Socioeconomic developments and the Galician Communist party

Besides the more publicized activity of the UVO and OUN, there were also efforts made on the part of the Ukrainian leadership to continue the policy of organic work in order to strengthen the social fabric from within-a policy that had met with success under Austrian rule during several decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In a still largely underdeveloped agrarian society, such organic work was considered most important in the economic sphere, and despite opposition from the Polish government, several self-help cooperative societies like the Audit Union of Ukrainian Cooperatives (Reviziinyi Soiuz Ukrains’kykh Kooperatyv), the Central Union (Tsentrosoiuz), the Dairy Union (Maslo-soiuz) and the Agricul­tural Association (Sil’s’kyi Hospodar) continued to prosper. Each of the major cooperatives had its own journal, and these are valuable sources of information about the movement.^[553] General histories of cooperatives by Illia Vytanovych and of merchants and industrialists by Volodymyr Nestorovych, as well as histories of individual organizations, provide a good survey of the Ukrainian cooperative movement in Galicia during the interwar period.^[554]

In general, however, Ukrainian Galicia was destined to remain, as before, a basically agricultural region that would serve as a source of raw materials and a market for manufactured goods from other parts of Poland. The only difference from prewar Austrian days was that the continually unstable Polish economy exacerbated by the depression could not even maintain the meager standard of living that existed before 1914.

The economic history of Ukrainian Galicia during the interwar period has been left almost entirely to Soviet writers.

To make more plausible the writing of such histories, Soviet authors have prepared eight volumes of documents on revolutionary activity in interwar eastern Galicia.^[555] As for the secondary literature, most Soviet histories of the interwar

Ukrains’kykh Profesionalistiv i Pidpryiemtsiv 1977); E. Khraplyvyi, Sorok litpratsi Kraievoho Hospodars'koho Tovarystva ‘Sil’s’kyi Hospodar’ (1899-1939) (L’viv 1939); Andrii Kachor, Ukrains’ka molochars’ka kooperatsiia v Zakhidnii Ukraini (Munich 1949); Pavlo Dubrivnyi, ed., Kraiove hospodars’ke tovarystvo ‘Sil’s’kyi Hospodar’ u L’vovi 1899-1944 (New York: Ukrains’ka Vil’na Akademiia Nauk 1970); Ivan Martiuk, Tsentrosoiuz, soiuz kooperatyvnykh soiuziv u L’vovi v rokakh 1924-1944: spohady spivuchasnyka pratsi i zmahan’ ukrains’koho kooperatyvnoho rukhu (Jersey City, NJ: M.P. Kots’ 1973).

See also one of the earliest surveys: Andrii Zhuk, Ukrains’ka kooperatsiia v Pol’shchi (L’viv 1934); the negative Marxist view of the movement: L.O. Olesnevych, Kooperatyvni mify i kapitalistychna diisnist’: zakhidnoukrains’ka burzhuazna kooperatsiia (1883-1939) (Kiev: Naukova dumka 1974); and the biographies of several activists in the cooperative movement by Andrii Kachor: 01’ha Bachyns’ka: narys i'i zhyttia ta hromads’ko-kooperatyvnoi pratsi (Winnipeg: Bratstvo Maslosoiuznykiv u Kanadi i SShA 1954); Denys Korenets’: nacherk ioho zhyttia ta pratsi na tli ukrains’koho fakhovoho shkil’ nytstva i sil’s’ko- hospodars’koi kooperatsil’v Zakhidnii Ukraini (Winnipeg: Kooperatyvna hromada 1955); Ostap Luts’kyi: pam”iati vyznachnoho hromads’koho diiacha (Winnipeg: Kooperatyvna hromada 1952); Muzhi idel i pratsi: Andrii Palii i Andrii Mudryk, tvortsi ‘Maslosoiuzu’ i modernot ukrains’koi kooperatsil v Zakhidnii Ukraini (Winnipeg: Bratstvo Maslosoiuznykiv u Kanadi i SShA 1974).

69 Pid praporom Zhovtnia: vplyv Velykol Zhovtnevoi sotsialistychnoi revoliutsii na pidnesennia period adopt a fourfold periodization scheme: 1921-1923-the period of revolu­tionary crisis; 1923-1928-a period of temporary stabilization of capitalism; 1929-1933-economic crisis; 1933-1939-attempts by workers to create a na­tional front against fascism. Besides the general Soviet histories on the interwar era by Mykhailo Herasymenko, Bohdan Dudykevych, and Mykola Kravets’,^{* [556]} there are numerous monographs and articles on the history of industry and especially the industrial workers, as well as the peasantry, during one or more of the above outlined periods.^[557]

According to Soviet Marxist historical iconography, the vanguard of the work­ing classes is the Communist party, which is considered solely responsible for the success of the revolutionary movement. Thus, it is not surprising to find an extensive literature on the history of the party. The Communist party of Eastern Galicia (Komunistychna Partiia Skhidnoi Halychyny-KPSH) was established in February 1919 and was soon made part of the Communist party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine. On orders from the Comintern in July 1921, the KPSH was to become a regional party organization of the Communist party of Poland, but reluctance on the part of Galician party leaders (O. Vasyl’kiv) delayed unification until 1923, when the organization was renamed the Communist party of Western Ukraine (Komunistychna Partiia Zakhidnoi Ukrainy-KPZU). The KPZU was forbidden to function legally in Poland, and although the Galician Communists attracted some Ukrainian youth during the 1920s (especially since the Ukrainianization policy in the Soviet Ukraine made that area seem potentially more attractive than Polish-dominated Galicia), by the 1930s it was overshadowed by legal Ukrainian political movements and most especially by the appeal of the OUN. Moreover, throughout its brief history, the KPZU was wracked by internal difficulties, such as friction with the Polish party apparatus to which it was subordinate and its support for the Soviet Ukrainianization policies of the 1920s, which were later disavowed by the Communist party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine.

In one of the few non-Soviet works on the KPZU, Roman Solchanyk has written a solid study elucidating the cloudy beginnings of the KPSH between 1919 to 1921.^[558] There are several documents on the party included in the eight volumes on revolutionary activity in interwar Galicia,^[559] as well as two anthologies of memoirs by some of its former members.^[560] Soviet writers have written several general histories and have also focused on specific periods of the KPZU: the most comprehensive are by Valentyn Malanchuk and levhen Halushko.^[561] The split of 1928, which resulted from accusations by the Comintern and the Communist party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine that the KPZU had become dominated by revisionists, pseudo-Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists, and even local Russo­philes, has received special attention. Several contemporary criticisms, including one by then Soviet Ukrainian party boss Mykola Skrypnyk, present the view of those who wanted to put the KPZU back on the “correct” ideological path.^[562] A contemporary Polish Communist view of these developments was provided by Jan Regula, while more recently Janusz Radziejowski has provided a solid history of the KPZU in the 1920s, especially of the problems surrounding the split of 1928.⁷⁷ The pro-Communist Ukrainian Peasant and Workers Socialist Union (Sel-Rob) and the Communist youth organization in eastern Galicia, Komsomol, have also been the subject of several studies;⁷⁸ and there is a collection of documents and monographs about the Anti-Fascist Congress of Cultural Activists which was held in L’viv (1936) and was dominated by local Polish and Jewish Communists as well as a few leftist Ukrainian writers.⁷⁹ Finally, the Communist press and other “progressive” organs that continued to appear throughout the interwar period have been analyzed in great detail in several books and articles by losyf Ts’okh and laroslav Dashkevych.⁸⁰

77 Jan A.

78 On the Sel-Rob, see M. Felinski, “Ukraihskie Selansko-Robitnycze Socjalistyczne Objednanie (Sel-Rob),” Sprawy Narodowosciowe, I, 5 (Warsaw 1927), pp. 495-502; and Janusz Radziejowski, “Geneza partii ‘Sel-Rob’,” Z Pola Walki, IX, 2 (Warsaw 1966), pp. 47-70. On the Komsomol, see V.Iu. Malanchuk, Boiovyi shliakh Komsomolu Zakhidnoi Ukrainy (L’viv: Knyzhkovo-zhurnal’ne vyd-vo 1957); and his “Borot’ba trudiashchoi molodi Zakhidnoi Ukrainy pid kerivnytstvom KPZU proty nastupu fashyzmu za stvorennia iedynoho narodnoho frontu (1934- 1935 rr.),” Naukovi zapysky L’vivs’kohofilialu Tsentral'noho muzeiu V.I. Lenina, I (L’viv 1959), pp. 115-139.

79 T.E. Kozachuk, ed., Antifashistskii kongress rabotnikov kul’tury vo L’vove v 1936 g.: dokumenty i materialy (L’viv 1956); B.K. Dudykevych, Pidpraporom Narodnoho frontu: do istorii kvitnevych podii 1936 roku uL’vovi (L’viv: Knyzhkovo-zhurnal’ne vyd-vo 1956).

80 LT. Ts’okh, Komunistychna presa v Zakhidnii Ukra'ini (1919-1932 rr.) (L’viv: LU 1958); idem, Komunistychna presa Zakhidnoi Ukrainy: rol’ drukovanoi propahandy v ideolohichnii diial’nosti KPZU, 1919-1939 rr. (L’viv: LU 1966); idem, Slovo buremnykh rokiv (L’viv: Knyzhkovo-zhurnal’ne vyd-vo 1961); idem, Hazeta ‘Sel-Rob’ (L’viv: LU 1958); la.R. Dashkevych, “Z istorii vydavnychoi diial’nosti komunistychnoi partii Zakhidnoi Ukrainy,” in Z istorii Ukrains’koi RSR, vol. Vl-VII (Kiev: AN URSR 1962), pp. 95-125; idem, “Pidpil’na presa Komunistychnoi Partii Zakhidnoi Ukrainy v 1921 -1938 rokakh,” Z istorii zakhidnoukra'ins’kykh zemeT, vol. IV, ed. I.P. Kryp”iakevych (Kiev: AN URSR 1960), pp. 108-120; la.R.

See also M.M. Oleksiuk, Prohresyvna presa Zakhidnoi Ukrainy v borot’bi na zakhyst SRSR (20-30-ti roky) (Kiev: Naukova dumka 1973).

Cultural history: education

In comparison with the prewar Austrian period, Ukrainian cultural activity in Galicia declined in intensity and influence after 1918. There were several reasons for this: (1) by 1907, the focus of all Ukrainian cultural life had begun to shift from L’viv to Kiev where it blossomed anew during the 1920s; (2) as a result of the Polish-Ukrainian war, many Galician-Ukrainian intellectuals fled to the West or to the Soviet Ukraine; and (3) the relatively permissive cultural atmosphere that prevailed under Austria was replaced by a restrictive and sometimes repressive Polish regime. This does not mean that Ukrainian cultural activity ceased alto­gether in interwar Galicia, but the region did once again return to the position of a regional area of secondary importance in the larger Ukrainian cultural sphere. These reasons perhaps explain in part the paucity of studies dealing with Ukraini­an cultural developments in Galicia between 1919 and 1939. All that exists are a few studies on the educational system, the Greek Catholic church, and Commu­nist and left-wing cultural activists.

The growth of a Ukrainian educational system at all levels that had made such steady progress under Austrian rule was to be curtailed in interwar Poland. In 1921, the provincial school administration based in L’viv was abolished and the local county school boards had to give up whatever effective power they once had to the centralized Ministry of Education and Religion in Warsaw. Although the total number of schools increased in eastern Galicia between 1919 and 1939, their character changed. Initially, the Ukrainian system, especially at the elementary level, was left largely intact, while new Polish schools were founded. Then, as a result of a 1924 law sponsored by the government of Prime Minister Wladyslaw Grabski (1874-1938), Ukrainian and Polish schools were unified and made bilingual. By the 1930s, many of these officially bilingual schools became Polish. At the university level, all the chairs in Ukrainian studies and other appointments were abolished at the University of L’viv in 1919.

The Ukrainian reaction to these developments was to expand, at the communi­ty’s own expense, the number of private schools. By the 1937/38 school year, 59 percent of all Ukrainian gymnasia, teachers’ colleges, and professional schools with approximately 40 percent of Ukrainian students at those levels were privately operated. The growth of private schools was due largely to the Ukrainian Ped­agogical Society, founded in 1881 and renamed Ridna Shkola in 1926. At the university level, courses sponsored by several Ukrainian cultural institutes began in 1919, and an underground Ukrainian University was founded in L’viv in 1921. The university operated with as many as 1500 students until 1925 when, after constant pressure by Polish authorities, it was closed, forcing Galician Ukrainians to attend universities abroad, especially in Prague.

The only comprehensive history of Ukrainian education in interwar Galicia is a recent monograph by the Polish scholar Mieczyslaw Iwanicki.⁸¹ Besides this, there are a few short studies by Soviet writers covering the whole period,⁸² several works focusing on the years 1919 to 1924,⁸³ and a history of Ukrainian elementary schools to 1931.⁸⁴ Somewhat better developed is the literature on individual institutions; there are good histories of the Greek Catholic Theological Academy in L’viv,⁸⁵ the Ukrainian Academic Gymnasium, the Basilian Sister’s Gymnasi-

81 Mieczyslaw Iwanicki, Oswiata i szkolnictwo ukrainskie w Polsce w latach 1918-1939, Roz- prawy Wyzszej Szkoly Pedagogicznej w Siedlcach, vol. V (Siedlce 1975).

See also the chapter on Ukrainian schools in Stanislaw Mauersberg, Szkolnictwo powszechne dla mniejszofci narodowych w Polsce w latach 1918-1939 (Wroclaw, Warsaw, and Cracow: ZNIO-PAN 1968), especially pp. 59-103.

82 I S. Pavliuk, “Borot’ba za narodnu osvitu v Zakhidnii Ukraini (1919- 1939 rr.),” in Z istorii zakhidnoukra'ins'kykh zemei, vol. II (Kiev: AN URSR 1957), pp. 191-205; L.A. Ivanenko, “Do pytannia pro borot’bu trudiashchykh Zakhidnoi Ukrainy proty natsional’noho pryhnichennia, za demokratyzatsiiu shkoly i kul’turno-osvitnykh ustanov,” Naukovi zapysky LDU, XUII: Seriia istorychna 6 (L’viv 1957), pp. 30- 44; V.I. Kalynovych, “Borot’ba trudiashchykh Zakhidnoi Ukrainy za ukrai'ns’ku shkolu i kul’turu v period panuvannia pans’koi Pol’shchi, 1918-1939 rr.,” in 40 lit Velykoho Zhovtnia (L’viv 1957); L.A. Ivanenko and T.H. Sokolovs’ka, “Borot’ba trudiashchykh Zakhidnoi Ukrainy za proletars’ku i demokratychnu kul’turu (1919-1939),” in U borot’bi za svitli idealy komunizmu (L’viv 1970).

83 The Ukrainian view of this period is presented by K. Fedorovych, Ukra'ins’ki shkoly v Halychyni u svitli zakoniv i praktyky (L’viv: Sekretariaty ukrains’kykh parti: Trudovoi, Radykal’noi i Natsional’noi roboty 1924); Ivan Harasymovych, Ukra'ins’ki shkoly pid

pol’s’koiu vladoiu (Stanyslaviv: Bystrytsia 1924); idem, Zbroina i kul'turna viina (L’viv: p.a. 1925); la. Rudnyts’kyi, Ukra'ins’ka shkola (L’viv 1926); S. Sivpolko, Ukra'ins’ki shkoly v Halychyni (Prague 1928).

The Polish view is in Stanislas Sobinski, L'enseignement public [sic] en Petite Pologne (Galicie) orientate au point de vue national (L’viv: Office national de 1’academie de Leopol, section de manuels scolaires 1923); S. Lehnert, Szkolnictwo w Malopolsce (L’viv 1924); and by the minister of education Stanislaw Grabski, Szkola na kresach wschodnich: w obronie ustawy szkolnej z 31 lipca 1924 r. (Warsaw 1927).

84 Lev lasinchuk, 50 lit RidnoiShkoly 1881-1931 (L’viv: Tovarystvo ‘Ridna shkola’ 1931).

85 Pavlo Senytsia, Svityl’nyk istyny: dzherela do istorii Ukrains' koi' Katolyts' koi' Bohoslovs' koi Akadetni'iuL’vovi 192811929-1944, 3 vols., Vydannia Ukr. Kat. Univ. im. sv. Klymenta Papy, vols. XXXIV, XLIV, LX (Toronto and Chicago 1973-83). See also Vasyl’ Lentsyk, “Mytropolyt losyf Slipyi iak rektor Dukhovnoi Seminarii i Bohoslovs’koi Akademii u L’vov,” Naukovi zapysky Ukrains’koho Vil’noho Universytetu, X (Munich, Paris, and New York 1968), pp. 226-248; and the early reports: Hreko-katolysts’ka Bohoslovs’ka Akademiia u L'vovi v pershim / druhomu ! tret’omu tr’okhlittiu svoioho istnuvannia (1928-1937), 3 vols (L’viv: Akademiia 1932-41), reprinted in Tvory Kyr losyfa Verkhovnoho Arkhiepyskopa i Kardynala, vol. III-IV (Rome: Ukrains’kyi Katolyts’kyi Universytet 1970), pp. 257-727. um, and Student Home in L’viv,^[563] the Teacher’s College and Gymnasium in Zalishchyky,^[564] the Ukrainian underground university,^[565] and the Ridna Shkola organization.^[566]