3 - Urban growth and national identity

Summary

In the 1920s the Soviet industrialization drive transformed the cities in the Ukraine from Russian cities to Ukrainian cities. By 1933, perhaps even by 1931, the majority of the urban population identified themselves as Ukrainians.

The question of when the cities stopped being cauldrons of Russification is very significant because these changes possessed serious implications for the political integrity of the Russian-dominated, multi-national Soviet state. The most important social groups and political institutions (the working class, the trade unions, and even the Communist Party of the Ukraine itself) were centered in the cities, and the national transformation of the cities influenced them. These changes strengthened the implementation of Ukrainianization and secured a potential base of support for Ukrainian national communism, which sought to establish its legitimacy in the Ukrainian republic. At the same time, these changes challenged the Ail-Union Communist Party's efforts to establish an integrated, industrial economy and called into question the party's search for legitimacy among the non-Russians.

Urban growth, 1920–1934

The Soviet Union began its transformation from a predominantly rural to a predominantly urban society after the social and economic disruptions caused by the revolution and the Civil War subsided. By 1923, the urban centers in the USSR recovered the majority of their “lost” population and grew.

The Soviet urban population more than doubled between the first and second officially approved censuses of 1926 and 1939. It increased from 26.3 million to 55.9 million, jumping from 17.9 to 32.8 percent of the total Soviet population.