The Communist Party and informal groups in Ukraine during perestroika (1985-1989). An unambiguous relationship?

The topic of Ukrainian “informal groups” is not unknown to historiography, but today it is possible to reconstruct the story of the so-called neformaly of Ukraine through archival documents, first and foremost those relating to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine held in Kiev at the Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine (Tsentralnyi Derzhavnyj Arkhiv Hromads’kykh Ob’jednan’ Ukrainy). Indeed, this is the aim of the present essay, which will look at how the leadership of the Communist Party of the second Slavic republic viewed the emergence and development of a phenomenon that, in their eyes, was as novel as it was threatening to the Soviet Union’s equilibrium. The present essay will look at the evolution of informal groups as cultural, social, and political subjects, and their relationship with Soviet power in Ukraine.