The OUN had been preparing itself ideologically to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing in Ukraine since 1928. These preparations began in the first issue of R.N. which came out openly against democracy, against the Soviet Union and socialism.
The OUN’s opposition to ‘demo‐liberalism’ and ‘humanitarianism’ was consciously based on a philosophical rejection of reason and the Enlightenment. Rozbudova’s fascist, anti‐socialist politics, and its genocidal schemes, sprung from the same rotten philosophical soil as [Germanic Fascism].
In 1928 #3, E. Onatskyi’s infamous ‘On Fascism’ appeared. He compared Ukrainian nationalism and Italian fascism, but declared that Ukrainians must work hard to build a state before they can call themselves ‘fascists.’ The article is full of praise for Italian fascist youth.
1928 #12, a fascinating article, ‘Ukrainization of Ukraine’ attacks the original, Bolshevik nationalities policy of support to national minority cultures, the policy of ‘Korenizatsiya.’ I will discuss this article at length as it exposes the reactionary basis of racial politics.
Reviewing mid‐1920s Soviet statistics, nationalists were forced to admit the successes of the ‘Ukrainization’ policy. The article exposes as a lie the Ukrainian nationalist assertion that the early Bolshevik policy oppressed Ukrainians. […]
The Bolshevik policy of ‘Ukrainization’ was NOT about ‘creating a Ukraine for Ukrainians only’ but about raising the cultural and political level of Ukrainian peasants and workers, part of a struggle for a world socialist republic enabling the full participation of Ukrainians.
R.N.’s ‘Ukrainization’ article is the first of many in which ‘Jews’ are counted as separate from Ukrainians using statistical information from the Soviet Union. The nationalists were very concerned to quantify the ‘Jewish problem’ which they qualified using antisemitic slanders.
1929 #3–4: “Russian–Jewish Domination and the role of Russian culture in Soviet Ukraine” by ‘V. Bogush’. It is an extended complaint using demographic statistics, that although Ukrainians are a majority of the population, power and influence in Ukraine rest with Jews and Russians[.]
1929 #8–9 “Jewry, Zionism and Ukraine” by Yuri Milyanich: Jews are the “enemies of the Ukrainian independent national idea” and “In the fight against Jewry, which is hostile to us in every respect, we must develop the most advantageous forms for solving the Jewish question.”
1930 #9–10. Mykola Stsiborskyi, later author of the 1940 OUN‐M constitution publishes “Jewry and Ukraine” in which he argues for assimilation of “Jewry” subordinate to Ukrainian state goals, in order to re‐start capitalist social relations, after the future collapse of the USSR[.]
1932 #1–2 Mitsiuk’s antisemitic account of ‘Pre‐revolutionary Jewish trade relations’ accusing ‘Jewry’ of monopolizing trade and exploiting the peasants of the Hutsul region. A 1943 Krakivski Visti article would later rejoice that ‘there were no more Jews in the Hutsul region.’
Rozbudova published Mitsiuk’s incitement in every issue for two years, and then issued the articles as a book. What is clear is that well before the [German Fascists] constituted a mass movement, Ukrainian nationalists had developed clear plans for a ‘Ukraine for Ukrainians only.’
I will follow this up in the coming weeks with an examination of OUN’s ideology into the 1930s, after the [German Fascists’] seizure of power, and how fascist ideology was openly expressed in the Ukrainian Canadian press of that time.
![he argues for assimilation of “Jewry” subordinate to Ukrainian state goals, in order to re‐start capitalist social relations, after the future collapse of the USSR[.]](https://web.archive.org/web/20240920011555im_/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F4QLHeEXUAAtWG1.png){kind=link}
This author has published quite a few other interesting examinations, including one on how the Ukrainian anticommunists, under Stepan Bandera and with Axis support, organized expedition groups that followed an advance into the U.S.S.R.
Yes, I know that many of you are going to roll your eyes or groan at this author’s ‘ultraleftist’ politics, like his periodic urges to point a finger at ‘Stalin(ism)’ or the ‘Stalinist bureaucracy’ for something, but if you can force yourself to grin and bear through it then you’ll find it a rewarding experience.
Click here for events that happened today (September 20).
1880: Ugo Cavallero, Axis commander, and Ildebrando Pizzetti, Fascist composer, were born.
1925: After a long delay, Rome finally opened its first underground rail line: the Villa Literno–Napoli Gianturco railway.
1933: Rudolf Höss applied for a transfer into the Schutzstaffel, which gave him the rank of an SS recruit: SS‐Anwärter.
1935: Berlin newspapers published photos of five new U‐boats, the Reich’s first public admission to having any.
1938: Berlin pressed the Kingdom of Hunary to assert greater demands on Czechoslovakia, and Sudeten Fascist leader Konrad Henlein urged Slovakians to demand autonomy with greater vigor.
1939: The RAF and Luftwaffe clashed for the first time over the Westwall, Fascism’s defensive line on the border with France. The British lost two aircraft, the Fascists one. Meanwhile, Wehrmacht General Johannes Blaskowitz noted in his order of the day that, at the Battle of the Bzura in Poland (also known as Battle of Kutno to the Germans), his troops were fighting ‘in one of the biggest and most destructive battles of all times.’ Elsewhere, Wehrmacht troops withdrew to their agreed sphere of influence in Poland. Finally, the remaining Polish garrison in Grodno exterminated eight hundred Soviet troops and destroyed at least ten Soviet tanks (even though marshal E. Rydz‐Smigly ordered Poles not to engage the Soviets in military actions).
1940: Jean Decoux allowed Imperial forces to enter Haiphong harbor in Indochina! Less surprisingly, Fascist flighcraft detected and assaulted Allied convoy BN‐5 in the Red Sea, damaging British ship Bhima with near misses and necessitating a towing to Aden, but the Regia Aeronautica still lost one bomber. (The escorting New Zealand cruiser HMS Leander sustained no damage.) Three waves of Bf 109 fighters totaling over one hundred flightcraft flew across the English Channel for London, successfully lured out British fighters, then shot down seven of them (slaughtering four pilots) at the cost of two of their own. Overnight, Fascist bombers reattacked London.
1941: Lithuanian anticommunists and local police commenced a mass execution of 403 Jews in Nemenčinė. Additionally, Axis submarine U‐111 sank British ship Cingalese Prince east of Brazil, slaughtering fifty‐seven folk (but leaving twenty alive), and Axis submarine U‐552 (Kapitänleutnant Erich Topp) torpedoed the 6,325‐ton Norwegian motor tanker Barbro carrying 9,000 tons of petrol off Greenland’s east coast. Two torpedoes hit the ship and she immediately burst into flames, trapping the thirty‐four crew aboard, and other ships in convoy SC‐44 could only watch helplessly as she sank. Axis submarine U‐69 (Kapitänleutnant Zahn) had fired a torpedo to finish off the vessel but this failed to detonate. The crew included three Swedes, one Dane, five Britons and four Canadians apart from the Norwegians. (The Barbro’s master, Lauritz Knudsen had previously commanded the motor tanker Britta that was torpedoed and sunk by Axis submarine U‐47 (Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien) on 6 Dec 1939.)
1945: Eduard Wirths, chief SS doctor who performed experiments on prisoners, committed suicide in captivity… I have no comment.
1993: Erich Alfred Hartmann, Axis pilot, dropped dead.
Very good post. I saved this for later, when I write my own works on the issue - it’ll come in handy. Thank you