The Ukrainian Resistance/Liberation Movement led by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) had been accused by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia of supporting the opposing side during World War II.
FACTS: This conflicting disinformation that was promoted by Hitler’s and Stalin’s propaganda machines is reflected in countless documents of the time. To witness:
Nazi accusation
“Ukrainian people, take notice!...Moscow gives orders to the OUN! Moscow’s agents, who receive and carry out orders from bloodthirsty Stalin and his Jewish henchmen, took root in the leadership of OUN…We know the leaders of these bandit groups. They are Moscow’s hirelings…The OUN and Bolshevism [Sovietism] are one and the same – that is why both must be destroyed! German Administration” (From German leaflets dropped from planes over Ternopil oblast (province), Ukraine, July 1943)
Soviet accusation
“[…] Your enemy is also the gang of German-Ukrainian nationalists. Having sold themselves to Hitler, all those [Stepan] Banderas, [Andriy] Melnyks and [Taras] Bulbas [Ukrainian insurgency leaders during WWII] are helping to subjugate our people, our Ukraine… They are setting up armed groups of fake partisans [UPA] with fake allegations that these units are to fight against the Germans… The Ukrainian-German nationalists are really Hitler’s accomplices. They want to break the brotherly bond between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples, to tear Soviet Ukraine away from the family of Soviet nations… And this is what they call creating ‘independence’ for Ukraine […]. Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine [Nikita Khrushchev and other Soviet officials]” (From a Soviet Government Appeal to Ukrainians, Kyiv, 12 January 1944)
The above two conflicting accusations point to the FACT that the OUN-UPA, its leaders and membership constituted an independent, never beholden to ANY THIRD PARTY PLAYERS, resistance/liberation movement of the Ukrainian people. This is documented by a vast number of Nazi and Soviet documents, as well as massive OUN/UPA archives assembled both in Ukraine and abroad. The following OUN Appeal to the Ukrainian people (early 1943) “What Should We Be Fighting For?” addresses the above-made point:
“[…] It is already almost two years that a second imperialist war is raging in the East. This is not a war for peoples’ interests. Two imperialisms, those of Berlin and Moscow, entangled themselves to satisfy their predatory appetites. The war between Moscow and Germany is first of all a war over a resources-rich Ukraine – for our grain, coal and iron… What is then the goal and a way out of this current extremely difficult situation? The goal is – a Ukrainian Independent United State. And the road to it – a National Revolution of the Ukrainian people against the invaders… Ukraine was and shall be independent!... The battle for Ukraine’s statehood is led by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists under the leadership of Stepan Bandera…Ukrainian farmers, workers and working intelligentsia: Join the ranks of the Ukrainian independence movement under the OUN banner!... Death to the invaders of Ukraine and their hirelings! […].”
Unfortunately for historical FACTS and TRUTH, the disinformation campaign and outright lies targeting Ukraine’s national aspirations launched by Stalin’s Russia linger to this very day in the world information space, mainly because of the subversive efforts of Putin’s Russia and its fellow travellers and enablers in the West.
To set the record straight is the purpose of our “Project FACTS” – BASED ON FACTS!
References
“Between Hitler and Stalin. Ukraine in World War II: The Untold Story” (2013).
“The Third Reich and the Ukrainian Question: Documents, 1934-1944” (1991).
“Wolodymyr Kosyk, The Third Reich and Ukraine” (1993).
PART I – SOVIET UNION, NAZI GERMANY, ORGANIZATION OF UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS
Question: Soviet Union and Nazi Germany: Allies or Foes?
Facts:
Allies and partners in crime in the first phase of World War II, 1939-1941.
– On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the Non-Aggression Pact, which also partitioned the eastern part of Europe in their respective "spheres of influence".
– On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, which marked the start of World War II, and, on September 17, 1939, Soviet Russia invaded Poland from the east. As a result, Eastern Europe was partitioned between Moscow and Berlin, as agreed upon by the two powers on August 23, 1939.
– On September 22, 1939, Soviet and Nazi troops met in the city of Brest-Litovsk (today’s Belarus) for a Joint Victory Parade after the defeat and partition of the Polish state.
– On September 28, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the Treaty of Friendship and Borders recognizing the "legitimacy" of each other's claim to the territories they had just jointly overrun, and their division of Eastern Europe into respective "spheres of influence".
– In all, during the first phase of World War II (1939-1941), 13 European countries were overrun: 8 by Hitler, 5 by Stalin.
– Moreover, long before the start of World War II, elements of Germany's armed forces trained in the Soviet Union, which, in turn, the latter also provided the German armament industry with military-grade goods and supplies. This arrangement between the Nazis and the Soviets allowed Berlin to circumvent the limitations on Germany's rearmament imposed by the victors after its defeat in World War I.
– The second phase of World War II began on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union - possibly upstaging a coming attack by the Soviet Union on Nazi Germany.
– These twin totalitarian superpowers did have a rich history of learning from each other on how best to oppress and commit genocide. After all, Hitler's National Socialism (NAZI) and Stalin's own brand of "Socialism in One Country" (that is, National Socialism) were two sides of the same coin.
After Ukraine’s loss of its War of Independence in 1918-1921, the country fell again under the control of neighbouring powers, namely: Soviet Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. This set the stage for the emergence of a massive Ukrainian Liberation/Resistance Movement spearheaded first by the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) and then by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which during World War II directed its struggle against Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Ukraine became the main battlefield between those two totalitarian superpowers, and where their violence was especially and unprecedentedly extreme.
According to Ukrainian government statistics, Ukraine’s human losses in World War II were up to 10 million dead: 4.1 – military and 5.9 – civilian, which remains the highest casualty rate among all combatant nations in World War II.
During the German occupation of Ukraine (1941-1944) up to 10,000 members of the Ukrainian Resistance Movement (OUN and UPA members) and hundreds of thousands of its supporters were killed by the Nazis.
Disinformation: The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was "totalitarian" , "xenophobic", "extremist", "fascist", "anti-Semitic".
Facts:
– At its founding Assembly in Vienna (28 January- 2 February 1929) the OUN adopted a farsighted resolution (No 7) defining the concept of what constitutes a nation. In a time of ethnocentric understanding of nationhood in Europe between World War I and World War II, the founders of the OUN provided perhaps the first modern definition of a political nation: "On the road to its self-realization in a […] historical sense, a given nation numerically increases its biophysical strength […by] an intrinsic process of continuous transformation of diverse ethnic components into a synthesis of organic national unity. From this functional perspective, a nation continually finds itself in a state of its own growth."
The above definition of nation unmistakably reflects the motto inscribed in the Great Seal of the United States: "E PLURIBUS UNUM - FROM MANY ONE".
– The Ukrainian Resistance Movement, spearheaded by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during World War II, remained true to the above principle, as reflected in the composition of its vast membership: besides ethnic Ukrainians, there were Ukrainians of diverse ethnic ancestry - Polish, Russian, Jewish, Greek, Crimean Tatar, Swedish, et al., who inhabited Ukraine for centuries. Moreover, the UPA welcomed into its ranks fighting units organized on a nationality basis, among them Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Crimean Tatar. The OUN-UPA Liberation Movement never defined its enemies on racial, religious or ethnic grounds, but whether a given individual or group supported Ukraine's struggle for independence and freedom - or not, by siding with Ukraine's oppressors. To be sure, among the enemy's casualties in this fight were also ethnic Ukrainians who found themselves on the wrong side of history.
– The OUN-UPA Ukrainian Liberation Movement applied the same standard methodology in its struggle as any other of the many national liberation movements across the world, among them: The Maquis (French Resistance), the Polish Military Organization and the Home Army (AK), the Irish Republican Army, the 26th of July Movement (Cuba), the Sandinista National Liberation Movement (Nicaragua), Haganah (Israel), the African National Congress (South Africa), the Vietnamese Nationalist Party and the Viet-Cong.
