Ukraine: Outside powers exploiting ethnic nationalisms
For more on Ukraine, click HERE.
By Tony Iltis
March 22, 2014 — Green Left Weekly — Russian President Vladimir Putin announced legislation on March 18
accepting the formerly Ukrainian Republic of Crimea and City of
Sevastopol into the Russian Federation. The legislation was passed by
the Russian Duma (parliament) on March 20.
Crimea and Sevastopol had voted in a March 16 referendum to leave
Ukraine and join Russia. This was the culmination of a process that
began after the February 21 overthrow of unpopular Ukrainian president
Viktor Yanukovich by protesters in the capital Kyiv.
Crimea is 60% ethnically Russian-identifying ethnically and 84%
Russian-speaking, and was not historically part of Ukraine. Sevastopol
is the home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Yet this dramatic
change in Europe’s borders was not on the agenda before the fall of
Yanukovich less than a month earlier.
The Ukrainian government responded with predictable outrage and
threats to what it regards as a blatant annexation of its territory. But Ukrainian forces in Crimea ― those who have remained loyal to the
new Kyiv regime ― have been powerless to stop pro-Russian forces taking
over their bases and naval ships.
After Yanukovich fell, heavily armed unidentified soldiers took over
the Crimean parliament and city administration buildings, and supervised
votes by the elected bodies that installed a new pro-Russian
administration.
The new Crimean regime went about legislating the transfer in
sovereignty. The referendum was called at just 10 days notice.
Pro-Russia rallies were organised by the new authorities while pro-Kyiv
rallies were attacked.
Western rhetoric
This took place to a chorus of hypocritical bluster from the
self-appointed representatives of the “international community” ― the
leaders of the US, the EU and other Western imperialist powers.
Putin’s acceptance of Crimea into the Russian Federation prompted an
increase of Western rhetoric and some economic sanctions. But US
President Barack Obama has explicitly ruled out a military response.
The EU has been more cautious with economic sanctions than the US.
Not only do the French arms industry and British banking sector have a
profitable relationship with Russia, 30% of the natural gas consumed in
the EU comes from Russia.
Russian and Crimean leaders have countered Ukrainian and Western
rejection of the legitimacy of the process by denying the legitimacy of
the new Ukrainian government.
When Yanukovich fled after failing to crush two months of anti-government protests in Kyiv’s Maidan
(Independence Square), opposition politicians were manoeuvred into
power by the country’s powerful oligarchs. This includes those who had
previously supported Yanukovich.
These politicians were supported by the US and EU, diplomatically and
with covert and overt interference, but explicitly shunned by the
Maidan protesters who have remained in the Square.
The protests began in support of a free trade agreement with the EU
which Yanukovich had promoted then backed out of, and to which the new
government is entirely committed.
However, they rapidly became focused on the issues of police
brutality, the dysfunctional economy and the domination of the country
by criminal oligarchs and their corrupt cronies in parliament.
The opposition politicians now in power are representatives of the
same oligarch-dominated politics. But tensions between the new
government and the protesters have been muted by the threat from Russia
and the growing danger that Ukraine could disintegrate into conflicting
regions and communities.
This latter danger stems from both Western and Russian interference
and the promotion by both the Ukrainian and Russian elites of ethnic
nationalist ideologies.
Before 1991, Ukraine was the industrial heartland of the Soviet
Union. Today it has significantly lower wages and higher unemployment
than Belarus and Russia. The economy was devastated by Soviet
bureaucrats who transformed themselves into oligarchs by literally
selling the country to the highest bidder.
Bidding war
The catalyst for the Maidan protests was a bidding war
between Russia and the EU. The EU free trade agreement offered
Yanukovich aid and loans but with the immediate requirement to implement
IMF austerity policies that would have risked a backlash from the
impoverished population.
It would also have damaged economic ties with Russia. This was
unpopular in the industrial areas in the east, where industry remains
oriented toward the countries of the former Soviet Union.
The Russian government also has concerns about NATO’s expansion into
eastern Europe and its aim of neutralising Russia as a military rival.
Putin enticed Yanukovich from the EU agreement to a customs union
with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia by offering aid and loans
without austerity needing to be implemented immediately.
In the impoverished rural west of the country and in Kyiv, the
economy is more oriented toward the EU, including as an illegal
destination to seek employment.
Even after the EU agreement stopped being the protests’ focus, they
still drew their support predominantly from Kyiv and western Ukraine,
despite Yanukovich being unpopular throughout the country.
Economic differences between the regions reflect different histories.
Throughout the country, leftist ideas are associated with the violent
and repressive history of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of
Ukraine’s post-independence niche in the oligarch-dominated political
establishment. This has allowed discontent to be channelled by ethnic
nationalist demagogues.
The new regime in Kyiv tried to bolster its nationalist credentials
by introducing a law relegating the status of Russian and other minority
languages. This law was rapidly withdrawn when Russia used it to play
the ethnic nationalist card with Russian-speakers in the industrial east
and Crimea.
With the Kyiv government and the US signalling the likelihood of an
increasingly Western-aligned Ukraine, Russia moved to secure its Black
Sea Fleet’s base.
Regardless of exactly how fair the vote in Crimea to join Russia
truly was, it does appear a majority of people in Crimea support the
return to Russia.
However, not only were supporters of remaining in Ukraine prevented
from putting their case, the vote took place in an atmosphere of ethnic
nationalist hysteria.
This was helped by the fact that Neo-Nazi ultra-nationalist groups
were prominent in Maidan protests. Svoboda, the most moderate of these
far right groups, has three ministers in the new government.
The more hardline groups who played a prominent role in
street-fighting during the Maidan protests, such as Right Sector, are
more openly fascist. Their ideas have limited appeal, but they have used
violence to silence progressives in the movement. They are well placed
to take advantage of the simmering discontent in Maidan about the new
regime.
The Ukrainian far-right identifies with Nazi-collaborating
anti-Soviet nationalists during World War II based in the west of
Ukraine. Since independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
these forces have been rehabilitated by the Ukrainian establishment.
On the other hand, the ethnic Russian majority in Crimea has never
identified strongly with Ukraine. Crimea was transferred from Russia to
Ukraine in 1954 when both were part of the Soviet Union making the
border an internal one.
The Russian national identity in Crimea identifies strongly with the resistance to the Nazi onslaught in the 1940s.
In the rest of the Ukraine, resistance to the Nazis is also a part of
the national identity, particular in the industrial east. In the rural
east, historical memories of Nazi atrocities are mixed with memories of
the genocidal forced collectivisation of agriculture and other
atrocities by the Soviet leader Stalin.
Pro-Russian protests in Crimea and eastern Ukraine also invoke the
memory of the Tsarist Empire, are close to the Orthodox Church hierarchy
and their ethnic nationalism is just as racist, xenophobic and
homophobic as the neo-Nazis in the west of the country.
Ironically, the small group of international observers that defied
the international boycott of the referendum was a who’s who of European
far right, even including groups with links to Svoboda.
Putin has insisted that Russia has no intention of annexing any
territory in eastern Ukraine. However, Russia maintains the “right” to
intervene in Ukraine if they believe Russian interests or people are
threatened.
Tartars
Until the 1780s, Crimea was part of neither Russia or Ukraine (which
did not then exist). The Crimean Tatar Khanate ruled over much of what
is now southern and east Ukraine and south Russia. Crimean Tatars were
the main ethnic group.
Between the Russian invasion in 1783 and 1939, Russian and Ukrainian
settlement, periodic ethnic cleansing under Tsarist rule and the forced
collectivisation of agriculture had reduced Crimean Tatars to 20% of the
population of Crimea.
In 1944, Stalin ordered the ethnic cleansing of the entire Crimean
Tatar population. Those who survived were exiled to Central Asia.
Crimean Tatars were officially allowed to return to their homeland in
the 1960s, but it was only facilitated in practice after the Soviet
Union collapsed. Today, they are about 12% of the population of Crimea
and the Crimean Tatar population in Crimea now exceeds that still in
central Asia.
Not surprisingly, Crimean Tatars have become the staunchest opponents within Crimea of rejoining Russia.
Post-Soviet Russia’s record with Muslim minorities is poor. On March
18, Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev said: “We have
asked the Crimean Tatars to vacate part of their land, which is required
for social needs. But we are ready to allocate and legalise many other
plots of land to ensure a normal life for the Crimean Tatars.”
It is in the interests of neither Russia or the West to fight a war
over Ukraine and Crimea. However, the huge nuclear arsenals held by both
sides makes the brinkmanship of both dangerous.
A greater danger than a war between the big powers is the type of
ethnic-nationalist-based civil wars that devastated the nations of the
former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
This may not be what the big powers want but their reliance on
ultra-nationalist proxies in their rivalry with each other over who will
be the main beneficiary of imposing further austerity on Ukraine, could
see the situation slip beyond their control.
[For more articles and analysis of the situation, including by left forces in Ukraine and Russia, visit Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal.]
From GLW issue 1002
