POLITICAL SENTIMENTS OF WESTERN UKRAINIANS DURING ELECTION CAMPAIGNS OF THE POST-WAR PERIOD

Abstract

The article considers the main manifestations of political sentiments of the population of Western oblasts of Ukraine concerning election campaigns of the post-war period. The factors determining the voting behavior of voters and causes of social deviations are analyzed. It is emphasized that the attitude of the Western Ukrainians to the Soviet election campaigns was primarily determined by the electoral experience they gained while participating in parliamentary structures of Austria-Hungary, interwar Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. The scheme of stratification of electoral sentiments of the local population by quantitative, social, and political, gender, and other indicators are presented. The dominant anti-Soviet views that were caused by the rejection of Soviet totalitarianism by Western Ukrainians, the predatory economic policy of the government, and activities of the national liberation movement are noted. The specific facts of dissatisfaction of the population with the Soviet electoral legislation, forms and methods of its implementation as well as some measures of the Soviet government aimed at the forced Sovietization of the region are stated. It is determined that the largest group of protest voters was the peasantry, which in the postwar period was in difficult material and living conditions and actively supported the participants of OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) and UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army). The geography of critical rhetoric suggests the similarity of electoral sentiments in different regions of the republic. However, if Western Ukrainians were not afraid to protest in public, the residents of Greater Ukraine hid their true attitude towards Soviet democracy because of fear of repression. It is claimed that the study of political attitudes of the population in regions where the Soviet regime has not yet been established, and peoplе’s consciousness was free of the Soviet ideological stamps allows reflecting their real state. Keywords: Western regions of the Ukrainian SSR, post-war period, Sovietization, elections to the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, political behavior of the population.