The Communist Party of Western Ukraine and the Comintern: a Discussion about National Deviationists in 1927

This article examines the debate that arose at the meeting of the Ukrainian Commission of the Comintern on the Communist Party of Western Ukraine (KPZU) from August 23 to 27, 1927. The majority of the KPZU Central Committee supported A. Ya. Shumsky, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine, the Executive Committee of the Comintern, and the Peoples Commissar of Education of the Ukrainian SSR (1924—1927), who had criticized the ongoing policy of Ukrainization in 1926. The position of Shumsky and the majority of the KPZU Central Committee (Maximovich, Vasilkov, and Turyansky) was characterized as a “national deviation”, and a split occurred within the party in early 1928 against this backdrop. Representatives of the Vasilkov-Turyansky group were expelled from the KPZU. At the same time, the question of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine acquired international significance. The condemnation of the “majority” group by the Ukrainian Commission of the ECCI on the issue of the KPZU allowed the leadership of the Comintern, the CP(b)U and the CPP to establish stricter control over the activities of the KPZU in such a complex region as Western Ukraine.