Socialist Soviet Republic (from 1919�1934) in opposition to the Ukrainian People's Republic with its capital of Kiev.
As the country's capital, it underwent intense expansion with the construction of buildings to house the newly established Ukrainian Soviet government and administration. Derzhprom was the second tallest building in Europe and the tallest in the Soviet Union at the time with a height of 63 metres (207 ft). In the 1920s, a 150 metres (490 ft) wooden radio tower was built on top of the building. During the interbellum period the city saw spread of architectural constructivism. One of the best representatives of it was the already mentioned Derzhprom, the Building of Red Army, the Ukrainian Polytechnic Institute of Distance Learning (UZPI), the building of city council with a massive asymmetric tower, the central department store that was opened at the 15th Anniversary of October Revolution. The same year on November 7, 1932 the building of Noblemen Assembly was transformed into the building of All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.
In 1928, the SVU (Union for the Freedom of Ukraine) process was initiated and court sessions were staged in the Kharkiv Opera (now the Philharmonia) building. Hundreds of Ukrainian intellectuals were arrested and deported.
In the early 1930s, the Holodomor famine drove many people off the land into the cities, and to Kharkiv in particular, in search of food. Many people died and were secretly buried in mass graves in the cemeteries surrounding the city.
In 1934 hundreds of Ukrainian writers, intellectuals and cultural workers were arrested and executed in the attempt to eradicate all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism in Art. The purges continued into 1938. Blind Ukrainian street musicians were also gathered in Kharkiv and murdered by the NKVD. In January 1935 the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was moved from Kharkiv to Kiev.
During April and May 1940 about 3,800 Polish prisoners of
