Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis
Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis
The president of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada is defending Yaroslav Hunka who was recently lauded as a hero in Canada’s Parliament
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Is not like the Ukranians should be in love with the Soviets when just a decade earlier this had happened:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
My point? I don't think we can really pin the bad choice of an army for an Ukranian in the '40s
The famine was caused by multiple factors and blaming it as if it were Stalin's genocidal policy is frankly revising history.
Due to collectivization (giving up owned land to join the collective farm), landlords were very unhappy. Many resorted to slaughtering their own livestock in protest and many wealthy landowners indicated that they were "disincentivized" from working to produce grain in similar quantities as in the past. In the beginning, many Ukrainian nationalists took to murdering workers at collective farms to hinder their productivity. Moreover, the import/export relationship to the rest of the Soviet Union was weak as Ukraine predominantly produced foodstuffs (that were produced in increasingly high quantities in the Eastern territories because of collectivization) and not machinery (which had to be imported) - Ukraine's exports lost value while their imports gained value.
I would recommend reading the works of Isaac Mazepa (a Ukrainian nationalist), Louis Fischer (an American journalist), and statements from both Stalin and the Politburo at the time. Stalin and the Politburo at large were aware that Kosior and Chubar were misrepresenting numbers, but not to what degree - thus, the aid they sent was grossly insufficient. Stalin butted heads with both Kosior and Chubar and was extremely critical of both of them. Both Kosior and Chubar were executed in the great purge under orders from Stalin.
Famine struck Ukraine at an incredibly inopportune time in Ukrainian politics and led to the regrettable death of millions. Famine also struck in conjunction with typhoid fever and the rise of the OUN (emboldened by Hitler's success in Germany). You can read more about the OUN through Dmytro Dontsov's writings.
You are losing the point here, all that history is great for you and me, now, go back and ask any Ukranian from 1935/1945 who was at fault, and let's see the responses. That is the information those young Ukranians had when they enrolled. Of course there would be many of them that were actual Nazis and supported the Holocaust and all that shit, and those need to be treated like any other Nazi, I am not saying not to that, I am only saying that, maybe, we could give this guys the benefit of the doubt considering the two options they had.
To join the Nazis? Fuck off.
At the end of the day, the vast majority of Ukrainians fought for the Red Army against a nation who's policy literally involved the eradication of the Slavic races because they were seen as subhuman. Have you read Mein Kampf? Do you know how many Soviets died in the concentration camps? Do you know how many civilians Nazi Germany starved by doing exactly what you claim Stalin did to the occupied Soviet territories?
Hell, half of the point of invading Ukraine was to capture the agricultural production, starve the Ukrainians, and use that to feed the German war machine.
You ask me if I have read "Mein Kampf" and I ask you: "would a 17 year old Ukranian in 1943 have read 'Mein Kampf'?"
I repeat, how much of what you said would a 17 year old Ukranian know in 1943?
You are using 2023 information to criticize a decision made by a 1943 teenage farmer. Would I ever join the Nazis not matter who they were fighting against? No way! I agree with you, but we are not talking about me.
That's my only point, to look at them on a per-case-basis and judge their actions, because they truly were between a rock and a hard place (I am not talking about Spanish, French, Italian, German and any other that joined the Nazis, this is very specific to Ukranians and maybe some neighbouring countries).
At the end of the day, the vast majority of Ukrainians fought for the Red Army because it was known policy at the time that the Nazis sought to eradicate the Slavic Untermensch and that they wanted to seize Ukrainian farmland to starve the Ukrainians and feed the Germans. This only became more evident as the war went on. Ukrainians who joined the Nazis are complicit in the deaths of their countrymen.