Fate of Ukrainian fists: deportation, loss, attempts homecoming

Abstract

The article refers to the Bolshevik genocide against prosperous Ukrainian peasantry, which the communist authorities, referring to the category of exploiters deported in the undeveloped eastern and northern regions of the USSR, to reduce resistance to forced collectivization of farmers. In particular archival documents highlighted the course of deportation, painful adaptation to survival in the new environment, heavy losses and attempts to return to their homes of survivors. In particular, on the basis of published and newly discovered archival documents the author argues that the common earlier in historiography reports of deportation from Ukraine about a million rich peasants during collectivization is inflated at least four times and untrue. The actual data is still not installed because some of the families of the deportees remained in place, some had returned from exile under the decision of local councils of the USSR, some fled, and then legalized in the city, often under changed names.