the iconoclastic sociologist outlines his Soviet-Ukrainian identity
I don’t really understand how a man born in 1982 can talk about his own Soviet-Ukrainian identity. Although you can hear a lot from modern sociologists
The whole thing makes no sense. I wish he would talk about his own experience rather in these vague terms. Does he mean he still wants to be a Bolshevik? Nuts.
Does he mean he still wants to be a Bolshevik? Nuts.
.
Volodymyr Ishchenko, publications in the Guardian, New Left Review, Jacobin, Al Jazeera
.
Enough?
For me, as someone who has never heard of this identity before, he doesn’t adequately explain what it is. I’m left with a feeling that he’s someone that doesn’t go along with the crowd(s) and thinks a bit more than most, and so inevitably finds more complexity than being either ethinically Ukrainian or Russian. There’s people who feel like that everywhere.
I appreciate it’s hard to comprehend for a Westerner but as someone who was born on the cusp of the system change of 89 myself I totally understand what he is taking about. We grew up still watching Yugoslavian and Czechoslovakian animations and using cultural references from the socialist era. Many of our parents are still remorseful of the change of the system so we grew up identifying more with the Eastern block than with the Disneyfied world of the West. Coupled with the inequality and corruption we find in post-socialist countries there is a nostalgia and a feeling that there is more that binds us together with East Germans and ex-Yugoslavians (there is still a strong nostalgia for Tito in Serbia for instance) and Soviets than with the patronising and smug West that has not given us the freedom it promised. Lea Ypi’s Free is a good book to give you better insights into this post-socialist mentality. Feeling Soviet (neither Russian nor Ukrainian) is definitely a feeling felt by many of the unvoiced populace of the former Soviet Union.
Thanks for the explanation, the article makes a lot more sense now. So I have heard of that before in relation to East Germans, though I guess it wasn’t called Soviet in reference to them, which might be why I didn’t see what the author was meaning.
I can imagine what it’s like to lose part of your identity and have an imported culture slowly and vaguely replace it, but also just just be left to find your own way in the empty space left by what had gone.
I’ve only ever really talked to one Ukrainian (late 90s) and he couldn’t tell me the difference be Ukrainians and Russians. He was from near Kharkiv so maybe he had Russian ethnicity. He also had no idea regarding the origin of the Rus or that at one time Kyiv was the centre of that culture.
My wife is Czech, born in 1956 and grew up under soviet rule. Her attitude regarding her fellow Czechs who are nostalgic for the Soviet era is that they are either loser’s who are either incapable or unwilling to compete in the new capitalist system or hopeless Marxist ideologues.
Really interesting, thanks for the explanation. Having lived in post-Soviet Armenia for a few years (as a diasporan repat), I think I get a sense of what you mean.
“…smug West that has not given us the freedom it promised.” People from ex-communist countries don’t know what freedom is and what to do with it. Freedom is a long and hard work, Svetlana Alexievich Secondhand Time.
Nobody gave you freedom. The central and eastern european countries snatched it as soon as they could and several countries still had to fight for it against a dying giant. Sorry so many whiny ex Boksheviks are still around. The piece doesnt explain anythjng
It’s the perspective that stands in the way of understanding. I, coming from a post-Soviet country, perfectly understand the reasoning of the author even as I do not necessarily agree with him on many accounts. To start with the relation between the time he was born and the Soviet-Ukrainian identity he has, I would say that identities live on long after a specific state or a polity is gone. Some of my colleagues born after 1982 still have big chunks of the Soviet identity embedded in them. Then, turning to his whole point, here is my interpretation of it. For all the vices that the Soviet Union had, it was a big modernization project with industrialization, urbanization, social mobility, an increase in the living standards compared to pre-1917 era etc. After 1991, the part of the society that tried to drive the social change towards democracy and market made two mistakes: 1) threw away the accomplishments of the Soviet era in the economic and social development, and worse; 2) failed to formulate their own positive program other than falling for ready made liberal and neo-conservative solutions that did not really work in the post-Soviet context. As a result, no matter which side prevails in the Ukrainian politics, Ukraine is doomed to be a badly governed periphery of either Russia or the West.
Have proper privatisation give shares to employees and government keep golden share of 31 %. Invite foreign companies in on design, build operate contracts where their profits are a percentage of the organisations profits. The foreign compny would only need a small number of employees: design, top level supervision and training role.
Thank you, Sir! You make perfect sense. Now all we need to do is find a wormhole straight to 1991 and make it happen. Oh yes, and do something about the corruption, which was as rampant in Ukraine in 1991 as it is now.
For all the vices that the Soviet Union had, it was a big modernization project with industrialization, urbanization, social mobility, an increase in the living standards compared to pre-1917 era etc
Hitler built the autobahns and gave the green light to Volkswagen. After 1991, the part of the society that tried to drive the social change towards democracy and market made two mistakes…
I’m sure more mistakes were made, but there is such a thing as historical inevitability. There is no royal road to geometry. This is true for history too.
Sayantani Gupta
2 months ago
Excellent article and analysis. The pain of those who suffer an erasure of their identities and ways of life and belief just because one doesn’t identify with any of the polarising binaries, as in the author’s context is one I can completely identify with.
As an Anglicised Indian who happens to also be a “Somewhere” nationalist, one often feels of belonging nowhere.
Post 1991 world politics and the destruction of ” big tent” cosmopolitanism, as well as the latent but “poisoned chalice” legacies of World WarTwo and the decolonisation of Empires are some trends creating a class of the ” uprooted”.
Like the author one has had to lose friends one grew up, went to college and school with, a part of my own upbringing and social class, simply for not subscribing to the ” accepted” view. While the author’s ” disagreeable” view is one of Soviet Ukrainism, in my case it is the kind of spurious, champagne Marxist globalism and hatred for the newly aspiring middle classes, which afflicts my peers but I object to as non- nuanced as well as anti national.
This feeling of being forced to be in ” not so splendid isolation” often extends to global exchanges, even online.
One can only hope there is greater space and tolerance for views and opinions which run against the prevailing orthodoxy, but represent an older way of seeing things.
Good post. My only question would be why would you want Ethnicity to be an important part of one’s identity? I can understand why aspects of Indian Culture would be important to preserve but what is the upside of identifying ethnically?
When you have communities of immigrants that flee to the West, I can totally appreciate why they initially congregate…but only temporarily. My understanding of the anglosphere ambitions is that it’s all about integration. That its a melting pot not the salad bowl. If Ethnic Communities stick together in “Solidarity” and don’t branch out, how do you get a one nation of people?
You obviously did branch out which is why I’m curious why you think preserving “ethnic identity” is more or equally important to a nation-first mindset? If I’m reading you wrong I apologize. I completely respect your take.
Thank you, I was referring to being a Hindu Indian in India albeit steeped in Westernised and extremely Anglophile views. I am not an emigre into Western society, so I can’t speak for that group.
My set of the old elite upper middle classes, especially in academia, media and related spheres are so polarised now against or for the civilizational identity which we now seek, it is difficult to dialogue calmly any more.
“… my case it is the kind of spurious, champagne Marxist globalism and hatred for the newly aspiring middle classes…” So much truth in so few words. Beautifully crafted insight into the North American situation as well. An unspoken hatred of the aspirants who have their own world view unique from their “betters.”
Thanks. One aspect which is an offshoot of the espousal of ” open borders” and perhaps common to elites all across, is the tacit support to changes in demographic balance and creating new vote-banks via illegal immigrants,for their particular brand of politics.
T Bone
2 months ago
On one hand, this is a fascinating piece and it’s insane that people all across the world now have access to this kind of cultural perspective. On the other hand, it goes to show how truly “progressive” the American experiment in Democracy was until very recently.
By “progressive” I don’t mean “culturally refined.” I mean an experiment that could create extraordinary high levels of both freedom and prosperity. America is criticized (often rightfully) for being the “policemen of the world” but it’s quite evident that much of the “free world” expects and desires for America to continue being globally assertive.
Obviously the issue now is how should America assert itself. I hope that America can one day help broker peace and not conflict. The ultimate goal is resolving conflicts.
The Soviet Bloc was guided by Conflict Theory. Much of the West is now infected with the same kind of ideological balkanization that sees political opposition as an existential threat. There has to be desire to find commonality with ideological opposition. Capitalism is simply better than Socialism as a form of cooperation because trade requires a level of conciliation. Socialism always has to declare group preference and identify group privilege for purposes of redistribution.
The French Revolution was launched on a completely different value set than the American Revolution despite the Oppressor/Oppressed similarities. One sought individual freedom and self-determination the other sought absolute equality and guaranteed results. Its not that the Socialist vision isn’t noble, its that it’s unsustainable. A value set that has to constantly use Conflict Theory to deprive individual liberty for the sake of the group is bound to fail over a sustained period of time.
Good post. I’d never encountered your brilliantly succinct explanation for the superiority of capitalism before. The great tragedy of modern times must be that the conflict theorists are winning even in America.
“Capitalism is simply better than Socialism as a form of cooperation because trade requires a level of conciliation. Socialism always has to declare group preference and identify group privilege for purposes of redistribution.“
You prompted me to look up conflict theory. What an awful, sterile way to view the world. Empathy, altruism, compassion, any and every positive element of the human condition ignored. Every interaction driven by competition.
It’s no surprise Marx didn’t pay his house maid, or acknowledge the child he bore on her.
How does the thinking of such a pitiless mind still hold so much sway in the world?
Perhaps the ultimate expression of Conflict Theory is the adoption of insincere references to empathy and altruism, exemplified by #BeKind as a means of manipulation
It may be there’s nowhere else for its exponents to go.
That is ultimately what happens, Steve. In totalitarian societies, words generate a double meaning (Exoteric/Esoteric). Most people hear the Exoteric original meaning but “social experts” are attempting to integrate a new Esoteric meaning of a term that ultimately replaces the old term in public consciousness.
The easiest present example is “Racism” which always referred to an intentional form of discrimination based on race. Recently its been reinterpreted to mean “systemic racism” which is wholly unintentional and refers to the distribution (and need for redistribution) of outcomes according to race.
The original interpretation of term sought to gradually eliminate conflict while the new interpretation provokes it as “a necessary condition” to the eventual elimination of future conflict in a perfect world. Of course, the odds of ending conflict by provoking more of it seems rather implausible.
Unfortunately, capitalism has a significant drawback – the natural desire to concentrate capital. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
The final form of capitalism is one person who owns the entire planet.
The most important function of the socialist state is to reduce the rate of concentration of capital as much as possible, distributing the results of labor more evenly.
Milton Gibbon
2 months ago
A confused piece in more ways than one. I don’t blame the author for being confused at his own predicament but I hope the book isn’t as rambling.
The description of fascists as counter-revolutionary is a reliably myopic view that belies modern scholarship – fascism being just another revolutionary movement among many. The decrying of the desire for the Ukrainian state to engage in “nation building” while it is still in the first decades of its existence is ridiculous. The author might like to consider the “nation building” that his beloved Soviets undertook upon the same ground (Holodomor, Red Terror, closing and desacration of churches and other cultural heritage) to view the Ukrainian state as generally liberal.
Edwin Blake
2 months ago
Truly exceptional articulation of a cultural view I never knew existed. Thank you to the author, and to Unherd for publishing this.
The Anglo-Indian comment here reminded me of another of these valuable groups whose representives I sometimes see on the Wire and Print from India.
It also reminded me rather poignantly of the orthodox Christians who yearn to reclaim the Hagia Sophia singing Ti ypermaho (Τῇ ὑπερμάχῳ)!
John Montague
2 months ago
Am left wondering what the author is referring to by “sometimes unjustifiable” mistakes of the Soviet social and political experiments, and which of the long list of murderous statist policies inflicted onto that benighted country during that 70 year experiment he would regard as justifiable…. And therefore worthy of repetition. That word “sometimes” offers to brush over, because of a push towards the assumed higher moral purpose of enforced equality, policies and history which demean, destroy and dehumanise.
He may as well have written this in Russian (or Ukrainian) for all the sense I took from it. Popping out all these terms and then using them with more terms and then throwing in ill defined concepts, philosophies – it all is a soup of vaguely – possibly but possibly not – understood ideas with more and more assumptions that we get it, stirred – man, to me it is a mess.
But then I read the comments which fallowed and to me they were speaking the same language and I could not fallow them either, they may as well have been speaking Ukrainian of Russian too….
Maybe Unherd could translate the article for me so I get what he is saying….
This is such an important writing in the Western media. While the Eastern block understands it, it is not part of the Western discussions as the West views everything pre-89 as bad and sees the systems change as universally benefitting the whole Eastern block and celebrated by all. This is not the case as evidenced by the large number of people still identifying as Yugoslavians (they don’t identify as either Croats or Bosnians or Serbs) and East Germans, who still feel they have been worse off after the system change and still use cultural references from the era. There are countless examples of this in civic communities in Eastern Europe albeit it is not expressed in the public sphere by the political elites and so it is not widely communicated or understood by the West.
Those who served in WW2 and especially those in the SOE/SAS/SBS appreciated the complexities of Europe. My Father said the collapse of the Iron Curtain will mean all the racial religious, linguistic and cultural conflicts which had been suppressed from 1945 to 1990 will resurface. The reality is that those with the experience, certainly in the case of Britain died, emigrated overseas or worked overseas for companies. In France there is a massive divide between rural catholic conservative and urban Marxist atheist which prevented many resistance groups working together inThose who served in WW2 and especially those in the SOE/SAS/SBS appreciated the complexities of Europe. My Father said the collapse of the Iron Curtain will mean all the racial religious, linguistic and cultural conflicts which had been suppressed from 1945 to 1990 will resurface. The reality is that those with the experience, certainly in the case of Britain died, emigrated overseas or worked overseas for companies. In France there is a massive divide between rural catholic conservative and urban Marxist atheist which prevented many resistance groups working together in WW2, similar for Greece and Italy. In Yugoslavia a communist Croat, Tito suppressed Serbian royalists. In Bulgaria fascists fought for SS and communist partisans fought them.
The reality was the politicians who came in power post 1990 had no experience of conflict. Bush and Thatcher were effective in 1990 Iraq/Kuwait because they were aware of Sunni Arab sensitivities and made sure the military aim was the removal of Iraq from Kuwait, not the overthrow of a Sunni Arab leader which would have humiliated the Sunni .
What should have happened in 1990 was the following
1. Soviet citizens to buy shares in companies and government keep 30% golden share. A proper privatisation. Speaking to members of the Armed Forces while in Moscow in the early noughties it was obvious they felt utterly humiliated by the theft of their industry by a few oligarchs, were resentful and wanted revenge.
2. Former USSR countries to be like Finland post 1945; democratic, free and capitalist but not part of EU or NATO.
3. Assistance in turning military factories over to white goods production.
4. Dismantling KGB.
5. Keeping defence spending at 2 % in NATO with hard realistic training.
6. Development of Shale oil and gas.
Realise that Russians have been humiliated by the collapse of the USSR, and not humiliate them further by impoverishing them which took place between 1900 and 2000. By keeping oil at $25/ barrel Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia do not have money to cause trouble. Low energy prices helps poor nations, especially by lowering cost of food.
The West has become the affluent delicate effete rich boy who taunts the poor boy about his wealth and then been on the end of a sound thrashing. Being rich is not the problem, being a rich effete delicate braggart who cannot fight is the problem.
They like to be addressed as Soviet cannon fodder?
Jürg Gassmann
2 months ago
Interesting window onto a complex landscape. Thank you for the contribution.
JOHN CAMPBELL
2 months ago
Soviet modernisation/class struggle!
Grow up.
George K
2 months ago
Losing one’s identity through a conscious act of uprooting oneself is one thing ( painful as I can attest myself) . Losing it through the violence and enforcement is something to leave you with hatred and deep resentment. I find Russian actions absolutely abhorrent but I have zero sympathy for an iconostasis of Bandera portraits and a mock schmeisser in a nearby Ukrainian restaurant here in Toronto
Andrew Boughton
2 months ago
Really fascinating piece. My Serbo-Croatian wife and pan-Yugoslav friends of all regions and religions articulate very well the love of culture as a force that unites and the political nationalism that is its opposite. Politics is poison. The natural destiny of the bullying bore. Accords with my lifelong view.
I doubt it is the love of “culture”. Pan-Yugoslavs simply cannot accept the loss of the privileges they had as members of the communist ruling elite. Probably the same feeling shared by Ishchenko.
martin logan
2 months ago
Hilarious attempt at reviving the corpse of world revolution, laden with the usual clunky Marxist terminology.
Hard to believe that people still believe this stuff anywhere.
Perhaps it just shows how intellectually backward Donbas always was?
It may be but the USSR provided an economic security which the period of 1990 to 2000 did not. It is when the professional middle class have to sell their propoerty on the street is when large parts of the population fail to appreciate democracy and capitalism. It was the withdrawal of American loans in 1931 which led to middle class poverty whic persuaded many to vote for Hitler in 1933.Konstantin Kisin explains how the period of 1990 to 2000 shaped many people in Russia.
martin logan
2 months ago
Russia’s leadership, who now are almost entirely products of the Cold War, explains the present conflict far better than regional peculiarities in Ukraine.
The real roots of the present conflict lie in Putin’s abortive attempt to create a Eurasian Economic Union in 2014. Sochi was to cap his great coup: the recreation of the Soviet empire in an economic guise.
Unfortunately, Maidan intervened, and the EEU was shown to be nothing more than the mirage of a few aging spies.
So the present conflict is really “revolution” from above. In revenge, Putin has launched a Lite version of the Cold War–the only conflict he understands. Interventions in Syria, Libya, and the Sahel are just rehashed versions of Marxist-Leninist ideas about anti-colonialism bringing down the affluent West.
It didn’t work up to 1991, and won’t work now.
Putin’s current magpie’s nest of inconsistent and contradictory ideas just shows that Russia never was heir to the European rational/forensic tradition that dates from the Middle Ages.
Those intellectual contradictions eventually destroyed the SU, and still imprison the minds of most Russians, be they in Donbas, or Russia itself…
Skink
2 months ago
After two years of the war in Ukraine, Germany has been soundly defeated. 😀
Huh? It’s EU and Germany above all that have been hurt by that war. (Apart from Ukraine itself, of course.) I merely conveyed an ironic headline that appeared in the Czech press yesterday.
Zenon Bańkowski
2 months ago
I don’t think the situation post WW1 is completely different. if you read Bulgakov’s White Guard then you will see the different and pluralistic factions fighting it out, including many of those named by the author. The outcome is somewhat different though. The article fits well with those like Seamus Milne who think the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20 century was the breakup of the Soviet Union. Indeed much of their politics sees Russian and Soviet as interchangeable which indeed in the day of the Soviet Union it was
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Excellent article!
“the descendants of the survivors would fight using German tanks against Russians on the very same battlefields where they had fought in the Red Army against German tanks, and would do so while demolishing the remaining monuments to their heroic ancestors?”
How true!
When a few months ago a Ukrainian veteran from the Nazi forces, who had fought the soviet army during WWII, received a standing ovation in the Canadian parliament, what was being assumed? That the audience (at least the organisers of the event) would have hoped for a Soviet defeat? Meaning Hitler’s victory!
Martin Johnson
2 months ago
Try as I do to avoid it, world history since 1945, the specific events of 2008-2022, and the details of what the author describes make me think that the “Western Ukrainian movement” was funded and coordinated from Washington and London, perhaps also through Warsaw. This simply does not sound like an indigenous, organic movement, not in its theories and especially not in how it reacted to doubters.
Dan Croitoru
2 months ago
The litany of “Homo Sovieticus” or “Homo Bolshevicus” of which a new generation is breeding this time in the West. That retarded teenager who happily disposes the lives of others and possibly his own for the “freedom” of not to face life as is and not to take responsibility for his own decisions. Led from cradle to grave by the state, between a purge and a famine, the “soviet” man enjoys his childish ego looking at his belly in the mirror …
the iconoclastic sociologist outlines his Soviet-Ukrainian identity
I don’t really understand how a man born in 1982 can talk about his own Soviet-Ukrainian identity. Although you can hear a lot from modern sociologists
The whole thing makes no sense. I wish he would talk about his own experience rather in these vague terms. Does he mean he still wants to be a Bolshevik? Nuts.
Does he mean he still wants to be a Bolshevik? Nuts.
.
Volodymyr Ishchenko, publications in the Guardian, New Left Review, Jacobin, Al Jazeera
.
Enough?
I think the Soviet heaven has a mass of slaves at you beck and call, rather then virgins.
For me, as someone who has never heard of this identity before, he doesn’t adequately explain what it is. I’m left with a feeling that he’s someone that doesn’t go along with the crowd(s) and thinks a bit more than most, and so inevitably finds more complexity than being either ethinically Ukrainian or Russian. There’s people who feel like that everywhere.
I appreciate it’s hard to comprehend for a Westerner but as someone who was born on the cusp of the system change of 89 myself I totally understand what he is taking about. We grew up still watching Yugoslavian and Czechoslovakian animations and using cultural references from the socialist era. Many of our parents are still remorseful of the change of the system so we grew up identifying more with the Eastern block than with the Disneyfied world of the West. Coupled with the inequality and corruption we find in post-socialist countries there is a nostalgia and a feeling that there is more that binds us together with East Germans and ex-Yugoslavians (there is still a strong nostalgia for Tito in Serbia for instance) and Soviets than with the patronising and smug West that has not given us the freedom it promised. Lea Ypi’s Free is a good book to give you better insights into this post-socialist mentality. Feeling Soviet (neither Russian nor Ukrainian) is definitely a feeling felt by many of the unvoiced populace of the former Soviet Union.
a feeling felt by many of the unvoiced populace of the former Soviet Union
Like these
b8b52abb6f33a48776ce09b5538707d9.jpg (750×500) (apostrophe.com.ua)
Thanks for the explanation, the article makes a lot more sense now. So I have heard of that before in relation to East Germans, though I guess it wasn’t called Soviet in reference to them, which might be why I didn’t see what the author was meaning.
I can imagine what it’s like to lose part of your identity and have an imported culture slowly and vaguely replace it, but also just just be left to find your own way in the empty space left by what had gone.
I’ve only ever really talked to one Ukrainian (late 90s) and he couldn’t tell me the difference be Ukrainians and Russians. He was from near Kharkiv so maybe he had Russian ethnicity. He also had no idea regarding the origin of the Rus or that at one time Kyiv was the centre of that culture.
I follow a Georgian lady on twitter who’s whole schtick is the glorification of SOVIET Georgia.
My wife is Czech, born in 1956 and grew up under soviet rule. Her attitude regarding her fellow Czechs who are nostalgic for the Soviet era is that they are either loser’s who are either incapable or unwilling to compete in the new capitalist system or hopeless Marxist ideologues.
Really interesting, thanks for the explanation. Having lived in post-Soviet Armenia for a few years (as a diasporan repat), I think I get a sense of what you mean.
“…smug West that has not given us the freedom it promised.” People from ex-communist countries don’t know what freedom is and what to do with it. Freedom is a long and hard work, Svetlana Alexievich Secondhand Time.
Nobody gave you freedom. The central and eastern european countries snatched it as soon as they could and several countries still had to fight for it against a dying giant. Sorry so many whiny ex Boksheviks are still around. The piece doesnt explain anythjng
It’s also pretty oxymoronic since the Soviets strove diligently to erase Ukrainian identity, to the point of genocide and mass imprisonment.
It’s the perspective that stands in the way of understanding. I, coming from a post-Soviet country, perfectly understand the reasoning of the author even as I do not necessarily agree with him on many accounts. To start with the relation between the time he was born and the Soviet-Ukrainian identity he has, I would say that identities live on long after a specific state or a polity is gone. Some of my colleagues born after 1982 still have big chunks of the Soviet identity embedded in them. Then, turning to his whole point, here is my interpretation of it. For all the vices that the Soviet Union had, it was a big modernization project with industrialization, urbanization, social mobility, an increase in the living standards compared to pre-1917 era etc. After 1991, the part of the society that tried to drive the social change towards democracy and market made two mistakes: 1) threw away the accomplishments of the Soviet era in the economic and social development, and worse; 2) failed to formulate their own positive program other than falling for ready made liberal and neo-conservative solutions that did not really work in the post-Soviet context. As a result, no matter which side prevails in the Ukrainian politics, Ukraine is doomed to be a badly governed periphery of either Russia or the West.
Have proper privatisation give shares to employees and government keep golden share of 31 %. Invite foreign companies in on design, build operate contracts where their profits are a percentage of the organisations profits. The foreign compny would only need a small number of employees: design, top level supervision and training role.
Thank you, Sir! You make perfect sense. Now all we need to do is find a wormhole straight to 1991 and make it happen. Oh yes, and do something about the corruption, which was as rampant in Ukraine in 1991 as it is now.
Corruption is/was huge in all post-communist countries.
For all the vices that the Soviet Union had, it was a big modernization project with industrialization, urbanization, social mobility, an increase in the living standards compared to pre-1917 era etc
Hitler built the autobahns and gave the green light to Volkswagen.
After 1991, the part of the society that tried to drive the social change towards democracy and market made two mistakes…
I’m sure more mistakes were made, but there is such a thing as historical inevitability. There is no royal road to geometry. This is true for history too.
Excellent article and analysis. The pain of those who suffer an erasure of their identities and ways of life and belief just because one doesn’t identify with any of the polarising binaries, as in the author’s context is one I can completely identify with.
As an Anglicised Indian who happens to also be a “Somewhere” nationalist, one often feels of belonging nowhere.
Post 1991 world politics and the destruction of ” big tent” cosmopolitanism, as well as the latent but “poisoned chalice” legacies of World WarTwo and the decolonisation of Empires are some trends creating a class of the ” uprooted”.
Like the author one has had to lose friends one grew up, went to college and school with, a part of my own upbringing and social class, simply for not subscribing to the ” accepted” view. While the author’s ” disagreeable” view is one of Soviet Ukrainism, in my case it is the kind of spurious, champagne Marxist globalism and hatred for the newly aspiring middle classes, which afflicts my peers but I object to as non- nuanced as well as anti national.
This feeling of being forced to be in ” not so splendid isolation” often extends to global exchanges, even online.
One can only hope there is greater space and tolerance for views and opinions which run against the prevailing orthodoxy, but represent an older way of seeing things.
Good post. My only question would be why would you want Ethnicity to be an important part of one’s identity? I can understand why aspects of Indian Culture would be important to preserve but what is the upside of identifying ethnically?
When you have communities of immigrants that flee to the West, I can totally appreciate why they initially congregate…but only temporarily. My understanding of the anglosphere ambitions is that it’s all about integration. That its a melting pot not the salad bowl. If Ethnic Communities stick together in “Solidarity” and don’t branch out, how do you get a one nation of people?
You obviously did branch out which is why I’m curious why you think preserving “ethnic identity” is more or equally important to a nation-first mindset? If I’m reading you wrong I apologize. I completely respect your take.
Thank you, I was referring to being a Hindu Indian in India albeit steeped in Westernised and extremely Anglophile views. I am not an emigre into Western society, so I can’t speak for that group.
My set of the old elite upper middle classes, especially in academia, media and related spheres are so polarised now against or for the civilizational identity which we now seek, it is difficult to dialogue calmly any more.
“… my case it is the kind of spurious, champagne Marxist globalism and hatred for the newly aspiring middle classes…” So much truth in so few words. Beautifully crafted insight into the North American situation as well. An unspoken hatred of the aspirants who have their own world view unique from their “betters.”
Thanks. One aspect which is an offshoot of the espousal of ” open borders” and perhaps common to elites all across, is the tacit support to changes in demographic balance and creating new vote-banks via illegal immigrants,for their particular brand of politics.
On one hand, this is a fascinating piece and it’s insane that people all across the world now have access to this kind of cultural perspective. On the other hand, it goes to show how truly “progressive” the American experiment in Democracy was until very recently.
By “progressive” I don’t mean “culturally refined.” I mean an experiment that could create extraordinary high levels of both freedom and prosperity. America is criticized (often rightfully) for being the “policemen of the world” but it’s quite evident that much of the “free world” expects and desires for America to continue being globally assertive.
Obviously the issue now is how should America assert itself. I hope that America can one day help broker peace and not conflict. The ultimate goal is resolving conflicts.
The Soviet Bloc was guided by Conflict Theory. Much of the West is now infected with the same kind of ideological balkanization that sees political opposition as an existential threat. There has to be desire to find commonality with ideological opposition. Capitalism is simply better than Socialism as a form of cooperation because trade requires a level of conciliation. Socialism always has to declare group preference and identify group privilege for purposes of redistribution.
The French Revolution was launched on a completely different value set than the American Revolution despite the Oppressor/Oppressed similarities. One sought individual freedom and self-determination the other sought absolute equality and guaranteed results. Its not that the Socialist vision isn’t noble, its that it’s unsustainable. A value set that has to constantly use Conflict Theory to deprive individual liberty for the sake of the group is bound to fail over a sustained period of time.
Good post. I’d never encountered your brilliantly succinct explanation for the superiority of capitalism before. The great tragedy of modern times must be that the conflict theorists are winning even in America.
“Capitalism is simply better than Socialism as a form of cooperation because trade requires a level of conciliation. Socialism always has to declare group preference and identify group privilege for purposes of redistribution.“
Perfect summation, thanks for that.
You prompted me to look up conflict theory. What an awful, sterile way to view the world. Empathy, altruism, compassion, any and every positive element of the human condition ignored. Every interaction driven by competition.
It’s no surprise Marx didn’t pay his house maid, or acknowledge the child he bore on her.
How does the thinking of such a pitiless mind still hold so much sway in the world?
Perhaps the ultimate expression of Conflict Theory is the adoption of insincere references to empathy and altruism, exemplified by #BeKind as a means of manipulation
It may be there’s nowhere else for its exponents to go.
That is ultimately what happens, Steve. In totalitarian societies, words generate a double meaning (Exoteric/Esoteric). Most people hear the Exoteric original meaning but “social experts” are attempting to integrate a new Esoteric meaning of a term that ultimately replaces the old term in public consciousness.
The easiest present example is “Racism” which always referred to an intentional form of discrimination based on race. Recently its been reinterpreted to mean “systemic racism” which is wholly unintentional and refers to the distribution (and need for redistribution) of outcomes according to race.
The original interpretation of term sought to gradually eliminate conflict while the new interpretation provokes it as “a necessary condition” to the eventual elimination of future conflict in a perfect world. Of course, the odds of ending conflict by provoking more of it seems rather implausible.
“I hope that America can one day help broker peace and not conflict.” Agreed
Unfortunately, capitalism has a significant drawback – the natural desire to concentrate capital. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
The final form of capitalism is one person who owns the entire planet.
The most important function of the socialist state is to reduce the rate of concentration of capital as much as possible, distributing the results of labor more evenly.
A confused piece in more ways than one. I don’t blame the author for being confused at his own predicament but I hope the book isn’t as rambling.
The description of fascists as counter-revolutionary is a reliably myopic view that belies modern scholarship – fascism being just another revolutionary movement among many. The decrying of the desire for the Ukrainian state to engage in “nation building” while it is still in the first decades of its existence is ridiculous. The author might like to consider the “nation building” that his beloved Soviets undertook upon the same ground (Holodomor, Red Terror, closing and desacration of churches and other cultural heritage) to view the Ukrainian state as generally liberal.
Truly exceptional articulation of a cultural view I never knew existed. Thank you to the author, and to Unherd for publishing this.
The Anglo-Indian comment here reminded me of another of these valuable groups whose representives I sometimes see on the Wire and Print from India.
It also reminded me rather poignantly of the orthodox Christians who yearn to reclaim the Hagia Sophia singing Ti ypermaho (Τῇ ὑπερμάχῳ)!
Am left wondering what the author is referring to by “sometimes unjustifiable” mistakes of the Soviet social and political experiments, and which of the long list of murderous statist policies inflicted onto that benighted country during that 70 year experiment he would regard as justifiable…. And therefore worthy of repetition. That word “sometimes” offers to brush over, because of a push towards the assumed higher moral purpose of enforced equality, policies and history which demean, destroy and dehumanise.
Only 30M victims. Not worth commenting on.
He may as well have written this in Russian (or Ukrainian) for all the sense I took from it. Popping out all these terms and then using them with more terms and then throwing in ill defined concepts, philosophies – it all is a soup of vaguely – possibly but possibly not – understood ideas with more and more assumptions that we get it, stirred – man, to me it is a mess.
But then I read the comments which fallowed and to me they were speaking the same language and I could not fallow them either, they may as well have been speaking Ukrainian of Russian too….
Maybe Unherd could translate the article for me so I get what he is saying….
You’re just supposed to nod your head and smile when the emperor is swinging free.
I wonder if this lost something in translation?
It was translated?
This is such an important writing in the Western media. While the Eastern block understands it, it is not part of the Western discussions as the West views everything pre-89 as bad and sees the systems change as universally benefitting the whole Eastern block and celebrated by all. This is not the case as evidenced by the large number of people still identifying as Yugoslavians (they don’t identify as either Croats or Bosnians or Serbs) and East Germans, who still feel they have been worse off after the system change and still use cultural references from the era. There are countless examples of this in civic communities in Eastern Europe albeit it is not expressed in the public sphere by the political elites and so it is not widely communicated or understood by the West.
Those who served in WW2 and especially those in the SOE/SAS/SBS appreciated the complexities of Europe. My Father said the collapse of the Iron Curtain will mean all the racial religious, linguistic and cultural conflicts which had been suppressed from 1945 to 1990 will resurface. The reality is that those with the experience, certainly in the case of Britain died, emigrated overseas or worked overseas for companies. In France there is a massive divide between rural catholic conservative and urban Marxist atheist which prevented many resistance groups working together in Those who served in WW2 and especially those in the SOE/SAS/SBS appreciated the complexities of Europe. My Father said the collapse of the Iron Curtain will mean all the racial religious, linguistic and cultural conflicts which had been suppressed from 1945 to 1990 will resurface. The reality is that those with the experience, certainly in the case of Britain died, emigrated overseas or worked overseas for companies. In France there is a massive divide between rural catholic conservative and urban Marxist atheist which prevented many resistance groups working together in WW2, similar for Greece and Italy. In Yugoslavia a communist Croat, Tito suppressed Serbian royalists. In Bulgaria fascists fought for SS and communist partisans fought them.
The reality was the politicians who came in power post 1990 had no experience of conflict. Bush and Thatcher were effective in 1990 Iraq/Kuwait because they were aware of Sunni Arab sensitivities and made sure the military aim was the removal of Iraq from Kuwait, not the overthrow of a Sunni Arab leader which would have humiliated the Sunni .
What should have happened in 1990 was the following
1. Soviet citizens to buy shares in companies and government keep 30% golden share. A proper privatisation. Speaking to members of the Armed Forces while in Moscow in the early noughties it was obvious they felt utterly humiliated by the theft of their industry by a few oligarchs, were resentful and wanted revenge.
2. Former USSR countries to be like Finland post 1945; democratic, free and capitalist but not part of EU or NATO.
3. Assistance in turning military factories over to white goods production.
4. Dismantling KGB.
5. Keeping defence spending at 2 % in NATO with hard realistic training.
6. Development of Shale oil and gas.
Realise that Russians have been humiliated by the collapse of the USSR, and not humiliate them further by impoverishing them which took place between 1900 and 2000. By keeping oil at $25/ barrel Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia do not have money to cause trouble. Low energy prices helps poor nations, especially by lowering cost of food.
The West has become the affluent delicate effete rich boy who taunts the poor boy about his wealth and then been on the end of a sound thrashing. Being rich is not the problem, being a rich effete delicate braggart who cannot fight is the problem.
They like to be addressed as Soviet cannon fodder?
Interesting window onto a complex landscape. Thank you for the contribution.
Soviet modernisation/class struggle!
Grow up.
Losing one’s identity through a conscious act of uprooting oneself is one thing ( painful as I can attest myself) . Losing it through the violence and enforcement is something to leave you with hatred and deep resentment. I find Russian actions absolutely abhorrent but I have zero sympathy for an iconostasis of Bandera portraits and a mock schmeisser in a nearby Ukrainian restaurant here in Toronto
Really fascinating piece. My Serbo-Croatian wife and pan-Yugoslav friends of all regions and religions articulate very well the love of culture as a force that unites and the political nationalism that is its opposite. Politics is poison. The natural destiny of the bullying bore. Accords with my lifelong view.
I doubt it is the love of “culture”. Pan-Yugoslavs simply cannot accept the loss of the privileges they had as members of the communist ruling elite. Probably the same feeling shared by Ishchenko.
Hilarious attempt at reviving the corpse of world revolution, laden with the usual clunky Marxist terminology.
Hard to believe that people still believe this stuff anywhere.
Perhaps it just shows how intellectually backward Donbas always was?
It may be but the USSR provided an economic security which the period of 1990 to 2000 did not. It is when the professional middle class have to sell their propoerty on the street is when large parts of the population fail to appreciate democracy and capitalism. It was the withdrawal of American loans in 1931 which led to middle class poverty whic persuaded many to vote for Hitler in 1933.Konstantin Kisin explains how the period of 1990 to 2000 shaped many people in Russia.
Russia’s leadership, who now are almost entirely products of the Cold War, explains the present conflict far better than regional peculiarities in Ukraine.
The real roots of the present conflict lie in Putin’s abortive attempt to create a Eurasian Economic Union in 2014. Sochi was to cap his great coup: the recreation of the Soviet empire in an economic guise.
Unfortunately, Maidan intervened, and the EEU was shown to be nothing more than the mirage of a few aging spies.
So the present conflict is really “revolution” from above. In revenge, Putin has launched a Lite version of the Cold War–the only conflict he understands. Interventions in Syria, Libya, and the Sahel are just rehashed versions of Marxist-Leninist ideas about anti-colonialism bringing down the affluent West.
It didn’t work up to 1991, and won’t work now.
Putin’s current magpie’s nest of inconsistent and contradictory ideas just shows that Russia never was heir to the European rational/forensic tradition that dates from the Middle Ages.
Those intellectual contradictions eventually destroyed the SU, and still imprison the minds of most Russians, be they in Donbas, or Russia itself…
After two years of the war in Ukraine, Germany has been soundly defeated. 😀
explain please
Huh? It’s EU and Germany above all that have been hurt by that war. (Apart from Ukraine itself, of course.) I merely conveyed an ironic headline that appeared in the Czech press yesterday.
I don’t think the situation post WW1 is completely different. if you read Bulgakov’s White Guard then you will see the different and pluralistic factions fighting it out, including many of those named by the author. The outcome is somewhat different though. The article fits well with those like Seamus Milne who think the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20 century was the breakup of the Soviet Union. Indeed much of their politics sees Russian and Soviet as interchangeable which indeed in the day of the Soviet Union it was
Excellent article!
“the descendants of the survivors would fight using German tanks against Russians on the very same battlefields where they had fought in the Red Army against German tanks, and would do so while demolishing the remaining monuments to their heroic ancestors?”
How true!
When a few months ago a Ukrainian veteran from the Nazi forces, who had fought the soviet army during WWII, received a standing ovation in the Canadian parliament, what was being assumed? That the audience (at least the organisers of the event) would have hoped for a Soviet defeat? Meaning Hitler’s victory!
Try as I do to avoid it, world history since 1945, the specific events of 2008-2022, and the details of what the author describes make me think that the “Western Ukrainian movement” was funded and coordinated from Washington and London, perhaps also through Warsaw. This simply does not sound like an indigenous, organic movement, not in its theories and especially not in how it reacted to doubters.
The litany of “Homo Sovieticus” or “Homo Bolshevicus” of which a new generation is breeding this time in the West. That retarded teenager who happily disposes the lives of others and possibly his own for the “freedom” of not to face life as is and not to take responsibility for his own decisions. Led from cradle to grave by the state, between a purge and a famine, the “soviet” man enjoys his childish ego looking at his belly in the mirror …