Stepan Bandera. The Enslaved Nations Front

One of the greatest achievements of the revolutionary policy of Ukrainian nationalism in the last decade is the effective implementation of the ideas of a joint national liberation front of all nations enslaved by the Russian Empire. The idea of ​​the sovereignty of a nation in its own state, on which Ukrainian nationalism is based, is universal. But, like every idea, it has real meaning when it is consciously applied in practical life.

The universality of the idea of ​​nationalism for all nations of the whole world in the history of modern Ukrainian nationalism and Ukrainian political thought is not new. The brilliant Shevchenko in his works clearly formulated it about the whole world and every nation, but this universality of the idea of ​​nationalism did not find its embodiment in real national liberation politics and struggle. Moreover, in 1917, in the practical policy of the then-national leadership, the universality of the idea of ​​nationalism was used to serve anti-nationalism. The organic unity of ideas and actions of all the nations enslaved by Moscow was used to convene a congress of representatives of the enslaved nations in Kyiv on the initiative of the Central Rada to deliberate and coordinate the political actions of the nations enslaved by Moscow to save the integrity of “democratic” Russia. Such political distortion of the very idea of ​​nationalism, the Idea of ​​state-political independence of enslaved nations, of course, could not only contribute to the creation of a united front of enslaved nations to fight for their right to exist but also kill the very idea of ​​Ukrainian nationalism.

Also, in the period between the two world wars, Ukrainian political thought and Ukrainian nationalism did not pay due attention to the issue of the effective mobilization of the idea of ​​cooperation between the nationalisms of the enslaved nations into a specific political system. Moreover, in the period between the two world wars, the political forces hostile to nationalism strongly spread distorted and false substitutes for international cooperation in the form of all kinds of small ententes of petty imperialists (Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia) — satellites of great imperialist powers. For the mutual imperialist struggle, the imperialists and the enemies of nationalism put forward all sorts of ideas for the enslaved nations – of a federation, inter-seas, etc.

It seems that we will not be mistaken when we say that the policy of a revolutionary front of enslaved nations, as a real factor and a conscious system of action, was born and took root on the battlefields of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army against Moscow. Sometimes enemy propaganda denounces the UPA, that an “international rabble” (a mob) was fighting in its ranks. This propaganda knows perfectly well what kind of “mob” it is. These are the nationalist soldiers of almost all nations enslaved by Moscow, who are fighting for their national goals in the ranks of the UPA, as individuals or separate national associations with their own team and political leaders.

One of the UPA soldiers (pseudonym Kolya) is perfectly aware of these goals when, telling his Ukrainian comrades in arms about his Kazakhstan, his homeland, barely mastering the Ukrainian language, he says: “Kolia is a Kazakh UPA soldier!”

It was these soldiers and officers of the nations enslaved by Moscow, being in the ranks of the UPA and fighting for free Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus – for their nation, in the break between battles, characteristically in their struggle, in 1943 created ABN – organizational and political completion of ideas of joint revolutionary and liberation struggle of all nations enslaved by Moscow.

These great national politicians, in the uniforms of ordinary soldiers, sergeants, lieutenants, majors of the UPA, completed a great deed: they turned the ideological universality of nationalism into an effective system of international revolutionary-liberation cooperation of enslaved nations in their struggle for their goals. The spiritual and ideological solidarity of the nationalisms of various nations found its practical culmination in a common, coordinated system of struggle.

From an ethical and moral point of view, any nationalism of a nation free from foreign enslavement is morally responsible for any violence and enslavement of another nation; wherever it happens on the globe. The greater and more concrete is the political and moral responsibility of Ukrainian nationalism, as the greatest force opposed to Moscow’s imperialism, for the fate of other nations enslaved by Moscow, which are in the same situation as Ukraine.

This political-moral, spiritual unity of enslaved nations in their struggle for their goals, as an inseparable whole, coincides with the selfish, healthy interest of each enslaved nation. The highest moral foundations are only the expression of the highest, reasonable and expedient egoism. Is the wisdom: “Do not wish for a friend what you do not wish for yourself!” not an expression of the highest moral norm for the whole of humanity, every nation, every person and at the same time a norm of a healthy individual and national egoism?

The complete and supreme victory of Ukrainian nationalism will happen when the Russian Empire ceases to exist and all the nations enslaved by it will gain national-state freedom. Without that, Ukraine cannot have a complete victory, or this victory will be partial and doubtful.

If, for example, Ukraine broke away from the Russian Empire, and Kazakhstan or the nations of the Caucasus remained part of this empire, it would be tantamount to the fact that the sovereignty of the Ukrainian nation and state is in great danger from Moscow’s imperialism. Therefore, a state in which Ukraine would become free, and some other nation enslaved by Moscow, would remain among those enslaved by the empire, should be considered a failure of Ukraine to achieve the goals of Ukrainian nationalism, and only a stage towards that, a state of temporary respite in the struggle, a pause.

The realization of this by the political opinion of Ukrainian nationalism and its acceptance of the political postulate that without the defeat of the Moscow empire and its distribution into national states of all the nations enslaved by the empire without exception, the liberation of Ukraine cannot be achieved – one of the main postulates of the Ukrainian national liberation policy.

At the same time, this principle is the cornerstone of the national liberation policy of every other nation under the yoke of Moscow: without the national-state liberation of Ukraine, the national-state sovereignty of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Belarus, the nations and their states of the Caucasus cannot emerge or hold firm. Turkestan (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, the Cossack State, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan) and others, and the sovereignty of Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, to a large extent Turkey, Greece and others, not to mention the nations and states located along the Asian border of the USSR, is under the question mark.

It is precisely in this that the organic nature and irrevocability of the political system and ideas of the front of enslaved and threatened nations for their victory over Moscow imperialism lies.

Due to the fact of its geopolitical position in the system of the Moscow empire, and its size, Ukraine forms the core of the system of organizing the front of the nations enslaved by Moscow. A decisive part of the overall victory depends on the actual struggle of Ukraine and its contribution to the national liberation revolutions of all enslaved nations. This objective role of the Ukrainian national liberation struggle at the front of enslaved nations cannot be denied or limited without endangering the ultimate goals of Ukrainian nationalism and the national interests of all enslaved nations.

This circumstance imposes on Ukraine, on its national liberation policy, extremely large and decisive tasks for the success of the struggle of the front of enslaved nations.

The front of the enslaved nations, at the heart of which is Ukraine, embraces vast areas inhabited by different nations, different races, different religious systems, and diverse cultural and historical backgrounds. Often, relations between neighbouring nations are complicated and burdened by various disputes and antagonisms that have accumulated over the ages; often these antagonisms between enslaved nations were inspired and fuelled by the enslaver of the antagonizing nations on the principle of “divide and conquer!” In these conditions, the adoption by the front of the enslaved nations of single unifying political ideas for action, a single strategy of the national liberation struggle, and a single tactic of struggle is the most important basis for victory.

“In one’s own house, one’s truth” (T. Shevchenko) translated into political language ” the sovereign unified national state” of each nation in the area of its national seat, as the foundation of Ukrainian and every other nationalism, became the ideological and political basis of the front of enslaved nations, organized by ABN in 1943 in Ukraine.

The greatest enemy and danger for the front of enslaved nations is the poisoning of its individual members with imperialism against their neighbours, who are also enslaved. The unity and cohesiveness of the front of enslaved nations weaken the imperialism of the national liberation policy of individual nations: the imperialism of the Polish policy against Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, the imperialism of the Czech policy against Slovakia and Ukraine, the imperialism of the Romanian policy against Ukraine, etc., traces or manifestations of which can be found in the relations between the politics of other enslaved nations, they create those openings in the front through which the enemy penetrates the middle, into the recesses of this front.

It is impossible to look at Poland’s policy towards Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania without moral disgust, it is impossible to understand the suicidal content of this policy for the Polish nation, in the wake of which the Polish policy towards Ukraine three hundred years later is a miserable satellite of Moscow’s policy, and in the wake of which for Poland itself, irreparable damage has been done and will be done to the historical fate of the entire nation for many centuries to come.

For centuries, Poland destroyed itself in Ukraine, wasting its best human active resources on the conquest of Ukraine, neglecting its national interests, in its own lands, to achieve a state in which not a single material thing remained in Ukraine from that domination, from that expansion, not a single cultural trace, not a single physical bearer of Polish expansion and culture, not a single Pole, but instead there remained a bloody scar of historical wrongs and a feeling of disgust of the Ukrainian people towards Poland. The common enemy is using this immediately for even greater enslavement and destruction of the Polish people on their own lands.

Pathetic Czech policy against Slovakia, and Slovaks and Ukrainians in Transcarpathia. This policy has now ended with pro-Moscow, pro-communist Prague destroying anti-communist, anti-Moscow, Catholic-Christian Slovakia with the hands of Moscow puppets.

Thus, the policy of an enslaved nation, poisoned by imperialism against another enslaved nation, leads its own people to destruction, suffering and even greater enslavement. Classic examples are the politics of Poversai Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and some others, which, in pursuit of alleged imperialism, a caricature of imperialist politics, became pitiful satellites of foreign, primarily Moscow politics, only to later fall victim to it.

The policy of alleged imperialism of individual nations significantly weakens the united front of the enslaved nations and puts the politics and national potential of the enslaved nations of Poland, the Czech Republic and some others against the front of the enslaved nations, on the side of the enemies of the enslaved nations, in the final pursuit of the enemies of their own nation. Poland, which is fighting or will fight with Ukraine for Lviv, with Belarus and Lithuania for Vilna, will thereby be fighting against its own sovereignty. When Polish politics considers the current state of Poland as the state after the fourth partition of Poland, the same “Lviv and Vilna” policy is preparing the fifth partition of Poland, not seeing the simple fact that after each such partition even the ethnographic state of the possession of the Polish nation shrinks more and narrows.

Polish politics is trying to poison other nations and states, including the Ukrainian one, with alleged imperialism. It, for example, inspires Ukrainian politics and suggests the “idea” of ceding Ukraine’s western areas in the west – by compensating Ukraine with a “cut” of “no man’s land” in the east. This infamous policy was followed by the Treaty of Warsaw, which then ended with the Treaty of Riga, to finally become sealed by Marshal Rokossovsky after the last war. All these are links of the same chain. Inspired and financed by the same Poles, all kinds of “eastern, Black Sea, grey, green” Ukrainians in Warsaw tried, and have not abandoned this thankless task, to instil the “idea” of imperial expansion to the East in Ukrainian thought and politics. The ultimate goal of this inspiration is to fundamentally undermine the political positions of Ukraine on the front of the enslaved nations, to tear out the core from this front and thereby clear the way for Polish pseudo-imperialism, which rejoices in the hope of “wresting something” when “someone” will knock down Moscow.

Forgetting that in the east of Ukraine, on its eastern borders, the territory between Ukraine, the lower reaches of the Volga and the Transvolga, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasian ridge and the Black Sea are largely permeated with the Ukrainian national element, and the area of the Kuban creates a solid Ukrainian national massif,  i.e. Ukraine in that area has justified natural interests, — Ukrainian politics in that area is also nationalistically consistent: since in the territory of these lands their Cossack population has, since 1917, carried out the nation-state separation from Muscovite based on the creation of an independent Cossack state, so Ukraine follows this trend of the political development of the Cossack territory, unconditionally recognizes, supports and will support it.

Ukraine will unconditionally recognize the national-state sovereignty of the Cossack federal state until Moscow encroaches on it. In this last case, Ukraine will join forces with those forces of the national and state liberation of the Cossack area, which will be opposed to Moscow, for a joint struggle for the state independence of the Cossack lands.

Ukraine is ready to renounce the national area and population that gravitates towards it – the Kuban in the name and for the good of the whole large Cossack territory, which would create its Cossack federal state, in which the Ukrainian Cossack Kuban would invest in the development of its Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian spirituality, Ukrainian system of internal organization. In the sovereign Cossack state, Ukraine will gain a loyal, historically traditional, good neighbour.

Thus, solving the issue of the area in which Ukraine is historically, geopolitically, and directly ethnographically closely interested, solving its consistently nationalistic one, Ukraine thereby inspires and directs the practical solution and application of the principle “in one’s own house one’s own truth” and the relations between nations of the front of enslaved nations.

Ukraine did not have, does not have, and will not have any imperial or imperialistic goals against its neighbours or other nations. And this determines its unshakable core position on the front of the enslaved nations.

The second principle, which follows from the principle of national-state sovereignty of every nation, even the smallest one, in its ethnographic area, is the principle of sovereign resolution of all, without exception, problems of the internal organization and life of an enslaved nation, which is a member of the front of enslaved nations. Therefore, the front of enslaved nations, united in the ABN, does not bind its members and does not impose any problems of intra-national relations — religious, organizational, social, or other. Each nation solves these problems as it considers best for itself.

Ukraine, on the front of the enslaved nations, fights all kinds of ideas of messianism, historical vocation, universal justice, social liberation, etc., as ideas based on falsehoods, behind which the invading imperialist goals are hidden and disguised. Each nation “in its own house” has and must establish “its own right”. From this point of view, Ukrainian nationalism considers attempts of external political pressure on national states, aimed at changing the system of internal relations within national states, as unacceptable interstate discrimination. Since Spain is a national state and does not subjugate another nation politically, the international discrimination of this state under the guise of the undemocratic nature of its system is nothing but immoral sabotage.

The strategic principle of the front of enslaved nations is the basis of their own forces and the revolutionary national liberation struggle based on them. This principle can be briefly formulated as follows: “Enslaved nations will free only themselves!”

Based on this, the front of enslaved nations in principle rejects the system of liberation politics of the so-called “bloodless” liberation of enslaved nations, that is, a policy that does not end in a direct revolutionary liberation war of an enslaved nation with its occupier. Many nations “liberated” after the First World War, primarily Czechs, Magyars, and even Poles, lost their state sovereignty so quickly in the course and aftermath of the Second World War, primarily because they did not pay the proper price for their “liberation” in advance – the blood of the nation, or this “liberation” was simply obtained from someone else’s hands, “bloodlessly”. Isn’t that why the Finns kept their state sovereignty, that after the first war, they paid very dearly for it with their own blood of this small, but heroic nation? Before the beginning of the Second World War, in 1940, in the Soviet-Finnish war, they paid even more blood to maintain this sovereignty, in order to prevent Kuusinen’s “government of the Finnish Nation’s Republic” formed in Helsinki and proclaimed in Moscow. In the Second World War, the Finns once again gave a lot of their blood in the fight for their sovereignty. In proportion to the size of their nation, in our opinion, compared to all other nations enslaved by Moscow — Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, not to mention the Czechs — the Finns paid the greatest blood price for their freedom and sovereignty. And that is why they are now sovereign, even though they have been cut off and robbed.

Over the past thirty years, several “national” governments have been formed in Moscow – for Kyiv, Sofia, Warsaw, Bucharest, Budapest, Tiflis and several other capitals, but the “government” created under the leadership of Kuusinen, formally proclaimed in Moscow and with which Moscow established diplomatic and state-legal relations and laid down conditions, in Helsinki since 1940 and has not sat until now. There are no signs that it will ever sit there at all.

In our age of political primitivism, general wildness and dulling of public morality, this fact in 1940 of creating Kuusinen’s “government” went unnoticed by the people of Helsinki. This puppet disappeared and has not appeared to this day. Meanwhile, the “failed plans” with Kuusinen’s “government” show that Moscow, the USSR of almost two hundred million people, suffered an unexpected and unheard-of defeat against the Finnish nation of three million people.

This model of sovereign national liberation policy at all costs and sacrifices of the nation is a concrete example of the implementation of the postulate of the strategy of the front of enslaved nations: “the strategy of own forces and revolutionary war with the occupier.”

In the national liberation policy of the Ukrainian nationally active public, in the practice of national life abroad, in the practice of too many Ukrainian organizations, parties, cultural institutions, and the Ukrainian press, the most important aspect of our national liberation struggle — the front of enslaved nations — is almost completely neglected. Our institutions and our political organizations do not realize in practice the unity of the front of enslaved nations, our press does not inform its readers about the struggle of this front, our press is filled with descriptions and information about Indochina, Venezuela, Malaya, Indonesia, about the life and struggle of these nations, but this press of ours does not provide the Ukrainian reader with anything about the struggle with Moscow of Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, the Cossacks, about the struggle of Shamil, about the Basmachi uprising in Turkestan in the 1930s, etc., it does not inform about the history of these nations, about their struggles, their victories, their sacrifices. Ukraine and Ukrainians are already united with Kazakhs and Azerbaijanis by bloodshed together in the ranks of the UPA, we are already blood brothers with these nations, we are united with them by the unity of national destiny and common struggle.

On the front line of the enslaved nations, we are largely in the fairway of Moscow, Polish and generally “international” rather than national politics. Just like Moscow, we write and politicize about Vietnam, the African Moors and Abyssinians, on whom Moscow focuses our attention as if following its instructions, and we forget about Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Tajikistan, Belarus and other nations, — in fate and misfortune, in the successes and failures of which lies the dependence of the fate and misfortune of Ukraine.

Ukraine is the backbone of the front of the nations enslaved by Moscow in their struggle for their national-state liberation. The success and victory of this front primarily depend on the active pivotal role of Ukraine in it.

The international politics of Ukrainian political circles, their press, their social and public activities, and even culture, art, and theatre are confused in the dumps of international socialism (URDP and its organ “Forward”), Russian unified and non-divisional federalism (contacts and relations of the Ukrainian left currents with the Kerensky and Muscovites), discuss “inter-sea”, deal with the “Oceanic Ukraine” (publications of the “Black Sea and Oceanic Institutes” from Warsaw), compete for the happiness of Ukraine and the world with “collectivism”, which V. Vynnychenko and the like, i.e. Ukrainian political opinion on the international policy of inter-ethnic relations is withdrawn and rearranged on foreign, anti-Ukrainian, anti-national, objectively pro-Moscow and Moscow garbage cans.

The Front of Enslaved Nations is a mutual understanding of the history, culture, international relations, economy, social systems, and religion of the nations enslaved by Moscow, from the national sources of these nations, and not through Moscow’s thick sieve or in its crooked mirror; the front of the enslaved nations is the crystallization and mutual coordination of the policy, strategy and tactics of the national liberation struggle of these nations among themselves, and not snobbish fortune-telling over black coffee about the “politics of the great” and on which foot Trumien or Churchill got out of bed today, or what was Stalin’s complexion at his last parade. The Front of Enslaved Nations is the creation of revolutionary-insurgent armies from all enslaved nations, these are national Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Georgian hundreds, Kuren, regiments, divisions in the UPA and the same national Ukrainian, Belarusian, maybe Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian hundreds, regiments, divisions in the Kazakh, Uzbek or unified Turkestan UPA. The Front of Enslaved Nations is the national liberation revolution of dozens of enslaved nations from the Iron Curtain to the Pacific Ocean, in which all enslaved nations in this territory will participate – a Kazakh or Korean thrown into Ukraine by the occupier is and will be a soldier of the UPA, just like a Ukrainian thrown by an occupier to distant Kazakhstan or Korea or Karelia, or another land of enslaved people, will become a soldier of the national UPA there, fighting for Ukraine.

Realize this, study it, justify it and apply it in practice, realize through concrete action the idea of ​​the front of the nations enslaved by Moscow, make the entire area of the USSR — the prison of the enslaved nations — a continuous area of national liberation revolutions directed and controlled by a single strategy and tactics — this is the basis of international politics of Ukrainian nationalism, the national duty of every Ukrainian, every Ukrainian institution, organization, political group, individual political figure.

When the Ukrainian community abroad perceives and implements the idea of ​​the front of enslaved nations in this way, it will thereby strengthen and consolidate this front, thereby helping the successful operation of this front in the Motherland, which by military action, the brotherhood of blood of the soldiers of the UPA with the soldiers of all enslaved nations in united ranks is so widely implemented.

From the “Iron Curtain” to the Pacific Ocean.