In a report on the recent conference “The Left and the Maidan,” held in Kyiv in April, Russian trade unionist Kirill Buketov (of the Global Labour Institute and the International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers) provides a detailed overview of the role of the political left in the Maidan movement.
Buketov argues that while the Maidan cannot be adequately described as either left-wing or right-wing in its political character — according to polls, “93% of the Maidan participants were distant from politics” and only 7% “had a political position and belonged to one political group or another” — in spirit it was “left-wing” and “libertarian.”
“Driven by protest against corruption and tyranny, against humiliation and oppression, by masses of people who felt their dignity had been offended by their rulers’ lies,”
