Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic

Ukraine, 1919–1991. Draft, not yet reviewed

The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party model, the Ukrainian SSR was governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through its republican branch, the Communist Party of Ukraine. In 1922, it was one of four Soviet republics that signed the Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union. Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine declared independence and became the present-day independent state of Ukraine.

Seat of power: Kyiv

Rulers

Grigory Petrovsky

Head of state, 1919–1938

Petrovsky was the head of state of Soviet Ukraine from 1919 until 1938, and one of the officials responsible for implementing Stalin's policy of collectivization. He participated in signing the Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

Portrait of Grigory Petrovsky: UnknownUnknown . Загрузил: AMY (talk) 08:34, 12 January 2012 (UTC), Public domain, file

Leonid Korniyets

Head of state, 1938–1939

He served as the head of government of Ukrainian SSR from 1939 to 1944. Then, from 1938 to 1939, he served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.

Mykhailo Burmystenko

Head of state, 1938–1938

Burmystenko was a Soviet politician who served as the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. Burmystenko died during the Battle of Kiev in 1941 and a memorial remains there in his memory.

Portrait of Mykhailo Burmystenko: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file

Mykhailo Hrechukha

Head of state, 1939–1954

He served as the Chairman of Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1939 to 1954. He was elected to the 1st through 5th convocations of Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR.

Portrait of Mykhailo Hrechukha: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file

Demyan Korotchenko

Head of state, 1954–1969

In 1938, when Khrushchev took over as party boss in Ukraine, Korotchenko was appointed First Secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk regional party committee, and then Chairman of the Ukrainian Council of Ministers. He helped organise partisan resistance when Ukraine was under German occupation in 1941-44. From January 1954, he held the largely ceremonial post Chairman of the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet.

Portrait of Demyan Korotchenko: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, file

Olexander Liashko

Head of state, 1969–1972

He served as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR for more than 15 years, making him the longest-serving person in that position. On June 9, 1972, Liashko became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR.

Ivan Hrushetsky

Head of state, 1972–1976

In 1972, Hrushetsky was once again promoted, taking the post of head of presidium of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1962, Hrushetsky was promoted to the post of a secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine and deputy head of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR and headed the State Control Committee.

Portrait of Ivan Hrushetsky: Константинъ, CC BY-SA 4.0, file

Oleksiy Vatchenko

Head of state, 1976–1984

Vatchenko was a Ukrainian and Soviet politician, who served as the chairman of Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1984.

Portrait of Oleksiy Vatchenko: Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Public domain, file

Valentyna Shevchenko

Head of state, 1984–1990

After the death of Oleksiy Vatchenko, she began acting as the chairwoman until her official appointment on petition of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky. In 1989 Shevchenko refused to sign prohibition against the People's Movement of Ukraine, as she stated it violated the constitution.

Leonid Kravchuk

Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, 1990–1991

He became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR in 1990, amidst the 1989–1991 Ukrainian revolution and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He opposed the 1991 Soviet coup attempt and subsequently led Ukraine to become independent from the Soviet Union.

Portrait of Leonid Kravchuk: Yuriy Ivanov / Юрий Иванов, CC BY-SA 3.0, file

Ivan Plyushch

Head of state, 1990–1990

He thrice served as the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. In 1990 he was elected the head of Kyiv Oblast Council.

Portrait of Ivan Plyushch: ANT Berezhnyi, CC BY 3.0, file

Volodymyr Ivashko

Head of state, 1990–1990

He was briefly acting as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the period from 24 to 29 August 1991. Before becoming General Secretary he had been voted Gorbachev's Deputy General Secretary within the Party on 12 July 1990, a newly created position as a result of the 28th Congress of the Communist Party.

Portrait of Volodymyr Ivashko: Верховна Рада України, Attribution, file

Culture

In Ukrainian SSR during the 1920s this process took the form of Ukrainization and involved promoting the use and the social status of the Ukrainian language and the elevation of ethnic Ukrainians to leadership positions.
A famine known as the Holodomor caused a direct loss of human life estimated between 2.6 million to 10 million. Any mention of the famine was banned by Soviet authorities until the 1980s.
Some scholars and the World Congress of Free Ukrainians assert that the famine was an act of genocide. The International Commission of Inquiry Into the 1932–1933 Famine in Ukraine found no evidence that the famine was part of a preconceived plan to starve Ukrainians.
The Soviet government established an exclusion zone with a 10-kilometre radius 36 hours after the accident, initially evacuating around 49,000 people. The government did not publicly acknowledge the disaster until two days after the explosion, when elevated radiation levels were detected in Sweden.

Picture

On 26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union, exploded.

Image: IAEA Imagebank, CC BY-SA 2.0, file

Sources

Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.