Who are the Banderites and what are they fighting for?
Who are the Banderites and what are they fighting for?
For the Ukrainian Self-Sufficient Sobor State!
For independent national states of all peoples of the Soviet Union!
The oppressed peoples of the Soviet Union, unite to fight against the Bolshevik enslavers and exploiters!
The Bolshevik enslavers are afraid that the masses of the USSR will learn the truth about the Banderites
In all Ukraine, and perhaps in the whole Soviet Union, there is probably not a single person today who has not heard anything about the revolutionary anti-Bolshevik struggle that has been waged by the Ukrainian people for the past four years, mainly in the western regions of Ukraine.
In all Ukraine, and perhaps in the whole Soviet Union, there is probably not a single person today who has not heard anything about the Banderites. Even the Bolshevik enslavers could not hide the heroic struggle of millions from the masses of the Soviet Union. The news of this struggle has, in various ways, travelled across the vast Soviet expanse, and today almost all Soviet people know about it.
Although almost all Soviet people have heard about us, the Banderites, and our revolutionary anti-Bolshevik struggle before today, they do not always know the truth about us.
Many of the Soviet people, believing the Bolshevik propaganda, think that we Banderites are really "Ukrainian-German nationalists", that we are Hitlerian or, as the Bolsheviks have been slandering of late, Anglo-American agents, that we are really "kulaks" or "bourgeois", that we are really "bandits", sitting in the forest and staying underground only because we "fear the people's justice".
All that Bolshevik propaganda says about us is the most shameless, cynically despicable lie. The Bolshevik enemies of the people are spreading these lies about us in order to conceal from the masses of the Soviet Union the true national liberation character of our movement.
They are precisely afraid that the masses of the Soviet Union, having learned the real aims of our struggle, its progressive, national-liberating character, will not be "infected" with revolutionary, Banderist ideas and, following the example of the Ukrainian people, will not themselves take up the road of the liberating anti-Bolshevik struggle. The Bolshevik imperialists understand that this would mean the end of their domination over the peoples of the Soviet Union, their death.
In order to prevent this, in order to be able to continue to oppress and exploit with impunity tens of peoples of the Soviet Union, hundreds of millions of workers, the Bolshevik bandits, on the one hand, are making every effort to destroy physically all the members of our liberation-revolutionary movement, to destroy our underground revolutionary organization, and, on the other, are not stopping at any lie, not shy even of the most brazen slander, just so that our revolutionary movement can be stained and shamed in the eyes of the masses.
But the Bolshevik enemies of the people will not succeed in doing this for much longer. Just as they have not succeeded in concealing from the peoples of the Soviet Union the very fact of our anti-Bolshevik struggle, they will not succeed in concealing from the Soviet people for a longer time the truth about the true character of our movement.
Whatever measures the Bolsheviks take, still the truth about us, the Banderites, about the liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people will always make its way to the Soviet people's masses. "You can't go far with a lie," says the Ukrainian proverb.
To tell Soviet people the brief truth about us, the Banderites, and our liberation-revolutionary movement is the task of this pamphlet.
Banderites are consistent fighters for the liberation of the Ukrainian people
"Banderovtsy" (Banderites) is a recently used, popular name for all participants in the insurgent and underground revolutionary struggle, raised by the Ukrainian people against the Germans during the Nazi occupation, and continued since 1944 against the Bolshevik invaders.
This name is derived from the name of a glorious son of the Ukrainian people, a long-time revolutionary fighter for freedom and state independence of Ukraine, the leader of the Revolutionary Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) - Stepan Bandera.
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, led by Stepan Bandera is the only consistent implementer of the idea of revolutionary uncompromising struggle of the Ukrainian people against all occupants for its national freedom and independence on the Ukrainian soil.
We Banderites always led the most radical anti-occupation struggle in the period before 1939. We Banderites were the only ones who organized an active revolutionary struggle against the Bolshevik invaders in 1939-41.
In June 1941, after the Bolshevik armies retreated from parts of Ukraine, the OUN, led by Stepan Bandera, formed a government and proclaimed the restoration of an independent Ukrainian State (June 30, 1941).
When the Germans arrested the head of the OUN Stepan Bandera and the newly formed government headed by Prime Minister Yaroslav Stetsko and many other leading Ukrainians, the OUN led by Stepan Bandera immediately led an active, first underground and since 1942 - insurgent struggle against the Nazis.
Since 1944, that is, from the time of another occupation of all Ukrainian territories by the Moscow-Bolshevik imperialists, the Revolutionary OUN, led by Stepan Bandera, is the only organized national political force in the Ukrainian lands.
The only OUN, led by Stepan Bandera, in the difficult conditions of the Bolshevik occupation, remained with the people on the battlefield and, being in the forefront of the liberation struggle against the Bolshevik invaders, has been selflessly serving the cause of liberating Ukraine from occupier domination for four years now.
During four years of persistent struggle the OUN, led by Stepan Bandera, has not only withstood frantic attacks of the Bolshevik enemy, but also in many areas of our revolutionary front deployed a successful offensive.
The ideological and political image of the Banderites is one. But according to their organizational-party affiliation, the Banderites are either
a) members of the OUN, led by Stepan Bandera,
b) non-party Ukrainian patriots fighting for freedom and state independence of Ukraine in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), as well as in the revolutionary underground.
The UPA arose in 1942 by the deployment of the Ukrainian people in the mass popular armed struggle against the Nazi occupiers. The OUN, led by Stepan Bandera, was the initiator, the first organizer and leader of the UPA. The UPA army from the beginning of its formation and up to now is commanded by one of the remarkable Ukrainian revolutionaries, long-time underground fighter for freedom of the Ukrainian people - general Taras Chuprynka (Roman Shukhevich).
Both in the UPA and in the revolutionary underground one can also meet such Ukrainians who in the past belonged to various Ukrainian political parties. All of us today are united by the liberation struggle against the Bolshevik occupiers.
The highest leadership of the entire liberation-revolutionary struggle of the Ukrainian people is exercised by the Ukrainian General Liberation Council (UGLC). The UGLC is the revolutionary Parliament and Government of the Ukrainian people for the duration of their liberation struggle.
The UGLC was created in June 1944 under the conditions of the anti-Nazi struggle of the UPA. It consists of representatives of various Ukrainian parties and groups from all Ukrainian lands. The Council is subordinate to the UPA, the entire Ukrainian revolutionary underground; it includes the OUN, led by Stepan Bandera. It is supported by the entire Ukrainian people, leading an active anti-Bolshevik struggle.
Why do we Banderites call ourselves nationalists?
We Banderites call ourselves nationalists because the doctrine of the nation occupies a central place in our ideology. According to this doctrine, we nationalists, in contrast to the Marxists and Bolsheviks, believe precisely that:
a) The people, the nation, is the highest and most durable type of human community - higher and more durable than the social class;
b) In the international context, the subjects of history are peoples and nations, not social classes;
c) Peoples, nations are not a historically transient phenomenon peculiar only to the epoch of capitalism, but a phenomenon peculiar to all other socio-economic formations; In the period of capitalism, due to the enormous development of the civilizing and cultural conditions of life, nations as human communities have only become unusually stronger;
d) The best conditions for the all-round development of a people are provided only by the nation-state;
e) The best international system, corresponding equally to the interests of individual peoples and to the interests of international cooperation and the establishment of real friendship between peoples, is the system of nation-states of all the peoples of the world;
f) the necessary condition for improving the fate of the working classes of the enslaved people is the national and political liberation of the whole people;
g) In contrast to the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, who accept the will of their Kremlin masters as the highest order, for us, Ukrainian nationalists, our highest order is the welfare and happiness of the Ukrainian people.
We consider the most important task of the Ukrainian people at this moment to be the struggle against the Moscow-Bolshevik occupiers and their agents, the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, for national and social liberation, for the construction of a Ukrainian, truly independent national state.
Ukrainian nationalists are neither chauvinists nor imperialists
We Ukrainian nationalists are not chauvinists. By fighting for the Ukrainian state, we are fighting only for the exercise by our people of those rights that have long been enjoyed by the vast majority of the peoples of the world and that (rights) have long been recognized as the natural rights of every people. By the way, our struggle is legitimate even in terms of Bolshevik laws: the constitution of the USSR provides every nation with the right to freely secede from the USSR.
We have sincere sympathies for all the peoples. With all the peoples of the world, including the Russian people, who will build their national state on their ethnographic lands, we want to live in peace and cooperation. We do not fight against our neighboring peoples in general, but only against those imperialist forces which enslave us.
We emphasize once again: we value and respect all peoples, including the Russian and Polish peoples, and seek close friendship and cooperation with them. We hate only those imperialist forces that enslave us or want to enslave us, it is only against them that we fight.
We Ukrainian nationalists are also not imperialists. We want to build an independent Ukrainian state only on Ukrainian ethnographic lands, that is, on lands where the majority of the Ukrainian people live. We do not encroach on even the slightest scrap of foreign territory.
We are against any kind of imperialism, against enslavement in any form of one nation by another, against imperialist wars and conquests, against multinational empires. We are for the fullest realization of the ideas of free national states of all the peoples of the world.
We Banderites were not, are not, and will not be anyone's agents
We Banderites have never been and will never be anyone's agents. In our struggle for the national independence of Ukraine we are guided only by the Ukrainian people's own forces.
In particular, we Banderites have never cooperated with the Germans, as the Bolshevik enemies of the people lie about us. In our underground literature, we have already responded extensively to this vile slander on more than one occasion.
From the very first days of the occupation of Ukraine by the Nazis, the OUN, led by Stepan Bandera, began an active underground struggle against them. At the end of 1942, to fight against the Nazis, the OUN began to create guerrilla forces. These armed groups marked the beginning of the UPA.
During 1942-44 the UPA and revolutionary underground of the OUN by their guerrilla struggle inflicted to the Germans considerable losses in people, property and transport. In 1934-44, under the exclusive control of the UPA were whole areas of Polesie, Volhynia, the Carpathians and some forest areas in Galicia.
This struggle took place before the eyes and with the participation of the entire Ukrainian people. Every child in the western regions, every Ukrainian peasant woman can tell about this struggle. This struggle is evidenced by the numerous graves of revolutionaries and insurgents who fell in the struggle against the Nazis, which have not yet been dug up by the Bolsheviks.
It is evidenced by the fact that thousands of Ukrainian revolutionaries led by Stepan Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko and many other leading members of our movement found themselves in Hitler's prisons and concentration camps.
In German prisons, from Gestapo bullets in all the broadest expanses of Ukraine, such leading Banderites as Ivan Klyv-Legenda (Lviv), Dimitriy Miron-Orlik (Kyiv), Nikolay Lemik (Kharkiv region), Panteleimon Sak-Mohyla (Kyiv, originally from eastern regions), Sergey Sherstyuk (Kryvyi Rih, originally from eastern regions) and hundreds of others died.
Who do the corrupt Manuilsky, who dares to say that Bandera was imprisoned by the Germans "of his own free will", take the Soviet people for?
Who else but the Bolshevik oppressors would dare to mock so cynically the people - the people who saw the anti-Nazi struggle of Banderites with their own eyes and who themselves took an active mass part in it?!
We Banderites had three years of underground and insurgent struggle against Hitler's occupiers. As occupiers of Ukraine and enemies of all free-loving nations, we shot at the Nazis, not collaborated with them. This is known not only to the whole Ukrainian people, but also to the whole world.
We Banderites are fighters for the interests of the working masses, not defenders of the exploiting classes
Bolshevik liars try to present us to the Soviet masses as defenders of the interests of the "kulaks" or the "bourgeoisie". This, too, is a vile lie. We have nothing in common with these social classes, neither in terms of the aims of our struggle, nor in terms of the social origin and class affiliation of the participants in our movement.
As for the social goals of our struggle, we, the Banderites, fight for the building of a classless society. We are against the return to Ukraine of both landlords and capitalists.
We are for the destruction in Ukraine of the new exploitative parasitic class - the class of Bolshevik nobles, which consists of the bosses of the Party, the Interior Ministry and the MGB, the administration, and the army. We are for public ownership of the means of production.
We oppose the collective farms because they are the main cause of the poverty and death of the Ukrainian village. We want the question of the form of land use in the independent Ukrainian state to be resolved by the Ukrainian peasantry itself.
With such social goals of our struggle in mind, how can we be defenders of the "kulaks" or the "bourgeoisie"?
The same is true of the social background of the participants in our movement. No one will find a "bourgeois" among us, even if one were to look for him with a candle in one's hand.
Nor are there any "kulaks" among us. In its general mass, the West Ukrainian peasantry is small-landed, or at least middle-income. Small and landless peasants, farmhands, middle-classes, workers, students, secondary school pupils, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers - that is what all those participating in our movement are by social origin.
Can we, the sons of the working and exploited people, fight for the interests of the exploiting classes? Could we fight against our fathers? Would the Ukrainian working masses support us so widely when we fight for goals alien to them? It should be clear to every right-thinking person that the answer is no.
A few words about our past
Both the present and the past of the Banderites are glorious and heroic. Many of us, mostly older revolutionaries, are long-term political prisoners of former Polish, Romanian and Hitlerian, and later Bolshevik prisons and concentration camps, often sentenced to life imprisonment.
More than one of them still has the close-ups (scars) of their prison fetters. More than one of them had their ribs broken and their teeth broken by the Polish police, the Romanian Siguranza, the German Gestapo and the Bolshevik Ministry of Internal Affairs. Many of us embarked on the path of revolutionary, underground struggle against the occupiers, being only 14-16 years old from birth.
In prison cells, in underground, for the revolutionary struggle, our best teenage years were spent. All our most ardent youthful dreams and noblest youthful impulses are connected to the underground, to the revolutionary struggle.
Pursued by the police, always threatened by prison, concentration camp, police bullet, often unsecured in material respects, the Ukrainian revolutionaries always courageously, with self-sacrifice, with the highest devotion heroically fulfilled their revolutionary duties - the duties of the leading fighter of the revolution, the organizer and leader of the people in their struggle against the occupiers.
No matter what difficulties, no matter what obstacles, we Banderites always went to the masses of the people, carried to them the revolutionary word of truth, with our courageous revolutionary action supported in spirit, and often defended against terror as well.
For the Ukrainian masses, the Ukrainian revolutionary has always been a model of patriotism, courage, fortitude, heroism, the best civil and revolutionary honors. That is why so today the people love us and support us in every possible way.
Why do we Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents fight against the Bolshevik oppressors and exploiters?
Some of the Soviet people, blinded by Bolshevik propaganda, who believe that the Bolsheviks "solved the national question best in the world", "built socialism" and established a "truly popular democracy", may not understand why exactly we, the Banderites, are fighting against the Bolsheviks, against the Soviet authorities.
All that Bolshevik propaganda says about the policies of the Bolshevik Party and the achievements of Soviet power is also an insidious and shameless lie. The truth about the Soviet Union is the exact opposite of what Bolshevik propaganda says about it.
We Banderites fight against the Bolsheviks because they pursue a policy of brutal national oppression and economic exploitation with respect to both Ukraine and the other non-Russian peoples of the USSR.
The Ukrainian people, like every other Soviet non-Russian people, have no national and political rights in the USSR and are in a position of total political enslavement. The so-called Ukrainian SSR, like every so-called union republic, is essentially not an "independent state of the Ukrainian people," as the Bolsheviks lie about it, but an ordinary administrative unit, an ordinary powerless province of the Bolshevik empire.
Neither the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR nor its "government" enjoys even a shadow of the rights that these institutions normally enjoy in truly independent states.
The so-called "sovereignty of the Union republics" is only a fiction, an empty phrase that serves the Bolsheviks to deceive the working masses of the Soviet Union and the whole world, a phrase without the slightest practical meaning. Neither the "supreme council" of the Ukrainian SSR, nor its "government" is capable of doing anything on its own, without the consent of the center in Moscow.
The Ukrainian people, like every other non-Russian Soviet people, in the system of the Bolshevik USSR are actually deprived of any possibility of free expression of their will and independent management of their affairs. The Bolshevik imperialist center, the Bolshevik Moscow, decides everything, according only to its own imperialist interests, completely ignoring the needs of individual peoples and usually contrary to their most vital rights.
The Bolsheviks brutally exploit Ukraine, as they do every other so-called Union republic, economically. The Kremlin imperialists use Ukraine primarily as a raw material base for industry in central Russia. Coal, pig-iron, steel, bread, meat, vegetables are exported from Ukraine to the industrial regions of Russia, while complex machinery, sophisticated factory and factory equipment, and textiles are imported from there.
There is no sophisticated machinery in Ukraine at all, and no modern chemical industry or textile factories are being built.
In Ukraine, for example, which is the most developed coal and metallurgical region of the USSR, the Bolsheviks planned to build the first automobile plant only in the fourth Five Year Plan. Until now, cars made mainly from Ukrainian iron and Ukrainian coal are imported to Ukraine from the industrial regions of Russia.
Does this not suggest that Ukraine in the system of the Bolshevik USSR is in the same position as African colonies in the system of the Western European colonial empires?
It is a lie that "during the years of Soviet rule the Bolsheviks created a highly developed industria in Ukraine. The Bolshevik imperialists created in Ukraine only those branches of industry which make it possible to siphon off industrial and agricultural raw materials (e.g., mining industry, agricultural machine building, factories making equipment for the coal and iron ore industries, steam locomotive building).
In Ukraine, as in every other Soviet republic, the Bolsheviks pursued a policy of brutal cultural oppression. During the years of Bolshevik rule in Ukraine, the Interior Ministry eliminated hundreds of Ukrainian scientists - historians, linguists, literary scholars, economists, artists, and destroyed hundreds of writers and poets.
Ukrainian cultural figures were forbidden to create in the national patriotic spirit. Thus any development of Ukrainian culture was completely blocked.
All life in Ukraine is russified. In all administrative, cultural and economic institutions, in all universities and institutes the Russian language actually dominates. It is imposed on the Ukrainian people by indirect pressure. The Russian language dominates indivisibly in the army. A Russian-chauvinist imperialist ideology is being introduced everywhere, every Ukrainian so called "imperialist thought", every patriotic Ukrainian feeling is being persecuted.
In a Russian-chauvinist, imperialist spirit, the history of Ukraine and the history of Ukrainian culture are perverted and the fight against the fascination with the native past is waged. The Ukrainian press, radio, theater, literature, and science in Ukraine have been placed entirely at the service of the Russification policy of the Bolshevik oppressors.
The Bolshevik cultural policy in Ukraine aims at the complete cultural assimilation of Ukraine and the complete elimination of the cultural identity of the Ukrainian people.
The Bolshevik executioners are destroying the Ukrainian people physically on a massive scale. Three times during their domination of Ukraine they deliberately caused a famine. About 8 million Ukrainians in Ukraine have died so far as a victim of this deliberately induced famine.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men and women were evicted to Siberia and Central Asia. Here, forced to live in inhumane conditions, they are dying out en masse.
Bolshevik executioners destroyed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian patriots in prisons, exiles, concentration camps, in direct struggle, by direct shootings. In recent years alone, in the struggle against our liberation-revolutionary they have destroyed several tens of thousands of Ukrainians.
This is how "the Bolsheviks' best resolution of the national question in the USSR" looks like in practice. Can we, Ukrainian patriots, calmly agree with such a situation? Can we, Ukrainian patriots, not fight against the Bolshevik enslavers when we see that they are preparing the complete destruction of Ukraine?!
We Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents fight against the Bolsheviks because they have created in the USSR a regime of ruthless social oppression and economic exploitation of the working masses.
It is not a classless society or communism that the Bolsheviks are building in the Soviet Union, but a new oppressive and exploitative system. The place of the former exploiters - the landlords and capitalists - is today occupied by the new social parasites - the heads of the Bolshevik party, the MIA and MGB, they occupy the administration, economic life, the army.
These bosses have already definitely formed into a new exploiting class - the class of Bolshevik grandees. The formation of this parasitic exploiting class is based on its political privileges: the monopolistic position of the Bolshevik Party, its unlimited power, the total absence of control of the masses over the Bolsheviks.
Having unlimited political rights and, as a consequence, being the unlimited owner of all the wealth of the Soviet Union, this class has secured for itself all the economic advantages of Soviet society. Having created for themselves luxurious living conditions, they live splendidly.
At a time when millions of workers live in abject poverty, in hunger, the Bolshevik grandees have set for themselves incredibly high salaries and have everything in abundance: they eat well, dress fancy, enjoy as much as they like, all the cultural benefits, and entertain themselves. The Bolshevik nobles secured this comfortable, luxurious life for themselves at the expense of the exploitation of the Soviet working masses - at the expense of the exploitation of workers, collective farmers, and the working intelligentsia.
Marx's words that "the accumulation of wealth at one pole of society is always accompanied by poverty at the other pole" (we quote from memory) are important not only in relation to capitalist society, but also in relation to Soviet society.
Nowhere else in the world do working people live in such economic poverty as in the Soviet Union, a country of supposedly "victorious socialism". Nowhere else in the world are the physical forces of workers exploited to such an extent as in the Soviet Union, a state of supposedly "workers and peasants". Nowhere else in the world are the workers crushed by so many different laws, "norms," "plans," and "obligations" as in the Soviet Union.
The real wages of Soviet workers and employees are unusually low. They are insufficient even for the lowest subsistence level. Stakhanovschina and social competitions squeeze all the physical strength out of the workers and collective farmers. The Bolshevik grandees rob the collective farmers of all the products of their labor. High taxes, permanent and high loans, and "voluntary contributions" siphon off the last penny from the workers.
Working for the war, Soviet industry never produces the necessary quantities of consumer goods, manufactures. It was not a "joyous and prosperous" life that the Bolsheviks gave to the workers of former Tsarist Russia, but a new penal servitude, a new enslavement, a new social oppression and economic exploitation. The Bolshevik oppressors actually put the workers of the Soviet Union in the position of antique slaves.
We Ukrainian insurgents and revolutionaries - the sons of the working people - cannot but fight against this policy of the Bolshevik enemies of the people toward the working masses, just as the advanced working masses of Tsarist Russia could not but fight against the oppression of the landlords and capitalists. It is our sacred duty to defend the interests of the peasants, the workers and the working intelligentsia, and to fight for their social liberation.
We Banderites fight against the Bolsheviks also because they created in the USSR a regime of bloody dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party, a regime of barbaric terror of the Interior Ministry and the MGB.
There is no democracy, no civil and human rights in the USSR. The unlimited, all-powerful ruler of life and death of every person in the USSR is the Bolshevik guard - the MIA and MGB. They spy on every Soviet person, trying to completely control the entire life of Soviet citizens, all their thoughts and feelings.
They mercilessly squeeze every more daring thought. They bloodily massacre all those who in any form dare to oppose the Bolshevik regime. The Bolshevik system is the absolute negation of all freedom, of all democracy, of all the achievements of mankind in its striving for freedom, is a direct continuation of the tsarist autocracy.
How can we, the Ukrainian revolutionaries, without active resistance look at such mockery of the people! Against such mockery of the people we revolutionaries cannot but fight. Our highest ideological slogans are "Freedom to the peoples! Freedom to man!"
We Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents fight against the Bolshevik oppressors, finally, because they persecute us for our patriotism, for our love for Ukraine; that they burn Ukrainian huts and all our property, take the Ukrainian population to Siberia, torture and burn our relatives alive, cut off our women's breasts, bayonet our children; They crucify our fallen revolutionary friends on fences, drag them along roads, tie them with barbed wire to horse tails, and dig the buried ones out of graves and throw their bodies into garbage or roadside ditches, where they are torn apart by dogs; they tear portraits of Shevchenko and Khmelnitsky, trample Kobzar, they attack the History of Ukraine itself.
The Bolshevik bandits have turned all of Western Ukraine into a horrible meat grinder. There is no house here today, where these monsters did not kill someone, arrest one, take one to Siberia; there is no forest or grove, where you cannot see the ruined insurgent graves, there is no village, where farms were not burnt and destroyed; there is no family, where mother would not mourn her tortured son, a daughter - the same tortured mother, a small child - parents taken away to Siberia.
And why this sea of grief, why this sea of blood and tears? Only because the western Ukrainian people love Ukraine - their homeland, because they, like any other people in the world, want to live a free, independent life.
We Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents fight against the Bolshevik enslavers because in the collective farms they pull women into harrows, force them to carry manure on their shoulders to the collective fields, sentence collective farmers to years of imprisonment for a few spikelets they dare to pick to save themselves from starvation; Because the Bolshevik exploiters completely rob the collective farmers of the products of their labor, pay them 300 grams of bread per labor day; because they have pushed the Ukrainian peasantry to the bottom of poverty and suffering.
We are struggling against the Bolshevik enslavers because the Ukrainian worker is forced to live constantly on starvation rations, to stand in long queues for bread, to live in slums, to be physically exhausted by unusually high rates of production, stakhanovschina, to tremble before cruel punishments for the slightest lateness at work.
We fight against the Bolshevik criminals because they have driven women into the mines and reconstruction work, where their health is exhausted; because they have torn mothers from their children; because tens of thousands of these unsupervised children are forced to roam in droves like neglected children through bazaars, stations, near restaurants, reaching out for a slice of bread.
We fight against the Bolshevik oppressors because they force the Ukrainian intelligentsia to oppose their own people, force them to be arrogant, to smear all national sanctities, force them to acquire means of existence through additional physical work, and do not give them the opportunity to engage freely in their creative work.
Can a Ukrainian patriot, who sees and understands all the criminality, all the banditism of Bolshevik policy toward the Ukrainian people and the working masses in general, not vow to fight to his last breath, to the last drop of his blood?
We, the Banderites - the Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents - swear not to cease our anti-Bolshevik liberation struggle - until the complete liberation of Ukraine from Bolshevik domination, until the complete destruction of the Bolshevik enslaving and exploiting system!
What are we Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents fighting for, what are our political and social goals?
What are we Banderites fighting for? What are the OUN, led by Stepan Bandera and the UPA, led by General Taras Chuprinka?
1. We are fighting for the building of an independent Ukrainian state with a fair political, social and economic system. All Ukrainian patriots have always strived for their national independence.
We believe - and this is confirmed by all the historical experience of the Ukrainian people, the experience of other enslaved nations - that only an independent Ukrainian state will provide the Ukrainian people the best conditions for their full-scale spiritual and material development, that only an independent Ukrainian state can be a reliable guarantee for a truly free, truly happy and prosperous life of the Ukrainian people.
Deprived of their state independence, the Ukrainian people have been and are being subjected to only national, political and social oppression and economic exploitation by the occupants in the past and today. The Ukrainian people will be able to end their unenviable fate only when they build their own independent nation-state.
2. For the restructuring of the present Soviet Union according to the principle of independent nation-states of all Soviet peoples. Such a resolution of the national question in the USSR would be the only truly just, truly progressive resolution. This is where the peoples of Russia aspired to in 1917. It will deal a mortal blow to Great Russian imperialism - the worst enemy of all the present Soviet peoples, the most dangerous enemy of the entire world.
We Soviet people must understand that as long as the imperialists of Moscow - white or red, tsarist or Bolshevik - will dominate the territory of the Soviet Union, they will always dream of dominating the world.
As long as, however, the rulers of Moscow nurture such dreams, so long will they always strive to build as strongly centralized a state as possible, to establish as powerful a power as possible, an autocracy or a dictatorship; so long will they always direct their entire economic life towards preparing wars of aggression; so long will they always strive to create a strong and extensive apparatus of oppression, a large and powerful army, which will also result in a strengthening of the social and economic position of the rulers.
Thus, the restructuring of the Soviet Union according to the principle of the independent national states of all the Soviet peoples is not only the most important and most essential step towards the destruction of great Russian imperialism in general, but also the most necessary precondition for the genuine social and political liberation of the working masses of the present Soviet Union, the most necessary precondition for the building of a really just, real and realistic Union in the east of Europe and in Soviet Asia.
3. For the full implementation of the idea of free nation-states of the world, for the elimination of any imperialism from international life. We Banderites believe that the system of free nation-states, satisfying the natural desire of all peoples for an independent state life and providing the best conditions for their comprehensive development, creates the best conditions for close cooperation between peoples.
The main obstacle to international cooperation today is the lack of mutual trust between peoples, mutual suspicion between individual states. This distrust can only be eliminated by the full realization of the principle of the self-determination of peoples, only by the rejection of any imperialism in national policy.
4. For the building of a classless society in an independent Ukrainian state, for the actual destruction in Ukraine of the exploitation of man by man, for the victory of the idea of a classless society throughout the world, in particular in the territory of the present Soviet Union.
The basis of this society in the independent Ukrainian state will be, as we have already said, on the one hand, public ownership of the means of production and, on the other hand, genuine democracy in the field of the internal political system. Public ownership of the means of production will exclude the possibility of the formation of exploiting classes on an economic basis.
In contrast to what we have today in the USSR, genuine democracy in the area of the political order will exclude the possibility of the formation of new parasitic groups on the basis of political privilege.
5. For a true democracy, against dictatorship and totalitarianism of all stripes, for freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, for ensuring to the national minorities in Ukraine all national and civil rights, against police omnipotence, for a government in the state that will consider its highest duty to serve the interests of the people, and not its imperialist plans.
"Having no conquering aims, subjugated countries and enslaved peoples in its state, the people's power of Ukraine will not waste time, energy and means to create an apparatus of oppression and exploitation. Ukrainian people's power will direct all economic resources and all human energy to the construction of a new state order, a just social order, to the economic development of the country and to raising the cultural level of the people" (from the OUN Program).
The detailed program of struggle is stated in the Program of OUN, adopted by the III-rd Extraordinary Underground OUN Congress, held from August 21 to 25, 1943. This program is also massively distributed in a separate booklet under the title "What the UPA is fighting for".
From all the aforementioned about our ideology and politics it follows quite definitely that there is nothing in common between our Banderist, revolutionary movement and Fascism or Hitlerism. In its essence, our movement is a popular national and social liberation movement.
We are alien to any kind of chauvinism, we hate and fight against any kind of imperialism, we are against any kind of dictatorship and totalitarianism, we are for the destruction of all exploitation of man by man, for the construction of a truly classless society. It is only because the Bolshevik enemies of the people link us with Fascism, sew us up with "agency," that they are unable to find any other argument against us.
We Banderites are for revolution in the entire Soviet Union, for a united front in the struggle of all oppressed peoples and working masses of the Soviet Union.
We go to the realization of our goals through the unfolding of a popular national and social liberation revolution both in Ukraine and among all other peoples of the Soviet Union. We call upon all the enslaved Soviet peoples and the working masses of all the nationalities of the USSR to join us in the struggle for the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime.
The Bolshevik yoke is equally crushing both the Ukrainian and all other Soviet peoples. The Bolshevik oppressors are the same enemies of both the Ukrainian and all other enslaved Soviet peoples.
The peoples of the Soviet Union can be freed from the Bolshevik yoke only through a revolutionary struggle against the Bolshevik oppressors and exploiters - a struggle which the Soviet peoples will wage for the restructuring of the Soviet Union on the principle of independent national states, for genuine democracy in the internal political organization of individual national states, for a truly classless society, for the absolute elimination from mutual relations of any imperialism, for the closest cooperation with one another, based on genuine equality between peoples.
The sooner the peoples of the Soviet Union realize the necessity of a revolutionary struggle against the Bolshevik oppressors, the shorter will be their suffering - the suffering of the slaves in the Bolshevik prison of nations, the less will be their sacrifice which they are daily forced to make as a result of the terrorist policies of the Bolsheviks, the sooner will they be able to live truly free, truly happy lives.
We strive to forge a united revolutionary anti-Bolshevik front of the peoples of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia, the peoples of Southeast and Central Europe, actually occupied in the last war by the Bolsheviks.
The revolutionary and progressive elements of the peoples of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, the Caucasus and some of the peoples of Southeast Europe in the emigration have already united today for a common anti-Bolshevik struggle on the political platform that we advocate in the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of the Peoples (ABN).
The individual governing bodies of the ABN are already active in emigration. This should be followed by the unification of an active revolutionary anti-Bolshevik front both within the Soviet Union and in the countries reoccupied by Moscow. This will be a huge step forward on the way to overthrowing the Bolshevik prison of nations, on the way to the liberation of all peoples enslaved by the Bolsheviks.
We also call upon the Russian people to fight against the Kremlin oppressors and exploiters
The Russian masses of the people are subjected by the Kremlin bosses to the same political and social oppression as the non-Russian peoples.
In 1917, together with all the peoples of Russia, the Russian people rose in revolutionary struggle against the tsarist autocracy, against the landlords and capitalists in the name of true political freedom, in the name of real social equality and justice, in the name of the true destruction of political and social reaction in Russia. This is all that the Russian people have not achieved.
Bolshevik usurpers violently snatched power from the hands of the Russian people and, under cover of revolutionary phrases, established on the territory of former Russia a new kind of autocracy, built a new exploitative system.
The Russian people did not enjoy political freedom in Tsarist, autocratic Russia, nor do they enjoy it today in the Bolshevik, dictatorial USSR. In tsarist Russia, the Russian working masses were exploited by landlords and capitalists, and today they are exploited by Bolshevik dignitaries.
The Russian people have not yet realized their ideas of political and social freedom. These ideas await an army of new fighters among the Russian people.
To the Russian masses of people oppressed and exploited formerly by tsarism and now by the Bolshevik clique, to the Russian masses of people who have courage and find the strength to rise in the revolutionary struggle against their oppressors, to the Russian masses of people who deny and hate all imperialism, we, the Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents, have only sincere sympathy.
It is with the greatest joy that we shall welcome the Russian people to the front of the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the Bolshevik enslaving and exploitative system.
How we look at the coming war
We count on the war between the Soviet Union and its Western adversaries only as an auxiliary moment in our struggle, as that favorable circumstance which will facilitate our liberation by our own forces.
In the main we are relying on the forces of the Ukrainian people, on the forces of all the oppressed peoples of the Soviet Union.
What are the immediate tasks of our struggle today
In the present stage of our struggle, our immediate tasks are as follows:
1) to include in the active revolutionary anti-Bolshevik struggle the hitherto uninvolved part of the Ukrainian people;
2) To defend the positions of the Ukrainian liberation movement that have already been won;
3) By means of revolutionary propaganda to inform the masses of the Soviet Union of all nationalities about what Bolshevism is in practice, to reveal all the anti-nationality of the Bolshevik system, to point out how the peoples of the Soviet Union can be freed from the Bolshevik yoke;
3) To stimulate the emergence of an organized, active anti-Bolshevik struggle throughout the Soviet Union.
Why we must conduct our struggle by the method of armed insurgency
In the terrorist conditions of the Soviet Union we have no other form of our liberation struggle than the armed underground. That is why today we are forced to sit in the forests, in depots underground. To fight against the MIA and MGB we carry weapons.
Such forms of struggle were imposed on us by the enemy. It is clear that such forms of political struggle are unusually hard. Since, however, in the conditions of the Soviet Union, such forms of struggle are the only possible forms of contradictory struggle in general, we will continue to fight the way we have been fighting so far. These tactics are also the same for all other peoples oppressed by the Bolsheviks.
We consider the upbringing of the revolutionary consciousness and anti-Bolshevik political activity of the oppressed peoples and working masses of the Soviet Union to be a precondition for the emergence of a mass revolutionary anti-Bolshevik struggle in the Soviet Union.
We strive for such education both through revolutionary propaganda and through the direct active struggle of the vanguard of the revolution - the revolutionary organizations - and the inclusion of the broad Soviet masses of the people in this struggle.
What is the immediate aim of our armed and sabotage actions
Our armed actions and acts of sabotage have the following immediate aim: to deprive the Bolshevik invaders of the possibility of firmly establishing themselves on the Ukrainian lands they occupy, to deprive them of the possibility of terrorizing and plundering the Ukrainian people and the natural wealth of their land with impunity; to protect the Ukrainian patriotic element from the terror of the MIA and MGB; to disrupt MIA and MGB attempts to plant agents; to prevent the development of Bolshevik organizations (youth, cultural) hostile to the Ukrainian people; to destroy especially active
We Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents do not fight against the Soviet working masses
In our struggle we Banderites act only against the Bolshevik imperialists, that is, against the party top brass and all those elements who, regardless of their social and national origin, serve this top brass faithfully.
It is a vile lie that we shoot all the Soviet people indiscriminately. We do not fight against the Soviet masses.
Thousands of Soviet people - collective farmers, workers and intellectuals - with whom we have met, talked, to whom we have given our literature, can attest to this. Thousands of starving people whom we helped in any way we could.
We destroy only the leading representatives of the Party, the Interior Ministry, the MGB, and all those menial, venal elements who actively oppose our movement and are hostile to the Ukrainian people.
How we Banderites look at the prospects for our struggle
We know that great difficulties await us in our struggle. We are very well aware of the fact that our forces are still small and the forces of the enemy are great. We are also aware of how difficult it is to conduct the revolutionary struggle under the conditions of the Bolshevik empire system.
For we believe in the justice of our cause and in the people. This faith has always been the main source of our strength up to the present and will continue to be so in the future. We fight for the most native, the most vested interests of both the Ukrainian and all other peoples of the Soviet Union. The entire Ukrainian people, as well as all the other Soviet peoples, cannot therefore fail to follow us.
Today a large part of Ukraine is actively following us. Today we have the sympathy of the entire oppressed Ukrainian people, of a considerable part of the working masses of the entire Soviet Union, who have been faithfully informed about us.
Tomorrow the rest of Ukraine will actively join our struggle. Tomorrow all the peoples of the Soviet Union will take our path.
Both in the conditions of Bolshevik reaction within the Soviet Union and in the newly invaded countries of Southeast and Central Europe, and against the background of unhealthy relations in the West, we Banderites both in terms of the aims of our struggle and in terms of its moral foundations, represent the deepest, ever-living, healthy aspirations of peoples and the working masses for political and social progress.
The forces of revolution, the forces of progress always defeat the forces of reaction. Such is the law of social development.
In the fight against Bolshevik reaction, victory will ultimately be for us, the Banderites. Already today, in the UPA, in the revolutionary underground, besides Ukrainians, representatives of other nationalities are also fighting: Russians, Tatars, Belarusians, Georgians. In the near future - we believe this - together with us on our national territories, thousands of detachments of revolutionaries of all nationalities of the Soviet Union will fight.
Our optimism about the future is also based on the fact that until now, that is, for four years, the Bolsheviks, the Interior Ministry and the MGB have failed to destroy us, have failed to smash our underground organizations.
Even the Ministry of Internal Affairs has become powerless against our high ideology, against our mastery of conspiracy, against our mass heroism and persistence. Having withstood in our struggle up to now, we will endure in the future as well. For us were the very first battles with the MIA and the MGB. Today, now that these battles are behind us, we look to the future with faith.
With the experience we need to fight under the Bolshevik regime, under the police-state system, hardened by the battles that have taken place so far, warmed by the sympathy we meet everywhere we go, among all the peoples oppressed by the Bolsheviks, Strong with the support that the Ukrainian people's masses give us selflessly - we boldly march forward to our goal - to overthrow Bolshevik domination in the Soviet Union and to build an independent Ukrainian State, to liberate the peoples and the working masses of the entire Soviet Union.
The style of our struggle
For us Banderites a separate highly heroic style of revolutionary struggle is characteristic. It is based on the unheard of, unparalleled ideology of those involved in our movement, our deep patriotism.
We recognize neither captivity nor surrender to the enemy. Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents, as a rule, do not surrender alive into the hands of the enemy: in a desperate situation, they shoot with their last own bullets or burst with their last own grenades.
We recognize no other life than life for the active struggle for our high revolutionary ideals. Our struggle will not cease as long as at least one revolutionary lives.
We are not frightened by even the most severe difficulties and dangers, even the most difficult obstacles. Neither the death of our friends nor temporary setbacks in our struggle will break us. For the victory of our ideas, we voluntarily submit to the iron discipline that reigns in our ranks.
We Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents continue the best liberation traditions of both the Ukrainian and all other peoples in the USSR
Struggling for national and social freedom of the Ukrainian people, for state independence of Ukraine, we, Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents, continue the cause of such great fighters for liberation of Ukraine in our history as Khmelnitsky, Mazepa, Petlyura, continue traditions of such liberation organizations after 1920 as Union for Liberation of Ukraine, Brotherhood of Ukrainian Statesmen, we fight for realization of dreams and ideals of such great Ukrainians as Shevchenko, Franko, Lesya Ukrainka.
Striving to build a just, progressive political and social order throughout the Soviet Union, to free all peoples of the Soviet Union from the national and social Bolshevik yoke, we Banderites continue the traditions of the liberation struggle of all peoples enslaved by Tsarism, we continue the cause of all those part of the Russian revolutionaries, in the period before 1917, who really wanted to end national and social bondage in Russia, who really wanted to win political freedom for the masses of Russia.
This is who we Banderites are and what we are fighting for.
Once upon a time the great Shevchenko responded to the mockery of the tsarist lackeys that as if "the Gaidamaks were not warriors, robbers, thieves, a stain on our history": "You lie! For the holy truth, the will of the robber will not become! The people will not be chained to your kaydans; they will not be wicked; their hearts will not break for their Ukraine!" ("Cold Yar")
Let these words of the great Prophet of Ukraine be our answer today to all those who, deceived by Bolshevik propaganda, still look at us today as "bandits".
For four years now, shots have been fired from Western Ukraine into the entire Soviet Union. For four years the territory of Western Ukraine, a small corner of the colossal Soviet Union, has been a field of extraordinarily persistent, heroic battles.
Let every Soviet man know, let every collective farmer, worker and intellectual know: here, in Ukraine, for the first time in the history of the established USSR, the seat of revolutionary liberation struggle for the overthrow of the Bolshevik enslaving and exploitative regime, for the construction of a truly just political and social order on the territory of the present Soviet Union has been kindled.
Here, for the first time in the history of the established Soviet Union, several tens of thousands of Ukrainian patriots - the sons of the working Ukrainian people - vowed to die rather than submissively endure the Bolshevik bullying than agree with the criminal, from the national and social point of view, policy of the Bolshevik bandits.
We Banderites fight and die with the thought of the future freedom and happy life of the Ukrainian people, with the thought of the future freedom and happy life of all Soviet peoples.
We Banderites fight and die with the belief that millions of new fighters will follow us, by the thousands, from all over Ukraine, from all over the Soviet Union, and that our struggle - the struggle for freedom of peoples and man - will end in victory over Bolshevik reaction.
We, the Banderites, fight and die with a sense of pride that in the black days of Bolshevik reaction we were the first to pave the way to freedom both for the entire Ukrainian people and for the peoples and working masses of the entire Soviet Union, and that history has destined us to be the first to usher in a new period for Eastern Europe and Bolshevik Asia - a period of their true national and social liberation.
We sincerely sympathize with all those Soviet mothers and fathers whose innocent sons, finding themselves at the front of the struggle against us against their own will, have fallen in the struggle against us. This is the fault of the Interior Ministry. It drove them against us by force. They are victims of the police-state terror.
Today, at the beginning of the fifth year of our liberating anti-Bolshevik struggle, from our revolutionary trenches, repelling the frantic attacks of the MGB and the MIA, among the corpses of our fallen friends, bloodied but not bent, we raise our revolutionary banner even higher.
People of the Soviet Union! The Soviet working masses! Look at this banner! Look and read!
We are for the freedom of the peoples and the man!
We are for liberation from the Bolshevik national and social yoke of all peoples and workers of the Soviet Union!
Down with the Bolshevik oppressive and exploitative system!
To fight under this banner, to fight together with us, we call all those who are only oppressed by the yoke of the Bolshevik oppressors and exploiters, all those who only have the strength and courage to fight!
It is enough to continue to tolerate the Bolshevik abuse and violence! It is a disgrace for man to submit to the yoke and the whip!
Enough to continue to be only silent slaves! Enough of squashing your anger and hatred against the Bolshevik oppressors in secret!
Rise to the revolutionary struggle against the Kremlin enslavers and exploiters!
Ukrainians from the eastern regions of Ukraine! We Ukrainian revolutionaries and insurgents - fighters for freedom and independence of Ukraine - urge you: join the liberation revolutionary struggle against the Bolshevik yoke! The fight for freedom and independence of the Ukrainian people is the sacred duty of every son of Ukraine!
The enslaved peoples of the Soviet Union! Belarusians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Karelian-Finnians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Turkmens, Tatars, Kalmyks, Bashkirs, Moldovans! Rise to the national- and social-liberation struggle against the Moscow oppressors for a restructuring of the Soviet Union on the principle of independent nation-states of all Soviet peoples!
Russians! Fight for the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship, for the destruction of the Bolshevik exploitative system - for a democratic Russia, for true social equality and justice!
Soviet workers, collective farmers and intellectuals! The Bolshevik yoke is getting heavier and heavier. There is no end to poverty and misery. There is no end to terror and persecution. Enough to tolerate obediently! Raise the revolutionary struggle for your political and social liberation!
Long live the liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people for a Ukrainian independent state!
Long live OUN and UPA - the fighting vanguard of the Ukrainian people in their struggle for national and social freedom!
Long live Stepan Bandera - the leader of the Ukrainian liberation-revolutionary movement - a sincere friend of all peoples and working masses of the Soviet Union!
Long live General Taras Chuprynka - Chief Commander of the UPA, fearless fighter for the freedom of the Ukrainian and all other peoples of the USSR!
Long live the national and social liberation revolutionary struggle of all enslaved peoples of the USSR!
Long live the revolutionary struggle of the working masses of the USSR for social equality and justice, for a true classless society!
Death to Stalin and his clique - the worst enemies of the peoples and working masses of the Soviet Union!