Deindustrialization and its political and social implications: decline of the left-wing parties in Ukraine and secessionist insurgency in Donbas

Abstract

After 1991 the vulnerability of the working class staring at the loss of their livelihood and increasing precarity has been addressed less and less by the left parties and unions in Ukraine. Consequently, working-class discontent with neoliberal capitalism increasingly became channelled into the support of far-right political forces. The left parties established in Ukraine in the early 1990s failed to speak on behalf of the wage workers. In the 2000s some of them disappeared from politics (SPU and SDPU), turned into minor allies of mainstream neoliberal parties (CPU), or were marginalized and instrumentalized by Russian intelligence service (PSPU). An absence of the left alternative in the post-socialist state captured by the oligarchs and corrupted officials led to the growing resentment in the industrial regions accompanied by the fears of further deindustrialization. Russia masterly used these fears and resentment to fuel the secessionist insurgency in Donbas in spring 2014. Collapse of the ruling Party of the Regions in spring 2014 created political vacuum in Donbas which was filled by Russian nationalists, the Don Cossacks and their local supporters – not numerous but quite aggressive to fuel the insurgency in Donbas. Local members of the quasi-left CPU and PSPU – particularly in Luhansk region – actively supported the right-wing insurgents in spring-summer 2014. Since then, Donbas came through accelerated decline of its industries and final deindustrialization due to the Russian invasion of 2022.