Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Antifascisti immaginari

http://rs21.org.uk/2014/07/02/ukraine-between-east-and-west/
 
 
Ukraine: between East and West
 
rs21 on July 2, 2014
 
Jan Ladziński
 
1. Fascism, anti-fascism and the political nature of post-Yanukovych Ukraine
 
The narrative of the ‘anti-fascist’ uprising in the East should be 
tackled first, before we examine the wider question of the East-West 
divide. The anti-fascist credentials of the Eastern Ukrainian militias 
are particularly suspect. Despite the vocal outrage of officials 
representing the Peoples’ Republics in the East over the inclusion of 
Right Sector and Svoboda activists in the new government, they proved at 
best unwilling to protect the minorities of Eastern Ukraine from 
violence and oppression. Jews, Roma, and LGBT people are under threat in 
the ‘anti-fascist’ East. The Donetsk People’s Republic, however eager to 
denounce Svoboda and include some Communist Party members, is not a left 
alternative for Ukraine. One of its leaders, Pavel Gubarev, used to be 
an activist for the fascist Russian National Unity. The symbolism of the 
new entities in the East is full of references to the imperial past of 
tsarist Russia.
 
In Russian-occupied Crimea the prospects for minorities are not much 
better. Tatar film-maker Oleg Sentsov has been missing since May, when 
he was arrested at a demonstration against the Russian intervention. A 
Tatar mosque in Simferopol was attacked on 13 June. It is becoming clear 
that the early anxieties of the inhabitants of the Eastern regions over 
the change of leadership in Kiev has been subsequently hijacked by 
political leaders and groups whose agenda is far more sinister than a 
defense of the cultural rights of the Russian speakers. Their 
anti-fascist slogans are not a conscious political stand but merely an 
instrument subordinate to nationalist goals defined, in contrast to 
Western Ukraine, by Slavic bonds with Russia.
 
The claim that the Kiev government has fascist tendencies appears to 
have more evidence to support it but even in this case the label is 
unhelpful. Although a number of posts, including that of General 
Prosecutor, have been given to Svoboda members, the government is not 
dominated by the far right. Faced with the conflict in Crimea the elites 
had to quickly consolidate around the established political class and 
exclude the inconvenient radicals.
 
The leader of the Right Sector, Dmytro Yarosh, eventually failed to take 
up a government post despite earlier promises. The 25 May presidential 
elections confirmed that facing the insurgency in the East and the 
Russian occupation of Crimea the majority of people rallied around 
moderate candidates. Svoboda and Right Sector candidates won only 2.3% 
of the votes between them. Compared with some Western European countries 
the far-right is doing relatively poorly at the ballot box. Most 
importantly, the basic freedoms of assembly and political organisation 
are maintained in areas under the rule of Kiev government. May Day was 
celebrated by the social-democratic SPU and by anarchists in Kiev and 
Kharkiv. The events in Odessa the following day certainly showed that 
the Right Sector have become a threat to the stability of the new 
government, not its cornerstone.
 
Ultimately the narrative of fascists in Kiev and anti-fascists in the 
East does not explain the conflict in Ukraine. Nationalist and the 
far-right elements are present both in the Kiev government and Donetsk 
People’s Republic and the conflict is clearly defined by both sides in 
national (and not economic or social) terms, with ‘true Ukrainians’ on 
the one hand and ‘Novorossiya’ on the other. In reality, it is primarily 
a conflict between sections of the Ukrainian oligarchic elite, which 
depending on their product and the market it needs, look towards East or 
West.
 
A genuine ceasefire is a necessary precondition for the Left to shift 
the public debate away from the war rhetoric and patriotic slogans, back 
to the focus on corruption and lack of democracy and finally towards the 
consequences of EU-imposed austerity and a need for deeper economic 
changes. Such a ceasefire must involve Russia, which currently provides 
recruits and equipment for the insurgents in the East and continually 
fuels the conflict in pursuit of its imperialist interests. The left in 
Russia and Western Europe should support peace by opposing all forms of 
intervention, whether by Russian tanks or Western banks, and campain for 
cancellation of the Ukrainian debt.
 
[...]
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Namib
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