Why Decommunisation Made Ukraine Different to Russia

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has brought about rapid and transformative changes in Ukrainian national identity and fundamentally changed for the worse Ukrainian-Russian relations. The current drive for derussification continues processes moving Ukraine from its Russian and Soviet past that have been taking place since the late 1980s.

Ukrainians at the local level are undertaking a radical derussification of the country that seeks to break historic and contemporary ties with Russia. Monuments to Russian military and political leaders and Russian literature and culture have been renamed or taken down. The most well-known example was the removal of the monument to Tsarina Catherine in the port city of Odesa. Squares, roads and boulevards with Russian and Soviet names have been replaced. Lev Tolstoy square in Kyiv was renamed Ukrainian Heroes square. Russian books are banned from being imported into Ukraine.  Thousands of Russians – politicians, oligarchs, cultural figures and literati - have been banned from entry. Russians can no longer own businesses and property and existing Russian businesses have been nationalised and their assets given to bodies tasked with rebuilding Ukraine destroyed by Russian attacks.

Ukraine Launches Decommunisation

In 2014, the Euromaidan took power in Ukraine, first with revolutionaries taking power and then through pro-European forces winning pre-term presidential and parliamentary elections. Pro-Russian forces could no longer resist sweeping changes in national identity, memory and language politics. The pro-Russian Party of Regions had disintegrated in February 2014 and its satellite, the Communist Party of Ukraine was no longer popular and from 2015, was unable to participate in elections.

One of the first examples of these changes in identity politics was the adoption in April 2015 of four decommunisation laws, bringing Ukraine into line with similar laws adopted earlier in the three Baltic states and central Europe. Less than a month later, seventy, many well-known, primarily Western academics signed an open letter protesting the decommunisation laws.

What was surprising was the speed with which the open letter had been written and signed. After all, the laws were only then available in Ukrainian, and one wonders if all seventy academics could read the Ukrainian language. Talking to many signatories they admitted they had not read the four laws before signing the open letter which was posted on Facebook. The four laws are complicated pieces of legislation that require a degree of knowledge about the context, nuances, and legislative jargon, all missing from the open letter.

What was also odd was that decommunisation laws adopted in other post-communist countries had never received such close attention from Western academics. There is no other open letter by tens of academics condemning for example, de-communisation laws in Poland, the Czech Republic or Estonia.

Two factors provoked Canadian academic David Marples to write his open letter.

The first was his disagreement with one of the laws equating communist and Nazi crimes against humanity. A debate between Western intellectuals over whether Nazi and communist crimes are comparable products of totalitarian ideologies has been taking place since the 1980s. of Nazi and communist crimes.

 Ukraine’s law equating Nazi and communist crimes was not a new development. Resolutions on this question had been adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2006); EU European Public Hearing on Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes (2007);  Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism (2008); European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism (‘Black Ribbon Day’) commemorated by EU institutions (2008); European Parliament resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism  (2009); and the Vilnius Declaration of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (2009).

Marples was also opposed to the banning of the Communist Party of Ukraine. And yet, Nazi and fascist parties are banned in several European countries, such as Germany; why should communist parties be also not banned?

The second question was the inclusion of nationalist groups that had fought for Ukrainian independence. The list of organisations, movements and political parties in one of the decommunisation laws encompassed a wide range of ideologies who fought for Ukraine’s independence. The law defines them as ‘fighters’ - not as ‘heroes’) Marples and some of the signatories were particularly unhappy with the list including OUN (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists) and UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army).

The decommunisation laws did not begin the process of broadening Ukrainian history to include previously taboo subjects, such as OUN and UPA. Since the early 1990s, Ukrainian educational textbooks on history have included Ukrainians who fought in Soviet, nationalist, US, Canadian and Polish military forces. Western histories of Ukraine also include discussion of OUN and UPA.

The open letter claimed the inclusion of OUN and UPA on the list would be viewed negatively in south-east Ukraine, but this proved to be wrong. In Dnipropetrovsk, with its large Jewish community, experts from the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory and local Jewish activists worked amicably in implementing the decommunisation laws, including naming streets after OUN leaders.

Russia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 led to the growth of Ukrainians holding a positive view of OUN and UPA, increasing to roughly half of the population in 2014-2021. Since the invasion, support for the recognition of OUN and UPA as ‘participants of the struggle for the national independence of Ukraine’ has increased to 81% with only 10% against, a four-fold increase since 2010. Signatories of the open letter had failed to consider how war and bloodshed has always led to radical changes in a country’s identity.

Criticism of low support for decommunisation was also shown to be temporary as public support has grown to high levels. Ukrainians have become more supportive of commemorating World War II on 8 May, which was outlined in one of the decommunisation laws that downgraded the importance of the great patriotic war traditionally celebrated on 9 May. Ukrainians commemorate the tragedy of World War II on May 8 while Russians celebrate military might, victory and the creation of a new eastern European Soviet empire in the great patriotic war on 9 May.

Did the Signatories Read the Laws?

The decommunisation laws have not led to academics being put on trial for denying the legitimacy of Ukraine’s struggle for independence and ‘fighters’ for independence, as the open letter insinuated. The only occasions that have led to criminal cases have been for the displaying of Nazi and Soviet symbols which is banned in one of the laws.

Unlike in Russia, Ukraine does not impose an over-arching single historical narrative and does not sanction what is published in the media, journals and books. Critical scholarship continues to be pursued by Ukrainian and Western academics.  The Ukrainian authorities could not control, for example, what is written in European and North American academic journals and books after Western scholars have researched in Ukraine’s open archives.

The open letter ignored two important nuances.

Firstly, the laws had a long list of 12 detailed exemptions from criminal liability for using Soviet, communist and Nazi symbols. The banning of Nazi and Soviet symbols does not cover museums, research (including publications), historic re-enactment and other areas.

Secondly, the laws do not apply to monuments and symbols in cemeteries and public spaces dedicated to the great patriotic war. Prohibited communist symbols were to be removed from monuments to the great patriotic war but the actual monuments were to remain in place.

Russian War Crimes Are an Outgrowth of Lack of Decommunisation in Russia

The wide range of war crimes committed by Russia’s army and security forces in Ukraine since the February 24, 2022, invasion and the Soviet nature of the Russian army are a product of nearly a quarter of a century of Putinism. During Vladimir Putin’s 23 years in power, he has resovietised Russia, made celebration of military victory in the great patriotic war a quasi-religious cult and promoted the tyrant Joseph Stalin into a national hero. Most Russians hold a positive view of Stalin.

These policies were deepened by a cult of war propagated by Putin’s regime, anti-Western xenophobia, the de-humanisation of Ukrainians in the Russian media and political discourse, and bloody foreign interventions in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine. Syrian and Russian forces committed wholesale war crimes against civilians, including the destruction of the city of Aleppo, that were then applied by Russia to Ukraine. The destruction of Aleppo was followed by the destruction of Mariupol.

Ukrainian and Russian forces treat civilians and prisoners of war in a different way because of their divergent trajectories. Prior to the invasion, Ukraine underwent nearly three decades of desovietisation and destalinisation. Ukrainians mobilised three uprisings in 1990 (Granite), 2004 (Orange) and 2013-2014 (Euromaidan) that laid out demands to Ukraine’s rulers.

By the time of Russia’s invasion, Ukrainians had become citizens, respected human life and exhibited little nostalgia for the USSR. Only 3.5% of Ukrainians want the USSR to be revived, with 73% choosing the European model of development and less than 1% the Russian. 84% of Ukrainians hold a negative view of Stalin.

Russians, meanwhile, had stagnated to the Soviet Brezhnev era, lost any rights they may have possessed, come to admire Stalin, harboured nostalgia for the USSR, and had bought into Putin’s anti-Western xenophobia. Armies are an outgrowth of their societies and Russia’s war crimes are a product of Russia’s resovietisation and restalinisation.

Desovietisation, destalinisation and decommunisation have been important in changing Ukrainian mindsets and attitudes and moulding former Soviet subjects into European citizens. Ukrainian citizens have replaced the Soviet past with a European future. Decommunisation has therefore been as important to Ukrainians as denazification was to Germans after World War II in creating citizens for a democratic society. Ukrainians can access their past in Soviet security service archives which are one of the freest in the post-communist world. Russia’s rulers prefer to keep their subjects in the dark about the crimes of the past by keeping Russian security service archives closed.

Conclusion

Denazification of Germany after World War II transformed west Germans from their Nazis past into citizens of a democratic society. Ukraine’s ongoing derussification follows three decades of desovietisation, destalinisation and decommunisation has helped to transform Soviet subjects into European citizens.   The sovietisation and restalinisation of Russian society under Putin has kept Russian as subjects beholden to their tsar and provided the culture underpinning Russian war crimes in Syria and Ukraine. Russian society has never undergone a reckoning with its imperialist past and Soviet war crimes. Instead, they have been fed a history that their imperial rule was beneficial, and Stalin was a great leader.