In “Dangerous Liaisons: Ukraine and the Western Slavists,” Rossen Djagalov calls for “a certain minimum of political hygiene and scholarly honesty” among observers of the Ukraine crisis. The article provides an example of the kind of nuanced reflection that navigates the terrain between the perspectives of Snyder and McGovern (see previous post).
A few excerpts:
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.
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.
A friend of mine alerted me to the following unpublished text, which was sent to a network of activists in the international Left. It is by retired scholar and activist Richard Greeman, director of the International Victor Serge Foundation, co-founder of the Praxis Research and Education Center in Moscow (which co-sponsored the first International Congress of Independant Labor Unions last November in Kyiv), and close colleague of political theorists Immanuel Wallerstein and Cornelius Castoriadis.
It is being published here by permission of the author.
Ukraine, Revolution or Coup?