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CHAPTER 5 UPA’S CONFLICT WITH THE RED ARMY AND SOVIET SECURITY FORCES Introduction This chapter takes the discussion and debates about the Ukrainian insurgence one step further, into the later war years, with focus on two major issues : first, it analyzes discussions of UPA’s conflict with the Soviet security forces and the Red Army; and second, it looks at writings on the alleged change of outlook and “democratization” of the OUN in 1943–44. It also examines the creation of the SS Division Halychyna, and its place in the narrative about wartime nationalist formations, and to what extent the Division occupies a place today in the nationalist pantheon. In the background were the epic events of the Second World War: the German defeat at Stalingrad and the Battle of the Kursk Salient in July 1943, followed by the lengthy and costly German retreat from the Soviet Union. Under these circumstances, the question for the nationalist forces was no longer the degree to which it was feasible to collaborate with the occupiers, but how to prepare for a potential new Soviet takeover. Ideologically, perhaps, the situation was more straightforward as the Soviet Union had always been the principal foe. In the changed conditions, the conflict became more extreme, particularly after Soviet forces arrived in Western Ukraine where there had been bitter fighting between Ukrainians and Poles (the subject of the next chapter), with the presence of a hostile population. Under the new conditions, the OUN-B, in particular underwent a partial metamorphosis to a more moderate and “democratic” ideology and the chapter addresses the continuing debate as to the extent to which this conversion was a genuine phenomenon or a matter of convenience. The Long Struggle: Soviet Security Forces versus UPA The most documented and discussed aspect of Ukraine during World War II is the conflict that occurred in the later part of the war between the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Soviet security forces of the NKVD.1 The NKVD 168 HEROES AND VILLAINS was not the only unit involved, many other forces were deployed against the guerrillas, including members of the Komsomol. Throughout the postwar years, the conflict was narrated in Soviet writings as one of patriots fighting against ruthless and treacherous bandits, who were tarred with the phrase “Ukrainian–German nationalists,” evidently coined by Nikita Khrushchev, the Ukrainian party boss in the late 1930s who was again sent into the region in 1944. It is also possible that it derives from Soviet propaganda organs. It signified that in official eyes the UPA was a close partner of the retreating Germans and fought on their behalf. However, this view was already being questioned prior to the end of the Soviet period. Thus in 1991, a people’s deputy from the Rivne region, Mykola Porovs’kyi, was reminding the public that the 30,000 people reportedly killed by the UPA—mainly party members sent to Western Ukraine—was the lamentable outcome of a fratricidal struggle initiated by Stalin and his cronies. He noted the crimes committed against the Ukrainian population by the NKVD and demanded the equal treatment of criminals irrespective of what parties or organizations they represented.2 Perhaps the most important article to appear on the subject in the Soviet period was that of V. I. Maslovs’kyi in the journal Komunist Ukrainy. Its appearance in this source indicated that the question was being discussed at the highest levels of the party hierarchy in Ukraine, with an eye to revising the official perspective. Maslovs’kyi remarked that the complexity of the acute political confrontation in the western areas of Ukraine needed to be reflected truthfully by social scientists and historians. Hitherto, discussion had been dominated by clichés and stereotypes. In the Brezhnev years, it had been a taboo subject, and the authorities limited inquiry by restricting or prohibiting access to special archival holdings. However, most people could now acknowledge the archaic methods by which the past was formerly studied; it had led to deformations or even outright falsifications in interpretation. The reason was that the authorities in the area of research and ideology did not like the truth about these dramatic events. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the political struggles in Western Ukraine came under review, but there was still a marked reluctance to expose the social and political roots of the confrontations : their brutality and scale. It was now time in Maslovs’kyi’s view to begin the discussion. The Communist Party...

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