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The idea that Ukraine is being run by fascists and that the Maidan protests were fascist in nature is clearly daft, whether it is Putin, Western left-wingers or whoever is saying it. But the reaction to this in certain areas of the left, not least on this list -- the 'move along, there's nothing to worry about' school -- is very complacent. Those who saw the Madian protests as a justifiable response to a corrupt government -- and in this aspect the protests were surely valid -- and as a broadly positive phenomenon have to ask how it is that the real muscle in the protests when things got nasty was provided by the extreme right, and that the ensuing government has several of these characters as ministers, the first time this has happened in Europe in nearly 70 years, how a broadly pro-democratic movement has given plum jobs to definitely anti-democratic people. Whatever happens over the next few weeks in the Crimea, the bigger danger is in the longer term, although what's happening in the Crimea is increasing this danger. Prior to 1991, the boundary between Russia and Ukraine was largely administrative. For much of the postwar period, there was much intermixing of Russians and Ukrainians in Eastern and Central Ukraine, lots of friendships and marriages; it didn't matter whether one was a Russian, a Ukrainian speaking the Ukrainian language, or a Russophone Ukrainian. Now, with Ukraine and Russia as separate nation-states, with the concomitant divergences in domestic and foreign policies and interests, and with the mobilisation of Russian and Ukrainian nationalist sentiments by the respective governments, people in Ukraine are under growing pressure to choose an identity: with Russia or with Ukraine. This is something that I have not seen discussed much, although it was precisely this dynamic which underlay the internecine tensions and subsequent atrocities in Yugoslavia when the internal administrative borders became national ones as the federation disintegrated, and being a Yugoslav counted for little. According to the well-informed People and Nature site (I know one of the contributors, who has a good knowledge of the area and has written a book on Putin's regime), the far-right in Ukraine does pose a danger, not so much because of its government posts, but because of its local activities and links with the forces of the state on a local level: 'The immediate danger from the right wing and fascists consists primarily not in Svoboda's government positions, but in the widespread presence of self-defence units, some armed, some of which are controlled by Svoboda and the Right Sector, and some of which have been operating joint patrols with the police. Svoboda deputies have proposed a law legalising these units, and leftists fear that they will have access to information on labour activists collected by the police. The European left should work in solidarity with our Ukrainian friends against such dangers.' < http://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/ > I would add to this that I suspect that some of the occupation of government offices in Western Ukraine who carried out with the connivance of local state forces. This process is being matched by Russian nationalists, especially in Eastern Ukraine, with the rise of unofficial militias, and the cumulative effect of this type of local-level agitation and governmental nationalist agitation will, especially if there is no countervailing political force promoting the joint interests of ordinary Russians and Ukrainians, have an appalling impact. Rather than making exaggerated claims about a 'fascist government' or being complacent about the role of the far-right in Ukraine, I feel that left-wingers should do what they can to help those in both Ukraine and Russia who are standing up against the rise of rival nationalisms and stem the trend towards ethnic and national divisions. Neither of the above stances are helpful, and the 'digging in' of the respective protagonists behind the bulwarks of their positions is merely producing a lot of wasted heat and precious little, if any, light. Paul F ________________________________________________ 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
