Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR or UkrSSR or UkSSR; , УРСР ; , УССР ; see "Name" section below), also known as the Soviet Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from the Union's inception in 1922 to its breakup in 1991. The republic was governed by the Communist Party of Ukraine as a unitary one-party socialist soviet republic.
Russification of Ukraine
Russification of Soviet-occupied Ukraine intensified in 1938 under Nikita Khrushchev, then secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, but was briefly halted during World War II, when Axis forces occupied large areas of the country. After the war ended, Western Ukraine was reabsorbed into the Soviet Union, and most prominent Ukrainian intellectuals living there were purged or exiled to Siberia. Leonid Brezhnev continued the Russification policies of Khrushchev in postwar Ukraine.
In the 1960s, the Ukrainian language began to be used more widely and frequently in spite of these policies. In response, Soviet authorities increased their focus on early education in Russian. After 1980, Russian language classes were instituted from the first grade onward. In 1990 Russian became legally the official all-Union language of the Soviet Union, with constituent republics having rights to declare their own official languages.