The Communist party is banned in Ukraine. Is it a chance for the new left?

On December 16 the court in Kiev banned the Communist party of Ukraine (CPU).
Previously the so called decommunisation laws passed in May 2015 required the
party to change its name, symbols, rhetoric, party programme and party newspaper
titles. The courts decision has already been criticized by the Amnesty International as
a flagrant violation of freedom of expression and association. Ukrainian human rights
lawyers stated that there must be proven activities dangerous to the national
security, not just names or symbols, to dissolute the political party on the basis of the
European Convention of Human Rights to which Ukraine is a signatory.
The ban obviously is a consequence of the anti-communist hysteria in Ukraine and not
just of the communists tacit support of the former Ukrainian president Viktor
Yanukovych. For example, the government did not ban the notorious pro-Yanukovych
Party of Regions nationally; neither did it ban its successor party, the Opposition Bloc.
Meanwhile, proposals to ban the CPU or communist ideology in general had been
appearing on the high political level since the first days of the EuroMaidan victory.
The irony of the situation is that in reality the Communist party of Ukraine is neither
communist nor dangerous. The only things the CPU has in common with the
determined revolutionaries of the past who spared neither themselves nor others are
devotion to the Soviet symbols and appeals to empty Marxist-Leninist phrases.
The CPU was the most popular party in Ukraine during market reforms in the 1990s
but for many years it degraded into a conservative and rather pro-Russian than proworking class political party gradually losing its voters and elderly membership. The
party leaders became a part of the bourgeois elite and invited business support for the
party. The richest woman in the previous session of Ukrainian parliament, a
multimillionaire Oksana Kaletnik was a member of the CPU group.
Some communist activists and some local CPU organizations in Donbass indeed
supported the separatist uprising in spring 2014. However, the CPU leadership never
tired to say that the party is firm in their support for Ukrainian territorial integrity and
excluded dissenters from the party.
A very inconsistent position of the CPU towards the war in Eastern Ukraine is one of
the reasons of their current deplorable situation. The CPU hysterically criticized the
new national-fascist regime in Ukraine while saying not a single critical word against
Russia. The words, however, did not match the deeds. The CPU leaders disappointed
many of their former members who expected more decisive actions against the postMaidan government.
Combined with the loss of a large part of the CPU electorate in Russian and separatistcontrolled Crimea and Donbass, the party failed to get into the parliament in October
2014 for the first time in its history. Despite a later ban to participate in elections, the
CPU candidates balloted from a technical party called New State in the local elections
two months ago but performed even worse gathering only slightly more than one per
cent of the votes.
Now the Communist party is simply an easy object of scapegoating. The Ukrainian
government needs to continue the ideological war trying to divert attention from rising
prices and austerity. In the same time it adds to political intolerance in the country
torn by the war.

The ban will not make the CPU stronger. This is not a party that is able to close ranks,
go underground and fight. They will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights
and very likely it will support the CPU suit against Ukraine like in many similar cases of
anti-communist repression and censorship in Eastern Europe. However, the
crackdowns and electoral defeats have already exacerbated very deep internal
problems and conflicts within the party. Recently 19 local communist leaders from
southern and eastern Ukrainian organizations resigned from the CPU central
committee protesting against repression of internal dissent. For all the party problems
they blamed a very unpopular Petro Symonenko who was the unchangeable CPU
leader during all its history.
The left flank of Ukrainian politics is empty now but not for a long time. It is very likely
that the new left political projects sponsored by oligarchs will appear trying to gather
the former communist votes and some of the local membership. On the other side,
some pro-Ukrainian left party will probably appear as well in order to legitimate
Ukrainian government in the Western public eyes after the CPU ban. It will mostly
support the governments policies against Russia and Donbas separatists but will
criticize it from mild social-democratic or left-liberal positions.
However, the genuine left should grow neither as the pawns in oligarchs electoral
games, nor as the loyal whitewashers of an extremely neoliberal-nationalist
government. The new left party should be deeply embedded into Ukrainian social
movements and labour unions. It must take neither pro-Ukrainian, nor pro-Russian
position but try to bring together ordinary Ukrainians in the West and in the East of the
country in the fight for their shared class interests against their common enemies in
Kiev, Donetsk, Moscow, Brussels, Washington.
Genuine internationalism and going back to the class roots is simply the only way for
the new left in Ukraine. Every person who values democracy must oppose the ban of
the Communist party. It violates human rights. It adds to political hysteria. It diverts
attention from urgent problems in Ukrainian economy. However, we have to
understand the mistakes the communists made themselves and to avoid them in the
reconstruction of Ukrainian left on completely different principles and basis.