CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN_The story of the Ukraine

_THE FUTURE OF UKRAINE_

At the end of the First World War, Ukraine won a shortlived

independence and then it was torn apart and divided among its

neighbors. For a while it seemed to have reverted to the conditions

in the seventeenth century when Russia and Poland struggled for its

ownership. At the end of World War Two it was reunited within the

Ukrainian Soviet Republic and found its place as such in the number of

the United Nations. What does the future hold in store for it?

What is to be the future development of Ukraine? This depends on the

future of the democratic ideals which have long been held by England,

the United States and the whole of Western Christian civilization and

which are now challenged by the new ideas of the Soviet Union.

Perhaps never in recorded human history has the future of the world

been so uncertain. The ending of the greatest war in history has not

brought a feeling of peace to mankind. The power of the atom bomb,

the enormous advances in science and in methods of destruction, the

annihilation of space by the improvement of transportation and the

increased range of rockets and other weapons, all have brought humanity

to realize that in the material sphere there must be an end of war and

of conflict or civilization will be irretrievably destroyed.

On the other hand, the dissension in the ideals of man has reached a

new high. Earlier wars between Christians and pagans, between Catholics

and Protestants, have concerned a certain range of ideas but the

opposing contestants have recognized many human qualities as common to

both sides. For centuries there has been a slow but steady increase in

recognition of the rights of the individual, of his innate right to

choose his own place of residence, to think his own thoughts, to sing

his own songs, and to rear his family as he would. The great despotisms

and empires of the past ruthlessly eliminated large masses of the

population, but they were content to demand only outer loyalty and not

to interfere with the inner life of their subjects. Even the slaves

could have an area of thought which they could call their own.

It has remained for the twentieth century to undertake the task of

subjugating the inner life of man. We may smile at the crudities of the

Japanese thought police who carefully interrogated the subjects of the

Emperor to see if they had any dangerous thoughts, but in more subtle

ways the whole power of the Soviet Union is devoted to the creation

of a culture that shall be socialist in essence and only differ in

the language. Around the area which it controls there has been drawn

an iron veil of silence and of secrecy. Its admirers abroad willingly

accept the same restrictions and when the word filters through from

Moscow, they willingly change their position, perform a complete

revolution in their mode of thinking and follow the new line without

criticism or debate.

On the other hand, the United States and Western Europe are trying to

maintain an appreciation of the old values. They are concerned with

problems of liberty and human rights. They may fall short of their

ideals and of their goals. There may be and often are actions which can

only be condemned by all thinking men. Yet with it all there is the

same hope and confidence that the human being can find his way to a

better, happier and free future.

The struggle between these two conceptions of life is destined to form

the essence of the history of the coming years. It is truly a battle

for the human spirit that is coming to the foreground of the world

stage at the end of the great struggle that has thrown the whole of

Europe and large parts of Asia and the Pacific Islands into the abyss.

To-day it appears in the councils of the United Nations, for that body

has been formed with the greatest care as to methods of organization,

but with surprisingly little attention to the contents of the spirit

of that organization. The founders did not venture to write into it

the spirit of the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter, the ideals

of self-determination of Woodrow Wilson, or the principles on which

American and Western Christian life has been based since the days of

ancient Judaism and Hellenism, lest the clash between the two ways of

life be brought into the open and doom in advance the hopes of men for

a peaceful world.

What is to be the outcome? The human mind is staggered at the

potentialities for good and ill in the present situation. As we look

at the human misery, the ruined cities, the scorched earth, and the

destructive power of man, we can only wonder at what is going to

happen, and perhaps soon.

Where does Ukraine stand in all this? The Ukrainian spirit has survived

for over a thousand years. The Ukrainians on two occasions have lost

their upper and more cultured classes, when these were Polonized and

Russianized. The peasant life kept on, close to the soil and has sent

forth new shoots as soon as conditions became ripe. Every great shift

of the European balance, every great movement that has given a new

outlet to the human spirit has sooner or later had its effect upon the

people.

To-day as never before the Ukrainian population is scattered. The

Soviet government has worked unflinchingly to liquidate or break every

leader who has refused to bow to its all-embracing rule. The Ukrainian

literature of the present is indistinguishable from the literature of

the Russian Soviet Republic, of the Georgian Soviet Republic and of

the Kazak Soviet Republic. Millions of Ukrainians have been torn from

their native soil and scattered alone or with their families throughout

the length and breadth of the Soviet Union. Their places have been

taken by other similarly uprooted individuals, in the hope that there

may be formed a conglomerate mass of rootless people attached to the

traditions of the Communist Party.

Can such an ambitious plan succeed? There can be no doubt that under

the rule of Stalin and his associates, the Soviet Union has grown into

a powerful force which is apparently able to retain the iron control

that is necessary for its existence. There has been a terrible cost and

this is shown by the refusal of the displaced persons to return. It

is shown by the desperate struggle of the Ukrainians during the past

decades to maintain their homes and their identity. How long can they

endure? No one knows the ultimate power of resistance of the human

spirit. No one knows how long devoted fathers and mothers will continue

at the risk of their lives to nourish in their children those old

traditions which can be handed down secretly and then spring to life

with renewed vigor. No one knows how long the ruling group can maintain

that iron unity which alone can enable it to continue its herculean

task.

The world cannot continue half free and half Communist. Sooner or

later there will be an open clash or the ideals of one side will

penetrate and destroy the other. The final struggle may not take the

form of armed hostilities in the sense of a clash between the nations

representing the two ideals, but it will inevitably spread ruin and

devastation within one or both of the groups. The lurid tales of

deportations when the Red Army entered Western Ukraine will be but a

portent, a token of what will ultimately happen if the regime falls or

extends its power throughout the world.

It is chimerical to speak now of a relaxation of the methods of

control in the Soviet Union. For a quarter of a century, the world has

been waiting for a clear sign that this was already taking place and

it has been disappointed. The power of the Communist Party is stronger

than ever and it is able to profit immediately by all signs of weakness

and of confusion among the free nations. It is able to reach out beyond

its borders and it brooks no interference with its ideals or its

desires.

It is no time for optimism or for pessimism. Neither is it the time

for false and wishful thinking or for easy platitudes. The fundamental

issue is clear and however it may be glossed over, it cannot be avoided.

The traditional Ukrainian culture can now flourish only outside the

borders of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Soviet Republic, under the control

of its Communist leaders, is becoming a part of the great and unified

Soviet Union. Step by step the dreams of many sincere Ukrainian

Communists that they could adapt Communism to the Ukrainian spirit

have been blasted and those who held them have paid the price of their

beliefs. The struggle now is to adapt the Ukrainian spirit to Communism

by ruthless actions and by careful training. A democratic people is

being remodelled to serve the purposes of a strictly regimented regime.

Its past is being rewritten for it. Its present is being controlled.

Its future is being planned.

It is idle to deny that it may succeed, but we can be sure of only

one thing. It cannot succeed until the sway of Communism over the

whole world has been made absolute. So long as there is a fortress

of democracy anywhere in the world, there will remain a centre from

which the ideas of freedom and of humanity will emanate and which will

continually menace any system which denies them and their validity and

existence.

The problem of Ukraine lies to-day as one of the great problems of

the world. Here is a nation of forty million people that is sealed

off from its natural contacts and deprived of its natural rights and

desires. The tragic events of the last half century have shown that

alone it cannot throw off the yoke that is upon its neck. Yet that does

not mean that it must forever suffer.

Once the free nations awake to the situation and bend their efforts to

establish that freedom and dignity that is the right of every man, they

will realize that they will have no more devoted friends and allies

than the Ukrainians and then it will be possible to reestablish a free

and independent Ukraine as one of the free nations of the world.

INDEX

_Aeneid_, 155.

Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, 162, 165.

Alexander II, Emperor of Russia, 184, 185.

Alexander III, Emperor of Russia, 193.

Alexis, Tsar of Moscow, 27, 95, 109, 112, 113, 163, 167.

All-Ukrainian Council of Soviets, 223, 224.

All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee, 274.

All-Union Academy of Soviets, 284.

All-Union Soviet, 276, 295.

Allies (World War I) 236, 246–249, 250, 253, 255.

Missions to Ukraine, 242.

Allied Supreme Council, 248.

American Civil War, 188.

American Constitution, 146.

America, 13, 14, 15, 45, 59, 87, 140, 145, 259, 303.

See United States.

American engineers, 283.

American pioneers, 60.

American Relief Administration, 275.

American Revolution, 14, 128, 145.

American Ruska Nationalna Rada, 241.

Andrusivo, Treaty of, 93, 121, 123, 172.

Anna, Empress of Russia, 126, 127, 136, 138.

Antae, tribe, 32.

_Antiquities of Kiev_, 192.

Antioch, 54.

Antonovich, V., Prof., 190.

Apostol, D., Kozak Hetman, 134, 135.

Archangel, 227, 229.

Armenia, 40

Armistice, World War I, 237.

Asia, 25, 303.

Asia Minor, 26

Asiatic invaders, 11, 20

Athos, Mount, 51, 56

Atlantic Charter, 303

August II, King of Poland, 126.

August III, King of Poland, 126, 127.

Austria, 163, 174–233, 256.

See Austria-Hungary, Hapsburgs.

Austria-Hungary, 15, 28–30, 172, 183, 195–202, 210, 212.

Avvakum, Russian religious leader, 108.

Aztecs, 12, 59.

Bachinsky, A., Uniat Bishop, 175.

Balaban, Gedeon, Bishop, 55.

Balkans, 33, 150, 152, 153.

Baltic Sea, 20, 24–25, 73,

peoples, 204, 253.

Bandera, S., Ukrainian leader, World War II, 293.

Batu Khan, 42.

Baturyn, 100.

Bazarov, character of Turgenev, 186.

Belgrade, 152.

Belinsky, V. G., 160, 169.

Berinda, P., Kievan scholar, 111.

Berestechko, battle of, 81.

Berlin, 235, 285.

Bessarabia, 291.

Bibikov, D. G., Russian Governor-General of Ukraine, 162.

Bible, 50.

Bila Tserkva, 94, 235.

Treaty of, 81.

Bilozersky, V. I., Ukrainian writer, 169, 185.

Black Sea, 19, 20, 24, 26, 33, 66, 194, 206, 234, 235, 246.

Bobrinsky, Count A. G., Russian Administrator, 211.

Bogdanovich, I., Russian writer, 156.

Bogolyubsky, Prince Andrey, Prince of Suzdal, 26, 41.

Bohemia, 28, 36, 54, 154, 269. Estates of, 161.