Paris Bloc

Paris Bloc. The popular name of the League for the Liberation of the Peoples of the USSR, an organization of the captive nations of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Founded in Paris in March 1953 through the initiative of Ukrainian National Council supporters, the group functioned as a coalition of anti-Soviet forces and included national organizations representing Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, the Crimea, Georgia, Idel-Ural, Caucasian mountain peoples, Turkestan, and Ukraine. Its most active Ukrainian members were Dmytro Andriievsky, Spyrydon Dovhal, and Mykola Livytsky. Its purpose was to co-ordinate the independence struggle of the captive nations against Soviet occupation. It sought contacts with international organizations sympathetic to those political aspirations, organized press conferences and demonstrations, published declarations, and submitted memorandums to Western governments. It had branches in Munich, Paris, New York, and Istanbul. In 1958–67 it published the journal Problems of the Peoples of the USSR, which was edited by S. Dovhal. By the 1970s the coalition was a spent force and had become inactive.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]