From Humanitarian Aid to “Counterrevolution”: Foreign Assistance to Pentecostals in Soviet Ukraine and its Criminalization by the GPU–NKVD, 1932–1935

Authors

• Oleksandr Korotaiev, Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical UniversityFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0002-4460-0118

Abstract

The article examines foreign assistance to Pentecostal communities in the Ukrainian SSR and the mechanisms of its criminalization by Soviet state security agencies in 1932–1935. Drawing on GPU–NKVD criminal investigation files, secret police reports, party-state documentation, personal correspondence, and memoir sources, the study reconstructs transnational channels of humanitarian support, practices of resource distribution, and the transformation of survival strategies into objects of political repression.

Particular attention is devoted to two distinct models of foreign assistance. The Odessa case demonstrates a centralized system connected to the former leadership of the All-Ukrainian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith and transnational Pentecostal networks associated with the Assemblies of God. In contrast, the Pyatikhatki case reveals a decentralized model based on personal ties between Nikolai Dobrogorskii and the German Protestant philanthropist Ernst Brockhaus. The article argues that these models represented different forms of the “moral economy” of humanitarian aid, shaping both the effectiveness of resource distribution and the level of solidarity within religious communities.

The study also analyzes the role of the Torgsin system as a mechanism through which foreign currency was converted into food and essential goods under famine conditions. It demonstrates that access to humanitarian resources generated new social hierarchies, inequalities, and conflicts inside Pentecostal communities, while Soviet authorities increasingly interpreted foreign correspondence and financial transfers as evidence of “counterrevolutionary” and “fascist” activity.

The article concludes that the criminalization of foreign aid reflected a broader Stalinist strategy aimed not only at suppressing political opposition, but also at destroying autonomous forms of religious and social solidarity that connected Soviet citizens with the outside world.

Recommended Citation

Korotaiev, Oleksandr (2026) "From Humanitarian Aid to “Counterrevolution”: Foreign Assistance to Pentecostals in Soviet Ukraine and its Criminalization by the GPU–NKVD, 1932–1935," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 46 : Iss. 8 , Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/2693-2229.2852
Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol46/iss8/3