Ukrainian Insurgent Army leaflet
(August 1943)
[Translator's note: The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainian initials: UPA) was formed in 1942 out of various armed nationalist bands which had been operating in Western Ukraine since 1941. Originally directed against Soviet forces which had occupied Western Ukraine in 1939, the UIA fought both German forces and Soviet partisans following the Nazi annexation of Ukraine after 1941. The size of its forces is not easy to determine, but may have exceeded 40,000 men around 1943. As Soviet forces recaptured Ukrainian territory after 1943, the UIA was pushed back into its Western Ukrainian heartland, where it continued to wage a guerrilla struggle against both Soviet and Polish troops until the late 1940s.
The Ukrainian original from which this document was translated can be found at www.history.univ.kiev.ua/ukrbooks/doc1921_85.html.]
What is the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fighting for?
August 1943
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army is fighting for a Ukrainian Independent Conciliar State, and for every nation to live freely in its own independent state.
The UIA is fighting against all imperialists and empires, because they involve one ruling nation enslaving other peoples culturally and politically and punishing them economically. For this reason the UIA is fighting against both the USSR and the German "New Europe".
We stand for:
- the destruction of the Bolshevik system of feudal exploitation in the organisation of agriculture.
- large-scale industry to be national state property, small-scale industry to be co-operative and social.
- a general eight-hour working day.
- free labour and free choice of profession.
- full equality of women and men in all social rights and obligations.
- compulsory secondary education.
- the all-round harmonious development of the younger generation: moral, intellectual and physical.
- free access to all humanity's scientific and cultural achievements.
- honour for the work of intellectuals.
- full security for all working people in their old age and in case of illness or disability.
- freedom of the press, of thought, persuasions, religious beliefs and world view. We are against the imposition of ideological doctrines and dogmas on society.
- full rights for national minorities to nurture and maintain their forms of national culture.
Ukrainian Insurgent Army