Ukraine EU Protests

[The Intransigent Faction]

As many as 100,000 demonstrators chased away police to make way for a rally in the centre of Ukraine's capital on Sunday, defying a government ban on protests on Independence Square, in the biggest show of anger about the president's refusal to sign an agreement with the EU.
Chants of "revolution" resounded across a sea of EU and Ukrainian flags on the square. The crowd was by far the largest since the protests began more than a week ago.
Many of the demonstrators had travelled to Kiev from western Ukraine, where pro-EU sentiment is particularly strong.
"We are furious," said Mykola Sapronov, a 62-year-old retired businessman. "The leaders must resign. We want Europe and freedom."
Protests have been held daily in Kiev for more than a week after the president, Viktor Yanukovych, backed away from an agreement that would have established free trade and deepened political co-operation between Ukraine and the EU. He justified the decision by saying that Ukraine could not afford to break trade ties with Russia.
The EU agreement would have been signed on Friday; since then the protests have gained strength.
Sunday's demonstration was further fuelled by anger about the violent dispersal of several hundred protesters at Independence Square early on Saturday. Some of the protesters were bleeding from their heads and arms after riot police beat them with truncheons.
All police left the square as demonstrators approached on Sunday and removed metal barriers blocking it off.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...quare-eu-rally

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So, where exactly do leftist groups stand on this? Naturally we should oppose the banning and violent suppression of protests, but the EU and its 'free trade' is hardly a bastion of freedom. Where the heck could the left in Ukraine go from here?

[tuwix]

It's movement for money. It's obvious that EU will give to Ukraine more money because ithey are just richer than Russia. And leftists has nothing to do with it. Only we must protest against execssive police power usage. But only for that.

[piet11111]

I think the government did well to stay clear of the EU unless they want to surrender their economic sovereignty to Berlin and get hit with the austerity stick with the same exploding debt levels as all the other "success story's"

[Tim Cornelis]

Ukraine has one of the lowest public debts in Europe and its deficit gravitates around 3% (EU norm), nor is Ukraine in an economic crisis. I doubt that Brussels will impose austerity measures on it. I don't think (though I'm not certain) that austerity measures exist because of the EU, but are a product of neoliberalism.

And what does "economic sovereignty" mean? National economies are highly interdependent. Former president of the Dutch central bank Wim Duisenberg (before the EU's common monetary policy): "If the German Central Bank changes its interest rates I have fifteen minutes to follow. Those fifteen minutes, that is Dutch sovereignty." The very reason neoliberalism exists is because of interdependence of economies.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The concept of economic sovereignty for a country like Ukraine is pretty absurd I agree. They are either going to be controlled by the EU or by Russia. Given their history it's not hard to understand why people would choose the EU over Russia. I think all this will only result in the gas line being shut down again in order to make it clear that Ukraine or it's government doesn't really get a say in the matter though.

[Niccolo]

I don't think (though I'm not certain) that austerity measures exist because of the EU, but are a product of neoliberalism.

I think this is a good point. Neoliberalism is not discussed as much as it should be, for it should be popping up in every discussion like this. Such is the nature of finance capital, that supranational unions are merely pawns for the bastions of neoliberalism (just read the bolded bits)

The financial and economic crisis that began in 2007 has been a forceful reminder that free markets come with violent boom-bust cycles. By historical standards, government intervention has been relatively quick and extensive. This may suggest that neoliberalism has been abandoned. Such a conclusion interprets neoliberalism essentially as a laissez-faire program, a political project, which wants to do away with state regulation and state intervention. While this is certainly a tempting interpretation, and indeed warranted by some of the neoliberal rethoric, there are other interpretations as well. Harvey highlights a tension in neoliberalism: "We can (…) interpret neoliberalization either as a utopian project to realize a theoretical design for the reorganization of international capitalism or as a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites" (Harvey 203, 19). Indeed, neoliberalism [as] a project to restore class power is a hallmark of the Marxist interpretation of neoliberalism (e.g. Duménil und Lévy 2001, 2004). In this approach the anti-etatism of neoliberalism is instrumentalist, but not essential. It will be pursued when conducive to profitability, but not as an end in itself.

Already in the late 1970s Michel Foucault (2007) had suggested a third interpretation of neoliberalism, which we might call neoliberalism as form of governance by competitive subjectification. Based on a careful reading of the German ordo-liberal school and the US American Chicago School Foucault argues that neoliberalism differs radically from classical liberalism in that it does not aim at liberating markets, but at creating markets and subordinating government activity under this goal. Markets don’t create themselves, if left on their own, but have to be constructed and maintained. Contrary to classical liberalism neoliberalism thus requires permanent and profound state intervention. Stockhammer and Ramskogler (2009) reach a similar conclusion based on an analysis of recent economic policy and (‘New Keynesian’ and Neo-Institutionalist) developments in mainstream economics and call these developments ‘enlightened neoliberalism’. The title of the 2002 World Development report encapsulates this approach: Creating Institutions for Markets. As in the Marxist interpretation, state interventions do not constitute a break with neoliberalism.

Our approach in the following is cast in a regulationist framework and adopts a pragmatic concept of neoliberalism that points out that it came with changes in income distribution and a deregulation of the financial sector. This is hardly a deep analysis of neoliberalism, but it suffices the purpose of this paper, namely to highlight that several constituent components of neoliberalism are closely involved in the mechanisms generating the crisis.

The next quote is also telling, in neoliberalism's logic of austerity:

One might have thought that the economic limitation of the political would produce a space exterior to sovereignty, limiting its reach. There would be an economic domain of purely economic subjects, subjects whose relations could be described entirely in terms of competition. But this is not what happens. There remains a compulsion to governmentalize these subjects, to ensure that they are not outside power. That the limiting of government is not a limiting of its reach but a change in its logic tells us we are dealing with an economy of drive: the inhibition of sovereign reason that posits a limit to what it can know pushes it into a loop; it turns it around so that its aims can be achieved through other means. [...]

In each instance neoliberalism arises out of a critique of excessive governance (2008: 322), as a response to a mode of government that is erring on the side of too much and hence endangering freedom. The interesting twist is that where one would expect such a critique to urge the state to take its hands off the economy, it does something else instead: it subjects the state to the economy.

So we see, that the neoliberals tell us that capitalists ought to more fully own the state and reconfigure it so that it more efficiently serves their interests, and that it should use its ability to project legitimised force (they'll never say the word 'force' though, they'll just leave it to us to try and figure out), to more aggressively break down any barriers to fast profit-making that they can see in society. The consequence being that the social fabric becomes completely shredded, and then they pretend that they are surprised, all the time. But how can they be surprised, liberal-capitalism has always required the use of the state to pave the way for its advance by force, and it has always lead to chaos and suffering for a significant number of people.

And then, in the social chaos, a struggle begins to emerge:

A crisis occurs, sometimes lasting for decades. This exceptional duration means that incurable structural contradictions have revealed themselves (reached maturity) and that, despite this, the political forces which are struggling to conserve and defend the existing structure itself are making every effort to cure them, within certain limits, and to overcome them. These incessant and persistent efforts ... form the terrain of the 'conjunctural' and it is upon this terrain that the forces of opposition organise.

[Communist-USSR]

Ukraine is mostly divided between the pro-EU west and the pro-Russia east.

[Communist-USSR]

A picture of the "peaceful" protesters:

[piet11111]

One of the things they would have to surrender is their tariffs system opening the internal market entirely to european competitors.

And since their own company's are nowhere near as competitive this would result in large job-losses.

Then there is the threatened end of gas supplies and the end of the arms manufacturing agreement with Russia also going to cost them thousands of jobs and a lot of money.

[Queen Mab]

Apparently the protesters tried to topple a statue of Lenin, so fuck them.

Don't care otherwise.

[Igor]

Apparently the protesters tried to topple a statue of Lenin, so fuck them.

Don't care otherwise.

oh no not the statue of lenin

[Igor]

damn

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Those poor pigs :-(

[Rss]

To me it seems that there are mainly two sides in this conflict; running dogs of EU (protestors) and running dogs of Russia (da gubmint).

Protests are seemingly backed by bourgeois liberalist parties All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" and UDAR plus nationalist Svoboda.

On the other hand, we have this kind of people on other side;

On the 26th, another anti-Maidan protest was organized in Donetsk, attracting only 30 student protesters. Organizers stated that the European Union had ruined the economies of new members, and that joining would bring corruption and gay marriage.[120] The protest was counter to the pro-EU EuroMaidan protest 200 meters away, which attracted no more than 50 protesters. On the 27th, a small anti-Maidan rally was held by the Russian Bloc and Communists in Mykolaiv.[222]

Later, Communist Party MP Antonina Khromova made statements at the Donetsk regional council, approving the use of force to remove protesters in Kiev, which was met with applause. She continued by saying that Ukraine does not need European values, namely, "same-sex marriage" and "African pan handlers".[225]

So yeah, pick your poison.

[Per Levy]

A picture of the "peaceful" protesters

i dont see the problem really, protestors fighting the oppressive forces of a capitalist state. that the protestors are pro-eu is actually a win/win imo, 2 parts of the bourgeoisie beating each other up over the question under wich sphere of infulence the ukraine should be, the eu sphere or the russian sphere.

except of course you think russian capitalism/imperialism is good and worthy of support i dont see why you care about peaceful or nonpeacful protests.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Hmm I just dont know, I'd still like to get the Lenin statue to weigh in on this before I choose my side.

[Per Levy]

Later, Communist Party MP Antonina Khromova made statements at the Donetsk regional council, approving the use of force to remove protesters in Kiev, which was met with applause. She continued by saying that Ukraine does not need European values, namely, "same-sex marriage" and "African pan handlers".[225]

holy shit, applauding a capitalist state, being homophobic and racist. great communists there. reading stuff like that makes me feel bad calling myself a communist. fuck them, let them go down with their capitalist masters.

[Q]

So, where exactly do leftist groups stand on this? Naturally we should oppose the banning and violent suppression of protests, but the EU and its 'free trade' is hardly a bastion of freedom. Where the heck could the left in Ukraine go from here?

I think the left is missing the point with framing it like "pro-EU" versus "anti-EU". The question we ought to be asking is "is the European working class stronger in a united or divided manner?" and asking the question is answering it.

So, instead of being anti-EU (and therefore be pro-nationalist or pro-some-other-imperialist-bloc like Russia) the left should be putting forward the question of democracy on a continental level. We shouldn't be saying "less Brussels", but "ok, we want more unity, but we want a Europe of the common people, a Europe of the majority, we want a European Democratic Republic". This in turn would immensely strengthen our class against capital and, for that reason, the bourgeoisie will oppose full unification in this manner.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Apparently the protesters tried to topple a statue of Lenin, so fuck them.

Don't care otherwise.

Gee why would people protesting Russia's influence what to topple what unfortunately has become a symbol of Russia? They must really hate the arguments in "State and Revolution".

Seriously though, the OP's question is a good one and I'd like to know more about this. In a very superficial way (I've only read about thin in the US or UK mainstream press so far) it does seem like it's people lining up behind their lesser evil power of choice (Russia or the EU)... not much obvious working class politics at play. But I also don't know enough (or anything really) about politics in the Ukraine to say if there's any dynamic involved where workers alternatives to being subordinate to one power or another might be organized or agitated - or how the economic angst is viewd among working people.

[Ele'ill]

here are some more photos

and the bulldozer clip

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i think an extended video of the confrontations with peace police folks getting stuck in the middle

+ YouTube Video