Among the score of nations and states which make up the Soviet Union, the most unruly is the Ukraine. Over the years since the October Revolution, Moscow has set out again and again to Russianize Ukrainian culture and to collectivize the rich Ukrainian wheatlands, only to be met by passive, stubborn resistance from the peasants. Compromise on these occasions is usually signaled by a change of Russian administrators and a brief bow to Ukrainian culture. Recently the Kremlin began one of its periodic turnabouts.
The first hint was a press announcement that Gregory Ivanovich Petrovsky was to get a special award....