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Why Ukraine is a Co-equal Successor to the USSR [1]
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Date: 2025-02-27
I realized this is worth repeating, but when the Russian state collapsed in 1917-1918, there was total anarchy in Eurasia *for years.* Whole swaths of what was once the Russian Empire were lawless or run by roaming, self-appointed war lords. Various entities emerged from this garbage dump of an empire following the First World War, some became viable states, others were swallowed up by rivals, like blobs of oil absorbing other blobs. The emergence of Ukraine as an entity is an extremely complicated process, but Ukraine did not receive its independence from "Russia," because "Russia" did not exist at this time.
By the time the USSR was created in 1922, four Communist political entities, the Ukrainian SSR, the Belarusian SSR, the Russian Soviet Federated Republic (RSFSR) and something called the Transcaucasian SSR (later divided into the Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijan SSRs) already existed and joined together to create this new federated entity, the USSR. When Finland and Estonia signed treaties in 1920, in which Moscow recognized their independence, they did so with an entity calling itself "the Federal Socialist Republic of Soviet Russia." This treaty referred to a state of war *between* Estonia and Russia, and this was the first treaty in which the Federal Socialist Republic of Soviet Russia was recognized. The Russian Federation is a successor to that state.
Not the USSR.
When the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991, the leaders of Belarus, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation met to undo the links created by the 1922 treaty. This is why Ukraine is a co-equal successor state to the USSR, and could have a seat on the UN Security Council because of it. The idea of "Russia" to which Putin refers is only an idea, it has no legal basis. There is no legal line of continuity between Ivan the Terrible, Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin, and Putin. They all ruled different political entities. The idea that Ukraine was a "part of Russia" is a sort of New Age idea. It's akin to the idea that certain islands or territories are natural "parts of China," even if they might never have been previously. In this way "Tibet is China," or "Taiwan is China." It's like a spiritual, metaphysical thing, with no real basis. It just is China.
Here we can see the influence of Eastern authoritarianism on Russian ideas about itself, and about its world concept. "Taiwan is China." "Ukraine is Russia." Not for any reason or truth grounded in reality. Because of some greater metaphysical reason.
This sensing-feeling New Age nationalism has links to Mussolini's Italian fascism as well as Hitler's national socialism. But it is really dominant across Europe, and particularly in eastern parts of Europe. In the search for a national identity after the collapse of Soviet rule, all of these reborn or first-time born "nations" have conjured up their own intoxicating elixirs of national thought, underpinned by ideas about collective victimhood and ancient tales of heroism. Ideas like "Ukraine may someday be Russian" are the by-product of this proselytizing by self-made spirit warriors and new Rasputins like Dugin, for example.
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