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previous: Chapter 14 This webpage reproduces a chapter of Twentieth-Century Ukraine by Clarence Manning published by Bookman Associates New York, 1951 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 16

 p131  XV

World War II, 1939‑41

On August 23, 1939, the Nazis and the Soviet Union signed a pact of friendship and nonaggression. It came as a bombshell to the Allied diplomats who were at the moment negotiating in Moscow for Soviet aid against Nazi aggression and it utterly confused those liberal American and Western authorities on the Soviet Union who regarded Moscow as the great bulwark against Nazism and Fascism. Yet it was no sudden development. Hitler's speech on April 28, 1939, had given good warning that something of the sort was in the air.⁠1 Besides, the speed with which events developed after the formal signing of the pact and the ease with which later agreements were made suggest that there was a thorough understanding between the two totalitarian powers as to many questions which were not openly included in the pact.⁠2

The immediate result was the German attack on Poland on September 1. The campaign went as expected. The better armored and equipped Nazi forces speedily destroyed organized opposition and despite Polish valor in the defense of Warsaw and other cities, the Polish armies were forced to the south and east. By September 17 the Germans were besieging Lviv. Taught by the spring events in Carpatho-Ukraine and distrustful of the Nazi-Soviet alliance, the Ukrainian troops fought in the Polish ranks against the invaders.⁠3

 p132  They certainly could have gained nothing had they taken an opposite cause, for on September 17 the Soviet Union, which had a non-aggression pact with Poland, announced that the Polish government had fallen and the Red army invaded the country from the east "to take under their protection the lives and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia."⁠4 As if matters were already arranged, the Germans on the approach of the Soviet troops withdrew from Lviv without a battle. On September 28 Ribbentrop and Molotov signed a new agreement in Moscow and on the next day at Brest-Litovsk the German and Soviet commanders signed an agreement for the delimitation of their holdings in Poland. The Soviets had already commenced their expansion in the Baltic republics. While the line was never publicly delimited,⁠5 the Germans continued their retirement back of the San and Bug rivers and turned over the territory to the east to their Soviet allies.

This left in German hands four districts of Western Ukraine. The region along the San and Lemkivshchyna were added to the governor general­ship of Krakow and the other two, Kholmshchyna and Pidlyashshya, were placed in the governor general­ship of Lublin, for the Germans had determined to eliminate as many as possible of the old territorial divisions. All the areas became filled with refugees from the territories which had been handed over to the Soviets.⁠6

In the first phase of occupation the Germans were apparently intent upon increasing the enmity between the Ukrainians and the Poles. Thus they allowed the Ukrainians to introduce Ukrainian schools in those areas where the Poles had forbidden them. They permitted quite liberally the publication of Ukrainian books. Finally they permitted the organization of a Ukrainian Central Committee in Krakow in March, 1940, to act as a general contact organ similar to those that they allowed to the Poles and the Jews. As a subsidiary of this, they approved the organization of relief organizations which would care for the needs of the local communities and of the  p133 refugees who came in ever-increasing numbers with their stories of developments in Western Ukraine under Soviet rule. To some of these the Germans contributed funds apportioned from the enormous exactions that they made upon the population. Of course, no political activity was tolerated, even though for a while they looked with some kindness upon the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as a body which had been prohibited by the Poles. Yet this favor was soon withdrawn as it became evident that the Ukrainians were not going to acquiesce peacefully in the new restricted life mapped out for them by the Nazis and were seeking their own style of secret organization.⁠7

In the rest of Western Ukraine the Soviets were not slow in getting into action. All the lessons that they had learned in Eastern Ukraine in twenty years were at once applied. There were mass arrests of the intellectuals, the richer elements of the population, the Uniat priests, and all other persons who might be regarded with suspicion. Communist views of history and of atheism were applied in the schools. Bands of hoodlums murdered those persons whom the Soviets wished to eliminate but did not care to arrest. Deportations to the interior of the Soviet Union were common.

After a month of this procedure the Soviets judged that it was time to take the next step and proceed to the election of a People's Assembly of West Ukraine. The candidates were nominated by Communist labor groups and by peasant delegations which the Communists could control. The names of all the candidates were never published but they were largely Soviet officials and officers of the Red army. Among the names announced were the writer Korniychuk from Eastern Ukraine, Grechukha, chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, and many members of the NKVD. Then the Soviets took care to make it clear that anyone who voted against this new assembly or suggested other candidates was counter-revolutionary. When the elections were held on October 22, 91 per cent of the population was, to no one's  p134 surprise, announced as voting for the new regime. This only act of the People's Assembly was to appoint Stalin and other members of the Soviet Politburo to the honorary presidium, to elect Stalin honorary president of the meeting, to congratulate the Soviet leaders, and to request admission to the U. S. S. R. and nationalization of banks and heavy industry.

The requests were kindly granted by the Soviet Union at Moscow and the hand-picked delegates were graciously received and welcomed into the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in the Kremlin on November 21. During the entire performance there was no independent word from the Ukrainian Soviet Republic which was supposed to be the state which they were joining. It was a caricature of the symbolic act of union between the Republic of Western Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Republic in 1919.⁠8

The next step was the introduction of the Soviet economic system. Nationalization of the land was commenced almost immediately, also of the factories and industrial plants, whether they belonged to Poles or Ukrainians. Soviet hours of labor, at least ten hours a day, and the Stakhanov piecework system were introduced. The upsetting of all of the channels of trade and commerce and the re­quisitioning of grain and other foodstuffs from the peasants increased the general misery. Mass massacres at Vynnytsya⁠9 and elsewhere rivaled the massacre of the Polish officers at Katyn.

The first period of Soviet occupation, which extended from the entrance of the Red army until the German attack upon the Soviet Union, was a sort of preliminary period. We can compare it in many ways with the first period of the history of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and perhaps we can find details that are reminiscent of the period of Ukrainization.

The first act of the invaders was to build up a corps of natives on whom they could rely. Communism had made little inroad into the population that was under Polish rule. There were of course individuals who had accepted the idea that their brothers across the closed border were happy but  p135 it did not take long to disillusion all who were honest enough to form an opinion. Ukrainian co‑operative societies were closed down or merged with those in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The independent educational institutions, such as the Shevchenko Scientific Society,⁠10 that had existed under Polish rule were now standardized and their financial resources were confiscated and placed at the disposal of the new regime, with its representatives brought in from the east.

In this phase the task of separating the Poles and the Ukrainians was given the largest place. Lviv was declared a Ukrainian city and the University of Lviv was renamed in honor of Franko, the greatest intellectual leader of the Western Ukrainians. Its staff was purged both of the old Polish professors and of Ukrainians who did not seem responsive to the new ideas. The Soviets replaced them with trustworthy Russian Communists, as they had done in Kiev and elsewhere.⁠11

The masses were in a strange mood. They had heard for years of the opposition between Nazism and Communism and now the two dictator­ships were working in apparently the best of relations. Supplies from the Soviet Union were going to Germany and likewise, in view of the blockade of the Atlantic coast of Germany, the Nazis were able to maintain contact with the world abroad across Siberia.

In the West the winter of 1939‑40 was the period of the "phony war." The French armies were entrenched behind the Maginot Line and made few attempts to leave it and invade Germany. The Nazis were entrenching themselves in Poland and preparing to absorb the lands which they had already secured.

The dictators were not idle. Ribbentrop and Molotov had already come to an understanding as to the future of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were compelled to sign treaties of mutual assistance with the Soviets and admit Soviet garrisons to their important posts. During the winter the Soviets attacked Finland. World sentiment in the democracies was on the side of Finland and despite the efforts  p136 of the Germans to secure information and turn it over to their Soviet allies the courageous Finns were able to give a good account of themselves and hold back the Red army during most of the winter.

The period also saw the formal expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League of Nations in Geneva.⁠12 The Soviet attack on Finland, even more unprovoked than Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, had shocked whatever was left of a world conscience. It was ironical that the League which had sidestepped every decisive action while there was time, should, past the eleventh hour, give a definite moral judgment and brand Moscow as an imperialistic aggressor.

Then Moscow turned her attention to the south. With the support of Hitler she requested Romania to turn over to her Bukovina and Bessarabia. That part of the two provinces which had a Ukrainian population was obligingly annexed to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The other sections were grouped with the Autonomous Moldavian Republic to form the Moldavian Soviet Republic, a small and unimportant district created for the sole purpose of annexing Romanian territory under the guise of self-determination.⁠13 Again the same measures of Communization were introduced. There were the same nominations by Communist-dominated organizations, the same controlled elections, the same resolutions of gratitude to the great Stalin and the same massacres and deportations.

Then as Germany attacked in the West and her armies swept on to the Atlantic across the Netherlands, Belgium and France, Moscow repeated her tactics in the north and by the familiar devices accepted the submission of the three Baltic states, turned them into Soviet Republics and began to wipe out the people and nationalize all their possessions.

The Ukrainians could have little hope. The OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) indulged in acts of sabotage but there was little positive action. With Germany and the Soviet Union in alliance and with the Western powers evidently  p137 losing the war, the future seemed dark indeed.

The only ray of light was the hope of a split between the two ruthless machines that held the country in their grip. The Ukrainian patriots sought eagerly for any sign of a disagreement, though they had few illusions as to the philanthropic motives of either party. The fate of Carpatho-Ukraine and the German surrender of Lviv and other Western Ukrainian territory to Stalin had shown them that Hitler was not interested in their problems. On the other hand their experiences with the Red army had shown them likewise that there was nothing to be expected in that direction. Renewed contact with the Eastern Ukrainians brought home to them in all of its horror the meaning of Communism and the sham of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.

This gave the period a strange and unreal aspect. The Ukrainians realized perfectly that they could have no allies, even if they rose in revolt. Finland had been left to stand alone. The Byelorussians were in the same boat as themselves and the Baltic states still farther to the north were silenced. Waiting was the only course open. Meanwhile the patriotic leaders had to try to save their own lives, protect their followers, and prepare for whatever might come.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 New York Times, April 29, 1939.

2 Dallin, Soviet Union's Foreign Policy, 1939‑1942 (New Haven, 1943).

3 Skrzypek, op. cit., p11.

4 See Velyka Istoriya Ukrainy, p873; Skrzypek, op. cit., p75.

5 Skrzypek, op. cit., pp75‑76. Note that the agreement in Moscow was apparently a fairly rough line, as shown by Article I.

6 Velyka Istoriya Ukrainy, p873.

7 Velyka Istoriya Ukrainy, pp874 ff.

8 Velyka Istoriya Ukrainy, p877; Skrzypek, op. cit., pp13 ff., 82 f.; Pravda, October 29, 1939.

9 See M. Seleshko, "Vinnytsya — the Katyn of Ukraine," The Ukrainian Quarterly, V, 238‑48.

10 Istoriya Naukovoho Tovaristwa im. Shevchenka (New York-München, 1949), p45; Ya. Pasternak, "Naukove Tovaristvo im. Shevchenka v chas druhoi svitovoi viyny," Syohochasne i Mynule, Vol. I, München-New York, 1948, pp37 ff.

11 Velyka Istoriya Ukrainy, p878.

12 New York Times, December 15, 1939.

13 Velyka Istoriya Ukrainy, p879.

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