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De-Nazification and De-Communisation Were and Are Essential to Building Democratic and European Germany and Ukraine

Jun 19, 2018 | Opinion, Featured

Taras Kuzio for NP-UN.

On 24-25 May, the University of Manchester held the “UA-EU: Quo Vadis?” workshop organised by Dr. Olha Onuch which I was invited to be a speaker in. The workshop provided an opportunity for leading experts on EU-Ukraine relations to share their perspectives through presentations and intense discussions about current and future relations. The two-day workshop was ended with an annual Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence lecture by Serhiy Leshchenko, an MP and dissident within the Petro Poroshenko bloc MP and a well-known investigative journalist from Ukrayinska Pravda.

Leshchenko barely mentioned Russia except on one occasion to complain about Russian interference through hacking and cyber warfare in Ukraine’s elections. Leshchenko believes that Poroshenko is beating the patriotic and nationalist drum to win votes as he cannot appeal to liberal and reformist voters.

During the questions and answers, I asked Leshchenko why he had not mentioned the four de-communisation laws as one of the successful reforms. He replied that de-communisation was not a “reform but a distraction.” This is not true as it had always been one of the many reforms promoted by NGO’s united in the Reanimation Package. Andriy Kohut (head of former Soviet Archives) and Volodymyr Viatrovych (head of the Institute of National Memory) are both long-term civil society activists from “Black” Pora and similar NGO’s.

Leshchenko’s reply to my question gave away much of his ideological position as ambivalent and indifferent to, rather than being opposed to, Ukrainian nation-building because they do not understand why it should be important. Leshchenko stressed on more than one occasion that Ukrainians had high respect for the Russian people and many were “loyal” to the Russian people and Russian culture. Respect is always a two-way street and I do not see much Russian respect for Ukrainian language and culture even from the so-called democratic opposition the majority of who support the annexation of the Crimea.

Leshchenko called for a “moratorium” on nation-building policies such as language, monuments, changing of names of streets and towns and similar areas because they were allegedly a “distraction” from pursuing more important reforms. But, they are not a distraction, they are one of the key elements in transforming the Soviet mindsets and Soviet political culture of Ukrainians that are crucial for Ukrainians to become democratic Europeans.

Leshchenko’s disinterest in the national question shows his lack of understanding of the importance of de-Sovietisation. In 2001, I published an academic article entitled “The Quadruple Transition” where I argued that the former Soviet states, such as Ukraine, were post-colonial and were therefore undergoing different and more fundamental transformations to eastern and southern Europe.

De-Sovietisation and de-communisation is central to the success of Ukraine’s reforms and European integration in the same manner as de-Nazification was central to Germany’s democratisation after 1945. A very good example of this is the 2014 film Labyrinth of Lies (German: Im Labyrinth des Schweigens) which shows how public education about Nazi crimes was also resisted in 1950s Western Germany (as de-communisation is resisted in Ukraine). The film shows how de-Nazification, with the first investigations and trials of concentration camp guards only in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was essential to the founding of the modern, democratic Germany which is at the centre of Europe. Such a thorough de-Nazification did not take place in Italy and Austria and as a consequence the extreme right is far more popular there.

The importance of de-Sovietisation and de-communisation in Ukraine is central to assisting in the creation of a democratic and European country. The four de-communisation laws have integrated Ukrainians into the European understandings of World War II as taking place from 1939-1945 (not from 1941-1945 as the “Great Patriotic War”).

There was nothing in the de-communisation laws that Leshchenko felt could be praised – even after I asked him about archives which provide the freest access to Soviet archives of any post-communist state. Thousands of Ukrainians have accessed these archives to find information about murdered members of their families and hundreds of Western academics have researched in them and some have already published books based on them.

Instead, he described the de-communisation laws as a “populist” step to boost Poroshenko’s popularity among patriots and nationalists and basically dismissed the laws as “Poroshenko political technology.” Leshchenko on a number of occasions compared Poroshenko’s strategy of appealing to voters to that of Viktor Yanukovych who (with the advice of US consultant Paul Manafort) mobilised around divisive issues of language, Eurasia versus Europe and against NATO.

Leshchenko’s ambivalence on nation-building policies and lack of understanding of the linkage between de-communisation and de-Sovietisation and democratisation and European integration is not unusual. British European liberals never understood the Irish or others whose languages and cultures were under threat.

Just as the de-Nazification was central to the creation of a democratic Germany anchored in Europe so too are de-communisation and de-Sovietisation essential to the formation of a democratic and European Ukraine.

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