Ivan Lizan (Иван Лизан)By Ivan Lisan for Odnako
Source: За девятым кругом ада: какие перемены ждут украинское общество после войны

 

Translated from Russian by Alexander

 

The civil war in Ukraine is like a huge meat grinder. The hands that turn the screw conveyor kill dozens of people every day and destroy thousands of people’s lives. However, any war will sooner or later come to an end, and the wounds on the tissue of society will gradually scar – though leaving an ugly trail of dead, wounded and displaced. Therefore it would be no harm to understand how Ukrainian society will change after the war.

 

Life without a state

The state as a social institution – both in LDNR and the rest of Ukraine – ceased to exist.
In the “Maidan-khanat” Ukraine it continues to decay at different rates depending on the region, and the latest function, and is kept up by the “Ukrainian authorities”, – repressively, and with the only method of control – terror.
In LDNR the state was destroyed by Kiev authorities at the time when they gave the order to block everything they could and evacuate government agencies from what is now called “occupied territories”. However, in the republics state institutions have been created from scratch and there are successes in this matter, although the pace of state-building is clearly inadequate.
For Kiev, LDNR are not even provinces – of which MPs kindly redrew borders – but territory. Kiev wages war merely for territory, not for the people who live in it. Kiev doesn’t need people – neither their own, which it has to feed, nor others who are just in the way, – and people are rapidly “mogilized.” [mogila = grave] Or, as the great orator Klitschko said, “prepare the ground”.
Therefore, based on the logic of Nikolai Berdyaev, who wrote that “the state is not created in order to turn life into a paradise, but in order to not turn it into hell” and the harsh reality on the territory of Ukraine is that there is no state, branches of hell are opening in big numbers.

 

Bloody process of transformation

So far the number of those killed is about 50 thousand people, according to German intelligence. And this is not propaganda from one side of the conflict, but a statement of a bystander who is watching the tragedy.
War, default and its aftermath will lead to significant changes in Ukrainian society.

1. The effect of the war will be a mass death of single pensioners and other elderly people who remain at least without essential medication, or in worst case – without food. Already the minimum wage of able-bodied citizen of Ukraine is (at the rate of 25 UAH. / US $.) about 48 dollars. A simple Ukrainian lives on $ 1.6 per day. The fate of pensioners and wretched: the minimum pension does not hold up to $ 40.

2. Any war causes huge losses among the male population in terms of crippled and killed. To the loss can be added not only to the dead and wounded, but also the refugees from the war in neighboring countries who had previously left for work and decided to not come back. Those who went to Russia under the program of resettlement of compatriots. Another year of such a war – and the children of those who survive this hell will be able to read in the history books about the next wave of Ukrainians’ colonization of Siberia and the Far East.

3. The society will be transformed beyond recognition.
There will be less representatives of the bourgeoisie, such as hipsters, punks, goths and other representatives of various subcultures. In order to maintain their standards of living and style they need money, and they will not have it. The number of lumpen-proletariat and peasants will increase sharply: the streets will be filled with homeless persons and beggars. The process of internal migration will intensify. Urban population will temporarily return to the villages, where the chances of finding food will be bigger.
With the increased number of orphans and the destruction of the educational system, the number of homeless children in the streets will increase significantly, as street crime will as indicator of it.
Crimes will predominantly be commited against property and life / health. There will be a drastic increase of domestic crimes with firearms, which will be used as decisive arguments in exacerbated interpersonal relationships in the process of alcoholism among returnees from “ATO”.
The number of neurotics and other persons with mental disorders who are left to themselves will increase critically.

4. It will be especially bad for women. They have traditionally complained about the lack of normal men, and by the end of the war there will be even less. Firstly, many will die, will leave and not come back or, at best, will move to other regions. Secondly, there will be an increase of amputees and victims of post-traumatic syndromes. Finding a normal guy would be incredibly difficult, and the competition will be enormous. Due to lack of money, even one rose will be perceived as a gift, and going to a dilapidated restaurant will be an extremely exciting and memorable event, which will be bragged about to her friends.

5. The age structure of society will change.
A lot of people will die at retirement age. Working pensioners will become a rarity – they will be replaced by the younger. I believe that the greatest losses will be waiting for the 60+ generation, as they are the most unprotected.
Worse it will be for men aged 18-50. They are the most promising representatives of “cannon fodder” for the Ukrainian army. Age category of 50-60 years are more likely to survive without significant losses – they maintain performance and the military is not interested in them. They have the knowledge and skills that help to somehow survive troubled times.
Thus, the greatest damage will be inflicted on pensioners and able-bodied men in the prime of their lives, and the country is awaiting a severe shortage of personnel.

6. The creative class (advertisers, creators, publicists, journalists) will be harmed. There will be less money, so the demand for their labor will drop. Parts will have to change the occupation or place of residence.
Significantly reduced will be the number of representatives of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, parts will leave Ukraine, parts will be ruined, and some lose their lives for their past sins and crimes.
The most unenviable fate of a peasantry – it suffers the strongest of all, as it is forced to fight in the interests of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, and as a result will for decades be wallowing in misery and ruin. But the value of workers and professional technicians will increase by several times, because they will bear the burden of the restoration of damaged infrastructure.

7. Changes will occur in the mass consciousness that defensively will generate “fake” memories of his role in the Civil War. Creating memories – a way to protect the mind and maintain the ability to integrate into a changed society.
Society, and such a disparate one, will even more atomize: burst social connections between people of different beliefs and ideologies, will terminate the relationship between the political opponents.
Distinction between people of different regions will sharpen. Already, residents of Bessarabia and Galicia abandon their Ukrainian identity, which is manifested in the reluctance to fight on the Eastern Front, claiming that it is far and alien. The authority of Kyiv as the capital falls below zero.

8. The society will undergo denazification, and a number of social, political and economic rights of certain categories (the bourgeoisie, the creative class, security forces) will be significantly limited. With the adoption of the lustration laws, the current Ukrainian authorities increase the framework of what is permitted for those who will replace them. Turning the weapon of discrimination against his creators is only a matter of time.

9. The masses will be prompted to economical-social and political-cultural knowledge. Intellectual recovery of the masses is only possible if the state structure, which will replace the Ukraine, engages it purposefully. Otherwise the TV, from which 80% of the population get their information, will be replaced by another TV, but critical thinking skills in the country’s inhabitants will not develop. Instead, citizens will be re-propagandized.

 

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Economic recovery will take decades, and the times of mindless consumerism and mass departures abroad on holiday can only be dreamt about.
In any case, what happened to the people of Ukraine will become a disaster and the death of the target project in which they existed during the previous 23 years of independence. For the rest of the inhabitants of Eurasia Ukrainian tragedy has become (and continues to be) an example of the collapse of the state and a tragedy, which will heal many generations.