Murky future. What would Putin do in case of his military defeat?
The tenth of March, at 5 a.m. marked exactly two weeks since the start of a full-fledged Russian invasion of Ukraine, shamelessly dubbed a “special operation” by the Kremlin. The war continues right at this moment with countless civilian deaths in Kharkiv, Mariupol, Izium, and other Ukrainian cities, and with Russian tanks burning at the […]
To Help Ukraine, Cancel Its Foreign Debt
In recent days, numerous governments have announced financial as well as military support for Ukraine, as it faces a devastating Russian invasion and an exodus of refugees already counting well over 1.5 million. Such reliance on outside help is not new. Since the 1990s Ukraine’s economy has lagged badly behind other former Eastern bloc countries, […]
Notes from Lviv in times of war
I am writing this text on the night of 7-8 March in Lviv. This is the fourth year of my living in Lviv, and I met the war here. It seems that my whole life has passed since my mother's morning call. She told me that “we are being bombed.” My life and the lives […]
We need an international campaign for UN peacekeepers to enter Ukraine
In the future, historians will write books about what really happened during the current escalation. The archives will open, sources will talk. And the books will address what was discussed at diplomatic negotiations, what the Kremlin actually wanted as it made its unfulfillable demands, and why sources in the Western media ramped up the threat […]
Moscow and Washington should not determine Ukraine’s future
When the U.S. media began writing again in the fall of 2021 about the threat of a Russian invasion in Ukraine, the first reaction of many Ukrainians was a surprise. Until mid-December, it seemed that the Western media paid more attention to the issue and took it more seriously than the Ukrainian ones. Especially since […]
The Marxist-Humanism of Raya Dunayevskaya
The overblown expectations of many pundits in the 1990s that the collapse of the “communist” regimes heralded a “neoliberal era” defined by unincumbered free markets, continuous economic growth, and expansive political liberty has clearly proven hollow. The economic, racial, and gendered inequities that have historically characterized capitalism has only become exacerbated in recent decades, as […]
Armed Blackmail Will Never Bring Peace to Eastern Ukraine
Last month, Russia began to amass troops close to its border with Ukraine. Kremlin top brass’s media interventions seeking to explain the buildup of around one hundred thousand troops were ambiguous: from reassurances that these were simple military exercises to effective threats of a full-fledged war if Ukraine should join NATO. The demonstrative character of these actions […]
Ilya Budraitskis: Left-Wing Dissidents Were the Link between the Pre-Soviet Socialist Tradition and the Post-Soviet One
A few years ago, your collection of essays Dissidenty sredi dissidentov (Dissidents among dissidents) was published. The central issue in it was the history of left-wing dissidents in the USSR. The book will be published by Verso in 2022. How did you become interested in this topic? I found this topic interesting back at the […]
Why is the world divided into poor and rich countries?
This essay will explain why it is that despite historically unprecedented globalization of free trade, the rich countries remain rich, while the poor countries remain poor. Beginning here, and more closely in future article,we will use a theoretical perspective derived from the work of the Marxist economist Arghiri Emmanuel to analyze the history and present […]
Between Drahomanov and Marx: The Political Life of Lesya Ukrainka
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, socialist views were more the norm than the exception among the younger generation of Ukrainian cultural and political figures. Many Ukrainian activists of the first half of the 20th century gained their first experiences in political participation, journalistic writing, and encounters with police repression within the […]
