One thing you need to understand about Eastern Europe, and particularly Russia and the Former Soviet Union, is that fascism isn’t really about ideology. It’s not a set of beliefs about the state, society, etc. Fascists are people opposed to you or “your” country. That is all. This is why you have Russians spouting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and who talk about the superiority of the “white race”(of which they weren’t considered a part for most of the concept’s existence) and yet still demand international solidarity for their “struggle against fascism.” This is why Ukrainian liberals can defend their own nationalists while screaming about the same behavior among the Donbass militias. It’s why Russian “leftists” can ignore cossacks with White Guard insignia who openly speak of creating a Russian, Orthodox empire, while jumping on a story like this about a Swedish skinhead fighting for the Ukrainian government. Both sides adhere to a primitive, moronic worldview which tells them that only the fascist associations of their opponents matter, and that this somehow negates or cancels out their own.
If a Ukrainian can show us that a particular volunteer in Eastern Ukraine has an SS tattoo, this somehow invalidates the hundreds if not thousands of photos showing Ukrainian nationalists. Yes, they
actually think that way, and they are the
same.
I cannot stress that last point enough.
Some people, even those with experience in Russia, foolishly buy into the notion that most Maidan supporters are actually more liberal, tolerant, and intelligent than the Russians who support separatism and who are currently railing against the Maidan movement. Nothing is further from the truth. These people are the same in terms of mentality and their complete lack of capacity for critical thinking. Their mind can only conceive of political struggle as a sort of football match between their national team and a rival’s team. This may be occasionally peppered with meaningless bullshit jargon like “civil society” and other buzzwords gleaned from various NGOs. But make no mistake,
the politically savvy, tolerant, liberal, intellectual Kievian hipster is a myth made up for Western consumption. What these people say when they don’t think anyone is watching totally destroys that image. In reality, these people are no different from the “Novorossiya” imperialists across the border in Russia.
Both Maidan fanatics and Russian imperialists are more than happy to lie to outside observers in a sociopathic manner, pissing on your leg while telling you it’s raining. That’s why the Social National Assembly’s leader told the BBC reporter that it’s not a neo-Nazi organization. He was not at all concerned that the reporter could easily check the claim via the internet, because in Ukraine as in Russia, saying things makes them true, even if you don’t believe what you’re saying. In recent times I’ve seen dozens of Russian “Communists” and anti-government Ukrainian “leftists” pull the exact same thing every time I showed them indisputable evidence of fascist, imperialist, and pro-capitalist behavior on the part of the “governments” of the unrecognized republics in the Donbass.
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Alright enough of that. I just wanted to highlight something the BBC reporter felt compelled to include in his article.
Ukraine is a democratic state, which held a democratic election in May, where the far right and nationalist parties got hardly any votes. These views are not popular with the electorate.
This line of bullshit has been peddled by Maidan apologists since the elections in May, as if the loss of Crimea and an uprising in the East had nothing to do with the way people voted. Some have even taken results of the European elections, in which European nationalist parties apparently made significant gains, to support the equally idiotic claim that Europe is more right-wing than Ukraine. Really? Remind me what Maidan was about again? Oh right- joining Europe.
Aside from those obvious logical problems, whether or not Ukraine is a “democratic” state is irrelevant here. Yanukovych was a democratically elected president. He got overthrown, largely thanks to the actions of those totally unpopular nationalist thugs. That means that if these nationalists should grow tired of Ukraine’s “democratic” regime, they have every reason to believe that they can easily replace that government via force, and Tim Snyder’s Diverse Rainbow Coalition of peaceful protesters can’t do shit about it. History proves again and again that small, organized groups willing to fight can decide major political matters in spite of their size. [Which is what happened in the Maidan.]
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These are ideas which have permeated Ukrainian politics for quite some time and to date I have seen no attempt by Maidan supporters to sever their movement from their nationalist fellow travelers who hold the same ideas. The only time Maidan supporters even make this attempt is when they get caught red-handed and it’s politically inconvenient, in which case the conversation quickly turns to whataboutism and
the “Russo-Ukrainian Fascist Negation Principle,” whereby pointing out fascists in Russia literally makes Ukrainian fascists cease to exist. With Maidan-linked parties fully in control of most of Ukraine, especially since the Russian imperialists seem happy to cede everything West of the Dnieper to them, they will control the means to disseminate information and subsequent generations of Ukrainian youth will be inundated with the mythology. Government failures can always be blamed on Russia, and Russia seems happy to play the part.
Getting back to the subject of the mythology, Maidan supporters, so vehemently anti-socialist despite the fact that socialism is the very thing Ukraine needs, constantly insist that Ukraine will somehow succeed if only it somehow manages to totally free itself from its Soviet past. Well not
all of its Soviet past of course. They still want the Crimea, the former Novorossiya territory, and I’m sure they don’t want Galicia going back to Poland. I’m sure they also want the road networks, the mines, the schools, the hospitals, and all those things. But aside from all that, Ukraine must emerge from the past and leave that old, backward Soviet legacy in the dustbin of history! And it will do this by fanatically embracing early 20th century nationalism and symbols of a traditional peasantry which lived in near-medieval conditions until lifted out of that poverty by… Uh…er…um…GOD! Yes, it was a miracle!
[Russia Without BS shows a picture of the Dnieperpro dam]
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It’s very hard to explain how this Ukrainian nationalism works to Americans, but the best example I can think of is the Tea Party. Do you get offended when you hear a Tea Party speaker referring to their movement as “real Americans?” Do you get angry that you might not be considered a “real” American because you don’t support the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation, that abortion should be illegal or highly restricted, that marriage should be legally defined as being between one man and one woman, or simply because you don’t worship the military, bald eagles, NASCAR, or the NFL? Well you see that’s what it’s like being a Ukrainian who doesn’t buy into the national myth of Ukraine.
I and others have said it before; this isn’t so much of a struggle between Russians and Ukrainians as it is between groups of Ukrainians who disagree on what Ukraine should be. Many Ukrainians speak Ukrainian and prefer to live in Ukraine if not a European Union affiliated Ukraine. But what they don’t want is to be told that grandpa was wounded twice fighting for an illegal occupation while collaborators who participated in brutal mass killings and ethnic cleansing are Ukraine’s heroes. They don’t want their kids hearing these things in school. You could often hear this sentiment expressed by people in the Crimea prior to annexation or in the Donbass. But the thing about Maidan is that you
can’t object to this and still support independent Ukraine, oppose Yanukovych, etc. If you don’t buy into the myths, you’re a Russian, you’re a “vatnik.”
