UKRAINIAN INFORMATION SERVICE MONTHLY BULLETIN Number 1 January 1951 Vol. Ill Communiqué The Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council (U.H.V.R.), Head-Quarters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (U.P.A.) and the Organization of the Ukrainian Nationalists (O.U.N.) in Ukraine, as well as the members of the Ukrainian Underground Movement, in­ formed us that the Chairman of the General Secretariat of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council and the Office of the General Secratariat for Military Affairs, Commander-in-Chief of the U.P.A. and Chairman of the Staff of the O.U.N. in Ukraine Lieutenant General of U.P.A. Roman Shukhevych — Taras Chuprynka on March, 5 th 1950 has found a heroic death in Bilohorscha near Lviv in a fight with Russian-Bolshevik occupants. General Taras Chuprynka General Taras Chuprynka was born in 1907. Immedia­ man of the General Secretariat of the U.H.V.R. At the tely after graduating from the Technical College, he be­ same time he was nominated as Secretary-General of came a leading member of the Ukrainian Military Or­ the Army Affairs and as Commander-in-Chief of the ganization (U.V.O.), to which he had already belonged as U.P.A. by the President of the U.H.V.B As Chairman of a student. In the years from 1927—1929 as a member of the General Secretariat of the U.H.V.R., of O.U.N. and said Organization he principally participated in the Or­ Commander-in-Chief of the U.P.A. in Ukraine General ganization of the Underground Movement against the Chuprynka led from 1943 till 1950 the revolutionary fight Polish occupants. In 1929 he became a member of the of the U.P.A., the Ukrainian Underground Movement and Organization of the Ukrainian Nationalists and soon be­ those of the millions of the Ukrainian people against the came one of the leading members. He worked as a mili­ German and Moscovitian-Bolshevik occupants in Ukraine. ary reporter of the Land’s Executive of the O.U.N. He He led the heroic struggle for freedom of the Ukrainian devoted his excellent organizer’s talent, as well as his people, for the independent united Ukrainian State. intrepid boldness to his work. His revolutionary activi­ Owing to the abundant heroic example of boldness and ties against the Polish occupants led to his arrest and sacrifice of a nation, General Chuprynka showed his his long imprisonment in a Polish prison. From 1938'— heroic fight as an example for the whole world. Owing 1939 General Taras Chuprynka played active part in to this heroic fight, the Bolsheviks did not succeed in organizing the military association “Ukrainian Carpa- destroying the organized independent movement of the thian-Sich“ of the young Ukrainian state of Carpatho- Ukrainian people. It is also his work that the Ukrainian Ukraine. From 1939—1940 he invested the position of the Underground Movement in its country of origin in spite commissioner of the O.U.N. in the Ukrainian boundary of all the painful loses of his best leaders, not only exist territories of the so-called “General-gouvernment“. Mean­ longer, but always find new successors among the Ukrai­ while he worked untirengly inn the Military Head- nian people. Committee of the O.U.N. and lectured on the secret mili­ The history of the Ukrainian Liberation Frght from tary courses. 1943—1950, remains inseparable from the person of Ge­ In the middle of the year 1941 we see General Taras neral Chuprynka. His extraordinary organization talent, Chuprynka as organizer and afterwards as Commander of his great military talent and his political personality, the Ukrainian Legion. Upon instructions of the O.U.N.- the revolutionary Ukrainian independence movement Head-Office, he accomplished a series of special orders. In spring 1943 he was nominated as a member of the and especially the entire Ukrainian nation loses in him a O.U.N.-Leading and got charged with the military affairs political and military leader of the first rank. Owing to of it. After some months, in August 1943, he was elected hispolitical principles and hisunlimited personal boldness, as Chairman of the O.U.N.-Leading. In November 1943 he on the other hand his vivid, gay charakter, simplicity in participated in the Conference of the subjugated nations. his dally life, but also his consciousness when he was on At the First Great Meeting of the Supreme Ukrainian duty, General Chuprynka rejoiced the greatest populari­ Liberation Council in June 1943 he was elected as Chair­ ty among his comrades and employees. (Continued on Page S) Page 4 UKRAINIAN INFORMATION SERVICE Number 1 To estimate these possibilities the facts must be clearly at Stalingrad. But how were the Germans able to read» understood. First of all, the old idea of wild groups of Stalingrad in the first place? How did they push forward “bandits“, carrying on a small romantic war at their own a thousand miles against the might and manpower of sweet will, must be got rid of. That was no longer possible Russia? in the last war, or it perished very soon. Against such a To those questions the German military archives give ruthless adversary as the Soviet, it is entirely senseless. the answer: The Germans had millions of eager accomp- In general we may speak of two kinds of partisan war­ lices in Russia. fare, which we will call 1) the tactical, 2) the operational. This fact has been known for a long time to the Rus­ The boundaries between the two are sometimes hard to sian experts of the State Department, and to a small define. There are transition and developments from one number of American officers. To-day a wider circle in sort to the other. The distinction in itself, however, is the armed forces is becoming aware of it and of the correct and necessary in order to get a clear idea. Both psychological blunders which cost the Germans the sup­ kinds were in evidence in the last war. port of innumerable Russians. (The author, who is other­ Partisan warfare is preferably waged by small groups wise well informed in the national problems of the U.S.- of indigenous resistance fighters, who, backed by the S.R. erroneously calls the whole population “Russian“. population, carry out acts of sabotage and above all es- This is by no means correct. The oppressed peoples spionage, attact unaccompanied vehicles, and unguarded cannnot be called “Russians“; Editor.) This awarenessmay billets of the invaders, assassinate important persons in give a new impetus to American military thinking and the army or administration. But they, too, require leader­ planning. It may in fact awaken those U.S. strategists who ship and the support of an outside power, especially the have been obsessed with the atomic bomb. For the lesson supply of munition and arms from the air. They need, of German experience in Russia is simply this: that the besides, wireless connection in order to direct these sup­ decisive element in war against the Soviet regime can be plies and to transmit information. the Soviet people. Or, to put it still more simply, the Under favourable circumstances, when the battle front lesson is that it takes a Russian (here the name is again is near and when air-borne troops are dropped, they can used in a collective sense: Ed.) to beat a Russian. To read form the basis for an active partisan war. this lesson is easier than to apply it, intelligently, to Operational partisan war, — which alone can be in­ our own policies. In the tragic event of a third world cluded in strategical planning, — is carried on by strong, war the U.S. has the power to drop the atomic bomb on half regular troops up to division strength. The Soviet Soviet territory and kill or maim millions of Russians. partisan brigades might serve as a model. In their for­ But can we hope to do something much more difficult — mation and tactics they may be called a new kind of arouse those millions and propel them at the decisive cavalry brigade.“ moment against Stalin’s regime. Having decribed the fight of the Polish and the Ukrain­ We know now that we can forge an instrument to serve ian Insurgent Armies as models for guerilla warfare this purpose — an instrument which, unlike the bomb, the during World War the German author goes on in the Soviets could never espy and use against us. To create same article. “The effective use of large partisan this instrument might well succeed where the products of units was first systematically developed by the Red daring and a minimum of deference to conventional mili­ Army. That was no accident. Vast regions of European tary thought. In a war against Stalin or his successors, as well Asiatic Russia have always offered ideal this instrument might well succed where the products of conditions for a partisan war on a big scale: large atomic fission would fail. To give this instrument a re­ pathless areas with little or no means of communication, alistic name in our arsenal, it might therefore be called having a widely scattered rural population, showing “psychological fission”. moreover, in border countries, national and religious differences and cross-currents. In Ukraine, in the Baltic Psychological fission goes far beyond what we have States and some parts of Siberia, the first world war was known as psychological warfare, for it combines all of continued for years in partisan fighting which went on the arms of war. It entails the concerted use of our mili­ right into 1920.