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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
In February 1944, as the victorious Red Army was preparing to clear the Nazi German forces from the rest of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a surprise official announcement stunned the population. The radio and the newspapers announced amendments to the Soviet constitution, which would enable the union republics to establish their own armies and maintain diplomatic relations with foreign states. While the Kremlin did not elaborate on the reasons for such a reform, Radianska Ukraina, the republic's official newspaper, proceeded to hail the announcement as “a new step in Ukrainian state building.” Waxing lyrical, the paper wrote that “every son and every daughter of Ukraine” swelled with national pride upon learning of the new rights that had been granted to their republic. In reality, the public was confused. In Ukraine's capital, Kiev, the secret police recorded details of rumors to the effect that the USA and Great Britain had forced this reform on Stalin and that Russians living in Ukraine would be forced to assimilate or to leave the republic. Even some party-appointed propagandists erred in explaining that the change was necessitated by the fact that Ukraine's “borders have widened and [it] will become an independent state.”
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