The US leftist journal Against the Current has just published Ukrainian historian (and soldier) Vladislav Starodubtsev’s “Retrieving History: Ukrainian People’s Republic.” The article presents a synoptic history of Ukraine’s first modern independent (and social-democratic) state. It should be required reading for anyone commenting on Ukraine today, especially from a left-wing perspective.
A few excerpts:
“USUALLY THE HISTORY of the 1917 revolution is told from the perspective of Russia. But its most radical and transformative currents emerged from the empire’s colonized peoples.
“Ukraine was first among equals. It managed to create a majority council based socialist and democratic republic, and provided an example of multi-parties, cooperative-based and decentralized socialism, that was later defeated by Russia. It was the forefront of a revolutionary shift — offering a bold vision of what politics could be.” [. . .]
“The legacy of the Ukrainian People’s Republic remains an example of resistance to Russian imperialism, a state in which authentic “soviet democracy” existed, and where the founding principles of democratic, laboring and cooperative socialism were tried.
“This republic, with its massive decentralization and local self-governance effort and its huge cooperative movement consisting of millions of people, still inspires Ukrainians to think about what a progressive future might look like.
“Sadly, the Soviet Union and, later, the Russian Federation have done everything in their power to control Ukrainian history, enforcing their own narratives, promoting xenophobia, and most importantly, denying and hiding an important, progressive, page of history that demands to be recovered.”
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