Why did Khrushchev give Crimea to Ukraine? What are the reasons for joining the Crimea to Ukraine?

Why did Khrushchev give the Crimea? Many people ask this question today. In connection with the events of recent months, myths about the territorial belonging of the Crimea again surfaced and began to spin in the information space. The legend of the "royal gift" of Nikita Khrushchev is especially active. Say, he gave his one-man (and therefore illegitimate) decision to the peninsula of Ukraine. And since then the property of the fraternal republics was purely symbolic in the mighty USSR pot, the people were silent - everything was common, the Soviet one. For those who are interested in historical truth, rather than political myths, whose purpose is the ideological justification of the autonomous republic's entry into Russia, an analysis of the sources is carried out. Let's see why Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine, whether he "gave" it, and whether this "present" was pleasant.

The facts of the redrawing of lands of republican subordination in the USSR

Russian historians often call the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine an unprecedented act. Say, Khrushchev adored this region, and used the anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada for the beloved country to "grow up with the land." In fact, the act of transferring the peninsula from the RFSSR to the Ukrainian SSR had no ideological implications. The decision was dictated by purely economic motives, economic. And such a transfer was not the only one. So, in 1924 the Taganrog district of the Donetsk province was transferred to Russia. Later it became a district of the Rostov region. But the overwhelming majority of the population of this district, especially those living in rural areas, are ethnic Ukrainians. But back to our peninsula. Why did Khrushchev give Crimea to Ukraine? It's not just a piece of land, it's an all-Union health resort ... But was it such in 1954?

Myth 1: KHRUSHCHOV presented Crimea with Ukraine

In the 1990s, immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, discussions began on this topic. Some Russian politicians have raised the "Crimean question" on the mountain. They found Khrushchev's son-in-law, Alexei Adzhubei, and ordered him, a professional journalist, an article based on personal memories of those events. He carried out the order. But the article under the heading "How and why Khrushchev Crimea gave Ukraine. Memories on a given topic "was a bearish service for political technologists. According to the journalist, in 1954 his father-in-law's positions on the Soviet throne were very shaky. He was, of course, the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, but Stalin's "hawks" -Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, and Bulganin-continued to run everything in the country. To make serious decisions, and even those that can lead to accusations of sympathy for national minorities at the expense of "the great elder brother", it would be very short-sighted on the part of Nikita Sergeyevich.

Myth 2: Khrushchev PREMISES Crimea to Ukraine

Let's try to reproduce the events of that time. Crimea, like other former under the Nazi occupation of the land, suffered greatly during the war. But the most terrible were human losses. The population of the peninsula was halved, and in 1944 it was 780,000 people. Instead of solving the problem with manpower, the Soviet leadership began "ethnic cleansing." Fifty thousand Germans who lived on the peninsula since the time of Catherine II, were evicted in the first days of the war. And after its termination, their fate was repeated by 250 thousand Crimean Tatars, who were accused of "complicity with the invaders". Together with them deported and ethnic Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians and Czechs. As a result of such a mediocre policy, the economy of the peninsula completely fell. To raise it even to the level of pre-war indicators, the government instructed the authorities of the Ukrainian SSR to provide the peninsula with water and energy resources. They were very scarce there.

Myth 3: Ukrainians came to everything ready

The Soviet government decided to fill the depopulated land with Russian settlers, who were taken mainly from the northern regions. Many of them began to live in the homes of deported Tatars and received "inheritance" of all their homestead land. Only here the peasants from the Volga region and the Arkhangelsk Region saw the vine, tobacco, ethereal-oilseeds for the first time in their lives. A potato and cabbage did not rise well in an arid Crimean climate. As a result of the ten-year "management", the economy of the peninsula has not changed for the better. The whole branch of agriculture has completely disappeared as sheep breeding. Crops of vineyards were reduced by seventy percent, and yields of orchards were even lower than those of wild-growing trees. That's why Khrushchev gave the Crimea to Ukraine - collective farmers from the Ukrainian SSR were accustomed to growing southern vegetables and fruits, and the climatic conditions of Kherson and Odessa region differed little from the steppes of Dzhankoy or Simferopol districts.

Prehistory

And yet, Nikita Sergeevich played a role in the fact that in 1954 a significant event occurred - the annexation of the Crimea to Ukraine. Khrushchev came to the peninsula six months before, driven by the idea of sowing the land of the Soviet Union with corn. He was accompanied by his son-in-law, Alexei Adzhubey. He recalls: "A crowd of collective farmers surrounded Nikita Sergeyevich. Since the meeting was really business, and not for the record, the conversation was frank. The peasants complained that the potatoes did not grow there, the cabbage withered, the conditions unbearable. "We were deceived," was heard more often from the crowd. That evening Khrushchev went to Kiev. At a meeting at the Mariinsky Palace, he urged the Ukrainian leadership to help the suffering population of the peninsula. "Southerners are needed there who love gardens, corn, and not potatoes," he said.

Myth 4: The illegitimacy of the "gift"

Some unscrupulous historians argue that the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine Khrushchev was a simple gift on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada. That is why such an act of alienation of the peninsula from Russian lands is illegitimate. Consequently, the current accession of the Crimea to Russia is the restoration of historical justice. But is it? Let's follow the events. In September 1953, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU was meeting. The main theme is the state of agriculture. The head of the Presidium of the Central Committee and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers at that time was GM Malenkov. It was at this meeting that a decision was made to transfer the peninsula of the Ukrainian SSR, since the economy of the Crimea was already sufficiently integrated into the Ukrainian one. A month and a half later, at the end of October 1953, the Crimean Regional Committee reacted to the Central Committee's decision. He made a corresponding "initiative from below." Throughout the winter of 1953-1954. Intensive ideological work was conducted. Since nothing was done in the USSR without an ideological base, it was decided to timed the transfer of the peninsula from one sister republic of another to the anniversary of the reunification of the Ukrainian people with Russia. After the passage of the "Crimean question" in all legal instances, on February 19, 1954, this historic event came. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR unanimously adopted a decree on transferring the region from the Russian to the Ukrainian Union Republic. Finally, this decision was confirmed only in April 1954. Therefore, the assertion that Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine is superficial and historically incorrect.

Consequences of the transfer

Since the spring of 1954, immigrants from Ukraine - Kiev, Chernigov and southern regions - have come to the peninsula. The results were already visible for five years. A canal was built to divert water from the Dnieper. This irrigation system allowed the agriculture of the peninsula to be brought to a good state. The Ukrainian SSR held the world's longest trolleybus route, rebuilt Sevastopol destroyed during the war, raised the economy of the steppe Crimea. This is also recognized by the Soviet newspapers of that time - it is enough to look through old filings. Therefore, the question of why Khrushchev gave the Crimea to Ukraine is purely political. History answers it a little differently than modern television.