Left divergence, right convergence: anarchists, Marxists, and nationalist polarization in the Ukrainian conflict, 2013–2014

Abstract

The article traces nationalist polarization and divergence within the Ukrainian new left in response to the Maidan and Anti-Maidan protests in 2013–2014, and the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The ideological left-wing groups in the protests were too weak to push forward any independent progressive agenda. Instead of moving the respective campaigns to the left, they were increasingly converging with the right themselves and degraded into marginal supporters of either pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian camps in the conflict. The liberal and libertarian left supported the Maidan movement on the basis of abstract self-organization, liberal values and anti-authoritarianism. In contrast, the Marxist-Leninists attempted to seize political opportunities from supporting more plebeian and decentralized Anti-Maidan protests and reacting to the far-right threat after the Maidan victory. They deluded themselves that Russian nationalists were not as reactionary as their Ukrainian counterparts and that the world-system crisis allowed them to exploit Russian anti-American politics for progressive purposes.