Pavel Gubarev is a Russian citizen born in the Ukraine who is perhaps the person most responsible for the organization of the secession of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics from Ukraine. As is the case with many Russian patriots in the Ukraine, we writes a history of the Ukraine that reveals that New Russia was never part of Ukraine.
Gubarev writes about the “humiliation” suffered by Russians in the Ukraine at the hands of the “Kiev junta,” which is something most readers should be familiar with, and the suppression of the Russian language was the main part of this “humiliation” (p. 14):
“The Russian language was spoken by half the population of Ukraine, yet it was only given the status of a regional language. You have no idea how humiliating that was. State bilingualism had been supported even by the nationalist Chernovol. The result of the legislation required all official documents to be done in Ukrainian. It was the strongest element of national humiliation.”
The suppression of the Russian language was one of the primary motivating factors for secession. It might seem a trivial mater to start a civil war over, but the suppression of language is simply the capstone on the elimination of a culture. A people cannot survive if its own language cannot fully flourish. Let us take a look back at one of my earlier book reviews on Ukrainian Nationalism by Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson. He wrote:
“The “people” are not an abstraction: they are historically constituted by language and tradition, and this, in turn, derives from their topography and historical experiences”
“[T]he nation is that group of people who are united in a common language. However, a “language” is the same as a “constitution.” . . . A “language” is all forms of communication, which becomes a synonym for all social life, which implies communication.”
“A nation is a group of people united by socially significant markers, and an eternal threat to tyrants everywhere. Language, religion, basic morals, general political outlook and many other objects serve as markers that separate one nation from another.”
“The state, in these areas, does not create the nation, since nationalist writers and ideas were commonplace before the local state even developed in any modern sense. The ethnos comes first.
This means that the state is a late-comer that must do the bidding of those people who have suffered for its own independence – the narod in the true, non-western sense as a “people,” a community speaking the same language and acting in accordance with a basic moral consensus in a national religion. Without that, there is no community unless it is artificially created for and by the use of the elite.”
“They are a “people” only if they bear its marks: language, morals, religion, custom, experience shared over a long period of time. Without it, they are just a random assemblage of meaningless faces.”
Of course, Johnson is talking about Ukrainians, but if his theory is valid we can apply it to the Russians living in Ukraine as well. Some might argue that the “Russians” living in the Ukraine are not Russians at all—they have just been propagandized into believing it. This is the “magic dirt” theory of nationality and is obviously absurd, which we can demonstrate in a simple thought experiment. Instead of a Russian living within the borders of Ukraine, we can imagine a Mexican living in the souther reaches of Texas. This person speaks Spanish at home, like a Russian in Ukraine, but may speak English, even fluently, like a Russian in Ukraine. Like the Russian in Ukraine has a Ukrainian passport, the Mexican in Texas may have even been born in America and is a full citizen. But if they view themselves as Mexican, because their family are Mexican citizens and they live out primarily a Mexican life, then only a fool would declare that such a person had been propagandized into believing they were Mexican simply because all of the paperwork declared them to be American, just like Ukrainian paperwork declared the Russians in New Russia to be Ukrainian.
Now that we have a clear picture of nationality, the Gubarev will continue and explain why they decided to use force. We should keep in mind how seriously Russians take national humiliation, as this was also mentioned in Sergey Glazyev’s book The Last World War. The fact that Russia has been nationally humiliated over and over again since the end of the Cold War has built a great resentment in the Russia people toward the West, and they strive for national honor (p. 15):
“The campaign against the Russian language is the main reason that we rose up. Defend your Russianness like the Transnistrians who rebelled against forced Romanization in 1990! History has vindicated us. The Kulikovo Field Movement in Odessa decided to peacefully collect signatures of the autonomy of New Russia rather than rise and seize power through force. They were burned alive. In Zaporozhye, a pro-Russian rally was brutally suppressed. In Kharkov, Russian activists worked with the mayor Gennady Kernes. He quickly betrayed them, and the activists were sent to the dungeons of the SBU.”
As I noted in my reviews of 85 Days In Slavyansk and Nick Kollerstrom’s Ukraine: The Just War, there were protests against the Maydan coup in many parts of New Russia, and these were shut down by the authorities, resulting in brutal deaths and arrests in many cases. The people who were to become the People’s Militias in Donbass recognized the futility of peaceful protest and took up arms.
Gubarev believes that there are three branches of Russian people: (p. 17):
“We Russian patriots believe that the Russian people has three branches. The first are the Great Russians, the second the Little Russians, and the third the White Russians. We do not recognize the artificial division of our people that took place in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods of our history. The people of the Donbass and the entire northern Black Sea are almost identical to the Russians of the south.”
Gubarev also describes the effect of liberal market reforms (p. 18):
“The collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing “liberal market reforms” brought hell. The country was deindustrialized and impoverished for the benefit of a tiny collection of oligarchic clans. Those oligarchs created a monstrously unequal society and ruled over a destitute majority”
We should keep in mind here that there is clear distinction between the idea of the Soviet Union reforming or ending and the idea of the Soviet Union or Russia becoming a liberal or capitalist society. In order to reform, the Soviet Union did not have to embrace liberal Western capitalism. The consequences described by Gubarev were not some necessary evil in Russia’s transformation: they are a choice put upon Russia, whether you believe it from external forces or internal ones. There were a multitude of ways the Soviet Union could have reformed from a totalitarian state of despair to something more human without becoming just like the West.
The author quotes Vladimir Kornilov on Soviet nostalgia, who wrote—”Does anyone really think that a teacher from Zhmerinka who is trying to get a job as a plumber in Poland (whose teachers had left to work as plumbers in Britain) or a doctor from Debaltsevo working in war-torn Libya are only nostalgic for the USSR because of their joyful youth?”
One Soviet nostalgia, we should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was not one homogenous block; the government of the Russian S.S.R. was not the same as the demented regimes of East Germany and Romania, which were true horror societies.
The author goes through some statistics on what the WTO tried to implement in Ukraine, which were the typical “import at an advantage, export at a disadvantage” style regulations that destroy domestic economies.
In the West we talk a lot about “deindustrialization;” the author explains what that actually means (p. 24):
“Deindustrialization was the worst thing that happened to Ukraine. Why? Let me explain for those who do not understand. When factories and agricultural enterprises operated in Ukraine, they did not just provide food and goods. They provided a civilization. Hospitals and clinics, kindergartens and universities, sanatoriums and libraries, theaters and museums were all supported by the wealth that they created. It was the real sector of the economy that greedily demanded the specialists produced by the education system. It put those specialists to work and enriched the country, living cities and villages the funds for public utilities and transportation. Millions of gainfully employed people spent money not just on goods, but also recreation, travel, and entertainment. Small and medium sized businesses developed alongside large enterprises.
After the “reforms” of the pro-independence politicians and oligarchs severed ties with Russia, a huge part of the real sector of the economy died. The result was not merely unemployment and poverty, but also he end of civilization. Industry, science, education, and culture withered away like a plant ripped out of the soil. Municipal services deteriorated, and the medical system worsened. The treasury’s revenues declined and became appropriate for only a small republic, not one as large as Ukraine. Millions of people emigrated. Public debts became unsustainable.
What is the use of a market filled with foreign goods if the people have no money to buy them? Where can the people get money for foreign goods if there are no good jobs?”
Sound familiar? Lol. People in America have become “alienated” because they have become detached from the labor backbone of the society, which has been exported to foreign countries.
The author describes how the far-right Ukrainian nationalists had an ideological monopoly (p. 34):
“The worst problem was that there is virtually no other socio-political thought left in Ukraine that could offer an alternative to the Banderists. The supporters of the USSR are mostly old or dead. The humanitarians have few ideas outside of their narrow purview. The lack of protests against the war and mobilization showed not that there was no poplar discontent in Ukraine, but that there simply wasn’t an ideology that allowed for citizens to object to the war on any terms. Nature abhors a vacuum, and any substance, no matter its kind, will fill it. Thus in Ukraine, the rise of the Banderists was an inevitability. They alone had substance.”
The author describes his attitude toward Ukraine: (p. 34):
“To be honest, I did not and have not rejected Ukrainian culture. I love the Ukrainian language, songs, and traditions. T was political Ukrainism that I rejected. The essence of political Ukrainism is that Ukrainians are a thousand-year-old nation which has been fighting the hated Muscovites is entire history in a desparate struggle for independence.”
The author describes his ideology (p. 36):
“In truth, I am both a Red and a White. I combine the socialist idea with that of Russian civilization. I see prejudiced and narrow-minded Russian nationalism concerned with racial purity as a dead end. I hate those who want a diminished Russian state. The form of the Russian nation-state is an empire and a civilization. We Russians have a special mission. We hold back the great evils in the world. The fate of the world depends upon the strength and the health of Russia. If we are not strong, if we are unable or unwilling to hold back the forces of evil, then wickedness will reign untrammeled.”
Gubarev is not satisfied with what he views as a petty Russian destiny of simply being a national state of Russians, the remnants of the Russian S.S.R. on its own, detached from its satellites.
The author points out that although the western Ukrainians viewed the Russians of Donbass as dependents and a lower form of life, New Russia accounted for 75% of Ukraine’s GDP and the Donbass 25% of its exports.
The author describes how his lifestyle at university (p. 39):
“I have always lived in accordance with the ideal of a strong, imperial Russian man. I never smoked or used drugs, I combined my studies with physical exercise, and I developed myself spiritually.”
He describes how he and his pro-Russian classmates created the New Russia History Lovers Club and met in their dorm room for discussions. Their conversations honed their skills for debates with their pro-Ukrainian nationalist professors. Some of the people in this club would be the nucleus for Gubarev’s later revolutionary activities, in addition to his sparring partners from when did boxing.
Gubarev was persuaded to enter local politics. But the budgets allocated at district levels were a joke. Dissatisfied with the futility of politics, Gubarev entered business. In business, Gubarev created an advertising agency. He was a very successful entrepreneur and was shook down by the state mafia tax collectors, as were all businesses in Ukraine. His company successfully resisted the tax abuses and sued the government, winning a case against fines that other businesses normally paid. He did not bribe government officials either.
Naturally, the state mafia hated him. After he was married with children, Gubarev was trying to use the state services to get a house or apartment for his family, as was normally provided by the state; however, due to his anti-mafia-regime sentiment, the bureaucracy jerked him around to ensure that his family didn’t have adequate living conditions.
All of this was worse once Yanukovich became president. He describes how Yanukovich and the “Yanukovich clan” brought maximal mafia corruption to the federal level of the government.
Gubarev describes the vacuum of national ideology that he referenced earlier, and how the lack of ideology in the oligarchs left this space open (p. 50):
“The question of national ideology had been raised in Ukraine prior to 1991. There was only one candidate for it – Ukrainian integral nationalism. It was a purely Galician phenomenon, a product of the peasant agrarian system in some parts of western Ukraine. The ideology had several points. This first was that Ukrainians are a great European nation with a thousand-year history of struggle for independence from Moscow’s Asiatic yoke. The second is that Ukrainians are united with Europe by their European culture and a shared hatred against the Muscovites, Asiatics, and Soviet nostalgics. The third was that the struggle against the Muscovites, Asiatics, and Soviet nostalgics. The third was that the struggle against the Muscovites for reunification with Europe is unceasing and has entered a stage of armed struggle. The fourth is that Ukrainians must win the struggle to reunite with Europe to live happily forever after in European civilization.
There was no other ideology in post-Soviet Ukraine. When outside forces staged the “EuroMaydan” against the Donetsk criminals who had been in power, the Dnepropetrovsk oligarchic clan (Poroshenko, Kolomoysky, and others) had no alternative ideology than that Galician nationalism to justify their move for power. The elites of the Donbass and New Russia as a whole could not and did not seek to create a political ideology. The interests of the Ukrianian oligarchy (from Bogdan Hmelnitsky to Petro Poroshenko) coincide with the interests of the independentists and “clear-sighted” nationalists in their protection of Western capitalists and from Russian competition. he oligarchs have always been primarily concerned with closing the path into their class through wealth inequality, the suppression of economic opportunity, and the granting of elite privileges. Examples of the coincidence of interests are the nationalist battalions, which have evolved into mercenary armies used like chained-dogs by the oligarchs.
That is why the Galicians were the actual ideological and political elite (in the sense of bearing the national ideology) of Ukraine after 1991, regardless of who held the offices of president and prime minister. Politicians ruled the people, but the Galicians ruled their souls. The Yanukovich clan didn’t understand that. Their psychology was primitive. They believed that since they controlled the courts, the budgets, and political offices that they truly dominated Ukraine. They saw ideas as worthless, something that could be faked at the snap of a finger. They were never a political elite. The real elite, full of the passion and intelligence that the Party of Regions lacked, animated Maydan. The gangster government had strangled political life in the Donbass, and the Party of Regions had no substance behind it.”
This might remind us of how Bioleninism took over in America. The elites don’t have a particularly strong ideology other than maintaining their own power, and Americans in general don’t have particularly strong ideology either. The ideology of the right was typically “tax breaks.”
The author also describes the American geopolitical strategy, mainly what we call “NGOs,” from the perspective of a victim country, which ties into the strategies I reviewed in the last book, and it’s very interesting to learn about how the NGOs outcompete national interest (p. 52):
“I also remember how the West had been preparing for war for all of those years and how it became dominant in Ukrainian minds. The Kremlin likes to complain that it financed Ukraine’s independence o the tune of about $200 billion in gas subsidies. It obviously didn’t help. The West spent forty times less -about $5 billion, but achieved a great deal more.
The West invested its money skillfully, and in a targeted manner towards the most active people. By contrast, the Kremlin gave money to the corrupt, the stupid, and the bandits. More importantly, the West worked hard with its people, creating networks from them and supporting them. by the time that the second Maydan began, it had 150,000 “soldiers” at their disposal from non-profit organizations.”
What the author is describing is the basic model of a patronage network. In Ukraine the activists were of the far-right and in America they are the far-left. In both cases, the regime actually makes and fulfills a deal with them. The activists don’t work for free. They receive real, tangible support that elevates them. In the United States, it is almost impossible to find a right-wing patronage network. You certainly won’t find it in the Republican party.
“How did the West find those people? The Westerners first looked for people who were active without any funding, who worked on enthusiasm alone. They were people who wrote something or made something that was of value to the West. The West invested in them by giving them grants. Each time they were preparing to make a grant, they reviewed the applicant’s activity. How is the applicant’s activity developing? How do they intend to spread their ideas? If the applicant is continuing to be valuable, then the West gives them more money. In addition, they will send them to training camps in Europe and America. The West looked at and supported activists from across the political spectrum – from outspoken neo-Banderists to animal rights activists to sexual minorities. The Americans did not launch activities with money – they looked to see what was going on without them, and then expanded them with greater funding. They looked for sincere supporters – real Ukrainian nationalists and supporters of a Western-style democracy, then invested in them. The results were obvious.”
In America, the right is only just barely beginning to find those people who work “on enthusiasm alone” and start investing in them. People such as Auron MacIntyre being sponsored by Glenn Beck come to mind.
“What did Russia do? It was all about “money”. Some money was appropriated for events. Some was squandered by incompetents. Some money was simply stolen, with kickbacks being paid to the disbursement agent. By the time of the Kiev coup on 21 February 2014, there was almost no Russian influence in the Donbass. There was some influence in Crimea, but barely anything in Donetsk. The Russian government had no organization and knew few people. It was a major contrast to the Americans, who had a file-cabinet worth of connections. The difference in approaches was shown in time.
At Donetsk University 2000-2005 we made a club for New Russia history buffs. It was only a small circle in a sea of gloom. We didn’t get any grants from Russia, and no one scaled up our activities. Those who preached Ukrainian nationalism and demonized monstrous Muscovites and Asiatics by contrast did receive grants. Our opponents in the history department received invitations and tickets to symposiums and conferences abroad. Some went to Poland, the Baltic, and the United States. Their worldview was elevated to canon status by the power of the state and foreign grants. It became mainstream. Our views by contrast were considered to be wrong. My friends and I were marginalized.
Again, in America, the right is only just barely beginning to entertain the ideas of competitors to the left. Tucker Carlson and his production team come to mind, who filter many takes from the online right up to a mainstream level.
The power of the Ukrainian nationalists was a thousand times greater than ours and manifested itself at Maydan. It turned out that the flexible, clever, and predatory American system was more adept in the struggle for the hears and minds of Ukrainians than the slow moving and bureaucratic Russian system. One side had motivated, active, and well-funded fanatics. The other had nothing. Those few funded by Russia turned out to be grifted, and they instantly disappeared as soon as the enemy made himself known.
In America, the left is still at least a thousand times more powerful than the right, so while there are some promising developments, it’s only the very beginning of something remotely useful.
Even now, Russia isn’t ready for hybrid warfare. That kind of struggle is fought with information, charity, creativity, networked structures, and civic engagement. When Moscow can achieve with billions of dollars, the Americans can achieve with merely tens of millions. It is very disappointing that the Americans had fifteen projects in the Donbass while the Russian Federation didn’t even have one. USAID, the Adenauer Foundations, an anti-smoking project, and other Western foundations all worked to undermine pro-Russian sympathies in the Donbass, yet failed. The Americans had pawns in the game for the Donbass while Russia had queens.
Funded activists were bedazzled by the United States. They were enchanted with images of the beautiful Wet and the ideals of democracy. The Americans worked hard to indoctrinate them, and many became sincere believers. The Americans also got quality people – many were educated and successful with nice cars and nice apartments.
The enemy succeeded in one of the most important struggles – to be seen as fashionable, modern, and cool. Meanwhile, the idea of the Russian World was seen as archaic, Soviet, and outdated. Russia’s failure in culture cost it a great deal of Russian blood.
This is a point Curtis Yarvin makes frequently. Fortunately, the American left is so utterly dysgenic, there seems to be a phenomenon of it being more cool to adopt nominally right-wing behaviors among the youth. The dreaded but undeniably influential Andrew Tate comes to mind in this regard.
I knew all of this years before the war for New Russia began. When the lightning struck, when the thunder boomed, I was ready and made my move. Do you know who helped me? Who taught me how to see the world ad to understand its metamorphoses? Books. The wise works of long dead thinkers.”
The author closes the chapter with an astoundingly thoughtful intellectual history of his own mind, one that I found so compelling that it would be a disservice to summarize it. Just from reading this part of the book alone, I would strongly recommend BUY BOOK even thought I haven’t read any further yet.