It is interesting, to say the least, that the Ukrainian representative at San Francisco was the same Manuilsky who had come down from Moscow to act as the Muscovite representative at the formation of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. He was born in Ukraine but he spent most of his life in the service of the Russian Soviet Federated Republic and later the All-Union Soviet, and his relations with Ukraine have been rather as a Russian or Soviet delegate than as a spokesman for the Ukrainians. The Chairman of the Council of Commissars, Khrushchev, seems to be definitely a Russian. In fact there is little to suggest that there is any Ukrainian of prominence on the Ukrainian scene in a major role. It seems abundantly clear that Ukraine is now being considered merely as a definite tract of territory with no special connection with its own past, for it must have a culture socialist in essence and only Ukrainian in language, and there is some doubt as to whether the language is not being remodelled on the Russian pattern. As the German troops retreated further and further, Ukraine was again thoroughly ravaged. The cities were largely in ruins, the population had been murdered or deported either to east or west, and the material progress that had been accomplished during the twenty years between the wars was largely wiped out. It was necessary to begin to rebuild the country after a desolation which exceeded that of 1918–20. Yet there have been few consistent stories of what has happened. Side by side with accounts of starvation as a result of the German seizure of foodstuffs, there have been equal stories of gifts by the joyful and liberated population to the victorious Red Army and these gifts have been reported on a scale that would indicate abundance in the areas which were the most hotly contested. There is no way to harmonize the various accounts that have been put out officially and it is probably wiser not to attempt it at the present time. Then as the Red Army swept on into Western Ukraine, the same procedure was repeated. In every city there were held gatherings greeting Stalin as the liberator of the land with the glorious Red Army. There were the usual resolutions of gratitude, the usual concerts at which Russian music formed the bulk of the program, the usual glorification of all those Ukrainian heroes who worked for the union of Ukraine and Russia and the usual condemnation of every event or person who did not fit into the Russian or the Russian Soviet program.