A GLIMPSE OF SOVIET REALITY: Soviet newspaper reveals existence of underground nationalist youth groups (12/27/87)

A GLIMPSE OF SOVIET REALITY

Soviet newspaper reveals existence of underground nationalist youth groups

by Bohdan Nahaylo

In an otherwise standard attack on Ukrainian nationalism, the newspaper Kultura i Zhyttia for November 22 revealed the existence of underground nationalist youth groups in western Ukraine. Citing two specific examples, the paper expresses concern that some young people in this region take a sympathetic view of the Ukrainian nationalist resistance movement that fought against Soviet rule in the 1940s and early 1950s, and are susceptible to "ideological diversion" from Ukrainian emigres.

The article is written by a certain B. Yefremov, who identifies himself as a stage-artist from Ternopil who is currently touring the oblast with an agitprop show titled "Under Foreign Banners" that is designed to discredit Ukrainian "bourgeois nationalists."

Showing none of the "new thinking" and glasnost as regards the recent Ukrainian past that is supposed to be the order of the day under the Gorbachev leadership, he portrays the Ukrainian nationalist resistance movement as having been composed of bloodthirsty bandits and traitors who brought nothing but suffering to their compatriots. What worries him is that some of the younger people in western Ukraine apparently do not share this negative view of the Banderivtsi, as members of the Ukrainian nationalist movement are frequently referred to after the name of one of their leaders, Stepan Bandera.

The main thrust of Mr. Yefremov's article is to warn that Ukrainian "bourgeois nationalism" is not simply a thing of the past, that its adherents abroad are "persistently continuing their work,'" and that they have targeted the youth of Soviet Ukraine. What bothers him most is that some young people in the Ternopil region are evidently receptive to these "subversive" influences. Mr. Yefremov illustrates the danger of what can happen with two examples of clandestine nationalist youth groups that have been uncovered, fairly recently it seems, in the Ternopil oblast.

The first involved a student at the Chortkiv pedagogical institute whose grandfather had been "punished for contacts with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists," and whose aunt lives in the United States and "regularly sends him presents of goods that are in short supply. "Together with three friends, he decided to form "a group for active struggle with the existing order.'" They had drawn up a program and a statute, as well as prepared a draft copy of a membership card. Their first "action" was to have been the hoisting of a flag with Ukrainian national colors - blue and yellow - over a "government building."

The other was made up of a group of young people from Zbarazh, "almost all of whom had higher education." They decided to disseminate "anti-Soviet" leaflets, and for this purpose had prepared "texts," and had collected addresses and printing type. From the few details that Mr. Yefremov provides about these two groups it appears that they were both nipped in the bud, as it were, and that their founders were let off with an official warning. Mr. Yefremov concludes by saying that more should be done to protect youth from "bourgeois nationalist" influences, especially by discussing this problem more with them.

It should be noted that there is a tradition of underground nationalist activity in western Ukraine. In the post-Stalin period, after the crushing of armed nationalist resistance, numerous clandestine groups have been uncovered in the region. Among the best known are the Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants' Union, broken up in 1961; the Ukrainian National Front, uncovered in 1967; and another organization also called the Ukrainian National Front that was discovered in 1979. Apart from these underground nationalist organizations, there has also been no shortage of small secret groups of nationally minded youths, and cases of young individuals hoisting blue and yellow flags or carrying out other acts of protest.

This tradition has helped to perpetuate the reputation of western Ukraine as a bastion of Ukrainian nationalism as well as the stereotype of its inhabitants as Banderivtsi.

Recently, Sobesednik, the weekly supplement of Komsomolskaya Pravda, published a forthright letter from a western Ukrainian named S. Denesiuk, who complained about the persistence of a disparaging attitude towards inhabitants of his area of Ukraine. He described how on hearing that he was from the Rivne oblast, a Muscovite had immediately called him a Banderist. Yet one of his grandfathers had died at the front, and another had been killed by the Banderists.

Mr. Denesiuk says that this example, and the numerous stereotypes and pejorative terms that exist for inhabitants of other parts of the Soviet Union, reflect national enmities that need to be discussed in the open. He addresses the following challenge to the editors of Sobesednik:

"Listen Sobesednik, has glasnost and perestroika reached your editors or not? If it has, then I await a serious discussion of national problems. At present it is becoming evident that fraternity among the nations is not quite as rosy as it was considered to be not all that long ago. It transpires that a base 'everyday' nationalism lived on...It is now necessary not just to sing songs about brotherhood, but to look into the reasons for national enmity. Obviously you will not publish my letter. Again, you will be afraid. Of truth? Right now I cannot write in any other way. It is not that time."

To Sobesednik's credit, it published this letter. A few months earlier it carried and even more outspoken letter from a young Ukrainian Catholic named Ihor Klymenko who not only asserted his faith but also challenged members of the Komsomol to enter into a public debate with him.

Judging by the tone of Mr. Yefremov's article in Kultura i Zhyttia, and the type of letters that appear in Sobesednik, it is clear that as far as glasnost is concerned, what is possible in Moscow can still only be hoped for in Kiev.

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