Ukraine's World Historical Revolution
Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity has been characterized as "the first postmodern revolution," but its fight against Russia is the latest anti-imperial crusade.
Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity has been characterized by Ukrainian sociologist Mychailo Wynnyckyj as “the first postmodern revolution,” which was initiated by Kyiv’s “creative class.” However, Ukraine’s recent war with Russia, which seeks to fend off an imperial invader, might just as well be characterized as the last anti-imperial struggle. The assertions come with qualifications, but they highlight something extraordinary that has been happening in Ukraine, beyond the clash of civilizations, which has helped bring it to the attention of the world.
Following a string of failed democratic transitions, in an era that has seen rising authoritarianism in every major region of the world, Ukraine has come to carry the banner of democratization. It is not simply one of the few states in the world that has been making significant strides in their efforts at democratization. It is also larger than most other democratizing states, and it is more strategically located. Ukraine is also located at the heart of the “Russian sphere of influence,” and Putin may have actively sought to undermine more democracies than any leader in the history of the world, if only because democracy is more prevalent today than in any other historical period.
In this way, Ukraine has led the way in democratizing postmodernity by defining itself against a traditionalist and authoritarian Russia; and since Russia has come to constitute such a threat to democracy, Ukraine now occupies the literal front lines in the fight against globalized fascism. The spirited violence with which Ukrainians are fending off the Russian invasion of their state only highlights the drama. Other peoples may remain colonized, and other states may be democratizing, but Ukraine is galvanizing the world against imperial authoritarianism by fighting back and winning.
The legendary anthropologist David Graeber observes that societies often define themselves against one another through a process called schismogenesis. It is similar to what Freud labelled “the narcissism of petty differences,” wherein people who are alike tend to stress their differences. Yet, schismogenesis is a deeper process of collective individuation wherein peoples differentiate themselves from their neighbors. Sometimes it results from generations of warfare, as in the case of India and Pakistan. Sometimes it is about maintaining cultural traditions and practices, which are threatened by those of powerful neighbors, as in the case of France. Sometimes it is about asserting a collective identity against an invader who is trying to erase it, as in the case of Palestinians. And sometimes it is about asserting a developmental divide.
Hence, we see in Ukraine the paradox of a formerly colonized people asserting its more developed collective identity against that of a socially regressive Russia. Marcel Van Herpen observes in his book Putin’s War’s that the Russian Empire has long been distinct from other European empires in that its imperial center has tended to be less educated and economically developed than the peripheral peoples it ruled. The British and French were better educated and more economically developed than, say, Indians and Algerians, for instance. Yet, Soviet Russians were less educated and economically developed than, say, Hungarians, Georgians, Latvians, and Poles.
In this way, Russia could not justify its conquest by reference to the “higher development” it was spreading but rather tended to fall back on protecting a wider Slavic identity. So, from the mid-nineteenth century on, Russians leaders began concocting excuses for their imperialism in the protection of Russian speakers. It is similar to the process at work Georgia, Moldavia, and Ukraine today. Yet, this has added racism to its imperialism, and it has left Russia a socially regressive ethnonationalist state. Perhaps all imperialism is socially regressive in that it leads capable societies into barbarism, but Russia’s regressiveness stands out in that it starts with barbarism and only gets worse.
Russia is wealthier than Ukraine as a result of its oil bonanza, but Ukraine possesses one of the highest literacy rates in the world, and it is generally better educated. It holds reasonably free and fair elections and is vastly more democratic. It has a well developed civil society and is generally more free and open. And its surplus of programmers and web designers make its economy more post-industrial—especially after the recent exodus of Russia’s own creative class. However, Ukrainian democracy, along with the nation itself, remains in the early stages, with plenty of corruption left to clean up, and political parties and their platforms still relatively undeveloped. So, while hailing their significance, we should not exaggerate the success of Ukraine’s democratic institutions.
Yet, Ukraine is vastly more politically developed than Russia and is therefore able to carry out an anti-colonial struggle while distinguishing itself from its colonizer through its own postmodern democratic development. And it is here where Wynnyckyj’s insight about Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity being postmodern becomes most salient. Ukraine may be a relatively poor state, which has served as a brutalized buffer between great powers, but it is also leading the world in democratization and the fight against globalized fascism.
Ukraine sits at the periphery of Europe, and it was pretty much ignored on the global stage until Russia invaded the Crimea and Donbass in 2014. Still, as the early twentieth century world historian Arnold Toynbee observed, peripheral regions like Mecca and the United States, and he might have added Tunisia if he had lived long enough to see it, are often the most politically innovative—and they often lead the world. In this way, it is no accident that a former comedian, representing Kyiv’s "creative class,” is now being treated as the leader of the free world in presentations to parliaments the world over.
The country he leads may be a work in progress, but wasn’t it America’s first black president who reminded us that democracy is always a work in progress—and his predecessor who reminded us of its ever present potential to regress into authoritarianism. With rightwing nationalists and fascists remaining a threat to democracies the world over, and the western far left remaining the principal apologists for the world’s most brutal authoritarians, Ukraine present us with yet another symbol of our historical moment:
Ukraine is perfecting itself through its struggle, and in so doing, it is a model to us all.
~ Theo Horesh, author of Convergence: The Globalization of Mind