A Century of Ukrainian Canadian Internment
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Left-Right Camps: A Century of Ukrainian Canadian Internment By Richard Sanders have teamed up with leftists of Finnish, less of their religious leanings, ultranation- anada’s WWI-era internment of Jewish, Russian and Anglo heritage, as well alists have seen Leftists as reflecting the about 5,000 Ukrainian immi- as with radical Croats, Serbs, Hungarians, twin evils of communism and atheism. Cgrants is still memorialised as a de- Poles, and others. For their trouble, these Early Rifts and Alliances leftists has been targeted for surveillance, fining moment in this community’s histo- The unscalable wall between Ukrainian intimidation and internment by Liberal and ry. Because the narrative of these forced- leftists and their conservative brethren has Conservative regimes alike. labour camps is so key to rendering this been evident since the turn of the 20th cen- The Ukrainian Canadian Left has community’s self-identity, many Ukrainian tury. At that time, Ukrainians in western included a diverse range of activists from Canadians remain understandably indig- Canada’s urban centres were organising moderate reformers and social democrats, nant if not traumatised by this state-spon- cultural, educational and artistic activities. to radical socialists and Marxists. Despite sored crime against humanity. By 1903, Ukrainian activists in Winnipeg this, government authorities and the Canada’s first slave-labour camps formed social groups sponsoring concerts Ukrainian Right have denigrated the en- (1914-1920) were also a turning point in and plays. Peter Krawchuk, in his book, tire spectrum of Ukrainian progressives by our national tradition of using mass intern- Ukrainian Socialists in Canada, 1900- labelling them all Communists. ment to control perceived enemies of the 1918, noted that: state. By WWI, Canadian authorities were Those on the Right side of the po- “these reading clubs or societies met already entrenched in the genocidal habit litical fence have closely identified with with a great deal of opposition from re- of holding Aboriginals captive on reserves Ukrainian nationalism and have found actionary groups and individuals who and in church-run boarding schools. How- great unity in their fervent opposition to did not wish to see the Ukrainian im- ever, the War Measures Act of 1914 ush- anything even hinting of socialism. To migrant workers organised, especially ered in a new, 20th-century pattern of phys- members of this camp, anyone entertain- since most of these societies were un- der the leadership of radicals and so- ical containment that targeted European ing Marxist ideas, or even willing to co- cialists. Particularly strong was the op- and Asian civilians. operate on a common cause with social- position from the clerics of the Ukrain- WWI was not the last time that ists, has been denounced as a Communist. ian Catholic...and Greek Orthodox... Ukrainians were corralled into Canadian The Left-Right schism has also churches.”2 prison camps. Over the ten decades since been reflected in differing attitudes to mon- This factionalism had its roots in then, the guardians of Canada’s “Peaceable archism and imperialism. The nationalist the Ukraine. During the late 1800s, the Kingdom” have relied on three other ma- camp has included those seeking a Ukrain- Ukrainian Radical Party, in the Hapsburg jor programs of mass civilian incarcera- ian monarchy akin to the British system. provinces of Galicia and Bukovyna, con- tion. These social-control programs to This faction was led by veterans who came fronted the Ukrainian Catholic Church’s physically immobilise supposed threats to to Canada after losing the fight for inde- control over the peasant population. Divi- Canada’s political and economic order, pendence during the civil war in Soviet sions in Canada, explained Ukrainian Ca- were also intended to intimidate and deter Russia (1918-1921). (These nationalists, nadian historian Orest Martynowych, otyer members of the public from becom- shared a keen interest in antiCommunism “first appeared within the immigrant ing (more) politically active. with the Canadian, British and other im- community when members of the vil- To understand why some Ukrain- perialist powers that intervened in this con- lage intelligentsia [in Canada], who had been influenced by the Radical move- ian Canadians have been disproportionate- flict to squash Russia’s 1917 revolution.) ment [in the Ukraine], attempted to es- ly targeted for internment, we must recog- Ukrainian monarchist émigrés are tablish the life of the Ukrainian peas- nise that for more than a century this eth- said to have been “eager to demonstrate ant immigrant masses on enlightened nic community has been sharply divided loyalty and commitment to Canada and the and rational foundations.”3 along political lines. By putting them- [British] Empire by participating in mili- Martinowych has described several selves on one side or the other of a politi- tary exercises with the Canadian militia.”1 factions that “struggled to retain or to cap- cal boundary separating Left from Right, Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Left has long ture the allegiance of the immigrant Ukrainian Canadians have segregated distinguished itself with decidedly anti-im- masses” within Canada’s Ukrainian com- themselves into two distinct, rival camps. perialist and anti-monarchist ideologies. munity. Each of these “mutually antago- It is also instructive to understand Religion has also been a major fac- nistic camps” used a unique narrative, he the political alliances that these two fac- tor in the Right-Left schism. The Ukrain- says, to “capture” the imagination of their tions have forged with those outside their ian Left has been skeptical of religious fellow Ukrainians. To build identities and shared ethnic base. For example, those on elites, if not prone to reject the church en- institutions free of Catholic control, these the Ukrainian-Canadian Right have built tirely for supporting slavery, imperialism camps organised around three main foci: strong ties to successive, antiCommunist and other crimes. Meanwhile, the Ukrain- (1) conversion to evangelical protestant- government bureaucracies and national ian Right has largely embraced either the ism, (2) solidarity among working-class so- security establishments, whether led by the Catholic or Orthodox faith. Ukrainian cialists, and (3) Ukrainian nationalism as- Liberals or Conservatives. monarchists, for example, were tied to Ca- sociated with the Orthodox church.4 Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Left has tholicism which has long been this ethnic After the failed Russian revolution always worked with radical, multiethnic community’s dominant religious force. (1905-1907), thousands of Ukrainians fled unions and political parties. In struggling Other Ukrainian Canadian nationalists em- Czarist repression. In 1907, when Ukrain- for peace, justice, labour rights and other braced AngloProtestantism after conver- ians in Winnipeg formed a section of the causes, progressive Ukrainian Canadians sion to evangelical churches. But, regard- Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), they pro- 40 Press for Conversion! (Issue # 68) March 2016 Nykyta Budka, good to the poor, only losses, and ever vided a meeting place for radicals of other Bishop of the more victims,” they said in September ethnic backgrounds. Before long, many Ukrainian 1914. “From a moral point of view war is Ukrainian socialists felt they were getting Catholic a crime of present-day society. For work- second-class treatment by the SPC’s Anglo Church ers the war is of no use at all.”15 leaders. They also objected to the party’s in Canada “Impossibilist” doctrine which opposed In contrast, the Ukrainian Right (1912-1927) efforts to “reform” capitalism. (The SPC’s supported WWI. To prove their loyalty to antireformist views led it to reject interna- Canada, these nationalists still commemo- tional solidarity campaigns, oppose union rate the Ukrainians who enlisted by angli- activism and dismiss the idea of taking any cising their names or pretending they were steps towards women’s equality.5) Russians. One of their greatest heroes, In 1909, when representatives of Corporal Filip Konowal, received the Vic- eleven Ukrainian socialist groups from toria Cross from King George V in 1917.16 western Canada met in Winnipeg to split Canadian governments have also themselves away from the SPC, they cre- raved about the Ukrainian Right’s aid to ated the Federation of Ukrainian Social imperialism. In 2014, Chris Alexander, Democrats (FUSD).6 The next year, the Canada’s first resident Ambassador to Af- SPC’s German and Jewish branches in ghanistan, stated that as Minister of Citi- Winnipeg also broke with the party and zenship and Immigration, he was “very proud that in our Discover worked with the FUSD and others to build At first, he urged his flock to fight for a multiethnic, social democratic party.7 Canada guide...we recall that the first the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Days Victoria Cross anywhere in the British Winnipeg was a centre for Ukrain- later, he told them to fight for the Empire awarded to one who was not ian language publications including the Ca- British Empire. Ukrainian Canadian born in that empire went to Corporal nadian Farmer (1903), the Presbyterian socialists said workers should not Filip Konowal, born in Ukraine, who Church’s Dawn (1905), the Ukrainian fight for either of the imperialist rivals. showed exceptional courage in the bat- Voice (1910) for nationalists who later tle of Hill 70 in 1917.”17 agent, and Taras Ferley, an Independ- founded Canada’s Ukrainian Orthodox But the Ukrainian Right was not al- ent Liberal, and chose...to support ways so sure which empire to support. On Church, and the Ukrainian Catholic Anglo-Canadian and Jewish Social Church’s Canadian Ruthenian (1911).8 Democratic and Labour candidates.”11 July 27, 1914, Ukrainian Catholic Bishop The first issue of FUSD’s Robochyi Narod During Manitoba’s 1914 election, Nykyta Budka—who the Vatican sent to (Working People) in 1909, described the the Ukrainian Right teamed up with form- Canada in 1912—issued a pastoral letter split between socialists and nationalists in er Premier Sir Rodmond Roblin’s Con- to his flock of 80,000.