ABSTRACT
In the years 1929–34, the secret police in Ukraine claimed to have uncovered four nationalist conspiracies and terrorist plots—the League for Liberation of Ukraine (SVU), the Ukrainian National Center (UNTs), the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO), and the Association of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Jointly authored by Myroslav Shkandrij and Olga Bertelsen, and based on research conducted in the Ukraine’s archives, the chapter analyzes how confessions were obtained from hundreds of arrested activists and how interrogators constructed cases according to a master narrative. It argues that Stalin required the fabricated plots and mass arrests to prevent consolidation of a competing power center in Ukraine.
