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This anthology of political writings of the Ukrainian underground during and immediately after the Second World War (1943-51) includes the works of the leading underground publicists who made a significant contribution to the development of Ukrainian political thought. The articles and documents collected here also mark several points at which important ideological shifts took place and changes were made in the organizational structure, strategy and tactics of the Ukrainian underground.
The underground struggle in Ukraine occurred in two stages, each with its own strategy and tactics and each determined by the specific conditions of the time.
The first stage (1941-4) was the period of German occupation. This period was characterized by the vigorous, large-scale development of partisan warfare waged by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armiia, UPA), which was created in 1942. The army's foremost task was to defend the population against the racist, destructive policies of the Nazis and against the marauding bands of Red partisans, which often behaved in the most callous and provocative manner toward the Ukrainian population. At this time the UPA grew into a major force (its peak strength was approximately 40,000) capable of clearing large regions of Ukrainian territory of the enemy and administering them on its own.
The underground writings of this period fully reflected the conditions of the struggle. They exposed the criminal policy of the Nazis toward Ukraine and neighbouring countries. They discussed the hostile attitude of the Ukrainian population to the occupiers. They indicated the need to develop proper countermeasures against the forcible conscription of young people for work in Germany and advised how best to resist the enemy. The writings of this period, which are full of optimism, express the belief that in the cataclysmic confrontation of the two brands of imperialism, Nazi and Soviet, both would perish, and that all the subject peoples of Europe, including the Ukrainians, would win a free and independent existence in their sovereign states.
The second stage (1945-51) is marked by a shift to new forms of struggle under conditions of renewed Soviet control. The years 1945-7 may be considered a transitional period characterized by large-scale armed resistance as heretofore, as well as intensive underground organization and activity of small conspiratorial groups.
During this second period the underground writers exhibited a more judicious and sober evaluation of the prospects for the liberation struggle. They were fully aware that the contest would be very long, complex, difficult and full of sacrifices. Nevertheless, they concluded that in the conditions of Soviet totalitarianism underground warfare was the only viable form of political struggle available to them. This activity was to be undertaken by small guerrilla detachments for purely political purposes. However, underground work in general was to be conducted in highly conspiratorial fashion with a view to the political education and mobilization of the masses.
This change of tactics and development of new forms of struggle represents only one side of the coin. The other side - much more important. in our opinion - manifested itself in the changes brought about within the ideological sphere. Organized Ukrainian nationalism had developed during the inter-war period as a reaction against the socialist and democratic populist currents which dominated the revolution of 1917-20. Before the revolution, the leading Ukrainian intellectuals in the Russian Empire favoured a decentralized federation with broad political and cultural autonomy for Ukraine. It was only after the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks had demonstrated their hostility to the federalist concept that the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed in January 1918. In the western Ukrainian lands under Habsburg rule, where the national movement was much farther advanced than in the Russian Empire, Ukrainian independence was seen as an ultimate goal to be achieved after a period of federation with Austria. The Western Ukrainian People's Republic was not proclaimed until November 1918, when Austria was on the point of collapse. The united Ukrainian republic, established in January 1919, was overwhelmed by the invading Russians and Poles.
The failure of the struggle for independence radicalized many who had taken part in it. For the ax-officers and soldiers of Ukrainian armies who formed the underground Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrainska viiskova orhanizatsiia, UVO) in 1921, it was axiomatic that the national identity of the Ukrainian people could find expression only in an independent state. Operating on the Ukrainian lands under Polish rule, the UVO carried on a terrorist campaign intended to disrupt the functioning of the Polish administration. In 1929, the UVO combined with representatives of student nationalist organizations to found the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv, OUN). Yevhen Konovalets, a prominent military commander during the revolution and head of the UVO, became the OUN's first leader.
The OUN adopted as its overriding political goal the attainment of an independent Ukrainian stateãa goal for which the organization's members were enjoined to struggle to the death. According to the programme adopted at the founding congress, political sovereignty could be attained only by means of a national revolution. Consequently, the OUN was strongly critical of all legal Ukrainian political parties, since they proposed to attain independence by evolutionary means. The OUN's corporatist social program, which emphasized state supervision of every aspect of national life, was inspired by the example of Mussolini's Italy. Yevhen Onatsky, a journalist and former diplomat of the Ukrainian People's Republic who had taken up residence in Rome, wrote enthusiastically about Mussolini's regime, which, in his view, had brought about the political rejuvenation of Italy. After becoming a member of the OUN leadership, Onatsky lobbied tirelessly with the Italian government for support of the Ukrainian national cause. Another leading OUN theoretician, Mykola Stsiborsky, proposed the establishment of a national dictatorship, a State Council, and corporate social organization on the Italian model in his work Natsiokratiia (Natiocracy), which appeared in 1935.
For all its advocacy of revolution, there was a strong conservative streak in the OUN leadership. Ukrainians were still overwhelmingly a peasant people, and the OUN leaders continued to think of Ukraine as a traditional agrarian society, assuring peasants that they would become landowners in an independent Ukrainian state. Stsiborsky devoted two pamphlets to the land question. Although he planned a brochure on Ukrainian workers, it was never published. The leadership's conservatism was also reflected in a resolution of the 1929 programme which declared that the government of an independent Ukraine would co operate with the church to foster the nation's moral education.
Thus, when Hitler took power in Germany, the OUN leaders were not prepared to endorse his ideology. In two outspoken articles, Onatsky insisted on the differences between Italian fascism and German Nazism, condemning the latter as imperialist, racist and anti-Christian. Stsiborsky devoted a chapter of Natsiakratiia to a critique of the Nazi dictatorship. Still, Germany was the most militantly anti-communist power in Europe and the only one that could be expected to go to war against the Soviet Union. Therefore, in spite of its reservations about Nazism, the OUN leadership maintained contacts with German military and intelligence circles, providing information about Polish government activities in order to finance its operations and attempting to interest the Germans in Ukrainian independence. "
The OUN's integral-nationalist programme and its tactical cultivation of the Germans had far-reaching ideological consequences. Even though the leadership was at pains to emphasize its political and ideological independence, it was hard put to resist the conviction that the Ukrainian nationalist movement was part of the fascist "wave of the future" which was sweeping Europe. This feeling was encouraged by the nationalist ideologue Dmytro Dontsov, who indiscriminately praised Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, La Rocque and Degrelle. Although Dontsov was never a member of the OUN, his writings exercised considerable influence on its younger members. Writers for the extensive nationalist press (frequently suppressed by the Polish authorities) often took positions compatible with Dontsov's; the few who polemicized with him, such as Onatsky and Stsiborsky, did not match his stature.
It was the younger nationalist cadres who shouldered the burden of OUN activity in Western Ukraine, organizing boycotts of Polish monopolies and state schools, distributing propaganda, and assassinating government officials and Ukrainians considered to have betrayed the national cause. The OUN leaders, meanwhile, lived in various cities of Central and Western Europe in order to escape arrest. When the Polish authorities penetrated the OUN in 1934 and sentenced many of its activists to long prison terms, the younger men's resentment of the older leadership became intense.
In May 1938 Konovalets was assassinated in Rotterdam, almost certainly by a Soviet agent. In order to forestall a challenge from the younger members, the leadership appointed an associate of Konovalets, Andrij Melnyk, as his successor. This was done on the basis of what was claimed to be Konovalets's verbally expressed will. Attempting to outdo the younger men in decisiveness, the leaders changed the OUN constitution to give the head of the organization absolute power. The manoeuvre backfired: in 1940, after the younger men had been released from prison, they formed a Revolutionary Leadership headed by Stepan Bandera, who had earlier served as leader of the OUN's Western Ukrainian Territorial Executive. Most of the membership acknowledged Bandera's authority, and the split became irrevocable.
The OUN's position in Western Ukraine was made virtually untenable by the Soviet occupation of this territory, which was carried out under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The Soviet army and secret police destroyed all independent institutions, killing or deporting as many politically active Ukrainians as they could find. 17 Hitler's acquiescence in the occupation was the second blow that he dealt the Ukrainian nationalists: earlier, in the spring of 1939, he had allowed the Hungarians to destroy the short-lived Carpatho- Ukrainian Republic, whose defence force the OUN had helped organize. Nevertheless, both factions of the OUN continued to hope for a Nazi-Soviet conflict that might give them an opportunity to assert Ukrainian independence. They formed expeditionary groups (pokhidni hrupy) whos task was to follow the Germans into Ukraine and seize power. The Bandera faction organized two battalions which trained with the German army. When the invasion took place, both OUN factions issued statements supporting the Germans, hoping that they would recognize Ukrainian independence in return for assistance against Russia. Still, it was recognized that the Germans might be hostile: the expeditionary groups were instructed to organize anti-German resistance if this should become necessary.
Hitler immediately showed that he had no intention of co-operating with the Ukrainian nationalists. He saw Ukraine exclusively as a territory for German exploitation; its "racially inferior" population was to be enslaved and exterminated. Thus, when the Bandera faction proclaimed Ukrainian independence in Lviv on 30 June 1941, the Gestapo arrested Bandera and his followers, imprisoning them in concentration camps for the duration of the war. Representatives of the Melnyk faction who planned the proclamation of a Ukrainian National Committee in Kiev were arrested and shot. Melnyk was kept under house arrest and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1944. The Gestapo began to round up and kill members of both nationalist factions. German policy toward the general population was equally ruthless: the Soviet collective farms were maintained in order to extract as much food as possible for the war effort, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were deported to Germany as slave labourers.
The nationalists who escaped the Gestapo's dragnet no longer had any reason to identify themselves with a fascist or Nazi "new Europe."
The process of ideological revision was given strong impetus by the expeditionary forces' contacts with eastern Ukrainians. Having survived the horrors of forced collectivization and Stalin's political purges, which had claimed millions of Ukrainian lives, these people flatly rejected the idea of a national dictatorship and one-party rule. They also obliged the nationalists to pay greater attention to social questions, for which the attainment of national independence had earlier been seen as a panacea.
The new situation gave rise to intense political debate among the OUN membership, which is reflected in the writings published in this volume. Among the most important publicists of this period were O. Brodovy, la. Busel, the Rev. Dr. I. Hryniokh (Kovalenko), lu. Khersonets, V. Mudry (Borovych), M. Prokop and M.V. Radovych. A leading role was played by D. Maivsky, who, as editor-in- chief of Ideia i Chyn (Idea and Action), the official organ of the OUN, strongly promoted the cause of ideological revision. The OUN publicists launched a powerful critique of Nazi and Soviet imperialism. Rejecting the political model of one-party dictatorship, they began to put forward the conception of Ukrainian nationalism as a revolutionary democratic force that would lead the struggle against both totalitarian powers. Ukraine was to rely primarily on her own forces, but these would be linked with the revolutionary strivings of other subject peoples. The nationalists' previous ideological distaste for the socialist and populist leaders of 1917-20 gave way to a recognition of the fundamental continuity of their struggle with the national revolution of that period.
The debate culminated in the convocation of the Third Extraordinary Grand Assembly of the OUN (Bandera faction) in August 1943 and the creation of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council in July 1944. It was at this time that the OUN adopted a collegial leadership and accepted significant elements of pluralism into its programme, the UPA was recognized as a military formation representing the whole Ukrainian people, and the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council was constituted as a non-partisan representative body co-ordinating the liberation struggle.
This reorientation did not come easily. For many members of the OUN, especially those with no first-hand experience of the wartime evolution, the OUN remained a monolithic revolutionary vanguard whose leadership was entitled to impose its policies both on the organization and on the Ukrainian people. The debate between proponents of centralism and pluralism raged for several years and was ultimately to split the Bandera faction of the OUN in the post-war emigration.
In Ukraine, however, the pluralist current triumphed. Beginning in 1944, a new group of highly talented and dedicated publicists began to assert itself in underground publications. O. Diakiv (Hornovy), U. Kuzhil, R. Mokh, A. Panasenko, P. Poltava, R. Shukhevych, Ia. Starukh (larlan) and others produced a substantial number of articles, pamphlets, appeals, leaflets and declarations in which they succeeded in defining and deepening the main tenets of the revised political program. Their writings, of which a generous sample appears in this volume, represent the "culmination of the development of the Ukrainian nationalist ideology towards greater emphasis on economic and social welfare, and upon securing individual rights."
This volume is divided into four parts. Although the editors did not attempt to organize the material in chronological order, most of the articlesãwith the exception of the programmatic documents in the fourth section of the bookãdo fall naturally into a rough chronological order.
The first section, "Ukraine in Imperialist Plans," is composed of articles which view Ukraine as the key political problem of Europe, with various imperialist powers (Russia, Germany and Poland) waging a struggle for control of her natural resources.
The article by O. Brodovy discusses the political tendencies that existed in Ukraine in the period between the world wars and explains why the principle of reliance on one's own forces, which came so strongly to the fore in 1917-20, was replaced by an orientation on foreign powers, especially on Germany. This orientation was undermined by German repression, which brought about the Ukrainian-German conflict and the establishment of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
In an article written in 1942, here translated in abbreviated form, I.M. Kovalenko (I. Hryniokh) analyzes the ideological basis of the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe, with emphasis on Ukraine. The article points out that Hitler and other Nazi theorists defined Ukraine as Lebensraum for the German race; the original inhabitants were to be killed or turned into slaves. Despite its interference with the war effort, this plan was put into effect immediately following the German military occupation. In the author's view, German imperialism is the enemy of all European nations. The Russian Bolsheviks, for their part, carry on the war against Germany purely as imperialist competitors. All conquered peoples are therefore faced with an inevitable decision on which their liberation depends: to unite in a single revolutionary front against the rapacious imperialism of Berlin and Moscow.
The article by la.V. Borovych (V. Mudry) examines the conflict-ridden history of Polish Ukrainian relations and calls for a common front against the Russian and German imperialists. The author, who was deputy speaker of the Polish parliament in the 1930s, is rather pessimistic about the prospects for such co-operation. As he puts it: "The entire history of our mutual relations and all the experience garnered over centuries teach us that even when its own people is undergoing the greatest tragedies and sufferings, the Polish ruling class is unwilling to renounce its plans to subjugate other peoples, particularly Ukrainians..."
The work by U. Kuzhil surveys the growth of the Russian Empire from the time of Ivan III (1462-1505) to the Second World War. The author describes the main goals of Russian expansionism and shows how this policy was implemented in different periods, whether by means of military invasion, penetration by agents, annexation, treachery, deceit, or straightforward conquest. He also examines the foreign policies, diplomatic maneuvers, propaganda campaigns and other activities that formed part of Russian imperial policy. The author considers the Bolsheviks true successors of the tsarist imperialists who falsify history and depict Russian conquests as voluntary unions, "progressive" and "noble" events that abetted the economic and cultural development of the conquered peoples, when in fact the exact opposite is true.
The last article in this section, written by P. Duma (D. Maivsky), reads like a continuation of the preceding article. The author underscores the fact that the USSR is "not 'the bastion of the world proletarian revolution,' but a Russian imperialist state which uses the slogans of socialism to implement its imperialist concept." To prove this contention, the author describes in detail the structure of the socioeconomic, political and military system of the USSR. But most of the article is devoted to the brutal methods used by the Kremlin in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia, which are camouflaged by Soviet propaganda as the "democratization" of these countries. The essay, offered as a warning to European nations against the Soviet threat, nevertheless ends on an optimistic note. The Russian Bolshevik empire will be destroyed from within by a united front of subject peoples.
The second section of the book, which is devoted to "Ideological Questions," contains five articles. In his essay "Idealism or Materialism: Which Philosophy are Members of the OUN Obliged to Follow?" O. Hornovy (Diakiv) argues that, "given that the correctness of either idealism or materialism has not yet been scientifically established," it would be harmful for a political organization "to bind [itself] categorically to one or the other philosophy."
For the same reason, he continues, "our organization grants full freedom to its members to profess either philosophical idealism or materialism." According to him, "the full, all-round development of the Ukrainian nation in an independent, united Ukrainian state, the creation of a truly national regime and a classless society, the destruction of imperialism, the establishment of international accord among free and equal sovereign states of all peoplesãthese fundamental points of our ideology do not lose any of their mobilizing power by the fact that we do not recognize the primacy either of spirit or of matter." To proceed otherwise would be to follow in Stalin's footsteps, with the result that an "ideology can maintain itself only by political force." Futhermore, "since it is fighting for a truly national regime that will guarantee all democratic rights and freedoms to the people, the OUN will not attempt, in a free and independent Ukrainian state, to make its own ideology supreme."
In "The Scientific Validity of Dialectical Materialism," U. Kuzhil develops some of Hornovy's assertions even further by pointing out that the claim of dialectical materialism to scientific validity is severely undermined by recent scientific discoveries. The insistence of Soviet ideologues that their policies are based on scientific theory is simply political sleight of hand. In the author's view, "Marxist 'theory' stands in contradiction to the most recent, experimentally and theoretically grounded conclusions reached by physics." Therefore, he concludes, "if Marx's greatest achievement was to transfer the principles of dialectical materialism from natural phenomena to society in the form of historical materialism, then the teachings of historical materialism about society have as much value as the teachings of dialectical materialism about inorganic nature: that is, the value of fantasy."
In "The Spectre of Fascism," Iarlan (la. Starukh) describes and analyzes the fundamental characteristics of the fascist totalitarian regimes of Europe and, by means of an extended comparison, demonstrates quite convincingly that the USSR functions according to the same principles. According to him, "Italian fascism, German Nazism, and Russian Bolshevism are identical totalitarian movements and systems that came into existence and developed in various European countries after the First World War. They are all typical totalitarian systems and are so very much alike that we could call Bolshevism Russian fascism absolutely without hesitation, or, better still, Russian Nazism, whereas Nazism could equally well be called German Bolshevism."It is well to remember that these words were written in one of the underground bunkers exactly ten years before the publication of Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, a work which gave a strong impetus to the concept of totalitarianism and helped shape the thinking of thousands of Western intellectuals well into the 1970s.
The last two articles in this section are both by P. Poltava. In "Our Teachings About the National State," he admits at the outset that "our doctrine with regard to the state has grown out of the ideological and political struggle that we have been waging on two frontsãagainst the imperialist views voiced by representatives of the great powers and against Marxist views of the state." In this article he begins by taking issue with the Marxist view of the state, which he considers quite false. In the first place, the Marxists are mistaken in their analysis of the rise of the state. Secondly, while their criticism of the shortcomings of the state during various historical periods is correct, their conclusion that in future nations will be able to manage without states is "utopian, fantastic and deprived of any basis in reality." On the contrary, "a system of free national states of all peoples represents not only the most just solution to the problem of international order, but also the most viable, the most suited to reality." But this is not enough: in order "to prevent the state from being a tool of exploitation and oppression employed by the wealthy classes against their own working masses, it is necessary to rebuild the present social order on the basis of a classless society." Only then will the state become, as it was at its very beginning, "simply a form of organization of the internal economic and cultural life of the nation and a tool of defence against external enemies." With the establishment of a truly just international order, even the defence function will disappear and the state will "only retain the function of organizing the internal economic and cultural life of the nation."
Poltava's "The Concept of an Independent Ukraine and Current Political Trends in the World" is one of his most important essays, vital to the understanding of the theoretical positions and programme of the Ukrainian national-liberation movement. His concept is that of an independent Ukrainian state on Ukrainian ethnic territory, for he strongly believes that only in its own state can a people be guaranteed all-round economic and spiritual development. Moreover, to ensure the most complete, harmonious development of a nation, the state should have a democratic regime and a socio-economic system that eliminates all exploitation of one person by another. For him, the best socio-economic system is one that combines state, co-operative and private ownership, allowing for a free market and private initiative. Some of the notions presented here manifest a striking resemblance to a number of theoretical propositions developed in Yugoslavia after its break with the Soviet Union in 1948.
In Poltava's view, current political developments are the result of struggles between contradictory forces. Thus, the struggle waged by workers for a fair share of the national product and for social reform fostered an improvement in their economic position, eliminated the need for violent social revolutions, led to more harmonious relations among different social classes, and thereby substantially strengthened the nation. Other contradictions, for example, those among various empires, led to the weakening and even the collapse of some of them and to the birth of new national states. The major contradiction at present is, in Poltava's opinion, between ruling and subject peoples and the attendant revolutions waged by liberation movements, as well as peaceful political struggles waged by colonies for their independence. Sooner or later, these struggles always end in victory for the subject peoples, who gain their independence. "The current period of history," says the author, "is the period of the emancipation of hitherto subject peoples in Europe and around the world."
Proceeding from these basic assumptions, the author offers a rather optimistic view of the international order of the future. He predicts that empires will disappear, to be replaced by independent national states which will work together as equals. The Ukrainian liberation struggle is therefore in accord with current tendencies in world politics and is destined to triumph. "We who struggle for an independent Ukrainian state and for the right of every people to live a free life in its own independent state can say of ourselves, in the words of Ivan Franko: We are the prologue, not the epilogue!"
The six essays grouped in Part III, "Strategy and Tactics of the Ukrainian Liberation Movement," address themselves primarily to internal Ukrainian problems in the struggle for independence. In his essay, "At the Turning Point," Iu.M. Khersonets discusses the extent to which Ukrainian youth was socialized into the Soviet system by the Russian Bolsheviks and comes to the conclusion that only a small group really supports the system. The majority are either confused or indifferent. But the war is changing their attitude, and the turning point has been reached. According to the author, more and more of them are beginning to embrace the idea of an independent Ukraine. "Yesterday, these young people numbered in the hundreds. Today, they number in the thousunds, and, when hundreds of thousands and millions take this path, ultimate victory will be ours," he concludes.
The essay on "Internal Obstacles to the Ukrainian National-Liberation Struggle" by P.T. Duma (D. Maivsky) is similar in tone. Written, like the previous one, in 1943, it addresses itself primarily to the psychological dilemmas which the Ukrainian nation faces in its struggle for independence. These include an orientation on foreign powers, a lack of faith in one's own capacities, political divisions in the form of small groupings struggling one against another, the lack of a single representative political institution to co-ordinate the struggle and represent the nation abroad, the merely regional ethnic self-identification of the population in Eastern Ukraine, and excessive parochialism in Western Ukraine. These are the internal obstacles which, according to the author, are being overcome in the revolutionary war of struggle against the German and Russian occupiers.
The next two articles are by P. Poltava. In "Our Battle Plan for the Liberation of Ukraine under the Present Circumstances," Poltava discusses the adaptation of battle tactics to the new conditions of Soviet occupation. The tasks facing the nationalists, as he sees them, are: to maintain and extend the underground organization, to conduct extensive political, educational and propaganda activity among all the peoples of the USSR; and to organize large-scale resistance by Ukrainians and other peoples to the Russian-Bolshevik oppressors, both in the form of sabotage and individual initiative and in the form of military action where conditions warrant.
The second essay, "Preparatory Steps Toward the Third World War and the Tasks of the Ukrainian People," written after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, analyzes the concepts of war and peace from the point of view of Ukrainian national interests and sets forth the tasks to be accomplished by the Ukrainian people should the Third World War become inevitable. Their principal task will be "to make use of this war for the purpose of attaining their complete national and social liberation and overthrowing Muscovite-Bolshevik rule in Ukraine and in the whole of the USSR." But this is possible only if every Ukrainian is aware of the true political situation in the world and in the Soviet Union and is willing to act in defence of his nation.
The article by D. Shakhai (Iosyp Pozychaniuk), "Our Tactics with Regard to the Russian People," is the second part of a longer work entitled "Problems Relating to the Struggle for an Independent United Ukrainian State." It was a memorandum written in 1943 for use in the discussion that took place among the leading activists of the Ukrainian underground with a view to re-evaluating the political strategy and tactics of the resistance movement. A chapter about the Vlasov movement which was added to this memorandum in 1944 is omitted here, while the first part is missing altogether and could not be located. According to the author, besides adopting a democratic and socially progressive programme, establishing an all Ukrainian political leadership and creating a strong and creditable political party, the Ukrainian underground must formulate an intelligent policy toward the Russian people in order to bring them into a common front of struggle for the overthrow of the communist regime. This can be achieved only if Ukrainians stop preaching "racial nationalism" and put forward universal ideas which will have the power to mobilize all those dissatisfied with the Soviet regime, including the Russians. These are the ideas of political freedom, social justice and the transformation of the USSR into a group of independent democratic states which will co-operate with one another on the basis of true equality.
The author sees two distinct tactical stages in the struggle: the organization of a revolution in the whole of the USSR and the establishment and consolidation of the Ukrainian state. During the first stage, he advises, all anti-Bolshevik forces (even the Russian monarchists and the Vlasov movement) should be encouraged. At the same time, a democratic front of subject peoples must be organized, but it is to include only those movements that are fully committed to the destruction of the empire. During the second stage, he foresees the possibility of a conflict with those Russians who might wish to re-establish the empire and again subjugate Ukraine. But he does not believe that these forces would be very popular, for the Russian masses have come to realize that the maintenance of the empire denies them their own liberty and requires great material and human sacrifices of them.
The article "Our Attitude Toward the Russian People" by O. Hornovy (Diakiv), written six years later, continues this general theme and follows the line of argument presented by D. Shakhai. Quoting the resolutions of the Third Extraordinary Grand Assembly of the OUN, the author states: "The OUN's struggle is not directed against the Russian people. It aims at liberating Ukraine from oppression by the Russian-Bolshevik invaders. The OUN maintains that the Russian state should correspond to Russia's ethnic territory and should not extend beyond those boundaries. We aspire to the closest possible cooperation with the Russian people as long as they live in their own national state as defined by their ethnic boundaries, as long as they do not oppose the Ukrainian people's efforts to attain freedom and as long as they renounc e imperialism and fight for the destruction of their own imperialist cliques."
The articles by D. Shakhai and O. Hornovy are of the utmost importance for the understanding of the theoretical position and programme of the Ukrainian underground on this crucial question.
The fourth section of the book, "Programmatic Documents and Appeals," includes seven documents which span the period between 1943 and 1949. The most important among them are the "Resolutions of the Third Extraordinary Grand Assembly of the OUN" of August 1943, "What is the UPA Fighting For?", also dated August 1943, and the principal documents of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council, created in July 1944, including the council's "General Proclamation," "Platform" and "Provisional Organization." The last two documents in this section are an open letter from Ukrainians living on the territories ceded to Poland, protesting their forcible evacuation to the USSR, and an "Appeal from Embattled Ukraine to All Ukrainians Abroad" bidding them to do their utmost to liberate their homeland.
The "Resolutions of the Third Extraordinary Grand Assembly of the OUN" are remarkable primarily because of the new ideological statements that they embody. The document consists of three sectionsãa lengthy preamble, programmatic resolutions and political resolutionsãof which the second is the most interesting. Its basic principles are as follows. In the sphere of international relations, both the Russian and German forms of imperialism as well as all other imperialist conceptions are rejected. The OUN declares itself in favour of the recognition of the right of every people to independence and selfgovernment on its ethnic territory. In the area of socio-economic organization, it rejects privilege based on the principle of ownership (landlords, capitalists) or party membership (exemplified by the party elites in the USSR and in Nazi Germany). In a free Ukraine, large industries, banks, trade and commercial enterprises are to remain nationalized, while enterprises of medium size are to be in private hands. Similar plans are made for agriculture, although peasants are to be guaranteed a free choice of individual or co-operative ventures.
Other provisions of this declaration guarantee workers' rights (the free choice of workplace, appropriate conditions and wages, social security, free trade unions, the right to strike, etc.), proclaim the equality of women, offer freedom to the professions and guarantee care for the young, the elderly and the disadvantaged. Additional provisions guarantee equal rights to all citizens, including freedom of speech, the press, freedom of ideas and beliefs, freedom of conscience and the right of minorities freely to develop their cultures. The programme also rejects official status for any doctrine. It does not discuss the structure of the future government, but aims generally at the radical democratization of existing legal and social structures in the Ukrainian SSR and emphasizes those principles which guarantee individual freedoms and a just socio-economic system.
The document "What is the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Fighting For?" is a shorter version of the programmatic resolutions described above. There existed an earlier version of this declaration? signed by the OUN leadership, under the title "What is the RevolutionaryLiberationist UPA Fighting For?" There are interesting differences in emphasis between the two versions. The provision for the free return of land to private ownership in the earlier version was modified to read that "the Ukrainian national regime will not impose on farmers any one method of working the land." Also, in the second version, provision was made for compulsory secondary education and the separation of church and state. In addition, the original ending was excised.
The remaining materials are the principal statutory documents of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council, the "Provisional Organization," "Platform" and "General Proclamation.
The first document establishes the organizational structure of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council and sets out the rights, obligations and duties of its individual bodies, such as the Grand Assembly, the Presidium, the General Secretariat, the General Court and the Board of Control. The council is designated "the highest governing body of the Ukrainian people" during the period of struggle for sovereignty.54 The membership of the council numbers twenty-five persons who may belong to any political party as long as they "support Ukrainian sovereignty, accept the political platform adopted by the Assembly of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council and are ready at all times to put its programme into practice." It is important to point out that this provision cancelled the previous claim of the OUN to monolithic control of the underground forces. The composition of the council substantiates this ideological shift at least partially. The emphasis on the fact that the council was established at the initiative of the UPA and not the OUN is also important in this connection.
The document suffers from poor drafting. The best example of this is the repeated confusion in reference to the "Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council" and the "Grand Assembly of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council." As Armstrong has written, "these obscurities... appear to have resulted from insufficient training in law and logic and from lack of real interest in constitutional questions."
The "Platform" sets forth the council's political programme. It stresses that the council was established on the principle of Ukraine's political independence of foreign powers, that it will wage its struggle in co-operation with other subject peoples, and that its aim is to achieve peaceful co-existence with Ukraine's neighbours "on the basis of mutual recognition of the right of every people to its own state on its ethnic territory."
In the exposition of the council's political and social programme, the following points are made: the Ukrainian state is to have a democratic form of government which will guarantee freedom of thought, worldview and belief, the rule of law and the legal equality of all citizens, full rights for national minorities, equal educational opportunity, freedom in the choice of occupation and the protection of workers by social legislation In the economic sphere only the basic national wealth of the country (including land), heavy industry and national transport are to remain nationalized. Other sectors of the economy are to be left to cooperatives and private individuals. On the one hand, emphasis is placed on the exercise of free initiative in the economy (i.e., "free trade"), while on the other, the right is reserved for the state to guarantee a just social order, "free of class exploitation and oppression."
The "General Proclamation" or "Universal" corresponds in its content to the "Platform," but is written in a more popular and emotional style, with many a patriotic turn of phrase, in an obvious attempt to mobilize the patriotism of the masses. This aim of the "General Proclamation" was probably misunderstood by Armstrong, who criticized it for containing too much "romanticized history and emotional appeals for action" instead of giving a proposal of clearly defined steps to be taken.
The articles selected for this volume are presented in their entirety (with the exception of those by I.M. Kovalenko and D. Shakhai, which are much too long to reproduce completely) as documents of a particular historical period, even though they contain repetitious material, several inaccuracies and many vague formulations. The reader should keep in mind that these essays were written under conditions of difficult struggle, without access to libraries or works of reference, by individuals who in most cases were not professional journalists. In view of this it is remarkable how clearly the articles are written and how convincingly and passionately they argue their case.
In order to make the material more understandable to Western students, the editors have attempted to present as much explanatory information as possible in the notes and have provided brief biographical sketches of the authors whose works comprise this volume.
To the extent possible, sources of quotations have been identified and references provided to standard editions of the works from which they are taken. Renderings of quotations, however, are those of the translator.
Peter J. Potichnyj
Yevhen Shtendera
National Library Library
of Canada
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