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On 2014-03-07, at 2:05 AM, glparrama...@greenleft.org.au wrote: > By Boris Kagarlitsky, Moscow; translated by Renfrey Clarke > > March 4, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Why, > do you suppose, war has not yet broken out between Russia and Ukraine? The > answer is very simple: no one plans to go to war, and no one can. Kiev for > practical purposes does not have an army, while the government that has > appeared in Kiev has no control over half of Ukraine, and cannot even > exercise particular control over its own supporters. If the Ukrainian > authorities make any serious attempt to mobilise their forces, this will > merely provoke new protests. Even rumours of such a possibility have been > enough to provoke anti-government demonstrations in Odessa. > > Full article at http://links.org.au/node/3752 Kagarlitsky's continuing analysis of the contending forces has been superb. From the same article: More than likely, the present authorities in Kiev will not hold out for long… Commentators in Moscow who are sympathetic to them remind us constantly that most of the ministries in the new government are not held by radicals from Svoboda or the Right Sector, but by more moderate politicians. Meanwhile, the commentators neglect to mention that these “moderates” are hostages of the radicals. As Mao said, power comes from the barrel of a gun. In circumstances where the army has fallen to pieces, and the organs of law enforcement have either been smashed, or are demoralised, or have been placed under the control of the Right Sector, it is the radical nationalists who control the situation. The “moderates” in the government are only tolerated because they have promised to stop the eastern provinces splitting away. Now that they are failing to cope with this task, they will be purged. Either western Ukraine will move against Kiev as well, seeking the formation of a more resolute and “national” government as a “response to Russian aggression”, or the same impulse will come from within the capital itself. In either case, right-wing pressure will result in such a government being formed that Kiev itself will rise in revolt. In the east, meanwhile, the disintegration of the Party of the Regions and the collapse of the old administration have not resulted in the “triumphant progress” of the Maidan movement, but on the contrary, to growing resistance to the new authorities holding sway in Kiev. Among leftists, the deepening economic crisis is sowing hopes that the demonstrations under “national slogans” will soon be replaced by class-based protests both in the east and the west. Developments of this sort, however, do not occur automatically. Neither Maidan nor the demonstrations in the east have had the character of a spontaneous popular revolution. In both cases, outside forces have been involved. The class nature of the new regime in Kiev was demonstrated with striking clarity when billionaire oligarchs were appointed to key posts in the eastern regions. In exchange for “stabilisation”, they were offered the chance to privatise not only the economy in the eastern provinces, but also the functions of power. Meanwhile, it should be noted that the people who are now coming to power in the east are not exactly sons and daughters of the popular masses either. The only cause for optimism is the fact that from the beginning, the ideological vector of the protests in the east has been different from that in the west. Left activists were driven from the Maidan in Kiev and beaten up (that is not to mention what happened to left-wing symbols and monuments). In Kharkov and Odessa, by contrast, Soviet monuments were defended, and here and there people even raised red flags. But there should be no illusions here: what is involved for the present is cultural differences rather than class positions. Members of the left need to work in the protest movement in the eastern regions, strengthening their influence and helping to shape a positive program. In this case, there is a real chance that the entire movement can be shifted to more progressive positions, and that the left can win hegemony within it. This is no more than a potential opening, but with the Maidan movement no such chance existed. The conflict unfolding in Ukraine is not a contest of unalloyed good versus unambiguous evil. Nor is it even a contest between a “Russian” south and east and a “Ukrainian” west. In both cases, economic interests are intertwined with cultural contradictions, and the logic of the conflict is leading to the formation of alliances that do not always correspond to declared ideologies. What is occurring is not so much a split within the country as its fragmentation. ________________________________________________ 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
