By Boris Kagarlitsky (trans.: Renfrey Clarke).
The logic of a revolt
Russian bureaucrats have been honestly surprised at the reaction
by the official West—they did not expect such anger or unanimous condemnation.
European politicians are beside themselves with fury. The mainstream press is
relating appalling stories to its readers of Russian aggression against
Ukraine. The television shows interviews with Kiev ministers and deputies who
tearfully implore Europe to save their country from the enraged bear.
Indeed, the reputation
of Putin’s Russia in the West is nothing wonderful—even worse than that of
Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. But what we are now witnessing is quite outside the
bounds of the usual. There was nothing resembling it either during the Cold
War, or during the Chechen conflict, or during the clash between Russia and
Georgia. We should not even mention the action of Yeltsin in shelling the
Russian parliament; at that time, the liberal West applauded.
In Moscow, people were expecting
criticism following the annexation of Crimea. But that was more than a month
ago, and the Kremlin authorities have done nothing new since. Several times a
day they repeat, like a mantra, words to the effect that they respect the
territorial integrity of Ukraine; that they are not about to annex anyone else;
that they have called on the West to work out a joint approach with them to the
crisis…but the criticism has not ceased. Meanwhile, the more absurd the
declarations issued by the present rulers in Kiev, the more avidly and
delightedly these have been lapped up. Only after the signing of the Geneva
agreement of 17 April between Ukraine, Russia and the West was there a certain
softening: the European officials discovered abruptly that in Ukraine it was “necessary
to deal with groups that answer neither to Kiev nor to Moscow,” and it was
recognised that “clear proof was lacking” of interference from Moscow. But warnings
were issued in every case that if the Russian authorities did not behave
themselves, there would soon perhaps be such proof.
The arguments of the
Kremlin in this dispute have not worked, and cannot work, for the simple reason
that Western politicians for the present are not especially interested in what
official Russia is thinking or doing. These politicians know perfectly well
that there is no Russian invasion, and this, precisely, is the main
international problem for them. To admit as much means admitting that the
government in Kiev has gone to war on its own people. To speak of the Donetsk
Peoples Republic as an independent political phenomenon in impossible, since
this would require posing the question of the reasons for the popular protest,
and listing its demands. The talk of Kremlin agents and of the ubiquitous
Russian troops—who are impossible to discover, but who have occupied close to
half of Ukraine without firing a shot or even showing themselves on Ukrainian
territory—is playing the same propaganda role against the Donetsk republic as
was played in the anti-Bolshevik propaganda of 1917 by stories of German spies
and of money from the German General Staff.
The point here is not so
much to discredit opponents of the present authorities, depicting them as
traitors to their country, as to conceal the class essence of the movement that
has arisen, its social basis. A half-unconscious fear has taken hold of the
liberal public, from intellectuals and politicians to decent and almost
progressive bourgeois, and is forcing them to believe the most obvious ravings,
to repeat any manifest rubbish, so long as class struggle is neither mentioned
nor thought about in any serious way. That is, not class struggle as it is described
in learned tomes and depicted by the best avant-garde cinema, but as it occurs
in real life, and as it becomes a fact of practical politics.
The new Kiev authorities
are directing the same accusations at the anti-Maidan forces in the south-east,
and spinning the same conspiratorial theories about them, as Yanukovich’s
propaganda employed a few months back in discussing the Maidan. But all this is
now being repeated on a scale ten or a hundred times greater than before, and
is taking on completely grotesque forms.
The parallels between
the Maidan and the anti-Maidan are quite genuine. Foreign money, of course, has
been an element in each case, as has foreign influence. The foreign money
flowing to the Maidan was American and Western European, while in the case of
the anti-Maidan it has been Russian (or more likely, Russian money has been
involved in each instance). The West, though, not only spent many times more
money, but invested it far more wisely and effectively. But just as the victory
of the Maidan in February was not and could not have been the result of Western
political machinations, the successful revolt of hundreds of thousands (and
perhaps millions) of people in eastern Ukraine is not to be explained on the
basis of Russian interference.
Far more important than
the similarities between these two movements, however, have been the
differences. The key distinctions to be drawn are not even ideological, though
the comparison between the dominant slogans—fascist in the case of the Maidan,
demands for social rights in Donetsk, accompanied in the latter case by the
singing of the
Internationale—deserves
unquestionably to be made. The ideological differences ultimately reflect the
fundamentally different social nature and class basis of the two movements. Of
course, the revolt of the south-east is not only a negation of the Maidan but
also its offspring and continuation, just as October 1917 was simultaneously
the offspring and continuation of the February revolution, and its negation.
The elemental nature of a revolutionary crisis, once it has spun out of
control, draws into its orbit fresh strata of society, new groups and classes
that earlier have not taken part in politics.
Until recently political
struggle was a privilege of “active society”, consisting of the liberal
intelligentsia and of the middle classes of the capital, to whose assistance it
was always possible to summon a certain number of impassioned members of
marginal groups, above all unemployed young people from western Ukraine. The
concept of democracy which many on the left shared, even if in unspoken
fashion, with their liberal colleagues was of politics as a business for
professionals or as entertainment for the middle layers. In this play-acting,
the mass of working people (not only in the south-east, but in Kiev as well)
were at best assigned the role of voters or of passive spectators, and at
worst, that of guinea-pigs to be experimented on. The idea that this mass of
silent and apparently apolitical people, preoccupied with their everyday
struggle for survival, could play an active and independent part in events did
not enter the heads of the liberal intelligentsia or of political elites of any
persuasion. Even today, this idea is perceived by such people as an
impossibility, a far-fetched nightmare.
The revolt of the hooligans
The events of the spring
of 2014 had to happen sooner or later. The precursors to these developments did
not even take place in Ukraine, but in Bosnia, where in defiance of all
conventions crowds of enraged workers and unemployed came onto the streets in
opposition to the established system, uniting under common slogans and
shattering traditional political schemas based on the division of society into
ethno-religious groups.
The waves of struggle
that have swept through the cities of eastern and southern Ukraine, just like
the protests in Bosnia, have sharply altered the sociology of political life.
In the forefront have been the masses, with their demands, interests, hopes,
illusions and prejudices. They are categorically unlike the romantic heroes of
the children’s books, and their class consciousness was initially at an
embryonic level. But once they began to act, they were destined to learn and to
understand the science of social struggle.
It must be acknowledged
that the experience of the Kiev Maidan did not go to waste. Rising in revolt
against the Kiev authorities, the inhabitants of the Ukrainian south-east made
use of the same methods with whose help the right-wing radicals forced the
previous regime to submit to their will. Street demonstrations progressed quickly
to the seizure of administrative buildings. But the activists in Donetsk and
Lugansk, refusing to limit themselves to seizing the buildings of the
provincial administrations, announced the founding of their own people’s
republics. While the people’s republic in Lugansk as of mid-April remained
mostly a slogan of the mass movement, in Donetsk it soon began taking on the
features of an alternative regime. Aiding in this was the seizure of local
militia stations and other state facilities. Some of these seizures were
carried out by rebellious crowds, but in many cases disciplined armed groups
were also involved—former members of the Berkut police special forces and other
Ukrainian law enforcement organs who had been dismissed by the new Kiev
government or who had deserted (some units quit the service practically in full
strength, taking their weapons and ammunition with them).
The propaganda of
official Kiev responded by describing the former officers of their own law
enforcement agencies as Russian
spetsnaz
special forces. But among the population of the Ukrainian south-east,
sympathetic to Russia, these accusations did not serve to discredit the revolt,
but were more like an advertisement for it. The more the authorities in Kiev
and their supporters spoke of direct Russian intervention in the region and even
of its “occupation”, the more people in the localities concerned joined in the
protests.
The main trigger for the
revolt, however, was not the pro-Russian sympathies of the local population, or
even the declared intention of the Kiev rulers of repealing the law that had
given Russian the status of a “regional language”. Discontent had long been
building up in the south-east, and the final drop that caused the cup to spill
over was the dramatic worsening of the economic crisis that followed the change
of government in Kiev. After signing their agreement with the International
Monetary Fund, the authorities decreed steep rises in the charges for gas and
medicines, and a social explosion became inevitable. In the west of the country
and in the capital, growing indignation was restrained for a time through the
use of nationalist rhetoric and anti-Russian propaganda. But when applied to
the inhabitants of the east, this method had the reverse effect. Trying to
douse the fire in the west, the authorities poured oil on the flames in the
east.
“I find it hard to
believe the change in my compatriots,” the resident of the city of Gorlovka
Yegor Voronov wrote on the Ukrainian site Liva. “Only six months ago they were
simple common folk who watched television and complained about the bad state of
the roads and of the communal services. Now they’re fighters. In several hours
by the provincial administration building I didn’t meet a single person who’d
come from Russia. The people were from Mariupol, Gorlovka, Dzerzhinsk,
Artemovsk, Krasnoarmeysk. Standing next to me were ordinary Donbass residents—the
people we travel with every day on the bus, stand next to in the queues, argue
with when they leave the door to the stairwell open. They weren’t the Kiev
middle class, set apart from the people by their special ‘circumstances’, but
everyday workers. And there’s no denying, there are plenty of unemployed in
these parts. Here were all the people who for the past month and a half had
been ‘begged’ in the private offices and state enterprises to take a cut in
their miserable wages. So here’s another conclusion—the more the wages of
Donbass residents are cut or squeezed today, the more protestors Kiev will get
in the east.”
The people who have been
protesting against the authorities in Donetsk, Lugansk and many other Ukrainian
cities have not had any particular knowledge of politics, or even a clear
program of action. The confusion in their slogans, along with their
simultaneous use of religious and Soviet or revolutionary symbols, must
undoubtedly offend strict connoisseurs of proletarian ideology. The trouble is
that the ideologues themselves have been so immeasurably remote from the masses
as to be unable and unwilling not only to instil “correct consciousness” in
their ranks, but even to help them make sense of current political questions.
While the movement has groped its way spontaneously and with difficulty along
its political path, coming up with a general expression of the mood of
anti-oligarchic and social protest, the members of the left, except for a few
activists in Donetsk and Kharkov, have occupied themselves with abstract
discussions in the expanses of the internet.
It was completely
predictable that the liberal intelligentsia, both Ukrainian and Russian, should
have met the protests of the masses with an outburst of hatred and contempt. The
workers who took to the streets came in for a great deal of spiteful
name-calling. They were derided as “lumpens”, “trash”, “hooligans” and most
amusingly,
vatniki [“quilted jackets”].
On the whole, however, the caricature figure of the
vatnik, copied from the American cartoon hero Spongebob, suggested
precisely an individual unswervingly loyal to the state authorities and
completely taken in by government propaganda. In this respect the people in
Ukraine who deserved most to be regarded as
vatniki
were the intellectuals, who repeated uncritically any propaganda put about by
the new government, even the most absurd.
It should be noted that
in the lying competition waged by the propaganda services of Moscow and Kiev,
it was the Ukrainians who clearly took out first prize. It was not that the
Russians lied less, but the Kievans lied more recklessly and inventively,
showing not the slightest regard for the truth and not even considering whether
the television images they showed bore any relation to the commentary. The
latter consisted solely of impassioned accounts of armoured vehicles heroically
beating off crowds of Russian special forces troops, who were trying to
force-feed the hungry soldiers with jam and home-made pickles.
It is not at all
surprising that the liberal intelligentsia should have viewed the ordinary
people of Donetsk, or anywhere else, as enemies and a threat to “progress” (as
the intelligentsia understood it). Far more interesting is to ponder the
reasons why a certain sector of the left on both sides of the border spoke out
in the same vein as the liberals. As events proceeded the Ukrainian
left-liberals at least refined their views and acknowledged that some of the
demands of the Donbass were justified (this can be gauged from the materials of
the Kiev conference “The Left and the Maidan”). But their Russian and Western
co-thinkers took a position of complete irreconcilability, solidarising fully
with the Kiev government and the leaders of the European Union. Significant
numbers of “Eurolefts” also expressed such views, especially those among them who
earlier had stressed the need to focus on such themes as multiculturalism,
tolerance and political correctness.
Observing this, the Kiev
political scientist Vladimir Ishchenko noted despondently: “It’s a strange
feeling, when the army is already with the people, and many leftists
(anarchists!!!) are still with the authorities.”
Obviously, this
situation cannot be explained purely on the basis of ideological logic. The people
and groups involved here seek to trace their political pedigrees to a
mythologised and prettified 1917 revolution. It is significant that in many
cases they employ the same arguments against the revolution now actually
occurring in south-eastern Ukraine as were used against the Bolsheviks by their
opponents a little less than a hundred years ago.
We have now seen a
quarter-century of reactionary hegemony, with the political and moral collapse
of the left movement (not only on the territory of the former USSR, but in
other countries as well). Over many years, play-acting at political correctness
and the observance of minority rights is supposed to have taken the place of
class and mass politics. None of this, of course, has passed without having an
effect. On the level of social consciousness we have been thrown back a century
and a half. Part of the responsibility belongs with the intelligentsia, which
long ago forgot its popular mission and has occupied itself with refined
cultural and ideological games instead of working with the masses and for the
masses.
Precisely for this
reason, the movement in Donetsk with all its contradictions and even
absurdities, such as icons and tricolours alongside the red flag, has provided
a first-rate picture of the stage of development out of which workers’ actions
arose in the nineteenth century. Meanwhile the Donetsk Republic, if we examine
it attentively, recalls more than anything the spontaneous political formations
that working people created “prior to the advent of historical materialism”.
Before us is the real
working class—crude, muddle-headed and devoid of political correctness. Anyone
who dislikes the present ideological and cultural state of the class should go
and work with the masses. The good thing is that no-one is stopping people
going to this crowd with red flags and socialist leaflets (unlike the case with
the Maidan, where the flags were torn up, and left agitators were beaten and
thrown off the square).
The future of the
Donetsk Republic remains undecided, and this represents a huge historical
opportunity of which there was not even a trace during the Maidan
demonstrations, whose leaders could not always control the crowd, but kept
rigid and effective control of the political agenda. By contrast, the Donetsk
Republic formulates its agenda from below, literally on the run, in response to
the public mood and the course of events. Strictly speaking this republic is
not even a state—rather, it amounts to a coalition of diverse communities, most
of them self-organised. In essence, it is the perfect embodiment of the
anarchist concept of the revolutionary order. Curiously, the anarchists
themselves refuse to have anything to do with it, preferring to repeat the
state and patriotic rhetoric of the new Kiev rulers.
It is not hard to work
out that the reason why the self-organisation of the Donetsk Republic functions
relatively well is because the remnants of the old administrative apparatus
carry on with their everyday operations as if nothing out of the ordinary were
happening, while all the questions of government are reduced ultimately to the
organising of defence. But is this so different from the Paris Commune (not the
idealised and romanticised commune, but the one that actually existed)? If the
people’s republic in Donetsk survives for much longer, it will inevitably
change, and it is far from certain that this will be for the better. But in
waging its first battle, the republic has already demonstrated the huge
potential of the self-organisation of the masses. Unarmed people succeeded in
stopping units of the Ukrainian army and in carrying on agitation with the
soldiers, blowing apart the “anti-terrorist operation” that Kiev had initiated.
This peaceful resistance will not only go down in history, but will also become
an important part of the collective social experience of Ukrainian and Russian
workers.
Catastrophe of the middle class
The events in Kiev that
began in the winter of 2013 can legitimately be described as the latest “revolt
of the middle class”. If we start with the beginning of the new century, these
uprisings have rolled literally across the entire world, from the United States
to Brazil and the Arab countries. Russia and Ukraine have not been exceptions.
But although these revolts have had a whole series of features in common, their
political agendas have not by any means always been similar. In some cases
general democratic slogans have been combined with the demand for progressive
social reforms in the interests of the majority of the population, while in
others these slogans have been intermixed with the most primitive group egoism,
effectively transforming democratic rhetoric into a cover for programs that in
essence have been clearly undemocratic.
This incoherence is no
accident. Because of the extremely insecure intermediate position the middle
class occupies in contemporary society, it is also extremely unstable in
ideological and political terms, prone to lurching both to left and right.
Equally, it is not by chance that in the countries of the global “centre”
middle-class protest is more often than not progressive, while on the periphery
the reverse is true. The larger the middle class, and the more conscious its
members are of their position as hired workers, the fewer illusions the class
has concerning its position, its attributes and its prospects. By contrast, the
narrower middle layers in the countries of the periphery and semi-periphery are
more often inclined to elitist illusions, and to viewing their position as
being threatened not by the implementation of neoliberal reforms, but by the
claims of the dispossessed and invariably “backward” lower orders to a bigger
share of the pie. Meanwhile the self-appraisal of the middle class, its idea of
its own abilities and prospects, often amounts to a set of the most improbable
illusions and myths. The more peripheral the economy of a country, the more
preposterous these views turn out to be.
These misconceptions can,
of course, be cured. Provided a country has a strong civic tradition and a left
movement is present, a project of radical democratic modernisation may be
developed, and even in such circumstances this will draw in behind it a part of
the middle class—as has happened, for example, in Venezuela. But as soon as
such a project encounters difficulties or ceases moving forward, we see how a
section of the middle class turns sharply to the right.
The paradox lies in the
fact that the movement of the left intelligentsia, which for many years has
lacked any connection with working people but has been of one flesh with the
middle class, has shared for the most part in the vacillations of its social
base. For the left to maintain its ties with the middle class does not pose any
great problems, considering that the social structure of modern society is now
very different from what it was in the time of Marx. But the task of the left
is to work toward the formation of a broad social bloc in which the middle class
with the majority of society, and above all with the working class. Otherwise,
the political agenda of the middle class becomes reactionary, and the left, in serving
this agenda, not only finishes up misleading and confusing its comrades, but
objectively (and not only objectively) furthers the interests of reaction.
Ultimately, the victims of this process include the middle class itself.
This is what happened in
Ukraine. Or more precisely, in Kiev.
Hostages of the Maidan
In observing events,
ideologues of the enlightened middle class have been compelled to note the
unconcealed hegemony of the right, and to grasp where the political vector of
the movement is headed. But they have limited themselves to making trite
excuses along the lines of “fascists and Bandera followers weren’t the only ones
on the Maidan.” It is as though the debate were about the composition of the
crowd, and not about who played the dominant role within the crowd, exercising
ideological and political hegemony.
In some ways, the situation
would have been less dangerous if the crowd in Kiev had consisted solely of
convinced fascists. Even among the militants of the Banderist “hundreds”, not
everyone was a committed fascist; people are not born adhering to fascism any
more than they are born as communists, socialists or, believe it or not,
liberals. But the Banderist ranks, after undergoing the corresponding
socialisation, finishing up in the hundreds, and taking part in their actions,
are indeed becoming genuine fascists. The Maidan became a real threat to
democracy mainly because the ultrarightists managed to win the leadership of
masses of everyday individuals from the middle classes of the capital, as well
as student youth and a section of the intelligentsia. The left-liberal intellectuals,
despite seeing clearly who was present in the ingredients of the Maidan
cocktail and who was doing the stirring, joined in the process instead of
speaking out against it. These intellectuals thus bear a direct responsibility
not only for the political consequences of what occurred, but also for the
personal fates of many people whom they drew into the movement.
Supporting the Maidan
process, the left-liberals handed ordinary people over to ideological
reworking, permitting and aiding their transformation into “human material”, a
resource for use in implementing the agenda of the right (since there was no
other agenda on the Maidan, and could not be amid the complete hegemony of the
reactionary forces). They created a psychological and cultural atmosphere
favouring a new wave of antisocial reforms, planned by the political leaders of
the Ukrainian opposition.
Of course, speaking out
against the Maidan in a context of general euphoria, while standing up to
mass-media pressure and conservative-nationalist hegemony, was difficult and
sometimes also dangerous. The Maidan militants began using physical violence against
dissenters even before power finished up in their hands.
Then, a month and a half
after the events in Kiev, other people came onto the streets of Ukrainian
cities, people nothing like the middle class of the capital, and the mood and
style of speech of the intellectuals changed dramatically. The intellectual
critics of the Donetsk republic collected evidence with the tenacity and mean-spiritedness
of a provincial prosecutor who has been entrusted with a case that is plainly
collapsing. The Maidan was forgiven for its aggressive use of violence, for the
Molotov cocktails thrown not at armoured cars but directly at people, at the
conscript soldiers whom the government had drawn up in cordons.
Meanwhile, the Donetsk
republic was condemned for the attempts made by its supporters to stop tanks
with their bare hands, without weapons and without shooting at anyone; where
the republic was concerned, nothing was let pass. Needless to say, there has
been a good deal in the protests in eastern Ukraine that contradicts our ideas
of a “correct” revolutionary aesthetic, but why have the left intellectuals
been so indulgent toward the aesthetic of the Maidan, in what would seem to be
comparable circumstances? Why have they forgiven the portraits of Bandera, the
“flags of a foreign state” (the European Union), the Nazi symbols, the racist
slogans, and most importantly, the openly antisocial, reactionary and
antidemocratic agenda of the official leaders of the movement?
Dual standards are
without doubt the norm for propaganda, but in this case we are dealing not with
journalists for state television channels, but with intellectuals, who pride
themselves on their independence and critical thinking.
The protests in the
Ukrainian south-east would seem to have given the intellectuals everything they
had dreamt of for many years, if we are to believe their words and writings.
Shouldn’t non-violent resistance, stopping the state’s military machine in its
tracks, have delighted the “greens” and anarchists? Aren’t spontaneously
organised local groups the ideal mechanisms for self-rule? And why is the
appearance on the streets of a mass of workers at odds with the prophecies and
appeals of Marxists? Why aren’t the left intellectuals rejoicing? Why are they
joining in the chorus of fascists and pogrom instigators, calling for bloody
retribution to be visited on the rebels, or at best, maintaining a shameful
silence?
Here, just as indicated
by the teachings of Doctor Freud, we find what is not so much ideological
inconsistency as unconscious terror. The reason the intellectuals attack the
Donetsk republic is not only and not so much because they wish to condemn it,
as because they hope to justify themselves, to prove to themselves that they
have not been mistaken, and most importantly, to satisfy themselves that no
guilt attaches to them because of their support for the nationalists on the
Maidan. All their intellectual refinement, and all their sharpness of mind, has
gone into devising arguments to justify the extreme right or collaboration with
its members.
The uncritical support
shown by intellectuals for the Maidan is appalling not only because it forces
them into a morally catstrophic position. Much worse is the fact that once they
have got themselves onto these rails, they find it very difficult to get off.
Taking this position isolates the intellectuals not just from the masses who
have risen up in genuine revolutionary protest in south-eastern Ukraine, but
also from the large numbers of supporters and activists of the Maidan who
yesterday were feeling doubts, today are disillusioned, and tomorrow will join
in the protests, perhaps in the first ranks. Ordinary people can change their
views, even to the direct opposite, relatively easily and without shame. But
not intellectuals. Ordinary people are always able to say simply, “They
deceived me.” Intellectuals have to confess: “I deceived people.”
Donetsk in the shadow of Moscow
It is no secret that the
rebellious masses of the Ukrainian south-east have been counting on support
from Moscow. Unfurling tricolours and shouting slogans about their love for
Russia, they have sincerely hoped to draw the fraternal state onto their side.
This hope has united people who dream of unification with Russia, others who seek
the federalisation of Ukraine, and still others who simply hope that the might
of Russia will defend the residents of the region against repression from Kiev.
But from the very first, official Moscow has taken an ambiguous position on the
events concerned. While clearly supporting a movement aimed against the openly
unfriendly government in Kiev, it is least of all prepared to sponsor a popular
revolution, even if the outcome would serve to expand the Russian state. The
Kremlin functionaries do not relish the thought of receiving as their new
subjects masses of rebellious people who are organised, often armed, and who
have acquired the habit of active struggle for their rights. This is especially
true in the context of a growing socio-economic crisis within Russia itself.
Revolutions are sometimes exported, but there are few state officials who would
want to import one.
Moscow has never wanted
to conquer Ukraine or dismember it. This is not because the Kremlin has been
loyal to the interests of a neighbouring state, but simply because the Russian
leadership has lacked any strategic plan whatever. Today’s Russian elites are
fundamentally incapable of thinking strategically. Two circumstances have
exacerbated the situation. In the first place, it has proven impossible to
consolidate the results achieved in Crimea. The annexation of Crimea to Russia
was unquestionably an improvisation, and not so much on the part of Moscow as
on that of the Crimean elites, who reacted to a changed situation and exploited
it to serve their interests. But once Crimea had been annexed, the main task
facing Russian diplomacy was to defend the acquisition. Part of this involved
sacrificing the interests of the Ukrainian south-east. Meanwhile Russian
society, unlike the liberal intelligentsia, has massively supported the Donetsk
insurgents, and this has placed the Kremlin in a very difficult situation. To
emphatically encourage such moods would mean creating a culture of resistance
and revolt in the masses. But a sharp change of course, involving a refusal to
support the rebels, would be risky; the patriotic moods cultivated by the
Russian authorities themselves would take on the character of protest.
In such a situation the
policy of the Kremlin is necessarily ambiguous and contradictory, but we
witnessed a curious moment of truth when an agreement between Russia, Ukraine
and the West was signed in Geneva on April 17. At first glance everything
seemed thoroughly proper and conventional; there were appeals for
reconciliation, disarmament and mutual concessions. But even before the meeting
began, the Russian side, supposedly for technical reasons, renounced its demand
that representatives of south-eastern Ukraine should take part in the talks.
Later, it was said that the Russian delegation in Geneva had presented the
viewpoint of eastern Ukrainian organisations, specifically, the Party of
Regions and other oligarchic structures. The Donetsk Peoples Republic, the only
force that genuinely unites the population and controls the situation at the
local level, was not even mentioned.
The text of the resulting
document indicated clearly that Moscow would not object to the liquidation of
the Donetsk republic: “Among the steps for whose implementation we call are the
following: all illegal armed organisations must be disarmed; all unlawfully
occupied buildings must be returned to their legitimate owners; and all
occupied streets, squares and other public places in all cities of Ukraine must
be cleared. An amnesty must be put in place for all protesters except those who
have committed serious crimes.”
In principle, the main
idea that underlay the agreement, and that united the various sides, was a refusal
to recognise the Donetsk republic as a political fact. It was consensus on this
point that served as the pact’s real basis. The subsection on disarming
“illegal formations” was written in a way calculated to suit the new Kiev
authorities. Formally, the subsection proposes disarmament by both sides. But
the Kiev government is to retain its army, the security services and the
National Guard. The Donetsk republic has no armed formations apart from its
“unlawful” militia. Lavrov reported after the event that by unlawful formations
he had in mind the National Guard as well, but there is not a word about this
in the text of the agreement. The Ukrainian side and the West will interpret
the agreement differently, and in juridical terms they will be completely
correct: the National Guard was set up by an official decision of the
government, with the consent of the Supreme Rada. As for the “feral” hundreds
and the elements of the Right Sector that have not yet been legalised through
incorporation into the National Guard, the Kiev government itself dreams of
disarming these, since conflicts with them have arisen already.
Even more important, though,
is the demand for the relinquishing of the occupied buildings and for the
removal of the barricades on streets and squares. If this stipulation is
fulfilled, it will mean the self-liquidation of the Donetsk and Lugansk
republics, and the return to their former positions of the administrators
appointed by Kiev. This is despite the fact that it was precisely these
appointments that provoked the uprising. To rule the south-eastern provinces,
Kiev named oligarchs hated by the people, giving these figures political
authority in addition to their economic power.
It is noteworthy that
this point is not offset by any counterbalancing concessions. Nothing, for
example, is said about Kiev officially calling off its so-called anti-terrorist
operations in eastern Ukraine, and there is no suggestion that military units
are to be withdrawn to the places where they are usually stationed. That would
make perfect sense, considering the obvious failure of the operations and the decreptitude
of the army.
In sum, Moscow signed an
agreement that provided for the uprising to capitulate in exchange for an
abstract promise to begin an open and “inclusive” constitutional process, and
did not even propose direct talks with the insurgents! Naturally, the
representatives of the Ukrainian government were not called upon to give any
clear undertakings as to how the preparations for this reform would be carried
out.
The Russian diplomats
were in such a hurry to sign the Geneva agreement with Kiev that they did not
even bother to demand the removal of the disgraceful ban on the entry to
Ukraine of adult males from the Russian Federation. This was despite the fact
that the ban contradicts all international norms and amounts to a direct and flagrant
breach of human rights, as the Russian negotiators would have had to point out
in the presence of the Western representatives.
Official Kiev lost no
time in exploiting the opportunities it had been given. Premier Arseny
Yatsenyuk heaped threats onto the Donetsk and Lugansk rebels, demanding their
immediate surrender and referring to the Geneva agreement, in the framework of
which “Russia was forced to condemn extremism.”
The arrest of Konstantin
Dolgov, one of the leaders of the Kharkov left-centre coalition Popular Unity;
the attacks by the Right Sector on Donetsk republic checkpoints; and acts of
repression against activists, all of which followed immediately after the
signing of the Geneva agreement, confirmed that Kiev did not have in mind
either democratic dialogue or a peaceful settlement. Even if the government of
Turchinov and Yatsenyuk had been ready to make concessions, it would have been
prevented from doing so by the radical nationalists, without whose support the
new regime could no longer exist.
For their part, the
leaders of the Donetsk republic stated that they were pleased to note the expression
in the Geneva agreement of a “change in the position of the countries of the
West in relation to the Ukrainian events.” But since representatives of the
republic had not been invited to the meeting in Geneva, and had not signed the
document, the Donetsk leaders did not consider themselves bound by it.
“We are forced to state
that our warning concerning the juridical worthlessness and political absurdity
of an ‘all-Ukrainian’ dialogue without the participation of the lawful
representatives of eastern Ukraine and of the Donetsk People’s Republic has,
unfortunately, proved completely justified. Ignoring the will of the people of
the Donbass has had a predictably sad outcome: the results of the discussions
can only be assessed as a set of pointless, semi-coherent appeals, impossible
to realise in practice, directed by some obscure figures at unnamed people, and
subject to implementation over an indeterminate period and in unknown fashion.
At present these appeals reflect neither political realities, nor the new legal
situation that has arisen since the proclamation of the sovereign Donetsk
Peoples Republic, on whose territory they have no legal force.”
The Geneva agreement
will not be implemented. How can anyone force people to carry out such an
agreement when these people have just begun to feel their strength? When tanks
turn tail and run from them? When they are able to bring army columns to a halt
simply with catcalls and obscenities? The people will not surrender their
positions just because important gentlemen in Geneva, without asking anyone
actually on the spot, have taken it on themselves to decide the fate of others.
For anyone in Donetsk,
Lugansk, Odessa, Kharkov (and even Kiev) who has held out hopes that Putin’s
Russia will solve all the problems through its solidary intervention, recent
events will have been a sobering disappointment. But this disappointment will simply
benefit the movement. Not only must the revolution rely on its own strength, but
it already has enough strength to be successful. This is especially true since
regardless of the position taken by the Kremlin, the sympathy of Russian
society remains on the side of the insurgent people of a fraternal country.
Where Russia itself is
concerned, the ruling layers are at risk of remaining in the hole they have
painstakingly dug for themselves. By surrendering their positions on the
Ukrainian question, they are turning against themselves the patriotic moods
whose rise they have fostered in every conceivable way over the past few
months. Of course, no facts will ever convince people who consider Putin an
irreproachable hero or, on the other hand, a fairy-tale villain. But such
people, even if they spam 70 per cent of the internet with their ravings, are
nevertheless a minority.
