The rugged road for Ukrainians since 1918

 

Chairrex

24 August 2018

 

It was learnt that Ukrainians, a branch of Eastern Slav people, chose their freedom a century ago (24 August 1918) – albeit chaotic and unstable, the nations is successful fairly in nation-building despite initial unstable governments, foreign interventions, the uprooting of the nation in 1920s by Red Army and subsequent starvations. The history was bloody and miserable.

 

In Victor Krachenko (1905 - 1966)’s memoir, Ukrainians were very happy when they gained independence from Russia Empire, as many of them, moderate or radical, fought for freedom since 1905, and dozens were sentenced by the Tsar for good. Deplorably, the new, weak authority emerged from the ruins was constantly intervened by powers such as Germans and Russians. The social conditions were deteriorating with factories closed and robberies prominent. Also, the brutal Lenin Regime was consolidating and won wars in Russia. After Lenin had consolidated, he ordered Red Army to invade Ukraine and succeeded. Yanks and Brits were too far away to rescue – the nation was dissolved and a “socialist republic” was formed under USSR. The remaining westerners survived relatively freely for 21 years (1918 – 1939) as second-class citizens in the Polish Republic, but the good old days also ended as Poland was annexed by USSR in 1939 after the notorious Hitler-Stalin pact.

 

The men, being historically Orthodox, lost their identity and suffered from tremendous famine from 1932 to 1933: Many poor countrymen died slowly in their house, only to be discovered weeks later by officials. They also lost their freedom in the Great Purges: many were arrested for “Counter-revolution” or “Ukrainian Nationalism” and were summarily executed by firing squads. In factories, the socialist new men gave orders to experts; despite experts have more professional knowledge – resulting in low efficiency. Even socialist new men were asked to reveal their past in show trials.

 

Neither Hitler nor Stalin recognized Ukrainians’ feeling: In 1941, when the German-Soviet war broke out, Stalin ordered NKVD to monitor the Ukrainians and arrested thousands secretly before and after German Army arrived. Hitler considered Ukraine as the Ostland of Aryan population, and ignored the potential of Ukrainians which could be mobilized otherwise – he considered Ukrainians “Slavs”, merely “better” than Jews. Ukraine had become an efficient meat mincer as she fell prey to superpowers.

 

Not until Khrushchev, an Ukrainian, introduced partial liberalization and relived some pressures from Ukrainians, as Crimea was incorporated into Ukraine Socialist Republic under USSR. The region was finally regained its freedom in 1990 thanks to Gorbachev. The nation was still divided: half of which was aligned to the West (NATO and EU), and the remainder was aligned to the East. Some still carried their Soviet passports. While democracy was practiced, which was much better than Belarus (The nation became independent rather passively without hostilities with Russians), the freedom was often threatened by foreigners and Far-right activists, who (although) opposed communist Russia, endorsed Nazism.

 

History is a valuable lesson. While independence may be appreciated, freedom is seldom guaranteed for nation-building process (the building of a big platform). Hostile environment often led to the demise of democracy and freedom. Poland is an example. It was democratic after it was created after 1918, the end of WWI. However, the West Slavic nation became an authoritarian regime from 1926, as the extreme nationalism thrived and the threats from Germany and USSR ballooned. In Eastern Poland, the race problem between Poles, Ukrainians, Romanians, Lithuanians, Jews and Russians were tense. Take Vietnam as another example. The so-called “Uncle Ho” (1890-1969) fought for Vietnam’s independence, but brutal policies were unfortunately inseparable parts of the nation-building. Finally the tyrant, Le Duan (1906-1986) seized the power and eliminated the less-well-developed (in terms of social structure), yet free South Vietnam. Bui Tin, a North Vietnamese general died recently, regretted about the dire situation after the “reunification”, defected to Paris in 1990. One of his earlier Viet Cong comrades defected 12 years earlier, amid Vietnamese-Chinese split, for his dual beliefs of Leninism and Freedom. Freedom House in the USA has observed that many African countries became dictatorships and remained poor after independent. Some leaders even practiced cannibalism. The inferior leaderships of such countries hindered their development.

 

May God bless the “European Breadbasket”, and may freedom stand at the Eurasian front.