In his youth, Bandera was small and slim. In photographs from his high school years and university time, Bandera appears to be a head shorter than the majority of his colleagues. As an adolescent, he was 1.60 m (5’3”) in height and usually had a short haircut. With the exception of his rather small size, Bandera possessed an unremarkable physique and physiognomy. He was left-handed and had blue eyes. In his adult years he was partly bald, and his face was slightly oval. By the age of twenty-one, he already lacked three teeth, and four by the age of twenty-seven. His most popular nickname was baba (woman), either because he was broad in the beam, or because he went through Lviv dressed as a woman, when on undercover duty for the OUN. Among his other aliases were: lys (fox), malyi (the little), siryi (grey), and Stepanko (little Stepan). As a child, Bandera had suffered from rheumatism of the knee joint, after which he could not walk at times, causing him to join the Plast two years late, by when he was able to attempt it.[310] Hryhor Mel’nyk wrote in his memoirs that Bandera looked very ordinary and inconspicuous and that he behaved like a typical student. Nobody seeing him would therefore guess that he was the leader of the homeland executive of the OUN.[311]

During the late 1920s and early 1930s Rebet noticed that Bandera had “an organizational knack and a realistic approach to matters that distinguished him from the general young and romantic environment of the OUN.”[312] Mel’nyk remembered Bandera as a very devoted nationalist, concerned about other OUN members and the welfare of the organization.[313] If anybody, however, disappointed Bandera—particularly someone from the OUN—he became angry or irritable. On trial in Warsaw in 1935–1936 he raged and lost control of himself when some OUN members decided to testify in Polish.[314] Bandera also “became mad” and had to take a tranquilizer to calm down, when he learned that Hryhorii Matseiko, before leaving for Warsaw to assassinate Pieracki, had left a note for his relatives, informing them that he was going on a trip from which he would not return.[315]

Bandera’s physical attributes were scarcely charismatic. However this did not deter the Ukrainian “charismatic community” from assigning charisma to him as early as the 1930s. His skills as an orator, his unpredictable temper, his fanatical determination and devotion to the “holy nationalist matter” no doubt contributed to the process of charismatization. Lev Shankovs’kyi remembered Bandera as a “student and dogged

Fig. 6. 1929. Members of the Plast troop Chervona kalyna. Bandera third to the right.

Poltava, Zhyttia Stepana Bandery, 15.

nationalist” who, “already in the beginning of his young years, his formative years, which he devoted totally to the matter, presented all the character traits that raised him to the post of the leader of Ukrainian nationalism.”[316] Prison chaplain Osyp Kladochnyi, who confessed Bandera during his imprisonment, characterized Bandera as the Übermensch, or the Ukrainian superhuman. He wrote, “From him [Bandera] radiated the strength of willpower and the determination to get his own way. If there is an Übermensch [superhuman] then he was actually such a rare type of man—Übermensch, and he was the man who placed Ukraine above all.”[317] Looking back on Bandera, Hryhor Mel’nyk commented:

We, his closest comrades-in-arms, had much more opportunity to feel the greatness of an extraordinary personality—our Leader [Providnyk]—and to be proud of him. For us it was the model of a certain pattern of people with great character, of people who decided the historical deeds of their nations. Such people have already appeared in previous epochs of our history, in critical moments for the existence of the nation. In our times [they] were—Banderas, Kolodzins’kyis, Shukhevychs, Hasyns, Kossaks, Hrytsaїs, and many others. Using their brilliant model, exemplary character, braveness, persistence, agility, and sacrifice of their entire lives, they brought up whole generations of fighters, who went with and behind them to fight for their nation and, if it was necessary, accepted pain and sorrow for Ukraine’s liberty and for her honor and glory.[318]

After joining the OUN in 1929 Bandera rapidly rose through the ranks. This happened partly because of his organizational and conspiratorial abilities and partly because of the change of generations in the OUN. His friendship with those members of the OVKUH and SUNM who were rising in the ranks of the OUN, in particular Okhrymovych, helped Bandera on the road to promotion. In 1930 Bandera headed the section of the propaganda apparatus of the homeland executive of the OUN that was responsible for the distribution of illegal publications in eastern Galicia. In 1931 he took over a section that imported them from abroad, mainly from Czechoslovakia and Gdańsk. In the same year he became director of the propaganda apparatus of the homeland executive. This position was proposed to him by Okhrymovych, head of the homeland executive and his schoolmate from Stryi. Okhrymovych died in 1931 after his release from prison where, according to the OUN, he was tortured. Okhrymovych’s successor, Ivan Habrusevych, fled from Poland to Germany because the police were looking for him. Habrusevych proposed to nominate Bandera as his successor but the latter could not accept the position because he was in prison from the end of March until June 1932. After his release, however, Bandera became deputy leader of the homeland executive. From January 1933 he was de facto leader of the homeland executive, although he was not officially appointed to this position until a conference in Berlin from 3 to 6 June 1933. Bandera succeeded Bohdan Kordiuk, who had to give up his post because he was responsible for the failure of the post-office robbery in Horodok Iahailons’kyi on 30 November 1932, as the result of which Bilas and Danylyshyn were executed.[319]

In the act of indictment presented in the Warsaw trial after Pieracki’s assassination, the prosecutor Żeleński wrote that, according to OUN member Roman Myhal’, Bandera became the leader of the homeland executive through a coup. He radicalized the OUN and changed its attitude to terror, making the UVO a superfluous organization that soon disappeared. He also removed many people from leading positions and demanded from local branches of the OUN that they submit to him the names of people who were capable of carrying out terrorist acts.[320] According to Iaroslav Makarushka, training in the OUN changed after Bandera became the leader of the homeland executive; every person who joined the OUN was obliged to attend military, ideological, and conspiracy courses. OUN members who had attended military courses in Gdańsk (Danzig) and Berlin passed on their knowledge to other members during military courses in eastern Galicia.[321]

According to Żeleński and the OUN member Pidhainyi, Bandera received an order from the leadership in exile to organize new “combat deeds,” which might have included the assassinations of Pieracki, Babii, and others. When Bandera organized these “combat deeds” he assumed that the Polish authorities would respond by opening concentration camps for Ukrainians. In order to avoid mass arrests, the homeland executive planned to send the Ukrainian youth into the forests, where they would organize a partisan movement and conduct an uprising or revolution.[322] During an investigation, Makarushka also stated that in February 1934 the homeland executive considered ordering Ukrainians who had been spotted by the Polish intelligence service, or who might be sent to concentration camps because of terrorist activities, to hide in the forests and organize a partisan movement or “green cadres” that would fight against the Polish state.[323] According to Pidhainyi, Bandera argued that it was “better to die from a bullet than behind wires in a concentration camp.”[324]

The OUN became more radical and more “effective” after Bandera took over the leading posts. After he became the propaganda director of the homeland executive, the number and size of mass propaganda campaigns grew and the number of terrorist acts increased. However, these increases can be explained only to some extent by Bandera’s determination, leadership abilities, and strength of character. Additional factors to be considered are the role of other fanatical nationalists from the Bandera generation, and Bandera’s formal subordination to the leadership in exile.[325]

Because of the limitations of documentary evidence, and the fact that the OUN used conspiratorial methods, not every killing ordered by Bandera and not every detail concerning Bandera’s role in the assassinations can be clarified. Nevertheless, it is known that Bandera himself chose assassins from among potential candidates, carried out the detailed preparations for some assassinations, and occasionally decided who would be assassinated.[326] There is documentary evidence that Bandera induced Matseiko to kill Pieracki, and Lemyk to kill the Soviet consul, and that Bandera ordered the killing of Bachyns’kyi and Ivan Babii. It was also Bandera who gave orders to prepare the assassinations of editor Antin Krushel’nyts’kyi; Henryk Józewski; the inspector of the prison guards in Lviv, Władysław Kossobudzki; the education welfare officer Stanisław Gadomski; and a pupil of the seventh grade of the Ukrainian high school, Korolyshyn—although none of these was carried out, due to organizational problems.[327] Bandera also ordered that Stakhiv, editor of the Ukrainian newspapers Pratsia and Rada, be beaten. When this plan did not work, he ordered that a bomb be left in the newspapers’ editorial offices.[328] In addition Bandera gave poison to OUN members who were to carry out assassinations and instructed them to kill themselves if they were arrested.[329] When OUN members who were ordered to kill other Ukrainians, including OUN members, expressed their objections, Bandera insisted that these murders should be carried out because he believed that the Ukrainians to be assassinated were “traitors” or “informers.”[330]

When analyzing Bandera’s role, we should keep in mind, however, that he acted within the framework of an organization and that his conduct was therefore influenced both by his superiors and by other members. In his speech on 26 June 1936 at the trial in Lviv, Bandera clarified that he personally, without consulting other authorities, ordered the killing of Pieracki, Józewski, and Kossobudzki. He stated however that decisions to kill Ukrainians were made by the “revolutionary tribunal.”[331] According to OUN member Maliutsa, Konovalets’ was concerned about “some of the methods” used by the homeland executive, although we do not know whether he was referring to the assassinations of Polish politicians or to Ukrainians accused of “betrayal.”[332] Prosecutor Żeleński, who investigated Pieracki’s assassination, came to the conclusion that it had been “decided and organized” by the leadership in exile, to improve the financial situation of the organization.[333] As a source for this information, Żeleński quoted a document from the Senyk archives, which did not survive the Second World War.[334] Żeleński’s deduction might have been motivated, wholly or in part, by the wish to capture Konovalets’ and other OUN leaders living outside Poland, which the Polish authorities could not achieve without the help of other states. However, a more plausible theory would be that Pieracki’s assassination was planned by both the homeland executive and the leadership in exile, and that Bandera’s and also Lebed’s roles in this deed were significant.[335]

Because the OUN was already composed of many extreme elements when Bandera became the leader of the homeland executive, there might have been a reciprocal process of radicalization between Bandera and such zealous nationalists as Shukhevych, Lenkavs’kyi, Lebed’, and Stets’ko, who all came into the homeland executive at about the same time as Bandera and had been with him in the OVKUH and the SUNM. Spectacular murders or bank robberies had taken place before Bandera became the head of the homeland executive. In August 1931 for example, Bilas and Danylyshyn killed Tadeusz Hołówko. In March 1932 Shukhevych’s brother-in-law, Berezyns’kyi, killed the Ukrainian policeman Czechowski.[336]

When Bandera was variously its propaganda director (1931–1933) and its leader (1933–1934), the homeland executive conducted a range of propaganda campaigns and terrorist acts. Shortly after he became the leader of the homeland executive, the Bulletin of the Homeland Executive of the OUN in the Western Ukrainian Territories claimed: “Terror acts against the most prominent representatives of the occupying power are the typical actions that hold [ideological] impact and political-propagandist capital. … They steer the attention of the masses to the direct fight that brings closer the moment of the final uprising.”[337]

The first propaganda operation by which the homeland executive succeeded in attracting the attention of the masses was the mourning for Bilas and Danylyshyn in late December 1932 and early 1933. At this time, Bandera occupied the position of propaganda director of the homeland executive; informally, he was also the head of the homeland executive after Kordiuk left eastern Galicia in January. As propaganda director, Bandera knew how to transform his dead fellows into powerful symbols, in order to propagate feelings of revenge and to strengthen the collective unity of Ukrainians. The rite of transforming dead nationalists into heroes and martyrs had existed before Bandera became the director of propaganda. Bandera’s main contribution to this campaign, as well as to those that followed, was that he understood how to popularize the death of Bilas and Danylyshyn among the “Ukrainian masses” by means of the OUN propaganda apparatus.[338]

Another activity that took on a mass character while Bandera was leading the homeland executive was the raising of mourning mounds for fallen soldiers. This operation, in which the homeland executive tried to involve the “village masses,” took place in autumn 1933 and spring 1934.[339] The commemoration of fallen soldiers had occurred before Bandera led the OUN, but only at actual burial sites. Under Bandera’s leadership the homeland executive motivated the “Ukrainian masses” to build symbolic mounds even in places where no fallen soldiers were buried. Ukrainians were thereby able to commemorate their fallen soldiers in every place.[340]

A mound was usually built by villagers and sanctified by a priest. If the Polish authorities did not destroy it, the mound could later be used to conduct commemorative services for fallen Ukrainian soldiers or for organizing political demonstrations on 1 November, Pentecost, and other feast days. Such commemorations frequently began with a panakhyda. The Polish authorities tended to destroy the mounds as symbols of Ukrainian nationalism and as insubordination to the Polish state. Ukrainian villagers, armed mainly with hoes and pitchforks, would therefore protect the mounds. This caused casualties on both sides. During one of these ceremonies, in Trostianets’ between 6 and 8 June 1934, the ringing of church bells informed the villagers that the police were coming. A thousand or more people assembled to protect the mound from the armed policemen. “This is Ukrainian soil!” the villagers shouted.[341]

After the police had demolished a mound, the local people would often rebuild it. The repetitive and widespread demolishing and rebuilding of burial mounds led to many clashes and to casualties on both sides. In autumn 1933 and spring 1934 the OUN stirred up the “Ukrainian masses” and coordinated the actions of building the mounds. The conflict surrounding them resembled a civil war in some regions of eastern Galicia. In revenge, Ukrainians sometimes took the initiative and demolished the tombs and graves of Polish soldiers and policemen.[342]

Another propaganda operation organized in the summer of 1933, when Bandera was leading the homeland executive, used an anti-alcohol campaign by the organization Vidrodzhennia. The OUN provided the anti-alcohol campaign with an ideological dimension that it originally did not possess.[343] The aim was to mobilize Ukrainians not to buy spirits and tobacco, because they were produced by the Polish state. According to the OUN’s logic, the Poles suppressed Ukrainians by maintaining a monopoly on spirits and tobacco. During this operation, OUN activists urged Ukrainians to publicly pledge that they would not drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Drinkers who could not resist buying alcohol were beaten up. Taverns were demolished, especially those owned by Jews, and antisemitic boycotts took place.[344]

The next mass action of the homeland executive, conducted simultaneously with the anti-alcohol campaign, was directed against the Polish school system. The OUN tried to convince Ukrainian pupils to refuse to use the Polish language during lectures, to destroy such signs of the Polish state as the Polish emblem or the portraits of Polish kings in schools, to smash windowpanes in school buildings, to destroy school library books that praised Poland, and to march through the village, chanting such slogans as “Away with Polish teachers!” (Het’ z uchyteliamy-liakhamy!) When the teacher came into the classroom in the morning, a representative of the class was to deliver a speech, informing the teacher that “in the Ukrainian territories Ukrainian pupils should be taught by a Ukrainian teacher in the Ukrainian language about Ukraine.” The other pupils would duly applaud. For the sake of this campaign the OUN produced 92,000 leaflets and 9,000 booklets and distributed them in the schools. An attempt by OUN member Severyn Mada to murder the education welfare officer Gadomski, on Bandera’s order, was also a part of the anti-school campaign.[345]

Acts of opposition to the Polish schools took place more frequently after the reform of education in 1924, but like the building of mounds, they did not occur on a mass scale until June 1933.[346] It is important to bear in mind that Bandera and other members of the homeland executive had already learned, in their high-school days in the 1920s, how to remove the Polish emblem during a school assembly and how to interrupt a patriotic school celebration by throwing a bomb containing irritant gas.[347] Organizing the mass anti-school operation with a strong political character in the summer of 1933, they drew on their school experience and their activities in the OVKUH and SUNM.

On 22 October 1933 in another famous operation coordinated by Bandera with a strong propagandist background, OUN member Mykola Lemyk tried to kill the Soviet consul in Lviv. The act was organized as a protest against the famine in the Soviet Ukraine. According to Pidhainyi, the OUN attempted this because it wanted to outpace the UNDO, which was planning a legal protest against the famine.[348] Bandera’s role in the action was significant. He chose the assassin, explained to him the nature of the assignment, gave him a gun, and even gave him money in advance to buy new shoes and clothing for the trial that would follow the assassination. At the consulate, Lemyk confused the consul with Aleksei Mailov, the secretary of the consulate who received him, and whom Lemyk shot dead. After killing Mailov, Lemyk tried to escape and, in the process, wounded the custodian Jan Dżugai.[349]

The murder of the secretary of the consulate was enough for the OUN to celebrate a moral victory and for Lemyk to receive a life sentence.[350] Although the Polish authorities did not allow the trial to be turned into an anti-Soviet demonstration, the OUN used both the killing and the trial for propaganda purposes. Bandera had met with Konovalets’ several times in 1933, and it might have been Konovalets’ who urged him to organize this operation. According to his sister Volodymyra, Bandera was also motivated by relatives who had escaped from the famine to Staryi Uhryniv.[351] In another anti-Soviet operation, a bomb was left in the editorial office of the newspaper Pratsia on 12 May 1934 by Kateryna Zaryts’ka, not only because of the communist profile of the newspaper but also as a protest against the famine in Soviet Ukraine.[352]