The time of displacement
We left with mom for three months, or maybe a month. We did not take our things because we thought it’s just, well, a small mess, something that will pass soon. We could not wrap our minds around the idea that something like this could happen in a civilised country. If we are already going […]
Zelensky team’s passing chance to end the war in Donbas
After the election of the sixth President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “window of opportunity” opened for speeding up the peace process in the East of the country. Zelensky often called himself “the president of peace”, promised to end the conflict in Donbas during his tenure, and emphasized the need for dialogue with all parties. […]
Squeezed between Iran and the US: the future of the protests in the Middle East
The US and Iran teetered on the brink of war as Iranian missiles hit the American bases in Iraq in response to the killing of the Quds Corps commander Qasem Soleimani. In this interview, Marxist scholar Jakob Rigi discusses these events in the context of the Iranian domestic politics and the social tensions in the […]
Organising for peace in Ukraine: an interview with Nina Potarska
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 […]
Totalitarian tendencies in post-Maidan Ukraine
Volodymyr Chemerys Under Ukraine’s pre-Maidan criminal regime, any pressure on journalists used to provoke a wave of indignation. This indignation, which came from journalists, human rights defenders and civic activists themselves, even became a precursor to the first Maidan in independent Ukraine — the protests under the banner of “Ukraine without Kuchma”. Information about temnyky, […]
The causes of Ukrainian crisis
On March 11th 2023 our friend and comrade of Commons, known political economist, political scientist, labour movement historian and an activist of left-wing movements and solidarity with Ukraine, Marko Bojcun, passed away. He played an important role in keeping the flame of the Ukrainian left alive and in giving it, through emigrants and dissidents, to […]
Nuclear war: more real than it seems
Recently, the American magazine “Vox” has published a lengthy article about the military conflict possible scenarios between the US and Russia. Interviewing a number of both Russian and Western military experts, the publication came up to a very disappointing conclusion – the conflict node will keep on lasting, which means that at some point the […]
Ukraine’s Fractures
First published in: Ukraine’s Fractures. An interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko. In: New Left Review 87, May-June 2014 Since the start of the Maidan protests six months ago, Ukraine has been at the centre of a crisis which has exposed and deepened the fault-lines—geopolitical, historical, linguistic, cultural—that traverse the country. These divisions have grown through the […]
BON TON У СПЕКОТНОМУ КЛІМАТІ
Переклала Галина Герасим Пан Вольду — загублена людина. Він чотири рази тікав із Конго, а потім вертався. «Чому пан так боїться?» — спитав я. Стенає плечима, наче не знає. Але він знає, і я знаю. Масове переселення набрало розмаху в липні, першому місяці незалежності Конго. В аеропортах був страшний тлум. У газетах — багато фотографій […]
Three Sources of Ukraine’s “Freedom”: Nationalism, Xenophobia and the “Social Issue”
Vitaly Atanasov In the last three years, the popularity of Ukraine’s right-wing party Svoboda (Freedom) has seen an eightfold increase. At the moment, the party is supported by 6% of the country’s population, though it seems unlikely that anything might prevent the party overcoming the 3% level in the parliamentary election next year. Until 2004, […]
