Much has been written on the 1917-20 revolution in Ukrainian on the national movement the
Makhnovists and the struggle of the Bolsheviks. Yet there were others with a mass following
whose role has faded from history. One such party was the Borotbisty an inde-pendent party of
Ukrainian revolutionary socialists seeking to achieve national liberation and social
emancipation. Though widely known in revolutionary Europe in their day the Borotbisty were
decimated during the Stalinist holocaust in Ukraine. Out of print for over half a century this
lost text by Ivan Maistrenko the last survivor of this party provides a unique account. Part
memoir and part history this is a thought provoking study which chal-lenges previous approaches
to the revolution and shows how events in Ukraine decided the fate not only of the Russian
Revolution but the upheavals in Europe at the time. Ivan Maistrenko's Borotbism is more than
just a historical document. The debates during and after the 'Ukrainian revolution' of 1917
still have a contemporary relevance - and Ukrainian debate was especially rich because if
extended beyond the ranks of the Bolsheviks to the 'national communist' parties the Borotbisty
and Ukapisty. Ukrainian 'national communism' proved ephemeral when reborn in the late 1980s and
early 1990s but ar-guably because it failed to reconnect with earlier polemics being as
Maistrenko predicted in the 1950s little more than a cover story for the nomenklatura to
pursue its self-enrichment. The debate about the relative importance of national and or social
liberation is still of great importance however especially as Ukrainians arguably now have
the former without the latter. In Putin's Russia market capitalism has to struggle with the
state and the left has often been prisoner to imperial nostalgia. The popular hatred of
'oligarchs' is as visceral in Ukraine as it is in Russia but these sentiments are currently
better tapped by opposition politicians like Yuliia Tymoshenko and Yurii Lutsenko. Both are
often dismissed as 'populists' but building a non-communist Ukrainian left remains as
important a task today as it was in 1917 or 1954. Andrew Wilson Senior Lecturer in Ukrainian
Studies at the School of Slavonic & East European Studies University College London
