OUN Reaction in Holodomor in the USSR ; ОУН: реакція на Голодомор в УСРР

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Abstract

The main thesis of this article is that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which led the national movement of the 1930s in Western Ukraine, prepared and carried out a terrorist act against a Soviet diplomatic representative in Lviv as a retribution for a man-made famine of 1932-1933 in the USSR, which resulted in the deaths of millions of Ukrainian peasants.The truth about one of the greatest tragedies in Ukrainian and world history, the Holodomor, is still relatively unknown today. During the tragedy on the Ukrainian territory, there was no objective information about it on the international arena, which excluded the possibility of assistance from international organizations, as was the case during the famine of 1921-23 in Soviet Russia. Under these circumstances, the OUN took a radical step – they planned a murder of a Soviet diplomat in Lviv aiming to bring the international community to dramatic events in the USSR.The OUN, which monitored the socio-political situation and anti-Ukrainian measures of Soviet power in the USSR, opposed the spread of communist ideas in Western Ukraine (as a part of Poland) and fought against it with different methods, be it political propaganda or terrorist acts.The OUN learned about the tragic processes in the Ukrainian village too late, since the Soviet regime carefully concealed the consequences of its policies. Ukrainian society in Western Ukraine for a long time did not suspect about the true scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in the USSR. So the decision of the OUN to organize an assassination of a Soviet representative was made only in June 1933, when the terror was already fading in Ukrainian villages.The decision to assassinate a representative of Soviet authorities was made collectively by the OUN leadership. In a short time, a detailed plan was developed and preparation for an attempt was made. The assassin, Mykola Lemik, came from a poor peasant family, which was specifically foreseen by the organizers, in order to avoid accusations by official Moscow of killing their representative on social, rather than political, grounds.Apart from its main goal to attract the attention of the Western world to the Holodomor, the assassination was considered by the OUN as a political action to show solidarity with Ukrainians in the USSR, to demonstrate to Ukrainian society the readiness to resolutely continue the struggle for independence of Ukraine with all available methods.The information about the murder of Soviet diplomat O. Maylov was widely circulated in the Ukrainian and foreign press, therefore, the world community became more interested in following the events that took place on the territory of the USSR.The information about the organization of artificial famine in the USSR in 1932-1933 by the Soviet authorities struck Ukrainians in Galychyna, caused a strong opposition to the establishment of the Soviet regime in Western Ukraine in 1939 and became one of the reasons of active support of the anti-Communist Resistance Movement in the region after the end of the Second World War. ; У статті простежено реакцію Організації Українських Націоналістів на трагічні події, пов'язані з Голодомором в Українській СРР у 1932–1933 рр. ОУН прийняла рішення про замах на радянського дипломатичного представника як спосіб привернути увагу західного світу до тоталітарної політики комуністичної Москви, що організувала штучний голод у підрадянській Україні. Підкреслено, що одночасно терористичний акт розглядався ОУН як політична акція, що мала виявити солідарність з наддніпрянськими українцями, продемонструвати українському суспільству рішучу готовність продовження будь-якими методами боротьби за державну незалежність. Розкрито механізм ухвалення рішення керівництвом ОУН про відплатну акцію, хід підготовки замаху (атентату) на консула СРСР у Львові. Особливу увагу зосереджено на аналізі інформації про відплатну акцію ОУН в українській та закордонній пресі й оцінці дієвості цієї акції. Зроблено спробу розглянути уроки, які винесла ОУН з подій 1932–1933 рр. У Наддніпрянщині, й проаналізувати дії українського Руху Опору для недопущення подібних злочинів комуністичного режиму після Другої світової війни.