Communists and Ukraine - Part No. 2. The price of mistakes of the Communist Party of Ukraine
A continuation of the story about the left, communists, and Ukraine. Today about the role of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
The price of mistakes of the Communist Party of Ukraine
So how did the Communist Party of Ukraine perform during this crisis? For a long time the CPU held an opportunist position of compromising with major capital, which allowed it to push a number of secondary social initiatives, but at the same time the CPU became the support for Yanukovich regime in the parliament. Unlike the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), which doesn't have real political leverage, the CPU had an important distinction, due to a split in the Ukrainian oligarchy the CPU had the so-called "golden share", without which the ruling "for Yanukovich" coalition didn't happen. In exchange for its participation in the coalition the CPU had certain positions and certain influence. They were forced to tolerate it, because without the CPU the "Party of Regions" remained in the minority.
Since 2004, Simonenko consistently pursued a policy where both "orange" and "blue" are in essence the same thing but due to the focus of the CPU on the bourgeois-democratic procedures that have to do with elections, there was no speaking of overthrowing the regime of "orange-blue". At the same time, a political alliance with the "Party of Regions" led not only to the criticism from the left for opportunism and compromising with the major capital, but also led to allegations of being responsible for a difficult economic situation in the country. Meanwhile, the party had a problem similar to the problem of the CPRF - it had too many old boys and quite a bit of young guns, but catastrophically lacked people of middle age. One the one hand, everybody expected the communists to depart from the stage of history, it being the party of "old boys", but in the second half of the 2000s the young people started to come into the CPR and into the CPU, as a result of which while the central apparatus was stagnating the truly vibrant district committees started to appear, which became the earnest for hopes of reinvigorating the party. The new generation appeared, which seemingly didn't exist just a short time ago. Here the popularity of Stalin played its role and the increase in respect for the Soviet past. However, it is one thing to attract new personnel, but it is a quite different thing to turn it into an instrument of the fight for power against the bourgeoisie. The generational gap very much complicates more active engagement here, because the aging party leadership tends to behave very cautiously as a rule, while the youth boils with ideas and proposals on the grass-roots level, which remain unfulfilled and triggers departures from the CPU into more radical organizations, where at least the rhetoric sounds tougher, although it doesn't get to business there either. Along with these challenges, the CPU took its place in the bourgeois politics, getting certain room for development but at the same time sacrificing a number of its principles.
However, we cannot say that the CPU was looking into Yanukovich's mouth. The CPU actively opposed cooperating with the NATO and the presence of Ukraine in the WTO, it stood against the Russophobic and anti-Soviet policy in Ukraine and against those who covered it up while being in power. The CPU is one of the few parties that consistently (unlike many of the Ukrainian left) stood against the rising fascism, held actions, rallies, protests, but due to its own organizational weakness it was certainly insufficient, because the fascism in Ukraine rose with a responsive support from the SBU and major capital, with which the CPU entered into an agreement. The CPU was one of the forces that tried to stop the civil war, proposing to hold a referendum on federalization and on rebuilding the state. But these initiatives were liquidated by the Yanukovich regime and up until its demise the CPU effectively went with the stream towards the inevitable catastrophe.
After a coup in Kiev, the representatives from the Communist Party were forced to remain in the Verkhovnaya Rada and they were forced to participate in the coup by attending the sessions of the Rada. But this situation lasted only for a while. After which a valid issue emerged for the CPU - instead of abandoning this body of collaboration with the fascist coup (when such an opportunity appeared), they continued to cling to bourgeois legitimacy in a naive hope of being spared. This petty-bourgeoise laxity and lack of Bolshevik decisiveness incurred huge costs on the Ukrainian Communist Party. While they pretended to be furniture in the Verkhovnaya Rada, the fascists crushed the city committees and the regional committees, demolished Lenin's monuments, killed communists in Odessa, Mariupol, and in Donbass. As a final point in this process, they dissolved the Communist Party faction and prepared a number of laws that prohibit Soviet ideology, the party, "Soviet occupation". A sad result of the party that positioned itself as the vanguard of the working class and of the proletarian masses.
Several decent speeches by Simonenko and the condemnation of what was happening wasn't what was expected from the communists, which by their very nature are the fiercest enemies of the fascism (it is not accidental that the fascists started precisely with the communists). As a result, the party is currently in the process of being dismantled while it passively watches its own destruction.
However this wasn't the case everywhere, Sevastopol and Luhansk communists ended up being more active in the business of fighting against the fascist junta. Parkhomenko, the leader of Sevastopol communists, was among those who spoke at the rally on February 23, from which the Sevastopol uprising took off, and the representatives of the Sevastopol City Council from the CPU provided the necessary number of votes, because without them it was impossible to pass a decision about the exit of Sevastopol from Ukraine.
In Luhansk, the local uprising started on the basis of joint actions of the CPU and the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, which politically legitimized the resistance against the junta and the first people's governor of Luhansk region became the socialist Kharitonov, who was only recently ransomed from the fascist torture chambers.
But these bright moments of course cannot compensate for the lamentable fate of the party itself. Currently, the remains of the communist organizations in Donbass joined the generic civil resistance against the fascist junta without being able to lead it, which is quite indicative for one of the main anti-fascist forces of Ukraine. Crimean and Sevastopol communists joined the ranks of the Russian Communist Party as well as the ranks of other parties.
It is obvious that the CPU itself will be completely banned (if the fascist regime will stand), and the members of the CPU who would really want to fight the fascism on the occupied territory will have to do it in the underground.
In this case the calamity of Ukraine is that along with the crisis of the CPU the remaining left couldn't create a new communist party (not just in the name only but in the essence), which would be able to accept those who were disappointed by the CPU in its ranks and to attract popular masses to its side.
This ideologic and organizational laxity of the Ukrainian left quite logically led to the fact when despite the worsening socio-economic divisions in the Ukrainian society the popularity of the CPU started to rise again and during the last elections they had a pretty decent showing, although it is clear that people often voted for the CPU with a perfect understanding of all its problems and weaknesses. But the choice was made based on the thesis "Better for them than for the other bloodsuckers." Yes, on the background of the Ukrainian bloodsuckers the CPU looked quite well at least due to its position on the NATO, on fascism, on Bandera, on the WTO, on friendship between peoples - it was worth voting for at least so that later it wasn't all that embarrassing as it happened with those who voted for Yuschenko and Yanukovich. And I have many friends and acquaintances, who are quite apolitical, that started to vote for the CPU in the recent years simply because they saw no other choices in these "elections without a choice", at the same time perfectly understanding that Simonenko is unlikely to get to power through elections, but simply in order to not be ashamed later for the choice that they made.
But this is not enough for the party that carries a proud word "Communist" in its title.
The Bolsheviks taught us that more is expected from the true Communists than simply looking better on the contrast with the bourgeoisie within the confines of the bourgeois "society of the spectacle". For objective reasons, the CPU failed to fulfill its role as the vanguard of the working class in the face of a fascist coup and didn't act as one of the main organizers of the resistance against the fascism.
By no means do I want to accuse those party workers and party members who by their word and their actions currently fight against the fascism in the general ranks. It is precisely their words and actions that serve as an alibi for the CPU. But at the same time it is necessary to understand the reasons of the political fiasco suffered by the central apparatus of the CPU, which took a quite passive stance in the face of a coup d'etat, which effectively forced the local party organizations to solve these problems on their own. Somewhere they could solve them, in other places they couldn't.
Overall, the current crisis will obviously serve the goals of cleansing the party from chance companions and will obviously lead to serious discussions within the left and communist circles about the necessity of creating a new communist party of Ukraine or restoring the CPU in an updated form and on somewhat different principles. I can only wish good luck to the Ukrainian communists and hope that despite the hardships of the fascist regime and organizational problems they will be able to overcome their structural crisis and come out of it only stronger.
Here the quote from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin about the committed mistakes fits the best:
To every man his own. But we shall not harbor any illusions or give way to despondency. If we are not afraid of admitting our mistakes, not afraid of making repeated efforts to rectify them - we shall reach the very summit.
For some of you it may seem that I'm smoothing things over here and it is necessary to paint everything in black and tell how all is bad and it would be good for the CPU to altogether disappear from the horizon so that new forces could take its place. But even here the CPU works on the contrast, because among the other left and communist organizations there were no forces, which would stand as a vanguard of the working class in the face of the fascist mutiny. That is why instead of indiscriminately trumping on the CPU it is necessary to look at the question of other left and communist organizations in Ukraine. The next article will be about that.
Previous article: http://cassad-eng.livejournal.com/57023.html (in English), http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/1730382.html (the Russan original).
Original article: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/1746763.html (in Russian)