By Dmitriy Kolisnichenko, translated and published in Novorossiya Today, April 8, 2015 (translation slightly edited by New Cold War.org)
Further below: Statement by the Borotba left organization in Ukraine
The draft law that the Ukrainian government has introduced in regard to the ban of Nazi and communist ideologies, which is to be steamrolled by the time of Victory Day on May 8, will entail much graver consequences than it may seem. Certainly, following the adoption by the Ministry of the Interior of the policy of non-reacting to the process of toppling the monuments to Lenin and other symbols of the Soviet epoch and the statement made by PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who claimed that the USSR attacked Germany during WW2, this initiative was highly expected. A similar bill had already been submitted by Svoboda Party (which failed to get elected to the present-day Rada) a few weeks before the start of Euromaidan rallies in 2013. In the fervor of the revolution this initiative was not even put on the agenda by the MPs. As far as the new MPs are concerned, they will most definitely not hesitate to vote in favour of this bill almost unanimously.
Anti-Soviet propaganda in Ukraine, where the heroization of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Hitler’s collaborationist) was only one of the manipulative technologies, did not start a year ago but had been purposefully carried out in the entire period of independence. The information policy that was forced upon the society pursued at least two goals: one, elimination of the clear-cut understanding by the masses that the oligarchic strata must be exterminated as a class (even the Communist Party of Ukraine forgot about this vital necessity); and two, implementation of the principle “freedom instead of bread”, when low living standards were presented as the inevitable payment for the civil rights, the defense of which the state was imitating.
In the course of the last year, many changes have taken place in Ukraine. Anti-Soviet sentiments mutated and adopted not only anti-Russian but openly Russophobic characteristics. The trade-off of the concepts was triggered by the burning alive of the people with St George ribbons in Odessa on May 2. After that, the avalanche of non-tolerance became unstoppable…
As far as the international experience of the ban on communist ideology to which Kiev is trying to appeal is concerned, it is largely absent. Only Poland, Georgia and the Baltic States possess a similar measure. Only the meaningless resolution, refuting “communist regimes”, which had been adopted by PACE in 2006 can be referred to as and “international record”. Sure, communist ideology is not the most popular one in the West at the moment (although the growth of leftist sentiments is obvious in the EU as well as in the U.S.). Nevertheless, even in the West, in spite of the dictatorship of capital, the governments did not dare to violate the right of their citizens to freedom of ideology (which is still fixed by the Constitution of Ukraine, by the way…)
Whereas equaling of Nazism and communism contradicts not only common sense but also international law as a revisionist provocation aimed at negating the final results of WWII and the Nuremberg Trial.
And the hell of it is not only the fact that the bill will be a slap in the face to the mass of Ukrainians, first of all, the elderly, who are already used to being humiliated. The bill will also provide the authorities with an instrument to launch a McCarthy-style campaign of open witch-hunt of dissenters. And not only in the political segment but also in the social one, when all kinds of rhetoric will be labeled as “communist” if it is aimed against the further cementing of the new feudal formation in the territory of Ukraine.
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Borotba responds to ban: ‘We will promote communist ideology in Ukraine with a vengeance’
Statement by the Borotba left organization in Ukraine, April 9, 2015
In Ukraine, a law was adopted today prohibiting “propaganda of Communist ideology.” The criminal code carries a punishment from 5 to 10 years in prison, and the possible confiscation of property.
Today’s decision by the Verkhovna Rada to ban communist ideology is the same logical and inevitable result of the victory of Euromaidan as the civil war, draconian tariff increases, and elimination of social benefits along with the remnants of free education and health care.
Anti-communism was proclaimed one of the three components of the ideology of this movement of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, along with aggressive nationalism and neoliberal market fundamentalism.
The Ukrainian junta only implements what it promised a year ago on the Maidan, where anti-communism and demands to punish the left were not only the norm, but rather a dress code. It went unnoticed only by those who did not want to see reality because of political myopia, cowardice, conformism, or opportunism for short-term gain.
Naturally, with the most consistent, ambitious and tough anti-social policies in the history of Ukraine, the far-right regime is trying to protect itself from the sole ideology that can objectively lead the resistance to its dictates, through political repression and censorship.
Therefore, our task is to promote communist ideology in Ukraine with a vengeance. Union Borotba (Struggle) will only intensify our work protecting the interests of all working people!
Translation by Greg Butterfiled
