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Towards the Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to War
Ukrainian politics, the Russian invasion and the escalating crisis of the post-Soviet world
In Towards the Abyss , social scientist Volodymyr Ishchenko tracks a decade of war and upheaval in Ukraine. Ishchenko has been among the most significant left-wing commentators on Ukraine since 2014 when pro-EU protestors toppled the government in Kiev, pro-Russian separatists seized parts of the Donbas and Putin annexed Crimea. His analysis gives a deeper understanding of the country’s political dynamics. NATO occupies a peculiar place in this history and Ishchenko sifts Ukrainians' attitudes towards it.
Ishchenko’s parents worked as Soviet scientists and engineers in Kiev on cybernetics and cosmonautics. No outside power has offered Ukraine a future that compares to this lost world of Soviet modernity.
He argues that the conflict being fought in Ukraine with tanks, artillery and rockets is the same conflict that police batons have suppressed in Belarus and Russia itself. The intensification of the post-Soviet crisis – the incapacity of an oligarchic ruling class in the territories of the former USSR to develop sustained political, moral and intellectual leadership – is the root cause for the escalating violence.
In Towards the Abyss , social scientist Volodymyr Ishchenko tracks a decade of war and upheaval in Ukraine. Ishchenko has been among the most significant left-wing commentators on Ukraine since 2014 when pro-EU protestors toppled the government in Kiev, pro-Russian separatists seized parts of the Donbas and Putin annexed Crimea. His analysis gives a deeper understanding of the country’s political dynamics. NATO occupies a peculiar place in this history and Ishchenko sifts Ukrainians' attitudes towards it.
Ishchenko’s parents worked as Soviet scientists and engineers in Kiev on cybernetics and cosmonautics. No outside power has offered Ukraine a future that compares to this lost world of Soviet modernity.
He argues that the conflict being fought in Ukraine with tanks, artillery and rockets is the same conflict that police batons have suppressed in Belarus and Russia itself. The intensification of the post-Soviet crisis – the incapacity of an oligarchic ruling class in the territories of the former USSR to develop sustained political, moral and intellectual leadership – is the root cause for the escalating violence.
192 pages, Paperback
Published February 27, 2024
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November 23, 2025
Very long overdue read by progressive Ukrainian scholar Volodymyr Ishchenko: 'Towards the Abyss: From Maidan to War' (Verso Books, 2024).
Overall, Ishchenko interprets Ukraine’s trajectory from the 2013–14 Maidan uprising to the full-scale Russian invasion as the outcome of a deeper post-Soviet crisis of hegemony. Rather than presenting Maidan as a straightforward struggle between “pro-European democracy” and “pro-Russian authoritarianism,” he argues that Ukraine’s political transformation remained trapped within oligarchic capitalism and a stalled modernisation project.
According to Ishchenko, Maidan mobilised broad demands for dignity, fairness, accountability, and a break from corrupt elites. Yet the political forces that ultimately came to represent the uprising — neoliberal, pro-Western reformers and nationalist organisations — lacked both a broad social base and a coherent project for social justice. Their programme prioritised geopolitical realignment, market liberalisation, and an anti-corruption agenda that did not challenge the underlying political-economic order.
This is very visible still today and I would invite my fellow leftists to look a bit closer at the very eerie ideological alignment in Ukraine political mainstream between hardcore: neoliberalism, nationalism, militarism and AI/ tech utopia.
The book also addresses the more challenging and still contested question within the progressive left on how to interpret the 2022 full scale invasion - beyond liberal gibberish of the madman, historical imperialist ambitions, non-materialist 'geopolitics', or the eternally evil Ivan lol etc.
The book’s Marxist analysis locates the full-scale invasion within a wider regional struggle between political capitalists — elites who accumulate power through state rents, violent patronage, and resource control — and the competing pressures of globalised, competitive capitalism. In Russia, the oligarchic-bureaucratic ruling bloc around Vladimir Putin uses coercion, nationalism, imperial nostalgia, and militarisation to defend its rent-based model of accumulation from both civic dissent and modernising economic interests. From this perspective, war becomes not merely imperial aggression, but a strategy to preserve a fragile class settlement threatened by global economic integration and democratic mobilisation.
Ishchenko argues that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is thus not only geopolitical; it is the violent continuation of the unresolved post-Soviet crisis. On one side, a militarised rent-seeking regime seeks survival; on the other, a pro-Western liberal-nationalist bloc aspires to join global capitalism but lacks the power, depth, and inclusiveness necessary to carry out genuine structural transformation. In this vacuum, the demands of ordinary people for social rights and democratic empowerment remain unresolved, leaving both states vulnerable to coercion, nationalism, and war. Ishchenko suggests that the war forces a deliberate decoupling from the West, not simply in strategic or military terms but economically and institutionally, as the liberal-Western path becomes blocked and the region’s peripheral status is reinforced.
In his chapter on identity, Ishchenko examines how decolonization in Ukraine is often framed as a struggle to escape Russian imperial domination. While acknowledging the need to dismantle Russification and imperial hierarchies, he warns that the current “decolonial turn” risks turning into cultural purification rather than democratic emancipation. Instead of tackling inequality, state reform, or social rights, it is frequently reduced to symbolic politics—renaming streets, policing language, or banning cultural products. In this form, decolonization becomes a tool of elite nationalism, narrowing debate and sidelining dissent, rather than an inclusive project of egalitarian, democratic liberation rooted in anti-colonial tradition - something Ukrainian identity politics shares with identity politics more broadly.
So, a great read all up, there's such a scarcity of genuinely progressive analysis of this war (also from a non-nationalist Ukrainian perspective!) which of course cannot be understood outside of post-soviet class formations within the global capitalism conjuncture.
Overall, Ishchenko interprets Ukraine’s trajectory from the 2013–14 Maidan uprising to the full-scale Russian invasion as the outcome of a deeper post-Soviet crisis of hegemony. Rather than presenting Maidan as a straightforward struggle between “pro-European democracy” and “pro-Russian authoritarianism,” he argues that Ukraine’s political transformation remained trapped within oligarchic capitalism and a stalled modernisation project.
According to Ishchenko, Maidan mobilised broad demands for dignity, fairness, accountability, and a break from corrupt elites. Yet the political forces that ultimately came to represent the uprising — neoliberal, pro-Western reformers and nationalist organisations — lacked both a broad social base and a coherent project for social justice. Their programme prioritised geopolitical realignment, market liberalisation, and an anti-corruption agenda that did not challenge the underlying political-economic order.
This is very visible still today and I would invite my fellow leftists to look a bit closer at the very eerie ideological alignment in Ukraine political mainstream between hardcore: neoliberalism, nationalism, militarism and AI/ tech utopia.
The book also addresses the more challenging and still contested question within the progressive left on how to interpret the 2022 full scale invasion - beyond liberal gibberish of the madman, historical imperialist ambitions, non-materialist 'geopolitics', or the eternally evil Ivan lol etc.
The book’s Marxist analysis locates the full-scale invasion within a wider regional struggle between political capitalists — elites who accumulate power through state rents, violent patronage, and resource control — and the competing pressures of globalised, competitive capitalism. In Russia, the oligarchic-bureaucratic ruling bloc around Vladimir Putin uses coercion, nationalism, imperial nostalgia, and militarisation to defend its rent-based model of accumulation from both civic dissent and modernising economic interests. From this perspective, war becomes not merely imperial aggression, but a strategy to preserve a fragile class settlement threatened by global economic integration and democratic mobilisation.
Ishchenko argues that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is thus not only geopolitical; it is the violent continuation of the unresolved post-Soviet crisis. On one side, a militarised rent-seeking regime seeks survival; on the other, a pro-Western liberal-nationalist bloc aspires to join global capitalism but lacks the power, depth, and inclusiveness necessary to carry out genuine structural transformation. In this vacuum, the demands of ordinary people for social rights and democratic empowerment remain unresolved, leaving both states vulnerable to coercion, nationalism, and war. Ishchenko suggests that the war forces a deliberate decoupling from the West, not simply in strategic or military terms but economically and institutionally, as the liberal-Western path becomes blocked and the region’s peripheral status is reinforced.
In his chapter on identity, Ishchenko examines how decolonization in Ukraine is often framed as a struggle to escape Russian imperial domination. While acknowledging the need to dismantle Russification and imperial hierarchies, he warns that the current “decolonial turn” risks turning into cultural purification rather than democratic emancipation. Instead of tackling inequality, state reform, or social rights, it is frequently reduced to symbolic politics—renaming streets, policing language, or banning cultural products. In this form, decolonization becomes a tool of elite nationalism, narrowing debate and sidelining dissent, rather than an inclusive project of egalitarian, democratic liberation rooted in anti-colonial tradition - something Ukrainian identity politics shares with identity politics more broadly.
So, a great read all up, there's such a scarcity of genuinely progressive analysis of this war (also from a non-nationalist Ukrainian perspective!) which of course cannot be understood outside of post-soviet class formations within the global capitalism conjuncture.
January 13, 2026
Der Autor ist ein ukrainischer Linker und das Bild, das er von seinem Heimatland zeichnet, ist definitiv nicht das, was man hier im Westen vielleicht so kennt: Für ihn ist die Ukraine seit dem Zusammenbruch der SU 1991 primär ein Spielball von verschiedenen Großmächten und Oligarchen gewesen. Nachdem der Kapitalismus in den post-sowjetischen Staaten Einzug gehalten hat, hat das nicht zu blühenden Landschaften und Wohlstand geführt, sondern zu zwei Dingen: einer ideologischen Leerstelle, da wo mal der sowjetische Sozialismus stand, und zur Entstehung einer Klasse von „political capitalists“, also Oligarchen, die ihren Zugang zu politischer Macht nutzen, um die ehemaligen Staatsbetriebe der SU aufkauften und damit steinreich wurden. So ist die Rolle von Putin zB seit über 20 Jahren, Stabilität für seine Klasse von Oligarchen zu schaffen. Und genau vor diesem Hintergrund beschreibt der Autor auch die russische Invasion: als Handlung, die dem Klasseninteresse dieser Oligarchen diente. Weil political capitalist kann man ja nur sein, wenn die Ukraine weiterhin als ökonomische Einflusssphäre für russische Oligarchen offen steht, und das war seit den Maidan-Protesten 2014 eben nicht mehr gegeben. Was machst du also, wenn dir deine Einflusssphäre aus der Hand gleitet? Du greifst sie an, um sie mit Gewalt zurückzuholen. Wohin ist sie aber geglitten? Nicht in die Freiheit für die Ukrainer*innen, deren einzelne Interessen man sowieso nicht einfach als „das Interesse der Ukraine“ zusammenfassen sollte, sondern in die Hände von westlichen Staaten, Investoren und Institutionen, die das Land auch rein instrumentell betrachten. Und Ishchenko ist da sehr klar: Nur eine Befreiung aus der ideologischen Leerstelle der Oligarchen und aus der Verarmung durch westlichen Neoliberalismus kann diese tödliche Spirale beenden. Das Buch ist zT eine Sammlung von verschiedenen Artikeln des Autors und deshalb etwas redundant, aber es endet sehr tragisch: „Die Ukraine, in der ich geboren wurde und in der ich den Großteil meines Lebens verbracht habe, ist verschwunden, für immer – egal wie dieser Krieg endet.“ Nicht weil der Westen nicht genug Waffen geliefert hätte oder man nicht kriegstüchtig genug gewesen wäre, sondern weil die Ukrainer*innen über Jahrzehnte der Spielball verschiedener kapitalistischer Großmächte waren und jetzt zwischen ihnen zerrieben werden.
August 23, 2024
Analysis of the situation in Ukraine that is deeply rooted in the historical, especially post-Soviet, context of the region, coming from a genuine leftist position, and it avoids neo-liberal nationalist chest beating while also deeply caring about the people, especially working class and Eastern region dwelling, of Ukraine. What a concept!
A great passage from the end that imagines an alternate future for Ukrainian identity that isn’t merely a rejection of Russian and by extension Soviet culture and history:
“The call to see Ukraine as a paradigmatic case of the far-reaching global crisis requires a completely different perspective on the country itself. It means abandoning the typical post-Soviet teleological liberal-modernization story — which, in the guise of ‘decolonization’, requires us to interiorize a far inferior colonial position. Instead, we need to recognize that we could be proud of having once been part of a universal movement. Ukraine was crucial to the greatest social revolution and modernization breakthrough in human history. Ukraine was where some of the most significant battles of World War II took place. Millions of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in the Red Army contributed huge sacrifices to defeat Nazi Germany. Ukraine was a a world renowned centre of vanguardist art and culture. The mass murders and authoritarianism of the state-socialist regime are universally acknowledged; but to exploit them to depreciate the scale of Soviet achievements is to cast Ukrainian labour, blood, and suffering as meaningless.”
A great passage from the end that imagines an alternate future for Ukrainian identity that isn’t merely a rejection of Russian and by extension Soviet culture and history:
“The call to see Ukraine as a paradigmatic case of the far-reaching global crisis requires a completely different perspective on the country itself. It means abandoning the typical post-Soviet teleological liberal-modernization story — which, in the guise of ‘decolonization’, requires us to interiorize a far inferior colonial position. Instead, we need to recognize that we could be proud of having once been part of a universal movement. Ukraine was crucial to the greatest social revolution and modernization breakthrough in human history. Ukraine was where some of the most significant battles of World War II took place. Millions of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in the Red Army contributed huge sacrifices to defeat Nazi Germany. Ukraine was a a world renowned centre of vanguardist art and culture. The mass murders and authoritarianism of the state-socialist regime are universally acknowledged; but to exploit them to depreciate the scale of Soviet achievements is to cast Ukrainian labour, blood, and suffering as meaningless.”
October 14, 2024
Ishchenko places Ukraine at the center of “a fundamentally new situation that emerged with the collapse of Soviet socialism” (97) and argues that “the Russian ruling class bears the primary responsibility for the war. By understanding their material interests, we can move beyond flimsy explanations that take rulers' claims at face value and move towards a more coherent picture of how the war is rooted in the economic and political vacuum opened up by the Soviet collapse in 1991” (96).
Ukraine’s emergent political capitalists are threatened by both their Russian counterparts and transnational capital whose locus of power is in the West.
Ishchenko explains:
There was no way to integrate post-Soviet political capitalists into Western-led institutions that explicitly sought to eliminate them as a class by depriving them of their main competitive advantage: selective benefts bestowed by the post-Soviet states. The so-called anti-corruption agenda has been a vital, if not the most important, part of the Western institutions vision for the post-Soviet space, widely shared by the pro-Western middle class in the region. For political capitalists, the success of that agenda would mean their political and economic end.
In public, the Kremlin tries to present the war as a battle for Russia's survival as a sovereign nation. The most important stake, however, is the survival of the Russian ruling class and its model of political capitalism. The ‘multipolar' restructuring of the world order would solve the problem for some time. This is why the Kremlin is trying to sell its specific class project to the Global South elites that would get their own sovereign 'sphere of influence' based on a claim to represent a 'civilization'(103)’
There’s a great deal more to Ishchenko’s thoughtful book. I recommend it.
Ukraine’s emergent political capitalists are threatened by both their Russian counterparts and transnational capital whose locus of power is in the West.
Ishchenko explains:
There was no way to integrate post-Soviet political capitalists into Western-led institutions that explicitly sought to eliminate them as a class by depriving them of their main competitive advantage: selective benefts bestowed by the post-Soviet states. The so-called anti-corruption agenda has been a vital, if not the most important, part of the Western institutions vision for the post-Soviet space, widely shared by the pro-Western middle class in the region. For political capitalists, the success of that agenda would mean their political and economic end.
In public, the Kremlin tries to present the war as a battle for Russia's survival as a sovereign nation. The most important stake, however, is the survival of the Russian ruling class and its model of political capitalism. The ‘multipolar' restructuring of the world order would solve the problem for some time. This is why the Kremlin is trying to sell its specific class project to the Global South elites that would get their own sovereign 'sphere of influence' based on a claim to represent a 'civilization'(103)’
There’s a great deal more to Ishchenko’s thoughtful book. I recommend it.
March 6, 2024
After following the authors work in the New Left Review and other places for some time I have been looking forward to this release.
This is essential reading for not only a history of the crisis in Ukraine but also for learning about the essential about obscured elements of the conflict that might be obscured for north american observers like myself.
To me the most enlightening and thought provoking portion comes in his assesments of post Soviet states and they are the way they are. Existing in a post revolutionary almost wasteland and how this relates to the political economy of Putin or Lukashenko.
Great book!
This is essential reading for not only a history of the crisis in Ukraine but also for learning about the essential about obscured elements of the conflict that might be obscured for north american observers like myself.
To me the most enlightening and thought provoking portion comes in his assesments of post Soviet states and they are the way they are. Existing in a post revolutionary almost wasteland and how this relates to the political economy of Putin or Lukashenko.
Great book!
June 11, 2025
Two bourgeois narratives are facing off in the Ukraine war: one says that Ukraine is an ancient nation locked in eternal conflict with Russia; the other says that Ukrainians are fundamentally part of the Russian nation, and were split off by the Bolsheviks and NATO. The Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko, currently a scholar in Berlin, digs into the messy reality of post-Soviet Ukrainian nation-building with all its contradictions. Western politicians say "Ukrainians" want to join NATO, but the hard numbers show it's hard to find a majority of Ukrainians who agree on anything — except a big majority who reject Putin's invasion.
This is a product of the extreme weakness of the post-Soviet Ukrainian bourgeoisie, who in their shameless striving for self-enrichment never developed a national project to unite the people. Ishchenko uses the category of "political capitalists" (often referred to as oligarchs) for Russia and Ukraine. These are capitalists who are particularly dependent on dealings with the state. What are the class interests behind Putin's war? It's not as if the state was hijacked by a madman destroying his own class. "Political capitalists" need their state to expand its territory so they can expand their opportunities for rent-seeking. This book is a compilation of articles published over the last decade, with a few updates where Ishchenko shows where his thinking has evolved.
This is a product of the extreme weakness of the post-Soviet Ukrainian bourgeoisie, who in their shameless striving for self-enrichment never developed a national project to unite the people. Ishchenko uses the category of "political capitalists" (often referred to as oligarchs) for Russia and Ukraine. These are capitalists who are particularly dependent on dealings with the state. What are the class interests behind Putin's war? It's not as if the state was hijacked by a madman destroying his own class. "Political capitalists" need their state to expand its territory so they can expand their opportunities for rent-seeking. This book is a compilation of articles published over the last decade, with a few updates where Ishchenko shows where his thinking has evolved.
April 13, 2025
I think I'll need to reread this to fully understand it. Doesn't shy away from criticizing Ukraine/Ukrainian politics/Russia etc. (no rose colored glasses) Mostly stays away from jargon or explains terms, which I found helpful for understanding.
April 24, 2024
A great book on Ukraine from Euromaidan to the Russian invasion. Ishchenko spends time on the internal political landscape of Ukraine, which is somewhat rare in commentary of the war as there is a tendency to frame the conflict in terms of Western and Russian interests without giving sufficient insight on Ukraine itself. The analysis of how the collapse of the Soviet Union and rise of political capitalism set the stage for instability in this region is very compelling. Since the book is a series of articles written since Euromaidan, the developments are presented almost in real time.
July 27, 2025
leest leest leest dit
December 20, 2025
Fresh view on class and regional politics in post-Soviet Ukraine. As these are collected essays bundled together, sometimes a bit much repitition. Chapter 5 and 8 are most interesting. Chapter 5 argues that Ukraine is economically the most northern Global southern state, politically dominated by the "political capitalists" which enriched themselves by profiting from the decaying Soviet state enterprises and carving a market out for themselves through political connections and insider rents, and internationally split between EU and Russia. The most important opposition to them is a newly built, but small, middle class that aspires European integration in order to get promotion in the world order, backed by the West and its transnational capital, opposing corruption but also blind to those workers coalitions that are bound to their "policital capitalist" (and industries who would never be able to compete in a European market). Rather than forging a new hegemony, these political capitalists move in different clans, every revolution just shifting from one to the other instead of really beating the base structure of them as a whole.
Chapter 8 argues that Russia has a similarly post soviet developped "political capitalism", Putin has been able to outplay and reallign key political capitalist around him in a Bonapartist manner, but they need further expansion territorially to create new profit sources, which explains nowadays Russian imperialism. To the subordinated classes, the post Soviet bonapartist leader gains support by trying to upkeep the social promises of the Soviet era (partially), while also relying on the passive consent of demobilised and atomised communities. The only real danger facing Putin is balancing his political capitalists and finding the right time and momentum for his succession.
Chapter 8 argues that Russia has a similarly post soviet developped "political capitalism", Putin has been able to outplay and reallign key political capitalist around him in a Bonapartist manner, but they need further expansion territorially to create new profit sources, which explains nowadays Russian imperialism. To the subordinated classes, the post Soviet bonapartist leader gains support by trying to upkeep the social promises of the Soviet era (partially), while also relying on the passive consent of demobilised and atomised communities. The only real danger facing Putin is balancing his political capitalists and finding the right time and momentum for his succession.
March 25, 2024
A different and interesting perspective to current state of Ukraine (mostly focusing on post Maidan). It was a good read for my research
January 28, 2026
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Книга, безусловно, очень примечательная, но написана дольно сложным языком. Дело в том, что эта книга является единственным относительно объективным освящением российско-украинского кризиса с точки зрения украинских левых. Вообще, про украинских социалистов, коммунистов или марксистов мы почти ничего не знаем, включая их точку зрения на сегодняшнюю российско-украинскую проблему.
Тут важно отметить, что книга является сборником эссе автора, которая заканчивается его интервью. Поэтому назвать Towards the Abyss совершенно обычной книгой я всё же не могу, но это явно лучше многих книг изданных под редакцией, т.е. когда книга является сборником статей разных авторов. В случаи с этой книгой все условные статьи написаны одним человеком.
В чём же главная проблема современной Украины, помимо атаки которую совершила РФ в 2014 и 2022 годах? Как я понял автора, главной проблемой Украины является украинский олигархат и радикальные правые националисты, которые в 2014 году силой и провокацией направили Украину в неправильную сторону. Трудно не согласится с этой точкой зрения. Действительно, если сама идея майдана была здравая, то вот навязанная политическая воля украинских националистов стала фатальной для Украины, ибо все силы были положены не на борьбу с коррупцией и создания процветающей экономики, а на такие фантомы как борьба с русской культурой и русским языком.
Of course, Vladimir Putin bears a greater responsibility for this. But those Maidan supporters who consistently ignored, silenced and downplayed the significance and danger of the far right instead of decisively breaking away are also partly responsible. This tolerance has already cost Ukraine lost territories, a mass destruction of industry and infrastructure, and thousands and thousands of lives.
<…>
The far-right Svoboda party, the Right Sector party and some of the current coalition government parties criticized the changes as a ‘capitulation’ to Russia, and Monday’s protests turned bloody after a man – reportedly a member of a far right battalion, called Sich – threw a hand grenade into a dense police line. The government reported that more than 130 law enforcement officials had been injured, and four National Guard soldiers – all young draftees – died from injuries.
<…>
But perhaps an even more pressing question is whether the government even has the capacity to suppress the right, given their growing bands of loyal armed units. As suggested by the violence in the western town of Mukachevo – where Right Sector combatants clashed with law enforcement, leaving seven dead – when the far right have several thousand armed men who can challenge the state monopoly on violence; can call for an open mutiny against the state; and still suffer almost no serious consequences, how powerful is the government really?
Переходя к трагической дате февраля 2022 года стоит отметить, что автор видит решение донбасской проблемы в очень здравом решении, которое бы могло бы устроить все стороны, но при условии, что Путина действительно волнует судьба людей на этой территории. Как мне кажется, донбасская проблема не разрешится сама собой, даже если Владимира Путина не будет в Кремле т.к. со стороны Донбасса погибло слишком много людей чтобы просто так взять и воссоединиться с остальной Украиной. Я могу ошибаться, конечно, но лично так мне видится эта проблема, т.е. жители Донбасса в настоящий момент вовсе не горят желанием воссоединения с Украиной, впрочем, как и с Россией (да и россиянам, в массе своей, не нужен и не интересен никакой Донбасс).
One of the solutions could be extending the special status to the whole territory of the Donbass rather than just the territories under separatist control, which was suggested by Enrique Menendez, a Ukrainian civic and humanitarian activist from Donetsk. This may look like an unjustified concession to Russia and may provoke outrage among some Ukrainians. However, such a move would actually dilute pro- Russian sentiments, as people loyal to Ukraine would also be part of voting and decision-making in the local administration and would make secession much more difficult.
<…>
Implementing the Minsk Accords means the capitulation not of Ukraine but of an unfeasible nation-building project in Ukraine driven by a vocal nationalist minority. It is a project that envisions the exclusion of Ukrainian citizens who would like to retain their native Russian language in the public sphere, embrace the achievements and history of Soviet Ukraine, and prefer friendly relations with Russia.
Как мы знаем, причина, почему минские договорённости не были приняты, заключена в действиях крайне правых сил на территории Украины, о чём как раз и пишет автор. В частности автор пишет о тотальной зачистке украинским государством всех левых политических сил, что объясняется политической борьбой с левой оппозицией, нежели борьбой с «московским влиянием», но именно под флагами борьбы с «агентами Кремля» и происходило уничтожение левой оппозиции.
Most ‘pro-Russian’ parties in Ukraine are first and foremost ‘pro-themselves’ and have autonomous interests and sources of income in Ukraine. They are trying to capitalize on the real grievances of a sizeable minority of Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens concentrated in the southeastern regions.
<…>
Other parties on Zelenskyi’s suspension list were of left-wing orientation. Some of them, such as the Socialist and Progressive Socialist parties, played an important role in Ukrainian politics in the 1990s and 2000s, but by now they are all completely marginalized.
К сожалению это более походит на авторитарные шаги по консолидации власти, нежели на демократию европейского образца о которой так часто говорят в Украине. Как бы мы не относились к левым, но намного лучше когда имеется баланс сил, т.е. когда ни правые ни левые не получают всю власть целиком и когда политика основывается на компромиссах. Кстати, именно этого и не хватало России, ибо в России, начиная с 1993 года, власть была сосредоточена исключительно в руках одного человека, а экономическая власть - руках очень узкой прослойки, т.е. олигархах.
The lack of a serious team meant that Zelenskyi quite quickly fell into the same trap as Poroshenko, prey to the most powerful agents in Ukrainian politics: the oligarchic clans, the radical nationalists, liberal civil society and the Western governments, all pushing for their specific agendas, and the inflated mass expectations about radical changes after an ‘electoral Maidan’ that finally brought ‘new faces’ to the government. Within this trap, Zelenskyi was trying to build his own ‘vertical of power’, a typical informal ‘chain of command’ in post-Soviet politics. But he was not especially successful in that.
Хотя я не соглашусь с мнением, которое сегодня звучит всё чаще и чаще, т.е. что Зеленский является чуть ли не диктатором, но могу понять украинских левых, которых, начиная с 2014 года, всё больше и больше репрессировали, обвиняя, часто безосновательно, в работе на Россию. Тем не мене трудно не согласится с автором, что Зеленский проводит очень странную политику, которая не сильно походит на политику европейского государства. Конечно, автор пишет и о Путине, говоря о нём как о диктаторе и о том, что Путин действует в интересах российских олигархов, но об этом мы все и так прекрасно знаем. Хотя да, этот факт нужно было проговорить в этой книге, чтобы не создалось ощущение, что плохой в этой истории только Зеленский, а Путин во всём прав (как это имело место в книге The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins: From the Maidan to the Ukraine War).
В заключении отмечу цитату, которая созвучна с моими мыслями о дальнейшей судьбе Украины, но не в плане её политики, а в плане её экономики, если мы учтем, как развивалась похожая история в Косово, в частности отношения поствоенного Косова и ЕС (что, с моей точки зрения, ждёт и Украину).
What sort of Ukraine do you see emerging from this war?
The war is changing Ukrainian–Russian relations and Ukrainian identity. Before the war, a significant minority, perhaps 15 per cent, of Ukrainian citizens could say they felt themselves to be both Ukrainian and Russian. Now that will be much more difficult – they would be making a choice and, I think, one in favour of Ukrainian identity. The position of the Russian language and Russian culture will be even more restricted in the public sphere – and in private communication. In the case of a prolonged war that would turn Ukraine into a Syria or Afghanistan in Europe, there would be a strong likelihood that radical nationalists would begin to occupy leading positions in the resistance, with obvious political consequences. The Ukraine in which I was born, and where I lived most of my life, is lost now, forever – however this war ends.
Только с построение реальной демократии западного образца Украина сможет стать тем, чем она мечтает. Но как мне кажется, сегодня она так же далека от европейской модели демократии, как и путинская Россия.
The book is certainly very remarkable, but it is written in rather complex language. The fact is that this book is the only relatively objective account of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis from the perspective of the Ukrainian left. In general, we know almost nothing about Ukrainian socialists, communists, or Marxists, including their views on the current Russian-Ukrainian problem.
It is important to note that the book is a collection of essays by the author, ending with an interview with him. Therefore, I cannot call "Towards the Abyss" a completely ordinary book, but it is clearly better than many books published under the editorship, i.e., when the book is a collection of articles by different authors. In the case of this book, all the articles were written by one person.
What is the main problem facing modern Ukraine, apart from the attacks carried out by Russia in 2014 and 2022? As I understand the author, Ukraine's main problem is the Ukrainian oligarchy and radical right-wing nationalists, who in 2014 used force and provocation to steer Ukraine in the wrong direction. It is difficult to disagree with this point of view. Indeed, while the idea of the Maidan itself was sound, the political will imposed by Ukrainian nationalists proved fatal for Ukraine, because all efforts were focused not on fighting corruption and creating a prosperous economy, but on such phantoms as the fight against Russian culture and the Russian language.
Of course, Vladimir Putin bears a greater responsibility for this. But those Maidan supporters who consistently ignored, silenced and downplayed the significance and danger of the far right instead of decisively breaking away are also partly responsible. This tolerance has already cost Ukraine lost territories, a mass destruction of industry and infrastructure, and thousands and thousands of lives.
<…>
The far-right Svoboda party, the Right Sector party and some of the current coalition government parties criticized the changes as a ‘capitulation’ to Russia, and Monday’s protests turned bloody after a man – reportedly a member of a far right battalion, called Sich – threw a hand grenade into a dense police line. The government reported that more than 130 law enforcement officials had been injured, and four National Guard soldiers – all young draftees – died from injuries.
<…>
But perhaps an even more pressing question is whether the government even has the capacity to suppress the right, given their growing bands of loyal armed units. As suggested by the violence in the western town of Mukachevo – where Right Sector combatants clashed with law enforcement, leaving seven dead – when the far right have several thousand armed men who can challenge the state monopoly on violence; can call for an open mutiny against the state; and still suffer almost no serious consequences, how powerful is the government really?
Moving on to the tragic date of February 2022, it is worth noting that the author sees the solution to the Donbas problem in a very sensible decision that could satisfy all parties, but only on the condition that Putin really cares about the fate of the people in this territory. In my opinion, the Donbas problem will not resolve itself, even if Vladimir Putin is no longer in the Kremlin, because too many people have died on the Donbas side to simply reunite with the rest of Ukraine. I may be wrong, of course, but this is how I see the problem: the residents of Donbas are currently not eager to reunite with Ukraine, nor with Russia (and most Russians are not interested in Donbas either).
One of the solutions could be extending the special status to the whole territory of the Donbass rather than just the territories under separatist control, which was suggested by Enrique Menendez, a Ukrainian civic and humanitarian activist from Donetsk. This may look like an unjustified concession to Russia and may provoke outrage among some Ukrainians. However, such a move would actually dilute pro- Russian sentiments, as people loyal to Ukraine would also be part of voting and decision-making in the local administration and would make secession much more difficult.
<…>
Implementing the Minsk Accords means the capitulation not of Ukraine but of an unfeasible nation-building project in Ukraine driven by a vocal nationalist minority. It is a project that envisions the exclusion of Ukrainian citizens who would like to retain their native Russian language in the public sphere, embrace the achievements and history of Soviet Ukraine, and prefer friendly relations with Russia.
As we know, the reason why the Minsk agreements were not accepted lies in the actions of extreme right-wing forces in Ukraine, which is precisely what the author writes about. In particular, the author writes about the Ukrainian state's total crackdown on all left-wing political forces, which is explained by the political struggle against the left-wing opposition rather than the struggle against “Moscow's influence,” but it was precisely under the banner of the struggle against “Kremlin agents” that the destruction of the left-wing opposition took place.
Most ‘pro-Russian’ parties in Ukraine are first and foremost ‘pro-themselves’ and have autonomous interests and sources of income in Ukraine. They are trying to capitalize on the real grievances of a sizeable minority of Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens concentrated in the southeastern regions.
<…>
Other parties on Zelenskyi’s suspension list were of left-wing orientation. Some of them, such as the Socialist and Progressive Socialist parties, played an important role in Ukrainian politics in the 1990s and 2000s, but by now they are all completely marginalized.
Unfortunately, this looks more like authoritarian steps to consolidate power than the European-style democracy that is so often talked about in Ukraine. Whatever our attitude to the left may be, it is much better when there is a balance of power, i.e., when neither the right nor the left has full power and when politics is based on compromise. Incidentally, this is precisely what Russia has been lacking, because since 1993, power in Russia has been concentrated exclusively in the hands of one person, and economic power in the hands of a very narrow stratum, i.e., the oligarchs.
The lack of a serious team meant that Zelenskyi quite quickly fell into the same trap as Poroshenko, prey to the most powerful agents in Ukrainian politics: the oligarchic clans, the radical nationalists, liberal civil society and the Western governments, all pushing for their specific agendas, and the inflated mass expectations about radical changes after an ‘electoral Maidan’ that finally brought ‘new faces’ to the government. Within this trap, Zelenskyi was trying to build his own ‘vertical of power’, a typical informal ‘chain of command’ in post-Soviet politics. But he was not especially successful in that.
Although I disagree with the opinion that is becoming increasingly common today, namely that Zelensky is practically a dictator, I can understand the Ukrainian left, who, since 2014, have been increasingly repressed and accused, often without foundation, of working for Russia. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to agree with the author that Zelensky is pursuing a very strange policy that does not resemble the policy of a European state. Of course, the author also writes about Putin, referring to him as a dictator and stating that Putin acts in the interests of Russian oligarchs, but we are all aware of this. Although yes, this fact needed to be mentioned in the book so as not to create the impression that Zelensky is the only bad guy in this story and Putin is right about everything (as was the case in the book The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins: From the Maidan to the Ukraine War).
In conclusion, I would like to note a quote that resonates with my thoughts on the future of Ukraine, not in terms of its politics, but in terms of its economy, if we consider how a similar story unfolded in Kosovo, in particular the post-war relations between Kosovo and the EU (which, in my opinion, awaits Ukraine).
What sort of Ukraine do you see emerging from this war?
The war is changing Ukrainian–Russian relations and Ukrainian identity. Before the war, a significant minority, perhaps 15 per cent, of Ukrainian citizens could say they felt themselves to be both Ukrainian and Russian. Now that will be much more difficult – they would be making a choice and, I think, one in favour of Ukrainian identity. The position of the Russian language and Russian culture will be even more restricted in the public sphere – and in private communication. In the case of a prolonged war that would turn Ukraine into a Syria or Afghanistan in Europe, there would be a strong likelihood that radical nationalists would begin to occupy leading positions in the resistance, with obvious political consequences. The Ukraine in which I was born, and where I lived most of my life, is lost now, forever – however this war ends.
Only by building a real Western-style democracy can Ukraine become what it dreams of being. But it seems to me that today it is as far from the European model of democracy as Putin's Russia.
Книга, безусловно, очень примечательная, но написана дольно сложным языком. Дело в том, что эта книга является единственным относительно объективным освящением российско-украинского кризиса с точки зрения украинских левых. Вообще, про украинских социалистов, коммунистов или марксистов мы почти ничего не знаем, включая их точку зрения на сегодняшнюю российско-украинскую проблему.
Тут важно отметить, что книга является сборником эссе автора, которая заканчивается его интервью. Поэтому назвать Towards the Abyss совершенно обычной книгой я всё же не могу, но это явно лучше многих книг изданных под редакцией, т.е. когда книга является сборником статей разных авторов. В случаи с этой книгой все условные статьи написаны одним человеком.
В чём же главная проблема современной Украины, помимо атаки которую совершила РФ в 2014 и 2022 годах? Как я понял автора, главной проблемой Украины является украинский олигархат и радикальные правые националисты, которые в 2014 году силой и провокацией направили Украину в неправильную сторону. Трудно не согласится с этой точкой зрения. Действительно, если сама идея майдана была здравая, то вот навязанная политическая воля украинских националистов стала фатальной для Украины, ибо все силы были положены не на борьбу с коррупцией и создания процветающей экономики, а на такие фантомы как борьба с русской культурой и русским языком.
Of course, Vladimir Putin bears a greater responsibility for this. But those Maidan supporters who consistently ignored, silenced and downplayed the significance and danger of the far right instead of decisively breaking away are also partly responsible. This tolerance has already cost Ukraine lost territories, a mass destruction of industry and infrastructure, and thousands and thousands of lives.
<…>
The far-right Svoboda party, the Right Sector party and some of the current coalition government parties criticized the changes as a ‘capitulation’ to Russia, and Monday’s protests turned bloody after a man – reportedly a member of a far right battalion, called Sich – threw a hand grenade into a dense police line. The government reported that more than 130 law enforcement officials had been injured, and four National Guard soldiers – all young draftees – died from injuries.
<…>
But perhaps an even more pressing question is whether the government even has the capacity to suppress the right, given their growing bands of loyal armed units. As suggested by the violence in the western town of Mukachevo – where Right Sector combatants clashed with law enforcement, leaving seven dead – when the far right have several thousand armed men who can challenge the state monopoly on violence; can call for an open mutiny against the state; and still suffer almost no serious consequences, how powerful is the government really?
Переходя к трагической дате февраля 2022 года стоит отметить, что автор видит решение донбасской проблемы в очень здравом решении, которое бы могло бы устроить все стороны, но при условии, что Путина действительно волнует судьба людей на этой территории. Как мне кажется, донбасская проблема не разрешится сама собой, даже если Владимира Путина не будет в Кремле т.к. со стороны Донбасса погибло слишком много людей чтобы просто так взять и воссоединиться с остальной Украиной. Я могу ошибаться, конечно, но лично так мне видится эта проблема, т.е. жители Донбасса в настоящий момент вовсе не горят желанием воссоединения с Украиной, впрочем, как и с Россией (да и россиянам, в массе своей, не нужен и не интересен никакой Донбасс).
One of the solutions could be extending the special status to the whole territory of the Donbass rather than just the territories under separatist control, which was suggested by Enrique Menendez, a Ukrainian civic and humanitarian activist from Donetsk. This may look like an unjustified concession to Russia and may provoke outrage among some Ukrainians. However, such a move would actually dilute pro- Russian sentiments, as people loyal to Ukraine would also be part of voting and decision-making in the local administration and would make secession much more difficult.
<…>
Implementing the Minsk Accords means the capitulation not of Ukraine but of an unfeasible nation-building project in Ukraine driven by a vocal nationalist minority. It is a project that envisions the exclusion of Ukrainian citizens who would like to retain their native Russian language in the public sphere, embrace the achievements and history of Soviet Ukraine, and prefer friendly relations with Russia.
Как мы знаем, причина, почему минские договорённости не были приняты, заключена в действиях крайне правых сил на территории Украины, о чём как раз и пишет автор. В частности автор пишет о тотальной зачистке украинским государством всех левых политических сил, что объясняется политической борьбой с левой оппозицией, нежели борьбой с «московским влиянием», но именно под флагами борьбы с «агентами Кремля» и происходило уничтожение левой оппозиции.
Most ‘pro-Russian’ parties in Ukraine are first and foremost ‘pro-themselves’ and have autonomous interests and sources of income in Ukraine. They are trying to capitalize on the real grievances of a sizeable minority of Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens concentrated in the southeastern regions.
<…>
Other parties on Zelenskyi’s suspension list were of left-wing orientation. Some of them, such as the Socialist and Progressive Socialist parties, played an important role in Ukrainian politics in the 1990s and 2000s, but by now they are all completely marginalized.
К сожалению это более походит на авторитарные шаги по консолидации власти, нежели на демократию европейского образца о которой так часто говорят в Украине. Как бы мы не относились к левым, но намного лучше когда имеется баланс сил, т.е. когда ни правые ни левые не получают всю власть целиком и когда политика основывается на компромиссах. Кстати, именно этого и не хватало России, ибо в России, начиная с 1993 года, власть была сосредоточена исключительно в руках одного человека, а экономическая власть - руках очень узкой прослойки, т.е. олигархах.
The lack of a serious team meant that Zelenskyi quite quickly fell into the same trap as Poroshenko, prey to the most powerful agents in Ukrainian politics: the oligarchic clans, the radical nationalists, liberal civil society and the Western governments, all pushing for their specific agendas, and the inflated mass expectations about radical changes after an ‘electoral Maidan’ that finally brought ‘new faces’ to the government. Within this trap, Zelenskyi was trying to build his own ‘vertical of power’, a typical informal ‘chain of command’ in post-Soviet politics. But he was not especially successful in that.
Хотя я не соглашусь с мнением, которое сегодня звучит всё чаще и чаще, т.е. что Зеленский является чуть ли не диктатором, но могу понять украинских левых, которых, начиная с 2014 года, всё больше и больше репрессировали, обвиняя, часто безосновательно, в работе на Россию. Тем не мене трудно не согласится с автором, что Зеленский проводит очень странную политику, которая не сильно походит на политику европейского государства. Конечно, автор пишет и о Путине, говоря о нём как о диктаторе и о том, что Путин действует в интересах российских олигархов, но об этом мы все и так прекрасно знаем. Хотя да, этот факт нужно было проговорить в этой книге, чтобы не создалось ощущение, что плохой в этой истории только Зеленский, а Путин во всём прав (как это имело место в книге The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins: From the Maidan to the Ukraine War).
В заключении отмечу цитату, которая созвучна с моими мыслями о дальнейшей судьбе Украины, но не в плане её политики, а в плане её экономики, если мы учтем, как развивалась похожая история в Косово, в частности отношения поствоенного Косова и ЕС (что, с моей точки зрения, ждёт и Украину).
What sort of Ukraine do you see emerging from this war?
The war is changing Ukrainian–Russian relations and Ukrainian identity. Before the war, a significant minority, perhaps 15 per cent, of Ukrainian citizens could say they felt themselves to be both Ukrainian and Russian. Now that will be much more difficult – they would be making a choice and, I think, one in favour of Ukrainian identity. The position of the Russian language and Russian culture will be even more restricted in the public sphere – and in private communication. In the case of a prolonged war that would turn Ukraine into a Syria or Afghanistan in Europe, there would be a strong likelihood that radical nationalists would begin to occupy leading positions in the resistance, with obvious political consequences. The Ukraine in which I was born, and where I lived most of my life, is lost now, forever – however this war ends.
Только с построение реальной демократии западного образца Украина сможет стать тем, чем она мечтает. Но как мне кажется, сегодня она так же далека от европейской модели демократии, как и путинская Россия.
The book is certainly very remarkable, but it is written in rather complex language. The fact is that this book is the only relatively objective account of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis from the perspective of the Ukrainian left. In general, we know almost nothing about Ukrainian socialists, communists, or Marxists, including their views on the current Russian-Ukrainian problem.
It is important to note that the book is a collection of essays by the author, ending with an interview with him. Therefore, I cannot call "Towards the Abyss" a completely ordinary book, but it is clearly better than many books published under the editorship, i.e., when the book is a collection of articles by different authors. In the case of this book, all the articles were written by one person.
What is the main problem facing modern Ukraine, apart from the attacks carried out by Russia in 2014 and 2022? As I understand the author, Ukraine's main problem is the Ukrainian oligarchy and radical right-wing nationalists, who in 2014 used force and provocation to steer Ukraine in the wrong direction. It is difficult to disagree with this point of view. Indeed, while the idea of the Maidan itself was sound, the political will imposed by Ukrainian nationalists proved fatal for Ukraine, because all efforts were focused not on fighting corruption and creating a prosperous economy, but on such phantoms as the fight against Russian culture and the Russian language.
Of course, Vladimir Putin bears a greater responsibility for this. But those Maidan supporters who consistently ignored, silenced and downplayed the significance and danger of the far right instead of decisively breaking away are also partly responsible. This tolerance has already cost Ukraine lost territories, a mass destruction of industry and infrastructure, and thousands and thousands of lives.
<…>
The far-right Svoboda party, the Right Sector party and some of the current coalition government parties criticized the changes as a ‘capitulation’ to Russia, and Monday’s protests turned bloody after a man – reportedly a member of a far right battalion, called Sich – threw a hand grenade into a dense police line. The government reported that more than 130 law enforcement officials had been injured, and four National Guard soldiers – all young draftees – died from injuries.
<…>
But perhaps an even more pressing question is whether the government even has the capacity to suppress the right, given their growing bands of loyal armed units. As suggested by the violence in the western town of Mukachevo – where Right Sector combatants clashed with law enforcement, leaving seven dead – when the far right have several thousand armed men who can challenge the state monopoly on violence; can call for an open mutiny against the state; and still suffer almost no serious consequences, how powerful is the government really?
Moving on to the tragic date of February 2022, it is worth noting that the author sees the solution to the Donbas problem in a very sensible decision that could satisfy all parties, but only on the condition that Putin really cares about the fate of the people in this territory. In my opinion, the Donbas problem will not resolve itself, even if Vladimir Putin is no longer in the Kremlin, because too many people have died on the Donbas side to simply reunite with the rest of Ukraine. I may be wrong, of course, but this is how I see the problem: the residents of Donbas are currently not eager to reunite with Ukraine, nor with Russia (and most Russians are not interested in Donbas either).
One of the solutions could be extending the special status to the whole territory of the Donbass rather than just the territories under separatist control, which was suggested by Enrique Menendez, a Ukrainian civic and humanitarian activist from Donetsk. This may look like an unjustified concession to Russia and may provoke outrage among some Ukrainians. However, such a move would actually dilute pro- Russian sentiments, as people loyal to Ukraine would also be part of voting and decision-making in the local administration and would make secession much more difficult.
<…>
Implementing the Minsk Accords means the capitulation not of Ukraine but of an unfeasible nation-building project in Ukraine driven by a vocal nationalist minority. It is a project that envisions the exclusion of Ukrainian citizens who would like to retain their native Russian language in the public sphere, embrace the achievements and history of Soviet Ukraine, and prefer friendly relations with Russia.
As we know, the reason why the Minsk agreements were not accepted lies in the actions of extreme right-wing forces in Ukraine, which is precisely what the author writes about. In particular, the author writes about the Ukrainian state's total crackdown on all left-wing political forces, which is explained by the political struggle against the left-wing opposition rather than the struggle against “Moscow's influence,” but it was precisely under the banner of the struggle against “Kremlin agents” that the destruction of the left-wing opposition took place.
Most ‘pro-Russian’ parties in Ukraine are first and foremost ‘pro-themselves’ and have autonomous interests and sources of income in Ukraine. They are trying to capitalize on the real grievances of a sizeable minority of Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens concentrated in the southeastern regions.
<…>
Other parties on Zelenskyi’s suspension list were of left-wing orientation. Some of them, such as the Socialist and Progressive Socialist parties, played an important role in Ukrainian politics in the 1990s and 2000s, but by now they are all completely marginalized.
Unfortunately, this looks more like authoritarian steps to consolidate power than the European-style democracy that is so often talked about in Ukraine. Whatever our attitude to the left may be, it is much better when there is a balance of power, i.e., when neither the right nor the left has full power and when politics is based on compromise. Incidentally, this is precisely what Russia has been lacking, because since 1993, power in Russia has been concentrated exclusively in the hands of one person, and economic power in the hands of a very narrow stratum, i.e., the oligarchs.
The lack of a serious team meant that Zelenskyi quite quickly fell into the same trap as Poroshenko, prey to the most powerful agents in Ukrainian politics: the oligarchic clans, the radical nationalists, liberal civil society and the Western governments, all pushing for their specific agendas, and the inflated mass expectations about radical changes after an ‘electoral Maidan’ that finally brought ‘new faces’ to the government. Within this trap, Zelenskyi was trying to build his own ‘vertical of power’, a typical informal ‘chain of command’ in post-Soviet politics. But he was not especially successful in that.
Although I disagree with the opinion that is becoming increasingly common today, namely that Zelensky is practically a dictator, I can understand the Ukrainian left, who, since 2014, have been increasingly repressed and accused, often without foundation, of working for Russia. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to agree with the author that Zelensky is pursuing a very strange policy that does not resemble the policy of a European state. Of course, the author also writes about Putin, referring to him as a dictator and stating that Putin acts in the interests of Russian oligarchs, but we are all aware of this. Although yes, this fact needed to be mentioned in the book so as not to create the impression that Zelensky is the only bad guy in this story and Putin is right about everything (as was the case in the book The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins: From the Maidan to the Ukraine War).
In conclusion, I would like to note a quote that resonates with my thoughts on the future of Ukraine, not in terms of its politics, but in terms of its economy, if we consider how a similar story unfolded in Kosovo, in particular the post-war relations between Kosovo and the EU (which, in my opinion, awaits Ukraine).
What sort of Ukraine do you see emerging from this war?
The war is changing Ukrainian–Russian relations and Ukrainian identity. Before the war, a significant minority, perhaps 15 per cent, of Ukrainian citizens could say they felt themselves to be both Ukrainian and Russian. Now that will be much more difficult – they would be making a choice and, I think, one in favour of Ukrainian identity. The position of the Russian language and Russian culture will be even more restricted in the public sphere – and in private communication. In the case of a prolonged war that would turn Ukraine into a Syria or Afghanistan in Europe, there would be a strong likelihood that radical nationalists would begin to occupy leading positions in the resistance, with obvious political consequences. The Ukraine in which I was born, and where I lived most of my life, is lost now, forever – however this war ends.
Only by building a real Western-style democracy can Ukraine become what it dreams of being. But it seems to me that today it is as far from the European model of democracy as Putin's Russia.
September 20, 2024
This is a great book. V. Ishchenko, a Ukrainian Marxist activist-scholar, is amongst the last of the self-identified Soviet Ukrainians. In the introduction he notes: "In Ukraine, we can't be Soviet anymore. In Russia, it does not look like we can be Ukrainians." The book is a collection of essays by Ishchenko on the events in his native country since the 2010s.
The most important essays in the book deal with the 2014 Maidan (and anti-Maidan in the east) and the ongoing war that began in 2022. Ishchenko, as a historical materialist, delivers a class analysis of these specific conflicts, Ukraine's political actors, and more broadly the dominant forces animating the post-Soviet world. Essential to understanding Ishchenko's arguments are two specific classes/factions of a class. First are the "political capitalists", powerful sections of the bourgeoisie, with particular prevalence in post-Soviet states, who exploit "political office to accumulate private wealth...whose main competitive advantage is derived from elective benefits from the state". The current regimes of Putin and Lukashenko represent the political bourgeoisie of Russia and Belarus for example. Then there are the national liberals, largely composed of the educated, NGOified, petty bourgeoise with aspirations for political and economic power (though in Ukraine, several oligarch clans stand within, or even represent as in the case of Poroshenko, this trend). Excluded from political capital, they have aligned themselves with Western imperialism with the hopes of becoming compradors. There is also the fascist groupuscules (Right Sector, Svoboda, Azov) who have been the vanguard of "new" nationalism in Ukraine. The liberals have largely adopted many planks of this increasingly powerful far-right's platform (fanatical anti-communism, restrictions on Russian culture and language, establishment of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church).
It is the contradicting pursuits of the pro-Russian political capitalists and the largely petty bourgeois pro-US-EU faction which animates inter-bourgeois conflict in the post-Soviet world. For example, as Ishchenko argues quite convincingly, the invasion of Ukraine was not the result of a crusade for “traditional values”, a simple struggle between “democracy and autocracy”, nostalgia, the anti-Ukrainian ideological campaign of an despot gone mad and so on, but rather is an attempt by the Russian Bonapartist regime, representing political capitalists around Putin, to territorially expand, thus maintaining their rate of rent.
A very informative book on the class dynamics of Ukrainian/post-Soviet politics. It demonstrates all the liberal falsehoods re Ukraine and provides strong arguments on the character of the maidans and the current war from the perspective of Zelensky and Putin. The future looks really bleak for Ishchenko's country of birth, regardless of this war's result.
The most important essays in the book deal with the 2014 Maidan (and anti-Maidan in the east) and the ongoing war that began in 2022. Ishchenko, as a historical materialist, delivers a class analysis of these specific conflicts, Ukraine's political actors, and more broadly the dominant forces animating the post-Soviet world. Essential to understanding Ishchenko's arguments are two specific classes/factions of a class. First are the "political capitalists", powerful sections of the bourgeoisie, with particular prevalence in post-Soviet states, who exploit "political office to accumulate private wealth...whose main competitive advantage is derived from elective benefits from the state". The current regimes of Putin and Lukashenko represent the political bourgeoisie of Russia and Belarus for example. Then there are the national liberals, largely composed of the educated, NGOified, petty bourgeoise with aspirations for political and economic power (though in Ukraine, several oligarch clans stand within, or even represent as in the case of Poroshenko, this trend). Excluded from political capital, they have aligned themselves with Western imperialism with the hopes of becoming compradors. There is also the fascist groupuscules (Right Sector, Svoboda, Azov) who have been the vanguard of "new" nationalism in Ukraine. The liberals have largely adopted many planks of this increasingly powerful far-right's platform (fanatical anti-communism, restrictions on Russian culture and language, establishment of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church).
It is the contradicting pursuits of the pro-Russian political capitalists and the largely petty bourgeois pro-US-EU faction which animates inter-bourgeois conflict in the post-Soviet world. For example, as Ishchenko argues quite convincingly, the invasion of Ukraine was not the result of a crusade for “traditional values”, a simple struggle between “democracy and autocracy”, nostalgia, the anti-Ukrainian ideological campaign of an despot gone mad and so on, but rather is an attempt by the Russian Bonapartist regime, representing political capitalists around Putin, to territorially expand, thus maintaining their rate of rent.
A very informative book on the class dynamics of Ukrainian/post-Soviet politics. It demonstrates all the liberal falsehoods re Ukraine and provides strong arguments on the character of the maidans and the current war from the perspective of Zelensky and Putin. The future looks really bleak for Ishchenko's country of birth, regardless of this war's result.
February 16, 2025
If you're looking for something on this subject that isn't a completely impersonal Wikipedia-esque book, this right here is your friend. The discussions in here about the issues that come with the typical Ukraine either goes this or that way thought, and the class tensions within the country itself were very eye-opening. Props to the author for having this in a journal entry style (the content is essays written during the major points of violence) but still being relatively easy to follow with minimal prior knowledge. While being more conversational for that reason, it's still not particularly engaging, but honestly I don't even know how you could make it so with a topic like this!
July 8, 2024
Excellent book on the background of the Russia-Ukraine War and how, like many events, can not be easily viewed from the moment the conflict erupts. Ishchenko gives a differing perspective than many in the West (and indeed from the pro-Russia crowd) which makes a lot of sense. I highly, highly recommend if you're interested in the background of the war and what lasting effects it may have in Ukraine.
March 30, 2024
I sought out this book after having discovered Ishchenko on X (formerly Twitter). The author is a Ukrainian leftist and offers a perspective one doesn't come across often in the media. Written in quite an academic-sociological style I suppose (I had to look up what subaltern means), but lucid and level-headed and honest about the past and present at a time when the exigencies of war turn many writers into propagandists.
October 8, 2025
So good until the last chapter where he incorrectly tried to frame far right de-Russification as decolonialism. Just loud and wrong. He spends the entire book saying there is no true left in Ukraine, yet tries to say an inherently far-left ideology is able to be established through ethnonatonalism? The jokes write themselves
February 22, 2025
This is an excellent read for anyone interested in Ukrainian politics. The author’s distinctly leftist and Marxist perspective is one that is incredibly underrepresented in contemporary discussions about Ukraine. I would highly recommend it!
April 24, 2024
Offers a fresh and very ukranian look at the recente political history of Ukraine. Would recomend it
Read
March 27, 2024Because the book makes many strong claims about a situation and place I don't understand I hesitate to give it a ranking but I did learn a ton about Ukraine and post soviet politics from this short book and think Mr ischenko avoids any obviously wrong left takes
January 31, 2026
I great recent history, culture context, and political op ed on Ukraine's historical recent political and social situation leading up to and during the current Russian Ukraine war and occupation.
October 9, 2025
Riveting, thought-provoking, incredible perspective.
October 14, 2025
Read for IR class, interesting viewpoint since Ishchenko writes with blame pinned on all sides. Really enjoyed the last chapter.
May 23, 2025
wish i could give it more than five stars
January 8, 2026
As a socialist suspicious of both pro-NATO narratives and defense of Russia's aggression, this book by leftist Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ischencko was a breath of fresh air.
While the book provides useful context for the Ukraine-Russia War, one of the main threads running through it is that the former Soviet states are an image of the West’s future.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Western common sense held that the new states would join their liberal democratic model and integrate with Europe. But Ischenko argues that the opposite is happening, as Poland and Hungary have recently “‘joined the illiberal club’ of Putin’s Russia and Lukashenko’s Blarius.” (58) And we in Western countries talk of “oligarchs” in a similar way that they do.
What role does class conflict play in the Russia-Ukraine War?
In Ukraine, there’s been a political split between East and West. Western Ukraine is often friendlier to the EU, while eastern Ukraine was with Russia and Belarus. This is often interpreted along cultural lines, and depending on who you ask, the uneducated state of many in the east. But Ischenko argues that this split is actually based on class interests.
Eastern Ukraine is more urban and industrial, with more public sector jobs. So, the industrial working class and public sector workers arguably benefit more with a better relationship with Russia over the EU. They rightfully worry that further EU integration would lead to austerity, cutting public spending, etc.
In Western Ukraine, by contrast, there is more of a professional middle-class who would benefit from EU integration. They are in some way connected to western NGO’s, or they work in other countries so having EU ties would make travel easier.
This explains why many in the East views the the Maidan uprising in 2013 negatively. They initiated their own counter-Maidan protests, many of which eventually became infiltrated by Russian forces. Ischenko is adamant that, as much as Russia did interfere, the class interests and motivations behind the counter-demonstrations were organic and made sense for those participating in them.
Ischenko argues that, while the anti-Maidan participants were often chastised as useful idiots for Russia, they were “no more irrational than Maidan protesters who were hoping for the European dream but gained (quite expectedly) a neoliberal government, IMF-required austerity measures and increasing prices.” (14) Because Russia had better wages and pensions than Ukraine, eastern Ukrainians looked there the same way that western Ukrainians looked to Europe.
This may be hard for us to see, since those in the East seemed comfortable with oligarchic rule, many rejecting Maidan's goal of removing Ukrainian President Yanukovych. This dynamic deserve further exploration.
In post-Soviet societies, the class dynamic is such that the ruling class rules less through private investment (like in the US and Western Europe), and more from connections with certain politicians and political figures. In other words: this ruling class, known colloquially as “oligarchs,” base their wealth and power on specific regimes. This is an anti-democratic basis for the economy, as they have incentive to keep the same people in power. While Western capitalist societies also exhibit capitalists relying on states, it’s more a reliance on states in general, and less on specific figures and deal-making. Eastern Ukrainians largely see reliance on the oligarchical system as a lesser evil compared to EU integration, which they think would lead to austerity cuts and such. The oligarchical, stagnant post-Soviet system seemed to promise stability.
They also were put off by the concentration of Nazis and fascists present in the movement. While Putin has exaggerated the influence of these Nazis for propaganda purposes, research has shown that, of all political ideologies or groups, members of far right groups were “the most visibly identified political agents in the Maidan protests.” (18) The Left barely existed in Ukraine at the time, so the Far-Right was in a better position to offer solutions to grievances.
The far right strategized in a network of groups called “Right Sector”. These militants were present at protests from the start. They were not for becoming closer to Europe, but for a “national revolution.” (10) They successfully mainstreamed their slogans, like “Glory to the heroes!” “Glory to Ukraine!” “Glory to the nation!” “Ukraine above everything!” (10) Far-right militants gained status of heroes of the uprising.
By February 2014, once the old government resigned, the new government had more Far Right representation than anywhere else in Europe at the time. The Svobada party controlled the posts for deputy prime minister, minister of ecology, agriculture, defense, and the prosecutor general’s office. (12) A former founder of the Social-National Party and leader of its youth parliamentary organization became head of the national Security and Defense Council.” (12)
The openly racist group Patriot of Ukraine, who had partaken in hate crimes, had members put in charge of police organizations, one even “appointed as the head of the police in Kiev oblast.” (18) A right-wing politician from Svoboda party, who previously promoted a Joseph Goebbels book, was set to “head up propaganda and analysis in the Security Service.” (18)
That said, by September 2015, they were never powerful enough to dictate events, only respond to them. They lost subsequent elections, and their legacy was less in rising to further power, but more in Ukraine’s rightward turn.
We can see this in political repression. While the post-Maidan government claims a pro-Western outlook, using “pro-democratic rhetoric,” they banned the Communist Party, and attacked professors, politicians, and journalists, who were seen as too pro-Russian. That, or they tolerated para-state forces enacting violence against these types. According to Ischenko, the left was forced into “a semi-underground situation.” (43)
At the time, he believed that the best course was “to support the progressive wings of both Maidan and anti-Maidan, and try to unite them against the Ukrainian ruling class and against all nationalisms and imperialism, focusing instead on shared demands for social justice.” (16) Now he has fled the country, and writes despairingly that the Ukraine he knew all his life is gone forever.
Class conflicts behind views on Europe and the Russia-Ukraine War
The causes of the Russia-Ukraine war are often located either in Putin’s evil nature or in Russia trying to stop Ukraine from joining NATO. But Ischenko argues that the war is rooted in the interests of the ruling class and state of class conflict in both Ukraine and Russia.
What class forces are behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? In the West, imperialism happens due to the rising power and imperatives of financial capital. Those imperialist countries are expanding and thus able to make use of any raw materials they plunder. But in Russia, that development isn’t happening.
Post-Soviet states are stuck in a “permanent crisis of contraction, de-modernization and peripheralization.” (97) Oligarchs contribute to this by bolstering a corrupt state whereby they rely on certain leaders for benefits, and in doing so, they also stymie the economic development of Russia. The oligarchs want business-as-usual, “status quo, post-Soviet stagnation.” (xxi)
But the problem that arises for them is that “you cannot steal from the same source forever.” (101) With no new development, the oligarchs, unlike in the west, do not benefit from a growing economy. So, they have economic incentives for Russia invading Ukraine, and thus increasing the source from which they can “steal.” For these reasons they also supported “Russian-led integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union.” (101)
Transnational capital, the professional middle class, etc pushed for Ukraine’s neoliberal integration, which threatened this Russian-backed scheme. “There was no way to integrate post-Soviet political capitalists into Western-led institutions that explicitly sought to eliminate them as a class by depriving them of their main competitive advantage: selective benefits bestowed by the post-Soviet states.” (103)
The ruling class in Russia cannot develop “sustained political, moral and intellectual leadership,” which has led to both Maidan uprisings and this war. (106) They are trying to make up for this with increasing illiberal nationalism, but whether that’ll work remains to be seen.
Class and economics can explain more about Russia’s stability given the war as well. In Autumn 2022, Putin started drafting Russians for the war. Some believe that this would hurt his popularity. But soldiers make 5-6x the median wage in Russia. Additionally, Russian workers have also been offered a higher wage for rebuilding wrecked Ukrainian cities. Ischenko argues that a “military Keynesianism" is forming in Russia, (81) giving the Russian population an active stake in the war.
Yet this differs from the Western imperialist dynamic whereby the so-called labor aristocracy tolerated war for a stake in the loot. Could Ukraine provide the “new markets…raw materials and cheap labor” needed to expand production enough to keep the labor aristocracy content? (82) Also, will sanctions eventually cripple Russia’s economy? It’s unclear, but for now, we can see that Russia fared better than expected.
What does post-Soviet stagnation mean?
What is all this about post-Soviet stagnation? As problematic as the Soviet Union could be, it was at least able to provide modernization until a certain point. After the USSR’s collapse, the countries de-modernized, as “there was no alternative ‘post-Soviet’ way forward.” (xx)
Ischenko suggests we learn more about the general state of post-Soviet countries when we stop trying to look forward at where they’re supposedly going, and instead look backwards. They’ve basically been stuck in “a continuing crisis that started well before the Soviet collapse.” (58)
While these countries originally had a Soviet/communist hegemony, whereby they understood their world as one moving towards “universal human emancipation,” there has been no replacing hegemony following the communist model fizzling out during Brezhnev years. (58) He quotes Gramsci’s line, oft-used to describe our era, that “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”
To be honest, this part of the book could’ve been more informative. Ischenko posits that the lack of a coordinating, uniting hegemony led to worser conditions, stagnation, etc. But what exactly that meant is lacking. Are we talking GDP, living standards, what? Either way, his attribution of the Russia-Ukraine problems to the Soviet Union in the 1970s is interesting.
Ischenko suggests that the decades after Stalin’s death were arguably the best for Ukrainians, living standards-wise. According to polls taken before Euromaidan and the Russian invasion in 2014, “the majority of Ukrainians would typically say that the USSR had been rather a good thing.” (xx)
That all began falling apart in the 1970’s, leading to the Post-Soviet condition we see now, both of which being “an unresolved crisis in the fundamental relations of representation between political elites and social-group interests.” (57)
What happened in the Soviet Union during the 1970’s? Again, Ischenko is a bit vague, and seems to assume the reader is already familiar with the details. Which I’m not. But from what I gather, the ideals that painted Soviet culture and ideology increasingly did not match their reality.
While we in the West tend to look at communism as imposed onto the people in the Soviet Union, Ischenko argued that, after Stalin’s death, “a dense network of institutions mobilized the active consent of the broad mass of Soviet citizens.” The Communist Party’s “political, intellectual and moral leadership…oversaw the rapid modernization of Soviet society” (59) So, Soviet citizens’ complaints were often articulated using this ideology. But in the 1970s, the Party had clearly failed to take action on this “wave of civic activation.” It had become “ossified into bureaucratic career ladders.” (59) A conservative reaction followed.
Once the Soviet Union collapsed, former elites haphazardly took control of privatizing industries. Their power cited no source of legitimacy, they just had the wealth. In this environment, Putin and Lukashenko were the closest thing to legitimate, simply by offering the narrative of stability.
Uprisings like the Maidans in Ukraine are "deficient solutions to very real problems of political representation.” (61) “They combine revolutionary aspirations and repertoires of collective action with vaguely articulated agendas, loose structures of mobilization and weak and dispersed leadership.” (61) They do not produce “durable institutions.” This in part arises because the public doesn’t trust political parties, while seeing the act of “civic mobilization” itself as authentic. (62) According to a Gallup poll taken before Zelenskyi came to power, Ukrainians had “the lowest level of trust towards government institutions of any polled electorate in the world.” (63)
If you’re like me, much of this sounds familiar. The United States and many other sectors of the world are in similar situations. Our elites and institutions are losing legitimacy. At best, people are united by a sense of strategic Othering, like how much of Europe has regained civic nationalism in light of Russian aggression on their continent. This is basically what Ischenko means when he says that post-Soviet countries aren’t turning Western as originally predicted, and instead the exact opposite is happening.
While the book provides useful context for the Ukraine-Russia War, one of the main threads running through it is that the former Soviet states are an image of the West’s future.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Western common sense held that the new states would join their liberal democratic model and integrate with Europe. But Ischenko argues that the opposite is happening, as Poland and Hungary have recently “‘joined the illiberal club’ of Putin’s Russia and Lukashenko’s Blarius.” (58) And we in Western countries talk of “oligarchs” in a similar way that they do.
What role does class conflict play in the Russia-Ukraine War?
In Ukraine, there’s been a political split between East and West. Western Ukraine is often friendlier to the EU, while eastern Ukraine was with Russia and Belarus. This is often interpreted along cultural lines, and depending on who you ask, the uneducated state of many in the east. But Ischenko argues that this split is actually based on class interests.
Eastern Ukraine is more urban and industrial, with more public sector jobs. So, the industrial working class and public sector workers arguably benefit more with a better relationship with Russia over the EU. They rightfully worry that further EU integration would lead to austerity, cutting public spending, etc.
In Western Ukraine, by contrast, there is more of a professional middle-class who would benefit from EU integration. They are in some way connected to western NGO’s, or they work in other countries so having EU ties would make travel easier.
This explains why many in the East views the the Maidan uprising in 2013 negatively. They initiated their own counter-Maidan protests, many of which eventually became infiltrated by Russian forces. Ischenko is adamant that, as much as Russia did interfere, the class interests and motivations behind the counter-demonstrations were organic and made sense for those participating in them.
Ischenko argues that, while the anti-Maidan participants were often chastised as useful idiots for Russia, they were “no more irrational than Maidan protesters who were hoping for the European dream but gained (quite expectedly) a neoliberal government, IMF-required austerity measures and increasing prices.” (14) Because Russia had better wages and pensions than Ukraine, eastern Ukrainians looked there the same way that western Ukrainians looked to Europe.
This may be hard for us to see, since those in the East seemed comfortable with oligarchic rule, many rejecting Maidan's goal of removing Ukrainian President Yanukovych. This dynamic deserve further exploration.
In post-Soviet societies, the class dynamic is such that the ruling class rules less through private investment (like in the US and Western Europe), and more from connections with certain politicians and political figures. In other words: this ruling class, known colloquially as “oligarchs,” base their wealth and power on specific regimes. This is an anti-democratic basis for the economy, as they have incentive to keep the same people in power. While Western capitalist societies also exhibit capitalists relying on states, it’s more a reliance on states in general, and less on specific figures and deal-making. Eastern Ukrainians largely see reliance on the oligarchical system as a lesser evil compared to EU integration, which they think would lead to austerity cuts and such. The oligarchical, stagnant post-Soviet system seemed to promise stability.
They also were put off by the concentration of Nazis and fascists present in the movement. While Putin has exaggerated the influence of these Nazis for propaganda purposes, research has shown that, of all political ideologies or groups, members of far right groups were “the most visibly identified political agents in the Maidan protests.” (18) The Left barely existed in Ukraine at the time, so the Far-Right was in a better position to offer solutions to grievances.
The far right strategized in a network of groups called “Right Sector”. These militants were present at protests from the start. They were not for becoming closer to Europe, but for a “national revolution.” (10) They successfully mainstreamed their slogans, like “Glory to the heroes!” “Glory to Ukraine!” “Glory to the nation!” “Ukraine above everything!” (10) Far-right militants gained status of heroes of the uprising.
By February 2014, once the old government resigned, the new government had more Far Right representation than anywhere else in Europe at the time. The Svobada party controlled the posts for deputy prime minister, minister of ecology, agriculture, defense, and the prosecutor general’s office. (12) A former founder of the Social-National Party and leader of its youth parliamentary organization became head of the national Security and Defense Council.” (12)
The openly racist group Patriot of Ukraine, who had partaken in hate crimes, had members put in charge of police organizations, one even “appointed as the head of the police in Kiev oblast.” (18) A right-wing politician from Svoboda party, who previously promoted a Joseph Goebbels book, was set to “head up propaganda and analysis in the Security Service.” (18)
That said, by September 2015, they were never powerful enough to dictate events, only respond to them. They lost subsequent elections, and their legacy was less in rising to further power, but more in Ukraine’s rightward turn.
We can see this in political repression. While the post-Maidan government claims a pro-Western outlook, using “pro-democratic rhetoric,” they banned the Communist Party, and attacked professors, politicians, and journalists, who were seen as too pro-Russian. That, or they tolerated para-state forces enacting violence against these types. According to Ischenko, the left was forced into “a semi-underground situation.” (43)
At the time, he believed that the best course was “to support the progressive wings of both Maidan and anti-Maidan, and try to unite them against the Ukrainian ruling class and against all nationalisms and imperialism, focusing instead on shared demands for social justice.” (16) Now he has fled the country, and writes despairingly that the Ukraine he knew all his life is gone forever.
Class conflicts behind views on Europe and the Russia-Ukraine War
The causes of the Russia-Ukraine war are often located either in Putin’s evil nature or in Russia trying to stop Ukraine from joining NATO. But Ischenko argues that the war is rooted in the interests of the ruling class and state of class conflict in both Ukraine and Russia.
What class forces are behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? In the West, imperialism happens due to the rising power and imperatives of financial capital. Those imperialist countries are expanding and thus able to make use of any raw materials they plunder. But in Russia, that development isn’t happening.
Post-Soviet states are stuck in a “permanent crisis of contraction, de-modernization and peripheralization.” (97) Oligarchs contribute to this by bolstering a corrupt state whereby they rely on certain leaders for benefits, and in doing so, they also stymie the economic development of Russia. The oligarchs want business-as-usual, “status quo, post-Soviet stagnation.” (xxi)
But the problem that arises for them is that “you cannot steal from the same source forever.” (101) With no new development, the oligarchs, unlike in the west, do not benefit from a growing economy. So, they have economic incentives for Russia invading Ukraine, and thus increasing the source from which they can “steal.” For these reasons they also supported “Russian-led integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union.” (101)
Transnational capital, the professional middle class, etc pushed for Ukraine’s neoliberal integration, which threatened this Russian-backed scheme. “There was no way to integrate post-Soviet political capitalists into Western-led institutions that explicitly sought to eliminate them as a class by depriving them of their main competitive advantage: selective benefits bestowed by the post-Soviet states.” (103)
The ruling class in Russia cannot develop “sustained political, moral and intellectual leadership,” which has led to both Maidan uprisings and this war. (106) They are trying to make up for this with increasing illiberal nationalism, but whether that’ll work remains to be seen.
Class and economics can explain more about Russia’s stability given the war as well. In Autumn 2022, Putin started drafting Russians for the war. Some believe that this would hurt his popularity. But soldiers make 5-6x the median wage in Russia. Additionally, Russian workers have also been offered a higher wage for rebuilding wrecked Ukrainian cities. Ischenko argues that a “military Keynesianism" is forming in Russia, (81) giving the Russian population an active stake in the war.
Yet this differs from the Western imperialist dynamic whereby the so-called labor aristocracy tolerated war for a stake in the loot. Could Ukraine provide the “new markets…raw materials and cheap labor” needed to expand production enough to keep the labor aristocracy content? (82) Also, will sanctions eventually cripple Russia’s economy? It’s unclear, but for now, we can see that Russia fared better than expected.
What does post-Soviet stagnation mean?
What is all this about post-Soviet stagnation? As problematic as the Soviet Union could be, it was at least able to provide modernization until a certain point. After the USSR’s collapse, the countries de-modernized, as “there was no alternative ‘post-Soviet’ way forward.” (xx)
Ischenko suggests we learn more about the general state of post-Soviet countries when we stop trying to look forward at where they’re supposedly going, and instead look backwards. They’ve basically been stuck in “a continuing crisis that started well before the Soviet collapse.” (58)
While these countries originally had a Soviet/communist hegemony, whereby they understood their world as one moving towards “universal human emancipation,” there has been no replacing hegemony following the communist model fizzling out during Brezhnev years. (58) He quotes Gramsci’s line, oft-used to describe our era, that “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”
To be honest, this part of the book could’ve been more informative. Ischenko posits that the lack of a coordinating, uniting hegemony led to worser conditions, stagnation, etc. But what exactly that meant is lacking. Are we talking GDP, living standards, what? Either way, his attribution of the Russia-Ukraine problems to the Soviet Union in the 1970s is interesting.
Ischenko suggests that the decades after Stalin’s death were arguably the best for Ukrainians, living standards-wise. According to polls taken before Euromaidan and the Russian invasion in 2014, “the majority of Ukrainians would typically say that the USSR had been rather a good thing.” (xx)
That all began falling apart in the 1970’s, leading to the Post-Soviet condition we see now, both of which being “an unresolved crisis in the fundamental relations of representation between political elites and social-group interests.” (57)
What happened in the Soviet Union during the 1970’s? Again, Ischenko is a bit vague, and seems to assume the reader is already familiar with the details. Which I’m not. But from what I gather, the ideals that painted Soviet culture and ideology increasingly did not match their reality.
While we in the West tend to look at communism as imposed onto the people in the Soviet Union, Ischenko argued that, after Stalin’s death, “a dense network of institutions mobilized the active consent of the broad mass of Soviet citizens.” The Communist Party’s “political, intellectual and moral leadership…oversaw the rapid modernization of Soviet society” (59) So, Soviet citizens’ complaints were often articulated using this ideology. But in the 1970s, the Party had clearly failed to take action on this “wave of civic activation.” It had become “ossified into bureaucratic career ladders.” (59) A conservative reaction followed.
Once the Soviet Union collapsed, former elites haphazardly took control of privatizing industries. Their power cited no source of legitimacy, they just had the wealth. In this environment, Putin and Lukashenko were the closest thing to legitimate, simply by offering the narrative of stability.
Uprisings like the Maidans in Ukraine are "deficient solutions to very real problems of political representation.” (61) “They combine revolutionary aspirations and repertoires of collective action with vaguely articulated agendas, loose structures of mobilization and weak and dispersed leadership.” (61) They do not produce “durable institutions.” This in part arises because the public doesn’t trust political parties, while seeing the act of “civic mobilization” itself as authentic. (62) According to a Gallup poll taken before Zelenskyi came to power, Ukrainians had “the lowest level of trust towards government institutions of any polled electorate in the world.” (63)
If you’re like me, much of this sounds familiar. The United States and many other sectors of the world are in similar situations. Our elites and institutions are losing legitimacy. At best, people are united by a sense of strategic Othering, like how much of Europe has regained civic nationalism in light of Russian aggression on their continent. This is basically what Ischenko means when he says that post-Soviet countries aren’t turning Western as originally predicted, and instead the exact opposite is happening.
June 4, 2024
I've stopped rating books because I'm not sure what the star rating means to me but I've opted to rate this at least 4/5 due to its insightful analysis on the various post soviet states issues that have lead to this ongoing war. It helped me reframe several of the ongoing contractions such as the calls of decolonization used to mask the enacment of severe reactionary policies.
March 10, 2025
Incredibly level headed and informative take by a Ukrainian leftist, especially insightful in a time where so many European leaders have started beating the drums of war. Everyone should read this.
August 23, 2024
"The failure to achieve a pluralistic nation-building project for Ukraine has been disastrous, with consequences reaching far beyond its borders."
This book raises some important issues concerning Ukraine that the Russian invasion of the country has kicked pretty firmly into the long grass for now. However, given that the people doing the fighting and dying in Ukraine, against Putin's fascism, are the ones who have suffered decades of corruption and institutional inertia the issues should not be forgotten. They especially should not be forgotten as they concern the antagonisms which have perhaps helped to lead to the situation Ukraine finds itself in today. Volodymyr Ishchenko questions the tendency towards binary us and them approach to understanding Ukrainians where linguistic and cultural differences are prioritised over class distinctions and economic relations. The author himself identifies as of Soviet heritage, which does not mean he is pro-Russian or pro the collapsed Soviet system but simply that he grew up in a time when the nationalist narrative did not exist in the way it does today and a different sense of belonging applied. He questions the tendency to reject everything associated with the Soviet Union saying this is essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (A similar socially disruptive situation faced by East Germans when their country experienced an Anschluss by its powerful neighbour wiping out in the process their life experience, an event which still scars the region of the former DDR to this day and remains a thorn in German politics more than three decades on.)
Since independence Ukraine has experienced endless government by oligarchal interests and their accompanying system of cronyism which has resulted in a basket case of an economy and country while a few have grown rich off the plunder. Ishchenko identifies the system of political-capitalism dominant in much of the post-soviet world as the key hindrance to positive change. Political-capitalism is "the exploitation of political office to accumulate private wealth" (as opposed to technological innovation or the exploitation of a cheap labour force. He notes that "there is no way to integrate post-soviet political-capitalists into Western-led institutions that explicitly sought to eliminate them as a class by depriving them of their main competitive advantage: selective benefits bestowed by the post-Soviet states". As Ishchenko notes the country has experienced three social "revolutions" but none of these have altered the fundamental problem of power in the country or the distribution of wealth and resources amongst the population which would involve overthrowing and removing the political-capitalists as a class. While some may have fallen or fled the system simply rearranges the deckchairs and carries on.
The big issues in politics have moved around relations with The EU and Russian Federation, and with international institutions. Presidents have come and gone promising this and doing that. Overtures towards Europe have been countered by Russian promises and coercion. Attempts by the nationalist right to prioritise a Ukrainian chauvinism which was threatening to many of those Russian speaking Ukrainians in the south and east of the country came to a head with the policies of Poroshenko's time in office which only poured oil on flaming waters. Ironically, Putin's brutal invasion has probably achieved more towards the idea of Ukrainian national identity than anything the extreme right radicals ever could, while for those committed to the nationalist project, as Ishchenko writes, it was an "... opportunity for 'knife-solutions'- a radical, uncompromising transformation of the whole country in their image and likeness on a scale that was impossible before: the war helps silence the voices of dissent." The state attitude towards Russian speakers, coupled with decades of Russian subversion, can be seen as having facilitated the annexation of Crimea and the emergence of the Luhansk and Donbas "Peoples" Republics (swallowed rapidly by their benefactor) the populations having no trust in Kyiv. For Ishchenko, many people in independent Ukraine were between a rock and a hard place. The policy of "de-communisation" has chased symbols of the long gone Soviet era, often destroying symbols and art of the Soviet times, frequently products of Ukrainian artists, in the name of Ukrainian nationalism, while the real enemy, those profiting from stealing the country's wealth continue to do so while paying lip service to nationalistic rhetoric to cover their corruption.
This book is largely a collection of bits and pieces produced by the author from 2014 to 2022. It's not really my favourite book format, however, it does give a sense of thinking along the timeline. The book is important in thinking and looking beyond the sometimes two dimensional model offered by much of the media. The subject matter is also important for the hopefully still free Ukraine that emerges from the ravages of war. Those who have sacrificed so much defending their country surely deserve a fair share and a better life in what follows free of the oligarchal leeches who have bled them for over three decades. A victory against Putin must also be a victory for a fair share in the future of Ukraine for those who made it possible with their blood. It's certainly a book that expands the reader's horizons for thinking about Ukraine.
This book raises some important issues concerning Ukraine that the Russian invasion of the country has kicked pretty firmly into the long grass for now. However, given that the people doing the fighting and dying in Ukraine, against Putin's fascism, are the ones who have suffered decades of corruption and institutional inertia the issues should not be forgotten. They especially should not be forgotten as they concern the antagonisms which have perhaps helped to lead to the situation Ukraine finds itself in today. Volodymyr Ishchenko questions the tendency towards binary us and them approach to understanding Ukrainians where linguistic and cultural differences are prioritised over class distinctions and economic relations. The author himself identifies as of Soviet heritage, which does not mean he is pro-Russian or pro the collapsed Soviet system but simply that he grew up in a time when the nationalist narrative did not exist in the way it does today and a different sense of belonging applied. He questions the tendency to reject everything associated with the Soviet Union saying this is essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (A similar socially disruptive situation faced by East Germans when their country experienced an Anschluss by its powerful neighbour wiping out in the process their life experience, an event which still scars the region of the former DDR to this day and remains a thorn in German politics more than three decades on.)
Since independence Ukraine has experienced endless government by oligarchal interests and their accompanying system of cronyism which has resulted in a basket case of an economy and country while a few have grown rich off the plunder. Ishchenko identifies the system of political-capitalism dominant in much of the post-soviet world as the key hindrance to positive change. Political-capitalism is "the exploitation of political office to accumulate private wealth" (as opposed to technological innovation or the exploitation of a cheap labour force. He notes that "there is no way to integrate post-soviet political-capitalists into Western-led institutions that explicitly sought to eliminate them as a class by depriving them of their main competitive advantage: selective benefits bestowed by the post-Soviet states". As Ishchenko notes the country has experienced three social "revolutions" but none of these have altered the fundamental problem of power in the country or the distribution of wealth and resources amongst the population which would involve overthrowing and removing the political-capitalists as a class. While some may have fallen or fled the system simply rearranges the deckchairs and carries on.
The big issues in politics have moved around relations with The EU and Russian Federation, and with international institutions. Presidents have come and gone promising this and doing that. Overtures towards Europe have been countered by Russian promises and coercion. Attempts by the nationalist right to prioritise a Ukrainian chauvinism which was threatening to many of those Russian speaking Ukrainians in the south and east of the country came to a head with the policies of Poroshenko's time in office which only poured oil on flaming waters. Ironically, Putin's brutal invasion has probably achieved more towards the idea of Ukrainian national identity than anything the extreme right radicals ever could, while for those committed to the nationalist project, as Ishchenko writes, it was an "... opportunity for 'knife-solutions'- a radical, uncompromising transformation of the whole country in their image and likeness on a scale that was impossible before: the war helps silence the voices of dissent." The state attitude towards Russian speakers, coupled with decades of Russian subversion, can be seen as having facilitated the annexation of Crimea and the emergence of the Luhansk and Donbas "Peoples" Republics (swallowed rapidly by their benefactor) the populations having no trust in Kyiv. For Ishchenko, many people in independent Ukraine were between a rock and a hard place. The policy of "de-communisation" has chased symbols of the long gone Soviet era, often destroying symbols and art of the Soviet times, frequently products of Ukrainian artists, in the name of Ukrainian nationalism, while the real enemy, those profiting from stealing the country's wealth continue to do so while paying lip service to nationalistic rhetoric to cover their corruption.
This book is largely a collection of bits and pieces produced by the author from 2014 to 2022. It's not really my favourite book format, however, it does give a sense of thinking along the timeline. The book is important in thinking and looking beyond the sometimes two dimensional model offered by much of the media. The subject matter is also important for the hopefully still free Ukraine that emerges from the ravages of war. Those who have sacrificed so much defending their country surely deserve a fair share and a better life in what follows free of the oligarchal leeches who have bled them for over three decades. A victory against Putin must also be a victory for a fair share in the future of Ukraine for those who made it possible with their blood. It's certainly a book that expands the reader's horizons for thinking about Ukraine.
May 1, 2024
Awesome book
November 5, 2024
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is very complex and has a long history behind it. Just like any other conflict/war, it is beneficial to view both sides of the conflict and investigate the causes. With that being said, depending on where one lives, the mainstream political forces and media are going to favor one side and demonize the other. In this case, while the conflict is indeed complicated, and anyone who is honest will admit it’s hard to say who the good guys and bad guys are, it is very obvious that to most people, supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do and supporting Russia is evil.
The description of the book says, “Ishchenko has been among the most significant left-wing commentators on Ukraine since 2014”. Obviously then, he is on the Ukrainian side. Of course, it is very difficult to be neutral when presenting an overview of a conflict, but what is admirable about this book is that Ishchenko doesn’t use the same rhetorical talking points that many people use when discussing the conflict.
Working backwards (starting with the recent invasion of Ukraine back to Euromaidan), Ischenko explains that calling the Russian invasion an act of imperialism is very misleading, in that a stronger nation attacking a weaker one is not sufficient to use such a term. He does not, however, buy into the pro-Russian argument of the EU’s encroachment on Russian territory as a justification for the invasion. He argues that the real reason behind it is that the Russian oligarchy wants Ukraine’s territory, resources, and labor to benefit them and other members of the upper class. One could say he has a Marxist view of the conflict, seeing class struggle as the root cause, yet he also rejects the Marxist idea of imperialism in this context.
Regarding Maidan and the general anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine, Ischenko points out the diverse Ukrainians in this crowd, where there are both progressive liberals and neo-Nazis. The reality is that for Ukrainian nationalists and those who want to separate from Russia, the people on the opposite sides of the political spectrum could not exist without the other and accomplish what they have, making it especially awkward for progressives to slander imperialist Russia while employing militias full of men who are openly neo-Nazis, and also for the far-right who tell themselves they are winning politically while Soros and other wealthy leftists are backing Ukraine, as if they don’t have a dog in the fight. Further, Ischenko points out that as corrupt as Yanukovych and Putin are/were, Zelensky is also not the hero that everyone thinks he is. He is firstly not qualified to lead the nation at all, with no official publications, no political experience, but instead was a career comedian who said the right words and became a popular face. Zelensky has also legally disbanded several opposition political parties, something that doesn’t seem to make the news too often.
Ischenko believes, in addition to the corrupt political capitalism of the Russian oligarchy, that a lot of what has to do with the conflict has to do the general post-Soviet issues of other countries like Belarus and Kazakhstan. These post-Soviet issues, as already have been said, create class issues. People are torn between wanting to retain their national and/or ethnic identities, while also wanting to be incorporated in the West, whether that be through the EU or through other cultural ways. Many people on both sides of the conflict are confused politically.
Since most of this book is a collection of publications of the events mentioned as they happened, it provides a clear analysis of events and the reactions of people from both sides. This format also has its downsides though; as the author points out in the intro that his publications, as of the publishing of this book, contain “failed prophecies,” but that doesn’t mean the book is not a great resource on the conflict in general. The other benefit is that since this is a relatively recent publication, and as the title mentions, it covers all the events from initial Maidan uprising up until the conflict as of late 2022, whereas other books on this topic only cover time-specific events, and provides a long history of Ukraine and Russia to give the backdrop. This was a very good read, and I recommend this book for anyone who is truly interested in the conflict.
The description of the book says, “Ishchenko has been among the most significant left-wing commentators on Ukraine since 2014”. Obviously then, he is on the Ukrainian side. Of course, it is very difficult to be neutral when presenting an overview of a conflict, but what is admirable about this book is that Ishchenko doesn’t use the same rhetorical talking points that many people use when discussing the conflict.
Working backwards (starting with the recent invasion of Ukraine back to Euromaidan), Ischenko explains that calling the Russian invasion an act of imperialism is very misleading, in that a stronger nation attacking a weaker one is not sufficient to use such a term. He does not, however, buy into the pro-Russian argument of the EU’s encroachment on Russian territory as a justification for the invasion. He argues that the real reason behind it is that the Russian oligarchy wants Ukraine’s territory, resources, and labor to benefit them and other members of the upper class. One could say he has a Marxist view of the conflict, seeing class struggle as the root cause, yet he also rejects the Marxist idea of imperialism in this context.
Regarding Maidan and the general anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine, Ischenko points out the diverse Ukrainians in this crowd, where there are both progressive liberals and neo-Nazis. The reality is that for Ukrainian nationalists and those who want to separate from Russia, the people on the opposite sides of the political spectrum could not exist without the other and accomplish what they have, making it especially awkward for progressives to slander imperialist Russia while employing militias full of men who are openly neo-Nazis, and also for the far-right who tell themselves they are winning politically while Soros and other wealthy leftists are backing Ukraine, as if they don’t have a dog in the fight. Further, Ischenko points out that as corrupt as Yanukovych and Putin are/were, Zelensky is also not the hero that everyone thinks he is. He is firstly not qualified to lead the nation at all, with no official publications, no political experience, but instead was a career comedian who said the right words and became a popular face. Zelensky has also legally disbanded several opposition political parties, something that doesn’t seem to make the news too often.
Ischenko believes, in addition to the corrupt political capitalism of the Russian oligarchy, that a lot of what has to do with the conflict has to do the general post-Soviet issues of other countries like Belarus and Kazakhstan. These post-Soviet issues, as already have been said, create class issues. People are torn between wanting to retain their national and/or ethnic identities, while also wanting to be incorporated in the West, whether that be through the EU or through other cultural ways. Many people on both sides of the conflict are confused politically.
Since most of this book is a collection of publications of the events mentioned as they happened, it provides a clear analysis of events and the reactions of people from both sides. This format also has its downsides though; as the author points out in the intro that his publications, as of the publishing of this book, contain “failed prophecies,” but that doesn’t mean the book is not a great resource on the conflict in general. The other benefit is that since this is a relatively recent publication, and as the title mentions, it covers all the events from initial Maidan uprising up until the conflict as of late 2022, whereas other books on this topic only cover time-specific events, and provides a long history of Ukraine and Russia to give the backdrop. This was a very good read, and I recommend this book for anyone who is truly interested in the conflict.
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