De-mythification of History at the Turn of the Centuries

Yurchenko, Yuliya. Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: From Marketization to Armed Conflict. Kyiv: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in Ukraine, 2020, 306 p.

Abstract

The author elaborates on the pattern of political and economic evolution in modern Ukraine since 80s of the past century and the post-soviet era. Contrary to the most part of Ukrainian publications on this topic, which authors shy away from mentioning the class-based structure of the Ukrainian society, Yu. Yurchenko places the strongest emphasis on it. The author gives an expensive review of the rising capitalist class and each oligarchical clan in post-soviet Ukraine, which were claiming for a political influence. Summing up research of Western economics and political scientists, the author demonstrates that the rise of clans and the emergence of a criminal-political alliance that became an integral part of the body politic in the Soviet Union and, later, in Ukraine after 1991 began as early as in 60s of the past century and in times of Gorbachov-led perestroika. This assumption makes the author conclude that this new-for-Ukraine class could rise and rest on three principal groups of the population: liberal intellectuals, fractions of officeholders (the so called nomenclature) earning for private enrichment, and the shadow economy element. A specific feature of Ukraine, like in the most part of post-soviet countries, was a massive involvement of the third group which actions went far beyond the existent laws and norms of public morals. This gave a strong impetus to the primary accumulation of capital, on the one hand, and triggered an unparalleled spread of corruption and embezzlement of public funds, establishing a regime of laissez-faire for chosen ones and poverty for the majority.