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INTERVIEW WITH A UKRAINIAN MARXIST AND SOLDIER FIGHTING IN THE

DONBAS
Nihilist, December 6, 2014
Translated by Katarzyna Bieliska and edited by Louis N. Proyect.
Andriy M. (the name was changed) is one of those Kiev white-collar leftists, who after some
hesitations supported Maidan last winter and in spring took a decisive stand against the reaction
in Crimea and in Eastern Ukraine. His stand finally led him to the Ukrainian army and now
Andriy is taking part in the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation) in the Donbas. Having known this,
Nihilist [1] asked him a few questions.
How did you come to join the army? What unit is it?
A very ordinary one, the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade. The one that was surrounded near
Izvarino in July. In that time it was constantly being shot at, while suffering heavy personnel and
equipment losses. Four hundred soldiers were even forced to withdraw to Russian territory, an
outcome that generated a lot of media hype. Later the Ukrainian troops gained control of SavurMohyla barrow, liberated the surrounded brigade, and led it out of the ATO zone. In AugustSeptember near Melitopol the brigade was replenished with personnel and armored fighting
vehicles. I then joined that brigade as a gunner and was mobilized in August. At the moment the
brigade is again in the ATO zone.
Could you have evaded military service?
Technically yes, definitely I could. But already in March I went to the military commissariat
and told the commander that the army can count on me. At that time Crimea was just annexed
and the riots in the Donbas and Kharkov had begun. It was clear to me that a big war was
coming. I was also convinced that Russian Army intrusion was a matter of a few weeks. For me
the Putin regime, Russian occupation, and ideas of Russian World are absolutely unacceptable.
Therefore it was impossible for me to remain a bystander. Then everything went a bit different
than expected. Instead of regular army invasion, Putin began by using local paramilitary
formations, but in reality it did not change the situation. Of course, lots of friends offered me
help shelter, leaving Kiev and going abroad, applying for a visa etc. I did not take such
alternatives into consideration for reasons of principle.
Do you characterize yourself as a leftist and a Marxist today?
In respect of beliefs, a worldview definitely yes. However, if one takes a point of view that
sees Marxism as a political practice in the first place, I could be reproached that according to this
criteria I am not a Marxist. I will not argue with that, but I just ask whether the Bolsheviks were
Marxists when they were defending the Kerensky government from the Kornilov Revolt. As a
Marxist, I am aware of the fact that today a Ukrainian state is an unpleasant thing. There are very
strong rightist conservative and nationalist tendencies there, with the power in the hands of big
capital the same as before, a powerful offensive is launched against the social component of
state spending and workers rights. You know, as in the socialist realist art, the priority was

depiction of a conflict between the good and the better, today in the Donbas there is a conflict
between the bad and the worse. In Russia right-wing conservatism and authoritarianism are not
just a tendency but full reality. The new expansionism in the sauce of the Russian World is a
disgusting reactionary ideology that in reality is translated into war, violence, lies and hatred. In
the Donbas all of them are in full bloom and trying to expand themselves. In my opinion, the
main task is to stop it. Referring to the Kornilovism analogy, I will mention that a good friend of
mine, a socialist, says that this war takes place between Petliuraites [2] and White Guards. This
analogy is a bit lame, but in the situation when at war there is no communist side, for me as a
Marxist the choice between White Guards and Petliuraites is obvious: in favor of the latter. At the
same time it is evident that we are not even allies but just fellow travellers and just to the first
crossroad.
What do you think about Maidan? What was that?
Maidan is a very complicated theme. On the one hand, it was a popular uprising and an
experience of the self-organization of the masses, followed by the creation of volunteer battalions
and a powerful and effective network of volunteers supporting those battalions, but on the other
hand, there was an openly right-wing political wrapping. My approach to Maidan was changing
from careful neutrality towards critical support following the infamous 16 January Laws. In any
case, even the very right-wing wrapping was not sufficient to discredit the powerful democratic
component of Maidan. In my opinion, it is enough to deserve acknowledgment. In any way,
Maidan is in the past now; we live in the post-Maidan epoch and at the moment that mixture of
progress and reaction, prepared on Maidan, is breaking down into its components: so much the
better. It would be easier to separate the wheat from the chaff.
What is this war for you?
Firstly, it is a huge tragedy for millions of people sorry for the banality. The civilian
population is being disinformed, deceived and terrorized by both sides. In those rare cases, when
the dialogue with the local inhabitants is held, the majority of them ask: Why have you come
armed to our land? When you answer: To prevent separatists and Putins soldiers from coming
armed to our land, they do not accept it. However, this is a real goal. There are lots of aspects of
this war and I clearly see political profits gained by the Ukrainian and Russian elites the profits
generated from sufferings of local population and Ukrainian and Russian soldiers. For me
personally, such phantasms as a territorial integrity or a national statehood have no meaning and I
do not see them worth life and blood. However, if Ukraine lays down arms, the war will not stop
but imperialist Russia will just continue its bloody expansion undisturbed. It is an aggression and
the aggressor must be stopped not appeased. Unfortunately, there is no good solution here. One
has to choose between the bad and the worse.
What are Ukrainian soldiers in the East fighting for?
Every soldier is fighting for his own reasons. For example, my colleague, a Maidanist and
romantic nationalist, Sanya is fighting for his fatherland and the centuries-old Ukrainian dream of
independence. A robust peasant, Misha, is fighting so that no-one from abroad tells him, his
children, and grand-children what rules they should live by. An electrician Serhiy is fighting only
because he was mobilized and he is very unhappy with it. He is also personally unhappy with the

commissar who sent him to the slaughter instead of somebody more suitable. However all that
does not prevent him from performing combat missions with dignity. Some people do not hide
that they are fighting for money due to the poverty and unemployment in civilian life, going to
war has become a noteworthy alternative for a number of people. The majority of soldiers are
convinced that they are fighting for Ukraine, its territorial integrity, the right to live not on orders
from Kremlin, preventing Donetsk bandits and commies for good from trying to govern the
country. That is the main motivation.
It turns out that the soldiers are anticommunists and it is a mass phenomenon. How could you
explain it?
There is a great temptation to shift the entire responsibility to the Communist Party of Ukraine
(KPU). The party of Petro Simonenko did really all that could have been done to make the word
communist offensive. Years of serving the interests of oligarchs accompanied by the socialist
rhetoric and last years explicit support for the enemy all that leaves a trace. However, this is
not only the matter of the KPU. The ancestors of numerous soldiers and officers were victims of
Stalinist repressions or died during the Holodomor (extermination by famine). For each of them
those things are not an abstraction or historical events but a tragedy that directly touched their
families, a crime committed by the Soviet government. And through two decades the Ukrainian
state propaganda machine was successfully flooding the masses with the idea that the famine,
violence and executions are the essence of communism. No wonder people easily adopt it as their
own viewpoint.
Does a communist feel comfortable in such an environment?
Of course not. But there is one good principle: neither to cry nor to laugh but to understand.
To keep ones cool. To notice that the hatred to communism among the masses of soldiers is not
hatred toward the ideas of justice, cooperation, solidarity and freedom. On the contrary, it is
hatred of the social parasitism that typifies communist party hierarchies, and hatred of the total
physical, ideological and economical violence. And it is entirely compatible with sharp nonacceptance of the new post-Maidan government. For the majority of soldiers Poroshenko,
Yatseniuk and Klychko are no better than Yanukovych. The timeliness of the social question has
not been abolished. Certainly, today the ultra-right forces are trying to speculate with it but that is
because the left in Ukraine turned out unable to play on its traditional political field.
Is that why the left has lost in Ukraine?
It is a complicated question. Now I am to say a handful of standard phrases about the
combination of objective and subjective factors. And where did you see a victory of the left in the
period of primitive accumulation and redistribution of capital? The actual left-wing class-oriented
mass movement has not been able to form yet one cannot take for the left the Sovietconservative KPU or pale pink bourgeois socialists! Not to mention commercial and
technological political projects like Borotba, which, from the very beginning, were created to
fulfill completely non-leftist tasks. Those left-wing organizations that were actually trying to
fulfill the proper tasks, either were organizationally too weak to grow out of little circles or
turned out to be so accustomed to the certain conditions that they were not able to realize
themselves outside those conditions like for example the Direct Action [3].

Has your approach to the Western and Russian left changed?


It has not changed but rather definitely formed. In the West the left is characterized by rational
conformism, by dogmatism or most often by a combination of both of those unpleasant
features. They, more or less successfully, fulfill the tasks in their own countries but in respect to
Ukraine their position is affected in varying degrees by adjusting their thinking on the Ukrainian
situation to some of the usual dogmas and to export opinions of their Ukrainian contacts that
very often turn out to be presenting and analyzing in bad faith Ukrainian developments. As a
result, numerous Western leftists believe that there is a socialist revolution in the Donbas, that
Ukraine is a fascist state and this state is drowning the popular uprising in blood on the orders
from Washington. To make them change their mind is incredibly hard, even impossible.
Therefore, in my view, it is easier and better to live as if there was no Western left. As for the
Russian left, a huge part of it is under the impression of bygone Soviet socialism and the great
victory against fascism. The Soviet Union passed away long time ago, in the Kremlin there are
no people in power who defeated fascism in 1945. Meanwhile in Kiev the power is not in hands
of Bandera and Shukhevytch, but the matrix is in use and people who curse the regime furiously
turn out to be faithful Putinists when it comes to the issue of Ukraine. Fortunately, not all Russian
left is like that, but
What should be done?
To observe attentively. In no case to shut away in an ivory tower but, quite the contrary, to be in
the thick of things, as close to people as possible. As a matter of fact, it is another reason why I
am in the war now. As long as we have the first-hand experience of what the people of Ukraine
live and breathe, we will be able to create an effective strategy and tactics. A very complicated
time is coming. A right-wing consensus in the society combined with an unsolved social question
can lead to a fascist coup. One should become aware of this danger and prepare for it. To educate
the masses, to propose a solution to social conflicts that would be based on a class approach. That
solution must be more effective than the one proposed by the right-wing national-social
populism. And I have fallen into the abstract again. Let us finish the war and then we will talk
about this issue in more detail, ok?
Translated by Katarzyna Bieliska and edited by Louis N. Proyect.
Notes by the translator
[1] Nihilist is a web portal edited in Ukraine by anarchists and left-wing anti-authoritarian
radicals who try to combine constant theoretical search with everyday revolutionary practice.
[2] Petliuraites was the popular name of supporters of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic, formed in
Kiev after the fall of the Russian Empire. It existed since January until April 1918 and since
December 1918 until November 1920. It was in war both with Soviet Russia and the imperialist
Great Russian White Guards. Its Commander-in-Chief and, since February 1919, its President
was Symon Petliura.
[3] The Direct Action (PD) is a network of independent students unions, with a left-wing antiauthoritarian and syndicalist orientation, established in 2008 in Kiev and active also in some
other universitary centers of the country.

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