Ukrainian Workers’ League

Ukrainian Workers’ League (Українська робітнича організація; Ukrainska robitnycha orhanizatsiia, or УРО; URO). A socialist-oriented political and civic organization in Canada founded by defectors from the pro-communist Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA). When the general convention of the ULFTA in 1935 refused to condemn the mass deportations, Holodomor, and Stalinist terror in Ukraine, five members of the executive (Danylo Lobai, Toma Kobzei, T. Kulchytsky, S. Khvaliboga, and M. Smiiovsky) and their followers left the ULFTA. By January 1936 they had formed the Ukrainian Worker-Farmer Educational Society with branches in Winnipeg, Transcona, Portage la Prairie, Edmonton, and Calgary; the Ukrainian Educational Society in Montreal; and the Kameniari Society in Toronto. At the beginning of August 1936 these associations joined together to form the Federation of Ukrainian Worker-Farmer Organizations, which changed its name to the Alliance of Ukrainian Organizations (Союз українських організацій; Soiuz ukrainskykh orhanizatsii) at its national convention in Toronto at the end of the year. In 1940 it adopted the name Ukrainian Workers’ League. The leading members of the URO were Lobai (president, 1940–66), Kobzei, Khvaliboga, Kulchytsky, Yu. Elendiuk, T. Pylypas, and M. Kashchak. The league published the semimonthly Pravda (Winnipeg) (1936–8) and Vpered (Toronto) (1938–40), which were edited by Lobai. In 1940 the URO was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]