Blog

By Lev Yurkevych & Christopher Ford
Links, Published 29 July, 2025

First published at New Politics. Translation by Terry Liddle. Introduction, editing and notes by Christopher Ford.

Presented below for the first time in the English language is the pamphlet Ukraine and the War by Lev Yurkevych offering what is arguably the earliest concise Marxist analysis of the Ukrainian question to be presented to international socialists.

Yurkevych, a figure whose name and role have been long forgotten in the history of the labor movement, was during his lifetime one of the foremost Ukrainian representatives of the Social Democracy of the Second International. For decades, those who encountered his name — if they did at all — typically did so through the polemics of Vladimir Lenin. In the Soviet Union, where Lenin was venerated as saint without sin, Yurkevych was maligned as a “bourgeois nationalist,” his writings suppressed, and hidden from view.

Yurkevych forms part of a lost left — lost not only through the physical extermination wrought by Stalinist repression and the Nazi occupation of Ukraine but also through a long succession of retrogressive approaches to the history of the revolutionary period which have cast the Ukrainian Marxist tradition pejoratively.

The ideas articulated by Yurkevych and the Ukrainian Social Democrats extend beyond mere historical interest; the challenges they confronted remain profoundly relevant today. In his opening remarks to Ukraine and the War, Yurkevych observed that prior to 1914, European democrats had shown little concern for the Ukrainian question, yet it would play a significant role in shaping the post-war order.

Similarly, prior to Russia’s war against Ukraine commencing in 2014, there was little interest in Ukraine in the West. Since then, interest has markedly increased — a welcome development, but one accompanied by new forms of retrogression.

We have seen a revival of reactionary ideas that Ukrainian Marxists faced in Tsarist times and that were advanced by the White movement during the Civil War. These ideas include that “Great Russia,” “Little Russia” (Ukraine), and Belarus are three branches of a singular Russian people, Russian language and culture being their shared achievement. Moreover, there are the claims that Little Russia is an inseparable part of a unified Russia, and that the notion of a distinct Ukrainian identity is manufactured by foreign powers to weaken Russia.1

Contemporary Russian leaders base their interpretations of the Ukrainian question on these principles in acting as heir and guardian of Tsarist Imperialism. The reburial of General Denikin in 2005 with military honors in Moscow was an apt symbol of this reconnection with Empire. That Denikin secured Western sponsors for his war to reconstruct the Empire is understandable; that Putin can harness support of the far-right is no surprise. What is significant is the support and appeasement of sections of the international left for Russia’s war of colonial reconquest against Ukraine.

In this context the publication of Yurkevych’s analysis holds relevance today. It offers a unique perspective — one that comes directly from a Marxist within the oppressed periphery — on challenges and issues that have resurfaced in our own time.

Lev Yurkevych: A biographical sketch
Lev Yurkevych (1883–1919), who wrote under the pseudonyms L. Rybalka and E. Nicolet, was born in the village of Krivoy — now part of the Zhytomyr region — in what was then Russian-ruled Ukraine. His father, Yosyp Yurkevych was a key figure in the development of the cooperative movement and a leading activist in the Hromada movement that played a crucial role in the Ukrainian revival during the 19th century.

During his university years in Kyiv, Lev Yurkevych was engaged in revolutionary student activism. At the age of 19, he became an active socialist joining the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP) in 1903 after reading their periodical Selyanyn (Peasant).2

Founded in 1900, the RUP was the first Ukrainian political party within the Russian Empire, playing a crucial role in Ukraine’s political life in the early 20th century. In the lead-up to the 1905 revolution, the RUP experienced significant growth; the paper Iskra noted that RUP leaflets were spread across Ukraine “like snow.”3 In the spring of 1902, Tsarist authorities attributed the mass agrarian strikes to RUP “revolutionary propaganda,” seen by the RUP as the “beginning of the Ukrainian revolution.”4

Initially a coalition of various socialists, radicals, and nationalists, the RUP quickly evolved toward Marxism. By the time Yurkevych joined in 1903, it had formally declared its commitment to the principles of international Social Democracy.

During the years 1904–1905, amid the Russo-Japanese War and revolution, Yurkevych agitated in Kyiv’s factories and streets. Alongside fellow activist Anastasia Grinchenko, they expanded the Kyiv RUP committee, transforming it from a group primarily of intellectuals into one that included active circles of Ukrainian workers.5

This orientation was a major shift from the RUP’s focus on rural Ukraine to organizing urban Ukrainian workers, in an environment where the urban centers saw the primacy of Russians and non-Ukrainian minorities.6 Ukrainians found Russian not only the language of the state but of the labor regime, of the manager and the foreman, with a division of labor that relegated them to the lower strata, with a high proportion of temporary workers being Ukrainian.7 Yurkevych recalled of this campaigning:

Our meetings were mostly about the division of society into classes, the class struggle, socialism, the slogans of the Russian Revolution, current questions, the autonomy of Ukraine and the principle of national organizations. Because of their complexity these last two points were the focus of much attention by our propaganda group. The national character of the work showed in the fact that with Ukrainians we spoke exclusively Ukrainian. At first the workers were a little ashamed to use their native language, but when we spoke it, they always listened with a cheerful smile. It was clear our conversations aroused pleasant memories of their villages, perhaps of their dear ones…. Sometimes we had to defend the right of Ukrainian to exist as a separate language, arguing mainly that the village proletariat constituted the overwhelming majority of the workers, and to ensure the unity of our movement it was necessary to use the majority language; and that the peasantry only understood Ukrainian, and only through this medium would we be able to revolutionize them. And once we’ve done that, we’ll win over the army — the main support of the tsarist regime, which is primarily made up of peasants.8

Yurkevych was to gain some recognition for organizing a strike — not just among ordinary workers, but in the iconostasis workshops, where workers painted icons for the renowned Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.9 Yurkevych’s success, however, came at a cost, as he faced repeated arrests and imprisonment by the Tsarist police, the Okhrana.10

In December 1905, Yurkevych attended the Second Congress of the RUP in Kyiv, where the party was re-launched as the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers Party (USDRP). Held on his father’s estate, the congress was nearly cut short when police raided the site on its second day. A few weeks later there were mass arrests, including of Yurkevych, who was incarcerated in Lukyanivka prison. Shortly after his release in May 1906, he was co-opted into the USDRP Central Committee; then after another prison term, Yurkevych, aided by smugglers, fled the Russian Empire in 1907, though he returned several times illegally.

Despite his exile, Yurkevych remained a pivotal figure in Ukrainian Social Democracy, serving as both an organizer and theorist. His efforts in coordinating and funding party publications were crucial to the survival of the USDRP.

At this time, Ukraine was divided between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, with Ukrainian Social Democracy forming distinct parties in each region. In 1899, the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Party (USDP) was founded in Galicia, an autonomous party within the federal All-Austrian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. In 1913, Yurkevych briefly served as the secretary of the USDP in Galicia.11

In the years leading up to the 1917 Revolution, Ukrainian Social Democracy emerged as the most consistent and prolific force in political publishing in the Ukrainian language. The USDRP published more than twenty newspapers and periodicals and republished works by key socialist leaders of the period. Their materials had a significant influence, extending well beyond their own ranks.

The work of Ukrainian Social Democracy was historically significant in seeking to move the Ukrainian movement beyond solely cultural concerns of russification, to see the anti-colonial struggle as simultaneously a social question.12 The Ukrainian Marxists were represented in both the Tsarist Duma and the Austrian Reichsrat and were active at an international level, submitting regular reports to the congresses of the Second International.13 Yurkevych himself attended the International Socialist Congresses in Stuttgart in 1907 and Copenhagen in 1910.

Yurkevych, Mykola Porsh, Volodymyr Levinsky, Yulian Bachynsky, and Mykola Hankevych were among those involved in controversies with such figures as Otto Bauer, Georgi Plekhanov, and Lenin over the national question. Yurkevych addressed the Congress of the Czechoslovakian Social Democratic Party in December 1911, expressing solidarity with Ukrainian and Czech autonomists whom he defended as internationalists.14

In the years before the First World War Yurkevych played a key role organizing various USDRP publications. One of the most notable was Dzvin (The Bell), which brought together a diverse range of contributors, including figures from different wings of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDRP). The journal also served as a platform for debates on the national question — notably, between Yurkevych and Lenin.

Writing in Nash Holos (Our Voice) Yurkevych summarized his views on the USDRP and the national question:

The root of the issue lies in the attitude of national passivity of the social democracy. Rejecting that view I decided to argue in our press along the following lines: 1) national consciousness is indissolubly linked with class interests and class consciousness. This constitutes a new form of the expression of the class struggle. 2) The proletariat has no fatherland, but it cannot lack a nationality that it shares with the other classes of its people. It is therefore interested in the freedom and development of national life. This commonality is formal; but the national consciousness and politics of the socialist proletariat cannot be separated from its class interests, nor can they be equated with the national consciousness and politics of other classes. 3) The social-democracy of nationally oppressed peoples must work on developing the national-class consciousness of the working class in the interests of (a) its own development and its transformation from an exclusively rural organization into a general workers’ organization of its nation (b) the clear demarcation of the proletariat within the national sphere through the speech and activity of the organization and its party (c) the intention to speed up and widen the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for national freedom.15

The Ukrainian Social Democrats’ views on the national question, their policy of national autonomy, the subjective forces of the revolution, and the nature of the post-revolutionary order marked a point of demarcation with the Russian Marxists.16 The RSDRP demanded the subordination of all Marxists in the Empire to a single party — their own. As a corollary Lenin supported the assimilation of workers into the Russian nation as historically progressive and refused to challenge the integrity of the Russian Empire.17 In contrast the Ukrainian Marxists took up the national question as a task of the immediate, minimum program of Social Democracy, considering that the advent of socialism would promote a springtime of nations and national culture.

There was, wrote Yurkevych, a progressive side to the national revivals, “a creative and cultural energy displayed by separate classes according to their specific social interests.”18 But the Marxists of the dominant nation were blinkered, they only saw negative attributes “in the national movements of oppressed nations, as a capitalist sees the expansion of the rebellious spirit as the result of the activity of some secret agitators, hostile towards him, in the workers movements.”19

We demand one thing, namely: we, the Marxists of an oppressed nation, must have the opportunity to freely and independently carry out our social and national activity.

This demand seems to be very modest and fully corresponding to a nation’s right for self-determination, recognized by all Marxists.

However, this right is refused to us in practice, because they do not allow us to establish organizations adapted to our national and political objectives.20

Experience proved the necessity of federative forms in the international unification of workers.

The principle of federalism that we, the Ukrainian Marxists, are upholding as a basis for our unification with the Great Russian Marxists, in our opinion ensues from the entire history of the world labor International.21

This was reinforced, argued Yurkevych, by the experience of the First and the Second Internationals, which operated on federalist principles.22 In one of Yurkevych’s responses to Lenin entitled Jesuit Politics, he noted that the “Russian Marxists had a contemptuous and sometimes even hostile attitudes towards us, Ukrainian Marxists, only because we attach great importance to the national question and conduct our activity in national forms.”23 Yurkevych acknowledged the RSDRP had moved from indifference and was now divided, with a minority “trying to understand the nature of national workers’ movements in exploited nations.” Whilst the majority “with uncommon fanaticism and sectarian obstinacy promulgates old centralist ideas and absolute intolerance towards the national self-organization of workers.”24

As the First World War loomed, Yurkevych — like most USDRP leaders — maintained a firm anti-war stance. At the 1912 International Socialist Congress in Basel, the USDRP and USDP submitted a joint appeal. “Raising our voice against the war, against Russian imperialism and its scoundrel policy, …we call upon the entire Socialist International to raise its cry of protest against the unheard-of criminal policy of the Russian tsardom, which is preparing national death for a numerous people.”25

Ukrainians found themselves on opposing sides, three million from the Russian Empire, later along with Ukrainian immigrants in North America, fought for the Entente, while 250,000 from Galicia, Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia served Austro-Hungary. Both sides persecuted Ukrainians. The Russian Imperial government swiftly arrested Ukrainian leaders and suppressed newspapers. Within a month, Russian forces occupied Galicia, launching anti-Ukrainian measures, including arrests, book burnings, the abolition of Ukrainian education, and forced conversions to Russian Orthodoxy. Concurrently, the Austro-Hungarian army interned 30,000, alleging pro-Russian sympathies. In Canada, thousands of Ukrainian immigrants were similarly interned, accused of pro-Austrian loyalties.26

Within Ukrainian Social Democracy, opposition to the war and support for a Russian “defeat” were widespread.27 Only a small minority of leading figures adopted a pro-Russian or pro-Austrian orientation, as seen in the USDP in Galicia, while a handful of figures from the USDRP joined the Austrian-sponsored Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (SVU).28

Yurkevych, along with the USDP leader Levinsky travelled to Vienna, and there tried to publish an anti-war statement in the leading Social Democrat paper Arbeiter Zeitung. The editor, Austerlitz, threatened them with arrest. Under surveillance in Vienna, Yurkevych took refuge in Geneva. Under Yurkevych’s editorship, the newspaper Borotba was launched in Geneva as the official organ of the “Foreign Organization of the USDRP,” enrolling the support of various exiled USDRP members across Europe.

Declaring complete solidarity with the anti-war Zimmerwald movement, Borotba stated: “Above all, we should not take sides, not besmirch our revolutionary cause in showing solidarity with the war aims of any of the governments involved.”29 Over the next two years Borotba subjected the Russian and Austrian orientations to relentless criticism, whilst exposing the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine as a “lackey of that [Austrian] government,” engaged in “the profitable role of the Emperor’s own revolutionists.”30

At the second anti-war Conference, in Keinthal on 23rd April 1916, Yurkevych submitted an Open Letter in French, Ukraine and the War.31 In a prognosis to be confirmed at the treaty of Brest Litovsk in 1918, Yurkevych condemned Ukrainian politicians of an Austrian orientation. He warned “they have lit the torches of Ukrainian independence — to light up the route of the Austrian armies towards Kyiv”; as opposed to emancipation, they “seek to light the fire of German capitalist exploitation in Ukraine in order to warm themselves by it.”32 Yurkevych warned against illusions in the democratic credentials of the Russian bourgeoisie which would continue the policies of imperialist expansion and Russification. Yurkevych joined in the call for a new international, appealing:

Just as the first International and all European democrats were committed to the liberation of Poland from the yoke of Russian autocracy, we are sure that the liberation of Ukraine will be the watchword of the third International and of the proletarian socialists of Europe in their struggle against Russian imperialism.33

Yurkevych endorsed the Keinthal policy on the national question as being in accordance with the USDRP “principle of national autonomy,” which “will be a great support to us in our activities and against those who, consciously or not are always trying to blacken us questioning our socialist credentials.”34

Yurkevych faced ongoing efforts to discredit Borotba from elements within both Ukrainian and Russian Social Democracy. In response to Ukraine and the war, the USDP in Galicia had issued a letter to various socialist parties, expressing astonishment at his views. They argued that due to the “complete atomism of Ukrainian Social Democracy in Russia,” Yurkevych was acting alone and, by opposing an “independent Ukraine” was “serving Tsarism but not social-democracy or the Ukrainian people.”35

This criticism was not unprecedented. In an open letter the previous year, Dyatlov — a member of the USDRP Central Committee — rejected such claims. He argued that the assertion “that the views of Borotba are the personal views of ‘Mr. Rybalka’ [Yurkevych] does not correspond to reality,” and affirmed that “the views of Borotba truly reflect the traditions of the USDRP.”36

Most prominent in the efforts by Russian Social Democracy to discredit Yurkevych and the USDRP was Sotsial-Demokrat,the exiled paper of Lenin’s faction, which had initially expressed approval of their views on the war.37 Yurkevych developed amicable relations with other currents of the RSDRP, including the Vpered group and Leon Trotsky’s Nashe Slovo. The Foreign Group of the USDRP had solidarized with the Bolsheviks, declaring:

We agree with the Bolsheviks that the defeat of Tsarism in this war will contribute to the weakening of the old Russian State system and make easier the tasks of the coming Russian revolution…. Furthermore, we connect with the Bolsheviks in their decisive fight against social patriotism.38

Despite repeated efforts by the USDRP, the Bolsheviks were unable to reconcile their differences with them regarding the national question and party organization. Yurkevych met with Lenin in Geneva and was perplexed by his unsympathetic attitude toward Borotba. Reflecting on this in July 1915, he confided to Leon Trotsky, “Why? I have no idea.” Trotsky was also puzzled replying, “I have to say that I like your Ukrainian articles which you have sent for Nashe Slovo.” Indeed, Trotsky expressed disagreement with Yurkevych’s views on the revolutionary potential of the defeat of Russia precisely “because this position brings you together with the followers of Lenin. At first glance the hostile attitude of Lenin towards your periodical seems absolutely inexplicable to me.”39

Independence and dependence
A key point of contention was the question of Ukrainian independence in the context of the war. Yurkevych distrusted Lenin’s framing of national self-determination as a binary choice: either a centralized union with Russia or outright separation — despite Lenin’s opposition to the latter. Writing in Borotba on the significance of the second international socialist conference, Yurkevych reflected critically on this question:

We are not opposed to the idea of an independent Ukraine but the question of our state independence can only be decided when the chains of Tsardom and Russian state centralism are destroyed. When Ukraine is reborn and has reached the level of civic consciousness found for example in Ireland. When the Ukrainian democracy understands the entire awful reaction that goes under the name of the Russian Empire. But now, while even the printed word in Ukrainian is forbidden, while Ukraine is deprived of the smallest civil freedoms and subjected to limitless Russification the only way out for the Ukrainian democracy is a joint struggle with the working masses of Russia against all the black Tsarist and imperialist forces.

Our Russian comrades will only show themselves to be true internationalists when their organization and press in Ukraine recognizes along with us the need for the struggle for the liberation of our people, and on every occasion along with us in resisting in a revolutionary way any manifestations of national oppression.40

Indeed it was from the Irish struggle that Yurkevych took inspiration. Following the Easter Rising of 1916 he wrote in Borotba:

The only enslaved nation that has preserved its dignity amidst the general confusion of nations in times of modern war is the Irish, who organized a courageous uprising at the most critical moment for their oppressor — England.41

Contrasting the situation of the Ukrainian movement in July 1916 to Ireland, Yurkevych looked to a time when “Our working class will not be an exception; it will choose for itself new and more honest leaders, inflamed with hatred of slavery and distinguishing itself among the Ukrainian people against all those that are in a close and sincere relationship with the Russian state.”

Lenin continued his polemics against Yurkevych with all their inaccuracy and invective, when Sotsial-Demokrata published a Sbornik (anthology) on the national question in October 1916. Though it did not name Lenin as the author, it published his text The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination. In January 1917, Yurkevych responded with a comprehensive critique: The Russian Social Democrats and the National Question.42

Yurkevych argued that by holding to two mutually exclusive propositions, the “right of nations to self-determination” with a preference for large states and centralism, it “destroys within them the capacity to consider the national question from a genuinely internationalist point of view.”43

With this in mind and as if to confuse the issue once and for all, the authors of the “theses” note that in actual fact, “the demand for free secession from the oppressor nation” “is not at all equivalent to a demand for secession, fragmentation, or the creation of small states.” It follows from this that the program of the central organ of the RSDRP on the national question, consisting in the recognition of “the right of nations to self-determination” and in its simultaneous denial — equals zero.44

Yurkevych’s analysis was dialectical: “the capitalist order, while oppressing nations, simultaneously regenerates and organizes them.” It was as such “impossible not to agree with Bauer that nations will fully develop only under socialism,” with “social progress by means of its peaceful diversity.”45 Yurkevych also saw problems in Lenin’s prognosis with regard to the achievement of bourgeois democracy in Russia, instead “considering the reactionary and blatantly imperialist character of the policies of the Russian bourgeoisie, one can say with certainty that it will not only not oppose the weakening of Tsarist centralism, but will strengthen it.”46

This assessment by Yurkevych was largely vindicated when Kerensky’s ultra-democratic republic resisted Ukraine’s quest for national autonomy between March and November 1917. The difficulties of the revolutionary process in Ukraine from 1917 to 1921 saw another of Yurkevych’s prognoses arise with tragic consequences.

Posing the question how the Russian workers would respond to a Ukrainian rebellion, Yurkevych contended that Lenin had, for over a decade, educated them to favor a centralized state and oppose “the break-up of Russia,” creating the possibility that if “the Ukrainian workers, believing in the ‘right to self-determination,’ join the rebellion, the Russian proletariat will call them traitors,” and go to war against them in the name of “emancipation.”47

This conflict between the internal forces of Ukraine and external elements of Russia, was to hinder the Ukrainian Revolution’s development, and obstructed the consolidation of a Ukrainian republic shaped by internal social forces.

Thus, in December 1917 — on the very day the All-Ukrainian Congress of Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants gave its full support to the Ukrainian People’s Republic — the Bolshevik government of Russia launched a war against Ukraine, whose government was a socialist coalition led by the USDRP.48

In 1919, a second Bolshevik government was imposed on Ukraine, that provoked a mass rebellion of whole sections of the Red Army and red militia. The uprising was led by a pro-Soviet fraction of the USDRP — the Nezalezhnyky (Independents) — who called for the independence of Ukraine with a government of the working people.

When the Nezalezhnyky founded the Ukrainian Communist Party, they condemned the fact that “under such conditions, the socialist revolution in Ukraine in both cases took the shape of an occupation by Soviet Russia.” The Bolshevik leaders were “separated from the working masses of Ukraine, who turned against them.” It was imperative, they argued, for internal forces to “gain control over the Ukrainian socialist revolution and shape its course and character.”49

The legacy of Yurkevych
The Russian Social Democrats and the National Question was Yurkevych’s final publication. After the February Revolution he attempted to return to Ukraine via Finland and disappeared for a time. His sister, living in Moscow, eventually found him in a Finnish prison hospital, nearly unconscious due to psychosis following typhus.

Upon his return to Moscow, despite his fragile health, Yurkevych was immediately arrested and imprisoned. Rescued by his family at the end of 1918, he remained largely unconscious until his death on October 24, 1919. Buried at Novodevichy Cemetery, he never returned home — his memory eclipsed by subsequent events. It was not until 1927 that even an obituary appeared, published as a pamphlet by Levynsky by the Ukrainian Socialist Library in Lviv.

Although a lost leader of the Ukrainian Revolution, Yurkevych made a significant and largely unrecognized contribution to the rebirth of Ukraine between 1917 and 1920. Yurkevych’s contribution was twofold: first, during the years of reaction following the defeat of the 1905 Revolution; and second during the First World War.

The strong stance taken by Yurkevych and Borotba resonated in the USDRP revival that began soon after the start of the war in 1914. Yurkevych had re-established contact with leading activists of USDRP inside the Russian Empire already in late 1914.50 Vynnychenko wrote to Yurkevych in December 1915 stating “we all stand on your side… the word revolution is on everyone’s lips.”51 The strongest wartime organization of the USDRP was in Petrograd, which had a sizable Ukrainian community and a garrison with many Ukrainian soldiers. Between 1915 and 1917, the local committee published the paper Nashe Zhyttya (Our Life). On the issue of the war the Petrograd organization stood with the positions of Borotba, edited by Yurkevych. It republished Borotba’s declarations and articles, which were circulated beyond the city and into Ukraine itself.

The USDRP had launched a newspaper Slovo in Kharkiv in October 1915.52 In the city of Katernynoslav (Dnipro) the USDRP continued to operate and conducted anti-war propaganda. A conference was held there in November 1915, rejecting the position of the Union for Liberation of Ukraine and arguing to focus on preparing Ukraine’s own forces for a revolution against Tsarism.53 This view was strengthened by the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland — which found a lively response among the USDRP, as proving “that a national liberation struggle against ‘one’s’ metropolis was possible without a general revolution in the entire country, which strengthened the position of supporters of a general national struggle against Russia.”54 The Kyiv organization of the USDRP also reorganized, calling “for a fight, not with the Germans, but with our oppressors — the government and the nobility.”55

When the February Revolution of 1917 brought the downfall of the Tsarist regime, at the same time it played a significant role in the All-Russian revolution: the intervention of the Izmailovsky and Semenivsky regiments decided the fate of the revolution, whose soldiers were organized by the USDRP.56

With the overthrow of the autocracy, the Ukrainian Revolution soon differentiated itself from the wider Russian Revolution, setting as its goal the achievement of national emancipation through establishing a Ukrainian Republic. It was a period of unprecedented mobilization of the masses. The movement comprised a bloc of the middle class, peasantry, workers, and democratic intellectuals, centered in the Ukrainian Central Rada [Council]. Its very existence was an historic achievement; transforming a situation from one where officially Ukraine did not even exist, to one by July 1917 where the hostile Russian Provisional Government was forced to recognize it as a “higher organ for conducting Ukrainian national affairs.”57 In historical terms it represented for Ukraine what the Easter Rising and First Dáil did for the Irish Republic.

The USDRP was pivotal to this achievement. As the only political party in the strict sense of the word, it already had trained activists and organizers, and its name — as well as those of its leading figures — was known among broad circles of Ukrainian workers. As a result, the USDRP was able to assume a leading role in the revolution and in the first Ukrainian government of 1917–18, headed by Vynnychenko.58

Yurkevych sought to bring the working class to the forefront of the Ukrainian struggle. In Ukraine and the War, he considers the role of the Ukrainian socialist movement as significant in the “national renaissance,” connecting the “the question of national emancipation to all the problems of the emancipation of the proletariat.” From this perspective, his efforts during the years of reaction after 1905 proved crucial to ensuring the survival of the USDRP.

Through his defense of Ukrainian self-organization, his organizing of numerous publications, and his efforts to sustain the USDRP, Yurkevych played a pivotal role in enabling the party to survive — and ultimately to assume its leading role in Ukraine’s rebirth.

That rebirth of Ukraine — achieved despite all the horrors endured by its people has never been reversed, until now, as Russia once again plays the role of a gendarme of Europe, whose program is to absorb Ukraine and subjugate other nations. It is a timely moment to rediscover the neglected figure of Yurkevych who anticipated many of the challenges and devoted such attention to these problems we face again today.

Christopher Ford is Secretary of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign in the UK, and is author of a range of books and articles on Ukrainian labor history, including editor of Ivan Maistrenko, Borotbism: A Chapter in the History of the Ukrainian Revolution and Ukapisme – Une Gauche perdue: Le marxisme anti-colonial dans la révolution ukrainienne 1917 – 1925. He has a forthcoming book of selected writings of Ukrainian Social-Democracy.

Ukraine and the war: An open letter by Lev Yurkevych
Addressed to the Second International Socialist Conference, held in Holland, by the editors of the journal Borotba (The Struggle) and published in Geneva by a group of members of the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Workers Party of Russia.59

Comrades,

The Ukrainian question is one of the national questions which up to the present time European democrats have shown very little interest in. However, in recent years, after the Russian Revolution and above all during the present World War, this question has started to play a considerable role in the internal life of Russia and Austria — and without doubt will put itself on the order of the day when Europe addresses itself to finishing this present war.

That is why, comrades, our Ukrainian democratic socialist group in Russia says that it is its duty to explain before you, albeit briefly, the Ukrainian question in the hope that you will take note of our considerations in the debates and decisions taken by this conference.

                                                                      I

The history of Ukraine is far from happy. The Ukrainian lands were on the route of Asiatic peoples moving toward the West. For long periods this prevented Ukraine from enjoying a tranquil life and from organizing itself freely, which let it fall under the domination of neighboring states. Thus it became part of the Lithuanian state up to the sixteenth century, and then when Lithuania was united with Poland it was annexed by the latter. Polish domination placed a heavy burden on the Ukrainian people and led Ukraine, which during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had increased its territory and organized itself militarily, to revolt during the middle of the seventeenth century, and, after a long war of liberation led by the Cossacks, to separate from Poland and form an independent Cossack republic.60 Yet circumstances obliged Ukraine — menaced by its neighboring Turkish and Polish neighbors — to seek an ally. It found this ally in the Muscovite state, which it was tied to by a common religion but which differed from it through its ferocious despotism and extreme centralist politics.

The Union was made in 1654 and Ukraine allied itself to Moscow as a free and independent state, having its own army. Despite this convention, Moscow sought immediately to curtail the freedom of Ukraine and signed an accord with Poland, giving it western Ukraine (the right bank of the Dnieper) — which had just freed itself from Polish domination. The popular uprisings in eastern Ukraine (the left bank of the Dnieper) against the despotism of Moscow were put down by Muscovite force. After a fifty-year struggle, ended by the famous “treason” of the Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Mazepa who allied himself with Sweden and was defeated by the army of Tsar Peter the Great, one of the last blows struck against Ukrainian independence by the destruction of the autonomous Cossack military organization. Toward the end of the eighteenth century the last vestiges of its political independence were destroyed. After the partition of Poland, eastern Ukraine was annexed by Russia with the exception of Galicia, which went to Austria; Ukraine was divided into governments [gubernia] and then crushed by Russian bureaucracy.

Ukrainian culture, which had undergone considerable development in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in parallel with Polish culture and under the influence of Western civilization and the Reformation, was destroyed by the despotic Muscovite state. The Ukrainian nobility which during the struggles against Polish domination had shown so much energy and love of liberty did not resist Russian centralism and finally submitted in exchange for hereditary noble titles and landed wealth. The popular masses reacted against this treason by the ruling classes to the cause of Ukrainian freedom by a series of cruel and bloody rebellions known under the name of “Haidamachchyna.” This long series of popular social movements was suppressed in the last years of the eighteenth century by the Russian Empire, which introduced serfdom in Ukraine thus condemning them to silence for many years.61

During the end of the eighteenth and the first part of the nineteenth centuries, Ukraine — crushed by the heavy domination of the Russian bureaucracy [and] deprived completely of its past liberties — submitted, resigned to its fate. Yet during the early nineteenth century the libertarian ideas of philosophy and of the French Revolution penetrated Ukraine, where they took a democratic and Slavophile form adorned with romantic Cossack traditions. Eastern Ukraine in particular produced a number of writers who had concerned themselves with history and ethnography and who bequeathed a great number of scientific works.

But the Ukrainian movement didn’t really appear until the so-called liberal era around the 1860s, marked by the emancipation of the serfs and a whole series of social reforms. While Poland was shaken by insurrectionary ideas, libertarian tendencies manifested themselves differently in Ukraine. The Ukrainian ruling classes, who under Polish domination were strongly influenced by its culture and had not successfully created a culture for themselves after liberation from Polish rule, Russified themselves rapidly after the annexation of Ukraine, so that by the middle of the nineteenth century these classes were separated from the people by an insurmountable barrier formed by a culture alien to the people so could not concern themselves with questions of national interest. As a consequence, the Ukrainian intellectuals of this period, who could not take their ideas to the upper classes, took on ideas of a democratic nature. Their nationalism, exempt from separatist and insurrectionist ideas, expressed itself above all in their desire to free the serfs, to raise their national consciousness, and to unite them.

Amongst the Ukrainian people the national revolutionary tendencies of the nobility had long since vanished, therefore the Ukrainian renaissance of the second part of the nineteenth century took the form of a bourgeois movement. The romantic Cossack traditions were no more than yesterday’s “leftovers,” which however held it back from total embourgeoizement and taking this position vis-à-vis the Russian Empire and its regime.

Whereas with other oppressed peoples such as the Czechs, or the Ukrainians of Austria, the transition of national development went from the insurrectional form of the old nobility to the modern bourgeois democratic form coinciding with the democratization of the ruling state, this was not the case with the Ukrainian awakening in Russia. There this awakening to a bourgeois and democratic form was born under an absolutist regime and remained there for a half century until the Russian Revolution.

This fact gave the Ukrainian renaissance in Russia an extraordinarily passive and powerless character, as for a long period it lacked a free constitutional regime, something absolutely indispensable to any modern bourgeois and national movement.

This is why the Ukrainian movement manifested itself so weakly. It was behind in its development compared to the subject peoples of Austria, who long enjoyed their political liberty; the path to this was closed by despotic Russian centralism.

Russian Tsarism was always hostile to the Ukrainian movement and in its struggle against this movement resorted to the most severe means of repression. This can be explained by the role Ukraine played in the foundation of the Russian Empire. The Muscovite state could not transform itself into the Russian Empire until it had annexed Ukraine, from which it took the old name “Rus.”62 It was not until after it had seized the black earth belt of Ukraine and the banks of the Black Sea that the Muscovite state, which occupied the northern part of Russia proper and which did not possess large natural resources, could take part in world economic life and become the Russian Empire. The Muscovite despotism which knew so well how to exploit Ukraine and disorganize its people, leading an intense and harsh life, knew how to Russify the Ukrainian ruling classes so that finally the Muscovite state succeeded in its official policy: to treat the Ukrainian people as one with the Russian people.

The Ukrainian nation formed with the Russians an overwhelming majority in Russia, which was a prop to the grandeur of Tsarism and Russian imperialism. But if the Ukrainian nationality came back to life, shaking off Russian bondage and forming an independent entity, the Russian nationality would be a minority of 43 percent in the Empire. It is understandable that Russian Tsarism was frightened of such a perspective, hence it constantly displayed total and thorough opposition to all Ukrainian movements.

We have already said that the modern Ukrainian movement started to develop around 1860. It manifested itself at this time by the pacific desire to organize popular Ukrainian education. At this time Sunday schools were founded in different Ukrainian towns, particularly in Kyiv, its capital. Education was conducted mainly by high school students, who at the same time published textbooks for the people in their mother tongue. But Tsarism struck immediately against this inoffensive manifestation of the Ukrainian movement. In 1863 publication of Ukrainian literary works aimed at the people were banned and the minister Count Petr Valuev declared “the Ukrainian language doesn’t exist, has never existed and never will exist”! The following year the Sunday schools were closed. This persecution greatly discouraged and weakened the young Ukrainian movement. But the Tsarist government didn’t stop there. On the eve of the war against Turkey in 1876 — undertaken under the name of “liberation of the Bulgarians” — a decree banned all Ukrainian-language publications.63

After this decree, the Ukrainian movement was deprived of printed matter and found it totally impossible to legally display its existence until the revolution; this was for a whole thirty-year period. Strange to say, this savage attack on Ukraine did not provoke any reaction on the part of Ukrainian leaders.

Despite the passive nature of the Ukrainian movement, the intellectuals of 1860 were infused with determined political ideals, the best known representative of which was the “Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood” founded in 1840. This association counted amongst its leaders the poet Shevchenko, the writer Kulich, and the celebrated historian Kostomarov. The Brotherhood, the aim of which was the abolition of serfdom, had a Slavophile character. This differed from Russian Slavophilism, which was always imbued with a centralizing pan-Russianism and advocated a Slav federation of which a free Ukraine would be part.

The Russian government quickly discovered the existence of this Brotherhood and persecuted Shevchenko, who was exiled to Siberia for many years and forbidden to write; Kulich and Kostomarov were forbidden to live in Ukraine. But their ideas did not perish; they animated the Ukrainian patriots of 1860, particularly the youth involved in popular education. Yet these ideas were not at all revolutionary and faced with repression, particularly the 1876 law, the Ukrainian leaders renounced their political ideal, capitulating to Tsarism all along the line.

The most powerful of the leaders of the Ukrainian movement of 1860, M. Drahomanov, a professor at Kyiv University, emigrated to Switzerland, dedicating his life to the idea of Ukrainian liberation.64

In vain he exhorted his countrymen to struggle against Tsarism, to publish Ukrainian revolutionary papers in free Galicia, to be distributed throughout Russian Ukraine; his appeals were not heeded. The Ukrainian leadership within Russia would do nothing but submit to the censorship of Ukrainian manuscripts, which the government time and again refused permission to print. The watchword was “Conciliate the government.” The recognized Ukrainian leaders sent reports to St. Petersburg, asking the government’s permission to engage in popular education, with the assurance that this concession would weaken the revolutionary elements within the Ukrainian movement, which would retain an exclusively legal character. They also expressed the view that political struggle should be left to the Russians in Russia and that the Ukrainians should limit themselves to popular education and remain strangers to all politics.

Despite the humility of bourgeois Ukrainians, Tsarism continued to persecute with a cold and intransigent perseverance any manifestation of Ukrainian nationality, however inoffensive; at concerts singers were obliged to sing Ukrainian songs in French translation.

Thus the bourgeois Ukrainian movement, aspiring to a liberal constitutional regime with a view to organizing a reborn nation, was placed by circumstance in a position where all activity and all political initiative were without result. This bourgeois movement separated itself from the masses and was reduced to ultra-anodyne displays; one such was an edition of a journal published in Kyiv in Russian and dedicated to the Ukrainian past when theatrical representatives enjoyed a little liberty at the end of 1880.

The bourgeois Ukrainian movement distinguished itself in this case and to the highest degree by a trait common to all the modern bourgeois movements of oppressed nations. These movements could not adopt any of the proper characteristics of the bourgeois revolutions of Western Europe. Representing the interests of the middle classes at their beginning, the bourgeois movements of the oppressed nations had a policy without principle, a policy of compromise with the existing states which, ultimately, were a factor which ensured the capitalist development of oppressed nations, for the centralism of the great empires could retard the development of any nation but not ultimately stop it.

The revolution of 1905 was the force that obliged Ukraine to emerge from its inaction. The period before the revolution in the first years of the century performed a great role. Since the end of the last decade of the nineteenth century the workers’ strike movement sparked among Ukrainian scholars a growth in hope. This growth, created on the one hand by Russian socialist literature and on the other by the revolutionary works of Drahomanov, caused the youth to indignantly condemn the old tactics of the leaders of the Ukrainian movement. At the university of Kharkiv, where the historical and ethnographic studies of the professors had been the base in the last century of the Ukrainian movement of 1860, there formed at the start of the twentieth century, this time among students, an energetic group of revolutionary and socialist Ukrainians who in 1900 founded the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party, the appearance of which was the starting point of a new period for the Ukrainian movement.

This party broke completely with all the traditions of the old leaders of the Ukrainian movement. It initiated its activity directly amongst the people, making use of an abundant literature published in Austrian Ukraine. This literature smuggled into Russia in dozens of kilos spread very rapidly throughout Ukraine. These journals and pamphlets excited the interest of the toiling masses and were received by them enthusiastically, happy to get the socialist truth in works published for the first time in their muzhik tongue; the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party [RUP] was the first to infringe clearly and openly the decree of 1876 banning Ukrainian publications.65

Although by its activity amongst the peasants the RUP broke with the traditions of the Russian social-democrats, who at this time were not interested in the toilers in the countryside but only industrial workers, it did not follow the tactics of the Narodniki, and constantly gave to its propaganda a class character addressing itself to the peasants and organized their strike movement.66 In this area the RUP had considerable success and it was due in great measure to them that the strike movement in the gubernias of Poltava and Kharkiv became one of the forerunners of the revolution in Russia.

The Revolutionary Ukrainian Party was a socialist party. But it was not so in theory or in its program, though on the eve of the revolution its activity also took place amongst urban workers. A second constitutional congress of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party took place in 1905 and adopted the maximum Erfurt program of the German Social-Democrats and the minimum program of the Russian Social-Democracy. It demanded extreme democratic autonomy for the territory within the ethnographic boundaries of Ukraine, with legal guarantees for the free development for the national minorities living within its territory. The principle of national organization was based on the organizational model of the Austrian Social-Democracy.67

With regard to tactics, the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party took the same position as the left wing of the Russian Social-Democracy (Bolsheviks), and instead of calling itself the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party, adopted the name Ukrainian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, the name under which it still exists today, and to which the authors of this letter belong.

The role played by the young Ukrainian socialist movement in the national renaissance is very significant. This movement has connected the question of national emancipation to all the problems of the emancipation of the proletariat; it has raised this question to the level of those political problems which can be solved by no other means than democratic struggle, by the development of class antagonism in Ukrainian society. Thus has progressed Ukrainian socialism, always following the same route, confirmed by the undoubted truth that in all present-day liberation movements, political or national — both being the result of the same evolution which saw the transformation of feudal states into modern capitalist states — the working class appears as the sole revolutionary and democratic power. This in effect is what is happening in the Ukrainian socialist movement, which is developing in struggle shoulder-to-shoulder with the workers’ movement in all of Russia.

The bourgeois Ukrainian movement adopted an altogether different position vis-à-vis the revolution. During the preceding period, when the revolutionary forces were organizing, the Ukrainian bourgeois movement, which turned with scorn from Ukrainian socialism, formed, it is true, two liberal parties (democratic and radical), but these parties dissolved at the end of the revolution.

In 1905 there appeared openly the first Ukrainian journal in Russia and although this journal was suppressed (despite the freeing of the press in the Russian Empire) a more or less free Ukrainian press could exist from 1906, although the censor created greater difficulties for it than for the Russian press.

The year 1906 saw the return of reaction and the gradual weakening of the socialist movement in Russia in general and in Ukraine in particular. The bourgeois Ukrainian movement, on the other hand, developed considerably, profiting from the liberties obtained by the revolution which it had done nothing to win. In the autumn of 1906, a large movement arose amongst the youth with the aim of nationalizing68 higher education and a campaign of petitions was launched which obtained over ten thousand signatures.

In the end the Ukrainian movement became infested with bourgeois ideas, socialism lost its former attraction, and antagonism between parties declined. To make this change the Ukrainian bourgeois parties fused into one and declared in 1907 that their press would no longer conduct inter-party struggle; socialist journalists were invited to work with them.69 The majority of them voluntarily accepted this invitation.

However the Ukrainian movement had acquired such strength during the revolution that it was represented in the first two Dumas by two large groups of a progressive nature. These groups found themselves under the influence of the bourgeois parties without being their direct representatives. The law of June 3, 1909, limiting the rights of voters was applied in such a way in Ukraine that there were no longer any Ukrainian deputies in the Duma. Elsewhere the socialist movement grew weaker day by day. The socialist intellectuals passed en masse into the ranks of the bourgeois movement which after the final victory of reaction had adopted the principle of “limited affairs,” that is to say it had entirely renounced political demands. The bourgeois movement always concerned itself with a cooperation, which united all the middle classes in seeking to fulfill domestic interests, and in organizing educational bodies whose development was constantly hindered by the government. Alongside this purely utilitarian outlook, the bourgeois movement also showed a modernist literary tendency, seeking to free itself from the conventions of the old Ukrainian “democratism”; this movement had extolled the cult of individualism, with an extreme and undisguised hatred of socialism.

These two new traits of the Ukrainian bourgeois movement contributed to the lowering of the level of its ideas which slowly continued to lose breadth. It reverted to a method of activity established during the somber period of the second part of the nineteenth century. It again completely submitted to Tsarism with a view to reconciliation and agreement with it. For its part the government reverted to its old ways and in order to destroy the Ukrainian movement it closed the educational institutions on even the weakest pretext, and to stop the Ukrainian press from having any effect in the province it persecuted newspaper subscribers. The well-known minister Stolypin, assassinated in Kyiv, declared that “the national and political tendencies of the Ukrainian movement are at this point so close that it is impossible to distinguish between them” and that the most innocent of educational bodies were at the same time “anti-statist” for “they tended to develop revolutionary tendencies at the very breast of the Russian people.”70 Stolypin’s declaration followed a circular to provincial governors ordering them to refuse registration to Ukrainian educational institutions and followed with a redoubling of persecution, which was called by the government press “words of gold.”

But the Ukrainian bourgeois press showed an extraordinary indifference to these events. It published articles claiming that the government “did not understand” the movement and the Ukrainian question; that it did not understand its importance from a cultural standpoint, even though teachers from around the world recognized that it was necessary to conduct education in the mother tongue. Only the Russian government, refusing to take account of this truth proclaimed by the entire world, obstructed the development of education amongst the Ukrainian people, contrary to the general interest and its own, and acted as if it were a mistake. In response to these assertions, repeated with an astonishing stubbornness, Tsarism relentlessly employed new repressions, augmenting the supplications of the Ukrainian bourgeois press. Russian liberals were favorable to this, having become increasingly chauvinistic in the course of the reaction.

In these circumstances Ukrainian Social-Democracy remained impotent, although its press continued to exist and to protest against bourgeois politics. But given the small number of workers’ organizations (Kyiv, Katerynoslav, Kharkiv) and the near total lack of intellectual elements, it was difficult for us, despite all our efforts, to break the influence of a bourgeois politics which finally reached complete and shameful political bankruptcy.

This bankruptcy started with the war. The Tsarist government, expecting the conquest of Austrian Ukraine to “liberate” the “Russian” Galicians, suppressed the whole Ukrainian press in the first days of the war.71 It closed nearly all of the Ukrainian scholarly establishments (at a time when they were nearly all closed already) and arrested and deported the best-known Ukrainian political personalities. The situation remained unclear until the end of 1914, but at the start of the following year the governor general of Kyiv outlawed all publications in the Ukrainian language as well as the use of Ukrainian orthography. It is said that the government saw this ban as the equivalent of imposing the decree of 1876 again, which it remembered and still considered to be in force. In any case, there had already been two years of hard fighting and all the tentative efforts at reviving the Ukrainian press had ended in fiasco.

The only organ actually representing the Ukrainian world in Russia and to the foreign press was the journal Ukrainskaia zhizn, published in Moscow in the Russian language. In reporting the war it took an apolitical and loyalist-patriotic attitude toward Russia.72

Thus it was that the Ukrainian movement in Russia found itself without a way out of its situation. The bloody conflict of the Great Powers in territory belonging to the Ukrainian people had caused the complete material ruin of the whole of Austrian Ukraine and part of western Russian Ukraine. As well as this the war had struck a hard blow at the Ukrainian liberation movement and had destroyed all it had gained, from both the cultural and the political points of view.

                                                                    II

The best proof of the eclipse of socialist conscience, provoked by the European war, is the credence widely given in certain socialist circles to demagogic theories circulated among the masses in order to conceal from them the real aims of the war of conquest. The representatives of official socialism did nothing to reveal to the people, sent to the killing-fields, the odious undercurrents of European diplomacy; quite the contrary, they accepted the ignoble theories created by the leaders as their own; they put all their energies, all their goodwill at the service of the government cause.

But the scale of the collapse of official socialism among the socialists of the Entente is vast; witness especially their attitude toward the despot Russia and toward the role which its barbaric government is allegedly destined to play in the “war of liberation.” Leaving aside the plight of Belgium and Serbia, which the Allied armies ought fully to restore, only Poland remains to be liberated by the governments of the Tsar and his allies when all this chattering is done. The manifesto of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich serves as a base on which to re-create freely the triumph of Right and Justice.73

This blind and limitless confidence with which the Entente democracies receive the promises of the head of the Russian autocracy seems at times paradoxical, unbelievable even; it is unfortunately too well known to be called into question. The most abject regime in Europe has suddenly become, in the eyes of the democracies of the Entente, the chivalrous defender of the entire Slavonic race; all the miseries inflicted on Poland by the Russian government down the centuries have been forgotten. The prison-house of nationalities, as Russia was frequently called, has won over all those in France and England whose hearts are touched by the love of oppressed nations. The flaw in all this rhetoric about the noble role of Russia is that it hides under the cloak of grandiloquence the vulgar interest of people greedy for conquest. Yet it has lost nothing of its vigor today, even though the Russian government has done everything to tarnish an already suspect reputation and to demonstrate, by its reactionary policy, the emptiness of promises extracted from it at the beginning of the war. Ah, no doubt the Russian ministers risk nothing in raining down tirades of irony on the Germans who founded the Polish University in Warsaw, but their mockery loses much of its value when the Polish deputies in the Duma are not prepared to take seriously the fine promises of the Russian autocracy and reproach it for its hypocritical policy which allows to persist the old inequalities between Russian subjects and the Poles who live within the Empire and pretends to be ignorant of the grievances of the Polish population.

Now, the socialists of the Entente, blinded by their narrow nationalism, are not interested in the betrayal by Tsarism in its engagements toward Poland at the beginning of the campaign. They are still more indifferent to the situation in which the Russian government has placed the Ukrainian people. All that Allied public opinion has wanted to see in the autocracy of Moscow is a great empire, united by the common seal of race and language, with inexhaustible resources in terms of men, whose victorious troops march like striking lightening across the distance which separates Berlin from Petrograd to deliver a mortal blow to “Prussian militarism.” It is no exaggeration to say that it is this false impression which the Allies have nurtured about Russia which has determined their sympathy for the Muscovite autocracy. Even though this dream was not realized, even though the reverse occurred, even though Russia’s military prestige was seriously shaken, the West has continued nevertheless to consider Russia as a united country, indivisible, whose vast territory is peopled by one great “Russian” nation. The joy manifested by the French socialist press when the Russian troops occupied Galicia and Bukovyna had to be seen to be believed. They saw the event as the triumph of the Muscovite empire, at long last restored to national unity; the Austrian Ukrainians were seen by the French socialists simply as “Russians” living over the border. The English press of all shades of opinion, which before the war had devoted long articles to the Ukrainian question, thought nothing of remaining silent over the crimes of Tsarism in Galicia. It was only after the defeat suffered by the Russian troops in Austrian Ukraine that the scandalous conduct of the Petrograd government in Galicia and Bukovyna was judged a little more severely by the socialists of the Entente. But this judgment was inspired by other motives than the defense of Ukraine, ruined and devastated by the barbarians from the East. If Russia was reproached for her conduct in Galicia, famously described by the liberal deputy Maklakov, as a scandal of European proportions, it was only because her savage policies had contributed to her military defeat.74 As for the fate of poor Ukraine herself, the attack on the rights of her people, this left the socialists of the Entente unmoved.75

This conspiracy of silence organized by the Allies over the Ukrainian question gave the Russian government an advantage in that it left them a free hand in their fight against the national movement in Ukraine, while at the same time disarming the movement by considerably weakening its powers of resistance to the Muscovite oppressor. The politicians of Russian Ukraine had always considered Galicia as a corner of land where the Ukrainian people could have lived confident of freedom. They knew the cost of the efforts of the Tsar’s government to seize Austrian Ukraine, they knew about the seeds of corruption sown by the agents of Moscow to achieve this end and finish once and for all the Ukrainian threat. Yet they nevertheless renounced in advance all resistance and, under the menace of the iron fist, comforted themselves with the illusion that the annexation of Galicia by Holy Mother Russia would lead the Russian government to apply the same constitutional guaranties to the whole Ukrainian people as Austrian Ukraine had enjoyed under the domination of the Hapsburgs. They paid dearly for this illusion; unable to raise a single protest, they saw themselves condemned to the role of silent, passive witnesses to the downfall of the Ukrainian people on the other side of the border.

Today’s war has revealed the antagonism that exists between the bourgeois movement in Ukraine and the Russian political regime. There is no doubt that some of the goals pursued by Russian diplomacy in this war coincide with the vital economic interests of Ukrainian capital. Ukraine, with its fertile soil, holds first place in Russian agriculture; every year it sends its enormous stock of cereals abroad. According to the Russian economists, the center of economic life has for some time been shifting from north to south in Russia, that is, toward Ukraine. Thus, the young Ukrainian bourgeoisie cannot remain indifferent to the problem of free passage to the Mediterranean. Yet the overwhelming aim of all Russian imperial policy is to be master of the Straits.

However, the aspirations of the Russian government do not end there. Leaving aside its designs on Constantinople, the Muscovite autocracy wants to seize Galicia and Bukovyna in order to do away with the Ukrainian nation. It follows that the Tsar’s government, which wants to make itself master of Constantinople, is putting itself and its great army at the disposal of the economic interests of Ukrainian capital; then again, its vigorous thrust toward Austria, having no other aim but the conquest of Austrian Ukraine, threatens the nationhood of the whole of Ukraine. To put obstacles in the way of the national revival of the country is to attack its economic progress and sacrifice the vital interests of Ukrainian capital while leaving intact the colonial status to which Russia has reduced Ukraine. Tsarism thus accomplishes its double task: on the one hand, it protects the economic rise of capital in Ukraine; on the other hand, it jeopardizes its very future, attacking Galicia which it will always consider as its own national Piedmont.

Constantinople and Galicia, Russian imperialism and Ukrainian freedom, these are the contradictions which history sets before the Ukrainian bourgeoisie and which the latter tries to resolve by betraying its national ideal. The bourgeoisie prefers to abandon the vision of a free and independent Ukraine rather than sacrifice the bait of growing riches. Passive and apathetic before the great Muscovite empire, it reaches out to it, ready to accept any compromise, to bend to the harsh demands of its conqueror and its executioner. And, so that our readers may form a true impression of this slave mentality, we take the liberty of quoting a passage borrowed from Ukrainskaia zhizn, the only magazine which continues to appear after the suspension of all Ukrainian press at the beginning of the war:

The Ukrainians [declares this paper, with a certain pride] will not be fooled by suspect manoeuvres or any sort of foreign provocation. They will do their duty to the end. They will do so not only as soldiers on the battlefield, fighting those who have provoked war and violated all the rights of humanity, but also as simple civilians, called to contribute according to their strength to the great task which has fallen upon the Russian army.76

It seems pointless to seek out the nature of this “great task” which the Ukrainian bourgeoisie professes as its civic duty. Constantinople or Galicia? Our own goal, as Ukrainian socialists, is very different. The task of social democracy in Ukraine is to reawaken the socialist consciousness of the exploited so that they may understand the antagonism that exists between their class interests and the aggressive ambitions of Ukrainian imperialism. The only fitting socialist response would be an all-out struggle against militarism in Ukraine, be it “Ukrainian” or “Russian.” The triumph of democracy is the only possible guarantee under the capitalist regime against massacres and imperialist wars. This terrible war which has been unleashed on the world must make the Ukrainian workers understand that their own national bourgeoisie is sacrificing the interests of Ukrainian democracy, allowing the Russian government to conduct itself as master in Ukraine and to keep it in the grip of national and political slavery.

However, today’s war has brought politicians from the Central Powers into contact with the Ukrainian problem. And while Allied public opinion kept quiet about all signs of national life in Ukraine and even denied the existence of the Ukrainian problem, in Austria and Germany people were very sympathetic to the Ukrainian question; the press devoted long articles to it; everybody was talking about it. At the very beginning of the war, there was even a league formed under the name of “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine.” This was created by a few former socialists, of Russian Ukrainian origin, who claimed the right to represent Russian Ukraine to the governments of the Central Powers. Special funds were put at their disposal by the Austrian government to enlist them in making propaganda in favor of the cause of the Central Powers. It was these somewhat tainted funds which enabled the agents of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” to go on a propaganda tour in Turkey and Bulgaria to persuade these countries to intervene in the conflict on the side of the Central Powers, on the pretext of helping the oppressed Ukraine. Such financial aid enabled the representatives of the Union, acting as paid agents of the Central Powers, to spread the hatred of war among the Turkish and Bulgarian peoples.

The situation of the Union was consolidated by the favorable reception it was given by the politicians of Austrian Ukraine. This is explained by the fact that in Austria (Galicia and Bukovyna), all the Ukrainian parties are united in a single organization under the banner of the “Austrian orientation” — whereas the “Russian orientation” is widespread among the Ukrainians in Russia.77 But while in Russia the loyalty of the Ukrainian population, persecuted and crucified by the Muscovite autocracy, is purely a matter of form, on the other side of the border, attached by constitutional ties to the monarchy of the Danube, Ukrainian loyalism has taken on an aggressively militaristic aspect, marked by propaganda in favor of the war against Russia, on the assumption that it will lead to the restoration of a free and independent Ukraine.

Yet the constitutional guarantees enjoyed by the Ruthenes in Austria did not stop the Poles taking the Ukrainian population under their political and administrative control, with the tacit consent of the government in Vienna. But the Austrian Ukrainians forget this reality in the exuberance of war: they imagined that the only goal of the Central Powers in this war was the liberation of Ukraine, and they put all their goodwill, all their courage at the service of Austrian imperialism. They believed, for example, that two thousand Ukrainian volunteers, enlisted in the Austrian army under the malevolent eye of the government in Vienna, were dying for the cause of Ukrainian independence. But most hideous of all is the energy and enthusiasm which Austrian Ukrainian Social-Democracy has expended on propagating these militaristic ideas, the collapse of the Ukrainian socialists in the face of the bourgeois political parties, even to the extent that the socialist organizations have merged with their class enemies.

However, the latest events have begun to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of the Austrian Ukrainians as to the value of this program. The territories of the Russian Ukraine (Volyn and Kholm), with a population of over two million, occupied by the Austrian army, have, on the orders of the Viennese government, been subjected to Polish and German administration. The latter, without any regard for the legitimate grievances of the Ukrainians, has notably proceeded to found Polish schools and has preferred to use Russian for administrative purposes, rather than the Ukrainian tongue. This example, only one of many, confirms the rumors currently circulating about a secret treaty agreed between the governments of the Central Powers on the matter of the reconstitution of Poland; it is alleged that, by virtue of this treaty, Poland would be attached to Austro-Hungary as a third state in the Hapsburg crown and that she would encompass, besides the former Polish state, Lithuania, together with White Russia, and the Ukrainian states of Volyn, Podilia, and Galicia.78 It goes without saying that such a solution to the problem of Ukrainian “reconstitution” inspires some fears among the Austrian Ukrainians who would be condemned, along with the Lithuanians, the White Russians, and certain elements of Russian Ukraine, to play the part of puppets in the hands of powerful neighbors within a reborn Poland. This shameful role as a destructive element within the new state does not seem to accord too well with the ideal of a free Ukraine. Moreover, Ukrainian Galicia is obsessed with threats of annexation to Russia. These threats provoke great anxiety among the Ukrainians of Austria.

Nevertheless, the Austrian Ukrainians continue to lend their support to the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine.” This only serves to confuse the Ukrainian question; it is further confused by the fact that the Union’s activities have received a cold reception in the Russian Ukraine. Our paper’s revelations about the shameful schemes of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” and its financial resources, drawn from the secret funds of the Central Powers, which have been used as an excuse in a certain quarter of the French press and, above all, in the Russian press, to alarm public opinion with noisy rantings about the “treachery” of the Ukrainians, have led the Ukrainian bourgeoisie to declare their loyalty to the Muscovite autocracy.

However, the actions of the Union have had some positive results. It must be given credit for the interest displayed in the Ukrainian problem by military, governmental, and pan-Germanist circles in Germany, and, above all, by the partisans of outright war against Russia.

The movement is led by the German journalist P. Rohrbach, well known outside his own country and the most distinguished contributor to the Osteuropäische Zukunft, published in Munich by a group of clubs recently founded under the name of “Ukraine” for the purpose of contributing to the “liberation” of that country.79 The origins of this movement can be found in the economic antagonism between Russia and Germany, which in Germany has given rise to a fierce hatred of Russia. A few big capitalists and military chiefs who support the movement are preaching the necessity for imperialist Germany to crush Russia, even if that costs them a second war in the future. If Germany merely conquered Poland, Russia would not be sufficiently weakened from a military and economic point of view. In order to settle the matter for good, for Russia to cease to exist as a great imperialist state, Germany has to tackle the largest bit; Russia has to be relieved, by military force of her richest colony — the territories situated on the Black Sea coast, that is, Ukraine.

The territories thus “liberated” would constitute an independent state, where German capital could take over. It is true that some prophets of imperialism, like Kleinoff, are already, even now, somewhat worried about this state. They anticipate that the indeterminate national character of Ukrainian high society might be subject to cowardly intrigue and envy on the part of its strong neighbors. But the other advocates of expansion, the most aggressive and energetic, like Rohrbach, claim to see an element in the lack of national consciousness of Ukrainian high society which would favor the “civilizing” influence of Germany, which could provide the good people of Ukraine, free of charge, with “a European prince, schools, finance, engineers, teachers, bankers, generals and ministers.”80

It goes without saying that German democrats play no part in this kind of “liberation.” The Ukrainian advocates of such German “civilizing work” have already criticized German Social-Democracy for its indifference to the Ukrainian problem and for disowning the whole policy of annexation. It is true that the German socialist press has had very little debate over the Ukrainian problem.

As Russian Ukrainian socialists, faithful to the principles of revolutionary socialism, we cannot but applaud this attitude on the part of German Social-Democracy, that is, of its minority, which is leading an energetic campaign against German imperialism. To deem all this rhetoric empty of any sense in its logical relations with the policy of annexation, to reveal to the masses the true intentions of the warmongers, this is the real work of socialists. And when a revolutionary minority of German Social-Democracy is waging a merciless fight on the pan-Germanist clique of “liberators,” and reveals their annexationist projects, they are then lending their precious moral aid to Ukrainian democracy.

If the idea of a conquest of Galicia and Bukovyna by Russia seemed more dangerous to Ukrainians than an annexation of Russia’s territories in Ukraine to Austria (but not to Poland), that signified that, in colonial politics, there are some very brutal modes of expansion, and others less so; but it is beyond doubt that all expansionist policies end up in brutality. It begins by exporting to the liberated country “European princes, ministers, generals and bankers,” and ends by importing modern slavery for the indigenous population. That is why democrats among the oppressed peoples must oppose, with all their forces, the false and hypocritical game of the apostles of capitalist brigandage, as this game can do nothing but change the master, cannot resolve the national question, and is the origin of new international complications and new massacres.

But we must oppose with particular energy the intrigues of European statesmen who seek to conceal their expansionist ambitions by promising political independence to the oppressed nationalities. With the aid of these unreliable promises the bourgeois politicians deceive the masses, making them believe that miracles are being prepared by bloody weapons on the battlefields of Europe. Unfortunately, the oppressed peoples, obsessed by the memory of their sufferings, readily listen to these false shepherds who promise a regeneration of the peoples as the miraculous effects of their military success. People of good faith, who observed the hope of the Polish, Ukrainian, and other populations at the beginning of the war, are agreed that the belief that the hour of national liberation was at hand reached enormous proportions among the oppressed peoples, who succumbed to a general delirium, regarding the belligerent states with a kind of awe.

No doubt a great deal of the responsibility for the odious campaign of mystification lies with the bourgeois national movement of the oppressed peoples. We have already pointed out the obsession of this movement with its immediate interests, and how much it is concerned with making profits for the national capitalist bourgeoisie. If democrats hope, through the national awakening, to conquer wider political liberties; if the working class sees in these constitutional guarantees a precious seed for realizing its aspirations toward social justice; the bourgeoisie, in contributing to the national regeneration, sees nothing but a means to achieve political and social power for itself, and intensifying the exploitation of labor.

For the democratic movement and the working class the national awakening is a pure and noble idea, a source of enthusiasm and energy; for the bourgeoisie, to the contrary, national liberation is a business like any other, an enterprise which may bring benefits. So the bourgeois politicians, lacking a national ideal, are forced into recourse to demagogic phraseology to undermine the vigilance of the masses, to distract their attention and betray their national aspirations.

It is the decadence of the bourgeois national movement that explains the conduct of the politicians of Austrian Ukraine. Disregarding the true spirit of Russian Ukraine, which remains alien to all separatist projects, since the beginning of the war, in the midst of the tumult, they have lit the torches of Ukrainian independence — to light up the route of the Austrian armies toward Kyiv. But if one takes an objective view of the nationalist ritual, which is like a sideshow to the imperialist grand drama, one will understand that the Austrian promoters of Ukrainian independence are not really fighting for the liberation of the Ukrainian peoples, but seek to light the fire of German capitalist exploitation in Ukraine in order to warm themselves by it.

We all agree that any people will enjoy the best opportunities for their political, economic and social development when organized in a free and independent state. But for this liberty and independence not to be illusory, in an epoch when democracy plays so important a role, for the state to serve the task of social progress in the full sense of the word, the independent state needs to be brought about by the efforts of the nation itself, by its own will and action. The aspiration of the Ukrainian people for the reconstitution of their own state will have no solid basis unless the Ukrainian nation shows itself strong enough to take advantage of circumstances, to deliver a decisive blow at the same time against Austria-Hungary and Russia and organize a free and independent Ukrainian democracy through its own efforts. In that case the Ukrainian democracy would be forced to conduct a desperate struggle, not only against the Entente but also against the Central Powers, that is to say against the whole of Europe.

At once one realizes the absurdity of such a scenario. One need only recall that to undertake such a colossal action the Ukrainian democracy would need a powerful army, organized on modern lines. Now, no oppressed nation under the domination of the great centralized powers is capable of creating its own army without first organizing as a state, and since without the state there can be no national army, it follows that national independence, the dream of oppressed peoples, seems to have no chance of realization at the moment when the capitalist world is massively militarized in pursuit of its imperialist goals. Today all attempts to revive nationalist separatist movements end in failure, more or less total; they are condemned to play the game of the great European states, they lose their democratic character and end up deteriorating into dubious adventures.

It can be said that the problem of national wars, which so agitated Europe in the course of the past century, already in that epoch, tied to imperialist politics, has been removed from the agenda of European democrats by the twentieth century and above all by the war that we now witness. Once we accept, as our point of departure, that war today cannot resolve the national problem, indeed that on the contrary the likely annexations will be the origin and source of new international complications; if we accept the idea that the evolution of the major capitalist states toward the centralization of military power excludes the whole possibility of a democratic separatist movement aiming for the formation of new national states; if we leave the scenario of war for the moment, to pose the national question in its full extent; we arrive at the conclusion that the solution to this problem is the struggle for the complete democratization of states, adding to the democratic gains a struggle for decentralization, in order to liberate the oppressed peoples, establishing an accord between them, and to clear the way for class struggle against imperialism and militarism.

Certainly, in the propaganda for the liberation of oppressed peoples, we cannot ignore the fact that their full liberation and real accord will only be possible under the socialist order, when the basis of all national oppression — the division of society into classes — will disappear. But this propaganda cannot shrink from the duty to struggle for reforms which even under capitalism will give nationalities greater guarantees of freedom for national development, and against new annexations and military brigandage.

This is why the socialist International must beware above all of the Russian Empire, which to date has been able to preserve the most reactionary regime and, with its vast reach and omnipotent bureaucracy, presents a massive threat to European democracy. It is an error to think that the downfall of Tsarism will profoundly change the political face of Russia. The reactionary tendencies of the Russian bourgeoisie, on one side, the weak development of the working class and the overwhelming mass of the peasant population, on the other, do not inspire real confidence in the future political liberation of the Russian Empire.

If French centralism, created under the ancien regime by royal power, remained throughout the nineteenth century an obstacle to victorious revolutions, it is all the more dangerous to create illusions about Russian centralism, whose political heritage will be taken over, after the fall of Tsarism, by the Russian bourgeoisie. Far from relaxing centralism, the Russian bourgeoisie will give it new strength by applying the principles of modern bureaucracy, extending its power base. In the Russian Empire, peopled by hundreds of different nationalities, the Russian bourgeoisie will find an extensive field of activity to Russify all those nationalities by means of centralism. The Tsarist policy of Russification has always come up against Russia’s low level of general culture; it was aimed at a very restricted part of the population, given that the means of civilization at the disposal of the Russian state are very deficient. So the progress in general culture and popular education, to be expected in a free Russia, will open up new horizons for Russification by the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie will, so to speak, democratize the methods of assimilation, extending them into every sphere of life, making national oppression more methodical and tangible.

We often hear it said that chaos and struggle between nationalities are peculiar to Austria and yet, to be honest, the only great state composed of different nationalities that has been able to assure its people the greatest freedom of development is Austria. And if Russia has, until now, not been greatly torn by national conflicts, if in the words of the Ukrainian poet Shevchenko, “from Moldova to Finland all in Russia is silent,” this silence is solely due to the oppression of Tsarist centralism, and the nationalities in Russia being unorganized, unconscious and—so to speak—in a molecular state. But the winning of freedom in Russia will surely help organize the nationalities and provoke a struggle between them. Already the Russian revolution has allowed the peoples of Russia a brief mirage of liberty, has stimulated the development of their national consciousness and national movements. When the hour of political liberation sounds for Russia, the national conflicts of Austria, between seven small nationalities, will seem no more than child’s play in comparison with the great struggle that will take place in Russia on the morrow of the fall of Tsarism.

Although Tsarism itself possesses only limited means of assimilation, it has succeeded over the centuries in preparing the ground for the Russian bourgeoisie, which will certainly know how to make use of centralism, to stir up national passions and poison the whole of social life. This national struggle within the Russian Empire will push the bourgeoisie into feverish imperialist projects, for its domination outside the country will increase its power within. It is sufficient to recall the desire for conquest shown by Russian liberals in the course of this war to be sure that the bourgeoisie, once in power, will push militarism to the limit and transform “Great Russia” from fantasy into horrible reality.

If the Russian and German reactionaries decide not to prolong the conflict, and prefer to turn their hatred against England, the antagonism between German and Russian bourgeois imperialism will grow ever more intense and threaten Europe with new conflicts in the future. The socialist International must take account of all these considerations. Just as the first International and all European democrats were committed to the liberation of Poland from the yoke of Russian autocracy, we are sure that the liberation of Ukraine will be the watchword of the third International and of the proletarian socialists of Europe in their struggle against Russian imperialism.

The Ukrainians form a nation which, within Russia, is only exceeded in population by the Russians themselves. This explains why the Russian government treats all Ukrainian organizations or associations wishing to carry out education among the people as organizations contrary to public order and dangerous to Russian unity. It explains also why the German imperialists, seeking Russia’s defeat, want to separate Ukraine from Russia and send “a European prince to Kyiv.” There is no doubt that the national regeneration of Ukraine will destroy the unity of “Russia” and disrupt the imperialist force of the Empire. This danger has been foreseen with great clarity by the Russian liberals whom while making certain concessions to the bourgeois Ukrainian movement in the area of culture, have disputed the Ukrainians’ right to make political demands and have supported the anti-Ukrainian policy of Tsarism.

We have already had occasion to show how the general atmosphere of hatred against the Ukrainian movement weakened the latter. The passivity and obedience so dear to the Ukrainian bourgeoisie during the war have through force of circumstances penetrated the masses.

This is why we, as Social-Democrats of Russian Ukraine, address ourselves to the International Socialist Conference, calling upon it to take the Ukrainian problem into account, in the course of debates on the international situation and the conditions of the future peace, and to proclaim in the conference motion the necessity for the liberation of Ukraine. Such a declaration from the representatives of revolutionary socialism will be not only a valuable support for all our socialist and anti-militarist propaganda in the Ukrainian working class, but also the expression of the objectivity and supreme justice of the new International. When Tsarism has been destroyed, when the Ukrainian socialist movement can advance freely, this support given today by the young socialist International to Ukrainian socialism shall forever serve the worldwide working class as an example of international socialist solidarity.

In summary, we call upon the second International Conference:

To appeal to the working class for a struggle for the liberation of oppressed nations, by means of revolutionary actions, against the centralism of great states composed of different nationalities, and to address this appeal to the proletarian socialists of Russia, wishing them success in their struggle against Tsarism, with the goal of the political liberation of Russia, and the conquest of democratic and autonomous rights for the oppressed nations.

To protest against Tsarist Russia’s projects of annexation of Austrian Ukraine (Galicia and Bukovyna) because this annexation would result in the spoilation of all political and national liberties in this province, and the more intense oppression of the whole Ukrainian nation. To oppose the projects of Tsarism which seek to stifle Ukrainian regeneration, by demanding democratic autonomy of Ukraine within its ethnographic boundaries in Russia.

With socialist greetings.

By the editor of the Social-Democratic newspaper Borotba,

L. Rybalka

1
Anna Procyk, Russian Nationalism and Ukraine, The Nationality Policy of the Volunteer Army during the Civil War (Edmonton: CIUS, 1995), 49; and Prince Alexander Wolkonsky, The Ukraine Question: The Historic Truth Versus Separatist Propaganda (Rome: Ditta E Armani, 1920).

2
L. Rybalka (Lev Yurkevych): “Pochatok masovoyi roboty sered Kyivskikh obotnikiv,” Nash Holos (no. 6-9, 1911), 332, cited in Volodomyr Levynsky, Lev Yurkevych (Lviv: Ukrainska Sotsialistychna Biblioteka, 1927), 6.

3
Iskra, no. 80, Dec. 1904, cited in George Y. Boshyk, “The Rise of Ukrainian Political Parties in Russia 1900-1907. With Special Reference to Social Democracy” (PhD dissertation, University of Oxford, 1981), 134, note 8.

4
Haslo (No. 3-4, 1920), cited in Boshyk, “Rise of Ukrainian Parties,” 137.

5
Anastasiya Hrinchenko, Shtrykhy do suspil’no-politychnoyi diyal’nosti v Kyyevi 1905–1907rr.

6
Vladyslav Verstiuk, “Conceptual Issues in Studying the Ukrainian Revolution,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies (Vol. 24, No. 1, Summer 1999), 14.

7
Andriy Richtysky, “Memorandum Ukrainskoi Kumunistichnoi Partii Kongresovi III Komunistychnoho Internationalu,” Nova Doba (No. 4, 1920) in Dokumenty Ukrainskoho Komunizmu (New York, 1962) 45-66; Bojcun, “Approaches to the Study of the Ukrainian Revolution,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies (Vol. 24: 1, summer 1999).

8
Nash Holos (Nos. 6-9, 1911), cited in Levynsky, Lev Yurkevych, 7. (Trans Mykhailo Kondrashyn)

9
Hrinchenko.

10
Nash Holos (No. 6-8, 1911), 338, cited in Dymytro Doroshenko, Z Istorii Ukrainskoi Politychnoi Dumky Za Chasiv Svitovoi Viini (Praha, 1935), 28.

11
John-Paul Himka, “Young Radicals and Independent Statehood: The Idea of a Ukrainian Nation-State, 1890-1895,” Slavic Review, Cambridge (Vol. 41, No. 2, Summer, 1982), 219-35; Oleh Zhernokleyev, Natsional’ni sektsiyi avstriys’koyi sotsial-demokratiyi v Halychyni y na Bukovyni (1890 – 1918 rr.) (Kyiv, 2000), 113.

12
Mykola Porsh, Pro Avtonomiyu Ukrainy (Kyiv: Prosvita, 1907), 75.

13
We should also recognize a separate Ukrainian Social Democratic Party in Canada that was at the forefront in organizing the labor movement there, with Ukrainian socialist organizations also active in the USA and Australia.

14
Oleh Zherno, Ukrayins’ka sotsial-demokratiya v Halychyni: narys istoriyi 1899-1918 (Kyiv), 415.

15
Lev Rybalka [Yurkevych, Nash Holos (nos. 6-8, 1911), cited in Levynsky, Lev Yurkevcyh, 360-61. Trans Mykhailo Kondrashyn)

16
The antagonism of the Russian Social Democracy towards Ukrainian socialism was deep rooted. It can be traced to the very inception of both movements in the nineteenth century. Indeed it brought Engels into conflict with Plekhanov, when he failed to support Ukrainian national rights. This revealing conflict arose in 1890 over Engels’s essay, “The Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom.” Plekhanov replied criticizing Engels for his consideration of Ukrainians as a nation. Engels had come to believe that one positive outcome of the overthrow of Tsarism would be that “Little Russia [Ukraine] will be able to choose its political connections freely.”

The following year Iosif (Osip) Markovich Polinkovsky, a member of the Union of Russian Social Democrats abroad and a supporter of the Emancipation of Labor group alongside Plekhanov, wrote, perhaps with Plekhanov, O Bezvykhodnosti Uukrainskago Sotsializma v Rossii. (The Dead End of Ukrainian Socialism). It depicted the Russian conquest of Ukraine as an economic necessity and the Ukrainian movement as utopian with no historical basis.

17
There is no complete study of the Ukrainian question in these debates. Works which cover this period include: V. Levynsky, L’internatonale socialiste et les peuples opprimes (Vienna, 1920); Marko Bojcun, The Workers’ Movement and the National Question in Ukraine: 1897-1918 (Netherlands: Brill, 2021); Roman Rosdolsky, Engels and the ‘Nonhistoric’ Peoples: The National Question in the Revolution of 1848 (Glasgow: Critique Books, 1987), 189.

18
Lev Rybalka [Yurkevych] “Peredmova,” Volodymyr Levynsky, Narys Rozvytki Ukrainskoho Rukh v Halychnyia, Dzvin (Kyiv, 1914).

19
Rybalka [Yurkevych], Peredmova, VII.

20
Rybalka [Yurkevych], Peredmova, VII.

21
Rybalka [Yurkevych], Peredmova, X.

22
Rybalka [Yurkevych], Peredmova, XI.

23
Rybalka [Yurkevych], “Yezuyits’ka polityka,” Dzvin (No. 5, 1914), 461.

24
Ibid.

25
Volodymyr Holovchenko, “Samostiynoyi Ukrayiny” Do Soyuzu Vyzvolennya Ukrayiny: Narysy Z Istoriyi Ukrayins’koyi Sotsial-Demokratiyi Pochatku XX st, (Kyiv, 1996), 152.

26
Mark Von Hagen, War in a European Borderland, Occupations and Occupation Plans in Galicia and Ukraine, 1914-1918 (Univ. of Washington Press, 2007), 11.

27
P. Popov, ‘Moskovs’ka Hrupa “Livykh” V Usdrp, (Z Politychnoho Zhyttya 1915— 1917 R. R.),’ Litopys Revolyutsiyi, No. 9, 6 (33) (Kharkiv, 1928), 287.

28
The Central Committee of the USDRP, elected in Sept. 1913, was composed of V. Vynnychenko, P. Dyatlov, M. Trotsky, and Yurkevych. Trotsky adopted a pro-war stance, joining the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (SVU) established on 4 August 1914 in Lviv by Ukrainian emigres from the Russian Empire, various Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries. See Roman Rosdolsky, “Do istorii Soiuzu vyavolennia Ukrainy,” Ukrains’kyi Samostiinyk, May 1, 1969.

29
“Viyna chy revolyutsiya?,” Borotba (No. 4, Sept. 1915).

30
Borotba (No. 1, Feb. 1915).

31
Rybalka [Yurkevych], “L’Ukraine Et La Guerre,” Lettre Ouvre adresee a la 2nd conference socialiste internationale tenue en Hollande en mai 1916, Edition du journal social-democrate Ukrainyen Borotba (Lausanne 1916).

32
L’Ukraine Et La Guerre, 46.

33
L’Ukraine Et La Guerre, 53.

34
Borotba (No. 7, Sept. 1916).

35
Protyzacudu Natsinalnoi smerty – za samostiinistiu i nezalezhnictu Ukrainskogo Narodu! Propamiatne pis’mo Ukrainskoi Sotsialdemocratichnoi Partii v Abstrii do Sotsialistichnoho Internatsionalu. 1916.

36
Pyotr Dyatlov (1883-1937), a leading activist in the RUP and a Central Committee member of the USDRP, was deported from the Russian Empire and was living in Vienna in 1914. He was an active supporter of the Foreign Group of USDRP and Borotba. He wrote to Levynsky defending the views espoused by Yurkevych:

“Thus, your statement that the views of Borotba are the personal views of ‘Mr. Rybalka’ [Yurkevych] is contrary to the fact. … But you, comrade, as a person familiar with the program and tactics of our party, undoubtedly know that the views of Borotba really correspond to the USDRP traditions” (Doroshenko, 62). Dyatlov later returned to Soviet Ukraine and worked at Kharkiv University. Arrested in 1933 by the GPU, he was executed in 1937 by the NKVD.

37
Sotsial-Demokrat (No. 28, Feb. 12, 1915).

38
Borotba (No. 2, April 1915).

39
Doroshenko, 80.

40
Rybalka [Yurkevych], “Druha Mizhnarodna sotsialistychna konferentsiya ta yiyi znachennya, veresen,” Borotba (No. 7, Sept. 1916 r).

41
Borotba (No. 7, July 1916).

42
Lev Rybalka, [Yurkevych], Rosiys’ki sotsial-demokraty i natsional’ni pytannya, Suchasnist (Munich, 1969). The original was published in Russian as Russkie Sotsialdemokrat’i i Natsional’ii Vopros, Geneva (Borotba, 1917).

43
Rybalka, Rosiys’ki sotsial-demokraty, 8.

44
Rybalka, Rosiys’ki sotsial-demokraty, 8.

45
Rybalka, Rosiys’ki sotsial-demokraty, 24.

46
Rybalka, Rosiys’ki sotsial-demokraty, 11.

47
Rybalka, Rosiys’ki sotsial-demokraty, 19-20.

48
The Council of Peoples Commissars declared a war on the Central Rada behind the back of the ostensible Soviet government, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets. It was not discussed at the Bolsheviks’ own Central committee, and the local Bolsheviks in Ukraine had never been told of the move to war. See John Keep, ed., The Debate on Soviet Power, Minutes of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets (Oxford, 1979), 195-223.

49
Orghanizatsihoho Komitety Ukrayins‘ka Komunistychna Partiya” (USDRP Nezalezhnyky), Chervony Prapor, Dec. 21, 1919.

50
Doroshenko, 83-85.

51
Vynnychenko wrote to Yurkevych that “The Union for Liberation of Ukraine has almost no connections [in Ukraine and Russia] and the ‘Russian orientation’ expressed by some at the beginning of the war, it was only out of fear and caution… I met only two Russian patriots out of the large number of Ukrainians with whom I had the opportunity to chat.” Doroshenko, 85.

52
The USDRP newspaper Slovo was published in one issue in 1916 in Kharkiv. It emphasized its position—to defend the interests not only of the workers of all of Russia, but to care “as firmly as possible for the cause of the national rebirth of the Ukrainian proletariat and all of Ukraine” (Slovo, No. 1, 1916).

53
Panas Fadenko, Isaak Mazepa, Borets’ Za Volyu Ukrayiny Napysav, Nash Slovo (London, 1954), 18-19.

54
P. Popov, Moskovska Hrupa “Livykh” V Usdrp, Litopys Revolyutsiyi, Kharkiv, No. 9 6 (33), 1928, 289.

55
The Kyiv USDRP declaration stated: “Therefore, we must now gather together so that, having gathered strength, we can rise up against the war, fight for our rights, for freedom, for a better socialist order. Let us be ready, brothers, for an uprising, for a fight, not with the Germans, but with our oppressors — the government and the nobility…” M. Adviyenko, ‘Lyutneva Revolyutsiya V Petrohradi I USDRP,’ Litopys Revolyutsiyi, (Kharkiv, No. 1, 1928), 233-34.

56
Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Vidrodzhennia natsii, Kyiv-Vienna, Vol. 1, 252.

57
“Declaration of the Provisional Government,” “The Kerensky Provisional Government and the Ukrainian Central Rada,” Walter Dushnyk, Ukrainian Quarterly (Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Summer 1967), 25.

58
Vynnychenko, 251-253.

59
Although the title of the brochure mentions the International Socialist Conference in Holland, Lev Yurkveych was writing to the Kienthal Conference (also known as the Second Zimmerwald Conference) held in the Swiss village of Kienthal, between April 24 and 30, 1916. For reasons of secrecy, the organizers of the Kienthal Conference first issued an invitation for the “Second Zimmerwald Conference” in Holland in the International Socialist Commission ISK-Bulletin Nr.3, issued on the 29th of Feb. 1916, participants were only informed later that the conference was actually to be held in the Swiss village. [Editor’s note]

60
The Cossacks had various social and ethnic origins, but were predominantly made up of escaped serfs fleeing the oppression in the Polish-ruled areas of Ukraine. They established self-governing communities, one of the largest and most well-known being the Zaporozhian Sich. In 1648, a mass uprising of Cossacks and peasants led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1648–57), against the Polish Commonwealth established the Ukrainian Cossack state known as the Hetmanate (the title of an elected Cossack leader), consisting of most of central Ukraine. [Ed. note]

61
B. Noble, L’Ukraine sous le protectorate russe. Paris, 1915.

62
“Kyivan Rus,” the first state of the Eastern Slavs, lasted from the ninth to mid-thirteenth century, under Volodymyr the Great, it became a pre-eminent state of Europe, adopting Christianity in 988. It fragmented following the Mongol invasion giving rise to three powerful independent states, including Halych-Volhynia, in central and western parts of modern Ukraine. Russian imperialism has attempted to establish historical continuity between Russia and Kyivan Rus to justify its rule over Ukraine. The Tsardom of Muscovy, founded in 1147, was for two hundred years a Mongol vassal state, renamed the Russian Empire in 1721 by Tsar Peter, who appropriated the name of Kyivan Rus. Catherine the Great declared the empire its successor. In 2022, Putin claimed Russia as the sole heir to Kyivan Rus. [Ed. note]

63
We publish in “extenso” this shameful document:

H. M. The Tsar has deigned to ordain this past May 18/30 (1876):

1. To ban within the borders of the Russian empire under the special authorization of the Higher Administration charged with printing affairs all books or pamphlets published abroad in the Little-Russian idiom.

2 The printing and publishing in the Empire of original works or translations in this idiom are banned with the exception of (a) historical documents and monuments, (b) works of fiction, with the condition that the orthography of the originals is upheld in the publication of historical works, and that works of fiction will not be tolerated in form other than the generally adopted Russian orthography. Publication of works of fiction will not be allowed without the manuscript having first been examined.

3 Also banned are all theatrical events and conferences conducted in this idiom as is the publication of musical texts in this idiom.

Head of the Administration in charge of printing affairs. Grigoriev.

Michael Drahomanov, “Ukrainian literature banned by the Russian Government,” Report presented to the Paris literary conference, 1878.

64
Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841–1895) was a prominent figure in the secret society Hromada of Kyiv. Dismissed from his position at Kyiv University in 1875, he relocated to Geneva, where he established Hromada (Community), the first modern Ukrainian political journal, in collaboration with Serhii Podolynsky and Mykhailo Pavlyk. Together, they founded the Geneva Circle, which became the embryo of Ukrainian socialism. Influenced by figures such as Owen and Proudhon, Drahomanov advocate an agrarian socialism and a federalist system of self-governing communities and regions. His ideas significantly shaped the Ukrainian political movement in Galicia and influenced populist socialists in Russian-ruled Ukraine. His work had a major impact on the Ukrainian movement in the early twentieth century. [Ed. note]

65
The term muzhik means a peasant, particularly in the pre-revolutionary Tsarist period. [Ed. note]

66
Narodniks, narodnitstvo from “Narod” — the people or nation, also known as populists, were a radical movement that arose after the Crimean War. The main tenets of Ukrainian populism were federalism, emancipation of the peasantry, and the recognition of the cultural distinctiveness of the Ukrainian people, they saw the peasantry as the key force for change. Ukrainian populists were also known by their contemporaries as Ukrainophiles, most prominent among them were Volodymyr Antonovych and Mykhailo Drahamanov. [Ed. note]

67
Founded in 1889, the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria (SDAPÖ) was reorganized at the 1899 Wimberg Congress into a federative structure known as the “small international,” granting national parties greater autonomy. Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Italian, Slovene, Hungarian. [Ed. note]

68
“Yurkevych” means by “nationalizing” such as the use of the Ukrainian language in education. [Ed. note]

69
Ukrainian Democratic-Radical Party (UDRP) was a liberal party formed by a merger of the Ukrainian Democratic Party and Ukrainian Radical Party in 1905. It consisted mainly of members of the intelligentsia. Its program favored a democratic constitution and a preference for a “socialist order.” Half of the Ukrainian caucus in the Russian State Duma were members of the UDRP, in the Second Duma (1907) the fourteen Ukrainian Social Democrats elected did not join the caucus. In early 1908 the UDRP collapsed and many of its members who also belonged to the Russian Kadets joined the clandestine Society of Ukrainian Progressives. [Ed. note]

70
Pyotr Stolypin, the Russian prime minister, was assassinated in Kyiv (then Kiev) on Sept. 14, 1911 (Sept. 1, Old Style). [Ed. note]

71
The Russian army occupied Austrian-ruled Ukraine from Aug./Sept. 1914 until mid-1915. Ukrainian organizations, publications, schools, and churches were closed. There were mass arrests and deportations; Jewish organizations were banned, and on Sept. 27, Russian soldiers staged a pogrom in Lviv, during killing forty-seven people. [Ed. note]

72
Ukrainskaia zhizn (Ukrainian Life) was a Russian-language journal published in Moscow from 1912 to 1917. Edited by Symon Petlyura (1879–1926), a member of the USDRP, along with Oleksander Salikovsky, it served as the unofficial organ of the Moscow branch of the clandestine Society of Ukrainian Progressives. In July 1914, Petlyura published an article criticizing the “Austrian Orientation,” stating regarding the Ukrainian population: “May it remain steadfast in its mission, ensuring the unity of Russia and its diverse population—particularly in addressing the urgent resolution of national issues, including the Ukrainian question.” “Viyna I Ukrayintsi.” Symon Petlyura, Ukrayins’ka suspil’no-politychna dumka v 20 stolitti: Dokumenty i materialy, T. 1 T. Hunchak, Suchasnist,’ 1983, 207-10. [Ed. note]

73
In Aug. 1914, the Russian General Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, issued the “Manifesto to the Polish Nation,” addressing the Polish people. The manifesto promised the unification of Polish lands under the Russian Tsar and granted autonomy, including religious freedom, linguistic rights, and self-governance, to those living under Russian, German, and Austrian rule. This strategic declaration aimed to secure Polish support and loyalty during the war. [Ed. note]

74
Vasily Maklakov, a leader of the Russian Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets), served as a deputy in the State Duma. Initially supportive of the war, he later became a vocal critic as Russia faced setbacks. He played a key role in the formation of the Progressive Bloc, a coalition of Duma factions that opposed the government’s handling of the war. [Ed. note]

75
In this regard, it is useful to point out that, after the victories of the Russian army in Asia Minor, the question of Armenian liberation was put on the agenda. So, a meeting organized by Anatole France was held in Paris on April 10 at which representatives of the government and parliament made a solemn promise to the Armenian people to assure them of the complete liberation of their country in recognition of the dedication they had shown to the Allies’ cause. In order to clearly understand the flimsiness and unimportance of these promises, which express elsewhere the solidarity of the French republican government with the interests of Russian Tsarism, it is sufficient to recall what the representative Miliukov stated to the Duma on March 11, 1916 on the subject of the Armenians: “the fate of Armenia and of her people,” he said “is as dear to us and as close to our hearts as that of all peoples who have suffered while fighting with us. Unfortunately, there are reasons for believing that the fate of Galicia could be reproduced in Armenia. We can see that people are beginning to be unscrupulous with the properties abandoned by their Armenian occupants. Without knowing the reasons, these properties have already been declared properties of the state.” How, then can one not be surprised at the words of Anatole France when he said at the meeting that the allied armies “are fighting for justice and liberty”?

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“The War and the Ukrainians,” Ukrainskaia zhizn, No. 7, Moscow.

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The Supreme Ukrainian Council was established on Aug. 1, 1914, by Galicia’s major political parties: the National Democratic Party, the Ukrainian Radical Party, and the USDP. The Council declared, “Victory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy shall be our own victory.” In 1915, it reorganized into the General Ukrainian Council in Vienna, advocating for Ukrainian territories under Russian rule to form an independent state, while those under Austrian rule would gain autonomy within a unified Ukrainian region. [Ed. note]

78
On Nov. 5, 1916, the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires issued the “Two Emperors’ Declaration,” proclaiming the creation of a “Kingdom of Poland” from former Polish territories of the Russian Empire. This announcement disappointed Austrian Ukrainian leaders, who had been informed just two months earlier that the Crown Council, chaired by Emperor Franz Joseph I, had decided to divide Galicia after the war and unite its eastern part with Volyn as an autonomous Ukrainian province. The establishment of a Polish state was primarily intended to bolster the German Army with Polish troops. While the Austrian emperor reaffirmed Galicia’s “special” status, which effectively placed Western Ukrainians under Polish authority, a move that Ukrainian figures viewed as sanctioning their colonization. In response, the Ukrainian parliamentary representation in Austria declared on Nov. 7, 1916, that the Ukrainian people would never recognize submission to Polish rule. [Ed. note]

79
Paul Rohrbach (1869–1956) was a German political scientist and expert on Eastern European affairs. He advocated for the separation of western territories from the Russian Empire and led the German-Ukrainian Society until 1926. During the Weimar Republic, he moved away from pan-Germanic views, joining the liberal Democratic Party of Germany and becoming a critic of the Nazis. [Ed. note]

80
“Durch die Ukraine,” Hilfe, No. 36, 1915.

Borotba (Ukraine) Ukraine Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Russia Russian imperialism Lenin national question national question (Ukraine) Bolsheviks

Gilbert Achcar interviewed by  by Rodrigo Utrera | July 24, 2025

Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon and has lived and taught in Paris, Berlin, and London. He is Professor Emeritus at SOAS, University of London. His many books include The Clash of Barbarisms (2002, 2006); Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, co-authored with Noam Chomsky (2007); The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2010); Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism (2013); The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2013); Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (2016); and The New Cold War: The United States, Russia, and China from Kosovo to Ukraine (2023). His new book, The Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective, is just out this summer. This interview was conducted online on March 30, 2025, by Rodrigo Utrera, a student of sociology at the University of Chile. (Email: rodrigo.utrera@ug.uchile.cl.) He is a member of the Editorial Committee of Actuel Marx Intervenciones in Chile. The interview was first published in Spanish in that journal (no. 35, August 2025), in an issue dedicated to examining war and its mutations in the twenty-first century.

The New Cold War and Its Dangers

Introduction

Rodrigo Utrera: First, Gilbert, we thank you for the time you gave us for these conversations about the mutation of war in the twenty-first century, especially about your knowledge of the Middle East and North Africa, as part of your work on international relations. In the first place, we have some short questions to introduce the conversation.

Gilbert Achcar: You’re most welcome.

RU: If we introduce some global view of the problem, it is important to understand imperialist strategy in this context. The war between Russia and Ukraine and the trade compeition between China and the United States generate in a lot of people in the world many ideas about a terminal crisis in United States imperialism. Some more optimistic 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 1/13 people have supported the BRICS initiative, which has already expanded to include new countries. And others, like Michael Roberts1  for example, have some criticism about the return of campism on the left. So, the question is how you define the confrontation between powerful countries at this moment. Do you think it’s like an inter-imperialist confrontation? Is it a new cold war? That’s our question to begin with.

GA: First of all, it is important to emphasize that it does not make much sense to speak of a terminal crisis of U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism is unfortunately far from dead. And what is happening is a mutation of U.S. imperialism. What is ending is what I call the Atlanticist liberal order that has built up since the Second World War. And its government institutions like NATO, like the treaties between Washington and Japan, and Washington and South Korea. This international liberal order was supposedly built on rules, but that was always a big lie, because Western powers never really abided by any rules, except their own, especially the United States.

So, what we have seen is the beginning of the collapse of this liberal international order, this Atlanticist liberalism. And this does not begin with Donald Trump, contrary to what many people believe. Biden and the war in Gaza were a key moment in that, especially due to the huge contrast between the attitude of the United States toward Ukraine and its attitude toward Gaza. This showed in the crudest possible way the hypocrisy and inconsistency of the so-called Atlantic liberalism. They could say that the United States was defending a relatively liberal government in Ukraine against a Russian regime that could arguably be described as neofascist.

But then, the same United States fully endorsed a genocidal war waged by a coalition of neofascist and neo-Nazis in Israel. That’s the true character of the Israeli government. It is a coalition of neofascists, Likud, and neo-Nazis, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and other people. And so this huge contradiction was the final nail in the coffin of Atlanticist liberalism, the whole so-called international liberal order. What Trump is doing is taking this process to the extreme, to the ultimate logical conclusion, getting rid of any pretense of liberalism. Trump has zero pretense of being liberal, pro-human rights, or whatever. The “free world” ideology of the Cold War, that’s very far from Donald Trump. He doesn’t care about free or not free. Actually, his administration openly supports the international far right, from Milei, to Bolsonaro, to Narendra Modi, to of course all the European neofascists. This is a huge historical mutation, absolutely huge.

In my view, it is even more important than the end of the Cold War. Because you had the end of the Cold War and then it was followed by a new Cold War for twenty-five years. But now we are getting into a complete reconfiguration of international relations. We entered into what I called the age of neofascism. As you had the age of fascism in the 1930s, we are now in an age of neofascism, which is worse because today the most important imperialist power is leading the neofascist coalition. In the 1930s, the United States was the bulwark against the rise of fascism. It was defending liberalism, if you want, with the British. Now this is dead. This is completely dead as a role of the United States, and this is something of tremendous 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 2/13 consequence in every field: political, ideological, and ecological, because these people are very much climate denier pro fossil fuel. So that’s the situation in which we are now.

RU: Well, about something you mentioned. We have some questions because you exchanged some opinions about the crisis with another British Marxist, Alex Callinicos. He talks about a new age of catastrophe.2  In that view, we know that revolutionary Marxism has some difficulty in characterizing the stage we are living in in the twenty-first century. So, the question is what do you think about the concept of a new age that Callinicos describes, and do you think this new era comes after the Covid-19 pandemic or was its origin a long time ago? And also, do you think this age has some similar points with the age of war and revolutions that Lenin pronounced in 1914?

GA: First of all, the age of catastrophe is a rhetorical formula. It does not characterize politically what’s happening. Of course, we are facing a lot of catastrophes, right? Climate, pandemics, etc. There are a lot of very big problems facing the planet today. But calling it the “new age of catastrophe” is a literary choice of the author. When I speak of the age of neofascism, I mean something that really starts with the second Trump presidency, as a culmination of a process that developed over twenty years. The key point here is this rise of far right forces, far right governments, far right regimes and their convergence, the convergence between them. As we can see, even between Trump in the United States and Putin in Russia. Because Trump and his administration have more ideological affinities with Vladimir Putin than they have with Zelensky or with the European liberal governments of France, Germany, Britain, and such countries. So this is the key point we have to understand. And as for war and revolution, to be frank, we are unfortunately not in an age of war and revolution. We are in an age of war without revolution. There’s no revolution on the horizon now. We have to be clear.

RU: Maybe it’s more similar to the situation of the 1930s?

GA: No, because in the 1930s or in 1914, as you mentioned, with the famous analysis on war and revolution, you had a huge workers’ movement that was still socialist. You had social democrats, you had people who later called themselves communist, but they had in common that they were anti-capitalist working class forces, and they were very big forces. And when you had the war, you had the rise of these forces, and especially you had the Russian revolution, the German revolution, the Hungarian revolution, and other uprisings. In the 1930s, you had the rise of fascism, but in the face of fascism, you had the communist movement, led by the Soviet Union, and you had a clash between the two. Of course, you had a brief period of truce between them, between 1939 and 1941, but basically they were in fierce opposition. And the communist movement, worldwide, managed to grow tremendously during the Second World War, which led to taking power in China, Vietnam, and Korea, while in many European countries, you had communist parties becoming huge and playing a key role in the politics. So there’s no way to compare 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 3/13 the situation of today unfortunately to that.

The workers’ movement is weaker than at any point, the organized workers’ movement. This translates even into very low unionization rates in most countries. There are no powerful working class parties. Most of the left has gone completely into a neoliberal mutation and that applies to social democracy. Others were not able to do an aggiornamento, to adapt to the new age, to the new century, to the new conditions. They have not really drawn the lessons from the collapse of Stalinism and all that. There is a welcome rise of youth movements on ecology, on gender, on identity policy, on anti-racism, but look at the difference between this and 1968 when you had huge student movements everywhere led by Marxists.

Today the youth movement is not Marxist. We have to face the truth. So, from that point of view, I wrote explaining that in some way, this present age of neofascism is even more dangerous than the previous one. Because the balance of forces is worse than it was even in the 1930s. I wrote that in my article on the age of neofascism.3 It may be unlikely that there will be a new world war, but the impact of neofascism on the global climate crisis, which is a major threat to humanity, is huge. Not to mention every other regression that is happening. Just look at what the United States is doing in terms of cutting aid, pushing millions of people into poverty.

So, we are in a very dangerous epoch, and we have to be very much aware of that. Of course, the hope is that the new generation, young people, will be able to build mass movements, new anti-capitalist movements, that can take up all these struggles in an intersectional way. Take the issues of race, gender, and climate and combine them with the class perspective, the anti-capitalist perspective. But the truth is that the balance of forces today is quite weak. There are some encouraging signs like the mass resistance in Turkey to the neofascist turn of Erdogan. We’ll have to see who wins: the mass movement or this neofascist regime? These are encouraging signs, but we are still far from the emergence of the kind of movement that is needed to fight back, defeat neofascism, and push forward the fight against capitalism.

Clash of Barbarisms and Arab Revolts in the Twenty-first Century Understanding Imperialism and Counter-revolution in the Middle East

RU: Now that we have a global point of view, we want to move to the question about imperialism and counter-revolution in the Middle East. Especially about a concept that you use in your works, because it’s very interesting to us. This describes the confrontation between two forces: first, imperialism, and second, fundamentalist forces that, in many cases, have their origins in imperialism itself. We are talking about the concept of the clash of barbarisms. Can you explain this concept to us? Also, an important aspect: when you define the element of Islamic fundamentalism, are you considering only the Sunni 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 4/13 jihadist movements or are you also talking about Khomeinist movements supported by Iran?

GA: Well, I wrote my book The Clash of Barbarisms in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. It was in a way a counter-thesis to that of Huntington about the clash of civilizations.4 What I explained in the book is that these were not civilizations clashing, but the barbarism that each civilization produces. Each civilization produces some type of barbarism which in time of crisis can take over. And this is how I interpreted what was happening at the time between the barbarism of the United States (and their hubris after the collapse of the Soviet Union) and the countereffect of that barbarism in the Islamic radicalization of forces that are politically and ideologically deeply reactionary.

Of course in the case of jihadist forces like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State (ISIS), I think that should be obvious, but the issue is more general. All religious fundamentalist forces are reactionary and Islam is no exception. We immediately understand that Christian fundamentalist forces are reactionary. I really always wonder why some Western leftists can’t understand that the same applies to Islamic fundamentalism. All fundamentalism: Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, whatever. By definition, fundamentalism is a reactionary ideology. Socially, culturally, ideologically, politically. And that’s what we have.

Now, ten years after 2001, you had in 2011 the beginning of what was called the Arab Spring. That was the result of a deep structural social economic crisis in the Middle East and North Africa in Arabic-speaking countries. In my analysis, this deep crisis from the start produced what I called a long-term revolutionary process. The region entered into a long-term process of decades. Now, in this process, you had a peculiarity. It was not the usual revolution versus counter-revolution. It was something specific: a triangle of revolution and two counter revolutions. One counter revolution represented by the old regime, the existing regimes, and another counter-revolution represented by opposition forces of a reactionary character. And that complicated the whole picture. In this part of the world, the left has been atrophied historically. It’s quite weak. It played some disproportionate role in 2011.

Then you had the second wave of the Arab Spring in 2019 and again you had some disproportionate role of the left, but that was not enough to change. And that’s why there has been a historical failure until now. But this does not mean that the revolutionary process is dead, because as long as you have the structural crisis, the crisis of the mode of production, the specific capitalism that exists in this part of the world, as long as we have this crisis, it will produce new uprisings. It will produce a new crisis. The big question is whether the new generations will be able to build a strong movement that is capable of leading social, economic, and political change. That’s a very big challenge to be frank. There is no reason to be optimistic because the regimes in the region are ferocious and they are backed by both U.S. imperialism and Russia. This makes the situation very difficult. But we still see nevertheless then and now some rise of mass 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 5/13 movements. The future is a big question mark. But the crisis will not be solved unless you have radical change.

RU: Now that we have this concept, the clash of barbarisms, we want to delve into a characteristic of wars in the Arab context. The Western press sometimes uses the concept of proxy war. We could say it’s fashionable among mainstream journalism. We can define it, vulgarly, as a confrontation in which a state uses a third parastatal force against its enemies. A force that the first state has trained and financed. According to the mainstream press in the West, this technique, this method of confrontation, has been especially prevalent in the Arab world in recent decades. The question is: how do you interpret this concept, from the perspective of the clash of barbarisms?

GA: About the proxy wars, I think the concept is reductionist because it denies the agency of local actors. So it represents local actors as puppets, used by foreign actors. Now, if we mean by proxy war the fact that when you have war in some countries, soon afterwards you have foreign states intervening in support of one or another faction, this definitely exists in the region. For example, the war in Libya. You have on one side Turkey and Qatar supporting the forces based in Tripoli—in the west of Libya—and you have Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt supporting the forces in the east, in Benghazi, led by Khalifa Haftar. If you take the war in Yemen, you had direct intervention from the Saudi Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates in the war, and Iran was backing the other side, the Houthis.

So you could also say it’s a proxy war, but again this is reductionist. These wars are used as a proxy war by these foreign states, but there is also a local agency of the actors that are clashing. The Sudan war is the same. You can find on one side the United Arab Emirates and Russia. On the other side you have Egypt and the Saudis. And you had some changes recently in the positions of these states, especially Russia. So it’s normal that wherever you have a civil war, you will have people intervening in support of one of the two camps.

After all if you think of the Spanish Civil War, you had the Axis Powers, Italy and Germany, supporting Franco. And you had the United States, France, and Britain supporting the Republican camp as well as the Soviet Union of course. So that’s not something new. The thesis of a proxy war was mostly invoked about Ukraine. Again, this was a denial of agency. If you say this is just a proxy war between the United States and NATO and on the other hand Russia, you are denying the agency of the Ukrainians because that’s their country. Their country has been invaded. They are fighting an invasion.

And in some sense the Russian vision of Ukraine is a colonial one. It denies even the right of Ukraine to exist as a state. So it’s true that in part this war has been a war between Russia and the Western bloc, but there is also the fight of the Ukrainians and here I make a distinction. I think that it’s absolutely fair and right that they defend themselves and defend their population against Russian aggression. But at the same time, of course, I support anything that could lead to a peaceful settlement and I am not at all in the logic of nationalist 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 6/13 maximalism. I think you can find this kind of maximalism in Ukrainian nationalism and it is supported by some European countries like Britain. It translates in the support for the Ukrainians’ right to fight on until they liberate all the territories invaded since 2014. That doesn’t make sense. That would mean a very, very long war, a very costly war. So you have to find a balance in the position in what is a complex issue and not settle it with simplistic formulas.

RU: You mention some interesting points, because we can think that proxy war is a reductionist concept because the Western press forgets that a long time ago, during the Cold War, the imperialist states used mercenary forces in many countries, for example to fight against the Cuban revolution. We have the case of Chile where the United States financed a lot of conservative press, conspiratorial and fascist groups, etc. So I say, it is not something new.

GA: Yes, absolutely. And the example of Chile that you’re raising is very good. I mean, of course the United States supported Pinochet. That’s well known. But does this mean that Pinochet was just a puppet of the United States and he would not have acted without a green light from the United States? No, I don’t think so. I think that he and the part of the army that were deeply reactionary and opposed to the government would have acted anyway, and were betting on support from the United States if needed. So again, this idea of proxy war can be very reductionist and simplistic, whereas we have to understand the complexity of local politics. The local actors have their own interests and their own aspirations, and the same goes for the foreign actors that intervene in this situation in support of one camp or another.

RU: Exactly. We want to ask you about one important actor in the Middle East because it’s very interesting and some new generations of left militants don’t know the origin of the regime of that country. We are talking about the Islamic Republic of Iran. So, what is the origin of the Iranian Revolution of 1979? Why did that event have a lot of influence on the future of the country? How can we explain that revolution passed to history as an Islamic Revolution, although it had an important participation of a workers’ movement and also some workers’ councils, known as Shoras?

GA: Well, that’s another good illustration of what we have discussed. Iran had accumulated under the Shah a lot of social and economic problems. And the country reached an explosive condition. There, in Iran, two competing forces participated in the revolution. One was revolutionary, the workers’ movement and the left. The other was a counter-revolutionary force, the reactionary clergy, led by Ruhollah Khomeini. And that was a big party because you had something like one mullah for every 320 people in Iran. It was a huge party.

So what happened? In 1981, I wrote a piece drawing a parallel between the Russian revolution and the Iranian revolution. In both cases, you had an in part spontaneous, not fully, but in part spontaneous mass movement of protest against a regime that had become hated by the great mass of the people. And then what happens in 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 7/13 the Russian case is that one force, which is the most radical, the Bolsheviks, managed to lead the process, to take the leadership of the process and turn it into an anti-capitalist revolution.

In Iran you had a mass uprising, a revolutionary situation, but the force that managed to lead the process was the reactionary clergy that took it into a reactionary direction, into establishing a theocracy. The Iranian regime has long been the only theocratic regime, aside from the Vatican. There are today the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Houthis in Yemen, theocratic regimes where constitutional power is in the hands of the religious, of the clergy. And this is again extremely reactionary and only what I call Orientalists in reverse, that is people who invert western orientalism. Where western orientalism put minus signs on Islam, you have some people, including people on the left, who reverse that and put plus signs on everything Islamic. Now this theocratic regime emerged as very much anti-American because the United States was the main backer of the Shah, the previous regime. The Khomeinist regime was a very ideological and sectarian regime on the basis of Shiism, which is the majority branch of Islam in Iran. They were first attacked by Iraq, leading to eight years of war that actually allowed the clergy to centralize its power more firmly in Tehran.

And later, when the United States invaded Iraq, Iran took full advantage of this to spread its influence into Iraq where the majority is Shia, the same branch of Islam. They managed therefore to become more influential in Iraq than the United States: the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a total failure from that point of view. And then, in 2012 you had the Syrian Civil War. Iran intervened, contradicting its ideological logic, because Syria saw a clash between a regime that called itself socialist and secular and forces that were Sunni Islamic fundamentalist. But Iran supported the socalled socialist secular regime on the basis of sectarianism because the leading group in the Syrian regime belonged to a branch of Shiism. They acted according to a sectarian logic, not a general Islamic ideological logic. They engaged in building a corridor of a sectarian character from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea, including Shia militants in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

RU: The forces you mentioned are some type of defense alliance that Iran names the Axis of Resistance.

GA: Yes, that’s what they call it, but if you look at it, it’s primarily a sectarian axis. It is based on sectarianism above all, even though, of course, Iran played the card of opposition to Israel in its ideological battle against the Arab States of the Gulf and especially the Saudi Kingdom. At some point the Obama administration wanted to appease them, and went into a negotiation with them on the nuclear issue to prevent their developing a nuclear weapon. This led to an agreement between the Obama administration and other European states and the Iranian government. That agreement was revoked by Donald Trump during his first term in 2018. The Iranian regime reacted by developing its nuclear capabilities and enriching its uranium. And also expanding its Axis 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 8/13 of Resistance, as they call it: from Iran into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, plus Hamas, which they supported as well as Islamic Jihad in Palestine.

RU: So maybe one element important in clarifying the character of Iran and its Axis is to understand not only its geopolitical actions but also to understand the class character of the regime, because it can clarify for comrades on the left the position and role that Iran plays in the Middle East.

GA: Well, the Iranian regime is a capitalist state with peculiarities, with the existence of large institutions controlled by the clergy and the existence of the Revolutionary Guards who are a parallel military organization controlling an economic empire. This is not exceptional in the region. In Egypt, for instance, the army controls an economic empire. So you have the same in some way with the Revolutionary Guards in Iran. But it is a capitalist and even neoliberal regime, with such peculiarities related to its ideological character and the fact that it is a theocracy. This is very specific. It’s not an ordinary capitalist state, of course. Now, Iran in its confrontation with the United States and with Israel has a just cause, because opposing U.S. imperialism and opposing Zionism are just. In that sense one can support Iran against Washington or Israel. We shouldn’t be neutral on this. But this does not mean that Iran or Hezbollah are progressive forces. They are not. They mix opposition to Israel and to America with a reactionary social and economic program.

RU: And it is interesting to note that there isn’t a 100 percent ideological or political harmony within this Axis, because we have some cases, like the recent fall of the Assad regime, in which Hamas celebrated Assad’s fall. This can be confusing to some people.

GA: Well, that was an opportunist position. Hamas has been very opportunist in the case of Syria. At the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, they supported the opposition because of the role of the Muslim Brotherhood as the key force in the opposition. Hamas itself is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Then later on because of their need for Iranian support, they shifted their position and reconciled with the Assad regime. Now, after the Assad regime collapsed last autumn you had a rise of Islamic Sunni forces in Syria. And the Muslim Brotherhood is part of what you have today in Syria. So Hamas shifted their position in support of the new regime. In summary, Iran supports, first, the forces that are organically linked to Iran, to Shi’ism, Shia forces. And secondly, it supports Sunni fundamentalist forces that are anti-U.S. and anti-Israel. It supported the Muslim Brotherhood for many years before the Syrian Civil War and then the relations between Tehran and the Muslim Brotherhood deteriorated. They supported Hamas for a while, then the relationship at some point deteriorated but was resumed later on. They support another group in Gaza that is closer to them, Islamic Jihad.

RU: Gilbert, now that we have more clarity on the issue of Iran and the Axis of Resistance, we want to ask about the Arab Spring before going straight to October 7. 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 9/13 Sometimes, people on the left talk about the uprisings of 2011 in the Arab World as “Color Revolutions.” This is a controversial concept. Some use it to refer to nonviolent tactics of popular mobilization, while others use it to describe the role played by imperialism through the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), or the Open Society. It is hard to deny that this strategy of cultural and media insertion played an important role in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. However, is it possible to speak of the Arab Spring uprisings as “color revolutions”? Did the United States use these methods?

GA: The only people who described what happened in the Arab World in 2011 as color revolutions were campist people, supporters of the Assad regime, supporters of Iran, supporters of all this. And it does not make any sense because the first uprising was in Tunisia against a very pro-western regime. The second uprising was in Egypt, against a very pro-western U.S.–linked regime. Then you had an uprising in Libya and some people on the left believed that Libya was anti-imperialist, but since 2003 Kadhafi had shifted and established close relations with the imperialist powers of the United States, Britain, Italy, and the rest. And then you had Yemen where the regime again was closely linked to the United States. You had an uprising in Bahrain, which is an oil monarchy, of course linked to U.S. imperialism. So to call these uprisings against regimes, most of which were pro-Western or friends of Western imperialism, to call them color revolutions, meaning that there was some kind of invisible hand of Washington behind them, was absurd, completely absurd. This view of things developed because of the U.S. and NATO intervention in Libya in 2011 and mostly because of the civil war in Syria, where the regime of Assad was backed by Iran and later by Russia and the opposition was backed by various Arab oil monarchies. This led to a neo-campist perspective, as I call it. The old campism consisted in blind support for the Soviet Union. With neo-campism, there is no single state that neo-campists relate to, but neo-campism consists in the automatic support of any forces that the United States opposes. The logic is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Thus any force that is the enemy of Washington is my friend. And this leads to extremely bad positions such as support for Assad, which was a terribly murderous dictatorship with an absolutely barbaric prison system in which tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people were caught, many of them dying there. A regime that has been a reactionary capitalist regime. But the fact that Washington opposed this regime and some of the Gulf monarchies also were opposed to it, led some people to support it. The whole depiction of what happened in the Arab region as a color revolution is just completely out of touch with reality. You could say that in Eastern Europe, in some of the events that happened there, there was some interference of U.S. organizations. Even then, you cannot deny the agency of the local people. This is a very conspiratorial vision of the history of the world that is the exact replica of that of the reactionary regimes. Whenever there is a popular movement rising up, the reactionary regimes say that it is led by foreign powers. And likewise some people on the left, when there is a popular 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 10/13 movement rising up against a regime that they believe is anti-imperialist, they say that it is manipulated by foreign powers. Toward Regional War? From October 7th to the Imperialist Attack against the Entire Middle East

RU: Gilbert, with all that is happening now, it is possible to venture the hypothesis of a de facto regional war. Perhaps, we could review some of the most significant events since October 7 in order to understand this situation.

GA: Well, when October 7, 2023, happened, Iran faced a dilemma because Hamas didn’t consult them about this operation. And yet Hamas asked them openly to join it in the war. So, either they entered the war more fully and took huge risks of the United States attacking them, or they didn’t do anything and lost face, appearing as cowards. What they chose was a middle way. Limited war through Hezbollah in Lebanon, a limited exchange in a limited territory on each side of the border between Lebanon and Israel, an exchange of fire that continued for almost one year within limits. Israel didn’t want to escalate because it was fully engaged in Gaza. Then after one year, the Israelis basically had occupied all of Gaza. They were continuing the genocide, but the major part of the war was behind them. So, they turned toward Lebanon. And they ran an attack that came as a full surprise to Hezbollah. They managed to decapitate Hezbollah basically in a few days.

RU: Yes, they used this massive electronic technique, blowing up the pagers and walkietalkies of Hezbollah militants.

GA: Yes, but most importantly Israel directly killed Nasrallah and others very soon after. In a few days, they decapitated Hezbollah. And Hezbollah had to agree to withdraw from the border and go north, and even to agree on a settlement that calls for its own disarmament. So Hezbollah has been weakened a lot. And when this happened, you had the offensive of Islamic fundamentalist forces in Syria against the Syrian regime, seizing the opportunity of Hezbollah being so weakened that they could no longer support Assad as they did in the past. And Russia being involved in Ukraine had removed most of its planes from Syria. The Assad regime was standing on two legs, Iran and Russia. These two legs collapsed and so the whole regime collapsed very quickly. This further weakened, and very much so, Hezbollah and the whole Iran Axis; the corridor got closed. Iran doesn’t have the means to send arms to Hezbollah as they did after 2006, the previous war of Israel on Hezbollah, which was very destructive already. However, very quickly after that war, Hezbollah rebuilt its military force and even became much stronger than before 2006. This time this will not be possible because of the fall of Assad in Syria, which was the main bridge over which Hezbollah was getting weapons. Syria is now on the opposite side if you want. So, Iran has been very much weakened and then you had this exchange of attacks between Iran and Israel. Now, Netanyahu is waiting for an opportunity to convince the Trump administration to join him in an attack on the nuclear 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 11/13 facilities of Iran. That’s what Netanyahu wants. Trump has tried to offer the Iranian leadership a negotiated settlement, but he did it in such a way that it looked actually like asking them to capitulate. Iran rejected what might look like capitulation under threat, and therefore the likelihood of war and attack of Israel and the United States on the nuclear facilities of Iran is quite high.

RU: And also Trump attacked the Houthis in Yemen, one of the key allies of Iran.

GA: Yes, although it is a different story. Trump and his administration are very much antiIran, that’s very obvious, much more than the Biden administration, and they say that the Biden government did not react forcefully enough against the Houthis when they started throwing missiles at U.S. ships in the Red Sea. Trump wants to demonstrate that he is much stronger in imposing U.S. imperialist will. That’s why he is attacking Yemen and you can expect more of that, along with the possibility, as I said, of a direct attack from the U.S. and Israel against Iran.

RU: Yes. I think it is interesting because Hezbollah in this moment is weakened, Syria’s regime has fallen, and Trump attacked the Houthis before Netanyahu went back on the offensive against Gaza, aggressively breaking the ceasefire. I’m referring to an elaborate strategy to wear down all of Iran’s regional allies while continuing the genocidal offensive that has been deployed since October 2023.

GA: Well, the Houthis have continued to attack U.S. ships in the Red Sea. And of course, U.S. imperialism cannot tolerate seeing its ships attacked in international waters. The Red Sea is an international waterway. And that’s why Trump is reacting in this way. Now, the Houthis are no big threat. Militarily, they are certainly not a big force. They are not like Iran. So the Trump administration will carry on attacking the Houthis until they capitulate and stop their missile launches and it is very much contemplating the possibility of attacking Iran.

RU: Finally, Gilbert, one last question. As I said previously, I think that Israel, from October 2023 until now, has practiced a de facto regional war. Because within different intensities at different moments, they have advanced aggressively, then retreated to attack another position. So can we talk about this regional war? It is important to conclude by highlighting the objective of this battle and how, on the revolutionary left, we need to correctly interpret this offensive to be able to fight against the main objective of the Zionist state in the long term.

GA: Well, the Israeli state is waging two simultaneous wars. One war, which is in part a genocidal war in Gaza, and more generally a war aiming at ethnic cleansing, that is expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. These wars are being waged by the Israeli state that has seized the opportunity of October 7, 2023, in the same way that the George W. Bush administration seized the opportunity of September 11, 2001. 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 12/13 They exploited this opportunity to wage wars that went far beyond reaction to the event. The goal of Israel is expelling the Palestinians, and if this proves impossible because of international conditions, then at the very least, squeeze the Palestinians into very limited territories, open-air prisons under Israeli surveillance. That major war is the essence of Zionism. Since 1948, the Israeli state has been built on ethnic cleansing of the part of Palestine that it conquered, 78 percent of the land between the river and the sea. From that land, they expelled 80 percent of the population. So it was a major act of ethnic cleansing. And now that is what the Israeli far-right would very much want to repeat and the only impediment to that is the international situation, the Arab states and the United States. And then you have a second war, which is the war against Iran. Israel regards Iran as an existential threat and the possibility that Iran acquires nuclear weapons as being intolerable. So they are waging their war against Iran. They dealt Hezbollah a very heavy blow and inflicted a lot of losses on it. They took advantage of the collapse of the Syrian regime to destroy the Syrian military potential and occupy further territories in the Golan. Their real concern now, as I said earlier, is to attack Iran. They want to convince the Trump administration to launch a major attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. That is where they are at.

RU: Well, with all these questions, we have a very interesting and powerful interview. So, we can say that we finished the conversation today. So, on behalf of Actuel Marx, we want to thank you for the conversation and for the generosity in doing this interview.

GA: Muchas gracias, un gran abrazo a ambos.

Notes

1. Michael Roberts, “FMI y BRICS: no volver a Bretton Woods,” Viento Sur, Oct. 23, 2024.

2. Alex Callinicos, “Into a New Era of War and Revolution,” Socialist Worker, Nov. 7, 2023.

3. G. Achcar, “The Age of Neofascism and Its Distinctive Features, Feb. 4, 2025.

4. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). 7/26/25, 7:57 PM Neofascism, Imperialism, War, and Revolution in the Middle East – New Politics https://newpol.org/issue_post/neofascism-imperialism-war-and-revolution-in-the-middle-east/?print=print 13/13

Links:  6 February, 2025

First published in Arabic at Al-Quds al-Arabi. Translation from Gilbert Achcar’s blog.

With each passing day and at an accelerating pace in recent years, it becomes increasingly obvious that we are witnessing a new era of rise of the far right on a global scale, similar to the era of the rise of fascist forces between the two world wars of the twentieth century. The label “neofascism” has been used to designate the contemporary far right, which adapted to our time, out of its awareness that repeating the same fascist pattern witnessed in the past century was no longer possible, in the sense that it was no longer acceptable to the majority of people.

Neofascism claims to respect the basic rules of democracy instead of establishing a naked dictatorship as its predecessor did, even when it empties democracy of its content by eroding actual political freedoms to varying degrees, depending on the true level of popularity of each neofascist ruler (and thus his need or not to rig elections) and the balance of power between him and his opponents. There is today a wide range of degrees of neofascist tyranny, from near absolute in the case of Vladimir Putin to what still retains a space of political liberalism as in the cases of Donald Trump and Narendra Modi.

Neofascism differs from traditional despotic or authoritarian regimes (such as the Chinese government or most Arab regimes) in that it is based, like last century’s fascism, on an aggressive, militant mobilization of its popular base on an ideological basis similar to that which characterized its predecessor. This base includes various components of far-right thinking: nationalist and ethnic fanaticism, xenophobia, explicit racism, assertive masculinity, and extreme hostility to Enlightenment and emancipatory values.

As for the differences between old and new fascism, the most important of them are, first, that neofascism does not rely on the paramilitary forces that characterized the old version — not in the sense that it is devoid of them, but it keeps them in a reserve role behind the scenes, when they are present — and, second, that neo-fascism does not claim to be “socialist” like its predecessor. Its program does not lead to the expansion of the state apparatus and its economic role but rather draws inspiration from neoliberal thinking in its call to reduce the economic role of the state in favour of private capital. However, necessity may make it go in the opposite direction, as is the case with Putin’s regime under the pressure of the requirements of the war he launched against Ukraine.

While twentieth-century fascism grew in the context of the severe economic crisis that followed World War I and reached its peak with the “Great Depression”, neofascism grew in the context of the worsening crisis of neoliberalism, especially after the “Great Recession” that resulted from the financial crisis of 2007-08. Whereas past century’s fascism endorsed the national and ethnic hostilities that prevailed in the heart of the European continent, against the backdrop of the heinous racist practices that were occurring in the colonized countries, neofascism flourished on the dung of racist, xenophobic resentment against the rising waves of immigration that accompanied neoliberal globalization or resulted from the wars that the latter fuelled, in parallel with the collapse of the rules of the international system. The United States played the key role in thwarting the development of a rules-based international system after the end of the Cold War, thus quickly plunging the world into a New Cold War.

Neofascism may seem less dangerous than its predecessor because it is not based on paramilitary appearances and because nuclear deterrence makes a new world war unlikely (but not impossible: the Ukraine war has brought the world closer to the possibility of a new world war than any events since World War II, even at the height of the Cold War in the time of the USSR). The truth, however, is that neofascism is more dangerous in some respects than the old. Twentieth-century fascism was based on a triangle of powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) that did not have the objective ability to achieve its dream of world dominance, and was confronted by powers that were economically superior to it (the United States and Britain) in addition to the Soviet Union and the global communist movement (the latter played a major role in confronting fascism politically and militarily).

As for neofascism, its dominance over the world is increasing, driven by the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency in a guise that is much more in line with neofascism than during his first term. Thus, the world’s greatest economic and military power is today the spearhead of neofascism, with which various governments in Russia, India, Israel, Argentina, Hungary and other countries converge, while the possibility of neofascist parties coming to power in the major European countries (in France and Germany, after Italy, and even in Britain) looms on the horizon, not to mention smaller countries in Central and Eastern Europe in particular.

If it is true that the possibility of a new world war remains limited, our world faces something no less dangerous than the two world wars of the twentieth century, namely climate change, which threatens the future of the planet and of humanity. Neofascism is pushing the world towards the abyss with the blatant hostility of most of its factions to indispensable environmental measures, thus exacerbating the environmental peril, especially when neofascism has taken over the reins of power over the most polluting people in the world proportionally to its number, namely the people of the United States.

There is no equivalent in today’s world to what the workers’ movement was like with its socialist and communist wings after World War I. Instead, the forces of the left are suffering from atrophy in most countries, after most of them merged into the crucible of neoliberalism to the point that they no longer constitute an alternative to the status quo in the eyes of society. Or else, they are unable to adapt to the requirements of our era, reproducing the flaws of the twentieth century’s left that led to its historical bankruptcy. All the above makes us uphold that the era of neofascism is more dangerous in some respects than the era of the old. The new generation remains the focus of our greatest hope, and significant sections of it have revealed their rejection of racism, such as that manifested in the Zionist genocidal war in Gaza, and their defence of equality of all sorts of rights, as well, of course, as their defence of the environment.

In the face of the global rise of neofascism, there is a vital and urgent need to confront it by bringing together the broadest ad hoc alliances in defence of democracy, the environment, and gender and migrants rights, with the variety of forces that embrace these goals, while working to rebuild a global current opposing neoliberalism and defending the public interest in the face of the dominance of private interests.