To demonstrate which movement was a real “people’s movement,” both sides competed for hegemony in the street. This made clashes and provocations inevitable and increasingly violent. After the events of May 2, 2014, in Odessa, where more than 40 people died in a fire during clashes between Anti-Maidan and Maidan, and the start of the war in the East, protests in the streets stopped and many Anti-Maidan organizers went to Russia or the new “People’s Republics.”
Nevertheless, the project of establishing Novorossiya, an old colonial Russian name for some regions of Ukraine that were supposed to be reunited with the fatherland, was soon abandoned. The attempts to reproduce the “people’s uprising” coordinated in Luhansk and Donetsk failed elsewhere, despite major Russian financial and media support. What remained, however, and continued to circulate, was the narrative of the popular uprising. With the help of the already familiar paradigm of the Russian Spring, the Donbass uprising was declared to be “antifascist.” It didn’t seem to bother anyone in Russia that the leaders of this “people’s uprising” were composed of officers fresh from Moscow. After all, they were pursuing the mission of the Red Army: save the people from fascism and machinations from the West.
Antifascism is the key idea that bridges the old monarchist empire, the Bolshevik superpower, and the new Russian State: a world power that keeps getting stronger despite the intrigues of its enemies.
In this context, it’s no wonder the war in Ukraine didn’t incite large protests in Russia. On the contrary, the streets were filled with tents of solidarity associations collecting goods and money for the people’s militias of Donbass. May 9, known as the Day of Victory, became the main state celebration in Russia. It consisted of parades, fireworks, people’s marches, children who wore Red Army costumes and chanted slogans like “To Berlin, To Kiev, to Washington!” and “Thank you grandpa for the victory!” The conflict in Ukraine was seamlessly converted into an element of the narrative of the new imperial consensus.
AFTER 2014
Like most contemporary insurrections, Maidan took political milieus by surprise on both sides of the border. The Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian activist networks have always been in close contact, and though Ukraine was considered to have more liberty and less repression, the social situation was no less difficult than elsewhere. Yanukovych was trying to consolidate power and resources while at the same time imposing neoliberal reforms. When comrades from different countries met, we sadly joked that Ukraine would soon be like Russia, Russia soon like Belarus, and Belarus soon like North Korea. It seemed like things could do nothing but get worse. If somebody had proposed on New Year’s Eve of 2014 that Maidan would become one of the biggest uprisings of the last decades in Eastern Europe, they would have been met with waves of laughter.
In the beginning, leftists and anarchists did not really believe in the perspectives opened by the movement. Some recalled the Orange Revolution of 2004 as a fool’s trap that would only change the faces one sees on television. Others wanted to avoid getting paralyzed by over-analysis, and thought it important to take part in any popular initiative. And effectively, this is what Maidan was. In its experience, aesthetics, and composition, it consisted of a “popular” uprising.
Most of us, undecided, decided to wait. Our uneasiness came from strange slogans about “Euro-association,” as well as the presence of the Far Right and neo-Nazis. And while the Right was not setting the agenda of the movement, it was better organized and was boldly trying to exclude its enemies from the square. All leftist symbols were seen as a positive reference to the Soviet Union, thus pro-Russian and pro-Yanukovych. As for the anarchists and other radicals, they weren’t organized enough to participate as a distinct group.
By the end of December, the movement had grown but did not present new developments. It seemed condemned to be an endless encampment of cold weather and boredom. But in mid-January, the regime decided to scale up repression—emergency laws were adopted and the occupation was brutally attacked, causing several casualties. After the attack, the situation changed dramatically, becoming a struggle against a real dictatorship. Leaving their doubts behind, the radical milieus joined the movement.
They were rapidly joined by comrades from neighboring countries. We saw with our own eyes how Maidan’s “Russophobia” was an invention of the Russian media. It didn’t really exist. It didn’t bother anyone to speak Russian at the barricades, even with the strongest Moscow accent. Some people joked that you might be a spy, but then usually added: “We will meet at the barricades in Moscow chasing off Putin!”
Maidan grew by waves, adopting more radical methods as more and more people got involved. From field kitchens to underground hospitals, fight trainings to lectures and film screenings, and transportation to distribution and supplies, a huge infrastructure was growing up around the protests. There were even attempts to compose decision-making structures, in the form of soviets or assemblies, but they didn’t have time to take root. The Berkut started to openly shoot people in Kiev, and in February the insurrection spread throughout the country. People were occupying administrative buildings and everywhere blockading the police. The regime attempted a last push, but overestimated its forces and failed, and then Yanukovych was forced to flee to Russia.
In appearance, Maidan had won. An enormous amount of people in Ukraine gained experience in autonomous organizing and street sensibility, and sacrifice did not befall them in vain. People felt like the game had changed, and they could now take hold of a common power.
But, in anarchist and leftist circles, this euphoria soon died. Thanks to the efforts of the liberal and Russian media, however opposed they were in their ends, the Right was able to portray the image that it was the radical vanguard of Maidan. Among many of us, joy gave way to panic as those whom one might have fought on the street the day earlier had now suddenly gained official posts in the new structures of state power.
Something far more dreadful was on the way. Russia annexed Crimea and started a war, which was an ambiguous gift for the new government. The energy set free on Maidan was channeled into volunteer battalions and support for the ruined Ukrainian army, which couldn’t do much against Russia. From now on, defending the Revolution of Dignity didn’t mean being on the barricades of Kiev, but on the front line. The movement then disappeared, of course, as it is obviously wrong to protest when your country is at war.
As for the Russian leftists, they found themselves on the side of Russian propaganda, and began to increasingly criticize “Ukrainian fascism.” Well-known figures like Boris Kagarlitsky started spreading stories about an “antifascist proletarian popular uprising in Donbass.” Some of these leftist personalities could be seen drinking tea with Russian nationalists and imperial fascists at the next meeting for the Russian World in Crimea. The young went to war as volunteers, if not to bomb villages, then at least to take some selfies in camouflage, Kalashnikov in hand. Others became war journalists, following battalions like the Prizrak brigade in Donbass, whose leader, after rounding up a few well-known neo-Nazis, became famous for defending the idea of raping women who weren’t home after curfew. None of this seemed to bother the Left, as long as the battalions kept waving red flags and singing songs from that sacred war, complemented by stories about NATO soldiers on the Ukrainian side and images of dead children. As for the older Western leftists, they found themselves reliving the Cold War and started support campaigns for the “antifascists of Donbass.”
After the shock of the first months, most of the Russian radical milieus turned away from such a confusing situation. Either the issue of the war did not concern them, or they felt there was nothing they could do. There was also a new wave of repression in Russia, within a context of unprecedented support for Putin. In this situation, there was increasingly less public political activity, and more comrades turned to infrastructural projects like cooperatives or publishing. Others decided to immigrate, either within Russia or abroad.
In Ukraine, on the other hand, organizing was on the rise. Despite the war, political life was blooming, but things were shifting fast. The Antifa and punk milieus generally became patriotic right-wingers. Anarchists weren’t spared from