Mykola Skrypnyk
Encyclopedia
Mykola Oleksiyovych Skrypnyk ' onMouseout='HidePop("54272")' href="/topics/Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S.
January 13], 1872–July 7, 1933) was a Ukrainian Bolshevik
leader who was a proponent of the Ukrainian Republic's independence, and led the cultural Ukrainization
effort in Soviet Ukraine. When the policy was reversed and he was removed from his position, he committed suicide rather than be forced to recant his policies in a show trial. He also was the Head of the Ukrainian People's Commissariat, the post of the today's Prime-Minister.
of Bakhmut uyezd, Yekaterinoslav Governorate
, Russian Empire
in family of a railway serviceman. At first he studied at the Barvinkove
elementary school, then realschule
s of the cities Izium
and Kursk
. While studying at Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology
, he was arrested on political charges in 1901, prompting him to become a full-time revolutionary. Skrypnyk was eventually excluded from the Institute. He was arrested fifteen times and exiled seven times. He was convicted for the total term of 34 years and one time to the death sentence, while six times had chance to run away. In 1913 Skrypnyk was an editor of the Bolshevik's legal magazine Issues of Insurance and in 1914 was a member of the editorial collegiate of the Pravda
newspaper.
After the February Revolution
Skrypnyk arrived from one of his exiles to Morshansk
(Tambov Governorate
) to Petrograd where he was elected as a secretary of the Central Council of Factories Committees. During the October Revolution
Skrypnyk was a member of the MilRevKom
of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
In December 1917, Skrypnyk was elected in absentia to the first Bolshevik government of Ukraine
in Kharkiv
(Respublika Rad Ukrayiny), and in March 1918 Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin
appointed him its head. He replaced at that assignment Yevgenia Bogdan (Gotlieb) Bosch, daughter of a German immigrant. Skrypnyk was a leader in the so-called Kiev
faction of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, the independentists, sensitive to the issue of nationality, and promoting a separate Ukrainian Bolshevik party, while members of the predominantly Russian Katerynoslav faction preferred joining the All-Russian Communist Party in Moscow, according to Lenin's internationalist doctrine. The Kiev faction won a compromise at a conference in Taganrog
, Soviet Russia in April 1918, when the Bolshevik government was dissolved and the delegates voted to form an independent Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, CP(b)U. But in July, a Moscow
congress of Ukrainian Bolsheviks rescinded the resolution, and the Ukrainian party was declared a part of the Russian Communist Party.
Skrypnyk worked for the Cheka
secret police during the winter of 1918–19, then returned to Ukraine as People's Commissar of Worker-Peasant Inspection (1920–21), and Internal Affairs (1921–22).
During debates leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union
in late 1922, Skrypnyk was a proponent of independent national republics, and denounced the proposal of the new General Secretary, Joseph Stalin
, to absorb them into a single Russian SFSR state as thinly-disguised Russian chauvinism. Lenin temporarily swayed the decision in favour of the republics, but after his death, the Soviet Union's constitution was finalized in January 1924 with very little political autonomy for the republics. Having lost this battle, Skrypnyk and other autonomists would turn their attention towards culture.
Skrypnyk was Commissar of Justice between 1922 and 1927.
He convinced the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, to introduce the policy of Ukrainization
, encouraging Ukrainian culture and literature. He worked for this cause with almost obsessive zeal, and despite a lack of teachers and textbooks and in the face of bureaucratic resistance, achieved tremendous results during 1927–29. Ukrainian language
was institutionalized in the schools and society, and literacy rates reached a very high level. As Soviet industrialization and collectivization drove the population from the countryside to urban centres, Ukrainian
started to change from a peasants' tongue and the romantic obsession of a small intelligentsia
, into a primary language of a modernizing society.
Skrypnyk convened an international Orthographic Conference in Kharkiv
in 1927, hosting delegates from Soviet and western Ukraine (former territories of Austro-Hungarian Galicia, then part of the Second Polish Republic
). The conference settled on a compromise between Soviet and Galician orthographies, and published the first standardized Ukrainian alphabet
accepted in all of Ukraine. The Kharkiv orthography, or Skrypnykivka, was officially adopted in 1928.
Although he was a supporter of an autonomous Ukrainian republic and the driving force behind Ukrainization, Skrypnyk's motivation was what he saw as the best way to achieve communism in Ukraine, and he remained politically opposed to Ukrainian nationalism. He gave public testimony against "nationalist deviations" such as writer Mykola Khvylovy
's literary independence movement, political anticentralism represented by former Borotbist Oleksander Shumsky, and Mykhailo Volobuev's criticism of Soviet economic policies which made Ukraine dependent on Russia.
From February to July 1933 Skrypnyk headed the Ukrainian State Planning Commission, became a member of the Politburo
of the CP(b)U and served on the Executive Committee organizing the Communist International, as well as leading the CP(b)U's delegation to the Comintern.
to Ukraine, with free rein to centralize the power of Moscow. Postyshev, with the help of thousands of officials brought from Russia, oversaw the violent reversal of Ukrainization, enforced collectivization of agriculture
, including massive confiscation of grain contributing to the Great Famine or Holodomor
, and conducted a purge
of the CP(b)U, anticipating the wider Soviet Great Purge
which was to follow in 1937.
Skrypnyk was removed as head of Education. In June, he and his "nefarious" policies were publicly discredited, and his followers condemned as "wrecking, counterrevolutionary
nationalist elements". Rather than recant, on July 7 he shot himself at his desk at his apartment in Derzhprom at Dzerzhynsky Square
(Dzerzhynsky Municipal Raion of Kharkiv city).
During the remainder of the 1930s, Skrypnyk's "forced Ukrainization" was reversed. Orthographic reforms were abolished and decrees were passed to bring the language steadily closer to Russian
. The study of Russian was made obligatory and publishing of Ukrainian-language newspapers declined. Skrypnyk was posthumously rehabilitated
only in 1990.
Old Style and New Style dates
Old Style and New Style are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January even though documents written at the time use a different start of year ; or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian...
January 13], 1872–July 7, 1933) was a Ukrainian Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
leader who was a proponent of the Ukrainian Republic's independence, and led the cultural Ukrainization
Ukrainization
Ukrainization is a policy of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of Ukrainian culture, in various spheres of public life such as education, publishing, government and religion.The term is used, most prominently, for the...
effort in Soviet Ukraine. When the policy was reversed and he was removed from his position, he committed suicide rather than be forced to recant his policies in a show trial. He also was the Head of the Ukrainian People's Commissariat, the post of the today's Prime-Minister.
Ukrainian independentist
Skrypnyk was born in the village YasynuvataYasynuvata
Yasynuvata is a city in Donetsk Oblast of south-eastern Ukraine, and the administrative center of the Yasynuvatsky Raion. It is located 21 km from Donetsk, the administrative center of the Donetsk Oblast. As of 2004, the city's population is 37,000. Yasynuvata is a large railway crossroad.It...
of Bakhmut uyezd, Yekaterinoslav Governorate
Yekaterinoslav Governorate
The Yekaterinoslav Governorate or Government of Yekaterinoslav was a governorate in the Russian Empire. Its capital was the city of Yekaterinoslav .-Administrative divisions:...
, Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in family of a railway serviceman. At first he studied at the Barvinkove
Barvinkove
Barvinkove or Barvenkovo is a city in Kharkiv Oblast of Ukraine. Population is 12,998 .It was first mentioned in 1653....
elementary school, then realschule
Realschule
The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...
s of the cities Izium
Izium
Izyum , is a city situated on the Donets River in the Kharkiv Oblast of eastern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Iziumsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast, and is located approximately 75 miles southeast of the oblast capital,...
and Kursk
Kursk
Kursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. The area around Kursk was site of a turning point in the Russian-German struggle during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in history...
. While studying at Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology
Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology
Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Russia , it currently trains around 5000 students.-History:...
, he was arrested on political charges in 1901, prompting him to become a full-time revolutionary. Skrypnyk was eventually excluded from the Institute. He was arrested fifteen times and exiled seven times. He was convicted for the total term of 34 years and one time to the death sentence, while six times had chance to run away. In 1913 Skrypnyk was an editor of the Bolshevik's legal magazine Issues of Insurance and in 1914 was a member of the editorial collegiate of the Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
newspaper.
After the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
Skrypnyk arrived from one of his exiles to Morshansk
Morshansk
Morshansk is a town in Tambov Oblast, Russia, located on the Tsna River north of Tambov. Population: 44,000 .-History:...
(Tambov Governorate
Tambov Governorate
Tambov Governorate was the administrative unit of the Russian Empire, Russian Republic, and later the Russian SFSR with the center in the city of Tambov. The governorate was located between 51°14' and 55°6' of north latitude and between 38°9' and 43°38' east longitude...
) to Petrograd where he was elected as a secretary of the Central Council of Factories Committees. During the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
Skrypnyk was a member of the MilRevKom
Military Revolutionary Committee
The Military Revolutionary Committee also known as the Milrevcom was the name for military organs under the soviets during the period of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War. The most notable ones were those of the Petrograd Soviet, the Moscow Soviet, and at Stavka.These committees were...
of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
In December 1917, Skrypnyk was elected in absentia to the first Bolshevik government of Ukraine
People's Secretariat
The People's Secretariat of Ukraine was the executive body of the Provisional Central Executive Committee of Soviets in Ukraine. It was formed in Kharkiv on December 30, 1917 by the Russian and other local Bolsheviks as the Ukrainian Soviet government and the opposition to the Central Rada and the...
in Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...
(Respublika Rad Ukrayiny), and in March 1918 Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
appointed him its head. He replaced at that assignment Yevgenia Bogdan (Gotlieb) Bosch, daughter of a German immigrant. Skrypnyk was a leader in the so-called Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
faction of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, the independentists, sensitive to the issue of nationality, and promoting a separate Ukrainian Bolshevik party, while members of the predominantly Russian Katerynoslav faction preferred joining the All-Russian Communist Party in Moscow, according to Lenin's internationalist doctrine. The Kiev faction won a compromise at a conference in Taganrog
Taganrog
Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...
, Soviet Russia in April 1918, when the Bolshevik government was dissolved and the delegates voted to form an independent Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, CP(b)U. But in July, a Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
congress of Ukrainian Bolsheviks rescinded the resolution, and the Ukrainian party was declared a part of the Russian Communist Party.
Skrypnyk worked for the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
secret police during the winter of 1918–19, then returned to Ukraine as People's Commissar of Worker-Peasant Inspection (1920–21), and Internal Affairs (1921–22).
During debates leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in late 1922, Skrypnyk was a proponent of independent national republics, and denounced the proposal of the new General Secretary, Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, to absorb them into a single Russian SFSR state as thinly-disguised Russian chauvinism. Lenin temporarily swayed the decision in favour of the republics, but after his death, the Soviet Union's constitution was finalized in January 1924 with very little political autonomy for the republics. Having lost this battle, Skrypnyk and other autonomists would turn their attention towards culture.
Skrypnyk was Commissar of Justice between 1922 and 1927.
Ukrainization
Skrypnyk was appointed head of the Ukrainian Commissariat of Education in 1927.He convinced the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, to introduce the policy of Ukrainization
Ukrainization
Ukrainization is a policy of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of Ukrainian culture, in various spheres of public life such as education, publishing, government and religion.The term is used, most prominently, for the...
, encouraging Ukrainian culture and literature. He worked for this cause with almost obsessive zeal, and despite a lack of teachers and textbooks and in the face of bureaucratic resistance, achieved tremendous results during 1927–29. Ukrainian language
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
was institutionalized in the schools and society, and literacy rates reached a very high level. As Soviet industrialization and collectivization drove the population from the countryside to urban centres, Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
started to change from a peasants' tongue and the romantic obsession of a small intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
, into a primary language of a modernizing society.
Skrypnyk convened an international Orthographic Conference in Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...
in 1927, hosting delegates from Soviet and western Ukraine (former territories of Austro-Hungarian Galicia, then part of the Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
). The conference settled on a compromise between Soviet and Galician orthographies, and published the first standardized Ukrainian alphabet
Ukrainian alphabet
The Ukrainian alphabet is the set of letters used to write Ukrainian, the official language of Ukraine. It is one of the national variations of the Cyrillic script....
accepted in all of Ukraine. The Kharkiv orthography, or Skrypnykivka, was officially adopted in 1928.
Although he was a supporter of an autonomous Ukrainian republic and the driving force behind Ukrainization, Skrypnyk's motivation was what he saw as the best way to achieve communism in Ukraine, and he remained politically opposed to Ukrainian nationalism. He gave public testimony against "nationalist deviations" such as writer Mykola Khvylovy
Mykola Khvylovy
Mykola Khvylovy was a Ukrainian writer and poet of the early Communist era Ukrainian Renaissance .Born as Mykola Fitilyov in Trostyanets, Kharkov Governorate to a Russian laborer father and Ukrainian schoolteacher mother, Khvylovy joined the Communist Party in 1919. In the same year he became the...
's literary independence movement, political anticentralism represented by former Borotbist Oleksander Shumsky, and Mykhailo Volobuev's criticism of Soviet economic policies which made Ukraine dependent on Russia.
From February to July 1933 Skrypnyk headed the Ukrainian State Planning Commission, became a member of the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
of the CP(b)U and served on the Executive Committee organizing the Communist International, as well as leading the CP(b)U's delegation to the Comintern.
Purged
In January 1933, Stalin sent Pavel PostyshevPavel Postyshev
Pavel Petrovich Postyshev was a Soviet politician. He is considered to be one of the principal architects of the so-called man-made famine of 1932–33, or Holodomor.Postyshev was born in Ivanovo-Voznesensk....
to Ukraine, with free rein to centralize the power of Moscow. Postyshev, with the help of thousands of officials brought from Russia, oversaw the violent reversal of Ukrainization, enforced collectivization of agriculture
Collectivisation in the USSR
Collectivization in the Soviet Union was a policy pursued under Stalin between 1928 and 1940. The goal of this policy was to consolidate individual land and labour into collective farms...
, including massive confiscation of grain contributing to the Great Famine or Holodomor
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
, and conducted a purge
Purge
In history, religion, and political science, a purge is the removal of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, from another organization, or from society as a whole. Purges can be peaceful or violent; many will end with the imprisonment or exile of those purged,...
of the CP(b)U, anticipating the wider Soviet Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
which was to follow in 1937.
Skrypnyk was removed as head of Education. In June, he and his "nefarious" policies were publicly discredited, and his followers condemned as "wrecking, counterrevolutionary
Counterrevolutionary
A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part...
nationalist elements". Rather than recant, on July 7 he shot himself at his desk at his apartment in Derzhprom at Dzerzhynsky Square
Freedom Square, Kharkiv
Freedom Square in Kharkiv is the 6-th largest city-centre square in Europe.Originally named Dzerzhinsky Square after Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Bolshevik secret police , it was renamed after Ukraine became independent in 1991.A monumental statue of Lenin was erected in 1964 and...
(Dzerzhynsky Municipal Raion of Kharkiv city).
During the remainder of the 1930s, Skrypnyk's "forced Ukrainization" was reversed. Orthographic reforms were abolished and decrees were passed to bring the language steadily closer to Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
. The study of Russian was made obligatory and publishing of Ukrainian-language newspapers declined. Skrypnyk was posthumously rehabilitated
Political rehabilitation
Political rehabilitation is the process by which a member of a political organization or government who has fallen into disgrace, is restored to public life. It is usually applied to leaders or other prominent individuals who regain their prominence after a period in which they have no influence or...
only in 1990.
See also
- People's SecretariatPeople's SecretariatThe People's Secretariat of Ukraine was the executive body of the Provisional Central Executive Committee of Soviets in Ukraine. It was formed in Kharkiv on December 30, 1917 by the Russian and other local Bolsheviks as the Ukrainian Soviet government and the opposition to the Central Rada and the...
, the first government of the Soviet Ukraine