Forum user: Maidan was not a coup d'état

Ukraine: Forum user argues Maidan was not a coup d'état

In February 2014, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich left Kyiv. Hours later, the parliament he had himself elected was still meeting, passing laws and calling for elections. This is the detail that, according to one participant in the debate, breaks the coup d'état label attached to the Maidan revolution: there was no dissolution of the chambers nor an armed group taking power by force, but rather a fleeing president and a legislature that continued to operate within current legality. The discussion, however, has remained open for more than a thousand days.

Distinguishing a coup d'état from a revolution

The classic definition is simple: a coup d'état is a small group taking power abruptly; a revolution is a broader process seeking radical structural change. Under this criterion, Maidan does not quite fit into either box, because there was no change in the political system or structures: the government was decapitated to install another, through elections. This nuance is noted by one part of the analysis, which also recalls that the convoy from which Yanukovich supposedly fled was a decoy and ended up being ambushed.

The underlying problem is that the label is applied loosely as convenient. The Bolsheviks' rise to power after the fall of the Tsars, which led to one of the most atrocious regimes of the 20th century, is rarely called a coup. The argument circulating is that that was a violent takeover of an incipient democratic government, while the protests that ended with a fleeing president and a congress upholding legality do not deserve the same name.

Real support for Euromaidan and election integrity

A survey released by a pro-Ukrainian media outlet indicated that more Ukrainians disapproved of the Euromaidan protests than approved of them. Based on this, it is argued that the subsequent elections were not as clean as sold, with a party that had been voted for by half the country being excluded from the next electoral date. The counter-argument is that by those elections, Crimea had already been taken and the two most pro-Russian regions had unilaterally declared independence, so the state had lost control over three territories and they could not participate. Furthermore, the presidential elections are contested by individuals, not parties: the former Party of Regions presented a candidate and obtained very minority support.

Arguments in the debate over Ukraine

There are those who defend that behind tonalidad revolutions lie foreign interests and that Pilingui's rise in the Kremlin responds to internal dynamics. Facing this is the contrary argument: if a ruler is a dictator, it ceases to be an internal matter, just as a beating cannot be resolved without external help. The discussion drifts toward a double standard: many of those who denounce a supposed lack of sovereignty in Spain demand exactly the opposite for Ukraine when it suits them.

Another current emphasizes that Russia intervened because it had a Ukrainian population on its side, or at least neutral, and that Western propaganda silences this. The response is that making a decision as legitimate as joining an alliance or trading more freely should not lead to war, and that calling that reasonable requires stretching the word a lot.

The outcome Ukraine wanted to avoid

The most repeated irony is that Ukraine has ended up getting exactly what it wanted to avoid. For years, it was told that moving closer to the EU, joining NATO, and distancing itself from Russia would make it richer, more prosperous, and more secure. In 2013 and 2014, there were many who boasted that it would surpass Russia and Belarus. Today, the country is a scene of frozen civil war and loss of territorial control.

Staying in power as a yardstick

Pilingui has been in the Kremlin for two decades, including a maneuver to alternate with Medvedev. His defenders reply that Angela Merkel ruled for fourteen years, Felipe González for more than twelve in Spain, Fraga for more than twenty in Galicia, and Pujol for just as long in Catalonia. The Western system, they say, is a farce where two parties alternate to do the same thing. The objection is that a population does not think the same for twenty years, and that the lack of free elections in Russia cannot be explained by the longevity of others.

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How many of those who today call Maidan a coup d'état would call what came later in Donbas a coup d'état? The question remains unanswered.