Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 22 – Vladimir Pastukhov
suggests that Ukraine now faces the choice of concluding a humiliating “Brest
peace” with Moscow in which it would yield an enormous portion of its territory
and population to preserve itself and in the hopes of recovering its losses in
the future or risking the possibility that it was disappear altogether.
In an essay on Polit.ru on Sunday,
the St. Antony’s Russian scholar argues that just as the Bolsheviks signed the
original humiliating treaty with Germany at the start of Soviet times not to
betray their country but to save it, so too the Ukrainians may have to go
through the same process now (polit.ru/article/2014/04/20/ukraine/).
Many Russians and many Bolsheviks
objected to Lenin’s decision to sign the Brest Peace accords, viewing them as a
betrayal not only of the country but of the revolution. But Pastukhov argues that Lenin’s decision reflected
great intuition and greater political courage than what was being shown by his
opponents.
Under the circumstances given the
power of the German army and the weakness of the Soviet state, he says, “any
peace treaty was a good thing” because it preserved Lenin’s regime and gave it
the opportunity to build up its forces, bide its time, and ultimately restore
much of the territory it had yielded.
Ukraine today, Pastukhov says, “is
experiencing the most difficult times.”
In many ways, however, these times are not much more difficult than
those Lenin faced at the start of Soviet times. He had to choose between
fighting on and losing or making a peace and trying to hold on to something on
which to build.
According to the St. Antony’s
scholar, as was true in 1918 for the Bolshevik state, so too now “war is death
for revolutionary Ukraine.” He says that
“everyone understands this but will not say so aloud.” It has “no army, no
resources, no state organization, not anything” needed to carry out a war.
Moreover, Pastukhov argues, “it is
perfectly obvious that the people does not want to fight.” But some Ukrainian leaders are talking about
war not because their country could win it but either because of emotional
feelings or because such a conflict represents the only possibility for one or
another of them to return to political power.
Yulia Timoshenko is one of these, he
says, and if she did not exist in Ukraine, “the Kremlin would have to invent
her” because she is contributing to what is for Moscow “the optimal political
reality: a situation of unending civil war which will not allow the government
to concentrate on overcoming the economic crisis and engaging in state
construction.”
“That does not
mean,” he hastens to add, that she is working for Moscow as “its agent.” Rather
it is that “objectively” she is making it easier for the Kremlin to achieve its
goal of transforming Ukraine into a burning buffer between Russia and the West.”
Moscow “least of all” today wants to
“’conquer’ Ukraine or unite it with Russia,” except for Crimea. All it needs is to create conditions under
which no one else will “’conquer’” that country.” Thus, Moscow’s policies: the introduction
of enough force to destabilize Ukraine but not enough to conquer it or provoke
a violent reaction.
Timoshenko supports the Ukrainian revolution,
Pastukhov says, but she clearly has not mastered “the Leninist lessons, the
most important of which is that it is necessary to defend the revolution at any price, even at the price” of such
a humiliating accord as a Brest-style peace lest the revolution be destroyed.
Trying to fight on was impossible
for the Bolsheviks in 1918 although it was emotionally important to many of
Lenin’s comrades, so important that they actively opposed his policy and almost
succeeded. Trying to fight on now is impossible for Ukraine on its own, however
emotionally satisfying it may be.
The goals Timoshenko has declared
cannot be achieved, Pastukhov says. “The maximum she can achieve by her
activity is the formation of non-governmental militarized formations consisting
of radical nationalists and sending them on targeted punitive operations
against the territories that are in revolt.”
“After that,” he continues, “Ukraine
will descend into a night of the long knives which will never end,” and “this,
of course, will create problems for Russia in the long-term ... but it will not
save Ukrainian statehood.”
Unfortunately, he continues,
Timoshenko is not alone either in Ukraine or in Russia where many liberals
would like Ukraine to act in ways that will lead to “the liberation of Russia
from dictatorship.” They too are calling
on Ukrainians to resist, something they themselves have proven incapable of
doing.
“In order to survive, Ukraine needs
peace on any conditions,” Pastukhov says. It will be under those now in place “an
unjust and humiliating” one dictated under the guns of others and involve “possibly
very significant territorial losses.”
But “the main thing is to preserve national statehood and lead the
country through default.”
“The best response of Ukraine” to the
Anschluss of Crimea, he suggests, should be “the restoration out of the ashes
of such a state that the residents of the peninsula ten years of now will seek
to get their Ukrainian passports back,” even if that Ukraine for some of the intervening
period is smaller in territory than it is today.
“Even the loss of the entire south
east would not be fatal if a nucleus around which this new statehood can be
built is preserved,” Pastukhov says. And if the Russian Federation does annex
them, it will quickly find that they are a burden and a problem rather than a
trophy and a triumph.
To that end, Kyiv should allow
referenda in these regions. If they vote for independence or to join the
Russian Federation, that will ultimately work out better for Ukraine than would
an attempt to hold them by force, Pastukhov says. It would be humiliating but it would not
extinguish the Ukrainian state.
Resisting could have the opposite effect.
“Today, Ukrainian statehood and the
Ukrainian revolution are in danger,” he says, and consequently Ukraine faces a
terrible choice, but one choice is ultimately less horrific than the other, and
unfortunately, there is no third one.
