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Defunding the Myths and Cults of
Cold War Canada:
Ongoing state support for East European
émigré groups with deep fascist roots

(Collaborators, Crusades and Coverups in an era of “truth and reconciliation”)

Issue #70, Press for Conversion! (Spring 2021)
Publication
of the
Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)
Read a summary of this issue            See articles on the state funding of fascist-linked groups

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Defunding Cold War Canada

Table of Contents

Canada’s anti-Red, Cold War propaganda in context
L.B.Pearson: Godfather of Cda’s Cold War on the new "Red" enemy
Pearson College and NATO’s United World Colleges
The CBC’s “Voice of Canada” --  Weapon of Cold War propaganda
‘Voice of America’ & the CIA’s ‘Radio Free Europe’ & “Radio Liberty’
L.B.Pearson: Groomed by King, St. Laurent & the ‘Big antiRed Machine'
Mackenzie King gave shocking praise for Hitler until the eve of war in 1939
Liberal immigration: "None is too many" and Too many is not enough
Why did King have such adoring admiration for Nazi Germany's dictator?
King loved Hitler’s hate speech against “Jewish international Bolshevism”

“Captive Nations” and their "Black-Ribbon-Day" crusade
The ignored historical context of “Black Ribbon Day” (Aug. 23, 1939)
“Captive Nations”: Nazi trope to CIA meme to Cold-War trump card
The “Captive Nations” conceit in Nazi propaganda
John Diefenbaker: Strong voice at the UN for “Captive Nations” bloc
The BRD campaign: Canada’s top Cold War propaganda export
The late Cold War context of the BRD crusade
Ongoing propaganda of the former "Captive Nations":
    (1) Canada’s anti-communism monument and (2) the Magnitsky laws

Far-right roots:
East European émigré groups in Canada & abroad

Estonian Central Council in Canada
   Estonia glorifies Nazi veterans as ‘freedom fighters’
Estonian World Council
Lithuanian Canadian Community and the Lithuanian World Community
   Lithuanian nationalists now have 'freedom' to glorify Nazi heritage
Latvian National Federation in Canada
World Federation of Free Latvians
Slovak World Congress and the Canadian Slovak League
Council of Free Czechoslovakia & Czechoslovak Nat'l Assoc. of Cda.

Ukrainian linchpin of Cda’s postwar, far-right diaspora
Krakow and Ottawa, 1940: "A Tale of Two Cities," and two UCCs:
(1) Germany’s Ukrainian Central Cttee. and (2) Canada's Ukrainian Canadian Cttee.

The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations & World AntiCommunist League
Yaroslav Stetsko: Leader of proNazi Ukraine, 1941

State-funded centres of Canada’s Bandera cult and its Bandera youth
Roman Shukhevych: Assassin, terrorist, war criminal and cult hero

Getting them young: Instilling Ukrainian patriotism in children and youth
Plast recruited for Nazi’s Waffen SS Galicia; now recruits for Ukraine
From Chomiak to Freeland: “keep that flame alive”
Chrystia Freeland: “Accidental journalist” or groomed for the job?
Myron Kuropas: Downplaying Holocaust; Exaggerating Holodomor
Turning from same page: Freeland wrote for pro-fascist publications
Yuri Shymko: From Bandera youth leader, MPP & MP, to elder statesman
Lisa Shymko: In the footsteps of family, community & far-right, war heroes
Rubbing political shoulders with the ABN in Toronto

The struggle continues...                                            Abridged Index

The Late Cold War Context
of the Black Ribbon Day Crusade


President Ronald  Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech.
Orlando, Florida, Mar. 8,1983.

By Richard Sanders

(Click here for a PDF to see this article as it appears in print)

Black Ribbon Day (BRD) arose in the heyday of President Ronald Reagan, a former B-movie actor who had been the smiling PR frontman for nuclear-weapons maker GE (1954-62) and for the CIA’s antiRed "Crusade for Freedom" propaganda campaign administered by Radio Free Europe (1950-60).

In his role as America’s "Great Communicator," Reagan followed his script in 1983 to brand the USSR as "The Evil Empire." Using his hokey, homespun style to spread vile hate speech against socialism, he was a vibrant symbol of the West’s most aggressive anti-Soviet policies. Reagan was, for example, infamous for arming rightwing paramilitaries. But in Cold War parlance, these terrorists were "freedom fighters" struggling to stop the the Third World spread of communism. Subsidized by smuggling cocaine and heroin, these CIA proxies killed thousands of innocents in covert wars that crushed fledgling leftwing governments from Nicaragua to Afghanistan.

Reagan’s anticommunist thugs were glorified by East European émigré groups that had long revered their own "freedom fighting" predecessors who allied with the Nazis in WWII. In 1986, as the Iran-contra affair hit the news, speakers for the Afghan mujahideen and Nicaraguan contras attended a global conference in Toronto of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). These and other CIA-backed "freedom fighters" were on the frontline of the West’s Cold War crusade.

The Brzezinskis, "The Spirit of the Time"
and the Canadian Polish Congress



Zbigniew Brzezinski

With a BA (1949) and MA (1950) from McGill, he became Carter's National Security Advisor (1977-81) and lead the CIA's use of terrorist Islamist armies to provoke the Soviet's military intervention in Afghanistan.



Tadeusz Brzezinski 

A diplomat in Poland's antisemitic, anticommunist  government (1921-45),
he found safe haven in Montreal after the war
and became president of
the Canadian Polish Congress (1952-62)

While Reagan is most closely associated with arming Afghan and contra terrorists, it was Democrat president Jimmy Carter who began their CIA funding. Carter’s strategy was engineered by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Polish American from Warsaw who grew up in Montréal. His father, Tadeusz Brzezinski, a veteran of Poland’s antiSoviet War (1919-20), was a diplomat in Poland’s anticommunist/antisemitic government (1921-45) and its consul general in Montréal during WWII. After the war, when communists came to power in Poland, the Brzezinskis—like 55,000 other antiSoviet Poles—made Canada their home. In Montréal, Tadeusz became president of the far-right Canadian Polish Congress, CPC (1952-62).1

His son Zbigniew, with a BA (1949) and MA (1950)2 from McGill, replaced Henry Kissinger as US National Security Advisor (1977-81) and spearheaded Carter’s use of terrorist armies to promote US interests. In July 1979, Brzezinski began the Carter CIA’s multibillion dollar funding of Afghan mujahideen. After six months of their attacks on the Afghan socialist government, the USSR agreed to help defend the country from these CIA-backed terrorists. Brzezinski also avidly pushed for US funding of Nicaragua’s contras, Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA terrorists (fighting Angola’s Marxist government), and antiSoviet "dissident" groups across Eastern Europe. More recently, he backed the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.

Brzezinski inspired a new generation of CPC activists to build BRD. One example was CPC-member Marek Celinski, who wrote the Foreword to Edward Soltys’ book, Black Ribbon Day. Joanna Lustanski, the book’s CPC publisher, called Celinski one of "the creators and longtime advocates of the [BRD] initiative" who "represented the Canadian Polish Congress on the Black Ribbon Day Committee" (1985-91) and "closely collaborated ... on organizing many BRD events."3



Jan Nowak-Jezioranski

After leading the Polish section of the CIA’s
top antiSoviet propaganda tool, Radio Free
Europe (1952-76), he became a security
advisor to the presidents Reagan and Carter.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded him
the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
America's highest civilian award.

Joining the CPC executive in 1980, Celinski was "assigned as a liaison ... to the Group of Seven [G7] (representing seven Eastern European ethnic organizations)." In detailing "the Spirit of the Time," he reveals how Canada’s G7 was advised by top Reagan war hawks. Celinski notes a February-1982 trip to Washington DC to meet Brzezinski and other Polish émigrés who then occupied the US world of "security" and "intelligence" agencies. Greatly inspired by their council on "what could be done at this very pivotal moment in history,"4 Celinski devoted years to the BRD "crusade for freedom."

While representing the CPC in the US capitol, Celinski met Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, who had led the Polish section of the CIA’s top propaganda vehicle, Radio Free Europe (1952-76). Nowak-Jezioranski had "personal connections," said Celinski, "with important political figures" in Reagan’s administration.5 This opened doors to meetings with Brzezinski and others.6 Asking "what would be the best thing for us to do given the current situation," says Celinski, "Brzezinski and Nowak-Jezioranski’s opinion was that the best strategy would be to create a united front of the nations subjected to the Soviet-style oppression." Celinski then returned to Toronto

"with a renewed energy to follow on the idea of organizing and strengthening the cooperation between various ethnic groups suffering Communist oppression."7

"Captive Nations Week" Commemoration 1983

At the White House in 1983, with Slava and Yaroslav Stetsko sitting front and centre,
President
Reagan told anticommunist leaders:

"
You are the conscience of the free world."  


At this 25th observance of Captive Nations Week (which was also 40th anniversary of the ABN's creation by the Nazis), Yaroslav Stetsko was photographed with Vice President George Bush, former director of the CIA, and with he US Ambassador to the UN, Jeanne Kirkpatrick.

Reagan's open pandering
to profascist ABN-led émigrés

The 1983 Captive Nations Week event held at Reagan’s White House included distinguished leaders of the fascist-rooted ABN and World AntiCommunist League (WACL). With Slava and Yaroslav Stetsko sitting in the centre of the front row, Reagan told the assembled crowd: "Your struggle is our struggle. Your dream is our dream. Your hope is our hope."8

In 1984, Reagan sent "best wishes for every future success" to the WACL’s global event. It was "an honor to send warm greetings," he said, because the WACL has "long played a leadership role in drawing attention to the gallant struggle now being waged by the true freedom fighters of our day."9 Reagan’s words to ABN-Canada’s 1986 conference in Toronto said: "I applaud your efforts" to free "the nations held captive by forces hostile to freedom." Using lines from his Captive Nations’ speech, he told ABN leaders, including Canadian politicians, WWII fascists, contras and mujahideen that: "For those who seek freedom, security, and peace, we are the custodians of their dream.... God bless you."10

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney also sent support to this ABN event. "I am delighted to extend my warmest greetings and sincere best wishes," said his message to assembled delegates from the ABN’s many Nazi-linked émigré groups and their terrorist allies. "[H]uman rights and fundamental freedoms are the foundations of any civilized and caring society," he said. "On behalf of the Government of Canada, may I wish you all the very best for productive discussions."11

(Click here to read Reagan and Mulroney's warm greetings to the ABN's 1986 conference in Toronto.)

‘Freedom fighters’ and nuclear war

In the early 1980s, NATO aimed 600 new nuclear US Pershing IIs and cruise missiles at the USSR. Millions protested. Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals, cloaked by peace myths, kept aiding US hegemony and abetting war industries like Litton. In 1983, when Canada allowed the testing of US missiles, hundreds of thousands joined "Refuse-the-Cruise" rallies.

Deriding all these activists as commie dupes, the ABN said its 1983 protest against anti-cruise missile "peaceniks" in Toronto was organized jointly with the Canadian Coalition for Peace through Strength (CCPS).12 (Led by Polish-Canadian Miroslaw Matuszewski, the CCPS too became active in the BRD crusade.13) To hype their counter-protest, the ABN said "the only real threat to the protection of our planet is Moscow and its policy of world domination." The rally, it said, "went to the American Consulate as a sign of support for President Ronald Reagan" and climaxed "with the burning of the Soviet-Russian flag" and "singing the Canadian National Anthem." Picket signs at their anti-"peacenik" rally read: "Yes yes for Cruise Test," "Hands off Litton," Test the Cruise," "Pacifists Terrorists," "Cruise for Peace," "NATO: The real peace movement of our time," and "Free Hungary."14

The rebirth of the ProNATO BRD vs the demise of NDP "peaceniks"

ABN-Canada/Canadian Coalition for Peace Through Strength
Picket signs at their October 1983 counter protest in Toronto against
the peace movement's massive "Refuse the Cruise" campaign,
anticommunist demonstrators equated pacifists with terrorists,
said NATO is the real peace movement, and promoted Canada's testing of cruise missiles for the Pentagon. (ABN Cover and article)

Throughout the Cold War, Canada’s BRD committee was a loud cheerleader for NATO. It even hosted a 1987 dinner for 500 at which Perrin Beatty, Mulroney’s "minister of defence" (i.e., war), spoke on "Canada and NATO: Defending Peace with Freedom."  (The BRD Committee's motto was "Peace with Freedom.")

This 1987 event, said the BRD committee's founder Markus Hess, launched its "campaign to oppose the efforts of the New Democratic Party and many ‘peace’ groups to get Canada to desert its traditional allies and pull out of NATO." News coverage of this event parroted BRD memes about the "two partners in tyranny—Hitler and Stalin" and the need to "restore [freedom] to countries dominated by Soviet communism."15

In 2004, NDP leader Jack Layton deserted peace-movement allies by ending the party’s decades-old policy to remove Canada from NATO. In 2009, the NDP actually joined the BRD crusade when parliament unanimously recognized August 23 as Black Ribbon Day. (The motion was presented by Liberal MP, Bob Rae, the former NDP premier of Ontario.)

2009 also marked the reincarnation of Cold-War Canada’s Captive Nations Committee (aka "The Group of Seven). It was reborn under a new banner, The Central and Eastern European Council (CEEC). (See the CEEC's list of member organizations below with links to articles.)
 

Canada’s ‘Captive Nations’ reborn:
The Central and Eastern
European Council (CEEC)

This reincarnation of Cold-War Canada’s Captive Nations Committee was formed in 2009 under the leadership of Black-Ribbon-Day (BRD) founder Markus Hess. The CEEC pushes BRD, Canada’s anticommunism monument, the Magnitsky laws and other far-right campaigns. Most of its members are described on these pages:

Albanian Community in Canada
Canadian Polish Congress
Czech and Slovak Association
Estonian Central Council Canada
Hungary Congress
Latvian National Federation in Canada
Lithuanian Canadian Community
Ukrainian Canadian Congress

References
and notes

1. Z.P.Wasilewski, "Ulica im. Tadeusza Brzeziñ-skiego w Montrealu," Kronika Montrealska, Jan. 30, 2013.  http://bit.ly/BrzMtl

2. Kaj Huddart, "Carter’s National Security Advisor discusses foreign policy," McGill Daily, Jan. 28, 2013.  http://bit.ly/BRZMcGill

3. "From the Publisher," in Edward Soltys, Black Ribbon Day, 2014, p.8.

4. Celinski, op. cit., pp.9-11.

5. Ibid.

John Lenczowski

6. Celinski also met another Polish American, John Lenczowski, who was then the Special Advisor to Reagan’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Lawrence Eagleburger (1981-83). In that capacity, Lenczowski succeeded in getting approval for a $2.5 billion infusion of US government funds to modernize Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Lenczowski then became Director of European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council (1983-87) and, as Reagan's top Soviet affairs advisor during the last years of the Cold War, he was instrumental in coordinating US policies that led to their goal: the destruction of the USSR. He then went on to found The Institute of World Politics, a private graduate school that grooms students for careers in "intelligence" and "national security" using a staff comprised of former CIA and military officers.

7. Celinski, op. cit., p.11

8. Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside the League, 1986, p.37.  http://bit.ly/InsideWACL

9. Asian Outlook, Sep.1984, p.4, cited Ibid., p.254.

10. ABN Correspondence, Jan-Feb 1987, p.13.

Ronald Reagan, Proclamation, Captive Nations Week, Jul. 19, 1985.  http://bit.ly/CNW-85

11. ABN Correspondence...., ibid
https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/14112/file.pdf#page=15

12. "Successful Demonstration against the ‘peaceniks," ABN Correspondence, May-Aug. 1984, cover and p.76 

Geza Matrai, shouting "Vive Free Hungary," seized Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin by the throat as he was walking with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (right) on Parliament Hill
in Ottawa, October 18, 1971.
Photo by: Doug Griffin/Toronto Star

13. Soltys, ibid., pp. 77, 119, 148.

Notes: At the 1981 ABN conference in Toronto, Miroslav Matuszewski represented the Canadian AntiSoviet Action Committee (CASAC). Matuszewski, who was an anti-communist activist in Canada between 1976 and 1990, was also president of the Canadian Coalition for Peace Through Strength.) 


Geza Matrai

CASAC was founded in 1971 by Geza Matrai who became an instant celebrity that year when he attacked the Soviet premier, Alexei Kosygin, as he walked with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. For this assault, Matrai was named man of the month by the Western Guard, an antisemitic, white power, neoNazi group founded in Toronto.

Ormond Knight McKague, Racism in Canada, 1991,  p.90.

Although the ABN did not openly endorse the attack on Kosygin, an article by a
a regular contributor to ABN Correspondence downplayed the assault as "atrociously bad manners" and asked readers to "give Matrai credit."

Dumitru Danielopol, "Never Condone Those Who Killed Them," ABN Correspondence, Jan/Feb 1972, p.24.

Matrai was a member of the anticommunist Edmund Burke Society (EBS) from which the Western Guard had evolved. A few days after Matrai's attack on Kosygin, two other members of the EBS were arrested in Toronto for plotting to assassinate Kosygin.

The ABN's 1981 conference was also attended by Yaroslav and Slava Stetsko, as well as leaders of such far-right networks as WACL-Canada, ABN-Canada and the World Ukrainian Congress.  Also in attendance were representatives of the League of Ukrainian Canadians, Progressive Conservative MPs Michael Wilson and Yuri Shymko (PC) and Liberal MP Jesse Flis.

The Ukrainian Review, Winter 1982, p.9.    http://bit.ly/UR-81

14. "Successful Demonstration...", op. cit.

15. "CBRDC Hosted Dinner for Minister of Defence," Pickering Post, Dec. 23, 1987, p.4.  http://bit.ly/BRD-NDP

Learn more....  You may also be interested in these resources...


Click to read the contents of this magazine online



Captive Canada
Renditions of the
Peaceable Kingdom at War,
from Narratives of WWI
and the Red Scare to the
Mass Internment of Civilians


(Or, how we learned to stop worrying,
keep calm and carry on loving the
myths that define and confine us.)

 

Read the introductory article:
"The Canada Syndrome,
a Captivating Mass Psychosis
"
 


Click to read the contents of this magazine online



Fictive Canada
Indigenous Slaves
and the Captivating Narratives
of a Mythic Nation
 


Read the i
ntroductory article:
"
True Crime Stories and
the Politics of Literary Escapism:
Canada as a Fiction in the
Imperial Genre
"


 

Watch the COAT website
for news about....


  (1) an upcoming book
by Richard Sanders

with the
  working title...

The Grooming
of a Liberal
War Hawk
:
Chrystia Freeland

(2)  PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION to
Stop Canadian government
funding of groups that
glorify Nazi collaborators

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