The next mention by Vladimir Putin of Vladimir Lenin as the creator of the modern Ukrainian state caused a huge number of comments in Ukraine itself - both from historians, and from journalists, and simply from users of social networks.. And this despite the fact that in Russia they did not pay special attention to these words of Putin - well, Lenin and Lenin, just think! And this once again shows how far the two countries have diverged in their understanding of not only what is happening in their relations now, but also the very history of the emergence of two neighboring states..

The question of history and the background of the issue And yet, was Vladimir Lenin involved in the emergence of modern Ukraine? In this text I will not delve into a long history, because I will be one of the participants in the scientific and journalistic controversy that has been going on for several centuries.. Relatively speaking, the controversy between the "

And this is only in Russia itself! There is nothing to say about the controversy between Russian and Ukrainian historians. However, all this controversy began long before the proclamation of the modern Ukrainian state..

Already on December 9 (22), 1917, the Red Army detachments invade the territory of the UPR and occupy Kharkov, while forming the Bolshevik government of " Against the background of the outbreak of war with Russia, the Central Rada makes a decision on the full independence of the UPR on January 9 (22), 1918, the issue of federation is no longer mentioned.

The independence of this particular state is recognized by the Bolsheviks at the time of the signing of a peace treaty with Germany in Brest. However, as we remember, the Brest Peace does not cause any enthusiasm among the Bolsheviks.. Therefore, immediately after the revolution in Germany, the war for Ukraine resumes and ends with the complete occupation of its territory by the Red Army.. In the occupied territory, the Ukrainian SSR is proclaimed, which existed until 1991.

Not created, but turned into a fiction Therefore, the question must, of course, be posed differently: not why Lenin created an independent Ukraine, since he never created it, but why he did not liquidate it after the occupation of Ukrainian lands and the actual destruction of statehood? Why did not he join the provinces back to Russia, as the People's Commissar for Nationalities Joseph Stalin suggested to him?

There is a simple answer to this question.. The Soviet Union was created in 1922. And then everyone knew perfectly well - they did not remember, but they knew exactly - that the Red Army had conquered Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan. But the occupation was presented not as a victory for Russia, but as a victory of the working class over the exploiters.. The governments of the occupied countries were overthrown, and the states themselves remained, only they were renamed into Soviet republics, and even then not always.

If the occupied territories were annexed back to Russia, this would raise great doubts about the Bolsheviks' commitment to the idea of \u200b\u200ba " And so, in place of the old empire, a new Soviet Union appeared, to which any new state could join, in which the proletariat came to power..

At the same time, Lenin was not at all going to share power with the occupied territories.. Their governments had no real power. All power ended up in the hands of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - this was the name of the Russian Communist Party, which was simply renamed the All-Union.

In order to understand how Moscow actually treated personnel from the territories occupied by Soviet Russia, it is worth remembering that the first ethnic Ukrainian as the de facto head of the republic - the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine - appeared only in June 1953, after Stalin's death.

So Lenin did not create an independent Ukraine. Lenin conquered and destroyed independent Ukraine, turned it into a fiction. It is no coincidence that on the pedestal of his monument in Kiev - the one that was demolished in the early days of the Maidan of 2013–2014 - there was a proud quote that Ukrainian schoolchildren were obliged to memorize:.

Original.