Ukrainians Exploited By Poles Debunked Lutoslawski

The Ruthenian Question in Galicia, by Wincenty Lutoslawski, Stanislaw Strxf3nski, Eugeniusz Romer. 2011

Well-Substantiated Facts: Ukrainian Backwardness; Proofs of Austrian-German (Then Soviet) Intrigue in Turning Ukrainians Against Poles; OUN-UPA Genocide Implicitly Prophesied!

This short book (review based on original 1919 edition) is packed with information. Far from being some kind of Polish propaganda, the data is from Austrian sources. These indicate that 59% of the population of Eastern Galicia was Ruthenian (Ukrainian), and that Polish majorities existed not only in Lwow and other cities, but also in many large enclaves north of the Dniester (Dnister) River, especially in the Tarnopol (Ternopil) area. (pp. 3-5).

POLES NOT RACIST AGAINST UKRAINIANS

In no sense was the Polish-Ukrainian relationship one of imperialism and racism. The rate of mixed marriages between Poles and Eastern Galician Ukrainians hovered around 30%. In contrast, that between Germans and Poles in Poznania (Posnania), in an overall relationship that was clearly imperialist and racist in nature, did not exceed 1.5%. (p. 7).

THE “POLES EXPLOITED UKRAINIANS” MYTH

Against the perennial myth of “wealthy Polish landlords exploiting Ukrainians”, the reader learns that there were 3,000 large Polish estates, in Eastern Galicia, against 100,000 small Polish land holdings. (p. 6). Although Ukrainians outnumbered Poles by nearly 3:1 in Eastern Galicia, Poles overall paid 74% of direct Austrian taxes and, even from among the small estates (owned chiefly by Ukrainians), the Polish ones accounted for 42% of the direct taxes. (p. 11).

PERSISTENT UKRAINIAN BACKWARDNESS

The respective Polish and Ukrainian illiteracy rates were 26.3% and 62.0%. (p. 9). There were, in 1913, 370 local Polish publications and 56 Ukrainian ones. (p. 9; see also p. 30). The average Eastern Galician Pole had savings of 47 Kronen against 12 Kronen by the average Ukrainian. (p. 10).

According to the Austrian statistics, the following percentages of peoples were still engaged in agriculture in 1910 (p. 29): Germans (30%), Czechs (38.5%), Italians (47.5%), Poles (60.1%), Slovenes (67.6%), Serbs (84.4%), and Ruthenians (91.2%). By this measure, the Eastern Galician Ukrainians were the most backwards people in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire.

What’s more, even in agriculture, Poles outperformed the Ukrainians. Where Roman Catholics were 15% of the population, 40% of the total area was cultivated, and the agricultural productivity was 150 kg of grain per person. In sharp contrast, the corresponding figures for higher Roman Catholic presence were 30%, 58%, 230 kg/person, and 45%, 67%, and 270 kg/person. (p. 10, 29).

DO NOT BLAME THE POLES FOR “DISCRIMINATION”

Lutoslawski and Romer refute the argument that Poles caused the Ukrainian backwardness. For instance, in the Boryslaw-dominant oil industry, less than 1% of the engineers were Ukrainians. This could not possibly be the result of Polish discrimination, as foreigners had been the primary owners of the Eastern Galician oil industry, and they strongly preferred Polish workers because of their capabilities. (pp. 11-12).

GERMANS, AUSTRIANS, AND THEN SOVIETS DRIVE UKRAINIAN SEPARATISM

The authors provide detailed evidence of German influence behind, and financial support for, Ukrainian separatism and the eventual 1918-1919 Polish-Ukrainian War. (p. 13). Documents from the fanatically anti-Polish OSTMARKENVEREIN (or HAKATA) prove the foregoing. There were repeated meetings between involving many prominent Ukrainians (including Janyckij and Archbishop Szeptycki) and many HAKATA officials. (p. 13, 15-16).

CONVINCING PEASANTS THAT THEY HAVE BEEN WRONGED–A HANDY TOOL

The anti-Polish tactics of the Soviet Communists and German-Austrian inspired Ukrainian nationalists were very similar [and would continue to be so, culminating in the eventual WWII-era OUN-UPA genocide of the Poles, and subsequent Soviet expulsion of the remaining Kresy Poles.] The authors comment: “The uneducated peasant was assured by the Bolshevists in Russia, that he would become rich without toil, and that all the large estates would be divided among the Ruthenians, to the exclusion of the Poles, who were to be exterminated or exiled. Such promises created an artificial pseudo-national movement, which was nothing but a social upheaval of the unproductive lower classes against the successful and productive classes of the country. Such movements are possible for a short time in any country, and they have been known in France as Jacqueries. If they are not suppressed by force, they lead to the destruction of all accumulated wealth, as in Russia, but never to a real improvement of the condition of the lower classes which have generally to pay dearly for the credulity and greed which makes them follow unscrupulous leaders.” (p. 15).

Also: “It is easy to awake envy and hatred in uneducated peasants, who consider themselves wronged only because they are unable to produce as much as their neighbors. The Rutheno-Ukrainian movement has not the character of a national struggle for independence, but is merely an outbreak of class hatred, artfully organized by the Germans in order to weaken the Polish Republic, because the mere existence of the Polish State puts a limit to the expansion of Prussianism.” (p. 18).

They add: “The Germans have therefore availed themselves to the social difference which exists between Poles and Ruthenians in Eastern Galicia and have preached among the Ruthenians a war of extermination against the Poles, promising them great spoils if they get rid of the entire upper classes which are chiefly Polish and of the Polish peasants who in Eastern Galicia are generally better off than the Ruthenians. The Rutheno-Ukrainian movement is nothing else than a variety of Bolshevism. We see among the Rutheno-Ukrainians the same contempt for international law, and for justice, as among the Bolshevists.” (p. 19).

THE WWII UKRAINIAN UPA GENOCIDE OF POLES PROPHESIED IN 1919

All this was, of course, to continue, in interwar Poland, in the form of the German-financed Ukrainian-fascist OUN “permanent revolution”, and in the extensive WWII-era Nazi use of Ukrainians to exterminate the Jews, and, indirectly or directly, in the OUN-UPA genocide of the Poles. The annexation of the Kresy by the Soviet Union, and the de-Polonization of the Kresy by the Soviet authorities, all led to the impoverishment of Ukrainians and their loss of liberty. The authors’ perceptive analysis proved to be prophetic!