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On 2014-03-03, at 6:28 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: > On 3/2/14 10:59 PM, turb...@aol.com wrote: >> ...Are you arguing that we should be indifferent to predominant fascistic >> influence in the Euromaidan movement because the fascists might not succeed? >> If so, >> this is an extremely peculiar argument. > > Interview with Ilya Budraitskis, a Moscow-based socialist in Kiev. > > Budraitskis: Fascism arose after the First World War as a counter-movement to > strong revolutionary communist workers’ movements across large parts of > Europe. Fascists had the explicit aim of smashing these workers’ movements > and securing the dominance of capital, something the liberal state could not > guarantee...In Ukraine in 2014 there is neither a strong workers’ movement, > nor a fascist movement that aims to destroy it, nor a state which capital > doesn’t trust. The situation is neither about bringing the working class to > power, nor about physically destroying the workers’ movement. This is quite true, but at the same time shouldn't obscure the backward character of the mass movement, which the fascists reinforce. It's comforting to describe the movement as "contradictory", but there is little evidence of such political contradictions, with the radical and liberal left marginalized and the values they represent discredited, and the movement's organization tightly controlled from above by the right nationalist parties. From the first interview with Denis, a left-wing activist in Kiev: Vratislav: ...I read that the ultra-right activists are a minority within the movement, however an important one. Could you possibly make an estimation how big this minority is and explain what gives them such an importance? And what about liberals? How numerous they are and what is their importance in the movement? I mean even in terms of practice. Denis: Ukraine has a big problem with liberals – they don’t exist as a self-sufficient strong political trend. Both political camps are dominated by right populist ideologies – a wild mix of conservatism and nationalism. That’s the main problem, because the actual number of the ultra right activists is not that big, it’s even tiny compared to the crowd which at some times consisted of 100 thousand people or even more; while the full mobilization potential of fascists from all Ukraine is approximately 1-2 thousands. But, first of all, their ideas are welcome among the apolitical crowd; second of all, they are very well organized, and also people love their “radicalism”. An average Ukrainian worker hates the police and the government but he will never fight them openly and risk his comfort. So he or she welcomes a “vanguard” which is ready to fight on their behalf; especially if that vanguard shares “good” patriotic values. […] Vratislav: It is obvious that conservative views play an important role within the consciousness of a large part of the Ukrainian population. Where shall we look for historical and social sources of such conservatism? Denis: Yes, I’ve already written about the creepy archaic patterns that are being revived at Maidan. Also, about the reasons: during the last 20 years the humanitarian policies of the state were in the hands of nationalists. And they managed to raise a generation which doesn’t see any problem in phrases like “Ukraine for Ukrainians” or “Ukraine is above all”, in a notion of “gene pool of the nation”. Also, the traditions and the “heroic” past is also considered as something a priori good. Denying the current state of affairs and the Soviet experience, being afraid of all the progressive elements of EU ideology (like tolerance for LGBT, popularity of leftist ideology) they are gladly embracing all the invented traditions they were taught in schools. Vratislav: Would it be plausible to identify as a reason of this conservatism also the fact that after the initial “shock therapy” in the 1990´s, the capitalist restructuring lost its momentum and since then the Ukraine has tended towards becoming a “world for itself” and preserving a certain social-economic status quo, perhaps, in order to avoid an explosion of so many contradictions (class, national, geopolitical, economical, etc.) that intersect each other in the Ukrainian society? In such a context of a defensive withdrawal from global liberalisation processes, strong and widespread conservative nationalism, with its unquestioning celebration of the “glorious” past, would seem to make sense. Denis: I don’t know much about how this restructuring went in the “exemplary” countries like Czech Republic; didn’t you have a certain resurgence of conservative values and nationalist “invented traditions”? As far as I know, that has been the case not only in Ukraine and Russia, but also in such countries as Poland, Hungary, Romania, former Yugoslav republics. I would rather explain it in another way: the crash of the “real socialism” also brought about the crash of the progressive values which had been officially promoted in that society (atheism, feminism, internationalism). The gap has been promptly filled by the wild mixture of nationalism and conservatism (and New Age charlatan philosophy, for that matter). This shift was eagerly supported by the state ideological apparatus. Actually, in many universities at the beginning of 1990s the departments of “scientific communism” were rebranded into “scientific nationalism”! Later they became the departments of “political science” though. So, this situation is in many ways similar to the wave of conservatism and Islamism which came to the Middle Eastern countries after the downfall of the modernizing bourgeois dictatorships and of the opposing socialist ideology. My hypothesis is that the severity of this process may correlate to the level of urbanization in a given country: the larger the part of urban dwellers, the less the probability of such slide back to conservatism and the depth of this slide. […] Vratislav: The Maidan as a social body has to tackle its own reproduction, to organise its own infrastructure, defence. It would be great if you could talk a bit about this important aspect and describe how is Maidan´s internal life sustained and organised. Denis: As far as I understand, all the potential self-organization at Maidan is substituted by the organizational structures of the rightist political forces. Svoboda, Right Sector and Spilna Sprava occupy buildings and manage the everyday life. The parliamentary opposition also has its voice in these matters; anyway, everything is strongly dependent on leaders who represent the already established political structures. For example, there are sotnias – “hundreds”, defence units. Formally they are all under command of Andriy Parubiy – once a founding member of Social Nationalist party of Ukraine which is now called Svoboda, but now a member of Batkivschyna. In reality, there are units which don’t obey Parubiy or even Svoboda (like the Right Sector), but anyway the existence of “not sanctioned” units is doubtful. The same goes for other issues: food, firewood, petroleum, makeshift weaponry. You can walk around and collect money for these purposes but you must give away 70% to “bosses” who will know how to spend that money. There is some space for self-organization but it’s very limited. Vital things just “appear” for an ordinary person there, rank-and-file activists don’t take any part in decision-making. Although if you belong to a certain “sotnia”, it can be quite autonomous in managing its own funds and resources. Then everything depends on the structure and relations inside that particular unit. Vratislav: So, while for instance Indignados tended to exclude political parties from occupations, in case of the Maidan opposition parties are present in its very heart and Maidan´s self-reproduction is dependent on Batkivshchina, UDAR, Svoboda and their own structures and resources. Moreover, elsewhere you said that there are no assemblies taking place at the Maidan. During two months of being and struggling together at the Maidan participants have not produced their own separated moment of collective decision-making. Why is it so? Because decisions are in fact made by the opposition leaders and their hierarchies? In some other interview you also pointed out that there is a kind of dichotomy between “the crowd” and politicians. How does this dichotomy come into existence and expresses itself? Denis: I think I’ve partly answered your question above. Yes, the opposition parties are not exactly popular among people at Maidan, they are considered to be opportunists pursuing their own interests and ready to betray the protest movement. But still they are indeed managing the infrastructure of Maidan and are the ones who make actual decisions. Indeed, there haven’t appeared any assemblies or other instruments of collective decision-making. Maybe in certain respect this paradoxical situation is a reflection of the society as a whole with its paternalistic attitudes and social passivity: it’s convenient to hate bosses but to let them do the things! […] Vratislav: ...you mentioned that Ukrainian people are not used to striking. In sum, does it mean that the Ukraine (as most other Central and Eastern European countries and many other regions of the world) is characterised by a striking lack of workplace struggles? In your view, what are the reasons? Denis: Yes, that’s right. There are plenty of theories to explain the labour weakness in the Eastern Europe. One of the most convincing is the legacy of Soviet political culture where you had bosses who did everything for you and instead of you. There is a huge institution left from the USSR, Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine. Officially, it has millions of members, but it is in no way a militant organization which defends workers’ rights. They have good lawyers and bureaucrats who take part in the procedures of social partnership, honestly trying to win as many concessions as they can, but they see themselves as co-managers of the corporatist economy, not as representatives of workers. As for other, truly independent, militant unions – well, there are virtually none. Why hasn’t the workplace militancy developed during post-Soviet time? Partly because of the long and painful economic crisis. You can’t unionise and strike when you’re about to be kicked out into the streets, and your factory is about to close. There were massive strikes in 1990s, to be sure, but they were mostly organized by management of non-privatized enterprises as an instrument of pressure on their bosses. So, new structures and institutions which could become a base for an independent workers’ movement simply did not appear. The old pattern of delegating your struggle to the bosses was thus confirmed. And the economic boom of 2000s turned out to be too short for changing that attitude. Full: http://links.org.au/node/3735 ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
