukrainian SSR were published in Ukrainian language.
And that on the lands, where just 15 years before, most didn't even understand what is this "Ukraine" and who are these Ukrainians.
From the book of the second President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma "Ukraine is not Russia":
"Regardless of the attitude one has to what was happening in 1920s, one must admit that if not for the the Ukrainisation of school conducted at that time, our today's independence would probably not exist. As time shows, the mass Ukrainian school, that graduated tens of millions of people, turned out to be the most important and the most indestructable element of the Ukrainian foundation in Ukraine."