Declaration of Independence

The appeals in support of Kiev’s Maidan revolution among a sector of our society gave way to deafening silence — and even angry condemnation — when in the context of the very same revolutionary logic, self-proclaimed revolutionaries (there’s no such thing as other kinds: Lenin, Danton, Garibaldi, Cromwell, Yatsenyuk — all have been self-proclaimed) began to seize power in southeastern Ukraine. In Kiev, people with beautiful, shining faces (beautiful even under masks) rose up, whereas mercenaries, goons and rent-a-thugs rose in revolt in the southeast. And compassion for rent-a-thugs does not make the list of progressive virtues.

Among yet another part of our society, by contrast, February’s legitimism — [which maintains that] no matter what kind of a person Yanukovych is, he is the legitimate president, and what is happening in Kiev is downright lawlessness — gave way to extreme enthusiasm in April when in Lugansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and then everywhere, the Russian spring began. Here, legitimism and conservatism immediately became inappropriate.

Besides, the initial motive for those who gathered at Independence Square, as for those who gathered on the central squares of Kharkiv, Donetsk and other cities, was one and the same: Protest against the abuse of authority. It is difficult to deny that under Yanukovych there had been plenty of abuse, but it is even more difficult to deny that in a little more than a month the new government has displayed such a range of abuse and lawlessness that against this background V.F. Yanukovych seemed like a kindly grandfather. And if it’s okay to overthrow him [by] dispensing with legal formalities — political power grows out of the barrel of a gun — then it’s not clear why it’s not okay to overthrow the new revolutionary government of Turchynov-Yatsenyuk. There is no getting around the power-generating properties of a gun.

All the more so, as a month ago the Declaration of Independence of the United States was being quoted left and right in justification of Kiev’s revolution. It is always widely quoted when we, or our accomplices, overthrow someone. However, when we, or our accomplices, are overthrown, this foundational document instantly goes out the window.

The Founding Fathers, as is well-known, asserted: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

For modern political usage, it is frequently not the American wording — still quite moderate — but the completely unrestrained French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in its 1793 version that is borrowed: “When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.” If that is the case, then the only thing for which one might reproach southeastern Ukraine’s inhabitants is for somewhat of a delay in fulfilling the most indispensable of duties. Not a very long delay, however.

As a matter of fact, one might reproach the Americans themselves for being the pot that called the kettle black. When the southern states decided in 1861 that they had the right to alter the government and institute a new government based on such principles, “and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness,” Lincoln showed through four years of the bloodiest of wars that they had better behave and that the Declaration of Independence was not something to invoke — although you couldn’t come up with a better document establishing the right to unlimited secession.

Today, the founding fathers of Donbass, Kharkiv and Lugansk — obviously, to the delight of the U.S. Department of State — can rewrite the 1776 document almost word for word, substituting only A.V. Turchynov for the British king in the text, and present the edited document to all of humanity. Humanity will rejoice at how precisely the ideals of the shining city upon a Hill are carried out in Donetsk.

It’s probably possible, however, to regard the Founding Fathers’ legacy in a different way — seeing the Declaration of Independence not as a prescriptive, but merely a descriptive document. That is, the text does not prescribe to the people their rights and much less their duties, but merely describes what autocratic abuses can lead to: the removal of all protective mechanisms and subjects’ loss of instinctive obedience.

Hereafter, a purely coercive scenario begins. The one who is more daring and decisive will have the upper hand. And the revolutionaries who replicated on Independence Square the test at Chernobyl in 1986, removing in turn every level of protection, hardly have the right to take offense or be surprised if the accelerated reactor goes out of control. From another point of view, two Chernobyls in 28 years is a bit much, but what happened, happened, and Ukraine’s neighbors are washing their hands of whatever develops next.