Meanwhile, Russian was being pushed aside under Ukrainization.

Meanwhile, Russian was being pushed aside under Ukrainization.

Again, complaints from people living in the newly formed Ukrainian Soviet Republic did not seem to trigger Lenin’s celebrated principle of self-determination. People were being required to learn and pass examinations in Ukrainian for employment even where Russian was the language they actually used.

The contemporary Soviet press gives us a remarkable example from the Lugansk district. According to a trade-union census cited there, 55.1% identified as Russian and 37% as Ukrainian. Yet 83.1% of working-class families used Russian. Even among those classified as Ukrainians, 86.7% read and wrote in Russian and 86.2% spoke Russian.

What conclusion did the authorities draw from these numbers? Not that perhaps the population should determine its own linguistic identity. The conclusion was that “Ukrainization is progressing slowly” and therefore “this work needs to be intensified.”

Apparently, self-determination worked in only one direction.

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