Kas’yanov on OUN Ideology
Kas'yanov's study notes that OUN ideology was far from monolithic even in its early days. He comments that the term used most often to refer to its 1930s version in Western literature is “integral nationalism,” and he cites Armstrong's account of the ideological stances that are familiar to most readers: the belief in the nation as the highest value; and the conception that individuals are united in a single, organic entity through their biological characteristics or common historical development.
Armstrong also provided other features such as the presence of a charismatic leader and a cult of action, thus war or violence is seen as evidence of the vitality of the nation. Western political scientist Alexander J. Motyl is also cited and outlines other typical features of OUN ideology, including anti-intellectualism, determinism, anti- parliamentarianism, militarism, and federalism. However, Kas'yanov writes, the Ukrainian variant existed alongside a linked but separate variant of totalitarian nationalism associated with Dmytro Dontsov, which he sees as nihilistic and lacking constructive elements. On the other hand, the OUN's integral nationalism, albeit extremist, contained a clear political program and a consistent worldview. Nevertheless, in the 1920s, Dontsov's book Natsionalizm had an enormous impact on Ukrainian youth living in Polish Ukraine, and these same people went on to form the basis of the “Krayova OUN.” Gradually the OUN moved away from Dontsovian nationalism, and in August 1943, Dontsov's comments concerning the political guidelines of the OUN at the Third Extraordinary Grand Assembly (August 1943) were pointedly ignored. In the late 1940s, Dontsov strongly criticized the revised OUN stance, and following his emigration to North America (he took up residence in Montreal) after the war, he retained some influence among the ZCh OUN. Integral nationalism was thus ultimately abandoned. However, writes Kas'yanov, there was a certain self-deception to this change since the ideological evolution of the OUN- B in the 1960s and 1970s tended to follow the revolutionary orthodoxy of the 1930s linked with Dontsov.2Moving back in time to the formation of the OUN, Kas'yanov cites the various influences behind the movement (the defeat of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-21, the political climate in the countries in which the OUN operated, and European intellectual movements of the period). Its first major theoretical periodical was the Prague-based Rozbudova natsii and the emergence of a group of intellectual theorists. Not all ideological issues had been resolved by the time of the OUN's creation at the Vienna Congress of January-February 1929 chaired by D. Andriievs'kyi. There were sharp debates in particular between Krayova OUN members and emigrant activists. Krayova OUN members identified closely with the political views of M. Mikhnovs'kyi and Dontsov. However, both sides adhered to the view of the nation as the highest form of social organization, with the state as the ultimate form of the nation's development, a postulate that remained unchallenged until the early 1990s. The OUN anticipated a three-stage process of construction of a Ukrainian state. Stage one was the phase of “national liberation” when a national dictatorship would be established. Stage two was to be a transitional period in which the head of state prepares the highest legislative bodies with the participation of all organized social groups. Stage three would see stabilization and the creation of a representative body that would appoint the state leader—the highest executive power. Kas'yanov perceives this structure as rather vague and generalized, and several ideologists expressed regret at the lack of definitiveness in the conception. The OUN came to maturity in the 1930s at a time when totalitarian regimes were thriving in Europe and pressure on Ukrainian society was rising both in Poland and the Soviet Union.
As a result the OUN ideology became much more radical. Under these circumstances, Dontsov's writings only exacerbated the emotional atmosphere— Kas'yanov does not see them as offering much that was constructive. Dontso- vian nationalism lowered the level of political culture of this militant element among the Ukrainian people.3The split in the OUN is seen as tactically rather than ideologically motivated. It also reflected a generation gap and the personal animosities between the two leaders. Both declared as their main goal the creation of a sovereign, united Ukrainian state. However, the Bandera program involved the revolt of not only Ukrainians but other peoples of the Moscow empire. It also espoused an anti-Moscow and anti-Semitic platform, as Jews were seen as the main foundation of the “Moscow Bolshevik regime.” In the OUN-B program, in theory, the leader's power would be counterbalanced by collegial bodies, i.e., the Provid (Leadership) and the Velyka Rada (Grand Council). In practice, a personality and leadership cult developed around the figure of Bandera. By the late 1930s, writes Kas'yanov, the general ideological image of the OUN had been formed: radical Ukrainian nationalism manifesting features typical of totalitarianism, anti-democracy, and anti-Communism in a revolutionary movement founded on the principles of action, militant idealism, and voluntarism, and on the priority of national values over pan-human ones. It was a combination of political elitism and social egalitarianism, in Kas'yanov's view, but with special emphasis on the peasantry as the backbone of the Ukrainian nation. Did the platform have anything in common with Italian Fascism and German National Socialism? Kas'yanov observes that in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the OUN ideologists built up analogies and associations with Italian Fascism quite deliberately, and borrowed components of Italian Fascism's political and socio-economic programs, particularly Corporatism.
One of the principal differences, however, was that the Ukrainians lacked their own national state. Still the OUN used some symbols of Italian Fascism, and incorporated within its structure an organization that was originally called the Union of Ukrainian Fascists. The OUN cooperated overtly both with Italian Fascists and the German Abwehr, as well as with the German occupation authorities in the early 1940s. Mirchuk, among others, noted that Ukrainian nationalists were sympathetic toward Fascism as an anti-Communist and as a new political and economic movement, but added that Ukrainian nationalism, which dated back thousands of years, had a much longer tradition than Fascism.4Kas'yanov looks briefly at other writers with an OUN background. At least two—Zinovii Knysh and V. Marhanets—perceive Ukrainian nationalism as a product of domestic development rather than outside forces. Roman Ilnytzkyj maintains that some of the most significant components of Fascism and National Socialism were always alien to the OUN (a corporate state, racism, and anti-Semitism), but the movements possessed a similar organizational structure. The statements lead Kas'yanov to editorialize that:
Remarkably, all these OUN writers, regardless of their faction affiliations, rejected expressly the ideological similarity to Fascism and Nazism to the extent of denying generally known facts, in particular that elements of racism and anti-Semitism, as well as corporatism, were typical of the OUN ideological constructs, especially in the first half of the 1930s.
Such self-deceptive perspectives are contrasted with the writings of Motyl and Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky, who respectively noted common features with Italian Fascism and with the agrarian and other parties of economically backward East European countries (Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, and Poland). Rudnytsky is also cited for his comment that Ukrainian nationalism was a genetically independent phenomenon, but clearly influenced by foreign models in the course of its development. Realistically, Kas'yanov concludes that the OUN could hardly have avoided the dominant trends of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism, but one should not equate these movements with the Ukrainian variant. Even the Soviet Union engaged in productive cooperation in economic, military, and political spheres during the 1930s, but the regimes of Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini are not linked because of this factor. Similarly even antithetical ideologies borrow from each other. Hence the OUN ideology cannot be termed Fascist or National Socialist, in Kas'yanov's view. He ends with a rather angry swipe at those who persist in the habitual and unproductive practice of using ideological cliches, which are now outdated, in current academic and political debates.5 The targets are not made explicit, but clearly Kas'yanov rejects the stereotyped view concerning Ukrainian nationalists.