Liquidation of national districts and village councils in the Ukrainian SSR in the 1930s: organizational and legal aspects

The article examines the organizational and legal aspects of the process of liquidation of national districts and village councils in the Ukrainian SSR in the 1930s. It was established, that the formation of national administrative-territorial units in the 1920s - early 1930s contributed to the involvement of representatives of national minorities in the main measures of Soviet state formation, the growth of their socio-economic and national-cultural level, ensuring the realization of constitutional rights of national minorities. It was found out, that at the stage of establishment of the totalitarian regime, the leadership of the USSR began to see the existence of national districts and village councils the threat of isolation of the population from the holistically built Soviet propaganda system and the impediment to the implementation of total control over society. In new Constitution of the USSR in 1936 and developed on its basis constitution of the USSR in 1937 constitutional and legal guarantees of existence of national districts and village councils disappeared, which in conditions of Soviet reality meant their rapid further elimination. It is determined, that a kind of catalyst that accelerated the process of liquidation of national administrative-territorial units was the introduction of the policy of deportations and mass political repression against representatives of national minorities in the second half of the 1930s. It is emphasized, that the requirement to eliminate national districts and village councils was adopted in December 1937 by the highest party leadership of the USSR. It was proved, that the process of liquidation of national districts and village councils in Ukraine had a number of features, due to both the deployment of the propaganda campaign for the election of the first composition of deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in the spring of 1938, and further organizational preparation for the January 1939 re-census of the population of the USSR, which led to the temporary leaving of national areas and village councils as the current administrative-territorial units. It was established, that national districts and village councils in the Ukrainian SSR ceased to exist in the spring of 1939 on the basis of the relevant resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) and the resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USS