I come from a country that was once allied with an independent Ukraine in a united effort to stop Russian expansionism. Unfortunately, our joint hopes were crushed at Poltava in 1709 when Tsar Peter defeated Hetman Ivan Mazepa’s Ukrainian forces and the Royal Swedish troops of King Charles XII. The Battle of Poltava was the beginning of a period of growing Russian strength. Sweden was also one of the first countries historically to receive Ukrainian emigration. I am also, naturally, a strong supporter of Ukrainian independence.
The operations of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army have been described in detail many times and I will, therefore, be brief in my background comments on the history of the UPA. By 1942 the UPA was fighting both Nazis and communists. The fighting was especially fierce in Western Ukraine. Even before the German armies retreated from Ukraine the insurgents were fighting Soviet Russian forces. The Soviet partisan Kovpak tried to reach Galicia through Central Ukraine but had to fight the UPA all the way and his forces had to retreat to Soviet-occupied territory.
In 1943 a conference was held to form a united liberation struggle of the oppressed nations. There, Ukrainians met with Bashkirs, Georgians, Byelorussians, Armenians and Turkestanis on UPA-held territory. At that time it dominated an area of about 100,000 square miles and exercised government control over approximately 15 million people mostly in Western Ukraine. The goal was to create an independent Ukraine free from Soviet control and supported by the West.
The same year, 1943, the UPA was at its strongest. Between 100,000 and 200,000 men and women were under arms. But the UPA’s task was immense. It fought the German occupation troops while they retreated and then the Red Army and NKVD units returned to control the Ukrainians once more. In preparation for the gathering communist storm, a General Staff was organised and the country was divided into regions.
The UPA had all the relevant staff functions — intelligence, logistics, communications and liaison services. The UPA freedom fighters were organised in platoons, companies, battalions and regiments. The light companies had 168 men and three rifle platoons and the heavy companies — had 186 men, three rifle platoons, a heavy machine gun and a heavy mortar platoon. The UPA used the platoon and company for most of its operations like many of the post-World War II guerrilla organisations. Artillery was also available to some extent. Heavy artillery for defending strong points and light artillery to be moved quickly by horses.
Every region had a school for non-commissioned officers and in Western Ukraine, officers’ schools were run. The military training came under the military instruction section of the UPA. The section published a manual on guerrilla warfare. The political and psychological warfare section of the UPA put out two publications to keep the freedom fighters informed and motivated.
In April 1944, the Red Army commenced attacks on UPA forces with up to 30,000 elite troops. In the late autumn of 1944 two regular divisions were brought into the anti-UPA offensive. In 1945 the Soviet Russians used classic anti-guerrilla tactics to make the struggle more difficult for the UPA. Great areas of forest were burnt down. In December 1945 the NKVD launched an offensive that was to continue for half a year. Soviet Russian troops blocked guerrilla-controlled areas to starve the insurgents. In the last major offensive against the UPA, the Soviet Russians used communist Czechoslovakian and communist Polish troops along with Russian units. The operation continued through 1947 and 1948. As a result, the UPA split into small units and escaped into forests and mountains in Western Ukraine.
During this period, the UPA dispatched units westwards to make the struggle known in the West. One of the groups travelled 1,500 kilometres across Czechoslovakia and Austria into West Germany.
In the first years of the 1950s, the UPA grew less and less able to fight against large communist units and turned partly to covert forms of resistance like sabotage and, by 1952, armed resistance had almost ceased. However, Ukrainians in concentration camps continued to struggle and greatly contributed to the de-Stalinisation process.
Guerrilla Strategy and Tactics — a Marxist-Leninist Prerogative
Between 1950 and 1975, many books on guerrilla warfare were published. Most of these books have very little or nothing to say about anti-communist insurgency of the type carried out by the UPA. So, for instance, Robert B. Asprey’s 16(X) )-page War in the Shadows — The Guerrilla in History of 1975 contains not a single word on the UPA. Since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975 the tables have begun to turn on Moscow and there is a great need for anti-communist guerrilla warfare analysis. Can the tactics of the UPA serve as a model for modern combat on communist territory? To find a few answers to this question it is necessary to analyse some of the tactical principles of the UPA. I will limit myself to five cases, but there are of course many others if thorough research were to be devoted to this problem.
- Against an effectively organised enemy, it is necessary to fight in small units
The preferred size of fighting units of the UPA was the platoon or company. It is a universal truth of guerrilla warfare that small units fight better against regular troops and are more mobile, which is of great importance to the guerrillas.
- Raids
The UPA perfected the art of the raid to destroy posts, supply depots and communications centres, capture military equipment and liberate political prisoners from jails and concentration camps. Typical of the UPA raids was the one on the town of Radekhiv on 26-27 April 1945. NKVD and NKGB detachments guarded a concentration camp for political prisoners established in the town. The task of the UPA forces was to liberate all the prisoners. All highways and railroads were heavily guarded to prevent Soviet reinforcements from getting through. Roadblocks were set up and railroads were mined. Six UPA groups were used in the operation. At 00.00 hours the groups entered the town. The camp was stormed and the prisoners were released. Later they dispersed in all directions from outside the town. At 03.00 hours the UPA retreated and at dawn, there were no insurgents left in the town.
Raids may also be used for a political purpose — to attract the attention of the population in new areas. The UPA made such raids into Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Austria and West Germany and to Eastern Ukraine.
In Angola, the UNITA insurgents fighting the communist regime and its Cuban support troops make similar raids far into government-controlled areas. UNITA controls large areas in southern Angola but has made raids far into the northern province of Uige.
- Harassment
Harassment was used by the UPA to keep the enemy in a state of constant tension, uncertainty and alertness. The size of the unit used for harassment was usually a squad. The UPA frequently harassed the Wehrmacht. The Russian troops were also targets for harassment. Similar tactics are used by Afghan freedom fighters against the Soviet occupational forces and their Afghan quisling troops, to mention one modern example.
- Diversionary tactics
Cutting telephone and telegraph lines, loosening railroad tracks, setting fire to houses used as quarters for enemy troops, burning food supply depots, sabotaging factories, destroying electric power plants and individual attacks against security police chiefs and collaborators are all examples of diversionary actions used by the UPA and almost all modern insurgencies against communist regimes.
- Ambush
In every defensive and offensive operation ambush was a strong weapon of the UPA. It was a powerful weapon to demoralise the enemy. One of the most famous cases of UPA ambushes was the killing of the general of the Nazi Sicherheitsdienst, Victor Lutze, in May 1943. Lutze had left the city of Rivne with a convoy of heavily armed security guards. First in the convoy were several cars with Nazi officials followed by SD troops on motorcycles. After them came about 30 cars with guards. In one of these was General Lutze. The ambush was set up by an UPA company near the town of Kie van. Outside the town, the highway enters a dense forest. One platoon was positioned here. Its purpose was to let the convoy of cars pass and then block the retreat. Other units took their positions in the forest on both sides of the highway. The column of cars entered the forest and the insurgents opened fire. Lutze was riddled with bullets at close range. Erich Koch never admitted that Lutze was ambushed by the UPA. He was reported to have been killed in a “car accident”.
The UPA’s experiences in fighting Soviet Russian troops ought to serve as a model in Afghanistan, although there are differences in development and physical environment, as well as weaponry between Ukraine and the only country where Soviet Russian forces are presently involved in anti-guerrilla warfare on a massive scale. The ambush is a favoured tactic of the Afghan freedom fighters, the Mujahideen. Several ambushes of Soviet military convoys in Afghanistan have been shown on Western television. Fortunately for the UPA, during World War II the Soviets lacked a new, dangerous anti-guerrilla weapon: the helicopter gunship. Still, the Hind MI-24 helicopter gun-ship is not invulnerable. Now that the insurgents possess ground-to-air missiles it is relatively easy to shoot down.
There is a great need for anti-communist guerrilla warfare theory — theoretical works that apply older historical experiences of insurgent-partisan warfare, such as that of the UPA, to more recent insurgencies. A large number of writers on guerrilla warfare in the West have dismissed the possibility of insurgency on communist territory on two major grounds:
— the population in a communist country either could or would not support insurgency;
— the conviction of the historical irreversibility of communist revolutions deriving from the belief that history runs on set stages.
The ongoing insurgencies on communist territory have shown that these assumptions are wrong.
There is presently a lack of coordination and solidarity between insurgents fighting communist regimes. The West has a responsibility to assist in supporting meetings among leaders and theoreticians of these insurgencies around the world. The exchange of information and observers in the field would be an important step. UPA veterans and students of UPA warfare can in many respects serve an important role here.
As stated by Harry Rositzke in his book American Secret Operations
(Reader’s Digest Press, New York. 1977). The West did almost nothing to support the UPA after World War II. Two American-trained radio operators remained with the UPA until, as Rositzke claims, the end of November 1953. According to him, by then only a large-scale military supply effort would have saved the UPA. The meagre support served the UPA only in two respects: to give a line to fellow countrymen in the West and to keep up morale to a certain extent.
The struggle of the UPA during and for over ten years after World War II against the armed forces of two superpowers has not been equalled to this day. The hope of the UPA leaders that the struggle between Nazi Germany, the Anti-Comintern countries and the Allies would continue long enough so as to exhaust the two sides and leave room for an independent Ukraine, did not become a reality. The Nazis retreated from Ukraine after a few years of occupation and Soviet Russia soon regained strength after the 1941-42 defeats. In 1945 the UPA was surrounded by the areas controlled by the Red Army and no help from the West was forthcoming — not even after the true intentions of Moscow in Eastern Europe became evident. Few or no insurgencies are successful if support is not coming from a neighbouring country. In the Vietnam War Russian equipment was poured into North Vietnam to be brought to the South along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Without Russian support, the NVA/NLF would probably have had no chance of winning the war in South Vietnam.
It is important for the insurgencies on the three continents, fighting against communist regimes since 1975, that books are written about them and that intellectuals argue over the details and the theoretical foundations of their campaigns. The insurgent experience in Ukraine can serve as a model encouragement for modern freedom fighters struggling to overcome a communist totalitarian system.
