[New Politics interviews Taras Bilous, a Ukrainian historian and
editor of Ukrainian socialist magazine Sotsialniy Rukh, about the
Ukrainian political spectrum and a wide range of issues.]
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THE FAR RIGHT IN UKRAINE  
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Stephen R. Shalom
March 8, 2023
New Politics [[link removed]]

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_ New Politics interviews Taras Bilous, a Ukrainian historian and
editor of Ukrainian socialist magazine Sotsialniy Rukh, about the
Ukrainian political spectrum and a wide range of issues. _

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TARAS BILOUS IS A UKRAINIAN HISTORIAN, AN EDITOR OF _COMMONS: JOURNAL
OF SOCIAL CRITICISM_, AND AN ACTIVIST IN SOTSIALNIY RUKH (SOCIAL
MOVEMENT). HE IS CURRENTLY SERVING IN THE UKRAINIAN ARMY. HE WAS
INTERVIEWED BY STEPHEN R. SHALOM, A MEMBER OF THE _NEW
POLITICS_ EDITORIAL BOARD. DENYS PILASH HELPED WITH THE TRANSLATION.

NEW POLITICS (NP): HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS THE INFLUENCE OF FAR-RIGHT
FORCES IN UKRAINE? WE HAVE SEEN CLAIMS THAT, ON THE ONE HAND, SUGGEST
THAT UKRAINE IS A NAZI STATE, OR, ON THE OTHER HAND, THAT THE FAR
RIGHT IS AN INSIGNIFICANT FACTOR IN UKRAINIAN LIFE. WHAT IS YOUR
ASSESSMENT?

TARAS BILOUS (TB): Basically, their electoral influence is abysmal, it
is small, but they use their strengths in other fields, like on the
streets, to try to influence policies. Their extra-parliamentary
influence should be neither diminished nor exaggerated.

NP: IS IT THE CASE THAT THE FAR RIGHT HAS THE ABILITY TO BLOCK
POLICIES IT DOESN’T LIKE BY THREATENING VIOLENCE?

TB: The most significant example of this was the so-called “protest
against capitulation,” the protest against peace initiatives in late
2019 after Zelensky was elected president. This was an effort by the
nationalist right to stop the initiation of the peace process. There
had been an agreement that there would be a troop disengagement at
three points of what was then the line between Ukrainian forces and
Russian/separatist forces in Donbas. Then people from around the Azov
movement, and from the National Corps Party, staged a campaign there,
at one of these points, presenting this disengagement as if it
represented some kind of gain for the Kremlin, as if Ukrainian troops
alone were called upon to withdraw and leave their positions. But this
wasn’t what the disengagement required; it required both sides to
pull back.

But even in this case, which was so crucial for the right, where they
tried to achieve their maximum mobilization for this activity, they
didn’t succeed in achieving their point of view because Zelensky
intervened personally. He traveled to that line of forces and engaged
in heated discussions with some Azov members, and eventually Ukraine
did carry out this disengagement, which was a prerequisite for
resuming the meeting in the “Normandy Format” with France and
Germany as mediators between Ukraine and Russia. So even in this case
the right was unable to block governmental policy.

It’s not only a matter of how much effort the far right puts into
their campaigns that determines whether they succeed. It’s
especially a question of how their positions align with the broader
position of Ukrainian society in general, because when their demands
contradict the position of the majority of the society, it’s much
harder for them to push them through; on the other hand, when they
support the position of the broader population, then they have more
chance of influencing government decisions.

Some of the Western leftist press made it seem as if Zelensky
retreated on his policies under the pressure of the far right. But
they didn’t succeed in thwarting his peace initiatives, which were
favored by the majority of the Ukrainian population and for which
Zelensky felt he had a popular mandate. On the other hand, the polls
showed that the majority of Ukrainians, while supporting the peace
process, rejected some specific political demands pushed by the
Russian side. And here Zelensky had to backtrack.

In those policy areas where the positions of the far right did not
coincide with the views of liberals and national liberals, the far
right wasn’t successful in fulfilling their pressure on the
government. For instance, on gender policies or LGBTQ issues, where
the right found itself in the minority, it wasn’t able to influence
governmental decisions

NP: COULD YOU SAY A BIT MORE ABOUT THE BEHAVIOR OF THE FAR RIGHT
TOWARDS FEMINISTS AND LGBTQ PEOPLE? AND WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE 
UKRAINIAN POLICE AND SECURITY FORCES IN DEALING WITH THIS?

TB: Far-right groups before the war actively tried to disrupt
different events promoting women’s and LGBTQ rights. Here we could
see that the reaction of the State and the police was heavily
dependent on whether the event had a lot of international coverage,
like for instance, the Pride parade in Kyiv or the 8th of March
women’s demos. In which case the authorities and the police tried to
prevent these far-right attacks. However, at lesser-known events in
the provinces, in some smaller cities and towns, they were also
actively attacked by the far right, and then the police were usually
quite inactive, standing by and doing nothing. So in these cases the
far right was more successful in attacking and disrupting these
events.

There was a general phenomenon of the far right infiltrating the
security services and law enforcement, but it’s hard to measure to
what extent this occurred. We know some prime examples, for instance,
the local head of the Kyiv police came from an Azov background. When
we had confrontations between leftist and far-right activists, we
often saw the police greeting some from the far right, showing that
they were familiar with each other. This again implied that there were
some connections. But actually it seems that this wasn’t so
widespread.

Even in those cases where the police do nothing to prevent attacks on
feminist and other progressive events, it doesn’t automatically mean
that they do this because they feel affinity for the attackers or that
they have some connections to them. The police are not doing their
primary job, which is to protect peaceful gatherings, but not so much
because they are on the side of attacks, but because abstaining and
doing nothing cause them fewer problems. Defending an LGBT event (for
example) can lead to far-right attacks on the police, which can lead
to police injuries. Therefore, to avoid a fight with the far right, it
is easier for them to simply do nothing. The arrest of the far right
will lead to other far-right mobilizing, organizing a picket outside
the police station, and generally putting pressure on the police. The
police want less trouble, so it’s often easier for them to insist
that the organizers cancel their event, than to fight the far right.
Of course, this is the failure of the police to fulfill its duty to
protect freedom of assembly. They behave similarly in cases of
conflicts with high-ranking officials or other persons who may create
problems for them.

The situation was improving, however, after the removal of Interior
Minister Arsen Avakov, who was widely seen as a patron of the National
Corps and other far-right groups. After he left office in 2021, there
was a series of arrests of far-right activists, and we could feel a
general improvement in the situation, and there were trends showing
that far-right influence in the security services was shrinking.

But the situation might be different in the case of the so-called
municipal guards. These are paramilitary structures that were created
in some cities as assistants to police law enforcement, in many cases
with rather dubious legal status. The far right tried to present this
as a way to employ veterans of the war.

The far right infiltrated the municipal guard in Kyiv and some other
places, and actually played major roles. They were accountable to the
local authorities, to the municipal leadership, to the mayors, but at
the same time they had this very questionable legal status. So this
was an opportunity for the far right to gain more influence. In other
cities, though, the far right wasn’t present in creating the
municipal guards. Instead they were usually comprised of some kind of
athletes and were just loyal servants to the local elites, almost in a
feudal way.

NP: WHAT WAS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UKRAINIAN LEFT AND THE
UKRAINIAN FAR RIGHT BEFORE THE WAR?

TB: Well, obviously, our attitude was directly opposed to them, and we
were in perpetual confrontation with them. But we can say that the war
in Donbas, when it started in 2014, contributed to the decline of the
strength of leftist movements, and in the streets the far right grew
more powerful, while the left was in decline. Actually in these
confrontations with the far right, the best outcome was usually a
draw. But in recent years there was some reversal of these trends, and
there was a revival of the street antifa movement and some
anti-fascist victories on the side of the left. So there were some
signs that the situation was reversing direction.

NP: TURNING TO FEBRUARY 2022, HOW HAS THE FULL-SCALE WAR AFFECTED THE
INFLUENCE OF THE FAR RIGHT?

TB: It is not an easy task to answer this question, because with the
war political life in Ukraine has been put on pause. It’s quite
complicated to predict what the situation will be after the war given
that it’s so dependent on the war’s outcome.

So what changed with the war? Lots of the far right, the majority of
them, went into the military. Some remained, and sometimes they did
some controversial things behind the lines — but they were usually
criticized for this by general public opinion. So, for instance, when
the far right did its usual stuff and tried to attack and discredit a
feminist protest in Lviv against domestic violence, it actually rather
backfired because they didn’t find some huge popular support for the
activity. On the contrary, the coverage was favorable to the feminist
activists and to supporting organizations, including ours, including
from one popular YouTube blogger, and in some mainstream media. So we
can say that far-right activity of this sort isn’t very much
tolerated behind the lines.

This is actually very important, because it was precisely the weakness
of resistance to the far right, the uncritical attitude towards them
in the mainstream media and from a significant part of the moderate
public, that was one of the main advantages of the Ukrainian far
right. They skillfully used the halo of “heroes” they had won on
the Maidan in 2014 and in the war in Donbas to protect themselves from
criticism.

In fact, if you evaluate the power of the Ukrainian far right in
absolute terms, it has never set a record. Everyone knows about their
electoral weakness, but even if we talk about street mobilizations,
the Polish far right is definitely stronger than their Ukrainian
“colleagues” in this regard. It’s enough to compare each year
the largest street marches — October 14
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and November 11
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Poland — to understand this. In terms of the scale of violence, the
Ukrainian far right also pales in comparison to what the Russian far
right did in the 2000s
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often under the cover of the Russian special services. In fact,
Ukrainian neo-Nazis acted before the Maidan in the shadow and under
the great influence of Russian neo-Nazis. The main difference in the
Ukrainian situation after the Maidan is not in the absolute power of
the far right, but in its relative power compared to other political
actors, as well as in the uncritical attitude of the mainstream
moderate public towards them.

But in recent years, public opinion about them has changed, and this
was one of the reasons why the anti-racist and anti-fascist antifa
group Arsenal (Kyiv) dared to come out of the deep underground and
challenge the far right again. In 2014-2018, in the case of clashes
between the left and the right, public opinion was not on our side.
But during the struggle in the summer of 2021, the far right became
the “bad guys” in the media. And it seems that after the war this
trend will continue because the far right will no longer be able to
defend themselves from criticism as before.

NP: BUT WHY WON’T THEIR WAR-TIME HEROISM, FOR EXAMPLE AT MARIUPOL,
ENABLE THEM TO DEFLECT CRITICISMS?

TB: It protects them. But only as a military unit. This does not
transfer to the far right as a political actor.

Over the past years, Ukrainian society has come a long way in
establishing the position that heroism at the front cannot be an
indulgence for those who commit crimes and human rights violations in
the rear. And although on some other issues during the full-scale war
there was a worsening of the situation, on this issue I do not see a
rollback.

Also, after this war, there will be veterans from all sectors of the
population and on both sides of political conflicts. Now there are
military volunteers even among the Roma, the most
discriminated-against group in Ukrainian society — despite the fact
that participation in the war goes against their own traditions. If in
2018 the far right managed to stage a series of pogroms against Roma
without serious consequences for themselves, now this will no longer
be the case.

But there is one category of people who will not be able to protect
themselves in this way — the pro-Russian residents of Donbas and
Crimea. Therefore, it is necessary that international organizations
take an active part in the protection of human rights in these
territories.

NP: LET’S TURN TO THE QUESTION OF THE AZOV REGIMENT. HOW SIGNIFICANT
ARE THEY? ARE THEY AN INDEPENDENT MILITARY FORCE? DO THEY HAVE THEIR
OWN FAR-RIGHT SYMBOLS? AND, TO ASK ABOUT AN ISSUE THAT’S BEEN RAISED
ON THE US LEFT, IS US MILITARY AID TO UKRAINE ACTUALLY ARMING NEO-NAZI
UNITS?

TB: The Azov regiment was integrated inside the National Guard and
inside the official structures, but it still retained some level of
autonomy. There were some steps to control it by Ukrainian officials,
like to change its leadership, but it still retained its links with
its founders like Andriy Biletsky, and it even had its own Sergeant
School.

The majority of original Azov regiment were in Mariupol, and lots of
them were taken prisoner. Some were exchanged in prisoner swaps, but
the majority are still in in Russian captivity, and the commanders are
interned in Turkey. Nevertheless, the regiment has been replenished
with new people and continues recruiting. I don’t know how much they
managed to restore the structure.

What is more important after the full-scale invasion, the people
associated with the Azov movement also set up a number of other units,
like territorial defense units, for instance, which were connected to
the Azov movement, using the Azov brand. The largest of them, the Kyiv
Azov Special Operations Forces unit, was turned into an assault
brigade at the end of January. So in general, compared to 2014 or
2021, in absolute numbers now far more far-right individuals have
joined the military, and far more people are serving in the units they
created. But at the same time, in relative terms, they play a smaller
role in the war than in 2014, because the army in general has grown
and modernized much more.

But it’s important to understand that not only far-right individuals
serve in the units created by the far right. (On the other hand, you
can also find the far right in “regular” units). It’s difficult
to determine the percentages, but apolitical or centrist people often
serve in far-right units, motivated by the high level of training and
discipline in these units. When you join a fighting army, you first
think about your chances of survival, the conditions of service, the
competence of the officers, and the reliability of your fellow
soldiers. Political views recede into the background. What will happen
to these units and the people who serve in them after the war depends
on the results of the war and the general political situation in
Ukraine.

What I see with my own eyes is that the situation today is not
comparable with 2014. Back then the level of State control over the
military units that were created was minimal. Everything was very
chaotic. I even know the story of how in 2014 one volunteer stole an
entire armored personnel carrier and took it from Donbas to Western
Ukraine. Today, however, there is strict control over the distribution
of weapons, more control over these separate units, and from what I
know, none of the recently founded smaller units enjoys a level of
autonomy comparable with Azov in previous years. So actually, the
situation is qualitatively quite different from what it was eight or
nine years ago.

To illustrate this stricter state control over military units and over
arms distribution, let me refer to my own experience. My previous
battalion was disbanded, and I was transferred to some other one in
our brigade. When the battalion was disbanded, it was discovered that
several Kalashnikovs were missing. This triggered an immediate
reaction from law enforcement. The military prosecutors office started
an investigation and opened criminal cases against the officers who
were responsible for the control of weapons in that battalion. This
shows that the State tries to control very strictly where all the
armaments and equipment goes, and that it’s not going to some
unauthorized individuals. This is one of aspect of the stricter state
control over different armed units.

Regarding this notion of the West arming Nazis, and so on, the weapons
are distributed more or less evenly among different units. So there
might be some far-right people, people with far-right beliefs, in some
units, but they are not specifically given this weaponry. Moreover,
given the stricter control I described, this means that the weapons
are going to be confiscated after the war, taken back by the State.

So more or less all the people who joined the armed forces are more or
less equal in their access to different weapons. And obviously it’s
not the case that heavy weaponry from the West is being directed to
far-right units. It’s that ordinary units are getting the weapons,
and maybe they have some people with far-right views, as well as
people with all other beliefs, in their ranks. So there’s no
specific arming of the right.

Regarding the right-wing symbols, back in 2015, under pressure from
the authorities, Azov removed the Black Sun from its insignia and
tipped the emblem at an angle to distance itself from the far-right
symbols. Last year, the departure from far-right symbols continued –
the newly created Azov units use three swords
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of the symbol of the Azov regiment. The new brigade uses a symbol
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it has almost no resemblance to the Wolfsangel.

On the other hand, in the army now many soldiers and even
lower-ranking officers wear various non-statutory military patches.
It’s a popular kind of merch that people buy at the military shops,
it’s not controlled in any way. They are often humorous, or have
inscriptions on them like “Russian warship, go fuck yourself
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But sometimes there are far-right symbols on these patches, like the
Wolfsangel or Totenkopf. I have encountered cases where people wore
patches with far-right symbols but had absolutely no understanding of
its origin and meaning. One guy took off the Black Sun symbol when an
anarchist from my former unit explained to him what it signified and
showed him the Wikipedia article. Of course, those who started using
these symbols in Ukraine understood well what they meant. But now if
you see a guy with a Totenkopf, he might think it’s just a skull and
bones. So just because people use such symbols doesn’t indicate that
people are supporting their far-right meaning.

NP: VOLODYMYR ISHCHENKO, IN A RECENT ARTICLE
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LEFT REVIEW_, HAS ARGUED THAT UKRAINE IN WARTIME, UNLIKE OTHER
ANTI-COLONIAL STRUGGLES, HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY NEOLIBERAL, NOT MORE
DEMOCRATIC, NOT MORE STATE INTERVENTIONIST, AND NOT LESS CORRUPT. DO
YOU THINK HE IS CORRECT, AND ARE THESE INDICATIONS OF THE GROWING
STRENGTH OF THE FAR RIGHT?

TB: Starting with the latter question, I don’t see any relevance of
the far right to this question. But regarding the first question,
there are two separate aspects: one is about anti-democratic and
authoritarian tendencies and the other is about social and economic
policies. Regarding anti-democratic trends, actually we can’t say
that all previous national liberation movements were immune to that.
On the contrary, war usually evokes more authoritarian and less
democratic tendencies, and this applied to many of the liberation
movements in Asia and Africa, just dictated by conditions. So, yes,
obviously the war creates possibilities for authoritarian trends, and
it can be used by the State authorities, by the government. But
whether this will lead to more authoritarianism will heavily depend on
the course and outcome of the war. And it’s unclear how the far
right will react to this, whether they will, in a way, try to adapt to
this, to support it, or whether they will, on the contrary, fall
victim to confrontation  with the government. So actually there’s a
lot that is unspecified, due to the unclear outcome of the war.

Regarding social and the economic policies, again, we can’t say that
we have a clear picture, because on the one hand you have neo-liberal
mantras and the liberalization of labor relations and labor markets.
But on the other hand, there are objective reasons that push the
Ukrainian Government – even though it speaks about privatization –
to have undertaken a number of nationalizations in strategic sectors,
nationalizing some big enterprises, factories that link to the
military, to the energy sector, and so on. In addition, in the course
of postwar reconstruction funds will be distributed via the State. So
the percentage of the GDP that is concentrated in the hands of the
State will clearly rise, both because of these nationalizations and
the control of the reconstruction funds. So we cannot say that there
is some very clear and one-sided tendency.

I have a thread on twitter
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the class nature of the Zelensky government and I argue that it
represents primarily the interests of middle bourgeoisie, or the
classic bourgeoisie as opposed to both the working class and
oligarchic capital. So on the one hand they are very eager and highly
active in pushing neoliberal anti-labor legislation. But at the same
time they are also interested in subduing the power of the oligarchs.
Actually the war has already disrupted the level of oligarchic
influence. So again, the outcome of the war will heavily influence
both politics and the economy. And despite their neo-liberal ideology,
they have been forced to carry out some steps that are contrary to
their ideological positions in order to create a war economy.

NP: FINALLY, I’D LIKE TO ASK YOU THIS. THERE IS BROAD SUPPORT IN
UKRAINE FOR RESISTING THE RUSSIAN INVASION, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. BUT IN
WHAT WAYS DOES THE LEFT POSITION ON THE WAR DIFFER FROM THAT OF THE
RIGHT IN TERMS OF GOALS AND STRATEGY?

TB: There are some pretty obvious distinctions in our and their
visions of the future of postwar Ukraine. Obviously, the left wants a
more socially-oriented, more pluralistic, more democratic, more
inclusive country, while the far right, libertarians, and
conservatives, stand for some opposite positions.

And then we have the question of self-determination, and it becomes a
bit more complicated. When we go on to consider the issues of Crimea
and Donbas, in the left camp there isn’t a single position, but a
spectrum of visions. We also do not have a consensus on the European
Union and NATO.

The full-scale Russian invasion partially smoothed over the former
conflicts between the various leftists in Ukraine, because on the most
important issue, the absolute majority of the Ukrainian left took the
same position — support and participation in the resistance. But the
issues that divided the Ukrainian left in the past still haven’t
disappeared.

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