One of the intriguing twists in Cold War propaganda history is the possibility that Communist China broadcast anti-Soviet radio programs to Ukraine in the 1960s. The sources of the information were Ukrainian anti-Soviet but were consistent from 1963 to 1965. The following is taken from a declassified CIA document dated December 17, 1965, “CHICOM Overtures to Ukrainian Nationalists”:
In the late summer of 1963, Peking began ordering English language publications on Ukrainian affairs through a London-based British agency. Shortly after that, it was learned that similar orders were being received from the Red Chinese in Bern, Switzerland. There was a short news item in the October 6, 1963, SHLIAKH PEREMOHY that Mao had purchased books about Khrushchev's crimes in Ukraine. The article was signed with the initials I.K. (probably Ivan KRUSHELNYTSKYY, a BBC monitor in Reading, Berkshire, and a one-time leading member of the Zch/OUN in England). The article confirmed that the Red Chinese in Peking had ordered books published by the Ukrainian Publishing Union in London. Among the books ordered were the following:
· KHRUSHCHEV'S CRIMES IN THE UKRAINE;
· PETLIURA (Simon)
· KONOVALETS (Yevhen),
· BARDERA MURDERED BY MOSCOW;
· CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN THE USSR;
· THE SHAME OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY;
· RUSSIAN OPPRESSION IN THE UKRAINE.
The October 25, 1964 issue of SHLIAKH PEREMOHY carried an article entitled RED CHINA HITS MOSCOW WITH NATIONALITIES QUESTION, relating information taken from DIE POMMERISCHE ZEITUNG about letters sent (latter part of September 1964) by Red Chinese to individual Ukrainians living in Poland. According to the report, most of the Ukrainians who sent the letters were members of the USKT (Ukrainian Social-Cultural Society) in Poland. The letters signed by "The Communist League for Human and National Rights" condemned deportations of Ukrainians and promised China's support in Ukrainian anti-Russification measures. Similar letters were received in Pinsk (source assumes recipients were Byelorussians). According to the same article, letters also were received from the Chinese Communists by Polish citizens living in Western Ukraine stating that all the people should have the right to determine whether they want their land returned to Poland or to remain a territory of the Soviet Union.
SHLIAKH PEREMOHY of January 24, 1965, in an article UKRAINIAN BROADCASTS FROM RED CHINA, enumerated the previous efforts by the Red Chinese to take advantage of the nationalities question in its anti-Moscow propaganda. It stated that Peking is using yet another method: Ukrainian language broadcasts to Ukrainians, who were sent by Moscow to the Far East, to Kazakhstan, and other Asian areas. The newspaper KHLIBOROB carried confirmation of this from one of its readers who personally had heard several such broadcasts. China reminds our brothers in Asia that Moscow sent them there by force. Ukraine is a rich country, Peking states in its radio commentary, a beautiful country, and Ukrainians do not need to leave it and go to distant, poor lands. Of those Ukrainians serving in the army in Asia, the Chinese ask:
Why are you standing on the Amur, on the banks of the Pacific? What could interest you there? Why aren't you on the banks of the Dnieper, on the Black Sea? Why do Russian guards stand in those areas? Moscow does all this to destroy everything Ukrainian, to Russify all that which never was Russian . . .'."
The Chinese Communists are smuggling anti-Russian propaganda into the Soviet Union aimed at inflaming internal discontent against the Moscow regime, according to a July 5 United Press International dispatch from Washington. It also mentioned that "according to UPI, large Ukrainian and Byelorussian settlements in the Amur River region in southeastern Siberia - another touchy area in the Red Chinese-Soviet border dispute - have also been targets of Peiping's propaganda."
And this document from April 1966:
Evidence has been received that within the past year or so Red China has been carrying on propaganda and perhaps political action operations aimed at creating dissension between the Moscow regime and the Soviet Ukraine. Emigre contacts by the Red Chinese have allegedly been attempted in London and Vienna. There have also been reports of Ukrainian language broadcasts and literature distribution by the Chinese to Soviet Ukrainians.
Simon Petlura (Symon Petruila) was a Ukrainian politician and journalist. He became the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army and the President of the Ukrainian People's Republic during Ukraine's short-lived sovereignty in 1918–1921. Yevhen Konvolets was the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) from 1929-to 1938. Shliakh Poremohy (Path to Victory) was a weekly newspaper founded in 1954 and printed in Munich by the anti-Soviet exile group OUN/B.
