People’s Republics: Summating the Donbass Socio-Political and Economic Experience

Posted on April 28, 2017 by J A

By: Eduard Popov – translated by Jafe Arnold

The Center for Syncretic Studies is honored to present our Russian colleague, Dr. Eduard Popov’s recent article featured in the journal Post-Soviet States: 25 Years of Independent Development published under the editorship of the famous expert on the South Caucasus and Doctor of Historical Sciences, Alexander Krylov (Moscow) from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We thank Dr. Krylov for generously allowing us the opportunity to translate and publish this article by Popov, supplemented and updated specifically for the Center for Syncretic Studies and Fort Russ. This article is based on the findings of expert and sociological surveys conducted by the author in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in 2015-2016 mainly among the military, political, and business elites of both republics, as well as among trade union members.

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Russian Spring: The Socio-Political Dynamics of the Donbass Independence Movement

he rise of the protest movement in Donbass (and other regions of historical Novorossiya) which resulted in the proclamation of the People’s Republics, was a reaction to the coup d’etat in Kiev and aggressive Russophobic policies. It is no accident that the first legislative step of the new Ukrainian authorities was abolishing the language law, ratified in 2003 by the Verkhovna Rada in line with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which effectively pushed the Russian language out of the educational and cultural-information space of Ukraine. However, the popular movement in Donbass at the end of winter and spring 2014 also had deeper motives. The proclamation of the people’s republics of Donbass was a logical reaction to the dismantling of Ukrainian statehood as it had been formed in the framework of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The new Ukrainian authorities violated the tacit social contract of loyalty to the existing state in exchange for a guaranteed minimum of cultural-linguistic rights for the regions of the “South-East” (historical Novorossiya). Continue reading →

Electric Yerevan and Lessons on the Color-Spring Tactic

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Joaquin Flores

by : Joaquin Flores

Electric Yerevan & Lessons on the Color-Spring Tactic

he Electric Yerevan protest provides us with an excellent opportunity to review some of the basic underlying mechanics and psychology of the Color-Spring tactic. It is important to share these publicly, for it is indeed probable that the Color-Spring tactic will be increasingly applied in the world as a “hybrid soft-power/hard-power tactic”.

A moral principle held by Gene Sharp, who was one of the tactic’s main developers, was that violence is not necessary for revolution. What is strange, contradictory, even dishonest here is that violence is reduced taxonomically to the physical violence of the state’s gendarmes against the civilians. But we know that violence comes in many forms.

We live in a time of great violence; physical, psychological, legal, economic, spiritual violence. Not only has the Color Revolution tactic engendered the latter four, but its mutation into the Arab Spring tactic also employs heinous physical violence. We can see today, tens of thousands dead in Libya, hundreds of thousands in Syria, and a mounting figure in Ukraine which threatens to surpass the precedents.

Continue reading →

Beyond Left and Right, Beyond Red and White: Framing the Liberation War in Donbass

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Joaquin Flores

By: Nina Kouprianova

Beyond Left and Right, Beyond Red and White: Framing the Liberation War in Donbass

( originally published here )

“There are no separate Russia or Ukraine, but one Holy Rus” – Elder Iona of Odessa

he year 2014 saw an unprecedented surge of patriotism in contemporary Russia, which resulted in popularizing the notion of the Russian World. One reason for increased patriotic sentiment was Crimea’s return to the home port after the overwhelmingly positive vote by its majority-Russian residents in a referendum one year ago. The onset of the liberation war in Donbass from the West-backed Kiev regime was the other. This war truly delineated the stakes for the existence of the Russian World. The latter is not an ethnic, but a civilizational concept that encompasses shared culture, history, and language in the Eurasian space within a traditionalist framework. To a certain extent and despite the obvious ideological differences, the Russian Empire and the USSR embodied the same geopolitical entity. Continue reading →

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The Disintegration of the United States and the Fourth Political Theory: A Brief Overview

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Joaquin Flores

By: Joaquin Flores

The Disintegration of the United States and the Fourth Political Theory: A Brief Overview

he emerging debate over the potential and application for a Fourth Political Theory (4PT) in the United States is one of increasing concern and importance within the present world-crisis. In order for its potential and application to be understood, it must begin by addressing the following areas which contain questions in the form of both problems and possibilities.

In this piece we will explore the following five elements. First, an introduction to a way of looking at the problems and possibilities. Second, we will look at some of the material factors which indicate a crisis of legitimacy in the current US regime. Third, we will move on to a description of the elements of an organic process of developing a 4PT intellectual movement that comes from within the US. Fourth, we will look at some of the basic elements which frame the present discourse in the US. Finally, we will provide an understanding of popular political views in the US as being primarily Socialist and Libertarian. Continue reading →