I’ve been engaging in some vigorous e-mail conversation about Ukraine with a group of local left-wing political thinkers. The following are a few pieces of that conversation that seem worth sharing. These comments are in the nature of a quick exchange, so I am not providing sources here (except for a few), but previous posts on this blog provide further background, and I’d be happy to provide more upon request.
Ukrainian Jewish leaders have penned a strongly worded Open Letter to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. Signatories include leaders of the Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine (VAAD) Ukraine, the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, the Zionist Federation of Ukraine, the Jewish Council of Ukraine, the European Jewish Congress, head rabbis of the progressive and traditional Judaism communities in Ukraine, directors of centers for Jewish and Holocaust studies, and experts in monitoring and analysing xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
A few excerpts:
We are Jewish citizens of Ukraine: businessmen, managers, public figures, scientists and scholars, artists and musicians. We are addressing you on behalf of the multi-national people of Ukraine, Ukraine’s national minorities, and on behalf of the Jewish community. [. . .]
In his article “Is Putin a new Hitler (in the making)?“, political scientist and far right watcher Anton Shekhovtsov outlines the many connections between Vladimir Putin’s Eurasianist ideologues and the European far right.
Here is the case for considering Putinism a new form of fascism.
It may be one-sided, but it should be read alongside the defenses of Putin promoted by Stephen Cohen and others in the western left. It also demonstrates how the uses of the term “fascism” in this Ukraine debate need more analysis.
This blog makes no claims toward featuring a representative sample of views on the continuing crisis in Ukraine. Such a sample would be impossible to achieve, as there are few reliable standards for determining objectivity in such an open situation.
It has recently featured voices from Ukraine’s Left, in part to make up for an absence of those voices in international coverage. That said, “Right” and “Left” are difficult to parse in today’s Ukraine. I’ve made some attempt to do that previously (e.g., here and here), but semi-authoritarian “oligarchic democracies” like that of post-Soviet Ukraine rarely allow for political positions to render themselves very transparent. Perhaps that will occur in the aftermath of the Maidan; perhaps not.
From Volodymyr Ishchenko, sociologist at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Deputy Director of the Center for Society Research (Kyiv), editor of Spil’ne: Zhurnal Sotsia’noyi Krytyky (Commons: A Journal of Social Critique), and prominent activist in Ukraine’s anti-capitalist left:
“Writing from a critical position is not something to be widely appreciated in turmoil times. For some hysterical idiots I’ve succumbed to the fascists, for others–betrayed the Fatherland. Time is now precious and to be used efficiently. This is why I respond to all in a single post.
From the Autonomous Workers Union’s statement on Russian intervention:
“The war can be averted only if proletarians of all countries, first and foremost Ukrainian and Russian, together make a stand against the criminal regime of Putin.
This statement by the Autonomous Workers Union and the Direct Action Independent Student Union makes clear the rift within the Ukrainian left between those who broadly support the anti-Yanukovych movement, participating in the Maidan to varying degrees, and those — primarily Borot’ba, but also the Progressive Socialist Party and Oplot — who align themselves with pro-Russian and Eurasianist forces.
From Mykhailo Wynnyckyj, a political scientist based at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, who has been posting perceptive on-the-ground analyses of the Maidan and its aftermath:
“most western analysis of the motivations behind Putin’s military excursion into the Crimea (and his massive buildup of personnel and equipment on Ukraine’s eastern border) can be classified into two camps:
Historian Timothy Snyder reviews the “haze of propaganda” surrounding the crisis in Ukraine in the New York Review of Books:
“Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.”
Andrei Kurkov is the leading Russian-language writer and novelist in Ukraine. He writes:
“I’m a Russian. My ancestors settled in Crimea in 1785. Growing up in Crimea, I was nurtured on Russian culture. I think, I talk, and I write in Russian…
“And I want to say this with every fibre of my being: I don’t need any protection. I demand the immediate removal of Russian troops from Ukraine.”
