ukrainian nationalism 1939-1945by john a. armstrong

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University of Utah Western Political Science Association Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-1945 by John A. Armstrong Review by: William B. Ballis The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1955), pp. 650-652 Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/441981 . Accessed: 16/12/2014 11:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . University of Utah and Western Political Science Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Western Political Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 16 Dec 2014 11:56:16 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-1945by John A. Armstrong

University of UtahWestern Political Science Association

Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-1945 by John A. ArmstrongReview by: William B. BallisThe Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1955), pp. 650-652Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/441981 .

Accessed: 16/12/2014 11:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of Utah and Western Political Science Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to The Western Political Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 16 Dec 2014 11:56:16 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-1945by John A. Armstrong

THE WESTERN POLITICAL QUARTERLY THE WESTERN POLITICAL QUARTERLY

Among the "old fashioned social and economic forces," whose influence on the political process Williams described, the peasantry is most promi- nent. In the words of another British observer, Alfred Cobban: "In the last resort, and at bottom, France is a Peasant's Republic." To that point most of the papers making up this volume on electoral sociology furnish much evidence. And if the concentration of the superficial observer on the country's "instability" has been criticized by Williams, this volume provides a picture of almost exasperating "stability" over many a decade and in many of the constituencies studied.

Taken together the various papers are as rich in descriptive detail as they are varied in methodological approach. One study descends to the microcosmos of a community, others scrutinize the (relative) macrocosmos of a department. There is one paper which sets out to apply (after modifi- cation) to some elections in the C6tes-du-Nord the United States tested "scalogram" board and mathematical predictions; it comes up with con- clusions which are no more convincing in French than they are in English.

Most of the authors seem to agree that it does not take any particular "materialistic" bias to find that in France the social structure (which means in many cases class stratification) is the most important determinant of behavior at the polls. One study-on a very small scale, it is true- discerns the prevalence of personal factors to such an extent that in his interesting preface M. Goguel asks whether under such conditions one can properly speak about electoral "sociology." But interestingly enough the instability of political orientation in small communities is matched with the stability of the cantons to which these same communities belong.

In addition to a revealing analysis of voters' abstention in one depart- ment there are some studies about the women's vote in various constituen- cies, where the organization of balloting permitted such scrutiny. What- ever the ultimate fate of the Fourth Republic may be, French women cannot be accused of having caused either its salvation or its downfall: they vote overwhelmingly (as did the German women under the Weimar Republic) like the families or the social milieux to which they belong.

HENRY W. EHRMANN. University of Colorado.

Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-1945. By JOHN A. ARMSTRONG. (New York: Columbia University Press. 1955. Pp. xi, 322. $5.00.) Within the Soviet Union, the Ukraine has represented the largest and

most intense force of non-Russian nationalism. This study by John A. Armstrong is a careful analysis of groups, forces, personalities, and issues concerning Ukrainian nationalism during World War II. Pointing out that this movement had its inception in the nineteenth century at the same

Among the "old fashioned social and economic forces," whose influence on the political process Williams described, the peasantry is most promi- nent. In the words of another British observer, Alfred Cobban: "In the last resort, and at bottom, France is a Peasant's Republic." To that point most of the papers making up this volume on electoral sociology furnish much evidence. And if the concentration of the superficial observer on the country's "instability" has been criticized by Williams, this volume provides a picture of almost exasperating "stability" over many a decade and in many of the constituencies studied.

Taken together the various papers are as rich in descriptive detail as they are varied in methodological approach. One study descends to the microcosmos of a community, others scrutinize the (relative) macrocosmos of a department. There is one paper which sets out to apply (after modifi- cation) to some elections in the C6tes-du-Nord the United States tested "scalogram" board and mathematical predictions; it comes up with con- clusions which are no more convincing in French than they are in English.

Most of the authors seem to agree that it does not take any particular "materialistic" bias to find that in France the social structure (which means in many cases class stratification) is the most important determinant of behavior at the polls. One study-on a very small scale, it is true- discerns the prevalence of personal factors to such an extent that in his interesting preface M. Goguel asks whether under such conditions one can properly speak about electoral "sociology." But interestingly enough the instability of political orientation in small communities is matched with the stability of the cantons to which these same communities belong.

In addition to a revealing analysis of voters' abstention in one depart- ment there are some studies about the women's vote in various constituen- cies, where the organization of balloting permitted such scrutiny. What- ever the ultimate fate of the Fourth Republic may be, French women cannot be accused of having caused either its salvation or its downfall: they vote overwhelmingly (as did the German women under the Weimar Republic) like the families or the social milieux to which they belong.

HENRY W. EHRMANN. University of Colorado.

Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-1945. By JOHN A. ARMSTRONG. (New York: Columbia University Press. 1955. Pp. xi, 322. $5.00.) Within the Soviet Union, the Ukraine has represented the largest and

most intense force of non-Russian nationalism. This study by John A. Armstrong is a careful analysis of groups, forces, personalities, and issues concerning Ukrainian nationalism during World War II. Pointing out that this movement had its inception in the nineteenth century at the same

650 650

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Page 3: Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-1945by John A. Armstrong

BOOK REVIEWS

time that Marxian socialism became an important ideology in Imperial Russia, Dr. Armstrong believes that Ukrainian nationalism was to a large extent the result of economic and social cleavages in the Ukraine. In his discussion of the historical background, the author holds that the Ukrain- ians were almost all peasants except for a few intellectuals. The propertied gentry was either Polish or Russian and the commercial class also was non- Ukrainian. Hence, nationalism became a class movement identified with agrarian reform and the removal of the non-Ukrainians who were "exploit- ing" the peasants. While communism, a movement of the townspeople, won over Ukrainian nationalism based on the peasantry, the latter did not lie dormant. The strongest base for national feeling in the Ukraine reposed in the peasantry which has resisted from the beginning the collectivization of agriculture.

Much of the violent nationalist feeling on the eve of World War II was centered in eastern Poland (western Ukraine) where underground Ukrainian patriotic organizations carried on. Nationalist Ukrainians were given encouragement by the Nazi regime. Although they did not like Hitler's awarding Carpatho.Ukraine to Hungary, many of the Ukrainian leaders living in Poland decided to throw their lot with the Germans- their former enemies--rather than risk capture by the Russians, in the hope of establishing an independent Ukraine. The Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 destroyed their hopes when Germany agreed to allow the U.S.S.R. to absorb eastern Poland.

Dr. Armstrong describes the German "liberation" of the Ukraine in 1941 and analyzes the attitudes of the Ukrainians on German occupation. He discusses the role of the underground and delineates the factors which brought about the change to open resistance against both the Germans and the Russians. The author's concluding chapters deal with the relationship between Ukrainian nationalism and the Orthodox church and other media of nationalist activity: the theater, education, press, and the co-operatives.

Dr. Armstrong shows how the predominance of intellectuals and the shortage of administrators and lawyers in the nationalist movement, which was already too far removed from the average peasant, complicated the implementation of Ukrainian nationalism into political and legal realities. He believes that in the Ukraine "there is strong ground for suggesting that territorial patriotism has grown under the Soviet regime." He also thinks that the Ukrainian population in western Ukraine would prefer its own government to being returned to Polish rule. Dr. Armstrong concludes that the nationalist appeal to residents in eastern Ukraine was not as effective as the interest in survival, economic welfare, and a stable and orderly government in which they were allowed equal representation.

651

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Page 4: Ukrainian Nationalism 1939-1945by John A. Armstrong

THE WESTERN POLITICAL QUARTERLY THE WESTERN POLITICAL QUARTERLY

An essential part of the material used for this study comes from the scores of Ukrainian informants whom the author interviewed in Europe, Canada, and the United States. This scholarly work ends with an im- pressive bibliography of government documents and contemporary news- papers and periodicals which were intensively exploited by the author. The chief weakness of the work and paradoxically its great strength lies in the enormous detail which makes reading difficult but most rewarding.

WILLIAM B. BALLIS. University of Washington.

Failure of a Revolution. Germany in 1918-1919. By RUDOLF COPER. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1955. Pp. xi, 294. $5.00.)

Attempts to fill in the mosaic which will eventually present a detached and critical history of the Weimar Republic are of relatively recent date. The present volume, which is concerned with the events of the initial months of the so-called revolution of 1918, is a valuable and much-needed contribution to our knowledge of that ill-fated enterprise. Although most of the events described in the book are well known, the author presents a useful panorama of the "revolution" and provides a sophisticated analysis of circumstances, forces, and personalities.

The fiasco of the revolution, which failed to change the militaristic essence of the German state, is justly ascribed to the inadequacies and human frailties of the revolutionary leadership as well as to the faulty view of human nature adhered to by the revolutionary political parties. The lion's share of the responsibility is placed on Ebert's doorstep, who is depicted as a cunning and scheming politician of rather limited vision. Traditionalist sentiments and fear of radical socialism induced him to throw in his lot with the militarists and sell out the revolution. Failing to lead the German republic into a democratic capitalism, so the author contends, Ebert forced a militaristic capitalism upon Germany thereby preserving the essence of the prerevolutionary state. While history's judg- ment of Ebert as a revolutionary leader is not likely to be a merciful one, his characterization as a cynical rogue does justice neither to the man nor to the magnitude of the problems confronting him. Rather, his attempts, ill-fated though they were, to pilot the young republic through the perils of reaction and revolutionary socialism reveal perhaps a sense of responsibility which is worthy of admiration. More than anything else, the picture of the German revolution unfolded by the author demonstrates the extraordi- nary impact of tradition upon human action, which is so frequently lost sight of by revolutionaries and social engineers.

An essential part of the material used for this study comes from the scores of Ukrainian informants whom the author interviewed in Europe, Canada, and the United States. This scholarly work ends with an im- pressive bibliography of government documents and contemporary news- papers and periodicals which were intensively exploited by the author. The chief weakness of the work and paradoxically its great strength lies in the enormous detail which makes reading difficult but most rewarding.

WILLIAM B. BALLIS. University of Washington.

Failure of a Revolution. Germany in 1918-1919. By RUDOLF COPER. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1955. Pp. xi, 294. $5.00.)

Attempts to fill in the mosaic which will eventually present a detached and critical history of the Weimar Republic are of relatively recent date. The present volume, which is concerned with the events of the initial months of the so-called revolution of 1918, is a valuable and much-needed contribution to our knowledge of that ill-fated enterprise. Although most of the events described in the book are well known, the author presents a useful panorama of the "revolution" and provides a sophisticated analysis of circumstances, forces, and personalities.

The fiasco of the revolution, which failed to change the militaristic essence of the German state, is justly ascribed to the inadequacies and human frailties of the revolutionary leadership as well as to the faulty view of human nature adhered to by the revolutionary political parties. The lion's share of the responsibility is placed on Ebert's doorstep, who is depicted as a cunning and scheming politician of rather limited vision. Traditionalist sentiments and fear of radical socialism induced him to throw in his lot with the militarists and sell out the revolution. Failing to lead the German republic into a democratic capitalism, so the author contends, Ebert forced a militaristic capitalism upon Germany thereby preserving the essence of the prerevolutionary state. While history's judg- ment of Ebert as a revolutionary leader is not likely to be a merciful one, his characterization as a cynical rogue does justice neither to the man nor to the magnitude of the problems confronting him. Rather, his attempts, ill-fated though they were, to pilot the young republic through the perils of reaction and revolutionary socialism reveal perhaps a sense of responsibility which is worthy of admiration. More than anything else, the picture of the German revolution unfolded by the author demonstrates the extraordi- nary impact of tradition upon human action, which is so frequently lost sight of by revolutionaries and social engineers.

PETER J. FLIESS. PETER J. FLIESS. Louisiana State University. Louisiana State University.

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