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A Color Revolution or a Working-Class Uprising?: an Interview with Aynur Kurmanov on the Protests in Kazakhstan

LeftEast gratefully acknowledges Zanovo-media, where this article was originally published in Russian. Today all post-Soviet mass-media and TV channels are riveted to the protests that suddenly engulfed Kazakhstan. To some they arouse hope, to others – horror and rejection. There are contradictions and different interpretations of what is happening: righteous people’s protest, clan wrangling, conspiracy […]

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Ukraine in the vicious circle of the post-Soviet crisis of hegemony

Note from LeftEast editors: This is a slightly edited version of an earlier published text in German: Ishchenko, V. (October 15, 2021). Die Ukraine im Teufelkreis der post-sowjetischen Hegemonie-Krise. Ukraine-Analysen, 256, 8-10. After the 30 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine may give a unique perspective on the post-Soviet condition in general […]

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Against systemic violations of citizens’ rights and assault on political freedom in Ukraine

A statement of the emerging left-wing Social Movement party in Ukraine. (source: Social Movement Party website) Throughout 2014-5 the conduct and decisions of various bodies of Ukraine’s executive and legislative branches of power have grossly violated Ukrainians’ citizens’ rights guaranteed by the Constitution, the ECHR, and fundamental rights 1. Free speech and freedom of expression […]

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“Ukraine’s European discourse does not correspond to reality”. An interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko

Volodymyr Ishchenko is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine. He is the deputy director of the Center for Social and Labor Research, a member of the editorial board of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism and LeftEast web-magazine, and a lecturer at the Department of Sociology in the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.   Interview by Javier Morales.  Javier Morales (JM): How do […]

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“We should recognize that there are other imperialisms”: A Marxist dissident explains what the left gets wrong about Russia. An interview with Ilya Budraitskis.

Charles Davis talks to Ilya Budraitkis on Salon.Com . Here we present the interview. The whole lengthy material can be accessed on the Salon website. Obviously the biggest story in Russia and here in the United State is the recent assassination of Boris Nemstov. Here in the West, Russia right now is portrayed as sort of a police […]

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The Murder of Boris Nemtsov

Note from editors: The following editorial was published on the Russian leftist website Open Left in response to the murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on Friday 27 February 2015. We demand a transparent investigation and an immediate end to propaganda that incites hatred. It’s difficult to say just yet how the Friday-night murder of […]

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“What is playing itself out in Ukraine now is the clash of two opposed imperial agendas”. An interview with Gonzalo Pozo.

Source: Interview by Yuriy Dergunov, Commons: Journal of Social Criticism In the post-Soviet space the very notion of geopolitics is associated with ultra-conservative, right-wing political discourses (Aleksandr Dugin’s example is prominent here), so in our progressive circles geopolitics is widely regarded as a pseudo-science. Your idea of Marxist geopolitics would probably seem paradoxical to majority […]

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Ukraine’s Fractures. An interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko for New Left Review.

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 entwinement of opposed political camps with the strategic ambitions of Russia and the West, the former bidding […]

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“The revolutionary process in Ukraine is not over yet”. An interview with Neil Davidson.

Note from the LeftEast editors: this interview is published in cooperation with the Ukrainian journal Спільне/Commons: Journal of Social Criticism. Questions were asked by Yuriy Dergunov. They were sent on February 28 and replies were received on May 2, 2014. Neil Davidson is a Scottish historian and sociologist, a lecturer at the School of Social […]

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If the Left Movements Don’t Unite, Only the Far-Right Will Benefit From the Social Anger. An interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko.

By Maxime Benatouil – 04 Mar 14 Interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko, Deputy Director of the Center for Society Research in Kiev (28 February) What root causes explain that such large parts of the population joined the protests, on Maidan and elsewhere? Volodymyr Ishchenko: First, let me tell you that the protests weren’t exclusively initiated by […]