The War in Ukraine: Phase One

From the Ukrainian point of view, the Second World War took place in two distinct phases. The initial phase began on 1 September 1939 when the Germans attacked Poland and the Soviets occupied its eastern territories soon after.

Among the numerous factors that brought on the war, two diplomatic agreements, both of which had a direct impact on Ukrainians, were of critical importance. With the signing of the Munich Pact on 30 September 1938, the Western powers, led by England, attempted to appease Hitler by allowing him to dismember Czechoslovakia (and Transcarpathia). But rather than satisfying Hitler’s demands, this display of Western spinelessness only whetted the Nazi appetite for territorial acquisitions. Even more directly linked with the outbreak of the war was the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939, one of history’s most astonishing treaties. Hitler, who made no secret of his loathing for the Soviet system or of his territorial ambitions in the East, needed to neutralize the Soviet Union before launching an attack against his opponents in the West. Stalin, for his part, eagerly desired a nonaggression and neutrality treaty with Hitler, hoping thereby to redirect Nazi aggressiveness against France and England, and thus gain time to build up his own strength while the “capitalists” exhausted themselves in a war. In addition to addressing these immediate needs of the two powers, the Nazi-Soviet Pact also included provisions for the exchange of raw materials and armaments.

Assured of Soviet neutrality, Hitler launched the attack on Poland that began the Second World War. Eager to claim their part of the tottering Polish state, Soviet armies entered eastern Poland on 17 September and occupied almost all of the lands inhabited by the West Ukrainians and Belorussians. Within four weeks, the Polish state ceased to exist. The Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine

At the outset of their initial, twenty-one-month-long occupation of Western Ukraine, the Soviets went out of their way to win “the hearts and minds” of the populace. They proclaimed that they had arrived as the “flagbearers of high humanitarian principles” and justified their collaboration with the Nazis in the dismemberment of Poland by their desire to aid its oppressed minorities, especially their “brothers,” the Ukrainians and Belorussians. A special effort was made to impress West Ukrainians with the new regime’s “Ukrainianism.” The Soviet troops that entered Galicia were called the Ukrainian Front and were led by Semen Tymoshenko, a general with an obviously Ukrainian name. These symbolic gestures were intended to portray the Soviet invasion as a case of Ukrainians coming to the aid of their fellow Ukrainians.

The new regime also attempted to appear democratic. On 22 October 1939 it organized an election during which the populace was pressured to vote for the single slate of candidates supporting the annexation of Western Ukraine to the Soviet Union. Not suprisingly, about 93% of the voters cast their ballots according to the regime’s wishes. In June 1940, the USSR forced Romania to cede Bessarabia and Bukovyna. Thus, over 7 million inhabitants of Western Ukraine were added to the Soviet Ukrainian republic.

Some Soviet policies brought concrete improvements to the West Ukrainians. Much was done to Ukrainianize and enhance the educational system. By mid 1940 the number of elementary schools in Western Ukraine jumped to about 6900, of which 6000 were Ukrainian. Lviv University, long a stronghold of Polish culture, was renamed after Ivan Franko, adopted Ukrainian as the language of instruction, and opened its doors to Ukrainian students and professors. Health care, especially in the villages, improved markedly. The largely Polish- and Jewish-owned industrial and commercial enterprises were nationalized. But perhaps the most popular measure was the Soviet expropriation of the Polish landlords and the promise to redistribute their land among the peasants.

Simultaneously with these reforms, however, the Soviets began to dismantle the political, socioeconomic, and cultural infrastructure that the West Ukrainians had built up. Soon after their arrival, the NKVD arrested West Ukrainian political leaders and deported them to the east. UNDO and the other large Ukrainian political parties were forced to disband. Many cooperatives were eliminated and others were reorganized along Soviet lines. The Prosvita society’s reading rooms and libraries had to cease operation. Realizing that they were living on borrowed time, between 20,000 and 30,000 Ukrainian activists fled to German-occupied Poland. With the elimination of the individuals, organizations, and political parties that represented middle-of-the road, liberal tendencies among West Ukrainians, the latter were left with only one viable political organization – the underground network of the OUN.

The conduct of the numerous Soviet officials who poured into Western Ukraine did little to improve the image of the new regime. Accustomed to acting in the “proletarian” style, they often struck the “westerners” as primitive, boorish bullies rather than as representatives of “advanced socialism.” The almost universal use of Russian by the representatives of Soviet Ukraine quickly dissipated illusions about its vaunted Ukrainianism.

Support for the Soviets came primarily from local Communists who had emerged from the underground and were now especially useful to the new regime in helping it to “unmask” Ukrainian nationalists. Because Jews were disproportionately numerous among these Communists and because there were also many of them among the officials who arrived from the Soviet Union, anti-Jewish feeling rose among both West Ukrainians and Poles. But soon many local Communists also became disillusioned with the Soviets, especially after Stalin had some of them arrested and executed on suspicion of Trotskyism.

With time, however, the less attractive aspects of the early Soviet reforms became apparent. Lands that had been expropriated from Polish landlords and “given” to the poorest peasants were declared to be liable to collectivization and about 13% were actually collectivized. When this event occurred, the vast majority of the peasants, who had been wary of the Soviets from the outset, turned against the new regime. The intelligentsia, many of whom were initially pleased with the employment they found in Soviet educational and cultural institutions, soon realized that they were little more than tightly controlled functionaries and mouthpieces of the regime and that they faced arrest and deportation if they did not follow instructions.

Aware of the West Ukrainians’ commitment to their church, the new regime initially treated the Greek Catholic church with caution, imposing only relatively minor restrictions at first. Priests were obliged to carry special passports and the government demanded high rents for the use of churches. But gradually these restrictions grew more ominous. Soviet authorities removed religious instruction from the schools, confiscated church lands, and increased antireligious propaganda. Similar policies were applied to the Orthodox church in Volhynia where, moreover, efforts were made to place it under the patriarch of Moscow.

In spring 1940 the Soviets dropped their democratic guise and repressions began against both Ukrainians and Poles on a massive scale.

The first waves of deportees consisted of leading Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish politicians, industrialists, landowners, merchants, bureaucrats, judges, lawyers, retired officers, and priests. Later, anyone identified with Ukrainian nationalism was liable to arrest. In the final stages, in the spring of 1941, the regime deported people indiscriminately. Those who had relatives abroad or who corresponded with them, those who were visiting friends when they were arrested, those who were denounced for personal reasons, or who, by accident, happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, were all deported. “No one, literally no one,” wrote an eyewitness to these events, “was sure that his turn would not come the next night.”¹

According to Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, the Soviets deported about 400,000 Ukrainians from Galicia alone.² The Poles, and especially the colonists, suffered even more, for their government-in-exile contended that, during the Soviet occupation of Poland’s eastern territories, about 1.2 million people, the majority of whom were Poles, were deported to the Soviet east. This catastrophe reflected the dramatic plunge in the political fortunes of the once-dominant Poles, who, deprived of government backing, suddenly found themselves transformed from oppressors into the oppressed.

The incorporation of Western Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR was undoubtedly an event of major historical significance, for it united Ukrainians in a single state structure for the first time in centuries. But, because of its limited duration, this forced unification did not result in deep-rooted changes in either Western or Soviet Ukraine. Nonetheless, it did have an immediate impact: West Ukrainians found their first exposure to the Soviet system to be a generally negative experience and many concluded that “Bolshevik” rule had to be avoided at all costs.

While the vast majority of West Ukrainians came under Soviet rule during the 1939–41 period, some found themselves under German occupation. About 550,000 Ukrainians who lived in the Lemko and Kholm regions on Poland’s eastern border were included in the German zone of occupation. Surrounded by Poles and isolated from the centers of Ukrainian activity, the inhabitants of these regions were socioeconomically, culturally, and politically among the most underdeveloped of all Ukrainians. However, between 1939 and 1940 about 20,000–30,000 Ukrainian political refugees from Galicia fled to these areas to escape Soviet persecution. Some settled among their compatriots; others congregated in nearby Cracow, the center of Ukrainian refugee activity, and sparked an upsurge of communal activity in the Lemko and Kholm regions of the General Government (Gouvernement), as this part of German-occupied Poland was called.

The governor-general of the General Government, Hans Frank, was expressly ordered by Hitler to treat the area as a German colony and to grant the inhabitants only a minimum of rights. Although theoretically all power rested in the hands of Frank, who acted on instructions from Hitler, in practice the Gestapo (the Nazi political police) was often as influential as Frank himself in governing the region.

Soon after the Germans arrived, dozens of self-help committees, staffed largely by OUN members or sympathizers who had fled from Galicia, sprang up to look after the basic economic and educational needs of the Ukrainian populace in the General Government. In spring 1940, with the acquiescence of Frank, these committees formed a coordinating body in Cracow called the Ukrainian Central Committee (UCC) and elected Volodymyr Kubijovyč, a well-known geographer, as its head. The UCC was a Ukrainian social-welfare agency whose mandate was to look after the sick, the aged, and homeless children, to care for public health and education, to help prisoners of war, and to represent the interests of the Ukrainian workers from the General Government who were sent to Germany. The Germans made it very clear that the UCC was not to have any political prerogatives whatsoever.

But in fulfilling these functions, the UCC also sought to satisfy its own hidden agenda, which consisted of countering the strong Polonizing influences on its isolated Ukrainian constituents and raising their national consciousness. The Nazis were aware of these objectives and, to a limited extent, encouraged their attainment in hopes that the growth of Ukrainian national consciousness would act as a counterweight to the more numerous Poles. For this reason, the Germans often favored the appointment of Ukrainians to low-level administrative posts or to the police in ethnically mixed communities. When Ukrainians sometimes used their new positions to avenge themselves on Poles for the wrongs they suffered before the war, the Germans were not dismayed by the communal tensions that arose.

Under the able leadership of Kubijovyč and with the help of the refugees from Galicia, the approximately 800 officials of the UCC soon organized Ukrainian schools, cooperatives, and youth groups in almost all localities where there were considerable numbers of Ukrainians. They also established a publishing house in Cracow and greatly expanded the Ukrainian press in the region. Its activities not only helped Ukrainians in these isolated regions to make up for the losses they had suffered during years of Polish repression, but also alleviated some of the heavy burdens that war and German occupation had brought upon them. After the German invasion of the USSR and the incorporation of Galicia into the General Government, the UCC extended its activity into Galicia. Throughout the war, it was the only Ukrainian organization that could, albeit to a very limited extent, defend the socioeconomic interests of Ukrainians in the General Government. Ukrainians under Hungarian occupation

After the invading Hungarian army brought down the Carpatho-Ukrainian government in March 1939, Transcarpathia was incorporated into Hungary, of which it remained a part for the duration of the war. Because the approximately 550,000 Ukrainian inhabitants of the region had, by and large, bad memories of the centuries-long Hungarian rule that had ended in 1918, they did not welcome the return of the Hungarians. In an attempt to create a favorable initial impression, the Hungarian government promised to grant Transcarpathia autonomy. But all too soon it became apparent that it would not fulfill this commitment and that Transcarpathia’s populace would instead be slated for gradual Magyarization.

Almost immediately, the Hungarians launched a concerted attack against the Ukrainophiles. Hundreds were executed, thousands were arrested, and about 30,000 fled to neighboring Galicia (where many were, in turn, deported by the Soviets to Siberia). All Ukrainian publications and organizations, including Prosvita, were banned. But while it was committed to stamping out the growing Ukrainian movement in Transcarpathia, the Hungarian government was not yet ready to introduce total Magyarization (although it steadily increased Hungarian cultural influence, especially in the schools). It chose instead a transitional, or Rusynophile, option, which rested on the premise that the local populace was a distinct Rusyn nationality that for centuries had been organically linked with the Hungarians. Two local politicians and long-time agents of the Budapest government, Andrei Brodii and Stepan Fentsik, became the leading proponents of this approach, and its main social base of support was the heavily Magyarized Greek Catholic clergy.

Hungarian rule was not only politically oppressive, but it also brought about a decline in educational opportunities and a rise in the economic exploitation of the region. The one positive aspect of the six-year-long Hungarian occupation of Transcarpathia was that it spared the region from Nazi rule and, consequently, the devastation that struck much of Ukraine. It did not, however, save the region’s more than 100,000 Jews, most of whom perished in the Nazi death camps. The great rift in the OUN

With the outbreak of the war, the tensions that had long been brewing within the OUN surfaced. A sharp division had developed between the older veterans of the 1917–20 struggle, who constituted the foreign-based leadership of the OUN, and the young Galician radicals, who had joined the organization in the 1930s. The latter group had led the bitter struggle against the Polish government on West Ukrainian territory and had often landed in Polish jails. The two camps did not disagree on matters of principle, for both subscribed to the basic tenets of Ukrainian integral nationalism; however, generational differences, personality clashes, and tactical issues did divide them. After the assassination of Konovalets in 1938, his close associate, the gentlemanly and reserved Andrii Melnyk, was nominated as his successor. The young radicals, for their part, argued that their own colleague, the dynamic, strong-willed Stepan Bandera, who had recently been freed from Polish imprisonment, was better qualified to lead the OUN in the critical times that lay ahead.

Even before Bandera and his colleagues emerged from prison, their supporters aimed a barrage of criticism at the OUN leaders abroad. The leaders were condemned for relying too heavily on foreign support, especially that of Germany, while neglecting the development of “organic” ties with the masses in Western Ukraine, for being too slow and passive in dealing with the rapidly changing political scene, and for allowing “political speculators and opportunists” to hold leadership positions. In September 1939, Bandera demanded that the OUN form a military underground force that would be ready to fight against anyone – even Germans if need be – who stood in the way of Ukrainian independence. He insisted that the OUN develop contacts with Western Allies as well as with the Germans. But Melnyk and his associates steadfastly defended their positions, arguing that the emphasis on ties with Germany had to continue because Western powers had shown no interest in supporting Ukrainian aspirations and because the creation of a military underground would only bring German retaliation rather than military or political gains.

But it was the question of who should constitute the new OUN leadership that really enflamed passions. In August 1939, while many of their rivals were still imprisoned, the Melnyk faction called a conference in Rome and formally proclaimed Andrii Melnyk as vozhd of OUN. However, on 10 February 1940, Stepan Bandera convened another conference in Cracow, where his faction rejected the decisions of the Rome meeting. Unable to reach a compromise, each group proclaimed itself to be the only legitimate leader of the OUN. Those who sided with Bandera, and these included the youthful majority of the organization, came to be called the OUN-B or OUN-R (revolutionary) or simply Banderites; supporters of Melnyk, who consisted of the more moderate integral nationalists, were referred to as OUN-M or Melnykites.

This schism in the OUN was clearly a great setback for the integral nationalist cause. Antagonism between the two factions reached such heights that they often fought each other as ferociously as they did the enemies of Ukrainian independence. Thus, as Ukrainian integral nationalists prepared to face the great tests set before them by the war, they were badly divided. Moreover, their bitter infighting damaged the Ukrainian integral nationalist movement as a whole, for it lowered its moral authority.