The Ukrainian Insurgent Army

[Kato]

The term “repression” was officially used to denote the prosecution of people considered as anti-revolutionaries and enemies of the people. The purge was motivated by the desire on the part of the leadership to remove dissident elements from the Party and what is often considered to have been a desire to consolidate the authority of Joseph Stalin. Additional campaigns of repression were carried on against social groups which were believed, or at least were accused, for ulterior political motives, to have opposed the Soviet state and the politics of the Communist Party.

Also, a number of purges were officially explained as an elimination of the possibilities of sabotage and espionage, in view of an expected war with Germany. Most public attention was focused on the purge of the leadership of the Communist Party itself, as well as of government bureaucrats and leaders of the armed forces, the vast majority being Party members.

However, the campaigns affected many other categories of the society: intelligentsia, peasants and especially those branded as “too rich for a peasant” (kulaks), and professionals. A series of NKVD (the Soviet secret police) operations affected a number of national minorities, accused of being “fifth column” communities.

According to Khrushchev’s 1956 speech, On the Personality Cult and its Consequences and more recent findings, many of the accusations, including those presented at Moscow show trials, were based on forced confessions and on loose interpretations of Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code), which dealt with counter-revolutionary crimes. Due legal process, as defined by the Soviet law in force at the time, was often largely replaced with summary proceedings by NKVD troikas.

These purge quotas were met with the deaths of millions of people. Several hundreds of thousands were executed by shooting and millions were forcibly resettled. Many were imprisoned and tortured or sent to labor camps, both functioning as part of the GULAG system. Many died at the labor camps due to starvation, disease, exposure and overwork. The Great Purge was started under the NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda, but the height of the campaigns occurred while the NKVD was headed by Nikolai Yezhov, from September 1936 to August 1938; this period is sometimes referred to as the Yezhovshchina (“Yezhov era”). However the campaigns were carried out according to the general line, and often by direct orders, of the Party Politburo headed by Stalin.

Large-scale politically motivated killing of this type gave rise to modern terms, such as “democide” and “politicide”.

[Kato]

I would like to post some information about the largest uprising in the system of Gulag’s concentration camps - Kengir.

[Kato]

The uprising’s roots can be traced back to a large in-shipment of “thieves” — the accepted slang term for the habitual criminals and sociopaths who were also imprisoned in Gulag along with the political prisoners. Traditionally thieves and politicals had been antagonists, with the thieves exercising virtually unchecked dominance over the politicals, robbing and abusing them at will, and with the politicals remaining too disunited to muster a credible defense. This situation was facilitated by a variably complacent and actively encouraging camp administration, which recognized the potential of thieves as an effective means of suppressing the politicals and preventing them from uniting in a common cause. Indeed, the infusion of roughly 650 thieves into the roughly 8,000-strong body of political prisoners at Kengir at the beginning of May was specifically for this purpose, as the Kengir prisoners had organized strikes before on a smaller scale and were becoming increasingly restless. The camp authorities hoped that these thieves would, as they did in the past, help reverse this trend.[3]

[Kato]

It is important to note that, while the Gulag labour camps were founded in the early 1920s, only in the early 1950s were the politicals and thieves finally separated into different camp systems. With the thieves out of the way, the politicals began to unite in ways unprecedented in Gulag. The building blocks of this process were national, religious, and ethnic groups (Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Chechens, Armenians, Estonians, Muslims, etc.) who quickly consolidated into strong groups and led the way towards the building of a camp-wide coalition, primarily by launching huge campaigns of murder against camp “stoolies” (or stool pigeons)— a widely used term for snitches or prisoners who otherwise colluded in any way with the camp administration. Along with the thieves, the stoolies were the primary impediment to the politicals uniting together in the past. The stoolies kept their identities secret, denounced fellow prisoners often, and worked assiduously to root out and finger potentially troublesome prisoners. Because of this, a massive chilling effect was created among prisoners, who feared opening up to or trusting each other. These national and ethnic blocks, though, began the fight against the stoolies, systematically fishing out and killing them with a vigour and efficiency so great that the remaining, unidentified stoolies fled to the camp administration for protection.[4]
Of these above mentioned ethnic blocks, the Ukrainians - mainly former members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (by some estimates making up over a half of the camps’ population) were undoubtedly the most important, and they quickly asserted a leadership role amongst the prisoners. Members of this “Ukrainian Centre”, as it was often called, were the primary proponents of stoolie extermination and later would prove essential to dealing with the newly-arrived thieves.

Along with this effective elimination of stoolies, the prisoners began fashioning relatively high quality shivs ( a kind of a primitive knife), which were previously the exclusive territory of thieves. In addition, many incidents took place (usually including the wanton murder of some well-liked prisoners by guards) during the previous months that came to fuel resentment and justify extreme action on behalf of the prisoners.[5] Protests and collective refusals to work were increasing in frequency and the prisoners were learning the ropes of how to plan and maintain large-scale disturbances, mainly by creating systems of communication between camp divisions and, more importantly, by establishing command hierarchies.

Into this changed climate the thieves were injected and, to the surprise of the camp authorities, they instantly joined forces with the politicals, meeting secretly on the first night with the Ukrainian Centre and establishing a pact.[6] This was due both to the fact that they recognized their odds against the almost 8,000 strong body of well-armed and united political prisoners, and because thieves across the whole Gulag caught wind of the politicals’ campaign against the stoolies and began to admire and respect them.[3]

[Kato]

The entire Kengir camp complex formed a large rectangle, divided up width-wise into four distinct areas: the women’s camp, the “service yard”, where all the workshops and storerooms were located, and two camps for men, each with its own jailhouse for punishing prisoners or hiding stoolies. The women’s camp was blocked off both from access and sight to the mens’ camp.

[Kato]

The formative stage of the uprising began on the evening of May 16, a Sunday and thus a day off for all the prisoners. The thieves contrived to break into the service yard, where all the food was stored, and from there break into the women’s camp, which was easier to do from that location. This they initially did, but they were shortly chased off by guards. At nightfall, though, the thieves regrouped, shot out all of the lights in range with their slingshots, and broke through the barrier between the men’s camp and service yard with an improvised battering ram.[7] It was at this point the Kengir uprising proper started when the guards opened fire on the thieves, killing 13 and wounding 43.[5]

The remaining thieves retreated and an uneasy peace followed. During the night, though, thieves, now joined by the politicals, started breaking up their bunks and cells, trying to add to their cache of shivs and arm those without weapons, while the camp authorities posted machine gunners at the hole in the wall. After a tense standoff, the camp authorities, in a surprise gesture, ordered the withdrawal of all guards from the compound.

Despite appearances, this was a strictly tactical move on the part of the authorities. The following day they feigned acquiescence to the prisoners demands and, while the prisoners then agreeably went off to work outside the camp, the guards busied themselves patching up the broken-down wall. Nevertheless this was a strategic error on their part because it exposed the bad faith of the guards and eliminated all remaining trust the prisoners had in their word. More importantly, though, the prisoners had, for one whole day, tasted total freedom (within the confines of the camp compound), mingling freely with the female prisoners, eating their fill, and fraternizing as they pleased, and this put in them a desire for freedom that would not be so easily quenched.[8]

This time also saw the first propaganda offensive by the camp authorities (they re-enacted, in full prisoner costume, the alleged rape of the women prisoners and photographed themselves, releasing the photographs and declaring that the revolt was in fact a cover for debauchery and hedonism), setting the tone for the many that would follow.[8]

After realizing these sleights of hand on the part of the camp authorities, the prisoners quickly and forcefully reasserted themselves, running amok and sending the guards fleeing from the camp again. They then proceeded to re-destroy the wall that had just been repaired and release the prisoners from the camp’s solitary confinement cells. The camp had been seized and would remain in the control of the prisoners for the next 40 days.

[Kato]

In the dawn of June 25th, flares were shot up into the sky and the raid began. Snipers quickly picked off the sentries on the rooftops before they could sound the alarm, and the tanks rolled through the perimeter fence. Five tanks, 90 dogs, and 1,700 troops in full battle-gear stormed the camp complex.[18]

What followed was panic and chaos. While some ‘detachments’ vigorously fought back, launching numerous counter-attacks despite heavy losses and throwing improvised sulfur bombs at the tanks, other prisoners hid or committed suicide.[21] The tanks, T-34s, alternately ran over prisoners or brought down barrack walls where prisoners were hiding, and used blank rounds of ammunition to strike terror and confusion into the prisoners. The hundreds of helmeted Red Army soldiers that flooded the camp were using live ammunition, though, and with these many prisoners were killed. Some tanks carried in barbed wire-laden trestles, and these were immediately set down as a means of quickly dividing up the camp and hindering the prisoners’ freedom of movement. The leaders of the uprising were specifically targeted by designated squads of soldiers and they were taken into custody alive, many of whom were later tried and executed. After ninety minutes of violence, the remaining live prisoners, most of whom were in hiding, were ordered to come out on the promise that they wouldn’t be shot, which was, to everyone’s surprise, a promise kept.

[Kato]

Among the strikes and rebellions that were taking place in Gulags across the Soviet Union in this period, the uprising at Kengir was perhaps the most significant. While Stalin’s death, Beria’s fall, and Khrushchev’s rise bore much promise for the prisoners, who had long expected general amnesties and rehabilitation to follow these events, the role of the Kengir uprising in hastening this process cannot be overlooked. The uprising further demonstrated to the authorities that Stalinism was not a sustainable policy option and that mass injustices such as those taking place in Gulag would not stand in perpetuity without significant cost. In a shift that foreboded poorly for the Soviet regime, many of the prisoners took part knowing full well that they were doing so at the cost of their lives, and prisoners in other camps, namely in the nearby Rudnik camp, had joined with the Kengir prisoners in solidarity, launching their own short-lived strikes.

The significance of the temporary freedom enjoyed by those prisoners was not lost on many. In a 1978 review of Solzhenitsyn’s book, Hilton Kramer of The New York Times declared that the uprising “restored a measure of humane civilization to the prisoners before the state was able to assert its implacable power again.”[32] At a 2004 reunion of Kengir prisoners, a survivor of the camp mentioned that, despite the brutality and loss of life that came with the uprising’s suppression, the 40 days engendered the prisoners with “a great feeling of freeing one’s spirit,” and another prisoner recalled that “I had not before then, and have not since, felt such a sense of freedom as I did then” — both sentiments echoed often by Solzhenitsyn.[33][10] Indeed, Solzhenitsyn would later dedicate a screenplay he had written to the bravery of the Kengir rebels, entitled Tanks Know the Truth (Знают истину танки).[34]

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.Most remarkably, as Stanford historian Steven A. Barnes noted in a 2005 edition of Slavic Review, the prisoners’ campaign was belied with a certain pragmatism, and their propaganda with a level of skill, that was all but unprecedented.[35] As noted, instead of making explicit their hostility to the Soviet regime and handing an excuse to the authorities to invade, they ostensibly expressed approval of the state while, meekly, asking for the restoration of the rights and privileges afforded to them in the Soviet constitution. This message was itself spread not only to the camp authorities and any of the MVD-brass that would visit the camp for negotiations, but, crucially, to the civilian population surrounding the camp.[36]

Nevertheless, any potential effect the uprising could have had was strictly circumscribed by the nature of the Soviet regime, which was quick to use massive force to quell even the most humble of threats. In the same Times review, Kramer issued an important caveat to his previous claim:

“ …Solzhenitsyn harbors no illusions about what was possible in the way of resistance… he knows very well how little they could achieve without the support of public opinion — something the Soviet state waged constant war on. “Without that behind us,” he writes, “we can protest and fast as much as we like and they will laugh in our faces!” And yet the protests persisted — and still persist — because human dignity required them.

[Chevan]

@Kato

Since the 1990s hundreds of mass graves have been found near the locations of NKVD troops and Soviet prisons in Western Ukraine during 1944 -1950s. The remaints disintered mainly belonged to children under 14 and women.
The expertises showed that the human remaints had the signs of tortures. Many skeletons had their hands tied together with barbed wire. The number of all Ukrainians both UPA militants and civilians killed by NKVD only in their campaign agains UPA is far beyond 500000 not to mention those deported many of whom died in new lands due to harsh climate conditions and lack of nearly all necessities.

Kato i think if you will not show any cdocumental confirmation about "500 000 victims of NKVD " you will simply lier.
Sec do not even trye to justify the ethnic clearising of Western Ukrain population by the NKVD.
This is a stupid demagogy method.
Next you have to hold the topic - if you wish to discuss the NKVD then open the hew thread.
I/m not deny the NKVD crimes at all , but attempt to justify of the UPA atrocities in the 1943-44 above the own people is a stupid.

[Chevan]

@Kato

Chevan expresses regret that not all the wives and children of men involved in UPA activites were massacred. Chevan, are you a mentally sick butcher and maniac?

No , you are the sick man coz you thin the somebody could get your “justification” the bloody mass Ethnic purges in the 1943-44 by the UPA-OUN becouse the NKVD in the 1945-50-yy killed the peoples.
Now i will not amy more answere for this scrap about NKVD
BTW back to the topic
Look at the photo guys

Here are the veteranes of UPA that are still alive and healthy. ( in the difference with its victims of their terror)
They were judged for the participation in UPA ( some of them got the different stretchs from 10-15 years in the 1950-60yy by the soviet court)
But as you could see there NO the MASS killing the mambers of UPA in the USSR.
The ONLY the hight and average leaders of UPA (and if only their guilt were proved) got the death sentences.
So there is no any basis on the Kato’s fary tells about “500 000 victims of NKVD”.If even the manyes members of UPA were not shoted- could be the true the 500 000 of civilians;)
BTW this is the tupical NAzy jsutification of the Ethnic clearising .
They very like to kill the “low races” for the “revenge of Bolshevick atrocities”.
There is nothing amazing - the UPA-OUN was a tupical pro-nazy organisation.

[Chevan]

@Kato

I would like to post some information about the largest uprising in the system of Gulag’s concentration camps - Kengir.

Well i’m not wondered this madman will now write the everything about “soviet GULAG” to justify the Ethnic purges of the civilians in the western Ukraine by his “lovely” UPA.
Is it not funny guys;)??
Well back to the topic
from wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army#UPA_and_Western_Ukraine.27s_Jews
The Second General Congress of OUN-B (April, 1941, Krakow) held when the the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the political force behind UPA, had been in alliance with Nazi Germany declared the “Jews of the USSR the most faithful supporters of the Bolshevik regime and the vanguard of the Muscovite imperialism in the Ukraine.” Not long afterward, a slogan put forth by the Bandera group and recorded in the July 16, 1941 Einsatzgruppen report stated: “Long live Ukraine without Jews, Poles and Germans; Poles behind the river San, Germans to Berlin, and Jews to the gallows”. However, by the time of UPA’s formation over a year later, the OUN was at war against Germany and its stance towards some national minorities had been affected. By 1944, it formally “rejected racial and ethnic exclusivity”

So why did the UPA “formaly” regect the its ethnic politic?
Coz of simple reason
In that period the polish population of western ukraine ( together with all the jews and othe “low races” were TOTALY slaughtered by the UPA with its Nazy ideological friends.
in the 1944 the UPA-OUN simply had regected its Races rhetoric coz there is no any doubt the Nazy will lost the war. So obviously they needs the “new ideology”.
Besides in the 1944 the territory of the Western Ukraine has come the Red Army and according to the its “fredom idealogy” the UPA continie the terror agains population ( in this case they murdered the ukrainians who was loayl for the soviets).

[Chevan]

Nowadays the some of the funns of UPA tryed to presented the UPA as the fighters for the 'freedom Ukraine".
But there is no the common oppinion of its role in the Ukrainina histry indeed . Actully the western Ukaraine is not the entire Ukraine.
One of the interesting book of contemporary Ukrainians author Victor Polishyk about UPA is here
http://www.br-sl.com/2002/10/i10-02-1-r.html
Here i’ve translated the some of the interesting material about UPA “activity”

From the evidence of eyewitnesses and other materials it is possible to reproduce this motion of events on Volyni and Galichine in 1941-45 yr.

• OUN, deliberate, simultaneously with the advance of German troops to the east organized its, assistant to Germans, the police;
• OUN sent to Volyn’ of its emissaries, who propaganda and by terror forced many Ukrainian peasants Of Volyni to participate in the robberies and the severe murders of Polish innocent civilians;
• the Ukrainian police participated in the destruction of the Jewish and Polish population of the West Ukraine;
• the part of the Ukrainian population did not assume participation in the murders, it helped Jews and Poles; the Ukrainians, who rejected the participation the murders, most frequently they destroyed;
• murders bore severe nature, they had the destruction of Polish population in the West Ukraine as a goal;
• destruction did not pass the mixed Polish- Ukrainian families;
• destruction had the organized, previously planned nature;
• organization and arrangement of destruction indicates also the geography of slaughter: it began from the northeast of the West Ukraine, moved to the southwest, after being completed in Galichine;
• the murder of Poles occurred only in those territories of the Ukraine, where there was an influence UPA-OUN. About this testify the facts that Poles ran away into Zhitomirshchinu, attempting to find and even when rescuing in Ukrainians;
• the murder of Poles was the affair not of Ukrainians as the members of nation, but OUN as Ukrainian criminal ideology and policy.

So the affirmation of the mst Kato that my point is ONLY reflect the point of the “some of Polish chauvinist” is a bullshit becouse even the manies of Ukraininas historians detailed study the UPA atrocities;)
But its obviously is unknow for the Kato;)
may be the Ukraine for him is only limited by the city of Bendera and Lviv?

[Chevan]

I just want to be the objective so i use not only the Polish sources but also and Ukrainians and other.
Here is the some of the actions of UPA in Volun

Separate, very important division in the history of the proofs of the mass destruction of Poles, carried out OUN-UPA on Volyni, is the book of Y. Turovskiy and V. Semashko "Atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists, perfected against the Polish population Of Volyni in 1939-45;.
The named book is characterized by objectivity. It is not impregnated with hatred, although martyr death of thousands of Poles is described. People with the weak nerves must not read this book. In it on 166 pages of small type the methods of the mass murders of men, women, children are transferred and are described. Here are only some fragments from this book.

• on 16 July 1942 g in Klevani Ukrainian nationalists completed provocation, prepared in the Polish language anti-germans leaflet. Because of this the Germans shot several ten Poles.
• on 13 November, 1942, of Obirki, Polish village near Lutska. The Ukrainian police under the command of the nationalist of the Sachkovskogo, former teacher, attacked the village because of the collaboration with the Soviet partisans. Women, children and old men they drove off into one dolu, them they there killed, and then burnt. 17 people exported into Klevan’ and there shot.
• November of 1942, the outskirts of the village Of Virka. Ukrainian nationalists tortured Jan Zelinskiy, after assuming by his by that connected into the bonfire.
• on 9 November, 1943, Polish village to Parosle in Sarny region. The band of Ukrainian nationalists, issuing itself for the Soviet partisans, led into error of the inhabitants of the villages , which during the day entertained band. In the evening bandits surrounded all houses and killed Polish population in them. It was killed 173 people. Rescued only two, which were covered with corpses, and 6 years boy which was shut by that killed. The subsequent inspection of those killed showed the exceptional cruelty of hangmen. Breast babies were nailed to the tables by kitchen knives, from several brow century they stripped the skin, they forced women, the breasts were cut in some, in many were cut the ears, noses, eyes were punctured, heads were cut
  . After slaughter they arranged in local warden binge. After the withdrawal of hangmen among the scattered bottles auto of drive and remainders of food they found year old child, nailed by bayonet to the table, and in its mouth projected nedoyedennyy by someone of the bandits the piece of sour cucumber.
• on 11 March, 1943, the Ukrainian village Of Litogoshcha near Kovel. Ukrainian nationalists tortured a Pole of teacher, and also several Ukrainian families, which resisted the destruction of Poles.
• on 22 March, 1943, the village Of radovichi Of the kovel’skeyeo region. The band of Ukrainian nationalists, changed clothes into the German uniforms, requiring the delivery of weapon, tortured father and two brothers Lesnevskikh.
• March of 1943 Of Zagortsy, Dubna region. Ukrainian nationalists stole the manager economy, and, when it ran away, hangmen stabbed by its bayonets, and then nailed to the earth,
• March of 1943. In the outskirts Guts The Stepanskeye Kostopol’skeyeo region Ukrainian nationalists by fraud stole 18 Polish girls, whom they killed after rape. The bodies of girls accumulated in one row and on them placed tape with the inscription:"The such way must perish lyashki (polish gerls);.
• March of 1943, village bridges, The kostopol’skeyeo region Pavel and Stanislav bednazhi had wives of Ukrainians. Both were tortured by Ukrainian nationalists. They killed also wife of one. Second Natalka, rescued.
• March of 1943, the village Of Banasovka, Lutskeyeo region. Band, Ukrainian nationalists tortured 24 Poles, they rejected their bodies into the well.
• March of 1943, the populated area is Antonovka apples, The sarnenskiy region. Jozef eysmont went to the mill. The owner of mill, Ukrainian, warned him about the danger. When he returned from the mill, Ukrainian nationalists attacked it, they tied to the post, picked out eyes, and they cut then living by saw.
• on 11 July, 1943, the village Of Biskupichi, Vladimir Volynskiy ukrainskiye region nationalists made mass murder, after exhausting inhabitants into the school accomodation. At the same time they brutally killed the family of Vladimir yaskuly. Hangmen broke into the hut, when all slept. They killed parents by axes, and they assumed five children to be number, assessed by straw from the mattresses and set fire. 11 July 1943, the populated area Of svoychev near Vladimir Volynskiy. Ukrainian Glembitskiy killed his wife Polish woman, two children and parents of wife. On 12 July, 1943. the colony of Mary vol near Vladimir Volynskiy of approximately 15.00 it surrounded Ukrainian nationalists and they began to kill Poles, using a firearms, axes, pitchforks knives, dryuchki it perished about 200 people (45 families). The part of the people, about 30 people, they threw into Kopodets and there killed by their stones. Who ran away, that they overtook and killed.
  During this slaughter they ordered Ukrainian to Vladislav Didukh to kill wife Polish woman and two children. When it did not carry out order, they killed it and family.
  Eighteen children at the age from 3 to 12 years, which hid in the field, hangmen caught, planted on the cart, left into the village Chesnyy cross and there they killed all, they broke through by pitchforks, they chopped with axes. Action led Kvasnitskiy…
• on 30 August, 1943, the Polish village Of Kuty Of the lyuboml’skeyeo region. Village early in the morning surrounded the archers OF UPA and Ukrainian peasants mainly from the village Of lesnyaki, and they made the mass slaughter of Polish population they killed in the huts, in the courts, in Stodolas, using pitchforks, axes. Pavel pron’chuk, the Pole, who attempted to protect mother, they placed on the bench, arms and legs were cut, after leaving to martyr death.
• on 30 August, 1943, the Polish village Of ostruvki near Lyubomlya. They surrounded village by dense ring. Ukrainian emissaries entered in the village, proposing to lay down weapons. The majorities of men were collected in the school, in which they were shut. Then they derived on five men for the garden, where them they killed by impact on head and threw into the dug up pits of body they added .

As you cpould see guys the honest Ukrainina peoples could not keep the silence about “what the UPA did”
Really how could you concuer the Inrependence by the brutal killing a littles babies and raping the woman?

[Chevan]

Certainly the relation to the UPA is much a complex.
There is no doubt the all od the UPA members were the criminals.
Some of them may be really belived they fought for the “Ukraine”.
But could we ignored the criminal activity of UPA as organisation?
Could we ignore the Stepan Bandera’s “Ethnic program to clear the Ukraine for the Moskalye , Poles and jews”?

[Chevan]

@Kato

"Man why are you playing a fool? How could money from Canada be easily sent to Soviet Ukraine? By post? None of ordinary citizerns in the Soviet Union
were allowed to receive money from abroad. And what would they do with money in the USSR where even food during the war and some years after it was distibuted through the system of cards on food-stuffs? Or perhaps you suggest that OUN-UPA fighters could buy weapons and all the necessities from NKVD for cash? You are simply running out of your imagination.

Look at here Kato

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army#UPA_and_Western_Ukraine.27s_Jews
An estimated 500,000 Ukrainians were sent to the North between 1946 and 1949.[8] Although the Soviets failed to wipe out UPA, heavy casualties forced UPA to split into small units consisting of 100 soldiers, and many of the troops demobilized and returned home. For this reason, by 1946, UPA was reduced to a a core group of 5-10 thousand fighters, and large-scale UPA activity shifted to the Soviet-Polish border, where in 1947 they have been accused of killing general Karol Świerczewski. During the latter phase of its struggle, UPA obtained help from the CIA and British intelligence, although the operation was betrayed by Kim Philby. Only in 1947-1948 was UPA resistance broken enough to allow the Soviets to implement large-scale collectivization throughout western Ukraine. Sporadic UPA raids continued until the mid 1950’s, and UPA’s leader, general Roman Shukhevych, was killed in an ambush near Lviv in March 1950.

May be you wish to know by what way the CIA and British intellegence helped the UPA after the war?

[Jason]

I am an ethnical Russian living in Ukraine. My grandfather worked as a teacher of Maths at school in the City of Rovno ( Western Ukraine ) in 1950-52.
He was sent there by Soviet authorities as nearly all the local Ukrainian teachers were accused of nationalism and fired. He told me what was going on there at that time. He personally witnessed the public execution conducted by NKVD soldiers in a village near Rovno. Seven persons suspected in contacts with UPA were hanged in the eyes of the local villagers who were forced to be present during the execution. Two victims were 15-year-old children. The general practice of NKVD was to gather Ukrainian inhabitants of a village in one place, brought the corpses of killed insurgents and threw them in front of the crowd. Those people from the crowd who lost self-control and somehow expressed indignation or simply started crying were immediately arrested as UPA supporters and sent to NKVD torture-chambers.
These people were mainly ordinary Ukrainian women and children. As to UPA fighers they were corageous people who chose to fight for their ideals to the bitter end. They were doomed from the very beginning. Each of them realised that he would be killed to all probability as the military forces of the sides involved were entirely out of proportion. Those who don’t appreciate their choice and don’t understand the fact that OUN-UPA fought against the criminal punative machine of the USSR in order to vindicate human and national dignity are the ones who don’t have either human or national dignity.

[Jason]

I’ve read Chevan’s “denouncing” UPA. It really makes little sense. He doesn’t want to understand the nature of Polish-Ukrainian confrontation and refuses to accept that the violence was of mutual character. Even if he simply cared to have a look at the thread he provided http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraini...ine.2 7s_Jews he could read: “It should be noted that the Polish side also engaged in acts of brutality and vengeance.[9] Although the exact number of Ukrainian victims is not documented, some claim that actions of Home Army forces resulted in the deaths of as many as 20,000 Ukrainian civilians in Volhynia alone[10], and more in other areas [11].” There are much more documents and publications about Polish losses than Ukrainian ones only due to the fact that Polish documented their losses very accurately. The USSR aided their ally Socialistic Poland in it as the Soviets wanted to hang all the dogs on OUN-UPA. The huge number of Ukrainian women and children killed by Poles didn’t fit their propagandistic campaign against OUN and their plans to accuse the Ukrainian Isurgent Army of unmotivated terror against Poles therefore the facts about Ukrainian victims of Polish terror were not documented by the Soviet authorities. If Chevan understood the nature of the conflict he would know that the bulk of murders of Poles were carried out by ordinary Ukrainian farmers who had nothing to do with OUN-UPA.
That was an ethnical conflict. Civilians killed civilians. It happened many times in past in different countries where a foreign minority tried to supress original population. The uprising led by Khmelntskij was especially notorious for mutual ethnic cleansing.

[Jason]

Here are the veteranes of UPA that are still alive and healthy. ( in the difference with its victims of their terror)
They were judged for the participation in UPA ( some of them got the different stretchs from 10-15 years in the 1950-60yy by the soviet court)
But as you could see there NO the MASS killing the mambers of UPA in the USSR.

[b]It is nonsence. There are lots of photos of Soviet POWs and jews who managed to survive in the German concentration camps. They are still alive and one may say that they look quite alive and healthy in the pictures. So following your logic I should conclude that the overwhelming majority of Soviet POWs and jews were not killed in Germany.

The standard term of imprisonment for a UPA fighter was 25-30 years. 10-15 years were for civilans accused of sympathies for UPA.[/b]

[Egorka]

@Jason

Here are the veteranes of UPA that are still alive and healthy. ( in the difference with its victims of their terror)
They were judged for the participation in UPA ( some of them got the different stretchs from 10-15 years in the 1950-60yy by the soviet court)
But as you could see there NO the MASS killing the mambers of UPA in the USSR.

It is nonsence. There are Soviet POWs and jews who managed to survive in the German concentration camps. They are still alive and one may say that they look quite alive and healthy in the pictures. So following your logic I should conclude that the overwhelming majority of Soviet POWs and jews were not killed in Germany.

Regarding the picture: here is the original location - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Weterani_SS_UPA_Brzezany_2006.jpg

The file name reads “Veterans SS UPA Brzezany”.

So, why do you, Jason, think that these are “Soviet POWs and jews who managed to survive in the German concentration camps”? I can not see it? If they were Soviet POWs then why are they wearing that kind of uniform?

The standard term of imprisonment for a UPA fighter was 25-30 years. 10-15 years were for civilans accused of sympathies for UPA.[/b]

The maximum stretch was 25 years (not 30, which really does not make much difference) before the criminal set of laws of 1958.

In the criminal law of 1958 the maximum became 10 years with exeption cases 15 years.

BTW, do you know if the sentences were were changed from 25 to 15 years after the new criminal lwa of 1958 and 1960?

[Jason]

So, why do you, Jason, think that these are “Soviet POWs and jews who managed to survive in the German concentration camps”? I can not see it? If they were Soviet POWs then why are they wearing that kind of uniform?

Egorka you’ve misunderstood me. I didn’t say that the picture posted by Chevan depicts Soviet POWs and jews. I said that one may easily find the modern pictures of Soviet POWs or jews who survived in the German concentration camps. They may also look alive and healthy now. But no one will dare to reject the fact that the majority of the Red Army POWs were killed in Germany. So it is absurd to claim that there was no mass killing of the members of UPA in the USSR just because there is a certain number of people who survived after Soviet terror.