History of Ukraine Nations. After the death of Stalin (1953), Khrushchev as head of the Communist Party of Soviet Union enabled a Ukrainian revival. Nevertheless, political repressions against poets, historians and other intellectuals continued, as in all other parts of the USSR. In 1954 the republic expanded to the south with the transfer of the Crimea. Ukraine became independent again when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. This started a period of transition to a market economy, in which Ukraine suffered an eight-year recession. Subsequently, however, the economy experienced a high increase in GDP growth. Ukraine was caught up in the worldwide economic
Nikita Khrushchev Latvian "kolkhoz", he stated that some in his audience were probably wondering, "Will Khrushchev say something about corn or won't he?" He did, rebuking the farmers for not planting more corn. The corn experiment was not a great success, and he later wrote that overenthusiastic officials, wanting to please him, had overplanted without laying the proper groundwork, and "as a result corn was discredited as a silage crop—and so was I". Khrushchev sought to abolish the Machine-Tractor Stations (MTS) which not only owned most large agricultural machines such as combines and tractors, but also provided services such as plowing, and