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Title: A Nation of Anarchists Author: Maxim Osadchuk Date: 11 May 2019 Language: en Topics: Ukraine Source: Retrieved on 20th February 2022 from https://www.nihilist.li/2019/05/11/a-nation-of-anarchists/
“We shall let no one rule our land”
—National anthem of Ukraine
The remarkable successes of self-organized Ukrainians during the
turbulent 2014, which are now being discussed again, were achieved not
because of, but rather in spite of the state, while the government
apparatus and the elites were in post-revolutionary shock. The only
thing Motherland gave me during my first few months in the “Aidar”
volunteer battalion of the Armed Forces was a Kalashnikov light machine
gun, which was so rusty that I couldn’t move the lock. I had to
disassemble it and drench the parts in machine oil for two days. Only as
the New Year of 2015 was approaching, we got our first official new
uniforms which caught fire from the smallest spark — like the flames of
revolution, according to Lenin.
Looking at the results of Ukraine’s presidential election, one can
assume that during the next 5 years Ukrainians will have lots of reasons
to laugh — but this laughter won’t always be a happy one. It is entirely
possible we will also shed lots of tears. Apparently, these two very
different emotions, laughter and grief, can both manifest as a natural
reaction to such a mind-twisting stimuli as a mismatch between form and
content. It is here, as the new president’s opponents believe, that is
his weakest point: an actor and a clown without any political background
is not fit to lead a country in such hard times. This might be true, but
for me personally, what’s more worrisome is another kind of dissonance
that has appeared within the past few days, immediately manifesting
itself in the physical space. I’m talking about the self-proclaimed
“25%” movement.
A very vocal and extremely online part of the outgoing president
Poroshenko’s electorate are trying to convince their audience and
themselves that the quarter of voters who voted for the incumbent are
the new patriotic elite of Ukraine, surrounded by 75% of “little
Russians” and unintelligent masses. Usually they ignore that at least
half of those 25% voted not for the incumbent, but against Volodymyr
Zelensky running for commander-in-chief. And even those who consciously
supported Poroshenko (including, among others, a significant part of the
Ukrainian liberal left) are unlikely to support en masse the old way of
doing things. Even so, the ideologues of the new “vanguard party”
believe it was these people — and no one else! — who brought down
Yanukovych’s dictatorship, repelled Russian aggression, and started
reshaping society in 2014, all the while pushing the country forward.
Oblivious to all-encompassing corruption and stalling reforms, they put
Poroshenko on their banner and call to join ranks around him to stop a
“revanche.” The most cynical (or perhaps the most sincere?) of them,
even before the first round of the election, called on the government to
resort to a coup, vote rigging, temporary suspension of democracy — all
to prevent Poroshenko from losing power. To give credit where it’s due,
he did not opt for these tactics, thus guaranteeing the overall fairest
national election in modern Ukraine. And yet it looks like, that as
Poroshenko lost, Ukrainian patriotic elitism was born and emerged in the
political arena as a fully-shaped movement. With a broader perspective,
this is far more interesting — and way more dangerous — than both Petro
Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky. It signals a new deep rift which can
be a veritable threat to democracy in our country and also casts doubt
on the very foundation of national identity.
Putting accusations of alarmism aside, it should be noted that this
matter is more concerning than it might appear at first glance. The
romantic relationship between Ukraine’s fifth president and his exalted
groupies not only stupefies one aesthetically, but also causes a faint
deja vu. We’ve seen this before, and this has nothing in common with
Ukraine’s political tradition. Of course, it is too soon to talk about
an emerging Putinism lite under blue-and-yellow flags. However, a rally
to express gratitude to a national politician, while his weaknesses,
corruption and hypocrisy are being willfully ignored, and calls for
mindless consolidation around a powerful “Father of the Nation” during
hard times are bringing us visibly closer to a markedly Russian model of
relations between the authorities and society. Any further deepening of
this trend of creeping reception of the aggressor’s political culture
could end badly. Adopting the Russian rules of the game, Ukraine will
sooner or later stoop down to a level where the enemy will easily beat
us with experience.
If it is true that any nation (as a historically formed community of
people living in a certain territory and producing their own culture)
has its own unique worldview, then the essence of the Ukrainian national
character can be described in one word: anarchism. This is supported by
modern sociology: according to Iryna Bekeshkina, the director of the
“Democratic initiatives” foundation, Russians are more inclined to
monarchy while Ukrainians prefer anarchy — which does not preclude the
latter from wishing for order, but never in exchange for liberty. This
situation did not emerge in the post-Soviet era: it can be easily traced
through Eastern Slavic history. Of course, such reasoning is always in
large part speculative, yet if one takes a closer look to the events and
phenomena we’ve learned from Ukrainian history books, it is easy to see
a notable common theme. Anything specifically Ukrainian in those books
is connected to protest against the government, against any kind of
dictatorship, and against authoritarian or centralist aspirations.
It is no coincidence that most of the latter in Ukraine were the work of
external forces. Even Pavlo Skoropadsky, the icon of Ukrainian
conservatives and right-wing statists, came to power 101 years ago at
the point of German bayonets — and immediately lost that power when the
German revolution threatened to topple the Kaiser himself. The
illustrious leader of the “Ukrainian State” did have some success in
building national institutions, but at the same time he managed to fill
Kyiv to the brim with fugitive Russian monarchists during the few months
of his rule. His cronies were openly dismissive of those pesky
Ukrainians and only escaped to this relatively calm and quiet Imperial
province to sit out the turbulence in Russian capitals. On the eve of
his fall, Skoropadsky pronounced a federal union with a phantom
“non-Bolshevik Russia”, which was a sad yet expected final chord of
“Ukrainian monarchism”. It could not end in a different way: even such a
noble and educated Tsarist general as Skoropadsky could not change the
nature of the people he formally led. So, if direct external rule is the
only way to shape the freedom-loving Ukrainians into a strict statist
structure, then we should pay more attention to local characters of
different caliber who publicly wish for a strongman ruler.
The latest person who tried to break the will of the Ukrainian people
was the fugitive president Viktor Yanukovych. In a certain way he did us
a great service, when in 2013 his stupidity, greed and carelessness led
to opening a portal to real Ukraine in the very center of Kyiv — the
Maidan protest camp. It allowed Ukrainians to peek through the dusty
curtains of post-Soviet routine and see a transcendent archetype of
themselves: free, armed people creating their own democratic,
self-organized society independent of the state. The Maidan barricades
blocked traffic, yet they showed us a way. Ten years before, after the
Orange revolution, which (what a coincidence!) was related to the same
Viktor Yanukovych, we learned not to trust any politicians, even those
who are very charismatic or great at beekeeping, like the winner of that
revolution president Viktor Yushchenko. Looking at a broader historical
perspective, both the revolutions were great steps for Ukraine — towards
itself. The first one ultimately got us rid of childish illusions and
dreams of a savior. The other, so to say, put that knowledge to
practice. We finally recalled a rule that had never failed us: “When in
doubt, set up a Sich” — a self-governing camp of free Cossacks. If one
is to believe Vladislav Surkov, one of Putin’s most influential
advisors, the Russian “Deep People” for centuries have been shaping
their own state in the only form acceptable for them: an authoritarian
empire. According to Surkov, the mighty Leviathan is just a domestic pet
for the “true Russian.” Well, maybe it is time to accept that the most
natural form of political life for the Ukrainian people is the anarchist
Free Territory?
If the popular 2000’s TV shows about influential people from history
(known here as “Great Ukrainians”) could really determine which historic
personality embodies the nation’s character the most, the Ukrainian
show’s winner would be obvious. You already know who this person is:
Nestor Makhno. Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci said that any society
at certain times produces someone who personifies the nation and allows
it to meet itself for the first time. The Ukrainian revolution of
1917–1921 offered many remarkable leaders, yet none of them conformed to
the demands of the anarchist peasant masses as well as Makhno, who was a
direct continuation of the XVIth century Cossack self-rule.
Obviously, this should not be seen as a call to restore historic early
XXth century anarchist praxis of community organizing. And yet, one
should not be ashamed of their nature. If all the national experience
points to our adherence to direct democracy, one should try to find a
shape that would make it work in modern Ukraine. The society is waging a
war against an external enemy (the Russian army in the East) and an
internal war in every community for our own survival under oligarchic
capitalism. There is no doubt that harmonizing community life with deep
national tradition will aid us on both the fronts. The latest electoral
race bared the obvious: even a relatively successful model of
representative democracy for electing the head of state gives no hope
for a radical overhaul of the system which the current situation
requires.
The repostmodern culture ensured a completely fair victory of a TV
comedian who does not have any discernible program, yet has the same old
faces behind him. In this situation, a logical step towards implementing
a more democratic project in Ukraine would be a demand for parliamentary
republic. Given the historic development of our political culture, a
presidency with bloated powers, where every new leader starts to build
an effectively new branch of power around himself, is indisputably
archaic. As to further prospects, let us closely watch the experience of
those countries where elements of direct democracy are either already
implemented (Switzerland, Iceland, several American and Mexican states)
or are on the agenda. This does not only concern the political sphere,
but also such democratic mechanism of redistributing wealth as Universal
Basic Income (UBI). Experiments to that effect have been ongoing in the
aforementioned Switzerland, the Nordic countries, Finland, certain parts
of India and elsewhere.
Going back to the freshly elected Guarantor of the Constitution, let us
make another small confession before ourselves. Volodymyr Zelensky’s
victory is the other side of the coin, the dark side of our national
mentality, that of complete negation. All polling during the past few
months has been showing that Zelensky’s unexpected success was a typical
protest vote. In other words, people did not vote for the funny man from
TV, but against everything associated (sometimes unjustly) with Petro
Poroshenko. However, that despite this demand for change, a new “active
minority” is coalescing around the outgoing president, a self-proclaimed
elite dreaming perhaps of authoritarian prospects, which carries a great
risk for our common future. The main challenge is obvious: either
Ukraine will be democratic, or there will be no Ukraine.
The bright side of the Ukrainian anarchist identity, our strengths and
potentials opened before my eyes, blurry from fascination, five years
ago at the Maidan. Frankly, it was only then that I, a product of the
sleepy islander community of post-Soviet Crimea, really felt Ukrainian
for the first time — a tiny yet organic part of a modern political
nation. A highly disciplined self-governing community numbering in
millions across the country was shaping a qualitatively new society:
first as a tiny island of freedom occupying two square kilometers in
central Kyiv, then as a revolutionary wave flushing the old garbage from
state offices in the regions, and finally as a self-organized volunteer
army backed by hundreds of thousands of volunteer helpers.
Our innate national anarchism is no cause for grief. In contrast, it is
an indisputable objective reality, which should be accepted and
efficiently used as a road sign that shows the way. The red and black
colors denote not only love and misery, as a classic Ukrainian song
goes, but also the two most important Ukrainian liberation movements of
the 20^(th) century: Makhno’s Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine
and the WW2 Ukrainian Insurgent Army. And, according to another classic
saying, life is only beautiful when it’s colorful. Let us remember this.