This is the introduction to Ivan Maistrenko’s “Borot’bism: A Chapter in the History of the Ukrainian Revolution”. Maistrenko was a veteran of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1919-1920 who eventually joined the Trotskyist movement. In referring to the Ukrainian revolution, I choose my words carefully. Although it occurred around the same time as the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks did not lead it. In fact they mostly functioned as a bureaucratic obstacle, sadly anticipating the Kremlin’s repeated miscues in Germany a few years later. The more I read about this period, the more I am convinced that there were no “heroic days” of the Comintern. When I joined the Trotskyist movement, I was indoctrinated into believing that the rise of Stalin was a kind of fall from paradise. In reality, the world would have been much better off it there had been no Comintern and that revolutionary parties had been allowed to learn from their own mistakes rather than having mistakes imposed upon them from afar. The details in Fords’ article overlaps to a considerable degree with those in Zbigniew Kowalewski’s “For the independence of Soviet Ukraine” (http://louisproyect.org/2014/04/20/lenins-party-great-russian-chauvinism-and-the-betrayal-of-ukrainian-national-aspirations/). Reading these two articles is mandatory for those trying to come to grips with the tangled history of Russia, the Ukraine and the socialist movement. For those content to repeat RT.com’s talking points, it is probably too late for you—god save your miserable soul.
full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/05/12/chris-fords-introduction-to-ivan-maistrenkos-borotbism/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
