KREMLIN FEARS RESTIVE UKRAINE, CIA REPORT SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150053-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2012
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: September 22, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29 :CIA-R
1'
ARTICLE ~.PC .D
ON PAGE .'
k'AS;= INGTON POST
22 S~PT'EMBF~ 1982
time the Kremlin had cause to worry
about the Ukraine.
In 1941, Ukrainians welcomed
Hitler's invading troops alth flowers
and hailed them as liberators from
Stalin and the Russian oppressors.
Ukrainian volunteers fought with the
Germans against the Red Army. '
In 1968, the decisive factor in the
Kremlin's decision to invade Czech-
oslovakia was fear that the liberal=
izing effects of the "Prague spring"
would spread across the border into
the Ukraine.
And four years later, Ukrainian
party boss Petr Shelest was ousted
when he showed a dangerous ten-,
dency to go easy on Ukrainian na-~
tionalist dissidents.
The man who engineered Shelest's
downfall was the head of the KGB
in the Ukraine, Vitaly Vasilyevich
Fedorchuk. Though a Ukrainian, he
had none of Shelest's qualms about
suppressing Ukrainian aspirations
with truly Stalinist ruthlessness.
Not surprisingly, Fedorchuk's
hard-line suppression in the Ukraine
endeared him to Leonid Brezhnev,
himself an alumnus of the Ukrainian
apparatus.
Fedorchuk now heads the entire
Soviet KGB. Western intelligence
analysts note glumly that. any man
who put down his own people so
harshly will be unlikely to balk at
stifling dissidents throughout the So-
viet Union. And that is precisely
what is happening.
Kremlin Fears
Restive Ukraine,
CIA Report Says
The real reason for the Kremlin-
instigated crackdown on Poland, se-
cret CIA reports suggest, was to pre-
vent the Solidarity labor movement
from spreading to the restive
Ukraine inside the Soviet Union.
Intelligence cables from Moscow
periodically include reports of sit-ins
and protest demonstrations in the
Ukraine. But for the moat part,
these have been spontaneous, unco-
ordinated incidents that were quick-
ly suppressed by the authorities.
And that's the way the Kremlin in-
tends to keep it.
"P.fter the Russian Republic itself,
there is no area of the Soviet empire
more important to Moscow than the
Ukraine," a secret CIA report points
out.
Nor is there any area where na-
tionalist fervor has persisted with
more determination and where the
populace has more stubbornly re-
eisted decades of attempted Russi-
fication.
"The Ukrainians possess charac-
teristics which, taken together, give
them a unique position among So-
viet minorities," states the CIA re=
port, which was reviewed by my as-
sociate Dale Van Atta.
"Some of these features-the co-
hesiveness of the Ukrainian popu-
lation, the economic significance of
their area, the historical longevity of
the Ukraine as a distinct ethnic com-
munity conscious of an independent
cultural heritage, and the Ukraine's
susceptibility to western cultural in-
fluences-would seem to increase
the ability of the Ukrainians to resist
Rusaification pressures."
Analysts also point out that, like
Poland (of which the western
Ukraine was a part before World
War II), the Ukraine has large iron
and coal mines.
"Those kinds of industries have
created the same sorts of labor prob-
lems as they did in Poland," noted
one expert, "including long hours,
six-day weeks and unsafe working
conditions." It will be remembered
that Solidarity began as a labor
movement, not an anti-Communist
uprising.
In time, the analysts suggested,
"the mood could develop" among the
Ukrainians to imitate Solidarity.
While the Ukrainian communist
party enjoys a privileged position in
the Soviet Union, and Ukrainians
are treated "on an almost equal foot-
ing with Russians" in recruitment for
top jobs, they are still not trusted to
withstand the siren song of Ukrai-
nian nationalism, the CIA report
notes.
The Polish crisis wasn't the first
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100150053-0