Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Fascist

The OUN and Fascism

Of all of the ideologies investigated in this study, the most controversial, especially when related to Bandera and the OUN, is fascism. Constantin Iordachi correctly remarked that “fascism continues to be one of the most intriguing and most debated radical political phenomena of the twentieth century.”[30] To use the term appropriately and to avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to elucidate its meaning and to explain how it will be applied in this study. This will allow us to determine in which sense the OUN was a fascist phenomenon and Bandera a leader of a fascist movement. It will also enable us to place the OUN on the map of interwar European far-right, fascist, and other authoritarian movements and regimes. This approach should not narrow our analysis of Bandera and the OUN but should provide an appropriate theoretical context.

The term “fascism” is derived from the Latin word “fasces,” meaning a bundle of rods tied around an axe. The fasces were carried by the Roman lictors, symbolized the juridical authority of the magistrate, and represented the unity and strength of the community. In the late eighteenth century, the Italian Jacobins used the word “fascism” as an expression of political freedom and national unity. In the nineteenth century, the term “fascism” was used by various socialist and nationalist political groups. In March 1919 in Milan, Mussolini used the term “fascism” when he founded the Fascio di Combattimento, to the ranks of which he recruited a number of ex-soldiers, syndicalists and futurists. At the end of October 1922, the National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) conducted the March on Rome, as a result of which Mussolini became prime minister of Italy. In this position, he began to seize power and to create the first fascist regime. Although the establishment of a full-scale dictatorship in Italy was accomplished only in 1926, fascism had been admired by a plethora of European politicians, writers and intellectuals, at least since Mussolini’s 1922 coup d’état.[31]

During the interwar period the term “fascism” was used in at least three ways. First, it described the political regime in Italy. Second, it was extended to other far-right movements and regimes that held values and ideas similar to those of the Italian Fascists. By the end of the 1920s, Mussolini had declared fascism an “export product” and undertaken its popularization and attempted globalization. He argued that fascism is “Italian in its particular form—universalist in spirit.”[32] The seizure of power by the National Socialists in Germany in 1933 significantly reinforced the expansion and popularization of fascism in Europe and on other continents. Third, the term “fascist” was used in particular by communists and socialists to discredit political opponents of various orientations.[33]

The earliest interpretations and condemnations of fascism came from Marxist intellectuals, communists, and liberals. In the early 1920s, the Communist International (Comintern) used the term “fascism” in connection with the fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany. It soon, however, began to apply it to various conservative, authoritarian, or military regimes, such as those of Józef Piłsudski in Poland, the Antanas Smetona regime in Lithuania, the Miklós Horthy authoritarian government in Hungary, and the Ion Antonescu regime in Romania. Although these regimes borrowed some trappings from fascism, they were at odds—or even in open combat—with fascist movements in their respective states. By labeling Piłsudski’s authoritarian regime as “fascist,” the Comintern sought to emphasize how disappointed it was with the Polish leader. Piłsudski in his earlier life had been a socialist, but after his seizure of power in 1926, he showed no interest in collaboration with communists.[34] Similarly, even socialists were sometimes labeled as “fascists.” In 1924, Stalin announced that “Social Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.” Because the Social-Democrat government in Germany took action against the May Day march in 1929, during which several communists were killed, the Comintern argued that “Social Democracy is preparing … the establishment of a fascist dictatorship.”[35]

Equally important for orthodox Marxists was the identification of capitalism with fascism. In the Comintern report of 1935, Georgi Dimitroff claimed that fascist regimes were “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”[36] Only a few Marxist thinkers, such as Antonio Gramsci and Palmiro Togliatti, interpreted fascism in a more nuanced and non-dogmatic manner. On the other hand, some liberal commentators perceived fascism as “a sort of illness of national culture.”[37]

In Soviet discourse during the Cold War, democratic countries of the Western bloc were frequently portrayed as fascist. Outside the Soviet Union, leftist groups used “fascist” as a derogatory term to discredit their enemies.[38] In the 1950s, the theory of totalitarianism, which compared and sometimes even equated communism with fascism, concentrating on the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, became very popular. This approach explained the origins and features of totalitarian regimes but neglected the political, social, and cultural differences between fascism and communism.[39]

The first non-Marxist studies on the subject of European fascist movements and regimes appeared in the 1960s. Authors such as Ernst Nolte, Eugen Weber, and George L. Mosse dealt with countries including Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain, as well as movements such as the Russian Fascist Party (Rossiiskaia fashistskaia partia, RFP) and the Croatian Ustaša.[40] From the outset, the extreme and genocidal form of Ukrainian nationalism was not classified and investigated as a fascist movement, although the OUN, especially in the 1930s and early 1940s, had felt an ideological affinity with Italian Fascism, National Socialism, the Ustaša, the British Union of Fascists, the Romanian Iron Guard, and a number of related movements. Scholars such as Armstrong, who began investigating the OUN in the 1950s, were frequently misled by the fact that the OUN emphasized its own national uniqueness and indigenous roots. This feature, however, was typical of all fascist movements. In particular, small and weak movements tended to stress the uniqueness of national traditions, because their leaders and ideologists were concerned about the independence of their countries and wished to avoid being labeled as national “traitors” or agents of international movements.[41]

Like the National Socialists and Ustaša, but unlike the British Union of Fascists and the Russian Fascist Party, the OUN did not use the term “fascist” as part of the name of the organization. OUN members and ideologists referred to themselves as nationalists but felt, especially in the late 1930s and early 1940s, that Ukrainian nationalism was the same type of movement as National Socialism or Italian Fascism. They also perceived themselves as a “liberation movement.” Its aims were to combat and remove the “occupiers” of Ukrainian territories and to establish an independent Ukrainian state. With this in mind, the OUN was closely related to “liberation movements” such as the Ustaša and the Hlinka Party, which were also rooted in societies without nation states.

The way of interpreting and understanding fascism was altered in the 1990s by scholars such as Robert Paxton, Roger Griffin, Roger Eatwell, and Stanley G. Payne, who tried to elaborate a concept of generic fascism. A huge difficulty, when developing such a concept, was the heterogeneity of interwar far-right, authoritarian, and fascist movements, the uneven empirical research of the particular movements and regimes, and the inconsistent nature of fascism. The concept of generic fascism was derived from early studies by Nolte, Mosse, and Weber. It provided a basic theoretical framework for comparative fascist studies but it did not finish the debates on fascism and its diverse aspects, including for example the questions as to whether fascism appeared only in Europe and only in the interwar period or whether it was a global phenomenon not limited in time, or if there was a clear difference between fascist movements and revolutionary ultranationalist non-fascist movements.[42]

First of all, it is important to point out the differences between a fascist movement and a fascist regime. Only a few movements became regimes in the sense that the Italian Fascists and the National Socialists did. Others, such as the Ustaša and the Hlinka Party, formed a regime only with the help of Nazi Germany and were dependent upon it. There were also long-lasting regimes like Franco’s in Spain, and Salazar’s in Portugal, which at times adopted many fascist features, but in the long term were a combination of national-conservative and fascist regimes. Robert Paxton proposed five stages of fascism: “(1) the initial creation of fascist movements; (2) their rooting as parties in a political system; (3) the acquisition of power; (4) the exercise of power, and finally in the longer term, (5) radicalization or entropy.” Although logical and instructive, Paxton’s concept was not entirely relevant to the study of some East Central European movements, such as the Ustaša or the OUN, which first needed to establish a state in order to establish a regime. His concept was deduced from fascist movements in democratic states. Paxton suggested that “fascism can appear wherever democracy is sufficiently implemented to have aroused disillusion” and argued that the Ku Klux Klan was the “earliest phenomenon that seems functionally related to fascism.”[43]

Griffin, who adopted a Weberian ideal-type methodology, emphasized the myth, its mobilizing force, and its revolutionary, populist, and ultranationalist framework: “Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism.”[44] Crucial to Griffin’s conception of fascism is the notion of palingenesis, meaning the rebirth or redemption of a nation by means of new populist ultranationalist policies after a period of supposed decline. Simultaneously, Griffin also pointed out the limits of an ideal-type definition and suggested that “such a model is essentially a utopia, since it cannot correspond exactly to anything in empirical reality, which is always irreducibly complex, ‘messy’, and unique. Definitions of generic terms can thus never be ‘true’ to reality, but they can be more or less useful in investigating it (‘heuristically useful’) when applied as conceptual tools of analysis.”[45]

Roger Eatwell observed that Griffin’s early definition of fascism omitted “fascism’s ‘negation,’” the six points of “fascist minimum” first formulated by Nolte. These points were: anti-Marxism, antiliberalism, anticonservatism, Führerprinzip, a party army, and the aim of totalitarianism.[46] Griffin seems to have omitted these points because he had developed an “empathetic approach” inspired by the writings of George Mosse and Emilio Gentile.[47] This was one of the weaknesses of Griffin’s concept of fascism because it detached fascism from its violent and disastrous nature, while emphasizing fascism’s creative strengths related to palingenesis.[48] Seeking an appropriate definition of fascism, we should not only complement Griffin’s definition with Nolte’s “fascist minimum” but also point out further negative features typical of fascism, such as anti-democracy, ultranationalism, populism, racism, antisemitism, militarism, and the cult of ethnic and political violence.

In his definition of fascism, similarly to Griffin, another leading scholar, Stanley G. Payne, emphasized the revolutionary and ultranationalist core: “Fascism may be defined as a form of revolutionary ultranationalism for national rebirth that is based on a primarily vitalist philosophy, is structured on extreme elitism, mass mobilization, and the Führerprinzip, positively values violence as end as well as means and tends to normalize war and/or the military virtues.”[49] Also like Griffin, Payne advised that such definitions of common characteristics should be used with great care. Discussing palingenesis, he pointed out another weak point of Griffin’s theory. Payne indicated that palingenesis is typical not only for fascist but also for leftist, moderate, conservative, and extreme right-wing nationalisms, and that there were also “non-fascist populist revolutionary forms of nationalism,” such as the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, MNR) in Bolivia. According to Payne, it is necessary to “clearly distinguish between fascist movements per se, and the non-fascist (or sometimes protofascist) authoritarian right.” Such a distinction is, however, difficult to make because “the heyday of fascism coincided with a general era of political authoritarianism” and because “it would be grossly inaccurate to argue that this process proceeded independent of fascism, but neither was it merely synonymous with fascism.” In a table including fascists, radical right, and conservative right movements, he did not consider the OUN and Ukraine, but classified similar and better-known movements, such as the Ustaša, the Iron Guard, and the Polish National Camp Falanga, as fascist.[50]

Ian Kershaw, the author of several excellent studies on the Third Reich, including a superb biography of Hitler, pointed out the limits of the concept of generic fascism. He argued that he has “no difficulty in describing German National Socialism both as a specific form of fascism and as a particular expression of totalitarianism” but remarked that “when it comes to explaining the essence of the Nazi phenomenon, it is less than satisfying.” This observation is very important because all fascist movements and regimes had their own unique features, sight of which should not be lost while analyzing them in the framework of fascist studies.[51]

Somewhat similarly to Kershaw, Georg Mosse argued in favor of studying fascism “from the inside out,” or trying to reconstruct how its followers perceived it. He defined fascism as a complex phenomenon, which cannot be reduced only to politics and can be comprehended through empathy: “Fascism considered as a cultural movement means seeing fascism as it saw itself and as its followers saw it, to attempt to understand the movement in its own terms. Only then, when we have grasped fascism from the inside out, can we truly judge its appeal and its power. … The cultural interpretation of fascism opens up a means to penetrate fascist self-understanding, and such empathy is crucial in order to grasp how people saw the movement, something which cannot be ignored or evaluated merely in retrospect.”[52]

Michael Mann reminded us of a very simple but extremely important aspect of fascism. He wrote that “fascist ideology must be taken seriously, in its own terms. It must be not dismissed as crazy, contradictory, or vague.” He also argued that historians of fascism need to take the values of fascists seriously; they should not excuse or relativize them but seek to understand fascists’ worldviews and deeds. Furthermore, he remarked that “fascism was a movement of high ideals, able to persuade a substantial part of two generations of young people (especially the highly educated) that it could bring about a more harmonious social order,” and that the fascist movements were “hierarchical yet comradely.”[53]

A very significant element of fascism was revolution. Movements such as the German National Socialists took over power and established a regime by cooperating with conservative politicians. Hitler perceived this process as a “national revolution.”[54] Other movements took power by a coup d’état, such as the March on Rome by the Italian Fascists, which was staged to frighten liberal and conservative politicians and brought Mussolini to power. Fascist movements and regimes viewed revolution as a means not only of taking over power but also of altering society, changing its values and mindsets, and destroying opponents. Griffin called this process the “permanent revolution.”[55] As this study will show, the OUN’s leaders, including Bandera, used both concepts—“national revolution” and “permanent revolution”—to prepare a revolutionary act, take over power, and establish a fascist dictatorship.

Although fascist movements and regimes shared similar values and felt that they belonged to the same family of political movements, we certainly should not look at them as equal or identical. Kevin Passmore pointed out the inconsistent and contradictory nature of fascism. He reminded us that fascist ideology combined various elements, including contradictory ones, such as modernism and fascination with traditions, or secularism and obsession with religion. It also united very different types of people such as street fighters, intellectuals, and terrorists.[56]

Zeev Sternhell observed that fascism was a “pan-European phenomenon,” which “existed at three levels—as an ideology, as a political movement, and as a form of government.”[57] Given that fascism appeared in various countries and in different societies, it must have varied on all three levels in terms of culture, national tradition, economy, social structure, and political culture. Fascist movements appeared in industrialized countries, such as Britain and Germany, and also in rural and economically less developed countries, such as Romania, Croatia, or Slovakia. It also appeared in nation states, such as Italy, France, and Germany, and in societies without states, such as Croatia and Slovakia. Antisemitism and other forms of racism were central to National Socialism and several East Central European fascist movements, but not to the Italian Fascists. Romanticism, mysticism, and irrationality were more typical of the OUN and the Iron Guard than they were of Italian Fascism.

It is very important to emphasize that fascist movements and regimes—despite their cultural and ideological similarities—did not always collaborate with each other and were not always sympathetic to each other. Major and minor conflicts between fascist, far-right, and authoritarian leaders, movements, and regimes were not uncommon, because practical matters, such as the control of a particular territory, were seen as more important than ideological connections. The clash between the Austrian National Socialists on the one side, and the Fatherland Front (Vaterländische Front) and its Home Guard (Heimwehr), collectively known after the Second World War as “Austrofascists,” on the other, is just one example of this. In July 1934 during the failed putsch against his Austrofascist regime, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated by Austrian Nazis. Almost four years later, in March 1938, Nazi Germany invaded Austria. After the Anschluss, the absorption of Austria into Nazi Germany, the Germans arrested Dollfuss’s successor, Kurt Schuschnigg, and kept him as a special political prisoner (Ehrenhäftling or Sonderhäftling). Together with his family, Schuschnigg was held from 1941 in a house in a special area of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Bandera was subsequently detained as a special political prisoner in another section of the same camp,[58] as was Horia Sima—the leader of the Romanian fascist Iron Guard, founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael.[59]

On the one hand, the new consensus on fascism—and in particular Griffin’s concept of the theory of generic fascism—stimulated new interest in fascism, inspired new studies of the uninvestigated, neglected, or heavily mythologized fascist movements, and other features of European and global fascism, and brought forward comparative and transnational fascist studies. On the other hand, the new consensus was met with criticism. One important argument of its critics was that palingenesis or national rebirth is typical not only for fascist movements but also for almost all forms of nationalism. Another criticism was that scholars of fascism tend to level the differences between various fascist movements and regimes. In particular, German and East European historians questioned the relevance of fascist studies to the investigation of their own national history.[60]

This study will refer to a movement, regime, or ideology as fascist if it meets the main criteria enclosed in the above-explained concepts of fascism. First, we will regard movements as fascist, only if they adopted the Führerprinzip, practiced the cult of ethnic and political violence, regarded mass violence as an extension of politics, and were entirely or in great part antidemocratic, anti-Marxist, antiliberal, anticonservative, totalitarian, ultranationalist, populist, racist, antisemitic, and militarist. Second, we will regard movements as fascist, only if they tried to take over power and intended to introduce a fascist dictatorship, and if they planned the palingenesis, or a radical political and cultural regeneration of a nation in order to prevent its “degeneration.” Third, we should bear in mind the difference between conservative or military regimes like Antonescu’s, Horthy’s or Piłsudski’s, and fascist regimes like Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, and also regimes, which at times were fascist but in the long term combined national-conservatism with fascism, like Franco’s and Salazar’s. Similarly, we should also be aware that far-right nationalist movements, which tried to take over power and establish a dictatorship, might in the course of the years have changed their ideologies and their attitude toward fascism. When it was convenient for them, they might have fascistized themselves and have represented themselves as fascist. Later they might have claimed that they have never been fascist. Similarly, they might have combined nationalism with fascism and other far-right ideologies, such as racism or antisemitism in different proportions and thus be neither typically fascist nor typically nationalist or racist.

Fascism, Nationalism, and the Radical Right

Having explained fascism, it is necessary to briefly explain the difference between fascism and nationalism, two quite closely related phenomena. The modern form of nationalism, defined as a political program that instrumentalizes and mystifies the past to form a national community and establish a nation state, has its origins in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.[61] Nationalism was a byproduct of the French Revolution and the modern politics generated by it. In addition, it was also influenced by Romanticism. Nationalist movements took very different forms, depending on the social and political circumstances of the groups that invented or adopted this ideology. Nationalism became radicalized, especially during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to George Mosse nationalism became the “life-system which provided the foundation for all fascist movements.” The mass violence caused by and experienced during the First World War contributed to the development of fascism, which was in its first stage, according to Sternhell, a “synthesis of organic nationalism and anti-Marxist socialism.” Fascism became the most radical form of nationalism, but its own ideology and goals differed from those of nationalism. Although nationalism and fascism were influenced by racism and antisemitism, they were not racist or antisemitic to the same extent. Finally, we should keep in mind that, although nationalism and fascism are distinct in nature, the boundaries between them became blurred, especially in the case of such movements as the OUN and Ustaša, which both understood themselves as nationalist “liberation movements” related to other fascist movements.[62]