“Intensify Intelligence Activities Against the Moratorium on Confrontation in the Ukrainian Liberation Movement”

In the 1980s, the movement for the consolidation of Ukrainians all over the world, development of national identity, unification of efforts in the struggle for a free and independent Ukraine, and the search for compromises on a number of pressing issues of leadership in the liberation movement and ways to achieve the goal set were gaining more and more momentum among Ukrainian emigrants. In order to prevent this, the kgb took a set of active measures to increase disagreements and contradictions between the most numerous and authoritative emigration centers and organizations abroad. This is evidenced by certain circulars, certificates and instructions preserved in the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.

In early 1987, the kgb resident in Paris sent an encrypted telegram to moscow entitled “On the Provid of Ukrainian Nationalists’ (PUN) Appeal”. It referred to the PUN’s appeal to Ukrainians worldwide, which became subject to lively discussing in the diaspora.

“We are witnessing the intensification of the struggle of the moscow imperialist center”, the telegram quoted the main provisions of the Appeal, “directed against both resistance figures in Ukraine and the activities of Ukrainians in the free world. This decade, unfortunately, has been marked by the bleak conditions of deconsolidation of Ukrainian political life, by the polemics on assessments of events in Ukraine during the war, and by the causes of unhealthy relations in Ukrainian political, social, even church-religious and scientific life”.

The telegram further pointed out that to counteract this extremely undesirable process, Melnyk’s Provid proposed, on the eve of the millennium of the Christianization of Rus, to declare a moratorium on public debate over contradictions with other Ukrainian political formations in assessing events of the past, in particular with Foreign Units of the OUN(B).

“Without giving up a constructive discussion about ways to help the Ukrainian people in their homeland”, the PUN called, “we invite other organizations to join the moratorium at least until the end of the ceremony of celebrating the millennium of Christianization”.

The kgb resident emphasized the Appeal's call for “unity in the main cause – the uncompromising struggle against the enslavers of Ukraine”. The PUN was quoted as saying that the proposed initiative “will contribute to the development of Ukrainian life in exile and unite efforts against all forces that are engaged in anti-Ukrainian activities in the countries of the Western world”. And all this was crowned with the conclusion that such public calls for a moratorium on confrontation in the political struggle were caused by “a set of active measures taken by the Center and the Ukrainian branch [of the kgb of the ussr] to strengthen the differences and contradictions between the Bandera and Melnyk nationalistic centers” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. - Case 16110. - V.5 - P. 110-111).

According to declassified documents, the telegram was immediately forwarded to the kgb of the Ukrainian ssr, which in the text is referred to as the Ukrainian branch. The telegram contains quite eloquent resolutions: “Used in the information of the central committee of the communist party of Ukraine”, “For use in summarizing and intensifying agent activities to break the moratorium”, “A proposal to counteract the movement to consolidate the efforts of nationalists’ centers has been sent to Service “A” of the kgb of the ussr”.

Among the measures taken by the kgb of the Ukrainian ssr in 1988 to implement resolutions from moscow, the following are noteworthy. The paper “On the Situation and Processes in Foreign Nationalists’ Centers”, dated September 9, 1988, points out that after the latest Grand Assembly of the OUN of Bandera’s and Melnyk’s wings, as well as the Conference of the Foreign Representation of the Ukrainian Main Liberation Council (OUN “abroad” or “dviykari”), “new trends have emerged in relations between the above-mentioned Ukrainian political parties abroad, which are manifested in attempts to erase the existing contradictions and disagreements between them; to find a basis for negotiations and joint organizational activities; a noticeable decrease in the severity of mutual attacks in nationalist print media” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1, Case 16110. - V.5 - P. 137).

In particular, it was said that one of the first steps that could indicate the possibility of reaching agreements between these three OUN currents was their joint participation in Rotterdam in events dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the death of the OUN founder Yevhen Konovalets. Special attention was paid to the speech of the new leader of the OUN Foreign Units (the official name of the OUN-Revolutionary or OUN(B) – Bandera’s wing), Vasyl Oleskiv, who was considered to be “conciliatory” and his election to this post – as somewhat a retreat from the past ambitions of the Banderites. The paper also mentioned the first unofficial meetings of Vasyl Oleskiv and the leader of the Melnykites, Mykola Plaviuk, during which they discussed certain aspects of internal organizational and ideological activities that had been classified from the general public.

With reference to foreign sources, it was pointed out that M. Plaviuk proposed to convene the Second Congress of all Ukrainian nationalists and try to “unite the scattered forces of the OUN into one whole”. It was also emphasized that V. Oleskiv “impressed M. Plaviuk as a calm, reasonable and self-confident man with whom one could negotiate”. In view of this, the kgb documents stated that such rapprochement and reconciliation could not be allowed under any circumstances, and that long-term agent-operational measures should be planned to deepen the split between the OUN wings abroad.

Another document, dated November 2, 1988, reported that activists of nationalist groups in Canada were taking steps to prepare for the convening in 1989 of the second so-called Unification Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, which was intended to be dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the OUN. Individual activists’ statements were quoted about the need to “unite and consolidate the forces of Ukrainian emigration into a single anti-communist front against the ussr”.

The information note “On Contradictions Between the Foreign Units of the OUN and OUN-Solidarists Abroad”, dated October 10, 1989, also reads about attempts to reach an understanding between them. It points out that Yaroslava Stetsko, who was a member of the leadership of the Foreign Units of the OUN, sent a letter to the leader of the Provid of the OUN(M) M. Plaviuk with a proposal to “start a constructive dialogue between the Melnykites and the Banderites”.

According to declassified documents, the kgb informed the central committee of the communist party of Ukraine about every and each of such cases. The party leadership would send instructions to prevent rapprochement, to prepare incriminating press conferences, to discredit OUN leaders in the foreign press, and to publish articles in emigrant newspapers through agents that would encourage renewed hostility between them. Many such publications appeared in the newspapers “Visti z Ukrainy”, “Golos Rodiny”, and others.

In general, as evidenced by documents of the time, the 1980s saw the intensification of the Ukrainian diaspora's struggle for democracy and state independence of Ukraine, protection of the rights of Ukrainians who were oppressed in their homeland, dissemination of the true history of Ukraine in Western countries, and criticism of the actions of the soviet government, in particular, of the deployment of soviet troops to Afghanistan. Among a number of events, along with preparations for the celebration of the millennium of the Christianization of Rus, a prominent place was occupied by campaigns to highlight the truth about the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine and to honor the memory of the victims of that tragedy, to help victims of the Chornobyl disaster, to counteract russification, and to call for the legalization of the “catacomb” UGCC and UAOC in the ussr.

The kgb kept trying to interfere in those processes and prevent consolidation in the Ukrainian national liberation movement, as it did in all previous decades. Even the attempt to impose a moratorium on the confrontation was seen as a threat. Thus, in addition to the ambitions of the OUN leaders themselves, which greatly hindered the unification, soviet secret services also actively joined in sowing discord. But that could not stop the process of the collapse of the ussr and declaration of Ukraine's independence.