Boris Kagarlitsky: Rebel eastern Ukraine republics between war and elections

November 10, 2014 – Links
International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In the elections that took
place in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics on November 2, 2014, the
winner was the Russian presidential administration. This, and only this, was
the political point of the voting. But the victory remains precarious and conditional.

From the very beginning of the revolt in south-eastern
Ukraine the presidential administration in the Kremlin set out to establish its
control over the processes that were unfolding. Its effort fared badly, since
the spontaneous protest followed its own logic, while the leaders who had been
placed in key positions with Moscow’s support either flew out of control – as
with the former employee of the Federal Security Service Igor Strelkov, who as
leader of the militias turned into a major headache for the Kremlin – or lost
their posts, as happened to the Kremlin henchmen whom Strelkov in July drove
out of Donetsk in disgrace.

The Kremlin faced a dual problem. On the one hand, it was
essential to stop the movement developing in the direction of social revolution
– rebel workers were variously seizing control of enterprises, or demanding
nationalisation, or advancing anti-oligarchic and anti-capitalist slogans.

In both Lugansk and Donetsk the leaders of the republics
were constantly declaring the need to set in place “elements of socialism”. In
practice everything was restricted to general utterances, but in themselves
these statements bore witness to a growing pressure from below, while the
demands put forward in Donetsk were also finding clear support on the other
side of the border.

On the other hand, it was necessary to restrain the radicals
who were anxious to pursue the war with the Kyiv government to a victorious
end, overthrowing the existing Ukrainian authorities. For all the frictions
that now exist between Moscow and Kyiv, preserving the current regime in
Ukraine is the Kremlin’s most important policy priority. The oligarchic regime
of Petro Poroshenko is more or less understandable and predictable. Its fall
would automatically set in train a cycle of far-reaching changes in both
countries, putting in question the survival of the existing order in both
Ukraine and Russia.

The Kremlin managed to bring the situation under control
only toward the end of August, after Igor Strelkov had been removed from the
military leadership in Donetsk. It is true that following Strelkov’s departure
Aleksey Mozgovoy and a number of other field commanders with still more radical
views moved to centre stage, but by that time Moscow had already devised
methods for effectively influencing the processes under way. Either cutting or
increasing supplies of foodstuffs, weapons and ammunition, and directing these
supplies to certain sub-units or to others, the Russian administrators
gradually established the configuration of forces they needed, blackmailing the
dissatisfied and encouraging the loyal.

After supporting the offensive by the
militias in late August, Moscow then forced them to halt a few kilometres from
Mariupol, the capture of which would have threatened a sharp change in the
strategic relationship of forces (the insurgents might have gained control of a
large port that had not been damaged by the fighting, and that would have
allowed them to carry on their own independent trade, bypassing Russian
territory). After this, the militias were bound by the Minsk peace accords,
which in effect foresaw the restoration of control by Kyiv over the rebel
territories.

A key element in this process, however, was to be the
legitimation through elections of the new leadership in Donetsk and Lugansk.
The acting prime ministers of Donetsk and Lugansk, Aleksandr Zakharchenko and
Igor Plotnitsky, who had placed their signatures on the peace accords, had to
be turned into legally elected heads of the republics, supported by loyal new
members of the Supreme Soviets. To be completely sure of this outcome, the most
capable and influential representatives both of the left and of the radicals
were banned from running in the elections.

The methods employed were at times exceptionally crude. For
example, after the party of Pavel Gubarev – whose popularity in Donetsk was at
least as great as that of Zakharchenko – had been banished from the polls, an
attempt was made on Gubarev’s life. Gubarev himself, after surviving through
pure luck, finished up in a hospital bed in Russia. Even the relatively
moderate speaker of the Donetsk parliament Boris Litvinov found that the
Communist Party of Donetsk, which he had founded in accordance with all the
rules, could not be registered for the elections.

In Lugansk the situation was somewhat better, considering
that Aleksey Mozgovoy and other military leaders of the militias had threatened
repeatedly to block the elections from taking place on the territory under
their control. Ultimately, however, the situation ended in a compromise:
Mozgovoy avoided a direct confrontation with the government, while the
authorities in the Lugansk republic showed more restraint than in Donetsk. For
leftists, a consolation prize was the adoption soon before the elections of a
new coat of arms for the Lugansk Peoples Republic, conspicuously mimicking the
Soviet symbol.

The electors, who turned out to vote in massive numbers,
were not so much supporting the new leaders as the sovereignty of the young
republics. As was to be expected in these circumstances, Zakharchenko and
Plotnitsky won by substantial margins. Both republics now have leaderships that
can no longer be replaced simply by the will of a meeting of field commanders,
and which are prepared to implement, even if without great enthusiasm, the
conditions of the Minsk accords as dictated by Moscow.

The Kremlin leadership, it might seem, is now able to
celebrate a victory. But the situation, it turns out, is not so simple. In the
Kremlin’s new strategy, established by the end of August 2014, the key element
has been the reaching – at the cost of one-sided concessions – of a compromise
with Kyiv, and more importantly, with its Western patrons. The concessions were
made, and were accepted readily by the other side, but no matching concessions
followed. The West carried on with an aggressive propaganda campaign,
interpreting even Moscow’s concessions as proof of belligerence, or at best, of
treacherous intent. Russia’s failure in practice to observe the terms of its
own sanctions against the European Union (the shelves of Russian shops remain
laden with “forbidden” produce) has not only failed to bring about a
corresponding softening in the West, but to the contrary, has been perceived as
a sign of weakness. Meanwhile the elections in the DPR and LPR, which in terms
of the political logic of the process were a key guarantee of the fulfilment of
the Minsk accords, were declared by Kyiv, Brussels and Washington to be neither
more nor less than a step aimed at undermining these agreements.

The Ukrainian army began massing for a new offensive,
expected to begin on the very day of the elections. Kyiv’s forces had already been
drawn up in position when the Kremlin leaders, understanding the extent of the
danger, took the decision to resume the military shipments to Novorossiya that
had been cut off after the truce was declared. When the militias managed to
bring significant amounts of new equipment to the front line, the readiness of
the Kyiv politicians and military chiefs to renew the offensive quickly
subsided. There was no massed attack on Donetsk either on November 2 or on the
following day. The liberal press in Russia, however, uttered howls of outrage at
the “new aggressive war” that Putin was supposedly about to launch.

The elections in the DPR and LPR did not solve, and could
not have solved, a single one of the problems the republics face. This was not the
reason why the polls were planned or conducted. But neither did they solve the
problems of the Kremlin, which had left the situation ambiguous and hanging in
mid-air – against the background, meanwhile, of growing political and social
tension within Russia itself.

But the elections had the effect of dramatically
intensifying the political demarcation within Novorossiya, prompting radical
supporters of independence, supporters of a “liberation march on Kyiv” and
members of the left to unite in a common front. The fact that the agenda of
this broad front was incompatible with Moscow’s policies in relation to
Novorossiya was also obvious to the great majority of the people taking part in
it.

Further developments in Novorossiya, however, will now be
determined less by the vagaries of the political struggle in Donetsk or even in
Kyiv than by changes in the situation within Russia itself. The evolution of
the economic crisis, the growth in the number and size of social protests, and
also the mounting confusion of the ruling elite, which clearly has no functional
plan of action, together provide ample basis for predicting that the political
struggle will intensify and reach “Ukrainian” dimensions. This time, however,
the resistance will unfold simultaneously on both sides of the border.