Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color Revolution
The Ukraine, translated as 'the borderlands, lies between core Russia and the Europe's western states. It is a split country. Half the population speaks Russian as its first language. The industrialized center, east and south are culturally orthodox Russians. Some of its rural western parts were attached to the Ukraine only after World War II. They have historically a different culture.
The U.S., supported by the EU, used this split - twice - to instigate 'revolutions' that were supposed to bring the Ukraine onto a 'western' course. Both attempts were defeated when the Ukrainians had the chance of a free vote.
The 2004 run-off election for the president of the Ukraine was won by Viktor Yanukovych. The U.S. disliked the result. Its proxies in Ukraine alleged fraud and instigated a color revolution. As a result of the 'Orange Revolution' the vote was re-run and the other candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, was declared the winner. But five years later another vote defeated the U.S. camp. Yanukovych was declared the winner and became president.
In 2014 the European Union made an attempt to bind the Ukraine to its side through an association agreement. But what the EU offered to Ukraine was paltry and Russia countered it. Unlike the Ukraine, which continues to get robbed by its oligarchs ever since its 1991 independence, Russia was economically back and in a much better position. It offered billions in investments and long term loans. Much of Ukraine's industry depends on Russia and Russian gas was offered to the Ukraine for less than the international market price. Yanukovych, who originally wanted to sign the EU association, had no choice but to refuse it, and to take the much better deal Russia offered.
The U.S. and the EU intervened. They again launched a color revolution, but this time it was one that would use force. Militarily trained youth from Galicia in the west Ukraine was bused into Kiev to occupy the central Maidan place and to violently fight the police. Snipers from Georgia were brought in to fire on both sides. It was then falsely alleged that government forces were killing the 'peaceful protesters'.
Yanukovych lost his nerves and fled to Russia. After some illegal political maneuvers new elections were called up and the oligarch Petro Poroshenko, bought off by the 'west', was declared the winner. The unreconstructed fascists from Galicia took over. The population in the industrial heartland in east Ukraine, next to Russia's border, revolted against the new rulers. A civil war, not a 'Russian invasion', ensued which the Ukrainian government largely lost. Lugansk and Donbas became rebel controlled statelets which depend of Russia. Russia took back Crimea, which in 1954 had been illegally gifted to Ukraine by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself a Ukrainian.
To end the war in the east Ukraine, the French, German and Russian leaders pressed Poroshenko to sign a peace agreement with the eastern leaders. But the Minsk agreement was seen as a political defeat and Poroshenko never implemented it. The war in the east simmered on ever since. The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak. All opposition was harshly suppressed.
The oligarchs continue their plunder. Everything of value gets sold off to EU countries. The U.S. is allowed to build bases. Corruption, already endemic, further increased. The people came to despise Poroshenko.
In an attempt to regain support, Poroshenko launched a military provocation in the Kerch Strait which is under Russian control. The stunt was too obvious. Russia nabbed the sailors Poroshenko had send and confiscated their boats. No one came to Poroshenko's help.
One can watch the full story of the above in UKRAINE ON FIRE - The Real Story (vid), a just released 90 minutes long Oliver Stone documentary. An updated version of the documentary was supposed to run on the Ukraine TV station of pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. The TV stations was forced to cancel it after right-wing groups mortared its its building in Kiev.
On March 31 new elections were held. Volodymyr Zelensky, a TV comedian who played a teacher who accidentally became president, won the first round. Zelensky is of Jewish heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian.
Volodymyr Zelensky - bigger
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Zelensky wants to end the war in the east. He plans to work for better relations with Russia. His main domestic promise is to end the corruption throughout the government. But the parliament, still under control of the Maidan fascists, opposed him. Zelensky relieved the parliament and called for early elections. They were held yesterday and the results are now in.
Zelensky's party, named after his former TV show 'The Servant of the People', put forward mostly fresh, untainted candidates. It won by a large margin. It will have more than 50% of the 450 parliament seats. The prominent fascists lost.
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The 2004 Orange Revolution was defeated by the 2009 election. The 2014 Maidan coup was defeated by the 2019 election. Evidently the revolution and coup plotters did not represent the people. But the Ukraine is still the Ukraine and unless someone defeats the oligarchs further intrigues are likely to happen.
Some allege that Zelensky is under influence of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. But so far there is little evidence to provide that.
The party which came in second is pro-Russian and won the majority vote in the east. It is controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk. Oliver Stone, in his recent interview with Vladimir Putin, discusses Medvedchuk's position on nationality with the Russian president. Putin rejects Medvedchuk claim that Russians in Ukraine belong to a Ukrainian nation. He sees all Russian people as part of one nationality.
Peter Porosheko and Yulia Tymoshenko lead the parties on the third and fourth place. They are themselves oligarchs. The populist Vakarchuk in the fifth place is backed by billionaire Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of ex-President Leonid Kuchma.
The Ukraine can not economically survive without good relations with Russia. The country depends to a large part on Russian energy sources but has no money to pay for them. When the new Nord Stream II pipeline between Russia and Germany comes online the current old pipeline through the Ukraine will no longer be needed. The Ukraine will have lost a pressure point that it often used to blackmail Russia for cheaper gas. Zelensky will have to make concessions to Russia, or the Ukraine will have to accept the full market price which it can not pay.
Zelensky will likely try to move the country back to a balanced positions between the 'west' and Russia. With the large mandate he got and a secure majority in parliament he should have all the necessary means to achieve that.
But the 'west' is unlikely to let him do that. The U.S. wants to designate the Ukraine as a "major non-NATO ally" and use it against Russia.
Shortly after Zelensky was elected as president, 'western' paid 'civil society' groups issued a joint statement threatening a "third Maidan":
As civil society activists, we present a list of “red lines not to be crossed”. Should the President cross these red lines, such actions will inevitably lead to political instability in our country and the deterioration of international relations:
...
Foreign Policy Issues:...
- delaying, sabotaging, or rejecting the strategic course for EU and NATO membership; reducing political dialogue and destroying bilateral institutional mechanisms for cooperation with European and Euro-Atlantic partners
- initiating any actions that might contribute to the reduction or lifting of sanctions against the aggressor state by Ukraine’s international partners
- attempting to review any actions aimed at supporting international solidarity for Ukraine, restoring our territorial integrity, guaranteeing security and protecting the rights of all persons that have suffered from Russian aggression
National Identity: Language, Education, Culture...
- attempting to review the language law
- attempting to review the law on education
- attempting to review the law on de-communization and condemnation of totalitarian crimes of the past
- implementing any actions aimed at undermining or discrediting the Orthodox Church of Ukraine or supporting the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine
The statement is signed by dozens of Soros, Omidyar, CIA and NATO funded organizations.
Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled - 17:05 UTC May 24, 2019Sure enough one of the signatories is "NGO 'CentreUA'"—same NGO, funded by Omidyar, Soros, USAID, that organized Maidan revolution. That's like a gun pointed at Zelensky's head. Outrageous.
Zelensky was elected by 75% of Ukrainians. Who the fuck elected Pierre Omidyar, George Soros, USAID, National Endowment for Democracy — and their “civil society” satraps — to supersede Ukraine’s democracy?
These 'western' paid organizations support the fascists:
How can Ukraine prevent pro-Russian politics if voters prefer it? Another revolution, duh.This movement is dubbed "The 25%," after their support for Poroshenko's failed reelection. Backers include allies from his party list: outgoing speaker of parliament Andriy Parubiy and state historian Volodymyr Vyatrovych — controversial nationalists who heroize figures implicated in the Holocaust as freedom fighters for independence from the Soviet Union. Parubiy takes credit for leading other Maidans. He and Vyatrovych are evangelists of "national liberation" and "national revolution" against Russian imperialism.
If there is a third Maidan, Ukraine's far right will lead it. Debunking Kremlin propaganda about Ukraine overrun by a fascist junta would grow even more difficult. It would also delight Moscow and further destabilize Kyiv – which is the opposite of what the West is supposed to be doing there.
One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He will need their loyalty sooner than he might think.
Posted by b on July 22, 2019 at 18:37 UTC | Permalink
next page »An admirable summary.
What's next? There are three causes for cautious optimism
1. The elections were actually allowed to happen without Washington's interference; see 2
2. I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not interested
3. EU has its own problems.
But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?)
But you're absolutely correct to see this as the voters gain rejecting a "colour revolution"imposed from outside
Posted by: Patrick Armstrong | Jul 22 2019 19:01 utc | 2
Fine work here, Bernhard. Analysis as clear and cool as a mountain stream.
And now for the march of the Fascists led by the Iron Maidan of Galicia, Chrystia Freeland employing all Canada's power and credibility to restore the Galician Nazis from whose loins she came.
Posted by: bevin | Jul 22 2019 19:02 utc | 3
Excellent review b, thanks! With the political sea change, Ukraine has an opportunity to progress, but somehow those pushing and believing their false narrative will need to be neutralized. It appears the best way forward is to implement the Minsk2 agreements and go forward from there.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 22 2019 19:09 utc | 4
Zelensky seems in some scme cases to be fresh air
Zelensky’s plan to purge Ukraine officials draws criticism
https://www.ft.com/content/f1f40060-a4ab-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1
But in the end, it is the same type of oligarchs, deep state that really have the final say in Ukraine.
Posted by: Zanon | Jul 22 2019 19:16 utc | 6
Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by Kolomoisky.
Kolomoisky will be looking for alternative sources of loot (eg reconstruction funds) which will only happen if the Donbass situation is wound down. Zelensky has unexpectedly announced that there will be a political solution to the issue of Russian sailors captured before the Kerch incident (and one factor in Russia's response to it) in exchange for those held in Russia. For all this to happen, the neo-Nazis will have to be defused, which may not be as difficult as it would appear as they are funded and orchestrated by the Ukraine oligarchs.
Posted by: Yonatan | Jul 22 2019 19:17 utc | 7
Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with coolarobation of Lagarde and Clintons, and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation...
"A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign to replace Poroshenko."
Posted by: casey | Jul 22 2019 19:20 utc | 8
Thanks for the posting b
It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such.
To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining countries that are not part of empire..
look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded like a dirty rag.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 22 2019 19:28 utc | 9
Ukraine needed to get out of the rut it has been in and look forward somehow, even if there are no great changes that happen in the country, much of the previous political heaviness seem gone, for now at least. It should be a good difference. Thanks for the report.
Posted by: gzon | Jul 22 2019 19:34 utc | 10
The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself).
Zelensky will have the same problem: he can pass how much bills he wants -- only those who the neonazi militias want to be implemented will be enforced. He needs to assemble a brand new Armed Forces -- with amateur volunteers if necessary -- if he wants to survive: his Jewish origin alone is already a death certificate for him in the eyes of the neonazis.
The other ace Zelensky has in his hand is the Donbass (Lughansk + Donestk). Those happen to be the most pro-Russian provinces and also, by far, the two most rich and industrialized ones. To make things even better, they also happen to be the two provinces that border with Russia. This peculiar geopolitic configuration is a gift of destiny that, for example, Brazil, didn't have.
Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). Russia just needs to wait.
Note: as for the toppled Lenin statues. Please, continue: in one of his birthdays, the Soviet population made a mass homage to him, gathering in the Red Square and writting him poems. He was very embarrassed and hated it -- his rationalization was that the Revolution's main actor was the poeple, not him, and that personality cult was the wrong way to perceive reality of the times.
Good stuff.
2 quibbles. Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky can safely be assumed.
The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block. There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. This is why the Russians expected to be part of a negotiating group, and why eventually Yanukovych belatedly realised that EU association would lead direct to dissociation with ex-Soviet trading partners and an economic catastrophe for Ukraine. Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to realise the blatantly obvious.
Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has been blamed for the EU's Economic trap.
Posted by: Michael Droy | Jul 22 2019 20:03 utc | 12
Thing is, in Ukraine as much as in the US, EU, India, or wherever: For a Politician to make a campaign for a high political position, let alone the highest, one NEEDS Money.
And where is a someone financing a politician, they make themselves vurnable. Thats the nature of it: No one will give you even a penny, let alone dozens of millions of dollars, if not for something in return.
So someone HAS to put the money into him, and Kolomoisky is reported not only by NATO, but by Russian sources too.
Why do i say this? Because i want to have my point that everyone is corrupt, and the world is dystopia. No, not today:
It is because those "civil organisations" already hinted, that they use Kolomoisky's financing as the attack vector, should the Ukraine dare to stray off from NATO course.
They said something of the likes of: "We heard of the allegations that Kolomoisky is having him in his pocket, and we always want to ensure that politics are not corrupted, so we will watch it". They said that AFAIK some days before the recent threath, so maybe there has been some signs he does not want to play ball with NATO.
But we will see.. With the US you never know, even more with Donald and his best buddy neocons.
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Jul 22 2019 20:13 utc | 13
b says: "The Ukraine can not economically survive without good relations with Russia."
That is true, but what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer? The Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian industries.
Ukraine can go crawling back home to Russia (home being the place where they take you back in even after you've been a total jerk), but there will be no massive bailout and magical recovery. Eastern Ukraine will benefit from a peace dividend, but western Ukraine will have to be satisfied with European sex tourism, with Lvov remaining the gay prostitute capital of the continent.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 22 2019 20:19 utc | 14
@B: One Correction if i see it right: I think linked Documentary "Ukraine on fire" is NOT the new one, he already made a doc about Ukraine some time ago, and this is it.
The new one is Not released yet, i mean the one with the Interview you posted few days ago.
Here Ukraine on fire from 2016:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5724358/
The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released.
Search your torrent search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on youtube yet AFAIK.
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Jul 22 2019 20:20 utc | 15
Jep, searched again, newest releases as torrent 2 days ago, nothing on youtube..
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Jul 22 2019 20:21 utc | 16
Sorry, last post: Please barflies, for those you want to support those documentarys, vote for them on IMDB and write reviews if you saw them. They are being attacked from NATO bots and voted down to C-Movie level. If you dont want BS like Fast & Furious have better ranking as those anti-mainstream docs, please take your time and support them!
They are pretty much the only documentarys in mainstream US media that tell the other side!
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Jul 22 2019 20:28 utc | 17
Nice roundup b.
I'm expecting Zelensky to be more skillful at playing a crowd than the forces aligned against him. When Boris becomes UK PM, that'll make 3 countries, including the US, with a comedian as leader. If Boris doesn't betray The People then the trend will probably continue. People are sick of 'sincere professional' (easy to bribe) politicians.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 22 2019 20:45 utc | 18
That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me. One that should be imposed from outside if necessary, if some Ukrainians are foolish enough to pick a side - and, considering its geographical position, specially if some Ukrainians people want to move "West" full speed ahead, because the border with Russia will always be there.
As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jul 22 2019 21:01 utc | 19
@ William Gruff
Ukraine can go crawling back home to Russia (home being the place where they take you back in even after you've been a total jerk)...
Well said!
There is a transcript of the Putin Interview by Oliver Stone on The Saker blog.
For example, I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are actually one people.
Putin adds that it's inevitable that Ukraine will eventually return to good relations with Russia.
Look, when these lands that are now the core of Ukraine, joined Russia, there were just three regions – Kiev, the Kiev region, northern and southern regions – nobody thought themselves to be anything but Russians, because it was all based on religious affiliation. They were all Orthodox and they considered themselves Russians. They did not want to be part of the Catholic world, where Poland was dragging them.
Putin is correct, as usual. He is playing the Long Game, just as China has done with Hong Kong and continues to do with Taiwan.
The empire always uses divide and rule. But in the end, empires always bite the dust.
Posted by: flankerbandit | Jul 22 2019 21:07 utc | 20
In Ukrainian politics my preferences are with the present Russian viewpoint and not at all with the Ukrainian Nazis.
Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Soviet_and_Western_denial
Is this all now forgiven, denied or forgotten or is it still the genesis of much of the anti-Russian feeling?
Posted by: David Park | Jul 22 2019 21:09 utc | 21
b said;"One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He will need their loyalty sooner than he might think."
We'll all hope for the Zelensky people to salvage some sanity from another round of the empire's attacks. They'll never relent.
One would hope the Stone documentary would be seen here, in the U$A, but that's a distant dream. Should at least be on PBS, but, I doubt it.
As always b, thanks for the therapy, and historical background...
Posted by: ben | Jul 22 2019 21:11 utc | 22
For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare (published in 2010; leaked in 2012):
Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare
For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to Democracy, 1994).
When used at the same time in the same place, they form what Korybko calls Hybrid Warfare (see his book).
The NeoNazi area of Ukraine was originally part of Poland wasn't it? Perhaps the new President should look into giving it back to Poland, worked for Crimea:)
Posted by: frances | Jul 22 2019 21:32 utc | 24
@David Park #21
The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949.
While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated by a US embargo on wheat imports to China.
Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS, no less.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2019 21:55 utc | 25
Hoarsewhisperer 18
The comedians for leadership idea should have been pushed long ago. The US has a few. Unfortunately George Carlin has passed. And I recall Pat Paulsen ran in 1968 but mostly as satire. As to mainstream comedians who now inhabit MSM late night, they would most likely cater to the Soros-DEM political side.
Clueless Joe 19
I had always thought Ukraine's best play was as a land bridge neutral between EU/NATO and Russia and therefore reap the benefits of trade with both.
Posted by: Curtis | Jul 22 2019 21:57 utc | 26
@frances #25
Ukraine is a mishmash - it translates literally into "the borderlands".
I know people with relatives in the Ukraine - they speak Russian and Slovenian, but not Ukrainian.
Ukraine as it exists today has significant Polish, Hungarian, Crimean Tartar, Jewish and Bulgarian minorities in addition to the large Russian one.
I think over 20% of Ukraine's population is "not Ukrainian".
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2019 21:59 utc | 27
b:
Some allege that Zelensky is under influence of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. But so far there is little evidence to provide that.... Zelensky will likely try to move the country back to a balanced positions between the 'west' and Russia.
There's reason to be skeptical.
Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish). President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish).
Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country? I'll bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.
"Yats is the guy" ... until he isn't but will the new guy bring real change or just pretend to?
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 22 2019 22:19 utc | 28
Curtis # 27
Not just a bridge between Russia and the EU, the natural partnership that the US really fears, but, look at the geography, it is the natural entry point into Europe for the new Silk Road from China. Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper.
Posted by: JohninMK | Jul 22 2019 22:25 utc | 29
Is it a feature of the "rules based international order" that unelected NGOs can establish "red-lines" on policy and expect adherence?
Posted by: jayc | Jul 22 2019 22:32 utc | 30
"Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians..."
The 'Holodomor'was not real. No such event occurred. There was no intention of starving Ukrainians, on the part of the CPSU. In fact most of the Soviet Union suffered from famines in these years, some regions much more than Ukraine. The causes of the famine were largely economic sanctions.
It is quite true that the Collectivisation campaigns were, in many ways disastrous, and carried out with great violence. But the Holodomor myth, invented by Nazi collaborators after 1945 and based on Goebbels's propaganda is Cold War anti-communist hate propaganda of the worst kind.
Wikipedia is extremely unreliable on matters such as this.
2.As to comedians running governments Hoarsewhisperer, don't forget Italy.
3. What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. At a time in which the USA's ability to dump grain on the world market is being employed to conduct terrorist economic warfare against disobedient countries, the surpluses Ukraine could make available are of cardinal importance. Then there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al.
Posted by: bevin | Jul 22 2019 22:33 utc | 31
" The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS, no less."
c1ue@26
This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control inter alia the University of Alberta.
But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites, brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies. They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here.
They also brought traditions of collective organisation-they tended to be very left wing, co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. It was with great relish that the Liberal Party used the former (and lifelong) Nazis to saplit the community post 1945.
Posted by: bevin | Jul 22 2019 22:43 utc | 32
>>>>>: David Park | Jul 22 2019 21:09 utc | 21
Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.
Blame it all on Stalin because he was a Georgian, not a Russian.
Posted by: Ghost Ship | Jul 22 2019 22:45 utc | 33
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change.
Posted by: bevin | Jul 22 2019 22:46 utc | 34
bevin #35
re
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
(a) Is it true that the population of Ukraine is .2% Jewish?
(b) Is it true that the .2% segment runs the country?
(c) Is it considered racist to ask why you find the two subject sentences indications of racism?
Posted by: Evelyn | Jul 22 2019 23:25 utc | 36
Thanks for a great site!
However, for sake of good order, the EU association agreement proposal to Ukraine of Mr Baroso, was presented and rejected by Janukovitch beginning of November 2013. ( not 2014). The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an artcle about military cooperation. Which ofcourse would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and charming Mrs «Fuck EU» Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square.
The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs & co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what...,He went directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS!
Posted by: Piero | Jul 22 2019 23:29 utc | 37
I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. I searched in vain a couple years later to find the archives of these films. Does anyone know if they still exist? I suspect if the filming was done by a coup-friendly Kiev TV station they will be kept under wraps unless some viewer recorded them, as there is a lot of incriminating evidence which could be exposed.
Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of coverage.
Here's hoping the pendulum has swung and we'll reclaim some sanity. Current trends don't favor this, however, and the US may go for the Samson option before conceding to a more multi-polar world. A smart lady (my wife) says we need 10% of people to accept a new idea or narrative before a critical mass can occur and it become the dominant narrative. The more people who understand the issues MOA and others educate about gives us a chance of countering the Empire's narrative control. Thanks to all for spreading the message and keep sharing with your friends.
Posted by: kabobyak | Jul 22 2019 23:46 utc | 38
@35 bevin
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change.
No, he does not just say "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?". He says:
Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish). President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish).Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country? I'll bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.
You can't ignore this "interesting" "fact" if it's the fact.
Posted by: Acar Burak | Jul 23 2019 0:13 utc | 39
TASS reports on election results. Zelensky's "Servant of the People party gets 42.45% of votes after 50% of ballots counted."
It seems reporting on ballot counting has ceased with no updates published today, all new reports I've read are from Sunday the 21st.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 23 2019 0:32 utc | 40
@21 and @26 - regarding the Holodomor, It is true. Millions of people did die, but from what I can tell, it was a lot more complicated than how it is presented. Here's an article I found on Counterpunch Holodomor
I am no specialist or anything, but I think the collectivization was a disaster and the war on the kulaks didn't help anything, and that lead to the Holodomor which is more genocide-porn used for the same purposes as a few other large scale killings I have heard about - to make sure we never forget, and more importantly, we never really find out what really happened, because it is S A C R E D.
I just finished an excellent book on the Ukraine crisis. Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War by Kees Van Der Pijl. In the book he says that the Holodomor was used by the Reagan administration in the second phase of the Cold War as a tool to demonize the Soviet Union. Sound Familiar? The author says the second phase of the Cold War was launched when detente was broken with the Soviet Union, any concessions made to domestic labor in the west was to be dismantled and the goal was regime change in Moscow which happened in 1991. The author really lays it out and explained the new, third phase of the Cold War which really kicked into gear in Kiev in the winter or 2014. I found that to be very interesting. I had never heard it put that way before.
I can't recommend the book enough.
I just started Frontline Ukraine by Sakwa.
Thank you, B and everyone in the MoA community. Please forgive any mistakes I may have made in describing my interpretation of van Der Pijl's book.
Posted by: roza shanina | Jul 23 2019 0:35 utc | 41
Ukraine is such a unique disaster of a nation precisely because it is not really a nation at all, just a cobbled together mishmash of people with no history. There is no such thing as a Ukrainian ethnicity. Ukrainians are ethnic Russians, remnants of the poor souls conquered by the Poles after the Mongol invasion and treated like dirt for centuries. All through that horrid time they preserved their identity as Russian, but when the Polish state was removed from the map, bitter Polish academics pushed the tale that these people were somehow separate from Russians, i.e. Russia had no right to it's retaken territory. This new foreign composed identity was forced on them by both carrot and stick in the Austrian Empire, that occupied Galicia...leading to concentration camps for those who resisted it in WWI. And the saddest part of the tragedy was when the Soviets founded a Ukrainian republic, lending undeserved credence to this farce. There is no wonder the country is such a schizophrenic failure. They have no clear identity and their recent history is nothing but sniveling shame. What is really the difference between groveling before Nazi invaders or groveling before Nato invaders? Not much, and the end is the same.
Posted by: Indrid Cold | Jul 23 2019 0:39 utc | 42
thanks b.. excellent overview... i wish the folks well...
bevin, thanks for your many fine posts and commentary on canada, but i have to challenge you on your response to jackrabbit..seems to me jackrabbit has a point... i am curious why you dismiss it so quickly..
Posted by: james | Jul 23 2019 1:28 utc | 44
I think over 20% of Ukraine's population is "not Ukrainian".
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2019 21:59 utc | 28
It is quite complicated. For example, Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. His first language is Russian, and ancestry... Khazarian? If I recall, he shares first language, hometown and ancestry with Kolomoysky who was also his employer. What I am trying to say is that national identification is fluid in this region. You may have Russian nationalists who speak Ukrainian dialect at home, Ukrainian nationalists with rather incomplete knowledge of "their language" and many other combinations. That said, Ukrainian is a separate language that may be hard to understand by someone who knows only Polish or only Russian (but rather intelligible if you know both).
Occasionally I follow news on RusNext.ru, a news site that seems to be run by Donbass supporters who fluently translate from Ukrainian and, I guess, use Ukrainian words here and there.
BTW, the history of Ukraine is quite complicated, including "Polish Conquest" that in actuality happened as very complex cleaving and coalescing of fragmented states with key dynasties leaving no descendants BOTH in Poland and the Kingdom of Halich thus leaving both to the rule of a Hungarian king, to be later partitioned between his two daughters, while the less populated part of Ukraine was taken over by Lithuanians who had hard time defending their holdings from Tatars etc. After that, the polity of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth adopted Polish as the common language of nobility, so most of the "cruel Polish lords" that Ukrainians fought with in 17th century were of Ruthenian (Russian?) origin, some claiming descent from Rurik (i.e. from the common dynasty of Rus lands). Compare with Irish and Scottish nobility adopting a Saxon-French mix as their vernacular (now known as English).
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jul 23 2019 1:38 utc | 45
I was just discovering the importance of internet world news information when the Maidan crisis unfolded, and many Ukrainians were putting photos and videos on various blogs about the horrible events leading up to and following the coup. Russia has made huge strides since - but we cannot forget that ordinary people who had the ability to send out information as it happened were to be highly praised for doing so. It wasn't sophisticated, I remember in one city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the street, showing bodies on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through the streets - vivid shots of buildings on fire, a protest by a woman with a toddler at a speechgiving occasion. Unforgettable.
Ukraine should be proud of being the historic heart of Russia itself, the place where the State began. That's what Putin is talking about, and even more than Crimea Kiev is the historical homeland capital city for all Russians; it's part of their heritage. It's as if separatists in the US got themselves embedded in New York City and declared their independence of the rest of the country, being more aligned with Canada. (Oh, and everyone in that northern area now had to speak French.)
Anything can happen, I guess.
Posted by: juliania | Jul 23 2019 1:44 utc | 46
bevin
cheap racist cracks
Wikipedia tells us that Jews are 0.2% of the population in Ukraine.
'Jewish' is not a race. It's a religion. Do you think that Israel is a country for semetic people? LOL. No, it's a theocracy.
Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire.
No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist Empire".
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Leads me to wonder if the State Department's recent global antisemitism efforts are mostly aimed at Ukraine.
If Ukraine itself made such efforts/expenditures it might would draw a backlash from the Ukrainian people. So the US does it and slyly declares it to be global so no one notices that it's directed at certain countries (mostly Ukraine?) that have Jewish leadership that's backed by US/NATO.
As part of the effort to take over Ukraine, US/NATO forged an anti-Russian alliance that included the anti-Jewish extreme-right in Ukraine as described by Ukraine and the “Politics of Anti-Semitism” (2014):
The US and the EU are supporting the formation of a coalition government integrated by Neo-Nazis which are directly involved in the repression of the Ukrainian Jewish community.
. . .
Within the Western media, news coverage of the Neo-Nazi threat to the Jewish community in Ukraine is a taboo. There is a complete media blackout: confirmed by Google News search ... What is not mentioned is that these “radical elements” supported and financed by the West are Neo-Nazis who are waging a hate campaign against Ukraine’s Jewish community.
. . .
According to the JP [Jerusalem Post], the issue is one of “transition”, which will be resolved once a new government is installed .“Despite his [Likhashov’s] optimism fear pervades the local Jewish community, as it does the entire Ukraine, during the transition period.”
No doubt Jews would not feel safe with rightists leading the government so arrangements were made (Democracy Works! LOL). We can surmise that the US State Dept has now formalized this with funding for a propaganda campaign that seeks to change their views and/or political slush fund to ensure election of Jewish candidates to high office?
Welcome to the rabbit hole.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 23 2019 1:51 utc | 47
@27 curtis
I would vote for Jon Stewart, who seems to be a deep thinker and conscientious individual. (Colbert and Oliver, not so much.) Hey, if Regan and Schwartzenager and Trump could do it, why not?
Posted by: farm ecologist | Jul 23 2019 1:59 utc | 48
Acar@39 The Globalists/Zionists Good 'Ole Pale of (re)Settlement included Crimea, home of the Karaites, hence manipulation of the Rusyns, and Neo-fascist Galicians & Podolians. A strange ethnic Divide et Impera nexus for sure..
Posted by: Lozion | Jul 23 2019 2:10 utc | 49
..not to mention a revenge of Turkic Khazars on the Slavs of Rus, circa '900..
Posted by: Lozion | Jul 23 2019 2:12 utc | 50
..revenge unmade by the various Orthodoxies, pneumatically inspired ;)
Posted by: Lozion | Jul 23 2019 2:36 utc | 51
@51
"The pneumatics ("spiritual", from Greek πνεῦμα, "spirit") were, in Gnosticism, the highest order of humans, the other two orders being psychics and hylics ("matter"). A pneumatic saw itself as escaping the doom of the material world via the transcendent knowledge of Sophia's Divine Spark within the soul."
Crux of the matter at hand..
Posted by: Lozi9n | Jul 23 2019 3:38 utc | 53
I understand it as wind, but your definition is surely much more eloquent.
Posted by: Acar Burak | Jul 23 2019 3:47 utc | 54
@41 Roza Shanina
No one is disputing that famines occurred in Soviet Ukraine. These famines also occurred in Belarus and Russia. The extent to which the harsh form of collectivisation institutioned under Stalin contributed as opposed to climatic and other factors (Western sanctions, crop destroying pests etc) is a matter for debate. Grover Furr argues the latter forcefully in 'Blood Lies' (2014). The term "Holodomor" refers to an intentional policy of genocide against the "Ukrainian Nation" by evil Russians/Commies/Jews via intentional starvation. As bevin @32 points out, this concept originated in Nazi ideology. So yes, famine(s) occurred, but the "Holodomor" did not.
As for the author of the Counterpunch piece, Louis Proyect, he is an imperial apologist of the worst sort who delights in trolling any forum where anti-imperialists gather. If this appears to be an Ad Hominum attack, I think you have to be human to be a victim of one of those.
I also can't recommend the Van der Pijl book enough. Usually if I see a book recommended by someone who also links to a Louis Proyect article I would avoid it like the plague, but barflies please don't be discouraged! Van der Pijl is one of the premier exponents of (non-sectarian) Marxist International Relations, if you've been put off reading Marxist authors thanks to the likes of Proyect he is the perfect antidote. His "Global Rivalries - From The Cold War to Iraq" (2007) is also excellent, I would recommend you track that down if Sakwa has nothing much to add.
Global Research has an extract from "Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War" here:
Posted by: Paora | Jul 23 2019 4:20 utc | 55
Adding to my comments @29 and @46
TheGuardian: Who exactly is governing Ukraine? (2014)
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime minister
. . .
He has played down his Jewish-Ukrainian origins, possibly because of the prevalence of antisemitism in his party's western Ukraine heartland.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
SputnikNews (2017):
Yatsenyuk resigned in disgrace in April 2016 amid a massive corruption scandal that first broke in February, when economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius stepped down, complaining that the Yatsenyuk government was not genuinely committed to fighting corruption.
One of the many corrupt projects was Yats' border wall, which critics have said "wouldn't even stop a rabbit." LOL.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 23 2019 4:52 utc | 56
The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released. Search your torrent search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on youtube yet AFAIK.Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Jul 22 2019 20:20 utc | 15
I just downloaded but got the Russian version without subtitles. I am unable to find the English version. For those that understand Russian, the magnet link for the download is:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:cbfd33adbd1d2bf3d48aade83a60507fe9f74241
If anyone can find the English version, please post the magnet link or infohash value, but I guess it has not yet been released.
Posted by: Joost | Jul 23 2019 7:03 utc | 57
jackrabbit #all
Touche sir jackrabbit, well fielded.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 23 2019 7:06 utc | 58
by: bevin @ 32 < i am particularly interested to know the source of that 1932-1933 Holodomor propaganda.. .. claiming, not merely alleging, the genocidal deaths of 32 million Ukrainians.. Seems to me these fake claims that appear everywhere, have generally the same general sources, but are leaked at different places, in different formats, by different faces.. .. ? I would like to see if it is possible to prove the source to be a coordinated amalgam of persons, and more particularly I am looking for the individual names that produce fake propaganda for a living, where did they study, who trained them, who hired them and so on.. Seems to me preparing, engineering or delivering fake anything that causes, or leads to war and death and destruction is a crime against humanity (CAH) with universal application because CAHs infringe inalienable human rights. There is a great need to make functional, on a world wide basis, the ICC.. Additionally the ICC cases have the potential to deliver the truth to History.
Iran, Russian, North Korea and China are positioned to impose ICC court jurisdiction, Nuclear Non Weapon Proliferation, and 3 vetos required to overrule the findings and mandates of a majority determination of the UN Security Council on all leaders and all nations and ruling bodies in the world. War, and in fact the decimation and destruction of the universe, is possible because these holes in the enforceable rule by law system exist. Fixing these three holes could have a massive long term effect on the peace and income distribution throughout the entire globe.
A forth such thing would be to internationalize all resources in the world, and to allocate ownership to them based on population and finally, the most important change of all, would be to internationalize education.. to grant one degree for all undergraduate education based on international subject matter examinations ( does not matter where or how the knowledge to pass is obtained, so universities and tutors can still play a massive part in instructing the masses), and one professional degree in law, one in medicine and one in engineering.. everyone would have to pass examinations and prove fluency in at least three culturally different, geographically different languages, and prove competency in mathematics at the differential and integral calculus level to be eligible to sit for an undergraduate degree and lawyers, doctors, scientist and engineers would be eligible to practice anywhere in the world, subject only to credential free, local regulation imposed because of local experience. Local regulation <= not supported by local experience would be overturned. None of this requires, demands, or needs a king or a president, it just needs to be a part of the human experience in the earth environment.
Posted by: snake | Jul 23 2019 7:30 utc | 59
@41 roza shanina and @54 Paora
Thanks to you both for the Van der Pijl recommendation, I will definitely check it out. Agree with Paora about Louis Proyect; archives show he is being published 4-5 times a month at Counterpunch and spews out some real garbage, especially re Assad and chemical weapons, and he demonizes what he calls the "Sputnik left" (me?) who don't believe the official narrative on such matters. Counterpunch publishes some excellent essays, but editor Jeffery St. Clair seems to hold similar views as Proyect regarding Syria and Russia, and he occasionally posts similar garbage as well.
Posted by: kabobyak | Jul 23 2019 8:16 utc | 60
Great summary b.
Needed somebody to just spell it out.
I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us. Couldn’t believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc.
The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me.
http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/
There’s far more evidence Ukraine shot down MH17 than the Donbas rebels did. Go to www.consortiumnews.com and search ‘MH17’
https://consortiumnews.com/?s=MH17
Talking with friends something has shifted for the average Joe and Jane. In 2014, if I presented evidence against the official Western Ninistry of Truth (yeah see the typo but seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I’d get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist etc. These days there’s blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and desire to change topic.
Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome.
Posted by: PJB | Jul 23 2019 8:20 utc | 61
@21 David Park, @26 c1ue, @32 bevin, @34 Ghost Ship, @41 roza shanina, @54 Paora, @58 snake
My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union, including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire. That alone should tell you something of its reliability. Proyect's piece is interesting, but it doesn't touch on the Western creation of the "Holodomor," the myth itself of the Soviet genocide aimed at Ukrainians.
Unfortunately, I'm unable right now to put my hands/keyboard on a good reference for this. If I'm able to locate one, I'll put it in a comment in an open thread.
Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great care. It would probably require a study in itself.)
* * * *
On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization—the promotion of Ukrainian language and culture—as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's wikipedia, but their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.)
Mykola Skrypnyk, and Ukrainization in the Soviet Union
Posted by: therobin | Jul 23 2019 8:59 utc | 62
The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak.That's a bald-faced lie. Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine, including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia, still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak Russian.
The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this.
Stop spreading hate and lies. This is utter nonsense.
As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians. I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now". That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national.
You don't do anyone any favors by publishing lies.
Posted by: CalDre | Jul 23 2019 9:48 utc | 63
All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it!
It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the 1930s.
From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan.
The issue though is not so much the details of what actually occurred then as in the creation of a lie that deliberately equates Nazis with Soviets and thus Nazism with Communism, and ultimately socialism. If Nazism led to the Holocaust, then Communism and socialism must be demonstrated to have resulted in equally great horrors such as mass famines, starvation or incarcerating people in concentration camps on the basis of their religion. The current demonization of the Chinese govt over its supposed treatment of Falun Gong followers or Uyghurs follows this pattern.
Posted by: Jen | Jul 23 2019 10:10 utc | 65
Great summary B.
Jackrabbit@29 " Jewish population of Ukraine is O.2 % of the whole! Why are they running the country ?". I have been wondering the same thing. It is so obvious .
Bevin@32,33 " the founders of Communist Party " -Ukrainian Nazis in Canada are doing it ? Utter nonsense. Bevin know little of history.
Holodomor in the 1932-33 in Ukraine led to CANNIBALISM, while the Bolshevics were selling wheat to the West. ONE FORTH of the population died of starvation. Robert Conquest in his 1986 book "The Harvest of Sorrow" describes holodomor in detail.
Ukrainians were glad to help Germans . They greeted them as liberators from the Bolshevic hell. They were on the German side of the war against the Soviet Union-not hard to understand.
The surprise is in the Maidan events as described by E. Michael Jones, when the so called Ukrainian Nazis worked hand in hand with Jewish participants to install JEWISH rule in Ukraine.
IMH, it will all lead to a break up of Ukraine.
Posted by: Friar Ockham | Jul 23 2019 10:26 utc | 66
kabobyak | Jul 23 2019 8:16 utc | 61
If you weren't previously familiar with Proyect, he also often attacks MoA and its commentariat in nasty terms.
> Half the population speaks Russian as its first language.
83% according to US research in 2008
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 10:50 utc | 68
CalDre @ 64
Accusing b of "spreading hate and lies"? There's plenty of sources documenting the Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't fake news. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/
Posted by: kabobyak | Jul 23 2019 11:26 utc | 69
> The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language.
...and the ONLY one.
...and the language undeveloped, that lacked words for many modern realities, from helicopter to condom, so they all had to be invented rashly.
> It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya.
In Russia, Crimean Turks can teach their children, in beginner's school, in k'yrymchi language. It is one of three official languages of Crimean region.
In Ukraine it was impossible then and it is impossible still.
> It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language
...that is only native to less than 20% of the population?
Well, it is indeed a nature - of OCCUPIED languages.
Like, Norman invasion into England, when elites had one language and serfs - another. And serf's language was slowly suffocated and replaced by foreign language of occupying elites.
"If to live in comfort you have to rename every major city and tear down every ,ajor monument - you cam to live on someone's else land".
> whereby everyone in the country may communicate.
If that was the intention - then the language native to population's 83% would become official, like it is in Ireland. But not in Ukraine.
> As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption.
He was.
So you say this makes illegal coup less illegal and bandit Poroshenko less bandit. How exactly?
Or you just throw in irrelevant emotional hitpiece to accuse of "spreading lies" by which you mean "not spreading your favorite grievances" ?
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 11:40 utc | 70
> Well, it is indeed a nature - of OCCUPIED languages.
....countries
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 11:40 utc | 71
> Yanukovych.... had no choice but to refuse [Deep and Comprehensive EuroAssociation]
But he did not.
He asked to amend it, to re-negotiate it.
He asked to add there compensation clause from EU to Ukrainian industries.
Russia also asked for it to be re-negotiated, but Russia wanted re-negotiation from scratch into a trilateral treaty. Yanukovich only wanted money to support Ukrainian economic until his re-election.
Bad for him, but money he asked for "coincidently" were the same, as money Europe promised to Ukraine for removing of Nuclear weapon and Chernobyl nuclear power. When Ukraine delivered and asked for money - the 2nd maidan (2004) happened and both Kuchma and his heir Yanukovich flew down the drain. When Yanukovich was allowed to the throne in 2009 he conveniently forgot about that story. But the moment he asked EU for money, albeit under pretext of Association and markets, the 3rd maidan unleashed and Yanukovich went down the drain again. Guess, he had to learn his lesson without repeats?..
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 11:49 utc | 72
> Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to realise the blatantly obvious.
Posted by: Michael Droy | Jul 22 2019 20:03 utc | 12
Well, it took Russia to really START implementing trade inhibition, there were few rather vibrant "scandals" in spring and summer 2014 with Russia banning this or that food/alcohol form Ukraine, quoting safety hazards, to make Yanukovich understand this time it is for real.
Most probably Yanukovich was like Saakashvili in 2008, totally programmed that "Russia would not date" because "Russia is secretly ruled by Jews/NeoLibs/Washington/whatever". Russia dared. And then Yanukovich understood he was not selected to be a hero bringing Ukraine to Europe, but a scapegoat to absorb the fallout.
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 11:54 utc | 73
So
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language
is biased also ? It isn't my argument at all, but I do understand that language is very important in terms of identity. There is quite a lot of history in that article to take into account, or argue over I suppose. As it is probably the "go to" reference for people outside of the region wanting to understand the question of languages in Ukraine, its content is relevant.
Posted by: gzon | Jul 23 2019 12:22 utc | 74
> I remember in one city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the street, showing bodies on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through the streets - vivid shots of buildings on fire
Posted by: juliania | Jul 23 2019 1:44 utc | 47
Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09
People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black" drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FtT0bRDN6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JZSfHri-wc
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Victory_Day,_2014#Mariupol
"In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election he led his party to win 22 seats."
"In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Lyashko lost his parliamentary seat"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleh_Lyashko
----------
One may also look for Olena Bilozerka, 2013 German "best international blogger"
She is open and vocal part of Right Sector, though allegations were she is inflating political issues to hide marauding issues.
She blogged back in 2014-02-16 about "next day" meeting of Right Sector representatives with Merkel "to report about implementation of our part of agreement and to be informed by Merkel about implementing her part" and regardless of "checking the watches" about armed assault upon government on 18.02, which indeed happened and was success.
Being open and vocal Nazi she then published many photo and video that were "omitted" by free world's free media.
Albeit as of now her English blog has much less content than her Ukrainian blog
https://bilozerska-eng.livejournal.com/2014/
https://bilozerska.livejournal.com/2014/
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 12:24 utc | 75
This "how many people did Communism killed" question is tiresome.
As I've already commented here in previous posts, there are essentially three methods an historian can determine if a genocide happened:
1) mass graves (this requires archaeology);
2) written contemporary accounts, and
3) census
In the "Holodomor" case, we only have "2", the most popular one in the West being that Welsh journalist who travelled to the USSR that time and, based on anecdotal evidence, "covered" the famine.
Wikipedia's article about the "Holodomor" only mentions one source mentioning concrete numbers: Wheatcroft, a rather obscure Australian academic who, to his merit, at least made up the effort to talk with people who had access to the Soviet archives.
The quoted list of his article clearly indicates Wheatcroft bases his numbers on indirect data. He uses the 1937 census in relation to 1926; in another article, he uses the quantity of grain stock in 1932. I could go on, but the important thing here is that this guy doesn't use any extraordinary sources. He certainly didn't go to the Ukraine to do archaeology. The Ukrainians themselves probably didn't do it either, because, so far, we have no accounts of mass graves in the region.
Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world -- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism). The often occured in the feudal world. They specially happened in tsarist Russia, which has a very peculiar and hostile climate and land composition for agriculture (only 15% of the USSR's territory was viable for agriculture even in the industrial era). They certainly are not a communist invention. We must avoid the "Belle Époque syndrome", that is, adopt the illusion late tsarist Russia was a paradise that was destroyed by evil Bolsheviks. Tsarist Russia was a very brutal world, were peasants died like flies every day: Gogol (who lived in Ukrainian territory) wrote a very funny and politically charged novel about it ("Dead Souls").
Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest.
Yes, forced collectivization probably caused excess deaths in 1932 -- but it's impossible to calculate how much more it caused in relation to a "normal" famine. Just because a famine happened during the Soviet era doesn't mean it was caused 100% because of socialism. Constant excess food production is a very recent phenomenon in human History, to state famines are the exception and not the rule is contemporary bias.
It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because, even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. Worst case scenario, this growth happened because birth rates were excessive in the urban areas at the expense of the rural areas -- an unlikely scenario, since in this case, we would register mass migration from the rural area to the urban area (because the hypothesis is that the famine was artificial, so the grains would be in the cities): they would either mass migrate or die trying, in which case we would have mass graves.
Mass graves are the decisive evidence for a genocide, indeed any mass extermination, because that would mean death was sudden. When the death process is slow and not synchronized, people have the time to bury/cremate their dead. That is the case even with some plagues (e.g. Antonine Plague). Mass graves are an indication people were killed more or less at the same time, in an artificial way, and in large quantities (since proper burials are expensive). In a deprived economy like the USSR, it is very unlikely all those bodies would be properly buried, let alone cremated, was a mass extermination taken place.
The holy grail of evidence for a genocide/mass extermination for any historian is when a witness points the place of the event and then archaeology finds out a mass grave. This evidently didn't happen in the case of "Holodomor".
Note: Gorbachev is a Russian who was born and raised in a village that borders modern Ukraine. His grandparents and parents were victims of the 1932 famine (they all survived). They continued comitted with the Revolution and, according to Gorbachev's own accounts, he's was not raised believing the 1932 famine was exceptional.
About the "Stalin is a genocidal psychopath" question: it's funny, because forced collectivization was one of the few points where he and Trotsky agreed.
Whatever happened in macroeconomic reforms after Stalin consolidated power was a collective work, not the designs of only one man. And, although we can argue against the means, the fact was that they were successful: the USSR rose from the ruins of a second tier imperial power (late tsarist Russia) to a global superpower.
To understand the most important fact of what happened to ukraine and why, you need to know about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in 1992: www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html
Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place: 'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'. And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century - still in play.
Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be a thorn in the flesh.
Another important fact is the roman catholic church attack on Russia through ukraine & the split of the church in ukraine from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Posted by: Ralph | Jul 23 2019 12:43 utc | 78
> there are essentially three methods an historian can determine if a genocide happened
Four.
There can be comparison of available data in adjacent regions.
In this specific case - in Poland-occupied Western Ukraine. Just "across the line".
Anecdotal evidence states it also had famine, so the famine was not anchored in USSR specific way of governing.
Some rare online archives of then Poland newspapers photos report some UK delegations raising concerns, etc.
However, in USSR the famine was a state-acknowledge emergency. USSR prohibited moving foods out of Ukrainian SSR (and wheat was not the only food! everyone talks about grains, forgetting potato, fish, mushrooms, etc), broken many Western contracts to repay debts in grains (West was denying being paid in other assets and was decrying USSR savageness of refusing to export all the contracted grain with the same zeal it today decry USSR savageness of exporting at least some of grain), started importing grain from Persia (now Iran). This emergency let a lot of paper trail, which now is used to "prove" how evil Soviet government was (and, specifically, not Ukrainian SSR government but central government in Kremlin; and somehow this is stretched even further to "prove" murderous hatred being part of "Russian character").
In Poland, well, a dull matter of fact. Bad lack to be peasant, yet worst to be Ukrainian peasant. S-t happens.
No paper trail - no "historic event" - no accusations.
Don't try to fix famines - and you will not be accused of being part of it.
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 12:44 utc | 79
Election apparatus is so easy to corrupt, yet people still vote! Crazy! And, so many elections have been rigged this way: People are so dumb! Why does nobody insist on independent, improved equipment? Conditioning makes people ignore the cheat under their noses.
Posted by: aspnaz | Jul 23 2019 13:01 utc | 80
Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire?
By the way, do expect and don't be surprised when the same posters referred to above defend the empire's lawfare coup in Brazil, the attempted lawfare coup in South Africa, and the attempts to regime change Venezuela when b posts any articles on these issues.
As for holodomor, or the Maidan snipers, or the famine in China, one doesn't need details to identify fictions. One simply needs to use logic and reason. We need only question simple points if we suspect that the famine in Ukraine was a deliberate attempt to exterminate Ukrainians: Was it successfully completed, and if not then why not?
There are obviously still Ukrainians, so it wasn't successful. If we assume the famine was a deliberate attempt at extermination, then we must ask why was it stopped before it finished? Did some external factor force Stalin to call off the extermination before it was completed?
No, the famine was stopped by dramatically improved agricultural practices instituted by the Soviet Union. This cannot be reconciled with the claim that the famine was a deliberate attempt by the Soviet Union at extermination, so no matter how much we may cherish the myth of holodomor, to remain rational individuals we must let that myth go.
Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests? If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests?
The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev. The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests.
It is good to dig deeper into the details of all of these false narratives that we in the West have been fed, but those details are not absolutely necessary to know that the narratives are false.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 23 2019 13:17 utc | 81
> I am no specialist or anything, but I think the collectivization was a disaster and the war on the kulaks didn't help anything,
> and that lead to the Holodomor
Posted by: roza shanina | Jul 23 2019 0:35 utc | 42
1. If forced collectivization would lead to famine, there would had be no famines in 1920-s and in 1890-s, before the said collectivization but there were.
2. Before forced collectivization there were many years of attempts at unforced one. They failed for at least two reasons.
a) many of poor peasants "saw themselves temporarily embarrassed millionaires". While being target of debt sharks (kulaks, public-devourers (мироеды)) they still only imagined the life as being sole owner of their however tiny patch of soil.
b) government attempts they saw as unwarranted advantages from aliens, city-dwellers, trade partners of hated kulaks, that to be took advantage of using any loopholes. Government tried to foster grassroots kolkhoz movements by offering bound credits - seeds, fertilizers, agriculture tools. Peasants started organizing "ten men" kolkhozes in springs, taking those credits, and then dissolving kolkhozes before gathering crops. "Faked bankruptcy" in modern parley. If you can have good sides without having bad sides - why opt for bad sides too?
Specifically in Ukraine it could also be boosted by the "national character" formed as dwellers of centuries-long battle ground between Poland, Russia and Turkey. No positive long-term planning, everything for instant profits disregarding any consequences. Any government are occupants and bandits, co-operating with them is futile and silly. We can see it today marching over once most rich and developed Soviet Republic. Why couldn't the same happen in 1930-s ?
3. However forced collectivization did achieved a lot. Remember the UK, where "sheep ate people", for example. Remember latifundists in Latin America. It is largely the same!
a) hugely increased labor efficiency in "village to city" trade metrics. "товарное зерно"
b) hugely increased labor efficiency in "men / area" ratio. Use of mechanic tractors and harvesters, etc. Unemployment among "just my hands" peasantry.
c) increased "capital concentration" provided for use of fertilizer, poisons, etc. Which contributed to the prior point.
d) now unemployed peasants moved to cities, populating newly built factories. This process was already going in 1900-s but much slower then. Emergent industrialization in the wake of WW2 - and a very successful one.
e) end of rural famines. One of the reason 1931 famine is so hyped - it was the last in the row. Would there be a comparable famine for example in 1970-s - and for political purposes it would had been much more useful against USSR. But there were none. "Golodomor" was the last famine, so it became the focal point.
e) end of city famines. Where atomized peasant families could not sustain even a horse or a cow, one of famines reasons, joint companies (kolkhozes) just like huge private agri-companies in UK or Argentina, relied upon chemistry and mechanizations, thus needed to trade with cities, thus were supplying cities with food. All the champions of Golodomor somehow overlook city famines that were cruel in early USSR in winters.
And one more quirk is almost total lack of photo-evidence behind "Golodomor".
When articles/books are illustrated, it is with photos from 1920-s famine in USSR or in USA, misattributed.
Allegedly, it is because in Soviet cruel diktatura even NKVD death squads could not make those photos even for secret important reports.
Reportedly it is because victims of "Goldomor" were dying "fatties", making less convincing images. The theories were made explaining why it was so, however there seems to be no any other famine known where those theories worked and people dying of hunger were abnormally thick.
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 13:19 utc | 82
> Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them....?
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 23 2019 13:17 utc | 83
Public debates are not for opponents, they are for public.
Internet debates are not only for participants, they are also for those who would google this page many years later
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 13:26 utc | 83
To Arioch @84, I apologize. You are absolutely correct. Leaving trolls' posts unchallenged gives the casual reader the impression that those posts are unassailable; nevertheless, I have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them out. Posters such as yourself, vk, karlof1, etc who provide detailed and historically accurate corrections to the false narratives are necessary for the edification of lurkers and casual readers. I just hope that you don't measure the effectiveness of your posts by whether or not you change the trolls' minds.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 23 2019 13:40 utc | 84
> I have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them out
This can really work well with people sincerely lost by massive propaganda, people who succumbed to illusion they know, why they do not.
Wikipedia: The Socratic method, also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate, is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions. It is a dialectical method, involving a discussion in which the defense of one point of view is questioned; one participant may lead another to contradict themselves in some way, thus weakening the defender's point. This method is named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates and is introduced by him in Plato's Theaetetus as midwifery (maieutics) because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding.
Sincere person, being guided by questions, would start researching and analyzing. And would not feel coerced.
But you know, trolls just ignore the questions and keeps hammering talking points by infinitely going back and repeating them "from starting point".
Avoiding positive argumentation, avoiding claiming something and limiting ourselves to questioning their weak points, we help them to create another impression: they have a bad theory when we have no theory at all. They are content with it.
So, putting out competing interpretation is no less important than showing their own unhonesty.
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 14:00 utc | 85
My apologies to everyone for the dodgy Louis Proyect Counterpunch link. My bad. I'm glad that people were able to look past the mistake and not overlook the van der pijl book. Thank you for letting me know of Mr. Proyect's reputation.
Posted by: roza shanina | Jul 23 2019 14:01 utc | 86
@ arioch 84
I might disagree or argue with anyone, including yourself, but to my mind this is one of the only ways to analyse and understand a topic, by taking in different points of view. We might still walk away thinking the other is wrong, and that really is ok by me, but there will be an overview of the different points of view for anyone else to follow, and insights that are not found elsewhere.
MoA is very free thinking, the topics start from a well presented alternative view, and the commentators are as a whole sincere and well meaning, as well as generally experienced or educated.
So I don't understand what could seem like an effort by some to manage the domain based on widely discounting other "certain" commentators, as it forms the impression that there is only an accepted version, and a clique that should be joined.
I could go so far as thinking this is an effort to purposefully diminish the points of view they claim to defend, as it gives the impression of a propaganda drive where freedom of critique is unwelcome . :/
I try to take it as friendly though, like someone acting as guardian and testing commentators, so in a way just discouraging people who aren't sincere, but still, others might not see it like that.
Posted by: gzon | Jul 23 2019 14:17 utc | 87
To Arioch @84, I apologize. You are absolutely correct. Leaving trolls' posts unchallenged gives the casual reader the impression that those posts are unassailable;..
...
I just hope that you don't measure the effectiveness of your posts by whether or not you change the trolls' minds.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 23 2019 13:40 utc | 85
There's an over-arching factor here.
This is b's blog. The format, mechanics, subject matter, ethics and rules are b's. I think MoA is a terrific blog. But, imo, it would be a little bit better if commentators followed the rules. I've lost count of the number of times b has had to remind people...
"Don't feed the troll."
It is disrespectful to disregard b's frequent requests to IGNORE trolls. Considering the wisdom evident in every article b researches and publishes, it is only reasonable to assume that his reasoning with regard to trolls is equally wise, if not more so.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 23 2019 14:23 utc | 88
Missing from the comments regarding Ukrainian/Russian dynamics is recognition of the numerous attempts (dating back to the 17th century) of the Russification of the Ukraine, first by the Russian Empire and then by the Soviets.
Russification of Ukraine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification_of_Ukraine
ex:
- In 1863, minister of internal affairs Pyotr Valuyev issued the so-called Valuev Circular, in which he stated that the Ukrainian language never existed, doesn't exist, and cannot exist.
- Under Stalin, "korenization" took second stage to the idea of a united Soviet Union, where competing national cultures were no longer tolerated, and the Russian language increasingly became the only official language of Soviet socialism
-Russification of Soviet-occupied Ukraine intensified in 1938 under Nikita Khrushchev, then secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, but was briefly halted during World War II, when Axis forces occupied large areas of the country.
-In the 1960s, the Ukrainian language began to be used more widely and frequently in spite of these policies. In response, Soviet authorities increased their focus on early education in Russian. After 1980, Russian language classes were instituted from the first grade onward.
( a reason for so many Russian-speaking Ukrainians??)
and from: Ukrainization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainization#Early_1930s_(reversal_of_Ukrainization_policies)
In the regions of southern Russian SFSR (North Caucasus and eastern part of Sloboda Ukraine included into RSFSR) Ukrainization was effectively outlawed in 1932.[18] Specifically, the December 14, 1932 decree "On Grain Collection in Ukraine, North Caucasus and the Western Oblasts" by the VKP(b) Central Committee and USSR Sovnarkom stated that Ukrainization in certain areas was carried out formally, in a "non-Bolshevik" way, which provided the "bourgeois-nationalist elements" with a legal cover for organizing their anti-Soviet resistance. In order to stop this, the decree ordered in these areas, among other things, to switch to Russian all newspapers and magazines, and all Soviet and cooperative paperwork. By the autumn of 1932 (beginning of a school year), all schools were ordered to switch to Russian. In addition the decree ordered a massive population swap: all "disloyal" population from a major Cossack settlement, stanitsa Poltavskaya was banished to Northern Russia, with their property given to loyal kolkhozniks moved from poorer areas of Russia.[19] in the 1937 Soviet Census compared to the 1926 First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union.[18]
This perhaps explains the predominance of Russian in eastern Ukraine.
Posted by: pantaraxia | Jul 23 2019 15:13 utc | 89
The Holodomor was real. When I lived in Ukraine, I knew enough people that survived it, and also their relatives. Some were devoted Communists.
That said, the famine wasn't especially anti-Ukrainian. Many of the people who suffered the worst were ethnic Russians in very Russified areas, as well as people living outside the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR. For that matter, the people who talk most about the Holodomor today - Galicians - were under Poland at the time the famine was going on. Not only that, but the Ukrainian nationalists of that time didn't care much that people were starving in the Ukrainian SSR. In fact, they thought highly of the Soviet Union because there was a Ukrainian SSR that promoted Ukrainian nationality, instead of Poland, which promoted Polonization.
Like the fascists they were, the "nation" mean everything to the Ukrainian nationalists of the 1930s. They didn't care that much for people.
Posted by: Sid Finster | Jul 23 2019 15:29 utc | 90
> This is b's blog
Exactly. And while he seldom explains or argues his policies, he regularly enforces them by deleting comments.
So, i think B can take care of that overarching concern personally.
Meanwhile for us arguing about this policy is not different from arguing about other topics.
> "Don't feed the troll."
....was coined to a very specific and strict original definition of trolls: people who trick others to violate forum rules and get banned while themselves technically residing within forum rules legalese.
More so, in my limited experience those original trolls were rather intelligent persons (it takes some marbles albeit perverted to find loopholes and goad others). To the point that when "word fencing" moved into a topic interesting for particular troll he immediately dropped all the usual sick fun tactics and engaged in sincere discussion (albeit totally offtopic for the place).
Anyway, this maxim was coined to be catchy. It is not universal rule. It was a safety measure for casual forum dwellers to avoid being banned yourself why trying to cut troll to size.
It is indeed needed to remember that troll is not sincerely interested and you should not invest emotionally into enlightening him.
It is needed to remember that public argument is for public.
It is needed to remember that you do not have goal of "winning" over troll personally, that you aim at "driving home" the topic of discussion.
Troll might gladly let you score some ad hominem victory if you forget about the argument topic in the process. That is detrimental indeed. But clarifying the topic while refusing troll to drive discussion off the rail is exactly the win over troll's main goal. Keeping discussion on-topic, collected and rational.
If you need less abstract example - look at any recent Russia vs America discussion in UN SC. DC regime would be happy to have Russian diplomats refusing to talk for the sake of not feeding American troll.
Posted by: Arioch | Jul 23 2019 15:37 utc | 91
"Some allege that Zelensky is under influence of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. But so far there is little evidence to provide that." - b
To think that Zelensky is anything other than Kolomoisky's puppet is imo extremely naive. He's a political naif whose only claim to fame is playing a character on a tv show.
from the Kyiv Post:
- Zelenskiy’s TV shows have been running on Kolomoisky’s 1+1 channel for the past couple of years, with the channel taking an active pro Zelenskiy stance during the March 31 presidential elections,...
- ..an investigative TV series ... showing how Zelenskiy traveled a total of 11 times to Geneva and an additional two times to Tel-Aviv, where Kolomoisky took shelter, after his main asset PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank, was nationalized ...
...Zelenskiy began flying to Geneva on a regular basis from February 2017, when Kolomoisky permanently moved to the city due to legal action against him in Ukraine.
- Flights to Geneva occurred on a regular basis, until June 2018, when Kolomoisky moved from Geneva to Tel-Aviv. Later Zelenskiy began flying to Tel-Aviv, ...at least three private flights to and from Tel-Aviv in October, November and December of 2018.
- A regular travel companion of Zelenskiy was Andriy Bohdan, Kolomoisky’s lawyer. Bohdan was Kolomoisky’s adviser in 2014 when the oligarch served as a governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
. Kolomoisky was, to some degree, neutralized by Poroshenko when his Privat Bank was effectively nationalized after massive looting of the bank's assets. Now he's back big time, not only king-maker but also kingpin. After all there's still plenty of looting to be done and he wants his bank back.
ps: So Zelensky doesn't even speak the language of the country he is leading. Doesn't any one else find this a bit, well, odd? For example how would it be viewed if a Canadian Prime Minister spoke only French?
Posted by: pantaraxia | Jul 23 2019 16:27 utc | 93
Jon Stewart is really Leibowitz.His brother runs a stock exchange.
Posted by: dahoit | Jul 23 2019 16:30 utc | 94
@Piotr Berman #46
Indeed. A lot of people in the West are ignorant of, or refuse to acknowledge, that the historic enmity between Poland and the Baltics on one side, and Russia on the other, is a very long running affair. The Polish-Lithuanian empire that was overthrown by Russia was a Norman-type feudal arrangement: armored knights ruling over a peasantry with dramatically different religion, customs, even language.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 23 2019 19:11 utc | 95
@pantaraxia #90
Russian is a lingua franca all over the ex-Soviet Union nations much like Mandarin is the lingua franca over all of China. China actually has a lot of different dialects and accents - some of which are utterly incomprehensible to Mandarin speakers (beyond Cantonese).
Ethnic Russians also moved to a lot of places during the Soviet Union (and ethnic minorities moved into Russia as well).
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 23 2019 19:13 utc | 96
Re: Holodomor
What I wrote before was simply that famine/death occurred.
Whether it was a policy specifically designed to hurt Ukraine/Ukrainians, extremely difficult to say.
I thought that would be obvious from the notes on the purges and forced migrations which Stalin undertook, plus the comment concerning economic sanctions.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 23 2019 19:15 utc | 97
Disgusting and harmful (first of all for Ukraine itself, for her inhabitants), when the Ukrainian Nazis, who actually usurped power, deliberately lie about "Russian aggression" and "war with Russia". But even worse, when some of these freaks and scumbags sincerely believe in what they say. They truly believe that for five years "they are at war with Russia".
The aggression of the Ukrainian regime against the Donbass has lasted for more than 5 years. This is longer than the Great Patriotic War (the war of the Third Reich against the USSR, 22.6.1941-9.5.1945). There is every reason to believe that this aggression will last even longer than the entire Second World War officially lasted. That is, more than 6 years.
But these freaks really believe that they are “at war with Russia” for more than 5 years. They allegedly "at war" with the nuclear superpower, which has shown its effectiveness and methods of warfare in Syria, when in about two years (I repeat, two years: September 2015 - December 2017), the task of defeating the main part of the terrorists was solved, tens of thousands of militants were destroyed, thousands of kilometers of Syrian territory were liberated etc.
The other nuclear superpower, the United States, planning aggression against Syria (April 2017, April 2018), first of all tried in no way to hurt the Russian troops. Before the missile attacks on Syria, the United States through the communication channels specified the location of Russian military advisers from the Russian side, so that God forbid, do not kill or injure them. I repeat, the United States, a powerful military superpower, was afraid to kill even one Russian military.
But Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe, whose economy has degraded several times (compared to the level before the coup d'etat), whose army is in a deplorable state, a country torn by monstrous corruption, a drop in education, a huge outflow of the population... - this country supposedly really "fighting" with Russia. Funny. It turns out that Ukraine is much more capable, stronger and bolder than the United States (who, as i said, was afraid to kill even one Russian military in Syria)!
And, again, these freaks really believe in a five-year "war with Russia". Jesus, propaganda and total brainwashing can do amazing things! An odd parallel reality in which millions of people live.
@ David Park 21
Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.
The so called 'Holodomor' is a complete invention of neo-Nazi propaganda. The same is true about Stalin supposedly 'starving' millions of peasants in the 1930s.
Today very few people remember the demographic catastrophe that the US suffered in the 1930s, during the so called 'Dust Bowl,' when millions of subsistence farmers were forced off their land. Many migrated west to California to work on fruit plantations under slave labor conditions.
John Steinbeck's Nobel winning novel Grapes of Wrath told the story of one such family, the Joads. This used to be required reading in high school, but apparently not any longer. John Ford's 1940 movie, starring Henry Fonda tells the basic story well.
Many of those 'Okies' literally starved to death. In the book's final scene the Joads have taken refuge in an abandoned barn. Rose, whose baby was stillborn, offers her breast to a starving man.
One look at the US Census statistics by decade shows there was a population deficit of nearly ten million people for the decade of 1930 to 1940.
https://i.postimg.cc/9fmd7mt3/US-poulation-growth-by-decade-markup.jpg
That chart from here.
Like the Soviet Union of the 1930s, the US was predominantly agrarian, about 70 percent of the population. The drought and crop failures [which affected the entire northern hemisphere, including the Russian steppe] had a devastating effect. Few people actually starved [although some certainly did, as Steinbeck reminds us], but many more simply weren't born [like Rose's stillborn baby, or couples that just didn't conceive, due to malnutrition].
This demographic catastrophe of the US in the 1930s has been conveniently disappeared down the memory hole by our propaganda apparatus. While at the same time a similar agrarian catastrophe in the Soviet Union has been drummed into each and every child, chapter and verse--and embellished to fit into the anti-communist narrative, and the demonization of Stalin [whom the entire Europe celebrated for 'saving European civilization' at the time of his defeat of Hitler.
Posted by: flankerbandit | Jul 23 2019 19:50 utc | 99
alaff @100 said: "And, again, these freaks really believe in a five-year "war with Russia". Jesus, propaganda and total brainwashing can do amazing things! An odd parallel reality in which millions of people live.
On the books at least, Ukraine had one of the most formidable conventional military forces in all of Europe. There was even online chatter in the early part of 2014 among NATO tools about getting Ukraine to take the war to Russia, with some amazingly delusional scenarios being discussed including Ukrainian troops taking Moscow.
Those of us who closely watched events unfold know that there never was a "Russian invasion" of eastern Ukraine. The desperately demoralized Ukrainian military and the rabid neoNazi "volunteer battalions" were actually fighting miners and farmers who, in the very early days of the conflict, were literally just armed with sticks.
The miners and farmers beat the "professional" (if you want to call it that) Ukrainian military and the fascist maddogs. Irregular militias whipped together in a few days took down supposedly the mightiest military in Europe.
This was a crushing defeat for the Ukrainian Nazis and one they could not squarely face. While the electoral victory of Trump caused the liberal establishment in America to go completely unhinged in 2016, the fact is that the empire's shocking failure in Ukraine in 2014 had already started that unhinging process. From their perspective there was just no way simple miners and farmers could have stopped the empire's plans in its tracks. It simply HAD to be the Russians! Nothing else made sense to them.
If you were on the side of the fascist maddogs, would you admit to being beaten by some farmers and miners? Or would you rather make up a tall tale about it taking the entire Red Army to defeat you? Keep in mind that these Ukrainian guys are Nazis, so they don't have a very strong grip on reality to begin with. In addition to that the oligarch and empire run Ukrainian media also wanted to keep the cannon fodder marching to the front lines, so they fabricate practically every last detail of the conflict that they fed to the TV viewers in order to magnify the threat.
In reality, ISIS was a tougher adversary than the Ukrainian military. Had Russia really invaded, the conflict would have been over in a matter of hours and not dragged on for years.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 23 2019 20:27 utc | 100
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Just wanted to point out - the documentary I believe you are referring to is "Revealing Ukraine."
It's a sequel of sorts to "Ukraine on Fire," which is three years old.
Posted by: VanWoland | Jul 22 2019 18:55 utc | 1