Ukraine: Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Galicia

Ethnic cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Galicia

Beginning in 1943, the UPA adopted a policy of massacring and expelling the Polish population of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. The ethnic cleansing operation against the ethnic Polish population began on a large scale in late February of that year and lasted until the end of 1944.

In Volhynia deadly acts of aggression, including the mass murder of Poles, occurred throughout 1943 before spreading to eastern Galicia in early 1944.

In June 1943, Dmytro Klyachkivsky head-commander of UPA-North made a general decision to exterminate all male Poles living in Volhynia. July 11, 1943, was one of the bloodiest days of the massacres, with UPA units marching from village to village, killing Polish civilians.

On that day UPA units surrounded and attacked 99 of Polish villages and settlements in three counties -- Kowel, Horochow, and Włodzimierz Wołyński. On the following day fifty additional villages were attacked.

Between August 21 and 25, 1943, during the Third Convention of the OUN, Roman Shukhevych accepted the "Volhynia stategy," an operation which aimed at Poles and had been conducted by Dmytro Klyachkivsky.

The methods used by the Ukrainian nationalists in both Galicia and Volhynia consisted of killing all Poles in the villages, then pillaging the villages and burning them to the ground. Victims, regardless of age or gender, were routinely tortured to death.

In late 1943 and early 1944, after most Poles of Volhynia had either been murdered or had fled, the killings moved to the neighboring province of Galicia. In March 1944, the main Command of the UPA ordered the ethnic cleansing of all Poles from Galicia. Unlike Volhynia, where Polish villages were destroyed and their inhabitants murdered without warning, Poles in eastern Galicia were sometimes given the choice of fleeing or being killed.

By the end of summer 1944, mass acts of terror aimed at Poles were taking place in Eastern Galicia to force them to resettle on the western bank of the San river. A popular slogan during the period was "Poles beyond the San". Ukrainian peasants sometimes joined the UPA in the violence, and large bands of armed marauders, unaffiliated with the UPA, brutalized civilians. In other cases however, Ukrainian civilians took significant steps to protect their Polish neighbors, either hiding them during UPA raids or vouching that the Poles were actually Ukrainians.

The total number of Poles murdered specifically by UPA is unknown. Estimates of the Polish deaths in Volhynia are over 50,000. The number of UPA victims in Volhynia, Galicia and current Poland combined ranges from 80,000 to 100,000

Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America' Dirty Little Ukrainian Secret by Paul Rosenberg and Foreign Policy in Focus

   

Democracy and Class Struggle is re- publishing this information has it is essential background to the current Ukraine Crisis.  

The Ukrainian nationalist party Svoboda holds a rally in Kiev, January 1, 2014. (Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev)

This article was first published in TheNation.com and Foreign Policy In Focus.

As the Ukrainian crisis has unfolded over the past few weeks, it’s hard for Americans not to see Vladimir Putin as the big villain. But the history of the region is a history of competing villains vying against one another; and one school of villains—the Nazis—have a long history of engagement with the United States, mostly below the radar, but occasionally exposed, as they were by Russ Bellant in his book Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party (South End Press, 1991).

Bellant's exposure of émigré Nazi leaders from Germany's World War II allies in the 1988 Bush presidential campaign was the driving force in the announced resignation of nine individuals, two of them from Ukraine, which is why he was the logical choice to illuminate the scattered mentions of Nazi and fascist elements among the Ukrainian nationalists, which somehow never seems to warrant further comment or explanation. Of course most Ukrainians aren’t Nazis or fascists—all the more reason to illuminate those who would hide their true natures in the shadows…or even behind the momentary glare of the spotlight.

Your book, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, exposed the deep involvement in the Republican Party of Nazi elements from Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukrainians, dating back to World War II and even before.

As the Ukrainian crisis unfolded in the last few weeks, there have been scattered mentions of a fascist or neo-fascist element, but somehow that never seems to warrant further comment or explanation.

I can’t think of anyone better to shed light on what’s not being said about that element. The danger of Russian belligerence is increasingly obvious, but this unexamined fascist element poses dangers of its own. What can you tell us about this element and those dangers?

The element has a long history, of a long record that speaks for itself, when that record is actually known and elaborated on. The key organization in the coup that took place here recently was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN], or a specific branch of it known as the Banderas [OUN-B]. They’re the group behind the Svoboda party, which got a number of key positions in the new interim regime.

The OUN goes back to the 1920s, when they split off from other groups, and, especially in the 1930s, began a campaign of assassinating and otherwise terrorizing people who didn’t agree with them.

As World War II approached, they made an alliance with the Nazi powers. They formed several military formations, so that when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, they had several battalions that went into the main city at the time, where their base was, Lvov, or Lwow, it has a variety of spellings [Lviv today].

They went in, and there’s a documented history of them participating in the identification and rounding up Jews in that city, and assisting in executing several thousand citizens almost immediately.

They were also involved in liquidating Polish group populations in other parts of Ukraine during the war.

Without getting deeply involved in that whole history, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists to this day defend their wartime role.

They were backers of forming the 14th Waffen SS Division, which was the all-Ukrainian division that became an armed element on behalf of the Germans, and under overall German control.

They helped encourage its formation, and after the war, right at the end of the war, it was called the First Ukrainian division.

They still glorify that history of that SS division, and they have a veterans organization that obviously doesn’t have too many of members left, but they formed a veterans division of that.

If you look at insignia being worn in Kiev in the street demonstrations and marches, you'll see SS division insignia still being worn. In fact, I was looking at photographs last night of it, and there was a whole formation marching, not with the 14th Division, but with the Second Division. It was a large division that did major battle around Ukraine, and these marchers were wearing the insignia on the armbands of the Second Division.

So this is a very clear record, and the OUN, even in its postwar publications, has called for ethno-genetically pure Ukrainian territory, which of course is simply calling for purging Jews, Poles and Russians from what they consider Ukrainian territory.

Also, current leaders of Svoboda have made blatantly anti-Semitic remarks that call for getting rid of Muscovite Jews and so forth. They use this very coarse, threatening language that anybody knowing the history of World War II would tremble at. If they were living here, it would seem like they would start worrying about it.

Obviously these people don’t hold monopoly power in Ukraine, but they stepped up and the United States has been behind the Svoboda party and these Ukrainian nationalists. In fact, the US connections to them go back to World War II, and the United States has had a longstanding tie to the OUN, through the intelligence agencies—initially military intelligence, later the CIA.

China : 30,000 Chinese Factory Workers Strike Against Maker of Nike Sneakers

Editor Michelle Chen and instructor Xiaoming Chai discuss the workers' demands and whether the rise of strikes in signal a decline of cheap labor in China.

With May 1st just days away we call for International Working Class Solidarity for our Chinese Brothers and Sisters - we call for the release of the detained activists  Zhang Zhiru and Lin Dongo

Long Live International Working Class Solidarity - Long Live the Struggle for Marxism Leninism Maoism.

See Also :

http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/workers-autonomy-strikes-in-china-in.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/whats-happening-at-foxconn-zhengzhou.html

Ukraine: Kramatorsk Peoples Self Defence Forces attack and blow up Ukrainian Army Helicopter

Self-defence troops have confirmed they attacked a Ukrainian military helicopter at an airfield in eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk. A plume of smoke can be seen rising over the area in a number of online videos. The Helicopter was destroyed by a RPG rocket propelled grenade.

Ukraine: Slavyansk being encircled by Ukrainian Army says Graham Phillips

Ukrainian troops were ordered to commence the next stage of the so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ around 12pm local time (10:00 GMT), according to coup-appointed acting head of presidential administration Sergey Pashinsky.

“The aim is to completely isolate Slavyansk to localize the problem. At the moment, the operation is ongoing,” the official told media as quoted by RIA Novosti.

Ukrainian armed forces have set up a military base some 20 kilometers from Slavayansk.

According to Phillips, there is an ongoing buildup of troops in the area and “snipers hiding in forests in position.” 

The city is being encircled, he tweets.

Eirigi Easter Commemoration - Remembering 1916 Uprising

See Also the Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr remembering Sean McLoughlin

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/easter-1916-uprising-remembering.html

Defending James Connolly's ideas against revisionism today.

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/remembering-james-connolly-and-exposing.html

Street Interviews in Ukraine by Graham Phillips - Contradictions amongst the People and with the Enemy the Kiev Putschists

The value of these street interviews is up to the viewer but they show contradictions amongst the people and contradictions with the enemy the Kiev Putschists.

The Interviews follow on after another automatically.

On Mumia's Birthday we say Free Mumia Abu Jamal

Saturday 26th April 1.00 pm, Rally at Windrush Square, Brixton, London, SW9 - Free Mumia Abu Jamal Now !

See Also : http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-unsilenced-voice-of-long-distance.html

Larry Wilkerson on Obama's Wrong Headed Approach to China

Larry Wilkerson: President Obama's trip to East Asia exemplifies the need for the U.S. to control China's influence instead of looking for ways to collaborate.

Since 2011 the Pivot to Asia has created tension in the Asia Pacific that tension is growing not diminishing just as the US pivot to the Ukraine has brought the highest level of tension since the Cold War in Europe.

Imperialism means War - not inevitable war but high probability of war  - people can make history and avert wars but with all these global tensions at the moment a new war in Europe or Asia becomes more likely.

See Also: http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/andrew-scobell-speech-at-us-china.html

"Russians" in Eastern Ukraine : The Obama administration and Kiev government have tried to base this claim on photographic evidence that the NYTimes recently had to retract

Pictures presented by Washington and Kiev as evidence of Russia's involvement in Ukraine, and published on Monday by the New York Times, were unverified and in fact contradicted the claims they were to support.

The US State department acknowledged the error and the New York Times back-tracked on its Monday story, which claimed “photographs and descriptions from eastern Ukraine endorsed by the Obama administration … suggest that many of the green men are indeed Russian military and intelligence forces”.

The proof was this particular picture with an inscription “Group photograph taken in Russia”.

Image from instagram.com @maximdondyuk

Freelance photographer Maxim Dondyuk took the photo.

“It was taken in Slavyansk [Ukraine],” he told NYT over the phone. “Nobody asked my permission to use it.”

The picture was amongst others Kiev gave the OSCE mission to Ukraine to ‘prove’ Russian involvement in the massive unrest gripping the Donetsk region.

The State Department repeated the claims, citing ‘confirmation’ of Moscow involvement.

“We see in the photos that have been again in international media, on Twitter, publicly available is that there are individuals who visibly appear to be tied to Russia. We’ve said that publicly a countless number of times,” Jen Psaki, State Dept spokeswoman said.

The New York Times eventually published a climbdown Wednesday - ‘Scrutiny Over Photos Said to Tie Russia Units to Ukraine’, where it admitted failing to properly verify the Kiev photo dossier.