ACCEPTANCE OF THE SOVIET SOCIAL SYSTEM BY UKRAINIAN EMIGRATION (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF ELECTRONIC LIBRARY «DIASPORIANA»)

Abstract

The article will cover the materials of the electronic library «Diasporiana» regarding the perception of Ukrainian social system by Ukrainian emigration. The publications are placed in pdf format in the library, which enables the modern researcher to see a «living» textbook, clearly and correctly design the scientific apparatus. We note that the view of the authors of these works on Sovietization was completely different from the dominant Soviet Union Marxist-Leninist historiography, public speeches of communist ideologues or publications in the censored press. The authors of the studies, on their own part, felt all the charms of Soviet life, and the overwhelming majority of them, for objective reasons, had to leave their homes in 1939, when Western Ukrainian lands were «liberated» by the Red Army troops and Soviet power was established there. Their mission was to expose the «falsity of Kremlin propaganda». The emergence of the Soviet Union, the Diaspora researchers see through the prism of imperial aspirations of Russia and note that instead of the Russian Empire, a new empire - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics appeared. They are also interested in the conditions and reasons for the creation of the Soviet Union, the role of «Moscow nationalism» in this process, the common and distinguishing features of Russian and Soviet imperialism, etc. Scientists are well versed in the concepts of «Bolshevism», «Stalinism». Conventionally, the works of researchers of the Ukrainian Diaspora, presented in the electronic library «Diasporiana», can be grouped according to the following criteria for the subject of study: «Imperialism», «National policy in the USSR», «Russification», «Role of repressive bodies in support of the state system of the Soviet Union», «Five Years in the USSR», «Communist System of Education» and more. Some works are devoted to the history of Western Ukrainian lands before and after the Second World War, the spread of the Soviet way of life in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia. But we must state that the dissemination of these or similar works in the Soviet Union was absolutely impossible. In Stalin's time, charges of anti-Soviet warfare involved long periods of detention and even shooting. And even later, the penetration of these books into the USSR through the Iron Curtain was impossible. The appearance of these works, in our view, was intended to counteract communist propaganda.