2020/06/25 by Alexander Statiev · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics #Italian Fascism and Post-war Society #Polish Historical and Cultural Studies
paper · doi:10.30965/9783657703043_009
openalex publication_date 2020/06/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/25
Founded in 1929 in Poland as a party pursuing an independent Ukraine, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) engaged in armed anti-Soviet resistance as soon as the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Poland in 1939. This article, based on documents issued by the top OUN agencies, discusses the political affiliation of Ukrainian nationalists. It concludes that the OUN’s ideology, structure, objectives and practice identify it as a national-socialist version of a fascist party. From OUN’s inception and until its very end, its members continued to think and act as fascists. Unlike the OUN, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was not a fascist agency, but it nevertheless served as a reliable tool of its fascist OUN superiors. Fascists elsewhere met their demise as soon as their respective countries had been overrun by their enemies, whereas OUN resistance lasted for six years after the Red Army had reconquered Western Ukraine in 1944. The struggle for Ukrainian independence waged by the OUN was thus a unique case of fascist-led resistance. Fascists survived longer in Western Ukraine than elsewhere in Europe, with the exception of Spain, but in the end they suffered a total defeat.