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Title: About historical tradition
Author: Autonomous Workers Union
Date: 7 January 2018
Language: en
Topics: nationalism, Ukraine, history
Source: Retrieved on 20th February 2022 from https://www.nihilist.li/2018/01/07/historical-tradition-anarchism-nationalism/
Notes: Translated by Nihilist.li.

Autonomous Workers Union

About historical tradition

We have been confronted with the fact that some individuals who have

aligned themselves to the anarchist movement are trying to consider

certain emancipatory traditions of certain members to be the

Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army

(OUN, UPA).

We understand the reasons of such ideological mutations. They provide an

opportunity to build alliances with those representatives of Ukrainian

nationalists who are trying to invent another and more decent

ideological pedigree. Let’s recall the past of the organized nationalism

of the «Bandera trend», focusing on the events of the 40’s. After all,

the events of this period are often falsified.

At the beginning of the war, «The First Commandant of the Ukrainian

National Revolutionary Army» Ivan Klymiv (Legenda) personally had a hand

in the creation and organization of Jewish pogroms. After breaking the

relationship with the German Nazis, this figure led the OUN’s military

referendum. Therefore, he had a direct connection to the creation of

military structures, of which UPA has appeared over time. However, not

just one but all Ukrainian militia in the first months of the war

actively helped the Nazis to realize «the final solution to the Jewish

question». And the OUN (revolutionary) distributed pro -hitler

declarations.

Roman Shukhevich and UPA commanders are directly responsible for the

Volyn disparity of 1943. If Shukhevich originally did not supported

large-scale actions of terror against Polish and political

opponents-Ukrainians, then with time he became convinced of the

political expediency of such practice.

The socialist and democratic rhetoric that the Bandera’s OUN have lent

them to since 1943 is not a sign of rot, but an attempt to adjust to the

mood of the population of Central and Eastern Ukraine. This version is

confirmed by the theoretical works of Peter Fedun (Poltava), in which he

explains his attitude to the future system in Ukraine.

We can note that he revises the position of prewar nationalism and

instead of a totalitarian regime, he proposes to build a system based on

multi-party system and formal representative democracy. However, in

Fedun’s «democracy» it acquires enough authoritarian features. Rights

and freedoms are irrelevant and marked by «bad words» anarchism or

liberalism. Fedun wasn’t against trade unions, but wanted them to be

apolitical. It supports multi-party system to channel class protest

through election procedures.

Only these few well-known facts are enough to draw conclusions about

this trend. It is completely contrary to anarchism and socialism. Of

course, among the nationalist formations, it is possible to distinguish

Ivan Mitrynga and his followers who stood in a socialist position during

the war, and after the war they became either exotic American

Trotskyists or Social-Democrats. And this also has little relation to

anarchism.

The desire to speculate on the «insanity» of such rather dubious

characters is unclear. We have our own Ukrainian libertarian tradition,

which is part of the world’s. These are Nabat organization,

Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine and the Southern Russian

Society of Anarcho-Syndicalists. These are the individuals of the true

internationalists and class fighters from the anarchist-rebel Nestor

Makhno to the revolutionary syndicalist Aaron Baron. This is a beautiful

and tragic story. So, we do not see the meaning in cooperation with

people justifying racist killers and adherents of authoritarianism.