Remaking Ukraine after World War II: The Clash of Local and Central Soviet Power

Ukraine was liberated from German wartime occupation by 1944 but remained prisoner to its consequences for much longer. This study examines Soviet Ukraine's transition from war to 'peace' in the long aftermath of World War II. Filip Slaveski explores the challenges faced by local Soviet authorities in reconstructing central Ukraine, including feeding rapidly growing populations in post-war famine. Drawing on recently declassified Soviet sources, Filip Slaveski traces the previously unknown bitter struggle for land, food and power among collective farmers at the bottom of the Soviet social ladder, local and central authorities. He reveals how local authorities challenged central ones for these resources in pursuit of their own vision of rebuilding central Ukraine, undermining the Stalinist policies they were supposed to implement and forsaking the farmers in the process. In so doing, Slaveski demonstrates how the consequences of this battle shaped post-war reconstruction, and continue to resonate in contemporary Ukraine, especially with the ordinary people caught in the middle.

"Ukraine was liberated from German wartime occupation by 1944 but remained prisoner to its consequences for much longer. In this long aftermath of war, local Soviet authorities in Ukraine challenged central authorities in post-WWII Ukraine over land, food and power for the sake of rebuilding their decimated country. Most challenging for local Soviet authorities in reconstructing central Ukraine was feeding the rapidly growing urban populations in what remained of Ukraine's war-torn cities. With little help from central authorities in Moscow to meet this challenge, local authorities wrested control over local food supplies by dismantling collective farms designed to fund the entire Soviet economy and transformed rural areas under Moscow's control to urban ones under theirs. They undermined the Stalinist policies they were supposed to implement. Local authorities rank insubordination to Moscow stopped only when the collective farmers, whom the local authorities had evicted from their land, finally enlisted Moscow's support in their long fight to recover it. This book shows that the consequences of this battle shaped post-war reconstruction and continue to resonate in the contemporary rural landscape of central Ukraine, especially in the people it hurt the most."