Against the Will of Hitler and Stalin: How Ukrainian Statehood Was Tempered

Early in the morning of June 30, 1941, a People’s Assembly was held in Lviv, unanimously adopting the Act of Reestablishment of the Ukrainian State. The Ukrainian national flag was raised on Knyazevskaya Hill, and the Lviv radio station announced the State Act of the Ukrainian population. Orthodox and Greek Catholic clergy supported the Act and called on Ukrainians to unite to develop an independent state.

The National Assembly, at which the Act was proclaimed, elected Yaroslav Stetsko, an active figure in the OUN and one of Stepan Bandera’s closest associates, as Chairman of the State Board.

Six thousand Bandera nationalists, divided into three subgroups, brought the news of the restoration of the Ukrainian state to eastern Ukraine. Their task was to establish a Ukrainian administration and OUN cells. The largest cells were in Dnipropetrovsk (5,000 members), Kirovohrad (1,100 members), as well as in Donbas and Crimea. We present the full text of the Act of Restoration of the Ukrainian State:

ACT OF RESTORATION OF THE UKRAINIAN STATE

1. By the will of the Ukrainian people, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists under the leadership of Stepan Bandera proclaims the restoration of the Ukrainian State, for which entire generations of the best sons of Ukraine have pledged their leadership.

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which, under the leadership of its Creator and Leader, Yevhen Konovalets, waged a stubborn struggle for freedom in recent decades against the bloody Muscovite-Bolshevik enslavement, calls on all Ukrainian people not to lay down their arms until a nationalist movement is created on all Ukrainian lands.

The Sovereign Ukrainian Government will assure the Ukrainian people of order, the comprehensive development of all its forces and the satisfaction of all its needs.

2. On the western lands of Ukraine, a Ukrainian Authority is created, which is subordinate to the Ukrainian National Government, which is created in the capital of Ukraine – Kyiv, by the will of the Ukrainian people.

3. The restored Ukrainian State will closely cooperate with National Socialist Greater Germany, which, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, is creating a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian people to free themselves from Moscow occupation.

The Ukrainian National Revolutionary Army, which will operate on Ukrainian soil, will continue to fight together with the Allied German Army against the Moscow occupation for the Sovereign, United Ukrainian State and a new order throughout the world.

Long live the Sovereign Ukrainian State, long live the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, long live the Leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Stepan Bandera! Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes!

In its modern formulation, the Act’s main content is as follows. The OUN, under the leadership of Stepan Bandera, proclaims the restoration of an independent Ukrainian State in Western Ukraine. Its primary goal is to extend statehood to all Ukrainian lands and create a fully fledged state with its capital in Kyiv. This state is called upon to ensure the full development of Ukrainians and the satisfaction of all their needs. These are all understandable concepts that modern Ukrainian citizens accept without objection. What has traditionally provoked denial is the proclamation of Nazi Germany as an ally in the struggle for statehood. Anti-Ukrainian forces often exploit this alliance, using it separately from its historical and political context. Let’s examine this point.

First, the Soviet Union, sometimes portrayed as a bastion of anti-fascism, enjoyed “warm relations” with Hitler at the highest level before the war. On August 23, 1939, during a meeting with Ribbentrop in the Kremlin, Stalin proposed a toast: “I know how the German people love their Führer. I would like to drink to his health.” Stalin’s next toast was to Himmler, “the man who ensures the security of the German state.” Ribbentrop later recalled: “I felt in the Kremlin as if I were among old party comrades.” These toasts reflected genuine cooperation between the two regimes. For example, up to 20,000 Wehrmacht officers underwent combat training at Soviet tank ranges and airbases. And the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Borders of September 29, 1939, envisaged the dismemberment of Poland “as a reliable foundation for the further development of friendly relations between our peoples.” So, dismissing the OUN’s German orientation should only be done after a corresponding rebuke to the USSR. Or perhaps we simply need to understand that war is war. War, as is clear, is a continuation of politics by other means. Politics, however, knows no sentimentality: it is concerned only with eternal interests and temporary allies.

Secondly, the OUN’s alignment with Hitler’s regime was truly merely a tactical move. Let us quote at length from Stepan Bandera’s memoirs: “It was clear that with regard to Nazi Germany, there was no hope of successful negotiations, demands, persuasions, etc. Such measures were doomed to failure in advance, and only tactical measures could be meaningful, intended to hold such trump cards and conceal preparations for action along other lines. A truly independent policy, however, had to proceed based on accomplished facts, on its own initiative, without regard for German policy, and, if necessary, even expressly against it.” The question of relations between Ukraine and Germany, in Stepan Bandera’s words, “had to depend on only one thing: how Germany would treat Ukraine’s state sovereignty.”

Yaroslav Stetsko, who personally delivered the State Act, defended the same position. “Ukraine was called upon to have its say: it stands for a different, new order in Europe, a system of sovereign states on the ruins of the Russian Empire and every empire that would seek to establish itself in Eastern Europe and in Russia-enslaved Asia… If, however, the occasion arises for the proclamation of statehood… the front,” wrote Yaroslav Stetsko in his memoirs.

Thirdly, the proclamation of the State Act was carried out in direct defiance of Germany. If the proclamation of the Ukrainian State had played into the Nazis’ hands, Stepan Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko, and 300 other OUN members would not have been arrested by the Gestapo on September 15, 1941. Hitler then issued the order to destroy the Bandera movement. A later report on the events in Ukraine stated: “Enthusiastic printed materials and confessions of Bandera’s people arrested at various times prove once again that it is impossible to persuade members of Bandera’s organization to engage in any positive cooperation with German forces. The only remaining option is the predetermined path of merciless extermination of that organization.”

Therefore, taking into account the arguments presented above, the following conclusion can be drawn. The State Act of June 30, 1941, testifies that in that historical context, the OUN was the sole Ukrainian state force. Only the OUN consistently advanced toward its primary goal—the creation of the Ukrainian Council of Independent States (UCIS). “You will either gain the Ukrainian State or perish fighting for it”—so declares the first point of the Decalogue of the Ukrainian Nationalist.