U.S. support for Ukraine’s liberation during the Cold War: A study of Prolog Research and Publishing Corporation

The US government established contact in Western Europe with anti-Communist refugees following World War II and covertly supported a variety of groups. Initially in the 1940s cooperation between the OSS/CIA and émigré groups provided support for the parachuting of couriers to contact underground organizations in ethnic homelands and over the next four decades until the late 1980s through support for non-violent methods against Soviet power. One of the organisations supported by the US government was Prolog Research and Publishing Corporation that existed from 1952 to 1992. Prolog was established by zpUHVR (external representation of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council), the political umbrella of Ukrainian nationalist, anti-Soviet partisans who fought a guerrilla war against the Soviet state until the early 1950s. US government support facilitated a democratic alternative to nationalist émigrés who dominated the Ukrainian diaspora as well as a different strategy towards the pursuit of the liberation of Ukraine. Prolog proved to be more successful in its liberation strategy of providing large volumes of technical, publishing and financial support to dissidents and opposition currents within the Communist Party of Ukraine. The alternative nationalist strategy of building underground structures in Soviet Ukraine routinely came under threat from infiltration by the KGB. US government support enabled Prolog to publish books and journals, including the only Russian-language journal published by a Ukrainian émigré organization, across the political spectrum and to closely work with opposition movements in central-eastern Europe, especially Poland.