One of the former presidents of Prolog, the late Roman Kupchinsky and more recently the director of its British affiliate, the Ukrainian Press Agency, Taras Kuzio has written thinly veiled attempts to justify the collaborative effort by touting its “central role in achieving Ukrainian independence.” Certainly, serving as paid agents for a foreign government may be questioned on moral grounds, but that is not the purpose of this article. The thrust here is to examine the efficacy of this collaboration in achieving independence.
The independence assertion is based on the presumption firstly that the United States was interested in Ukrainian independence and secondly that the collaborators on balance detracted from Soviet plans.
U.S. policy towards Ukrainian separatism was addressed by President George H.W. Bush in his “Chicken Kiev” speech as late as only three weeks before the Ukrainians proclaimed independence in 1991. That speech was not an aberration. It was predicated on a decades-old U.S. policy and the personal request of Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. As to the work of Prolog, on balance, it did more harm than good.
U.S. intelligence documents show that the United States was not favorably predisposed to Ukrainian separatism.
In fact the general position was that Ukraine could only exist within the boundaries of a Great Russian state, as outlined by the US National Security Council on Aug. 18, 1948: “…We cannot be indifferent to the feelings of the Great Russians themselves. They were the strongest national element in the Russian Empire, as they now are in the Soviet Union. They will continue to be the strongest national element in that general area under any status. Any long term US policy must be based on their acceptance and their cooperation. The Ukrainian territory is as much a part of their national heritage as the Middle West is of ours…”
Furthermore, US policy was to undermine Ukrainian nationalist activities in the diaspora. The people from Prolog and its affiliates had to accept that mandate. They not only did not join mainstream Ukrainian community organizations such as the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, but formed their own structures such as the Association of Ukrainians in America.
Additionally, they worked seemingly to break the barriers between the diaspora and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Together with other fringe groups, they organized a Round Table Club for discourse with representatives of the Ukrainian SSR. Naturally, the Soviet KGB aided these efforts and sent professional emissaries who would appear palatable. One such emissary was the Ukrainian poet Ivan Drach, who not only worked for Soviet intelligence, but had infiltrated the dissident movement because of his poet background. At one public event organized by the Round Table Club in New York in 1966, Drach was asked about the recent arrests and trials of Ukrainian writers and poets. He replied:
“Unfortunately, it is very difficult for me to answer this question, because among the arrested and convicted there are my good friends. Some of them have already been released…Their environment was connected with an underground and the gestapo …they disseminated illegal documents which wrote about hostility to Ukraine…This was not presented in the nationalist press…When I asked these people, they told me that they had been warned, but they did not listen.”
This piece of propaganda was then reported by the Prolog press.
In the 1970-80s, the Soviets published many newspaper articles, pamphlets and even books denigrating the bourgeois nationalist diaspora in Western Europe, Canada, the United States and even Australia. These publications carried such inflammatory titles as “About the true face of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism,” “Ugly Great Grandchildren”, “The OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) – a Marketplace for the Sale of Spiesm,” “The Anatomy of Betrayal,” “Nationalist Scorpions” and many others.
The authors were invariably Soviet but the sources were replete with named people connected to Prolog. In almost every publication one can find an exhortation by a Prolog member expressing the sentiment that the diaspora needs to listen to everything and everyone in Ukraine. The Soviet writers would then paint their picture of Ukraine’s accomplishments, including but not limited to its specious United Nations’ membership as evidence of Ukrainian independence.
Undoubtedly, in the course of its almost 40-year tenure, Prolog, its affiliates and members did some good, particularly in the area of dissident literature publication. No doubt many of its members were well-intentioned. But on balance Prolog served its master, U. S. intelligence and carried out its mission, which often conflicted with the Ukrainian liberation struggle. More unfortunately, they often served, unwittingly, to shore up Soviet disinformation.
Askold S. Lozynskyj was executive vice president from 1990-1992 and president from 1992-2000 of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.
