Talk:Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

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[edit] 1939 events

Was this the organization that rose against Poland during the Polish September Campaign, or were there others Ukrainian anti-Polish organizations at that time? Perhaps some pro-communist?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

There was a "Communist Party of Western Ukraine" - a NKVD backed structure that praised Soviets entering Halychyna. But it was hardly "Ukrainian" - only formally. Not sure about "September Campaign", never heard of :( Ukrained 18:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Operation Ohio

This piece of text was added anonymously and later removed. Is there any truth in this? Petri Krohn 02:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Operation Ohio was an assassination program which the U.S. Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC), U.S. Naval Intelligence, and U.S. Air Force Intelligence carried out through the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) during and after World War II. Control of OUN later passed to the CIA.

The source for the quote is namebase.org [1] The text refers to an article published in the Win Magazine (War Resisters League) in September 1975 on Operation Ohio.
Another reference: [2] Petri Krohn 07:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
It's pretty well documented that the CIA and MI6/SIS attempted to support/make use of nationalist resistance groups in the Soviet Union after WW2. Here's one hit from google books: [3] Most of these operations were complete failures. Apparently most of the Western files on this stuff are still sealed, probably because a lot of it would prove to be very embarassing, and most of the info is from KGB archives since the USSR dissolved. Some good books to check are:
  • Peter Grose, Operation Rollback: America’s Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000)
  • Tom Bower, The Red Web: MI6 and the KGB Master Coup (London: Aurum Press, 1989)
cheers, heqs 01:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SUM promotion

The following poorly-written promo text has been added:

СУМ (Spilka Ukraïns'koï Molodi), or simply UYA (Ukrainian Youth Association), is the more predominantly nationalistic of the Ukrainian Youth Groups. It was established as a division of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) as a counter the Soviet pacification in Ukrainian after the rise of the bolshevik socialists. Its objective was to teach the Ukrainian youth of their true heritage, and to privately denounce the Russian communist tenets that were being forced upon them. It operated secretly under the authority of its founder, Mykola Pavlushkov and his associate, Serhij Yefremov. The Association was organized in groups of five (p'iatok) so as to keep from drawing attention to the undergound group. Should any member be caught, under this system, he would only be able to divulge the identities of the four other members in his group of five. Its motto, God and Ukraine (Boh e Ukraina) is a testament to the beliefs of the members of this organization, as well as its noble dedication to a greater good beyond themselves.
Today, the UYA operates both in Ukraine as well as what is known as the diaspora, which refers to countries outside of the motherland that have accepted Ukrainian immigrants. The UYA exists in Argentina, Canada, the United States, Germany, Australia, The United Kingdom, and other countries.

As one of the SUM members in Ukraine, I can assure anybody that this text is both underdeveloped and irrelevant here. If needed, feel free to make a separate NPOV article on SUM. Or rather SUMs since this organization in Ukraine is split in at least three parts. Given that, providing an external link to only one of the SUMs would be a real POV-pushing. So I just deleted it.

Instead, nobody cared :( to mention SUM-SVU trial or several other organizations more closely linked to OUN. Ukrained 09:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I just moved it as it had been added to Scouting in Ukraine, and doesn't really apply there. No offense meant. Chris 01:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
No offense were supposed either :). I was talking merely of a possible perception, not of your intentions anyway. Thanks for that contribution anyway. I'll make a separate article someday and get all needed ext links for it. Best wishes, Ukrained 10:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Totally disputable

    • The article does not say any word about ethnic cleansing of the Poles and the Jews by the OUN and UPA. It does not say any word about collaboration of OUN with the Nazi Germany. --Russianname 05:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually the article discusses these things. I recommend you reread it.Faustian 21:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Post-war guerrilla warfare

Excerpt from the book Blowback - America's recruitment of Nazis, and its disastrous effect on our domestic and foreign policy by Christopher Simpson (Collier / Macmillan, 1988) in chapter Guerrillas for World War III on page 148:

“ Covert operations chief Wisner estimated in 1951 that some 35,000 Soviet police troops and Communist party cadres had been eliminated by guerrillas connected with the Nazi collaborationist OUN/UPA in the Ukraine since the end of the war, and that does not include casualties from other insurgencies in Lithuania and the Muslim regions of the USSR that were also receiving aid from the United States and Britain. ”

Wikipedia does not seem to have any information on this insurgency. -- Petri Krohn 01:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Terrorist organization?

I am surprised that the article doesn't address the argument that OUN was a terrorist organization. Granted, it is on "Words to avoid" list, however that Manual of Style guideline only stresses the need for verification. OUN has been called a terrorist organization by reliable scholars, ex. Timothy Snyder ([4]), Jerzy Jan Lerski ([5]), Tadeusz Piotrowski ([6]), Stanley G. Payne ([7]),. Notably even Orest Subtelny in his famous Ukraine:A History uses this adjective in relation to OUN ([8]). That said, I know it may be a controversial issue, and so I would like to ask for input here. Can we add the adjective 'terrorist' to lead and/or main body?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 00:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The article on the Provisional Irish Republican Army states that the British have classified it as a terrorist organization, not that it is a terrorist organization. Perhaps something can be written about many historians considering the OUN to have been a terrorist organization. However, that being said, the organization survived in the diasopra and was definitely no longer a terrorist organization then.Faustian (talk) 03:00, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Good points. My knowledge of it is constrainted to the Polish front; an organization that was involved with violent resistance, including assassinations and later massacres should not be described simply as "a Ukrainian political movement" - but this needs to be treated with tact so the article remains neutral and reliable. Would you like to adjust the lead and article to reflect that issue?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 21:15, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

One should first read the article on Terrorism to get some background as to when it is appropriate to use the term. Bandurist (talk) 04:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on its lessons here?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 06:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Obviously, OUN in the post WWII period cannot be described as a terrorist organization because it was not involved in any such behaviour. During WWII its leadership was very careful to make sure participants in UPA etc wore uniforms are specifically targeted military objects. They constantly spoke and wrote about military education, whether it be from Polish, German or Soviet sources. There is a difference between a combatant fighting aagainst another soldier and a person committing a crime against the civilian population. The matter becoems somewhat obscure when OUN in the 1930's began a program of assassinations of Polish and Soviet functionaries. Here the definition becomes somewhat obscure and we begin to split hairs.
On the one side you have actions that could be classified as terrorism. On the other hand these acts were premeditated, and calculated against specific targets and had specific parameters. Also they were on Ukrainian ethnic territory, not in a foreign country.
The fact that it was on ones own soil has a sepcific meaning because it is then classified as defence and not an attack.
In any case, it is a matter for further debate to refine the definition.
Obviously, for an occupier, it is all classified as terrorism, but there is a fine line when it is your own territory you are defending.
On the other hand you have State Sponsored assassinations which were committed by the Soviets against Petlura, Konovaletz, banduera, Rebet and others where the assassin was known, where they confessed, or defected etc. Is that not terrorism, state sponsored terrorism doing a criminal act on foreign soil?
The one great difference between the Poles and Russians was that the Polish government did not (and could not) condone state sponsored murder. It was never an option for them because of the high moral stand they took which was probably rooted in their Roman Catholic Faith. It would have been so much easier to pop off Shukhebvych and all the others, but they did not do this. In fact they did not officially execute any Ukrainin Nationalists in that period. The Russians however did not have those qualms. Murder was known as mokriye diela. It wasn't discussed because of its seriousnesss however it did take place and was common.Bandurist (talk) 21:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Certainly the pre-WWII, WWII and post-WWII OUN was quite different. The territories it operated in had mixed Polish-Ukrainian population; some can be called 'ethnic Ukrainian', but others not - for example, Bronisław Pieracki was assassinated in Warsaw, which I am sure you will agree is not a Ukrainian territory. So while OUN power base was certainly in ethnic Ukrainian territory, its actions were not limited to it. We should expand on non-assassinations - what else did the OUN do? And I wonder what was the official Polish government description of OUN. With regards to WWII, the infamous massacres of Poles in Volhynia come to mind. Did the post-WWII OUN express any apologies for that? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 00:44, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More questions on lead

I compared the Polish and this version of the article and I have several comments:

  1. Polish version does not call it a terrorist organization; it however calls it a 'political and military nationalistic organization'. Would this be a more accurate description than the current 'political organization'? Category:Nationalist parties seems applicable here.
  2. Polish version mentions in the lead it was 'anti-Polish, anti-Soviet and anti-communist'. The current version only mentions it was 'against the Polish authorities'. Should something be corrected here?
  3. Polish version has a logo - should we import it?
  4. Polish version has a section on organizational structure - seems badly needed here

-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 18:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The OUN existed in the diaspora for over 50 years as a purely political, not military organization (after rejecting its fascist pre-war ideology and adopting a democratic one, while still being fiercely anti-communist) and currently exists as such in Ukraine. The logo is not of the OUN but of its succesor in Ukraine, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, which is one of the parties making up Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc.Faustian (talk) 18:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OUN and the Soviets

Two questions: 1) did the OUN operate against the Soviets? This aspect seems to be mostly missing from the article. 2) Were the anti-Polish activities of OUN supported (secretly) by the Soviets? I read some Polish sources which argued that Soviet intelligence manipulated OUN into such actions, hoping that driving a wedge between Ukrainians and Poles will bring the Ukrainians closer to the Soviets.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 00:42, 2 December 2007 (UTC)