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Darkness Descends on the Ukraine, or Can You Put Lipstick on a Nazi?

 

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: An impor­tant new post by George Elia­son rais­es a num­ber of impor­tant points and, in so doing, deep­ens our under­stand­ing of the hor­ror show unfold­ing in Ukraine.

(We have done six pro­grams to date about the Ukrain­ian cri­sis: FTR #‘s 777778779780781, 782.)

Mr. Elia­son informs us:

  • That Yat­se­niuk is cut from the same OUN/B fab­ric as Swo­bo­da and Pravy Sek­tor: ” . . . . Even Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk falls among this mod­er­ate [?!–D.E.] major­i­tyFor gen­er­a­tions his own fam­i­ly has had a proud tra­di­tion of ser­vice to the Ultra- Nation­al­ist cause and has won awards for their ser­vice. . . .” [That is not much of a sur­prise, con­sid­er­ing he was the cen­tral banker under OUN/B front man Yuschenko–D.E.]
  • Giv­ing us some work­ing num­bers for the mur­ders com­mit­ted by the for­bear­ers of Swo­bo­da and Pravy Sek­tor: ” . . . . Under the mil­i­tant lead­er­ship of Stepan Ban­dera in World War II, the ultra-nation­al­ists orga­nized the Ukrain­ian Waf­fen SS Gali­cian, Nicht­en­gall, and Roland Divi­sions that col­lab­o­rated with the Nazis and were respon­si­ble for the geno­cide of over 500,000 peo­ple. . . .”
  • Like the Ustachi, the OUN/B mur­der­ers went about their mur­der­ous busi­ness with a medieval cru­el­ty ; ” . . . . Accord­ing to Szawlowski’s descrip­tion of the meth­ods the Ban­derites employed against the Poles at Vol­hy­nia, treach­ery was the most fre­quently used. The Ban­derites told the Poles they were one peo­ple and fam­ily with them and that it would be trea­son if they left. The Ban­dera groups even promised to pro­tect them–in writ­ing! What else sep­a­rates the Ban­deras from every oth­er geno­ci­dal per­pe­tra­tor of the war is this: Even though the Ger­man SS had units ded­i­cated to geno­cide, the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (OUN) approached this mis­sion with a zeal and bar­bar­ity that Hitler’s own units could not muster. They rou­tinely tor­tured peo­ple with saws and axes, and used the most painful meth­ods they could devise as means to kill them. The Ban­dera would attack using “self defense groups” that were local­ly orga­nized. These civil­ian Ban­deras were the main force used to attack and slaugh­ter the Poles. If any of the mas­sacre vic­tims man­aged to sur­vive, they were torched, robbed, and killed by fol­low-up groups of women and chil­dren. . . . .”
  • As we saw in pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion, the crimes of the OUN/B urder units are cel­e­brat­ed by their heirs in Swo­bo­da and Pravy Sek­tor. ” . . . . Szawlowski’s work on the geno­cide com­mit­ted by Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists dur­ing World War II is brought up to date by the recent obser­va­tions of Ukrain­ian Wik­tor Poliszczuk. “... he con­demns the dan­ger­ous activ­i­ties of the post-UPA [Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army] nation­al­ists in present-day Ukraine, tak­ing place not only in Lvov, but even in Kiev, ‘Gali­cian Fun­da­men­tal­ism,’ and oth­er such phe­nom­ena. Also crit­i­cized by him are the pro­mot­ing of the total­i­tar­ian and geno­ci­dal doc­trines of the Ukrain­ian Dmytro Dontsov, the erect­ing of mon­u­ments to the SS-men of the 14th Ukrain­ian SS Divi­sion “Gal­izien” (“Haly­chyna”), the OUN [Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists] and UPA lead­ers: Yevhen Kono­valets, Andryi Mel­nyk, Stepan Ban­dera, Roman Shukhevych and oth­ers, and the glo­ri­fy­ing of the mur­der­ers of Poles, Jews, Rus­sians and Ukraini­ans as nation­al heroes of the Ukraine, after whom streets and squares are named, awak­ing the spir­it of the Dontsov and Ban­dera era, so much hat­ed by peo­ple.” This was writ­ten only a few years ago. . . .”
  • Attempt­ing to put lip­stick on the prover­bial pig, Dymytro Yarosh, head of Pravy Sek­tor, met with the Israeli Ambas­sador to the Ukraine and pumped him up with some Min­istry of Truth PR: ” . . . . Accord­ing to Huff Post , “Dmitri Yarosh, leader of Right Sec­tor, met with Israel’s ambas­sador to Ukraine, Reuven Din El, and told him that their move­ment rejects anti-Semi­tism and xeno­pho­bia and will not tol­er­ate it. . . . ”  
  • Both Vic­tor Yuschenko and Yulia Tim­o­shenko were pro­teges of Sla­va Stet­sko, the wid­ow of Yaroslav Stet­sko and the head of the OUN/B Ukrain­ian Nazi gov­ern­ment in exile: ” . . . On June 30, 1941 Stepan Ban­dera declared the for­ma­tion of the Ukrain­ian State in Lviv. Stepan Ban­dera made his lieu­tenant Yaroslav Stet­sko the Pre­mier. After the war the Ban­dera groups formed their Gov­ern­ment in Exile that was giv­en qui­et legit­i­ma­cy by both the US and Cana­di­an gov­ern­ments short­ly after WW2. Part of this was due to their sup­port dur­ing the cold war against the Sovi­et Union, and part due to the size of their lob­by­ing effort. They pump a lot of mon­ey into Con­gress. That they were legit­imized by the US Gov­ern­ment is clear from all the released Nazi War Crimes Dis­clo­sure Act doc­u­ments I have come across.It is very clear that the most impor­tant branch­es of the Dias­po­ra gov­ern­ment are in the US and Cana­da. Until 2003 the exiled lead­er­ship of the Ban­dera Gov­ern­ment of Ukraine was only one step away from the per­son of Stepan Ban­dera him­self. The supreme lead­er­ship of Ban­der­a’s Ultra Nation­al­ists world­wide changed hands twice after his assas­si­na­tion. Both supreme lead­ers had been his clos­est asso­ciates.The first was Yaroslav Stet­sko, Ban­der­a’s Pre­mier in exile. He took over con­trol of the Ultra Nation­al­ist Gov­ern­ment in Exile on the death of Stepan Ban­dera and held the posi­tion until his own death in 1986. Upon his death, his wife Sla­va Stet­sko took over the lead­er­ship role and lived to bring the world­wide move­ment home to Ukraine.Most rec­og­niz­able Ukrain­ian politi­cians, includ­ing Vic­tor Yush­henko and Yulia Tymoshenko , are pro­tégés of Sla­va Stet­sko. This will explain why Mr. Yuschenko made Stepan Ban­dera a “Hero of Ukraine.” The EU sharply object­ed to this at the time, because of Ban­der­a’s involve­ment in geno­cide, and Vic­tor Yanukovych sub­se­quent­ly rescind­ed the award. That did­n’t work out well for him.The 1st gen­er­a­tion Ban­dera gov­ern­ment, which pledged fideli­ty to Adolf Hitler and com­mit­ted ram­pant and bru­tal geno­cide that it still denies, was alive and well until 2003. It ruled and raised funds from the Ukrain­ian Dias­po­ra, which con­sti­tutes a third of the Ukrain­ian pop­u­la­tion world­wide, or 20 mil­lion peo­ple. . . . .”
  • Under the OUN/B gov­ern­ment hold­ing sway in Ukraine, the edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem is indoc­tri­nat­ing Ukrain­ian in a doc­tri­naire Rus­so­pho­bia: ” . . . . One of the changes hap­pen­ing now in Ukraine is forced Ukrainiza­tion. If you remem­ber Nazi his­tory and the Hitler Youth, you’ll under­stand what Ukrainiza­tion means. It demands the same unques­tion­ing loy­alty from lit­tle chil­dren, a loy­alty even greater than that to fam­i­ly.What is forced Ukrainiza­tion at the pre school lev­el ? Iri­na Far­ion was a favorite for the Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion slot, until a dis­cus­sion behind closed doors in the Sen­ate. Sergei Kvit from Trizub (Yarosh core group), a real Ultra-Nation­al­ist, got the nod instead.Here is Iri­na Far­ion speak­ing to a lit­tle child: What is your name? Misha. It’s not Ukrain­ian. You are Mihai­lo!And your name? Masha. You are Marusa. But my mom calls me this! If you want to be Masha, go to Moscow!Don’t call oth­er chil­dren Russ­ian names. It is degrad­ing. It’s like call­ing them an ani­mal that lives in the woods and walks on all fours.Imag­ine a gov­ern­ment offi­cial speak­ing to chil­dren like this. Chil­dren are now taught that if they have Russ­ian names they are sec­ond-class cit­i­zens. All of the chil­dren of Ukraine will grow up to be Ultra Nation­al­ists. Those instilled with Nation­al Social­ism will get a bet­ter edu­ca­tion, a bet­ter job, a bet­ter life. . . .”
  • Yarosh is talk­ing about “lib­er­at­ing” ter­ri­to­ry that is in Rus­sia: ” . . . Dmitri Yarosh (Trizub and Pravy Sek­tor, and Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense [Mil­i­tary] and Nation­al Secu­rity): “It is bet­ter for us to build our own Nation­al State! Does that mean knives to the Moskals and ropes to the Jews? Well, not so unso­phis­ti­cated. There must be a Ukrain­ian author­ity in Ukraine; the tit­u­lar nation must dom­i­nate in busi­ness, pol­i­tics, and culture...then–forced Ukrainiza­tion. Rus­sians do not like it? Well, go back to F#cking Rus­sia! Those that don’t want to go–we can help them. Rus­sians are not even Slavs.... Next we will lib­er­ate our lands: Voronezh, Kursk, Bel­o­gorod Oblast, and Kuban. These are all Ukrain­ian lands!” The only prob­lem is all of these Oblasts (regions) are in Rus­sia! . . .
  • As we have seen in pre­vi­ous pro­grams and posts, both Pravy Sek­tor and Swo­bo­da have a his­to­ry and tac­ti­cal asso­ci­a­tion with street fight­ing. In that con­text, the for­mal mil­i­ta­riza­tion of these ele­ments in the Ukraine are omi­nous. The pos­si­bil­i­ty for provo­ca­tion and a sub­se­quent out­break of war are very seri­ous: ” . . . The Russ­ian inva­sion of Crimea took a turn for the weird yes­ter­day. The Prime Min­is­ter of Crimea, Sergei Aksy­onov, direct­ed Crimea’s vol­un­teer mili­tia to arrest any per­son they see that looks like a Russ­ian sol­dier!Crimean author­i­ties have heard that Pravy Sek­tor is mas­querad­ing as Russ­ian sol­diers, try­ing to pro­voke con­flict. The now offi­cial Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tion tried to set off a bomb at a cafe in Crimea 2 days ago. . . . ”

“The Nazis Even Hitler Was Afraid Of” by George Elia­son; OpE­d­News; 3/16/2014.

EU politi­cians that sup­port­ed the Maid­an Rev­o­lu­tion are voic­ing con­cerns bor­der­ing on fear about how much con­trol Ultra Nation­al­ists have over the gov­ern­ment in Kiev. Chan­cel­lor Merkel’s gov­ern­ment is telling her she can no longer afford to ignore the Ultra Nation­al­ists in Ukraine. They are scared Ger­many will be respon­si­ble for set­ting up a new Reich. It’s time to strip away the rest of the veneer and take a look at what’s real­ly there.

For­get about the Nazi sym­bol­ism, and ultra-nation­al­ist exu­ber­ance. I will even grant sup­port­ers of the cur­rent gov­ern­ment that much.

Every impor­tant min­istry, from edu­ca­tion and social pol­i­cy to polic­ing, pros­e­cu­tion and nation­al defense, is head­ed by Ultra Nation­al­ists. In every aspect of nation­al life, Ultra Nation­al­ists now deter­mine what it means to be Ukrain­ian and all the poli­cies need­ed to enforce it.

Even Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk falls among this mod­er­ate [?!–D.E.] major­i­ty. For gen­er­a­tions his own fam­i­ly has had a proud tra­di­tion of ser­vice to the Ultra- Nation­al­ist cause and has won awards for their ser­vice. Before Maid­an it hurt his chances for elec­tion. After Maid­an he did­n’t need to wor­ry about elec­tion.

What is Scary

In an OpEd in the LA Times, enti­tled “Ukraine’s Threat from With­in,” Direc­tor of the School of Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions at USC Robert Eng­lish very con­cise­ly warns that “the way Ukrain­ian Ultra Nation­al­ists white­wash Ban­dera his­to­ry, which is their past, makes the present and future all that much more scary.”
The Ban­deras, or Ban­derites, are activists in the Ukrain­ian Ultra Nation­al­ist move­ment that is now in con­trol of the gov­ern­ment in Ukraine. Under the mil­i­tant lead­er­ship of Stepan Ban­dera in World War II, the ultra-nation­al­ists orga­nized the Ukrain­ian Waf­fen SS Gali­cian, Nicht­en­gall, and Roland Divi­sions that col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Nazis and were respon­si­ble for the geno­cide of over 500,000 peo­ple. Fol­low­ing the war, how­ev­er, Ukrain­ian Nazis were the only group to escape tri­al at Nurem­burg for crimes against human­i­ty. More­over, nei­ther the Ban­deras, the Ukrain­ian Waf­fen SS, nor any oth­er Ukrain­ian col­lab­o­ra­tors have ever apol­o­gized for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in geno­cide.

In the land­mark work on the sub­ject , Geno­cide Com­mit­ted by Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists on the Pol­ish Pop­u­la­tion Dur­ing World War II, Ryszard Sza­wlows­ki char­ac­ter­izes it this way:

“...the Ger­mans have long admit­ted to their crimes, and have apol­o­gized for them pub­licly .... [The] pres­i­dent of the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many, Roman Her­zog, [said] in his speech in War­saw on August 1, 1994 ... ‘I bow before the fight­ers of the War­saw Upris­ing, and before all the Pol­ish war vic­tims. I beg for­give­ness for what the Ger­mans did.’ Russ­ian pres­i­dent Boris Yeltsin, when he kissed mon­sign­or Zdzis­law Peszkows­ki on the hand, whis­pered the words ‘I apol­o­gize’ ....

“Ukrain­ian geno­cide com­mit­ted against the Poles dur­ing World War II sur­passed Ger­man and Sovi­et geno­cide .... [It] was marked by the utmost ruth­less­ness and bar­bar­i­ty, and ... up until the present day, it has been denied or, at best, pre­sent­ed with reminders that all is “rel­a­tive’ or oth­er such eva­sions.”

Accord­ing to Sza­wlowski’s descrip­tion of the meth­ods the Ban­derites employed against the Poles at Vol­hy­nia, treach­ery was the most fre­quent­ly used. The Ban­derites told the Poles they were one peo­ple and fam­i­ly with them and that it would be trea­son if they left. The Ban­dera groups even promised to pro­tect them–in writ­ing!

What else sep­a­rates the Ban­deras from every oth­er geno­ci­dal per­pe­tra­tor of the war is this: Even though the Ger­man SS had units ded­i­cat­ed to geno­cide, the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (OUN) approached this mis­sion with a zeal and bar­bar­i­ty that Hitler’s own units could not muster. They rou­tine­ly tor­tured peo­ple with saws and axes, and used the most painful meth­ods they could devise as means to kill them.

The Ban­dera would attack using “self defense groups” that were local­ly orga­nized. These civil­ian Ban­deras were the main force used to attack and slaugh­ter the Poles. If any of the mas­sacre vic­tims man­aged to sur­vive, they were torched, robbed, and killed by fol­low-up groups of women and chil­dren.

Sza­wlowski’s work on the geno­cide com­mit­ted by Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists dur­ing World War II is brought up to date by the recent obser­va­tions of Ukrain­ian Wik­tor Poliszczuk. “... he con­demns the dan­ger­ous activ­i­ties of the post-UPA [Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army] nation­al­ists in present-day Ukraine, tak­ing place not only in Lvov, but even in Kiev, ‘Gali­cian Fun­da­men­tal­ism,’ and oth­er such phe­nom­e­na. Also crit­i­cized by him are the pro­mot­ing of the total­i­tar­i­an and geno­ci­dal doc­trines of the Ukrain­ian Dmytro Dontsov, the erect­ing of mon­u­ments to the SS-men of the 14th Ukrain­ian SS Divi­sion “Gal­izien” (“Haly­chy­na”), the OUN [Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists] and UPA lead­ers: Yevhen Kono­valets, Andryi Mel­nyk, Stepan Ban­dera, Roman Shukhevych and oth­ers, and the glo­ri­fy­ing of the mur­der­ers of Poles, Jews, Rus­sians and Ukraini­ans as nation­al heroes of the Ukraine, after whom streets and squares are named, awak­ing the spir­it of the Dontsov and Ban­dera era, so much hat­ed by peo­ple.” This was writ­ten only a few years ago.

Every major schol­ar­ly work–a prime exam­ple is the papers of Pers Anders Rudling–show that the Ban­deras mur­dered 500,000 peo­ple with­out even the pre­text of an apol­o­gy. They have lied and tried to change his­to­ry in an effort to make Stepan Ban­dera and the Waf­fen SS heroes of the Great War. Among oth­er tac­tics, they have tried to peti­tion the UN to reclas­si­fy Ban­dera and take his name off the UN’s list of lead­ing Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors and per­pe­tra­tors of geno­cide. Legit­imiz­ing these men would irrev­o­ca­bly change the his­to­ry of the Great War.

Accord­ing to Huff Post , “Dmitri Yarosh, leader of Right Sec­tor, met with Israel’s ambas­sador to Ukraine, Reuven Din El, and told him that their move­ment rejects anti-Semi­tism and xeno­pho­bia and will not tol­er­ate it.”

Right Sec­tor became famous at the begin­ning of the Euro Maid­an protests and sub­se­quent rev­o­lu­tion. It serves as the umbrel­la group for the com­bined mil­i­tant Ultra Nation­al­ist groups that exist­ed in Ukraine pri­or to the rev­o­lu­tion and that insist on a pure Ultra Nation­al­ist Ukrain­ian nation under the most rigid con­for­mi­ty to Stepan Ban­der­a’s phi­los­o­phy. Mr. Yarosh is the leader of Tryzub (Tri­dent) which is the core Right Sec­tor group. He has spent twen­ty years doing noth­ing else but prepar­ing for the rev­o­lu­tion that will sweep Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment into extreme Ultra Nation­al­ism.

Despite his words to the Israeli ambas­sador, Dmitri Yarosh has been very clear from his first inter­views that he is guid­ed only by Ban­der­a’s writ­ings and the writ­ings of the group’s found­ing lead­ers. He adheres to noth­ing else. Mr. Yarosh is adamant about the fact that Stepan Ban­dera was not an anti-Semi­te.

Both the Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL) and the State of Israel accept at face val­ue that, giv­en Yarosh’s claim that Ban­dera was not an anti-Semite–a claim he him­self believes–the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty can now relax about any con­tem­po­rary threat from Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists.

But can the State of Israel, or Abe Fox­man, chair­man of the ADL, or any­one else stick­ing his fin­gers into this pie explain away the deaths of over 200,000 Jews at Ban­derite hands? No! The ADL describes its main pur­pose as fight­ing anti-Semi­tism and all forms of big­otry, and defend­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals. Coun­ter­pose to that the entire his­to­ry of the Ukrain­ian Ultra Nation­al­ist move­ment, includ­ing its his­to­ry of today. When you do, can there be any assur­ances from its rep­re­sen­ta­tives that don’t ring hol­low?

Babi Yar

The think­ing today is true to pre-WW2 form: “This can’t hap­pen again.” Part of what is cloud­ing the issue is the very Jew­ish back­grounds of some in the Kiev government–including Yat­senyuk. A few of the Oli­garchs-turned-gov­er­nors even have Israeli cit­i­zen­ship.

Dur­ing WW2, Babi Yar was the sin­gle most hor­rif­ic act of holo­caust at the time. Even today, the Ban­derite response to Babi Yar is “I am proud of the fact that among 1,500 Polizei exe­cu­tion­ers in Babiy Yar there were 1,200 OUN men but only 300 Ger­mans.” This quote is from a Rivne city offi­cial named Shku­ratiuk, and appears in the book Orga­nized Anti-Semi­tism in Con­tem­po­rary Ukraine: Struc­ture, Influ­ence and Ide­ol­o­gy by Pers Anders Rudling.

The atroc­i­ties at Babi Yar, and the accom­pa­ny­ing bru­tal­i­ty, were left to SS Nachti­gall and the polizei. Both were Ban­derite. The rea­son was sim­ple. The bru­tal work of geno­cide at this lev­el made even hard­ened Ger­man SS uncom­fort­able. This fact is even obscured in the Holo­caust Ency­clo­pe­dia at the Unit­ed States Holo­caust Muse­um.

Dur­ing the peri­od Sep­tem­ber 29–30, 1941, the first mas­sacre at Babi Yar killed over 30,000 Jews. Over the next few years the geno­cide piled up. Vic­tims from the Roma (Gyp­sies) alone num­bered almost 200,000. Ban­derite apol­o­gists have offered a range of ratio­nal­iza­tions, from “Ukraini­ans suf­fered too” to the sur­re­al “Ban­der­a’s men stepped back and the Jews did it them­selves.” No kid­ding. Babi Yar was racial sui­cide.

What sep­a­rates Ger­many from the Ban­dera Nation­al­ists in Ukraine is that Ger­many has tak­en respon­si­bil­i­ty for the atroc­i­ties they com­mit­ted. Until recent events, they could say believ­ably, “Nev­er Again.” Con­trast this to Lviv, Ukraine, where sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the WW2 Gali­cian SS, will­ing par­tic­i­pants in geno­cide, still parade on hol­i­days, proud­ly dis­play­ing medals giv­en them by the Ger­man Third Reich.

Instead of apolo­gies, the Ukrain­ian OUN/Banderites/UCCA offer apolo­get­ics and write hand­books on how to escape respon­si­bil­i­ty for griev­ous crimes against human­i­ty. They paint them­selves, quite lit­er­al­ly, as both vic­tims and heroes, not per­pe­tra­tors.

Iron­i­cal­ly, one such hand­book is enti­tled “Geno­cide- NEVER AGAIN- The Teacher and Stu­dent Work­book”, print­ed by the UCCA (Ukrain­ian Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee of Amer­i­ca) on the 75th anniver­sary of the Ukrain­ian Geno­cide. The “NEVER AGAIN” in the title is of course the cry of peo­ple that man­aged to sur­vive the geno­cide. Can it also be used by the peo­ple that com­mit­ted it, unre­pen­tant­ly?

How can a group that unques­tion­ably com­mit­ted the most bru­tal tor­ture and bar­bar­ic mur­der in WW2 morph into cham­pi­ons of social jus­tice? They con­tin­u­al­ly deny involve­ment and try to con­vince the world of the same thing they teach their own peo­ple. They were vic­tims and heroes. At the same time, they glo­ri­fy their SS heroes at will. The 1st Divi­sion link is their homage to the Gali­cian SS.

Typ­i­cal UCCA Ban­derite pro­pa­gan­da looks like this: ” The only impor­tant OUN idea from the past that sur­vived is a desire for a free and demo­c­ra­t­ic Ukraine where all Ukraini­ans, regard­less of their eth­nic back­grounds, can live in peace.”

This response from a for­mer Ari­zona UCCA state chap­ter pres­i­dent real­ly needs to be con­sid­ered in the light of his­to­ry and present cir­cum­stances. That one state­ment says it all. The only ques­tion he leaves unan­swered is, Who is a Ukrain­ian? Do they include all fam­i­lies that have lived there for hun­dreds of years and speak Russ­ian? How about peo­ple that do not sup­port Ban­dera?

How Does Ban­dera Fit in 70 Years Lat­er?

On June 30, 1941 Stepan Ban­dera declared the for­ma­tion of the Ukrain­ian State in Lviv. Stepan Ban­dera made his lieu­tenant Yaroslav Stet­sko the Pre­mier. After the war the Ban­dera groups formed their Gov­ern­ment in Exile that was giv­en qui­et legit­i­ma­cy by both the US and Cana­di­an gov­ern­ments short­ly after WW2. Part of this was due to their sup­port dur­ing the cold war against the Sovi­et Union, and part due to the size of their lob­by­ing effort. They pump a lot of mon­ey into Con­gress. That they were legit­imized by the US Gov­ern­ment is clear from all the released Nazi War Crimes Dis­clo­sure Act doc­u­ments I have come across.

It is very clear that the most impor­tant branch­es of the Dias­po­ra gov­ern­ment are in the US and Cana­da. Until 2003 the exiled lead­er­ship of the Ban­dera Gov­ern­ment of Ukraine was only one step away from the per­son of Stepan Ban­dera him­self. The supreme lead­er­ship of Ban­der­a’s Ultra Nation­al­ists world­wide changed hands twice after his assas­si­na­tion. Both supreme lead­ers had been his clos­est asso­ciates.

The first was Yaroslav Stet­sko, Ban­der­a’s Pre­mier in exile. He took over con­trol of the Ultra Nation­al­ist Gov­ern­ment in Exile on the death of Stepan Ban­dera and held the posi­tion until his own death in 1986. Upon his death, his wife Sla­va Stet­sko took over the lead­er­ship role and lived to bring the world­wide move­ment home to Ukraine.

Most rec­og­niz­able Ukrain­ian politi­cians, includ­ing Vic­tor Yush­henko and Yulia Tymoshenko , are pro­tégés of Sla­va Stet­sko. This will explain why Mr. Yuschenko made Stepan Ban­dera a “Hero of Ukraine.” The EU sharply object­ed to this at the time, because of Ban­der­a’s involve­ment in geno­cide, and Vic­tor Yanukovych sub­se­quent­ly rescind­ed the award. That did­n’t work out well for him.

The 1st gen­er­a­tion Ban­dera gov­ern­ment, which pledged fideli­ty to Adolf Hitler and com­mit­ted ram­pant and bru­tal geno­cide that it still denies, was alive and well until 2003. It ruled and raised funds from the Ukrain­ian Dias­po­ra, which con­sti­tutes a third of the Ukrain­ian pop­u­la­tion world­wide, or 20 mil­lion peo­ple.

Today, the Kiev gov­ern­ment is only the 2nd gen­er­a­tion of Ban­dera gov­ern­ment. Looked at real­is­ti­cal­ly, it still pro­motes the teach­ings, poli­cies, and doc­trines of Stepan Ban­dera less than 10 years removed from their insti­tu­tion­al moor­ings.

The Ban­dera lead­ers of today were cul­ti­vat­ed to make sure they would not stray far. The present gov­ern­ment in Kiev can also be count­ed to be true to its his­to­ry.

One of the changes hap­pen­ing now in Ukraine is forced Ukrainiza­tion. If you remem­ber Nazi his­to­ry and the Hitler Youth, you’ll under­stand what Ukrainiza­tion means. It demands the same unques­tion­ing loy­al­ty from lit­tle chil­dren, a loy­al­ty even greater than that to fam­i­ly.

What is forced Ukrainiza­tion at the pre school lev­el ? Iri­na Far­i­on was a favorite for the Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion slot, until a dis­cus­sion behind closed doors in the Sen­ate. Sergei Kvit from Trizub (Yarosh core group), a real Ultra-Nation­al­ist, got the nod instead.

Here is Iri­na Far­i­on speak­ing to a lit­tle child: What is your name? Misha. It’s not Ukrain­ian. You are Mihai­lo!

And your name? Masha. You are Marusa. But my mom calls me this! If you want to be Masha, go to Moscow!

Don’t call oth­er chil­dren Russ­ian names. It is degrad­ing. It’s like call­ing them an ani­mal that lives in the woods and walks on all fours.

Imag­ine a gov­ern­ment offi­cial speak­ing to chil­dren like this. Chil­dren are now taught that if they have Russ­ian names they are sec­ond-class cit­i­zens. All of the chil­dren of Ukraine will grow up to be Ultra Nation­al­ists. Those instilled with Nation­al Social­ism will get a bet­ter edu­ca­tion, a bet­ter job, a bet­ter life.

What Does This Mean for South and East Ukraine?
South and East Ukraine don’t want their chil­dren taught these things. Would you? Vladimir Putin and Rus­sia are the only par­ties putting the brakes on that right now. The same Europe and Amer­i­ca that 70 years ago vio­lent­ly over­threw the forces of big­otry and indoc­tri­na­tion are now say­ing that the Ukrain­ian peo­ple must accept them qui­et­ly!

Dmitri Yarosh (Trizub and Pravy Sek­tor, and Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense [Mil­i­tary] and Nation­al Secu­ri­ty): “It is bet­ter for us to build our own Nation­al State! Does that mean knives to the Moskals and ropes to the Jews? Well, not so unso­phis­ti­cat­ed. There must be a Ukrain­ian author­i­ty in Ukraine; the tit­u­lar nation must dom­i­nate in busi­ness, pol­i­tics, and culture...then–forced Ukrainiza­tion. Rus­sians do not like it? Well, go back to F#cking Rus­sia! Those that don’t want to go–we can help them. Rus­sians are not even Slavs.... Next we will lib­er­ate our lands: Voronezh, Kursk, Bel­o­gorod Oblast, and Kuban. These are all Ukrain­ian lands!”

The only prob­lem is all of these Oblasts (regions) are in Rus­sia!

No, I am not talk­ing about the US and Rus­sia. The spit pro­pa­gan­da that became west­ern media por­trays this as Cold War redux. Are you for the West? Good, you sup­port democ­ra­cy! Not so fast.

The Russ­ian inva­sion of Crimea took a turn for the weird yes­ter­day. The Prime Min­is­ter of Crimea, Sergei Aksy­onov, direct­ed Crimea’s vol­un­teer mili­tia to arrest any per­son they see that looks like a Russ­ian sol­dier!

Crimean author­i­ties have heard that Pravy Sek­tor is mas­querad­ing as Russ­ian sol­diers, try­ing to pro­voke con­flict. The now offi­cial Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tion tried to set off a bomb at a cafe in Crimea 2 days ago.

This isn’t about East vs. West. The choice is sim­pler than that. It is about life and death. There are no com­pro­mis­es to make. If Kiev declares Stepan Ban­dera and all asso­ci­at­ed groups are ille­gal and geno­ci­dal war crim­i­nals, the south­east in Ukraine will relax. But, quite to the con­trary, the first thing the Kiev gov­ern­ment did was to make laws that legal­ized the teach­ing of Nazi pro­pa­gan­da. With­out rep­re­sen­ta­tion, they decid­ed that 10 per­cent of peo­ple’s pay in the south­east would be tak­en with­out con­sent and giv­en as sup­port to the fam­i­lies of peo­ple that over­threw a con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment.

Ukraine is not West vs. East. They want you to make the same deci­sion with them. Are you for a world ruled by Ultra Nation­al­ists? Ukraine says no. Are you for a gov­ern­ment that sup­ports the doc­trines of the 3rd Reich? Will you sup­port one? Are you sup­port­ing one?

If the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment that was pro­pelled into pow­er is not Ultra Nation­al­ist, why are they mak­ing every move to show oth­er­wise? Does the US gov­ern­ment sup­port Ultra Nation­al­ist val­ues? If not, why are they show­ing oth­er­wise?

Clar­i­fi­ca­tion starts with both gov­ern­ments adher­ing to the rule of law. Oth­er­wise, as I once heard some­one I respect­ed put it: “You can put lip­stick on a pig, but at the end of the day it is still a pig.”

Discussion

3 comments for “Darkness Descends on the Ukraine, or Can You Put Lipstick on a Nazi?”

  1. I am very grate­ful for the work you are doing in keep­ing up with this sit­u­a­tion, which seems to take many turns in quick suc­ces­sion with each pass­ing day. If it weren’t for you, and pos­si­bly a few oth­er most­ly non-main­stream sources of infor­ma­tion and research–though none as sol­id and thor­ough­ly com­pre­hen­sive as your work–I would think I might be crazy for think­ing that the big­ger ques­tion that the U.S. should be get­ting agi­tat­ed about is the fact that neo-fas­cism is strength­en­ing and spread­ing its foothold in Europe, instead of Rus­si­a’s so-called “land grab” of Crimea.

    If the U.S. were so con­cerned about land grabs, maybe we’d be look­ing at actu­al U.S. cor­po­rate land grabs and dis­lo­ca­tion of com­mu­ni­ties through­out the world. If the U.S. were so con­cerned about coun­tries com­mit­ting aggres­sions across their bor­ders, maybe we would­n’t have such a mil­i­tant­ly vio­lent, dra­con­ian bor­der patrol along the U.S. Mex­i­co bor­der, along with indef­i­nite deten­tions, depor­ta­tions, etc.

    It is a sober­ing sit­u­a­tion to see that after so many years, hun­dreds of years, the “West” still cares more about play­ing polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic pow­er strug­gles with Rus­sia, alien­at­ing Rus­sia than to fos­ter gen­uine alliances and strive for real democ­ra­cy, eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal, social equal­i­ty, jus­tice, peace, and not just the catch-phras­es and cer­e­mo­ni­al per­for­mances as a dis­guise for reac­tionary nation­al­ism and fas­cism.

    I am not voic­ing applause for Putin, as I find many of his domes­tic poli­cies dis­turb­ing, but the zeal­ous, exag­ger­at­ed name-call­ing by peo­ple like Hillary Clin­ton and even Oba­ma, from whom I would expect more intel­li­gent state­ments, enable no progress at all. Hon­est­ly, I hate to say it, because this is the kind of sen­ti­ment that gives the GOP and shady “inde­pen­dent” par­ties fod­der, it brings my dis­ap­point­ment in Oba­ma, Clin­ton, etc. to a new a low, and con­vinces me that, with­out excep­tion, pow­er cor­rupts all.

    Posted by r.r. | March 20, 2014, 12:00 am
  2. Ukraine; The night of the long knives again?

    Here’s a cou­ple of arti­cles about the new gov­ern­ment in Ukraine going to war with it’s own stormtroop­ers.

    First, this piece:

    http://en.ria.ru/world/20140325/188748364/Kiev-Authorities-Plan-to-Crack-Down-on-Maidan-Radicals—Source.html

    Kiev Author­i­ties Plan to Crack Down on Maid­an Rad­i­cals —

    KIEV, March 25 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s inter­im Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov has autho­rized the deten­tion and ques­tion­ing of the lead­ers of rad­i­cal Right Sec­tor par­ty after receiv­ing threats of retal­i­a­tion for the killing of one of its noto­ri­ous activists, a ministry’s source said Tues­day.

    The source said on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty that Avakov’s order includes a police sweep of Kiev’s Inde­pen­dence Square, known as Maid­an, which is still occu­pied by scores of ultra­na­tion­al­ists.

    “Inves­ti­ga­tors from the min­istry are already work­ing at some of the tents on Maid­an,” the source said, adding that a crack­down on Maid­an could start lat­er tonight.

    Ukrain­ian spe­cial forces have gunned down ultra­na­tion­al­ist Olexan­der Muzy­chko, mem­ber of Right Sec­tor an active par­tic­i­pant in ear­li­er oppo­si­tion riots in Kiev, who assault­ed staff at a state pros­e­cu­tor’s office in Rovno last month.

    Muzy­chko, also known as Sashko Bilyi, has also been sought by Rus­sia on sus­pi­cion of tor­tur­ing and mur­der­ing at least 20 Russ­ian ser­vice­men in Chech­nya in the ear­ly 2000s.

    ——————

    Now this piece from the Rus­so-cen­tric Strate­gic Cul­ture web­site, it’s very long so I will just post the con­clu­sion. The author begins by relat­ing the his­to­ry of The night of the long knives, then shifts to present-day Ukraine:

    Ukraine. Recall­ing Night of Long Knives
    Olga SHEDROVA | 26.03.2014

    http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/03/26/ukraine-recalling-night-of-long-knives.html

    (excerpt)

    The 1933–34 events in Ger­many close­ly resem­ble the con­tem­po­rary sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine.

    The Pravy Sec­tor mil­i­tants played the role of stormtroop­ers in Novem­ber 2013-Feb­ru­ary 2014. Right after the coup Yarosh declared his inten­tion to con­tin­ue the «nation­al­ist rev­o­lu­tion». There was a wave of trea­son accu­sa­tions against the Kiev jun­ta. A. Belitzky, a Pravy Sec­tor group com­man­der, said, «The gov­ern­ment can hard­ly be called legit­i­mate and it has not much time left. We are grow­ing crit­i­cal towards it with each pass­ing day». A bit lat­er Maid­an mil­i­tants issued a state­ment accus­ing the new «nation­al lead­ers» of crim­i­nal activ­i­ties. The mil­i­tants want­ed the Nar­o­d­ny Veche (people’s assem­bly) to call a con­stituent con­gress rep­re­sent­ing the Euro­maid­an, para­mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tions, ter­ri­to­r­i­al assem­blies and may­ors of large Ukrain­ian cities. The pow­er of par­lia­ment was to be vest­ed in the con­gress which would appoint an inter­im gov­ern­ment, start the process of prepar­ing a new con­sti­tu­tion and leg­is­la­ture and cre­ate con­di­tions for com­plete reform of state pow­er lead­ing to enhanced author­i­ty of local admin­is­tra­tions and the for­ma­tion of local self-defense units. Oth­er­wise the jun­ta lead­ers would face a people’s tri­bunal».

    Like the Ger­man stormtroop­ers head­ed by Ernst Röhm, Ukrain­ian mil­i­tants want to acquire con­trol over state pow­er struc­tures and the armed forces. They want Pravy Sec­tor troop­ers to get access to mil­i­tary ware­hous­es, as well as a chance to use mil­i­tary instal­la­tions for com­bat train­ing. Like in Ger­many it sparks a con­flict with reg­u­lar mil­i­tary that flat­ly refuse the idea of grant­i­ng Pravy Sec­tor for­ma­tions the sta­tus of reg­u­lar armed forces units.

    Actu­al­ly the Kiev jun­ta acts the same way as Hitler did prepar­ing for his purge against the Rohm’s stormtroop­ers. On the one hand, the Yarosh-led for­ma­tions quell protest in Novorossiya (lit­er­al­ly New Rus­sia, a his­tor­i­cal term denot­ing an area north of the Black Sea which was con­quered by the Russ­ian Empire at the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry) and crash on polit­i­cal oppo­nents mak­ing it impos­si­ble for the weak regime to refuse coop­er­a­tion. On the oth­er hand, the gov­ern­ment wants to put the Maid­an mil­i­tants under its con­trol. One of the Yat­senyuk deputies said that H‑hour is near when Maid­an and nation­al TV will announce that the Pravy Sec­tor for­ma­tions are ille­gal and the mil­i­tants will be detained to face jus­tice.

    The police and secu­ri­ty ser­vice have ordered to give in all weapons and the par­lia­ment has tak­en a deci­sion to form a Nation­al Guard to include all Maid­an self-defense units. But the mil­i­tants refused to com­ply. Accord­ing to Yarosh, the Pravy Sec­tor for­ma­tions num­ber about 10 thou­sand peo­ple across the coun­try and nobody has joined the Nation­al Guard as yet. To make the Ukrain­ian sce­nario ful­ly repeat the events in Ger­many, Pravy Sec­tor is to sug­gest that the reg­u­lar armed forces, police and spe­cial ser­vices join its ranks. I believe the offer is to be announced soon.

    The March 13 law on the Nation­al Guard states that the new for­ma­tion is respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing law and order dur­ing mass pub­lic actions, the pro­tec­tion of gov­ern­ment agen­cies and offi­cials, putting down armed unrests and respond­ing to provo­ca­tions on state bor­der, fight­ing ille­gal armed groups and quelling any attempts to stage coups. It means the Nation­al Guard is to ful­fil the func­tions of reg­u­lar mil­i­tary and law enforce­ment agen­cies. It has its own army units and avi­a­tion what makes it «a state with­in a state». Being under direct con­trol of Turchi­nov (Tim­o­shenko) makes it stand above oth­er pow­er struc­tures.

    The Ger­man SS start­ed as a Führer’s per­son­al guard unit. Lat­er it got sep­a­rat­ed from SA to become an inde­pen­dent struc­ture under Hitler and Himm­ler. Like in Ukraine now, the Hitler’s SS had its own troops and police units. It saw its first com­bat action on the Night of Long Knives deal­ing with its for­mer broth­ers-in-arms. The Nation­al Guard’s func­tions make inevitable a clash with Maid­an self-defense groups and Pravy sec­tor for­ma­tions. SA troop­ers were offered a chance to join SS, the same way the Maid­an mil­i­tants are called to fill the ranks of Nation­al Guard. When the time for reck­on­ing comes, it’ll be too late.

    * * *

    Ukraine is at the ini­tial stage of stand­off between «for­mal» struc­tures and the for­ma­tions of self-con­fi­dent stormtroop­ers. Per­haps Yarosh will suc­ceed in stag­ing a coup, some­thing Röhm failed to do. In its turn, the jun­ta will take advan­tage of con­tra­dic­tions with­in the Nazi ranks to cement its posi­tions and bring a new «Führer» to pow­er.

    One of Ukraine’s polit­i­cal schol­ars said that Tim­o­shenko ordered Turchi­nov to «clean Maid­an from garbage». The can­di­date for the «Führer’s» posi­tion is back, she is in Kiev now. The garbage is still there but the prepa­ra­tions for clean­ing are under­way. For­eign spon­sors want it to be clean too. France said it wants para­mil­i­tary groups dis­armed before it deliv­ers finan­cial aid. The Czech Pres­i­dent says dit­to, he believes get­ting rid of fas­cists would be a right thing for the Ukraine’s lead­ers to do.

    The fur­ther sce­nario is almost pre­de­ter­mined, who­ev­er wins the inter­nal strife, its com­mon Ukraini­ans who will suf­fer. Those days in Ger­many an aver­age cit­i­zen was doomed to suf­fer no mat­ter if it was Hitler or Röhm who grabbed the pow­er. Only the rep­e­ti­tion of 1945 can save the coun­try.

    Posted by Swamp | March 27, 2014, 9:43 am
  3. Here is George Elia­sons take of Zelen­skky speech before Con­gress.
    https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/the-george-eliason-show-24-december-2022/

    Posted by Michael Keenan | December 28, 2022, 8:59 pm

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