PERSPECTIVES: Captive Nations Week

PERSPECTIVES

by Andrew Fedynsky

Captive Nations Week - 1999

Ever since I was a kid, the third week in July has been Captive Nations Week. I remember marches on steamy downtown streets ending up at a rally on Public Square. Civic leaders, politicians and professors around the country examined the annual presidential proclamation searching for hidden clues about the ebb and flow of American policy toward the Soviet Union.

It's now 1999 and July is as hot as it's ever been - that hasn't changed - but the Soviet Union is now gone and we don't observe Captive Nations Week as we once did, although the law is still on the books. Like a lot of Ukrainian Americans, I took part in my share of marches and heard more than my share of speeches. At the time, the exercise seemed futile, but looking at it from the perspective of the years, I see how these observances played a key role in the ultimate demise of the Soviet Union.

When Congress voted in 1959 to mandate an annual Captive Nations Week, the world was a lot different. It was the height of the Cold War and America was profoundly anti-Communist - for good reason. Stalin was still a fresh memory. Nikita Khrushchev was testing hydrogen bombs in the atmosphere and blustering about how the Soviet Union would "bury" its capitalist opponents.

I grew up in Cleveland in the 1950s and went to Benjamin Franklin Elementary School. From the playground, you could smell the steel mills in the valley about a mile away. All of us kids took perverse pride in the fact that Cleveland's manufacturing would be a prime target in a potential nuclear attack and we would be among the first to go.

Every couple of months the school bell started ringing and then, ominously, would keep on ringing, over and over. "A security drill," we thought and filed quickly down the stars to the basement. There we knelt against the walls, huddled together with our arms wrapped around our heads to protect them, we were told, from the blast and debris of the bombs that would be falling on the steel mills down the road. Outside, a siren wailed. A siege mentality steeled the country for what President John F. Kennedy labeled a "long twilight struggle" against an enemy that had already murdered millions and was bent on world domination. This was before Vietnam.

Prior to the adoption of Captive Nations legislation, the struggle against communism was waged on terms set by Lenin and Marx. Communists would point to the shortcomings of capitalism: depression, crime, unequal income distribution and racism, and offer their "utopia" as an alternative. The West found itself defending a flawed capitalist system that existed in the real world, against the vision of Communist perfection sometime off in the future. As for communism's repressive nature? This was either denied or downplayed as something that had to be done to bring about "paradise on Earth."

The Captive Nations Week Resolution (Public Law 86-90) officially introduced a new element to the debate: national self-determination. Forget economic utopia, Ukrainian Americans said. That's a phony vision anyway. The reality is more like famine and labor camps. With the annual endorsement of Congress and the president, Ukrainian Americans demanded the restoration of Ukraine's national symbols, its language, its heroes. Standing next to them at Public Square rallies were Balts, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Czechs and others - each with grievances and Captive Nations agendas of their own.

Over the years, people in Washington who are paid to look at the big picture came to accept the Soviet Union as a permanent fixture. Ultimately, for the State Department, focused on big-power diplomacy and the minutiae of arms control, wheat contracts and cultural exchange negotiations, the separate Captive Nations agendas voiced by people with funny names and strange accents were a distraction and an embarrassment. For the Soviets they were a mortal threat.

As the people at the top cut deals, millions of Americans at the grassroots were spreading the world about national self-determination. The countless channels of personal communication, the brave publishing houses like Smoloskyp, Ardis and Kultura, the Voice of America, Radio Liberty and the sacrifice of dissidents within the Soviet bloc ultimately overwhelmed the ability of the KGB and other secret police organizations to control political thought.

Each national group represented in the Captive Nations coalition had its separate agenda, yet was each linked politically to the other, because each shared the same political objective: the demise of the Soviet Union. East and West might have found a way to "peacefully co-exist" - what other choice was there? - but still, each July, the president issued a proclamation that said it was the objective of the United States to free the Captive Nations, i.e., destroy the Soviet Union. Millions of Americans worked to make it happen, despite the best efforts over time of our diplomats to downplay the significance of Captive Nations Week.

The annual observances, of course, did not escape the attention of smart local politicians everywhere. They looked at the crowd of sweaty marches and saw dedicated constituents, voters. More than one got up on a podium, slung his jacket over his shoulder, just like in his campaign photos, and told the Captive Nations crowd what they wanted to hear: that the Soviets were brutes and imperialists. A few of the politicos rode the coalition into city hall, the governor's mansion, the Congress of the United States. Indeed, the Captive Nations coalition has been the swing vote in every recent presidential election.

In 1972 ethnic Americans joined Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority" to crush George McGovern, who was perceived as soft on communism. Four years later President Gerald Ford came to the astonishing conclusion that there was no Soviet domination of Poland. People of Central and Eastern European heritage, who knew better, flocked to Jimmy Carter's campaign, tipping the election his way. In 1980 Ronald Reagan blasted "the Evil Empire." This was music to the ears of ethinc Americans - "Reagan Democrats" - and they rewarded him with their votes. In 1991 President George Bush delivered his disastrous speech in Kyiv about "suicidal nationalism" and advised Ukrainians to stick with Russia. This was just days after Captive Nations Week and less than a month before Ukraine declared its independence. Bill Clinton and Al Gore, of course, capitalized on President Bush's mistake and won the next two elections.

Captive Nations, for obvious reasons, has faded as a slogan and an issue. The American military investment, the relentless efforts of the Captive Nations coalition and, yes, the dedicated work of diplomats who negotiated arms control agreements and opened cracks in the Iron Curtain with exchanges, all contributed enormously to the final victory during the Cold War.

Yet in a way, Ukraine and the other former Soviet colonies are still "captive" - at least to the extent that they're stuck with the old Communist mindset. The West invested a great deal to win freedom for the Captive Nations, but victory will not be complete until those countries are democratic, secure and prosperous.

As we stop to reflect on Captive Nations Week, let's resolve to make sure America does not revert to isolationism, but remains involved, informed and engaged. Tell Gore, tell Bush, tell Bradley, tell Dole and Forbes and McCain. Oh, and I promise, no more sweaty marches during the third week of July. That's history.

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