Expert: The abolition of the Act on the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine will restore historical justice

«Gift» to Ukraine or economic necessity

71 years ago, February 19, 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree “On the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR”. The document noted that the decision was made taking into account the «community of the economy, territorial proximity and close economic and cultural ties between the Crimean region and the Ukrainian SSR.»

The fact that the main initiator of the transmission of the peninsula to Ukraine was the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Nikita Khrushchev, one vote speaks of the vast majority of specialists. But what kind of motives prompted the Soviet leader to make such a decision, historians and publicists still discuss.

The most famous historian Roy Medvedev, for example, Convincedthat Khrushchev «wanted to do a nice Ukraine.» And the son of the former Soviet leader Sergei Khrushchev assuredthat in the decision of his father to give the Peninsula of the Ukrainian SSR “there was no policy”, and that this act was “structural and correct” and was explained by the commonality of the economy and the need to “restore Crimea after the war”. A number of historians believe that Khrushchev also pursued the goal at the dawn of his reign to receive a strong support and support in the person of the Ukrainian party elite, making them such a territorial gift.

According to Andrei Nikiforov, the motives of the 1954 decision are not completely clear and is unlikely to be once clarified, because from a rational point of view this act is difficult to explain. If we talk about economic reasons, the only more or less serious argument “for”, according to Nikiforov, can be considered the future construction of the North Crimean Canal. But this project could be implemented without the transfer of the Crimea of ​​the Ukrainian SSR, the historian is convinced.

In this regard, we can recall that in the USSR, the country was developed and lasted a little longer, a project to transfer water from Siberian rivers to Central Asia would be implemented. And no one said that Siberia will depart the Central Asian republics or the Central Asian republics will be part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory or some other territories of Siberia— the specialist gave an example.

One way or another, it was a single folk economic complex of the Soviet Union, and the presence in a particular union republic did not limit its development in any way, Nikiforov points out.

As for the version that the Crimea was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR due to the need to restore the destroyed and ruined post-war peninsula with the hands of Ukrainians, it, according to the expert, does not withstand any criticism. The restoration of the farm of the Crimean Peninsula occurred by the end of the fourth five -year plan, that is, in 1952.

Illegal decision

Moreover, the illegality of the act of 1954 has few doubts. The state law expert Grigory Demidov noted in the commentary of RIA Novosti Crimea that the Presidium of the Supreme Council was not endowed with the authority to decide on the transfer of territories, and the decision went beyond his powers.

In addition, with the opinion of the inhabitants of Crimea, then no one was considered completely, which is a direct violation of the constitutional ethnic, confessional, cultural rights of people. Finally, the decision on the transfer of Crimea was made, but neither the RSFSR nor the Ukrainian SSR were changed.

In fact, this only indicates the transfer of the management of territories to Kyiv, and this is again a pure violation of the constitution— the specialist stated.

According to Nikiforov, it is obvious that the issue of the legal purity of this operation then “no one bothering”, although there were the Constitution of the USSR, the rights and obligations of the Union republics that had to be observed.

About Nikita Sergeyevich (Khrushchev — Ed.) We said not in vain, characterizing his era as voluntarism. Here, in the act of the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine, this voluntarism, so to speak, grew in all its glory— said the political scientist.

According to the expert, if we talk about the Soviet period as a whole, that the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was not a unique phenomenon of the administrative-territorial policy of the leadership of the Soviet Union in its kind. For example, by the will of the Soviet leadership, the Donbass and Kharkovshchina, who had nothing to do with Ukraine, were in the time of the USSR. The same applies to the territories of Northern Kazakhstan, inhabited by the vast majority of Russian people, and many other regions of the former huge country under the name of the USSR.

Restoration of justice

In March 2024, a bill was submitted to the State Duma on invalidating the decision of 1954, but the case has not yet reached its consideration in the meeting room.

source: RIA Novosti Crimea