STALIN'S REPRESSIONS IN THE SOUTHERN UKRAINE DURING 1920-1930s

Abstract

The studies of repressions of the Stalin’s regime
gained attention of society for 60 years, starting from
the proclamation of Khrushchev's secret report on
Stalin's cult during XXth Congress of the Central
Committee of the CPSU.
The real scale of crimes committed by a
totalitarian state under absolute secrecy has become
definitive in the second campaign of de-Stalinization
committed by Mr. Gorbachev during the years of
perestroika. However, the real conditions for a
comprehensive study of the repressions were created
only in the independent Ukraine, which provide
ability to reveal a complete picture of the physical
and moral losses of the Ukrainian people, which was
in the epicenter of the Stalin’s repressions.
Intelligentsia, peasantry, workers and clergy
were repressed in Mykolaiv region. Not only
Ukrainians experienced repression, but also the
Russians, Germans, Jews, Poles and all the others
who lived in the region. The peasants were accused
of membership in Kulak organizations, priests were
blamed for propaganda, intelligentsia and the
workers were incriminated in committing sabotage
acts, and representatives of national minorities were
indicted for participating in counter-revolutionary
nationalist organizations. The pressure on the
scientific intelligentsia has increased from the side of
officials and state, taking on the form of mass arrests
and murders. Severe sentences were applied. The
regime's repressive-terrorist policy had a clear focus
and plan.
The hard legacy of this age is the mass
repression of the Stalin’s regime and its leaders in
the territory of Ukraine, in particular in the South.
Investigation of repressions enriches the historical science with new original and factual material, reasonably expose the criminal activity of J. Stalin himself, of his environment and of the repressive and punitive machine, he created. In the years of the development of the Ukrainian state, the process of reconsideration of Ukrainian history is extremely important. Only in the light of the past, including those dramatic events that have brought repression, Ukrainian society can step further into the future. Therefore, the study of Stalin's repressions is one of the most relevant and mysterious topics of historical science.
Key words: Stalin's repressions, Mykolaiv region, Odesa region, intelligentsia, concentration camps, totalitarian regime.