When discussing Ukraine, one rarely speaks about Ukrainian class society or about Ukraine being a poor country on the periphery of the global economy. Why is that?

Currently, everything is viewed in the context of the war, and other topics are subordinated to it. It often feels almost like self-censorship. But who can blame anyone? If you express somewhat critical views about Ukrainian society, you’re quickly co-opted by people who want to portray Ukraine as exceptionally corrupt, undemocratic, or a country full of Nazis. These days I lack the energy for such discussions.

You grew up in Kryvyi Rih — as did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — and conducted field research there on industrial workers in the years before the full-scale Russian invasion. What kind of city is it?

It’s a large industrial city, mostly developed during the Soviet era. Industry forms the centre of social and urban life. To this day, there are large complexes encompassing several factories and mines, whose old, paternalistic structures for worker welfare continue to exist in an atrophied form. They are controlled by a class commonly referred to as an oligarchy, which invests little in the outdated factories.

What about smaller enterprises?

Smaller or medium-sized factories function quite differently from the large complexes. I worked in such an establishment myself. Workers there were hired or dismissed flexibly, most worked off the books, and work was paid per piece produced. Workplace safety was extremely lax, and there was no entitlement to paid sick leave or holidays. These two labour regimes exist side by side in cities like Kryvyi Rih.

The latter form is more widespread throughout Ukraine, isn’t it?

Yes, this extremely unregulated form is the norm in many economic sectors. It’s often praised by the Ukrainian intelligentsia as more progressive and entrepreneurial, contrasted with the paternalistic culture of large industrial enterprises, which supposedly maintains a typically Soviet, passive mentality. There’s a certain chauvinism underlying this, directed against residents of the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial areas in the east and southeast.

“Ukraine risks slipping into a grey zone where there is no capital investment, no growth, but plenty of traumatised and armed men.”

What characterises the so-called oligarchs?

Nowadays, it’s fashionable to call all sorts of capitalists oligarchs. But for Ukraine, the term still makes sense. It refers to capitalists who also possess political power, control media and parties, and depend on this for their business. In Kryvyi Rih, most industrial enterprises fell into the hands of oligarchs after privatisation from 2000 onwards, oligarchs connected to the Party of Regions – the party of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was voted out in 2005 with the so-called Orange Revolution. He became president in 2010, only to be ousted by the Euromaidan in 2014. In Kryvyi Rih, the most important owner was the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, who previously had his power base in the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region. All this went hand in hand with the dominance of so-called pro-Russian politics, even after 2014.

In your book, you speak of “East Slavic” identity politics. You say this competed with “ethnic-Ukrainian” positions in the Ukrainian public sphere for many years. What characterised “East Slavic” politics?

Central to it are a strong reference to the Russian language, the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, a historical perspective that is at least not anti-Soviet and centres on the Red Army’s victory over the Nazis, as well as advocacy for better relations with Russia.

And why don’t you want to call this “pro-Russian”?

It’s a polemical term that usually doesn’t do justice to the reality. Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, for example, was against economic integration with Russia before 2014. The oligarchs were afraid of being dominated by the stronger Russian oligarchs. As president, Yanukovych resisted Russia’s pressure to become part of the Eurasian Economic Union and instead worked for years towards the association agreement with the EU. That’s why it was such a shock when, under Russian pressure, he suddenly broke off negotiations with the EU in November 2013, triggering the Maidan protests. In any case, I observed that most supporters of these parties never really adopted their ideology, but rather viewed it as a kind of normal common sense. An “anti-political” attitude, for instance, is much more widespread in Ukraine than taking sides for a particular political camp. Volodymyr Zelenskyy received over 70 per cent of the vote in 2019 with his populist criticism of corrupt politics and his distancing from these identity conflicts.

So are these two opposing identities primarily an invention of populist politicians who wanted to create a voter base for themselves?

They are certainly much more constructed and ambiguous in social life than essentialists imagine.

How was it after 2014, when the new government in Kyiv propagated an “ethnic-Ukrainian” policy?

At the national level, the “East Slavic identity” was marginalised, the Ukrainian language was promoted, and a nationalist, anti-Soviet historical perspective was propagated. At the local level in Kryvyi Rih, the “East Slavic identity” was still hegemonic. So in Kryvyi Rih, representatives of both sides could feel oppressed, which is always important to such people (laughs).

And how did these people react to the Russian invasion of 2022?

It was a shock for them. The so-called pro-Russian parties had denied the danger of a Russian invasion; their supporters were completely unprepared for it.

How did the residents of Kryvyi Rih react?

With resistance. In the “East Slavic” part of the population, there was just as much mobilisation against the invasion as throughout the country: people enlisted in the army or supported the fight in other ways. In this population, always described as passive, there are support networks for the army just as in other parts of the population.

How can this be explained?

Not by everyone suddenly identifying with the hegemonic form of Ukrainian patriotism. However, the invasion clearly showed that for them, unlike for many Russians, the border between the two countries had become mentally real during the 30 years of independence. More crucial, though, was that they didn’t perceive the question of defence against the invasion as political at all, but simply as defence of their way of life against an external aggressor.

What do you mean when you say Ukrainian society is mostly apolitical?

The myth that Ukraine is a particularly activist society developed after the Euromaidan, but in reality, only a minority was ever active, often from the urban middle class. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s election showed how little political authority the patriotic intelligentsia had: the vast majority voted for an “anti-political” outsider candidate who even promised peace with Russia.

How would you characterise this “anti-political” attitude?

There is a widespread scepticism towards politicians and ideologies, which is connected to a certain political passivity. It’s about a feeling of powerlessness, of the impossibility of changing anything yourself. It wasn’t always like this: the end of the Soviet Union coincided with enormous politicisation of the working class and major strikes. This was followed by the extreme economic and social crisis of the Nineties. The reaction was a retreat into private life, especially among workers.

What about trade unions?

As in the Soviet era, the large industrial unions are something like the right hand of management. For the workers, however, they are still important because they distribute social benefits. Besides these, there are independent unions that want to be combative but are marginal.

How did this change with the full invasion?

In 2022, the government passed the most anti-worker and anti-union laws in Ukraine’s history. The government seized the opportunity to push this through, or perhaps saw it as necessary in view of the war.

Was there no resistance?

The large unions declared their opposition but remained passive. Under martial law, it was impossible to organise protests. And most workers had other concerns. Moreover, the drastic economic downturn of 2022 weakened the position of workers. The situation is so bad that what the economist Joan Robinson once wrote applies: the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all. It’s reminiscent of the crisis of the Nineties, when many continued to work despite not receiving wages anymore, because at least they still had access to certain goods and welfare benefits from their companies.

In the hope that the situation might improve again?

Yes, the big question is: What does the future look like? If the war should end with a ceasefire, the economic problem remains. There have already been premature conferences about rebuilding Ukraine. It became clear that this would concentrate on the west of the country. Who wants to invest near the front line, especially if peace is only fragile? The decline of these areas full of old Soviet-era industry, which in any case don’t meet EU environmental standards, seems programmed.

Isn’t there rather a threat of Ukraine being sold off to Western capital?

The problem is exactly the opposite. Eastern European states like the Czech Republic or Hungary allowed themselves to be colonised by German capital after 1989. Today, it’s considerably more pleasant to live there than in Ukraine. For most Ukrainians, it would already be an enormous economic advancement if their country became a peripheral EU state. But whether Ukraine is still attractive to Western investors remains questionable. The country risks slipping into a grey zone where there is no capital investment, no growth, but plenty of traumatised and armed men. For many Ukrainians, this scenario is much more threatening than dependence on the EU. They would rather see the latter as salvation.

So is economic development a more important motivation for the very high approval of EU membership in the population than freedom and democracy?

You can’t separate it like that; freedom and democracy are important. But Ukraine needs economic integration. And only the EU remains, because the economic connections to Russia have been destroyed at the latest since 2014. I think it’s an illusion that Ukraine could develop better outside the EU bloc, with supposedly sovereign economic policies similar to the import substitution phase of the Seventies.

How do your interlocutors in Kryvyi Rih currently view the war?

They are very concerned that the front is moving towards their city. Everyone has in mind the fate of Mariupol, a city that was very similar to Kryvyi Rih and to which there were many personal connections. However, this doesn’t mean that everyone would be ready to join the army.

For over a year, more and more people have been forcibly mobilised into the army. How is it in Kryvyi Rih?

Disproportionately many have been recruited there for the military since 2014. Men from large industrial enterprises are overrepresented in the army because they are easier for authorities to locate through their workplace than people who work informally somewhere. The same applies to men from villages, where social control is stronger.

How does mobilisation at the workplace work?

For a long time, companies cooperated with the authorities, but due to labour shortages, conflicts increased. There were stories where recruiters showed up unannounced at factories and searched the premises. Meanwhile, at least some of the workforce from businesses declared war-relevant – for example in heavy industry, mining, and railways – is exempt from recruitment.

“I don’t know how the demand for security against another Russian attack would not also be in the interest of the working class.”

Many leftists here argue that the working class must recognise that it has nothing to gain in this war. What do you think about that?

Even in the Second World War, there were calls not to support the war of bourgeois states against fascism, for example by the anarchist platformists. I don’t want to question the legitimacy of such positions in principle. But I think it’s not a good idea to assume a priori that people are stupid and don’t understand their own interests due to their false consciousness. Before coming to a judgement about what, for example, Ukrainian workers should or shouldn’t do, one should talk to them or try to understand their situation. When looking at the war, some people only have a schema from the First World War in mind. I don’t see my task as advocating for a national defence struggle. But I advocate for a genuine analysis of the conditions.

What does that analysis reveal?

Ukrainian workers are not deceived by nationalist propaganda. They think quite pragmatically. It’s circumstances beyond their control that force them to fight in this war that they hate. If there were a ceasefire tomorrow, most would probably be relieved. Some had placed hopes in Trump. But his behaviour in recent weeks and the conditions he sets have shocked many people in Kryvyi Rih, because that’s not the peace they want.

And what follows from that?

I don’t see myself in a position to tell others what the correct position is; I don’t know myself. On one hand, everyone wants the war to stop; no one wants to die or lose their loved ones. But everyone also understands that an unstable ceasefire could mean the continuation of the war in the near future, as has happened in the past. The demand for security against another Russian attack is not a demand of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie or a tyrannical Zelenskyy government. I don’t know how that would not also be in the interest of the working class.

What do the workers wish for?

Most wish for political and economic stability. The latter is undermined by the government with its own economic policy. It follows a technocratic approach: it thinks primarily about what resources must be extracted from it, less about how this is received by society. It’s similar with the partly lawless manner in which the tightening of mobilisation has been taking place since last year.

There are even reports of violence against recruitment officials. Does this express that the Ukrainian government has lost its legitimacy?

My colleague Daria Saburova, who conducted field research in Kryvyi Rih in 2023 and is there again now, argues that it’s hardly surprising that so many people don’t want to join the army. What needs explanation is rather that mobilisation can still continue after three years. There are women who support army units as volunteers and at the same time hide their own husbands. Such contradictions are interesting from a social science perspective, but above all, they are tragic. Most people simply don’t think in abstract categories but about how to survive somehow, and pursue individual strategies.

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Denys Gorbach

Denys Gorbach is a Ukrainian social scientist currently teaching at Lund University in Sweden. In 2024, his book “The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class: Everyday Politics and Moral Economy in a Post-Soviet City” was published, based on field research in his hometown of Kryvyi Rih. He is part of the editorial collective of the Ukrainian journal “Spilne” (Commons).

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Denys Gorbach

Interview by Paul Simon

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