The origins of Ukrainian national-communism

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the ideological origins of Ukrainian national-communism as a phenomenon of domestic socio-political thought of the ХХth century. In the conditions of armed aggression of Russia against Ukraine, sociologists record a significant decrease in the number of supporters of the left (socialist and communist ideology) among Ukrainians. After the end of military actions, a revival of the ideas of the left ideology in public thought is possible. Ukrainian national-communism is a political trend whose ideas can be used to manage the post-war revival of Ukraine. These ideas are based on the requirements for the redistribution of social wealth in favor of the "poor people" laid down in the concept of «sobornist» by I. Vyshensky. Their continuation was the theoretical developments of the participants of the Cyril and Methodius Society. They advocated the need to abandon the state as a condition for protecting the interests of the lower strata of society. M. Dragomanov combined the issue of the withering away of the state and the fair redistribution of national wealth, forming the original concept of «gromadivs`ky`j socialism». His followers attempted to combine these ideas with the Marxist methodology of analyzing social life. In Western Ukrainian lands, the use of Marxist theory for analyzing Ukrainian reality was made at the end of the 19th century by Yu. Bachynsky. He is called the founder of Ukrainian Marxism, the predecessor of Ukrainian national-communism. For the Ukrainian movement in Austria-Hungary, the idea of an independent Ukrainian state became the maximum program, and in the Russian Empire, the minimum program. The military aggression of Bolshevik Russia became the impetus for the transition of Ukrainian socialists to independent positions. V. Vynnychenko, as a means of combating Bolshevik aggression, suggested that the Ukrainian movement adopt communist ideology. He believed that this would also allow the issues of national and social liberation to be maximally combined. This marked the beginning of Ukrainian national-communism.