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.