Throughout this history of ours with Maidan and wars, there is one point that troubles me. This point concerns how Ukrainian events are perceived abroad. Moreover, they are perceived not so much by ordinary people as by active people who will determine the future. This perception, it seems to me, greatly impedes events from developing in a direction favorable to everyone.
Here everything is very simple. A normal, living European person will not stand in the freezing cold for the European Union. This is the same as a Ukrainian standing in line for the housing office chief, a tax inspector, or a traffic cop. A normal, living, and active person would not wish the European Union on himself because he lives there and knows what it’s like. Therefore, if someone somewhere is standing—and even fighting—in a square for the European Union, then he is either simple-minded or organized by someone. Hence a normal, living European person will easily believe in “militants” and “training camps in Lithuania.” He is not sure about Putin, but firmly knows that “his own” bureaucrats are quite the sons of bitches. Yes, Putin is a scoundrel, of course, but these Ukrainians are quite something, given that Merkels and Hollandes walk among their friends and protectors. And besides, all of this is bureaucratic games that do not personally concern him at all.
Normal, living Europeans who will determine the future of Europe do not connect that future with Ukrainian events in any way, since they see them as part of the “great chess game” between bureaucrats. They see that Ukraine “wants to join the European Union,” but in the futures of these people there are no European unions.
Meanwhile, the Maidan was the most genuine “anarcho-capitalist” community. That is, there were people of the same sort there who in Europe do not love the European Union—entrepreneurs, “self-employed,” and so on. The thing is, as often happens, people were doing one thing while calling it something else. Like the “barbaric” girls from my favorite example, believing that pregnancy occurs from walking under a sacred tree. Regardless of their ideas about the tree’s role, the girls were doing what actually causes pregnancy. It’s the same here. Regardless of the sincerity with which people on the Maidan shouted about the “European perspective” or about “death to the pies” (things that are incompatible, which should already be a warning), something completely different was being done there—the work was anti-bureaucratic and anti-state. That is, work that is close, necessary, and important for a living and normal European person—work with which he connects the future.
The same goes for Americans. Ron Paul at his “peace institute” repeats Putin’s propaganda. On Lew Rockwell’s website, Donbass hooligans are called “freedom fighters.” They are indeed fighters, but certainly not fighters for freedom. And all because the main enemy of Rockwell and others sits in Washington, and it is the American establishment. Accordingly, everyone who is against this establishment is automatically considered allies of varying degrees of usefulness. And for such an approach to exist, no Gazprom money is even needed. No one from their warm American offices will bother to investigate the details of the lives of all sorts of Ukrainians, into whose affairs “Uncle Sam” is sticking his nose. There are too many of these Ukrainians in the world. All the more so when no signals about what is happening come from Ukraine itself. As a result, these people do not even suspect what they have missed—a genuinely libertarian “event”—and that they are currently actually helping those who want things not to go any further.
All of this is very sad, since the “bureaucratic international” truly exists. The interests of bureaucracy are universal throughout the world, and it is precisely this that makes it an “international” and leads to the fact that “crows do not peck out each other’s eyes.” Bureaucrats do not need to create any organizations in order to act as if they belong to some secret lodge. Common interest is the strongest organizer. And “anti-bureaucrats” fight only with their local bosses. And as long as this is the case, they will continue to lose.