What is OUN(B)?
This is the history behind OUN and how OUN(B) was formed.
I know. There are a lot of names and acronyms in this. And if you are like me, you probably have never heard of OUN(B) before all this.
Simply put the OUN was a "right-wing revolutionary organization that continued to rely on the terrorist tactics of the Ukrainian Military Organization in its pursue of Ukraine’s independence".1 Basically, if you meshed the IRA and Nazi Germany together, sprinkled a little old fashioned Mussolini fascism and racism on it, and slapped a Ukrainian flag on it, you would have the OUN.
Its origins started in 1914 during the Ukrainian movement that emerged in Austrian eastern Galicia. These were a group of political activists who challenged the traditional dominance of Polish nobles and elites. In 1929, the Ukrainian Military Organization merged with student groups and out came the birth of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, or OUN.
The OUN weren't very particular about who they worked with as long as they got Ukraine independence from Russia. However, like many great revolutionary organizations, there was in-fighting and divisions. It didn't help that there was a soviet led assassination of the then leader Yevhen Konovalets in 1938. This resulted in the two main factions of OUN.
"Despite its commitment to authoritarian ideas, the organization was heterogeneous and experienced several divisions in its history, including that in 1940, when part of the OUN, which advocated an "evolutionary" path to independence, was headed by Andrii Melnyk (OUN-M), while the supporters of more radical, revolutionary methods were headed by Stepan Bandera (OUN-B). The OUN-M continued to collaborate with the Reich [Nazi Germany] until 1945, hoping for Ukrainian autonomy in the further (evolutionary) perspective."2
Of course, Hitler being Hitler had the leaders of OUN(B) arrested in 1941 and sent to a nice vacation holiday at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp until 1944. Fast forward through a lot of history up until the end of WW2, you have a lot of Ukranians killing the Polish, Polish killing Ukrainians, some guys working with Nazy Germany, and no one trusting Russia. Plus the two factions of OUN.
OUN(M) was the kinder version of our revolutionary activists who worked with Nazi Germany and OUN(B) who was the more radical and extreme of the two and didn't mind who they worked with because the end justified the means.
Other Reading:
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists from the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
OUN/UPA Bibliography from Encyclopedia.com
CIA Reading Room: Operation Aerodynamic Volume 10 PDF 0066, Dated 6/17/1952