Evil Empire still Threatens Ukraine & X-Captive Nations

Even though the Soviet Union – or the evil empire as the late President Reagan correctly called it – has collapsed, the danger to the surrounding countries has not abated. As a matter of fact, the threat that they are facing today is as deadly as it was at the time of the formation of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, the Captive Nations Week Proclamation and the World Anti-Communist League.

The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations was created as a coordinating center for the liberation of captive nations of the Soviet Russian empire. The ABN attributed its existence and its ideological foundations to an underground conference of representatives of non-Russian peoples that took place on 21-22 November 1943 near Zhytomyr, Ukraine, on the initiative of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and at which a platform of joint revolutionary struggle against Russian communism was formulated. The goal of the ABN was the dismemberment of the Soviet Union into national states – in other words, the de-colonization of the USSR.

Among the participating nations for varying periods of time have been Ukrainians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Byelorussians, Cossack, Croatians, Czechs, Estonians, Georgians, Hungarians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Turkestanians, Vietnamese and Cubans. Others such as Poles were regarded as kindred spirits.

Headed by Yaroslav Stetsko until his death in 1986, the ABN’s motto was “Freedom for nations; Freedom for individuals.” Its branches existed in many countries and it disbanded in 1996 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The United States took the lead in recognizing the independence aspirations of the captive nations by adopting the Captive Nations Week Proclamation. In 1959 President Dwight Eisenhower signed Public Law 86-90, which mandated successive presidents to issue proclamations every year, including President Barack Obama. The legacy of the proclamation holds special meaning this year with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainians and other captive nations also contributed to the formation of the World Anti-Communist League, which currently exists as the World League for Freedom and Democracy.

This brief recap of history demonstrates that nations near Russia have always endured the brunt of Russian subjugation and have struggled internally and externally to free themselves of Russia’s chains. Their leaders have been appealing to the US and other countries for help against Russian aggression for decades. From the armed conflict of World War II and the post-war years, to intellectual dissent of the 1960s and 1970s, to the Helsinki movement and the waning years of Moscow’s influence, the captive nations sought to distance themselves from Russia: Freedom, independence, the European Union and NATO were their goals.

With today’s Russian invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, which harken to more brutal eras of mankind’s evolution, the x-captive nations’ pleas for NATO protection have become louder. In Ukraine’s case, membership in the EU is a step in the right direction but even that is not enough.

NATO’s deployment of troops, aircraft and naval vessels to Eastern Europe sends a strong signal of support to the x-captive nations and a warning to Russia. But more unified global pressure must be applied on Russia for it to withdraw its terrorists from Ukraine and to save Eastern Europe from Moscow’s wrath.

Hopefully the US, EU and NATO leaders will not repeat their woeful abandonment of Eastern Europe of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s but rather will continue being the x-captive nations’ last bastion of freedom and democracy.