The dominant left narrative is that Viktor Yanukovych was Ukraine’s version of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, a “popularly elected” (as Stephen F. Cohen puts it) president whose decision to reject a deal with the EU in favor of a better deal with Russia made him the target of a conspiracy of local fascists and Western imperialism. Furthermore, if not for protesters being killed by snipers “hired” by the Euromaidan protest leaders, the “putsch” would have not succeeded. This is the story put forward by RT.com and echoed by WSWS.org, Global Research, and other websites too numerous to mention.
A deeper investigation reveals that it was his own erstwhile backers who were decisive in his ouster. In a maneuver that evokes Mubarak’s removal in Egypt, elements of the “pro-Russian” oligarchy decided to throw Yanukovych to the wolves in order to deflate the mass movement and make continued oligarchic rule possible. As Don Fabrizio put it in Giuseppi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard: “Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they’ll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/03/30/yanukovychs-ouster-the-myth-and-the-reality/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
