Amanda Taub, VOX: The real roots of the war in eastern Ukraine
We tend to talk about the conflict in eastern Ukraine as a tale of Russian aggression. That's not inaccurate — but it isn't the full story, either.
It's true Russia took advantage of Ukraine's weakness after massive protests forced former President Viktor Yanukovych out of office a year ago, first by invading and occupying Crimea, and then by backing a violent separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. Putin's aggression helped spark the war, and it has helped prolong it.
But as this video explains, Ukraine was already deeply divided long before the current conflict broke out in the country's east. Those divisions laid the groundwork for the war and have fueled it ever since. It's those divisions that lie at the root of the separatist conflict, and they mean that any solution to the war will need to be political as well as military.
WNU Editor: A few errors in the above video .... namely .... the Russian speaking populations in eastern Ukraine have been there for almost 1,000 years .... they were not resettled in the past hundred or few hundred years. Stalin's orchestrated Ukraine famine targeted everyone .... the Communists did not care if you were Ukrainian or Russian. Otherwise .... the above video gives a good summary on what divides in Ukraine .... namely that it involves more than just interference from Moscow, and that to achieve a lasting peace the leaders of Ukraine will need to address Ukraine's deep linguistic and cultural differences.
4 comments:
WNU Editor,
Actually, the "starvation program" targetted the collectives, the kulacks, and the rentier farmer,
Factory workers, bureacrats and professionals in the cities, did just fine. At the time, most of the developed cities were in Eastern Galacia, so sadly, the Ukranian Nationalist tended to fare better, than the Russian serf.
Sorry Jay .... my father if he was alive today would disagree with you. He and my grandparents lived south of Kiev in a suburb that had about 200,000 people .... everyone suffered with the exception of those who were in senior positions of the Communist Party (that is how my family survived). Western Ukraine did fare better .... but only a little bit. As for the cities .... they were also not immune to famine.
There is still much of the Ukraine famine that has not been published or discussed .... and a lot of it still brings controversy and pain.
Case in point .... my father's memories and the memories of my other relatives .... memories and recollections that have been drilled into my head over the years. Neighbors coming to my grandmother and asking her if they could take the potato peels for their own supper. A family across the street that decided in the middle of winter to commit suicide by burning down their house. Why rabbit meat became more valuable than gold. Communist officers looking for buried grain sacks. Jay .... the stories that were told to me over the years .... I can fill a book.
But I am going to leave the best for last. Another memory that my father had .... and the one that probably scarred him the most .... was the image of well fed Jews at the local synagogue during the height of the famine. Jews and the Communist Party in the former Soviet Union have a long history .... and even though they were Communists ..... they still took care of their cultural/religious community. To my father .... he believes that this is one of the main reasons why so many Ukrainians volunteered to join the Nazis, and why many of them were prison guards at the camps .... they were motivated by revenge. They saw what my father saw .... but they condemned all Jews ... and acted on that hate. Fortunately .... my father never bought into that hate .... to him the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators were far worse than the Communists .... and he also knew that even though many Communists were Jews .... many Jews were not Communists. But my father's opinion was not shared by many .... and it is a legacy that unfortunately still exists in many parts of Ukraine and elsewhere in eastern Europe.
WNU Editor,
Misha Genny, in his History, The Bloodlands, documents the ration card system.
Comiterm Members got 2800 calories per person, which is just enough, corruption adds the perks,
Factory, Rail, Coal Workers, Academics and Civil Servants got 2,000,
Kulacks and And independent Farmers(serfs), got none.
Collective farms got 1400 calories, based on production, but 1400 calories meant, you had to eat the seed, during the winter.
Lose your ration card, you die. Move to the cities where the food was, with out the right ration card you die.
It was an unnessicary and brutal system, dominated by corruption and mismanagement, but far more ethic Russians died.
And then, the NKVD swept the countryside, with summary executions, and in the cities, if you didn't have the right papers,........
This reminds me of my "ration card" and "residency cards" in the early 1980s.
I had a ration card to pick up certain stuff at certain prices .... but guess what .... usually after standing in line for an hour (or more) .... I only got a portion of what I could get, or none at all. And I hated that residency card .... it always reminded me of South Africa's apartheid laws and who can live in a certain place or not.
For the Ukrainians in the 1932-33 famine .... I am sure that all of them had ration cards .... but the stores were empty. Darn .... this is a question that I would have loved to have asked my father today .... sighhh ....
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