Vasyl Halasa: “We Fought to Exercise our Right To Self-determination”
Mr. Halasa amazed me when we first met. Looking at him, I wondered how this man could be the same one who had spent so much time in bunkers and then in prison. Then I saw his eyes, the same as in that well-known photo dating from 1942. Orlan (his underground resistance alias, meaning sea eagle) amazed me again after we agreed on a radio interview. I was speechless to see him appear at the studio with a real OUN samizdat edition, having spent the night typing notes on an old typewriter, precisely the way he had done in the 1940s, hiding in secret places. I have since kept this typewritten text as a relic and I have three audio cassettes with our radio appearances. Orlan was a very sociable and straightforward individual; you could discuss anything with him – seldom the case at his age. My friends, listening to our programs, were surprised. They said they had expected to hear a typical old man who could hardly put two words together. Halasa’s cheerful voice, his logical and idiomatic language were captivating. Decades of struggle had tempered him and he remained all his long life in the whirlpool of events. I remember calling him this summer (he had just arrived from Poland after paying homage to UPA graves). That same day he was going to a youth rest camp in Vorzel [a scenic Kyiv suburb].
I planned another meeting with Mr. Halasa last week, but he passed away October 5, aged 83. The body of UPA Colonel Vasyl Halasa lay in state at the political prisoners center in Kyiv. Among his aliases were Orlan, Nazar Savchenko, Dniprovsky, Chornomorsky. He was also in charge of political education and deputy to the UPA commander in Zakerzonia [i.e., the territory beyond the Curzon Line, the Soviet-Polish boundary dating from 1919], responsible for UPA political affairs there. He organized UPA raids in Poland, Bohemia and Slovakia. His name is found in numerous books and documents, including the 28th volume of “The UPA Chronicle” telling about his unit’s operations.
“How was the UPA brought about?”
“Before the war the Ukrainian people found themselves in a ‘stateless’ position, being ruled by four occupying powers. Galicia [Halychyna] had been seized by Poland, Carpathian Ukraine by Czechoslovakia, Bukovyna was in Romanian possession, and Great Ukraine (as we then called the central and eastern territories) was occupied by the Bolsheviks. That’s what we called the regime: Bolshevik occupation. If it were a Communist regime, they wouldn’t have organized the Holodomor famine killing over nine million Ukrainians.
“After the 1917-21 national liberation struggle, the Ukrainian people was defeated, with the Ukrainian National Republic destroyed. We the younger generation realized that we had to fight to have a national state of our own. Before the UPA, we had struggled in OUN underground. Here is the text of the Oath sworn by UPA men: “As a soldier of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and having taken up arms, I do solemnly swear... to struggle on, until all Ukrainian lands and the Ukrainian people are liberated from the aggressor, and until a free, independent, and united state is formed. In the course of this struggle, I shall spare neither my blood, nor my life, and I shall continue to struggle till my heart beats its last and till we finally defeat all enemies of Ukraine...”
“Of course, any legal struggle [e.g., political opposition] was out of the question. For example, the Polish parliament had delegates from the Ukrainian People’s Democratic Association (Ukr. abbrev., UNDO), an officially registered party, but that Ukrainian delegation was only for appearance’s sake. The delegates couldn’t even secure the Ukrainians’ cultural and religious rights, let alone handle their social problems.
“In 1939, the Bolshevik and Nazi Kameraden divided Poland between themselves, the Western Ukrainian territories being joined to the Soviet Union. After that internal political persecution intensified. The Soviets forbade even that which the Polish government had allowed. All political parties were outlawed and the Western Ukrainian Communist Party leaders executed.”
“Mr. Halasa, why were the first UPA units formed in Volyn?”
“Why in Volyn – and also in Polissia? Because the Nazi Reichskommissariat Ukraine (as the Germans called the central and north Ukrainian territories after occupying them) proved especially tough. The severe occupation regime was meant to pave the way for transforming the territories into a German colony and the situation gave an impetus to the UPA organization.”
“Weren’t the Nazi purges in Halychyna less severe than in the Eastern and Western Ukraine?”
“It’s true that the Nazis were less severe in Halychyna, but after the OUN Act of the Restoration of the Ukrainian State, June 30, 1941, the Germans laid the cards on the table, most eloquently demonstrating their hostile attitude to Ukraine. After that act, Ukrainian nationalists started being shot and sent to concentration camps – as was the case with Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko.”
“What about UPA relationships with the Red Army?”
“Our attitude to the Red Army was motivated by the awareness that there were fellow Ukrainians in its ranks. We fought the Nazis the way we fought the NKVD, and we likewise fought all the other people representing the Stalinist regime, but we never fought the Red Army. When its forces crossed our territories (once retreating to the west and the second time returning after Germany had capitulated), we resorted to propaganda. We printed thousands of leaflets, addressing [Red Army] soldiers in Ukrainian and Russian: “You are doing right, driving the enemy, the German occupier, away from our native land, but you must remember that, when you return, you will fall prey to another slavery. After you end this war, you must turn your weapons against Stalin.”
“A lot of our enemies insist that we “shot Red Army men in the back” We never did that. For purely humane reasons, among others. You should remember that all those NKVD “barrier” units stationed behind what the Soviet top brass called “shoot-to-die” positions, training their guns on the backs of the heads of all those Soviet soldiers, ready to fire if they retreated.”
“Were there cases of Red Army men crossing the line and joining the UPA?”
“Of course. In Zakerzonia, where I fought (currently part of the Polish territory), I had Petro Moskalenko (alias Baida), assistant platoon leader, former Red Army officer. He had organized a company made up of only Eastern Ukrainians and they had fought in the Carpathian Mountains. Later, he fell ill and was transferred to Zakerzonia where the climate was more bearable (at the time the Poles still didn’t know guerilla warfare). There he was appointed assistant to squad leader Vasyl Mizerny (alias Rena).
“Also, I had a Kyiv University teacher, his alias was Professor; a brother and a sister from Poltava oblast. There were dozens, hundreds of Eastern Ukrainians joining the OUN-UPA struggle.”
“Were there other ethnic groups in the UPA?”
“We organized ethnic units made up of former Red Army men and Nazi camp fugitives; we had Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Kazakh, Armenian, Kyrgyz units, those of other ethnic groups. As the Red Army approached, we sent them to their native lands to keep up struggle for national independence. By the way, a conference of Moscow- oppressed peoples took place in Volyn, UPA’s birthplace. All those peoples had men fighting in the UPA ethnic units. Its documents were carried by the Our Front magazine in different languages – Belorussian, Russian, Georgian, and so on.”
“What were the underlying principles of the Ukrainian state you wanted to build?”
“An underground Ukrainian parliament formed in 1944, known as the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council. A grand SULC assembly passed a number of resolutions, including the UPA Soldier’s Oath (until then UPA men had taken the UNR Oath) and a draft constitution of Ukraine.
“First, the Ukrainian state was to rely on democratic principles. We know that a dictatorship can distort a lot of aspects. Hitler and Stalin are good examples. In fact, the OUN transformed its leadership from personal to trilateral. We formed the OUN Provid [Leadership] Bureau headed by Commander in Chief Roman Shukhevych. The Provid included Dmytro Mayivsky and Rostyslav Voloshyn, born in Volyn.
“SULC adopted the same principle. Its president was Kyrylo Osmak of Kyiv and the leadership included Yosyp Pozychaniuk, a social democrat from Volyn, and Vasyl Mudry, UNDO man from Western Ukraine. Various aspects had been elaborated upon before setting up SULC, among them economic issues, particularly the peasant one – or the land issue, as we know it today.
“The draft read that we were against the collective farm system of exploitation, but that we let this issue to be resolved by the peasantry – whether they want to do their farming individually or as land cooperatives. But no exploitation of man by man! No Stakhanov stuff, no rigid slave-like regime under which people are not even allowed to have passports. Free peasant cooperatives were envisaged, of course, but like I said, the peasants were to have the final say. Then we wanted to establish an 8-hour working day, free education and healthcare. In other words, we wanted to provide conditions in which the Ukrainian people would live like any other civilized nation, anywhere in the world. We fought to establish a national polity but we didn’t want to reinvent the bicycle. We fought to exercise our right to self- determination, to have our own state. After WW II, few colonies were left in Asia and Africa. When the OUN was established in 1947, there were some 50 nations round the globe; there are more than 180 today. We fought for a Ukrainian national state, doing precisely what all the other peoples did.”
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“There is a special web site, ukrarmy.kiev.ua, titled Ukrainska zbroya [Ukrainian Weapons], generated to commemorate the UPA’s 60th anniversary. It is dedicated to the history of the Ukrainian army since olden times till the present day. Data is supplied from all parts of the world, including photos, books, and archival documents.
