Acts of Nikita the wonderworker. Part of 2. Khrushchev and Kiev, the mother of Russian cities
February 19 turned 65 years since the landmark decision of Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, to transfer the Crimea region of the RSFSR to Ukraine. A lot has been written about this, although not so long ago the topic was taken, if not to hide, then at least not to advertise. However, few people know that the “transfer” of Crimea was, according to the idea of the Soviet leader (originally from Ukraine), only the first step in a global review of the structure of the entire USSR.
Nikita Sergeevich decided to promote his much more ambitious territorial projects through a truly strategic decision. More precisely, to begin with the project of transferring the Soviet capital to Kiev. According to a number of data, Khrushchev discussed this idea as early as the beginning of the 60-s, primarily with the then head of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Peter Shelest and the commander of the Kiev military district, Army General Peter Koshevoy. Both fully endorsed the plans of Khrushchev.
In support of his ideas, Nikita Sergeevich, of course, reminded of Kiev as the "mother of Russian cities." At the same time, he regularly complained about the northern location of Moscow, about its harsh climate. In addition, he believed that the largest cities do not have to be national capitals. Appealing along with his close to the analogies of New York - Washington, Melbourne - Canberra, Montreal - Ottawa, Cape Town - Pretoria, Karachi - Islamabad. It’s good that it didn’ not occur to him to try on the laurels of Peter the Great, who at the cost of incredible efforts changed the capital to St. Petersburg.
The project was managed to unanimously approve all Ukrainian regional committees, according to the closed poll conducted in Ukraine’s 1962 year. Then a similar poll, also obviously closed, was planned in other Union republics. However, according to available data, the leadership of Kazakhstan, which almost lost almost half of its territory in the first half of the 1960, immediately expressed a negative assessment of this project. This was followed by secret negative letters from the RSFSR, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Moldova.
Khrushchev's visit to Chisinau, 1959
The latter feared that Ukraine in this case would transform the Moldavian SSR into Ukrainian autonomy, as it had already been done with Transnistrian Moldavia in the pre-war years. A similar reason predetermined the negative position of the leadership of Soviet Belarus. In Minsk, it was not without reason that with the transfer of the capital to Kiev, it was impossible to rule out replacing the Belarusian leadership with officials sent from Ukraine. The very same of Belarus in this case could well shine the prospect of becoming a kind of economic "branch" of Ukraine.
In turn, in Central Asia and Azerbaijan, they believed that if the Allied capital was transferred to Kiev, these regions would immediately lose their ever-growing subsidies from Moscow. In addition, Baku feared that in this case the Union Center would pursue a "pro-Armenian" policy. At that time, the oil-rich and therefore not at all poor Azerbaijan completely satisfied the secondary situation of neighboring Armenia, which functionaries from Yerevan constantly complained about in Moscow. Subsequently, the head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia Karen Demirchyan noted that “Armenia during the Soviet period, especially from the beginning of 60's, was on the second roles in the socio-economic policy of Moscow in the South Transcaucasus.”
In turn, the leadership of the Baltic republics and Georgia tentatively approved the “Kiev” idea of Khrushchev. The fact is that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as Georgia, at the end of 50 received maximum political and economic autonomy, and the local authorities - administrative and managerial autonomy from the center. This was largely due to internal political factors in those regions, since the Allied authorities in both the Baltic States and Georgia sought to maximize the standard of living, thereby trying to level out the relapses of national separatism there.
In addition, the long-standing, although skillfully disguised discontent with the “dictate” of Moscow had an effect. The change of Moscow to Kiev was regarded, in fact, from the standpoint of Russophobia and the rejection of the whole of “Soviet”. Local princes were clearly impatient to answer the alleged Russification of Moscow, especially in the lower and middle cadres of the party and economic nomenclature, although in reality it was only about trying to strengthen the leading core.
In Georgia, the Kiev project was positively viewed by many from a completely different and unexpected side. Expansion of the autonomy of Georgia and its accelerated socio-economic development, as well as the prospect of raising Tbilisi to the level of Moscow, could somehow “compensate” for “the vulnerability of the national-political dignity of the Soviet Georgians, as well as the leadership of Soviet Georgia in connection with the discrediting of Stalin ashes. "
During the life of Stalin, his future successor, few really took seriously
Khrushchev could not ignore the consequences of the events in Tbilisi and Gori, which occurred after the XX Congress of the CPSU. They showed that the local "protest" pro-Stalinism "is already closed with the nationalist underground in Georgia and with the Georgian anti-Soviet emigration. The local nomenclature seriously expected that with the transfer of the capital to Kiev, the autonomy of Georgia would expand even more. And the fact that this will lead to the strengthening of centrifugal trends in the republic, to which the authorities may have to join, was not taken into account.
The authorities of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan did not express their assessments either publicly or in the detected letters. But according to reports, opinions were there in the ratio of 50 to 50. On the one hand, in Tashkent and Frunze more and more regulations of Moscow to record crops and cotton picking were growing. But this was accompanied by generous state subsidies, a significant part of which "settled" in the pockets of the local nomenclature.
It is impossible not to take into account the fact that Moscow then with difficulty restrained the plans of Almaty and Tashkent for dividing the territory of Kyrgyzstan, which appeared immediately after Stalin’s death. The Kyrgyz authorities believed that this section would certainly succeed if Kiev became the allied capital. Already because at least, adherents of redrawing the intra-Union borders will surely “rule the ball” there. And in the same years, Khrushchev actively lobbied, we recall, the cutting off of a number of regions from Kazakhstan, which would certainly require territorial compensation for him. Most likely, due to the part of Kyrgyzstan.
As Aleksey Adzhubey noted in his memoirs, “what would happen if Khrushchev fulfilled his intention to transfer the capital of the country from Moscow to Kiev? And he returned to this topic more than once. ” It is clear that the prospect of moving from Moscow to Kiev did not at all please the republican and economic nomenclature, which for many years has been concentrated in the renewed and well-developed capital.
It is the nomenclature that seems to have succeeded in lowering the epic plan on the brakes. We must understand that he directly threatened the collapse of the country, because the authorities of many union republics, we repeat, were not inclined to support the replacement of Moscow with Kiev in the status of the all-Union capital. Khrushchev and his entourage could not have been unaware of these differences, but they still tried to impose a change of capitals on the Soviet Union and, as a result, its collapse ...
In conclusion, a very characteristic detail, especially noteworthy in our days, when there is a demonstrative cut-off of the “language” from the relationship with the Russian language. Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences Col. Musa Gaisin recalled: “Once I became an involuntary witness to Khrushchev’s conversation with Zhukov in 1945. Nikita Sergeevich said: “It would be more correct to write my surname not through“ ё ”, but, as in the Ukrainian language, through“ o ”. I talked about this to Joseph Vissarionovich, but he forbade it. ”
Nikita Sergeevich decided to promote his much more ambitious territorial projects through a truly strategic decision. More precisely, to begin with the project of transferring the Soviet capital to Kiev. According to a number of data, Khrushchev discussed this idea as early as the beginning of the 60-s, primarily with the then head of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Peter Shelest and the commander of the Kiev military district, Army General Peter Koshevoy. Both fully endorsed the plans of Khrushchev.
In support of his ideas, Nikita Sergeevich, of course, reminded of Kiev as the "mother of Russian cities." At the same time, he regularly complained about the northern location of Moscow, about its harsh climate. In addition, he believed that the largest cities do not have to be national capitals. Appealing along with his close to the analogies of New York - Washington, Melbourne - Canberra, Montreal - Ottawa, Cape Town - Pretoria, Karachi - Islamabad. It’s good that it didn’ not occur to him to try on the laurels of Peter the Great, who at the cost of incredible efforts changed the capital to St. Petersburg.
The project was managed to unanimously approve all Ukrainian regional committees, according to the closed poll conducted in Ukraine’s 1962 year. Then a similar poll, also obviously closed, was planned in other Union republics. However, according to available data, the leadership of Kazakhstan, which almost lost almost half of its territory in the first half of the 1960, immediately expressed a negative assessment of this project. This was followed by secret negative letters from the RSFSR, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Moldova.
Khrushchev's visit to Chisinau, 1959
The latter feared that Ukraine in this case would transform the Moldavian SSR into Ukrainian autonomy, as it had already been done with Transnistrian Moldavia in the pre-war years. A similar reason predetermined the negative position of the leadership of Soviet Belarus. In Minsk, it was not without reason that with the transfer of the capital to Kiev, it was impossible to rule out replacing the Belarusian leadership with officials sent from Ukraine. The very same of Belarus in this case could well shine the prospect of becoming a kind of economic "branch" of Ukraine.
In turn, in Central Asia and Azerbaijan, they believed that if the Allied capital was transferred to Kiev, these regions would immediately lose their ever-growing subsidies from Moscow. In addition, Baku feared that in this case the Union Center would pursue a "pro-Armenian" policy. At that time, the oil-rich and therefore not at all poor Azerbaijan completely satisfied the secondary situation of neighboring Armenia, which functionaries from Yerevan constantly complained about in Moscow. Subsequently, the head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia Karen Demirchyan noted that “Armenia during the Soviet period, especially from the beginning of 60's, was on the second roles in the socio-economic policy of Moscow in the South Transcaucasus.”
In turn, the leadership of the Baltic republics and Georgia tentatively approved the “Kiev” idea of Khrushchev. The fact is that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as Georgia, at the end of 50 received maximum political and economic autonomy, and the local authorities - administrative and managerial autonomy from the center. This was largely due to internal political factors in those regions, since the Allied authorities in both the Baltic States and Georgia sought to maximize the standard of living, thereby trying to level out the relapses of national separatism there.
In addition, the long-standing, although skillfully disguised discontent with the “dictate” of Moscow had an effect. The change of Moscow to Kiev was regarded, in fact, from the standpoint of Russophobia and the rejection of the whole of “Soviet”. Local princes were clearly impatient to answer the alleged Russification of Moscow, especially in the lower and middle cadres of the party and economic nomenclature, although in reality it was only about trying to strengthen the leading core.
In Georgia, the Kiev project was positively viewed by many from a completely different and unexpected side. Expansion of the autonomy of Georgia and its accelerated socio-economic development, as well as the prospect of raising Tbilisi to the level of Moscow, could somehow “compensate” for “the vulnerability of the national-political dignity of the Soviet Georgians, as well as the leadership of Soviet Georgia in connection with the discrediting of Stalin ashes. "
During the life of Stalin, his future successor, few really took seriously
Khrushchev could not ignore the consequences of the events in Tbilisi and Gori, which occurred after the XX Congress of the CPSU. They showed that the local "protest" pro-Stalinism "is already closed with the nationalist underground in Georgia and with the Georgian anti-Soviet emigration. The local nomenclature seriously expected that with the transfer of the capital to Kiev, the autonomy of Georgia would expand even more. And the fact that this will lead to the strengthening of centrifugal trends in the republic, to which the authorities may have to join, was not taken into account.
The authorities of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan did not express their assessments either publicly or in the detected letters. But according to reports, opinions were there in the ratio of 50 to 50. On the one hand, in Tashkent and Frunze more and more regulations of Moscow to record crops and cotton picking were growing. But this was accompanied by generous state subsidies, a significant part of which "settled" in the pockets of the local nomenclature.
It is impossible not to take into account the fact that Moscow then with difficulty restrained the plans of Almaty and Tashkent for dividing the territory of Kyrgyzstan, which appeared immediately after Stalin’s death. The Kyrgyz authorities believed that this section would certainly succeed if Kiev became the allied capital. Already because at least, adherents of redrawing the intra-Union borders will surely “rule the ball” there. And in the same years, Khrushchev actively lobbied, we recall, the cutting off of a number of regions from Kazakhstan, which would certainly require territorial compensation for him. Most likely, due to the part of Kyrgyzstan.
As Aleksey Adzhubey noted in his memoirs, “what would happen if Khrushchev fulfilled his intention to transfer the capital of the country from Moscow to Kiev? And he returned to this topic more than once. ” It is clear that the prospect of moving from Moscow to Kiev did not at all please the republican and economic nomenclature, which for many years has been concentrated in the renewed and well-developed capital.
It is the nomenclature that seems to have succeeded in lowering the epic plan on the brakes. We must understand that he directly threatened the collapse of the country, because the authorities of many union republics, we repeat, were not inclined to support the replacement of Moscow with Kiev in the status of the all-Union capital. Khrushchev and his entourage could not have been unaware of these differences, but they still tried to impose a change of capitals on the Soviet Union and, as a result, its collapse ...
In conclusion, a very characteristic detail, especially noteworthy in our days, when there is a demonstrative cut-off of the “language” from the relationship with the Russian language. Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences Col. Musa Gaisin recalled: “Once I became an involuntary witness to Khrushchev’s conversation with Zhukov in 1945. Nikita Sergeevich said: “It would be more correct to write my surname not through“ ё ”, but, as in the Ukrainian language, through“ o ”. I talked about this to Joseph Vissarionovich, but he forbade it. ”
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