Vladyslav Starodoubtsev
Since the beginning of modern historiography Ukrainian history has been treated differently to that of other countries. The ideological pressure of the occupying state USSR as well as hostile Russian and Polish diaspora organizations supported a biased approach towards Ukrainian history, ignoring the principles of proportionality and any notion of comparative analysis. The ideological pressure of the occupying state USSR as well as hostile Russian and Polish diaspora organizations supported a biased approach towards Ukrainian history, ignoring the principles of proportionality and any notion of comparative analysis. Many xenophobic narratives were constructed, including the narrative of Ukrainians as antisemitic nation, Ukrainians as “sub-ethnicity” of the Russian nation, and Ukrainians as fascistic nation.
In the USSR, these narratives were enforced through state propaganda in education and schooling, while abroad numerous operations were carried out to discredit any opposition to the USSR.. Among these false narratives are false portrayals of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, a social-democratic multicultural state defending its sovereignty against Russian invasion in 1917-1921, and a false image of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and its activities from 1942 to 1950s. Many other historical narratives were created or spread, relating medieval history, history of the Russian Empire and so on, that ignores the independent history of pre-modern Ukraine.
However, the main subject of the propaganda and xenophobic politics of remembrance is undeniably Ukraine's role in the Second World War. Russia is portrayed as the sole defender against Nazism, which provides a legitimate reason to pressure Germany to allow Russia to commit its own genocide against the Ukrainians. Parts of the Ukrainian resistance against the Soviet Union undeniably cooperated with the National Socialists, if not ideologically, then tactically, and were involved in massacres. However, the mere discussion of the character and activities of the Ukrainian partisans during the Second World War raises the suspicion of sympathizing with National Socialism. At the same time, the idea of Ukrainian self-government is delegitimized. Russian propaganda cleverly formulates this as follows: If Ukrainians are granted the right to self-government, they will create a National Socialist state.
Unfortunately, those narratives were unchallenged for a long time, or even welcomed by Western and Eastern World that for years learned the history of Ukraine and whole Eastern Europe (as well as Central Asia, Caucasus, Siberia etc) through the eyes of a Russian professor. Fortunately, progress has been made. One of the important steps was a statement by Ukrainian and German academics released on 8th May 2024, underlining the new approaches to the history of World War II and memory politics. It states:
“Putin's Russia adopted the Soviet interpretation of May 9, 1945 and the Soviet myth of the "Great Patriotic War". Russia announced the appropriation of the victory of the USSR in the Second World War in order to justify its encroachments on the leading roles in the international arena, as well as its claim to hegemony over the former Soviet territories.
The policy of commemorating the Soviet victory and commemorating the "Great Patriotic War" served to confirm Russia's imperial ambitions in relation to its neighbors”
Moreover, the statement describes Ukrainian contribution in the victory in WWII through the participation of Ukrainians in Soviet Union’s and Allied armies, as well as Soviet, Ukrainian, Slovak and Yugoslavian partisan resistance. The suffering of Ukrainian Jews are being taken into account and have been recognized.
What is also important, it's a step in a recognition of the history of Eastern Europe in WWII: The “bloodlands” of multiple massacres and extreme violence in the region, stuck between two totalitarian dictatorships (as described by Timothy Snyder). The lack of historical awareness in the West was one reason that led to a lack of understanding of Russian imperialism. The West did not understand that its security was massively threatened by Russia. Accordingly, the West was surprised by the outbreak of war in 2022. “The dominant view of May 8, 1945 in Germany influenced the fact that the beginning of a new great war in Europe became so unexpected for many. The key reason was the universal exclusion of the historical experience of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, from the dominant historical picture of the 20th century in Germany. So, in the future, their experience that the end of the war meant not only liberation, but also a new occupation, should become a part of historical memory”. In that context, “First of all, in the Baltic countries and in the west of Ukraine, May 8/9, 1945 was not the end of the war and mass violence, instead strong armed resistance continued there against the resumption of Soviet occupation. It was brutally suppressed by the Soviet army and security forces, not least through mass deportations of civilians”.
The statement made a great progress in recognizing the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) as a legitimate actor in the region and refers to the Soviet mass terror in Eastern Europe - the region that had already suffered the most in Europe during the Second World War. That said, the discussion is critical and requires the most careful and unbiased approach. The political necessity and importance of our memory both dictate the need to approach the topic strictly, engage it rigorously and in such a way that not to make infantile statements that won’t hold against the political tides and time.
One of the most controversial topics in connection with the Ukrainian resistance against the Soviet Union is the personality of Stephan Bandera, the leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists(b). In Ukraine, he is honored for his resistance against the Soviet Union. However, this has also met with criticism, not least from veterans of the partisan resistance themselves. There is enough praise and criticism for him, often biased, that requires a detailed outlook in the spirit of new mentioned approaches and critical outlook.
In 1929, in Poland the OUN arose from the merger of small fascist, ultranationalist and nationalist student organizations with the Ukrainian Military Organization, a conservative veteran group. While most veterans supported pragmatic approaches and some form of military dictatorship, student groups developed their own radical far-right ideology based on irrationalism, devotion to the state, cult of violence and voluntarism.
In the interwar period, the radicals of the OUN focused on terrorist actions against the Polish occupation and against Ukrainian politicians they deemed unworthy. Such actions created a very personalistic and highly centralized, closed organization that presented itself as the antithesis of the traditional Ukrainian political forces - the National Democratic Party and the Socialist Radical Party. The isolationism of the OUN led to increasingly radical initiatives, paranoia and acts of sabotage against the Ukrainian national movement.
Stephan Bandera was one of the founders of OUN(b) leading the split of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists into the moderate wing under the leadership of Andriy Melnyk and radical wing under the command of Stephan Bandera. Another split, at that time from OUN(b), occurred in the same year, with the left-wing group of Ivan Mytrynha. It mounted an additional ideological pressure on OUN(b).
In 1941, OUN(b) declared the creation of the Ukrainian state under the leadership of Stephan Bandera. Evhen Stahiv, one of the OUN(b) members, writes in his memoirs that there was a possibility to create a government of national unity from all the forces of Ukrainian political life, but due to stubbornness by the OUN(b) it would focus on creation of one-party state and brutally repress other Ukrainian forces.
After the proclamation of the Ukrainian state, Stephan Bandera was imprisoned by the Germans from 1941 to September 1944 and was only able to influence the policies of the OUN(b) to a limited extent. While Bandera was treated with respect by members of OUN(b) in Ukraine, decisions were taken on the ground, with new leaders and influences. There, the crucial evolution of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists(b) unfolded: In 1943, its leadership adopted a social-democratic nationalist program; a year before it formed a Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA), both of which were important changes in strategy and ideology.
Two crucial rifts arisen at that time between Stephan Bandera who was still in German captivity on one side, and OUN(b) and UIA on the ground on the other. In Late 1944 Stephan Bandera and a number of other OUN(b) members were released by the Third Reich. At the same time, the rapidly changing frontline and geopolitical situation forced OUN(b) and UIA to send groups abroad, to organize refugees and establish diplomatic connections. While in Ukraine, more or less everyone agreed that totalitarian program couldn’t suffice (still, many violent coercive practices and repressive apparatus persisted, and was somewhat limited only after the war) to Ukrainian realities, it is abroad we see growing conflict and a split of OUN(b) between those two groups on the issue of democracy.
Bandera and his supporters carefully declared the need to reintroduce the ideas of a totalitarian one-party system, cult of personality, incorporate elements of racism and xenophobia of the Ukrainian ultranationalist philosopher Dontsov, into the new program and remove what they deemed as “adaptation to communism”, such as democratism, egalitarianism and secularism of the 1943 OUN(b) program. An emphasis was given on mysticism and voluntarism.
The conflict was waged by means of physical violence from the side of supporters of Bandera, which resulted in a number of assassinations against democratic nationalists and left-wing republicans that dominated Ukrainian opposition at that moment.
The ideological thinking of the totalitarian OUN(b) was guided by pre-war OUN principles and formed on the basis of the general disappointment in democratic methods of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and the influence of the success of authoritarian and totalitarian forces. It was concluded that those regimes that relied on totalitarian systems like the USSR, Nazi Germany and Italy, or, like Poland, at least on authoritarian methods, were successful, while democratic countries like Ukraine failed. These beliefs, together with putting the blame for Ukraine’s defeat on other nationalities, such as Jewish, formed a negative background of the formation of OUN ideology.
However, the reality of partisan warfare and agitation in the mainland, communication with different social and national groups, forced members of OUN(b) to radically review and change their views and approaches. Which also motivated a great integration of new members to the movement, who were mostly sympathetic to socialist and democratic ideals. Another factor of changing positions was the experience of German terror.
Those who were in German captivity from 1941 missed the insights that other members gained through activities in Ukraine and interaction with new members from Eastern Ukraine. As a result, programmatic changes that happened in the occupied countries were foreign for those who lacked experience of Ukrainian realities.
The most important political conflicts within the OUN(b) abroad began in 1945, when Bandera and his supporters demanded that the organization be centralized and that criticism within the organization be banned. Bandera's policy was to reject a democratic program, which he justified with the need to preserve the conspiratorial-revolutionary character of the movement. But it was also a question of personal sympathies: Bandera's supporters wanted to maintain the cult of personality and transfer the leadership to him.
While OUN(b) and UIA in Ukraine came to support a democratic program, it was different in Germany. In the OUN(b) abroad (that existed with some organizational autonomy) mainly due to technical reasons and coercion, Bandera had a small majority. De-facto, at that moment three OUN(b) existed: the majority of the OUN(b) abroad which was loyal to Bandera; the minority of the OUN(b) abroad that was loyal to the OUN(b) in Ukraine; and the OUN(b) in Ukraine itself together with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
Bandera saw a democratic program as “foreign influence”, an unnecessary step aside from the totalitarian tradition of OUN: “Efforts are emerging to make the main slogan of the liberation "for democracy". To conduct a revolution under it, to mobilize the masses for the most difficult struggle, for life or death, against Bolshevism. This means to deprive our revolution of its own, clear ideological face, own personal slogans, flags, and to cover them with those that the enemy presented as their own...". For Bandera, democracy was the denial of Ukrainian nationalism, while for the reformers, democracy was Ukrainian nationalism.
Another difference was the relationship to the “enemy nations”. For Bandera, entire nations were enemies of the Ukrainian movement, while the democratic opposition considered such an approach unethical. They only fought the imperialist policies of other nations, but did not accuse entire nations. Programmatic differences also existed in social questions, where the democrats within the OUN (b) adopted a program of “classless society”, based on relatively equal small private ownership on land, and cooperative and state ownership on medium and big enterprises under the principle that in Ukrainian society there should be no rich or poor. This put the emphasis on the program of social welfare; in its program, the opposition adopted positions of social and political gender equality, while the Banderite faction represented more conservative positions and criticized the opposition for having a woman as its leader, Daria Rebet, among other things.
Democratic positions were supported by two leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — Roman Shykhevych and Vasyl Kuk, and by a majority of the Ukrainian insurgents. Outside of Ukraine, however, Bandera provoked a split and tried to intimidate supporters of Ukrainian Insurgent Army’s position by assassinations and repressions.
Main enemies for the “Banderite” group of OUN(b) were the Ukrainian Revolutionary-Democratic Party (URDP), founded by Ivan Bahryaniy in exile, and the Ukrainian Main Liberation Council, founded by Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the OUN(b) on Ukrainian land.
Political murder was part of the everyday life of the Bandera faction in their struggle for power: they did not even shy away from an assassination attempt on Vasyl Kuk, leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
In the end, there were two opposing currents in the OUN(b): one totalitarian and one democratic. Stephan Bandera despised democracy and was prepared to inflict serious damage on the Ukrainian national movement in order to achieve his personal or programmatic goals. It is at the same time important to underline that democratic positions of UIA and OUN(b) on Ukrainian land are not always correlated with its actions: it still practiced ethnic based violence and massive repressive campaigns, motivated by paranoia.
Discussions about the organization of Ukrainian nationalists and Ukraine's role in World War II are still young and far from over. The long political activity of the “totalitarian faction” abroad has in many ways led to the suppression of the voices of other Ukrainian organizations. The politics of history in Ukraine today misinterprets Bandera in more ways than one, creating an unhealthy image that only vaguely matches the actual character of the historical figure.
There are many mistakes as well as achievements in Ukraine’s history policy and the inclusion of Eastern European history in the World’s history. It is more important than ever to discuss Ukrainian history, and promote Ukrainian perspective, critically engage with Russian propagandist narratives while being careful not to adopt uncritically false approaches. The new Bandera cult in Ukraine is ahistorical and trivializes its totalitarian character - it urgently needs to be critically questioned. The Ukrainian independence movement has strong democratic traditions that oppose totalitarianism, cult of personality, one-party rule and xenophobia. Picking up on these would be the task of a democratic historical policy in Ukraine. In the West, on the other hand, it is necessary to unravel the history of the Ukrainian resistance against the Soviet Union.
Notes:
- Stachiv Je. Kriz′ tjurmy, pidpillja j kordony. Kyjiv : RADA, 1995. st. 88-89.
- Prohramni postanovy Tret′oho Velykoho Zboru OUN (S. Bandery), 25.8.1943, URL: https://hai-nyzhnyk.in.ua/doc2/1943(08)25.oun..php
- See in detail about the conflict between the factions of OUN abroad in: R. Kryčevs′kyj: OUN v Ukrajini, OUN (z) i ZČ OUN: pryčynok do istoriji ukrajins′koho nacionalistyčnoho ruchu,. Vydannja Polityčnoji Rady Odnodumciv OUN v N′ju-Jork/Toronto, 1962.
- Stepan Bandera u dokumentach radjans′kych orhaniv deržavnoji bezpeky (1939–1959) Tom 3, / Za zah. red. V. Serhijčuka; uporjad.: V. Serhijčuk, I. Bilokin′, S. Kokin, S. Serdjuk. Haluzevyj deržavnyj archiv služby bezpeky Ukrajiny/Haluzevyj deržavnyj archiv služby zovnišn′oji rozvidky Ukrajiny, 2009, s. 223.
- Rol′ Schidnoji Ukrajiny u formuvanni novych idejno-polityčnych zasad OUN-b, Jevhen Stachiv