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Missed Opportunities in the Ukraine: U.S.S.R

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Missed Opportunities in the Ukraine: U.S.S.R 79 Missed Opportunities in the Ukraine: U.S.S.R. and Nazi Occupation in the Inter-War and World War II MICHAEL HUMENIUK During the height of Nazi Germany’s militaristic expansion in World War II, it occupied a vast amount of the European continent, consisting of twenty-two countries from France to Lithuania. However, Nazi Germany—and Hitler—had a vested interest in occupying the Ukrainian state held by the Soviet Union prior to World War II more than any other. German leaders such as Otto von Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Hitler all considered the “conquest of the Ukraine as offering the surest road to a more abundant German life,”1 and Wilhelm had even tried to bring this to fruition before the First World War. Many Germans saw the Ukraine as a potential “breadbasket”2 and “one of the loveliest gardens of the world . a Paradise,”3 for Germany’s cultivation. The Ukraine—after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa—seemed willing to co-operate with the Germans. The majority of the Ukrainian state showed a willingness to “support the New Order,”4 demonstrating that there were high hopes for the impending Nazi invasion. However, as the war continued, the enthusiasm of the Ukraine towards the Nazi occupation slowly shifted to dissatisfaction. By examining the interwar-era Ukraine under Soviet and Polish occupation, the Ukraine’s hope in regard to the Nazi invasion can be uncovered. Then, by moving into an examination of the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine during the Second World War, it is possible to analyze how Nazi Germany lost favour among the Ukrainian population, and ultimately failed to capitalize on a state willing to assist its cause against communism. This paper will argue that the Soviet’s interwar mistreatment and brutal policies towards the Ukraine—policies that led to terrible collectivization, a suppression of federal autonomy, and the Red Famine of 1933—created the initial hope of the Ukrainian state regarding the Nazi invasion. Furthermore, this paper will go on to argue that Germany failed to capitalize on the potential of its occupation by focusing on the Ukraine as a colony for mining resources and supplies for the expanding German Reich. By doing this, Germany ultimately continued the occupation where the Soviets had left off rather than fostering more active collaboration and calls for federal autonomy against the Soviets during Operation Barbarossa. Had Germany done so, they might have been able to create an active and willing ally to their offensive against communism during 1 Joachim Joesten, “Hitler’s Fiasco in the Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs 21 (January 1943): 331. 2 Ibid., 331. 3 Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 144. 4 Marcus Eikel and Valentina Sivaieva, “City Mayors, Raion Chiefs and Village Elders in Ukraine, 1941–4: How Local Administrators Co-operated with the German Occupation Authorities,” Contemporary European History 23, no. 3 (2014): 406. 80 World War II. To examine all this information in an effective manner, this paper will be split into sections. The first will focus on the interwar Soviet and Polish occupation of the Ukraine, outlining the importance of the independence movement among the Ukrainian population from World War I onward. The section will then move into discussing Soviet politics that result in the suppression of Ukrainian independence and a manmade famine that some historians consider genocide. This will ultimately show that the hope for the Nazi invasion during the Second World War was due to the interwar occupation by the Soviets and Polish. The second section of the paper will first focus on the failure of the Nazis to capitalize on the potential of their invasion. The section will then discuss the Nazis’ policies regarding governance and autonomy, including the idea that these policies were in fact a façade to hide Hitler’s and the Nazis’ real intentions regarding the Ukrainian state. Finally, this section will discuss how the Nazis’ policies in the Ukraine began to resemble those of the Soviet occupiers during the interwar era, ultimately leading to dissatisfaction among the Ukrainian population. * * * In 1938 during the prelude to World War II, on “December 9, a Ukrainian Autonomist Bill was submitted to the Sejm in Poland.”5 This was the last of numerous bills seen in states after the Munich agreement in September 1938—The agreement that gave Germany the annexed Sudetenland. However, “at no time in history” have all the countries and nations that are comprised of Ukrainian-speaking people “been united within a single Ukrainian national State.”6 This determination by the Ukraine to achieve autonomy is a large part of the narrative surrounding the interwar era and World War II, and plays a key role in the hatred of the Soviet Union and Poland in the interwar era. At the end of World War I, U.S President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points called for “autonomy for all the peoples of the Austria-Hungary,” which consisted of a largely Ukrainian population.7 However, it is important to note that many people within this empire understood “autonomy to mean national self-determination or independence.”8 Wilson’s statement caused the Ukrainian peoples to organize around a common goal of achieving power by autonomy in the final years after World War I. The Ukrainian people—of the “East Galician Republic” and “Ukrainian Republic”—rallied together to fight a campaign against the Poles and Red armies invading the Ukrainian state established between these groups.9 This was to help establish the independence and “self-determination” that the people of the Ukraine understood as being essential in the “future peace” of Europe, according to Wilson.10 However, in 1920 “with the establishment of Bolshevik rule in Dnieper Ukraine . efforts to create a sovereign Ukrainian state . came to an end.”11 This new governmental rule established over the Ukraine created long- 5 E.P., “The Ukrainian Problem,” Bulletin of International News 16, no. 1 (January 14, 1939): 3. 6 Ibid., 3. 7 Paul R. Magocsi, A History of Ukraine (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 512. 8 Ibid., 512. 9 E.P., “The Ukrainian Problem,” 8. 10 Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, 512. 11 Ibid., 520. 81 standing resentment due to the disregard for the determined future peace of Europe that Wilson had expressed and the Ukraine had tried to follow. From this brief history of Ukrainian attempts at federal autonomy—attempts that were continually suppressed—the seed of resentment towards the interwar occupiers was planted. This resentment was fostered not only by the defeat of their autonomy movement, but also by the Polish betrayal of the Galician Republic, who had “abandoned [their] claim to Eastern Galicia in exchange for Polish recognition of the Ukrainian Republic and military assistance against the Bolsheviks.”12 The Polish—who could not stand against the Soviets—came to an agreement in 1920 recognizing a Ukrainian state “under Bolshevik occupation, and which eventually became a constituent member of the U.S.S.R.”13 Despite ongoing attempts at independence and autonomy by the Ukrainian state, it was continually repressed by outside powers even after Wilson’s statements in 1918, which the Ukraine took seriously. This disregard for Ukrainian independence created the basis for the resentment and distaste felt for the interwar era occupiers by the Ukrainian state. The resentment established shortly after World War I within the larger Ukrainian state— now occupied by both Poland and the Soviet Union—was only exacerbated by the policies of the occupying countries, especially the Soviet Union. The Ukraine continually resisted the Soviets’ policies, “urging concessions to the localities and limitations on the powers of the central government” even as the centralization process began.14 The leading authorities within the Ukrainian S.S.R. held the belief that the Union’s strength was held within its multiple republic states and that “the Union would grow powerful as it encouraged wide independence at the local level.”15 However, the Soviet Union rejected these ideas, embarking—in later years—on “programs of state industrialization” and “farm collectivization” that would help to enlarge “central authority” within the Soviet Union.16 In suppressing the ideas held by leading officials within the Ukraine, the Soviets created further resentment towards themselves in the state. In the 1920s the Ukraine firmly opposed collectivization of farmland. It “passed a law embodying the principle that all land should belong to those who work it.”17 However, these ideas did not last long, as they were in direct opposition to Stalin’s future policies. When Stalin rose to power in 1924, he quickly embarked on attaining “uncontested political power.”18 In 1928, Stalin implemented the “concept of a planned command economy. All decisions were to be made at the center in Moscow and implemented throughout the Soviet Union,” which, from this point on, was considered “a single economic unit.”19 Through the enactment of these policies by Stalin and other Bolshevik leaders, the Ukrainian agenda for independence and autonomy—along with the state’s objection to centralized government—was suppressed, furthering the resentment felt among 12 E.P., “The Ukrainian Problem,” 8. 13 Ibid., 8. 14 Robert S. Sullivant, Soviet Politics and the Ukraine 1917-1957 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 80. 15 Ibid., 80. 16 Sullivant, Soviet Politics and the Ukraine 1917-1957, 83. 17 Magocsi, A History of Ukraine,
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