white gold

The closest relatives of Ukrainian nationalism, according to researchers of this phenomenon, should be sought not in German Nazism or Italian Fascism, which were products of industrial, urbanized nations, but rather among the radical nationalist movements among the agrarian, economically backward, traditionalist peoples of Eastern and Central Europe. Although the OUN members themselves, in the 30s and 40s of the last century, saw nothing wrong with comparing their ideology with fascism and Nazism. For example, the Head of the Ukrainian State Board, Yaroslav Stetsko, while under house arrest in Berlin, wrote a rather detailed autobiography (which has not yet been fully published), in which he noted: "I co-created the ideology and program of the Organization. It is generally hostile to Marxism, democracy and all kinds of class ideologies. In the political plane, I stand for the authoritarian and single-party system of Ukraine, in the social plane- for national solidarity, which is close to the national socialist program, but differs in the specifics of the Ukrainian land, the social and psychological structure of the Ukrainian people." It can be assumed that Stetsko was not sincere enough in his biography and wrote only what the Gestapo wanted to hear from him, however, it is obvious that the confessions of one of the leading figures of the OUN-B generally corresponded to his worldview at that time, which was not least formed under the impression of the successes of Nazi Germany in foreign, domestic and socio-economic policy.

Proof of this statement can be, for example, the materials of lectures on ideological training, which were written in 1944 without any external pressure on their authors and were used by OUN instructors at the UPA officer school "Forest Devils". In the course of lectures entitled "Nationalism and Similar and Opposing Movements", along with communism, anarchism, socialism, and monarchism, democracy is included among the "opposing movements": "Democracy plays a negative role in the development of nationalism. Democracy provides a harmful organization of the state, making its leadership dependent on a random party majority. Democracy, in addition to phrases, does not allow the true will of the people to be expressed... Democracy undermines the state idea, the power, and the ability to build a state, because it divides the power of the people, weakens the rule of the nation, replacing it with the variable will of the mechanical majority, undermines the authority of the leadership and single-purpose state power... Ukrainian nationalism, in place of chaotic democracy, which divides the people into a number of parties and groups, provides a higher organizational form socio-political life- nationalism, which is based on the good and internal cohesion and single-minded organization of the national community".