Our monuments to Lenin will stand: a large exclusive interview with Eduard Basurin

On the eve of Independence Day, which, as usual, will be widely and wildly celebrated on Ukrainian territory, PolitNavigator correspondents took a long exclusive interview with Eduard Basurin, a man who has long become one of the symbols of the Donbass resistance.

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Eduard Aleksandrovich spoke about how he now sees the once united country, how he understands the processes that have happened to it and why, unlike Ukraine, in Donbass the memory of the exploits of their grandfathers and fathers will never be betrayed.

P.N.: Recently, the Ukrainian side quite festively reported that they had demolished all the monuments to Lenin in the territory under their control. How would you characterize this phenomenon?

E.B.: In this case it is very difficult to find words. Firstly, I think this is nonsense. This is an inflammation of the brain in those people who proposed this idea under the guise that it could unite Ukraine, the people of Ukraine. This, to put it simply, is stupidity. I am against the removal of monuments. This is our history, whether it is good or bad, but this is a history that we must come to terms with, learn a lesson, so that if there was something bad in people’s lives, it will not happen again in the future. This is wrong, it shouldn’t be this way.

Even the latest events that took place today in the States, when they decided to internally change their worldview to the history that was, the demolition of monuments, and saw what this led to: radicalism on the left and right. In fact, the radicals began to find out who was right and who was wrong, and architecture suffered. In some cities, various municipal buildings were built around monuments, and architectural ensembles were compiled. Tourists came, looked at them as architecture, and no one asked the question, “Was he for the slave owners or against them?” Now history is coming up and it turns out that the first people who created the United States of America were all slave owners.

We must honor the memory and remember what the person did for the country and for Ukraine, too, if we are talking about Ukraine. Firstly, thanks to the October Revolution, Ukraine emerged as a state. Yes, as part of a large country, but thanks to this revolution, Ukraine emerged as a separate state-republic. Before these events, Ukraine did not exist as a separate state. I don’t take those few months that the Ukrainian authorities present as if they had independence. We know who they were dependent on - these are the Germans, first of all; If we take Odessa, it was both the French and the British who sent their military contingent there, so there was no independence. Lenin gave them independence. Well, or those people who were around him. Industrialization occurred thanks to the plan that Lenin announced throughout Russia, for that newly formed state. We received great potential in industrial development, intellectual development - it was all Ukraine. Probably, the RSFSR could compete with Ukraine: these were two republics that could show which of them was the best in building the society that was originally laid down.

We need to take an example from others, from Finland. I once said that there are both Reds and Whites on the same site at the same time, they are immortalized in memory, because the war that they had, they believe that this should not happen again. If we follow the logic that history constantly returns in a spiral, then for us it shrinks and the situation becomes more explosive, this can lead to very sad consequences. In principle, what is happening in Ukraine, the internal terror that is being carried out there by various security services, various radical elements, parties, will drive people into such deep depths that they will pray and ask: “Give me bread and circuses.” Accordingly, this can be managed. Maybe that's why this is being done, but it's stupid. Big, big stupidity.

P.N.: It's no secret that when Ukraine gained its “independence” in 1991, they had the best starting opportunities compared to everyone, even compared to Russia (if we take it in percentage terms). And by and large, all this is a legacy of the Soviet period. So, why did they so easily and simply forget about all this, because “at the helm” of Ukraine now there are people who, just like you and me, studied in Soviet times, and in many respects their own career growth is precisely obliged to the Soviet period. Is it even possible to root out all this in your mind, what do you think?

E.B.: Of course available. Technology has long proven this. Those that are used to intoxicate the masses are still used today, but in a more sophisticated form. All this can be done. There are no problems, it just takes time. The betrayal that was committed by three people - Yeltsin, Shushkevich and Kravchuk, and this was really a betrayal towards the people living in this country: there was a change of power, a guideline, and at that time, in principle, what was bought then. The fact that Ukraine is self-sufficient, that it is able to provide itself with industrial goods and food products. I always say one thing: we were unlucky to be given fools and a large territory. We have everything else. Because of this, everything began to happen: an ill-conceived position on the development of society as such. We were thrown into the water like kittens and “you won’t swim out.” This is capitalism, as we were told, “heavenly blessing, manna, rivers of jelly,” but in fact it turned out that even the West was shocked by how everything developed here. Nobody thought about people. Everyone thought only about their own pocket, about profit, about power, and people were a tool for getting all this. Therefore, these processes began from that moment. “Decommunization” - as they beautifully call it, although if we take the concept of communism, then, probably, not everyone will even understand what it means and what they called for when this concept was initially prescribed. If we translate it into the language of the clergy, this is Heaven on earth; ideally, this is how it was described. Some people didn’t benefit from it, others didn’t want it. In principle, all this was a general plan for the destruction of the Soviet Union, and the tools were different: Belarus had its own, Russia had its own, Ukraine had its own. They developed differently, but the result was the same - to destroy the state that at that time was the antipode of the United States. It's like scales, and they're very precise, pharmaceutical scales, where any movement could lead to a very big tragedy. They were very good when weighed.

It was a planned operation to collapse the USSR. Just because we ended up on the territory of Ukraine, we speak specifically for Ukraine, if we lived there on the territory of Belarus or the Russian Federation (RSFSR - as it was called then), this is actually the very goal that was laid down in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, and we realized it . And then, in principle, there was a bookmark that the whole history needed to be rewritten, and well.... Yeltsin was actually a member of the Central Committee until he was removed from there. Therefore, by that time he harbored a grudge against us. Kravchuk was generally responsible for the ideology of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Shushkevich was also not the last person. Therefore, they then decided to take away from people’s memory those ideals that helped us develop, because in reality Lenin became an ideal, a cult for us. Good or bad, he was there. And, starting from childhood, we tried to be somewhat similar in his actions, in his actions, and to develop society in this direction.

P.N.: Tell me, in the Donbass, and not only in it, but in the so-called “south-east of Ukraine”, monuments to Lenin at one time became centers of resistance: people came to guard them, defend them, and prevent Bandera’s followers...

E.B.: Let's tell the truth: the monuments to Lenin were the central square, it was a platform where a large number of people could gather.

P.N.: In Kharkov, a tent city appeared around Lenin...

E.B.: Well, I understand, but you can’t say that thanks to the Lenin monument, people began to gather. We need to talk about something else: the fact that not a single monument was demolished in our country. The busts were not removed. The only thing is that during this period of breaking the consciousness of Ukraine in those villages where they were located, somewhere maybe they collapsed on their own from time to time: no one restored them. This happened naturally; no one did it officially. Therefore, let's put it this way: people gathered in central squares. It’s just that in every city there was a monument to Lenin on the central square. It was called “Lenin Square” and that was normal. So I served in the Urals, there one site had three names, because there were three monuments: to Lenin, there was a T-34, and I don’t remember what kind of obelisk there was, but it turned out like this: Lenin Square, Revolution Square, Victory Square. And the complex itself is the buildings that have remained since tsarist times.

P.N.: I meant that those people who were going to defend the monuments to Lenin in Zaporozhye or Kharkov, for example, they are mostly not free now. They were less fortunate: they did not achieve what the DPR and LPR did, and today they have the status of “political prisoners” or are in prison without such status.

E.B.: We talk about other things. We are talking about people who believe that rewriting history at someone else’s behest is harmful, and that is why they came out with protests to demolish this monument. They were beaten - we saw it - the people who came told us. Yes, due to the fact that their internal world was built differently, they became objectionable to the current Ukrainian government. Accordingly, they had to be removed, because if they continued to excite the masses, and if we take the southeast, then Zaporozhye is an industrial city, where there are a lot of enterprises, a lot of workers. Kharkov - the situation there is a little different, it is full of traders, because those large enterprises that were there have actually ceased to exist. Dnepr is an industrial city, a large industrial city, so such people had to be removed as quickly as possible under any pretext. They were either given the article “violation of public order”, or the worst thing – “undermining the state system”. From here you can sum up anything you want: terrorism, separatism, a lot of things... These people were removed, yes. People suffered for their ideas. It may even turn out that they will become martyrs. This is possible, because they laid down their lives not only to defend their own interests, but also the interests of all the people who live nearby.

P.N.: But the process that started along with the “Lenin fall”, those who were most dissatisfied with it, they came here and joined the ranks of first the militia, and then the armed forces of the DPR. As a person as close as possible to this area, can you give a characterization - do we have a lot of people fighting who come from other regions of Ukraine?

E.B.: I'll answer a little differently: I was hoping there would be more. Especially if we take the southeast. For example, we have guys from Western Ukraine. There are not many of them, but they exist, and families came. They told me the story that the entire family left and came to us. I don't know the reasons, but they did it. But I was hoping there would be more. If the protest movement that then began to develop in Donetsk was partly in Kharkov and unique in Odessa, if even more people were involved there, and they would take to the streets, and not sit at home on their sofas... I think we would have If there had not been an Odessa tragedy, we, perhaps, would not have had a Donetsk tragedy (this is an airport), a tragedy, if we take it on a regional scale, if we take Lugansk - when people were shot from airplanes... Then the situation could have developed differently . There are still people left in the Ukrainian government, the middle level, the so-called. managers who understood that if popular anger appeared in large numbers - people came out with protests, then it would be impossible to cope with it. It would be necessary to negotiate somehow.

But, unfortunately, there are few of these volunteers. Yes, they exist, they are all ideological, the idea was that they considered themselves Russian, this is important, I do not take the concept of “Russian world”, but rather the concept of “Russian”, I share this a little, because here and mentality, and spirituality, and the common memory of ancestors in the first place. It has to do with language and culture.

Secondly, specifically Donbass (southeast, it’s big), it also affects part of the Dnepropetrovsk region, even a large part, part of the Zaporozhye region. People here have never liked being told how to live. Protest movements have always taken place here, starting from the Soviet Union, if you remember, the miners' riots, then those demands of the miners that united the population, demanding to change the vector of development of the country Ukraine as such - this was the second reason why people refused to follow those orders and instructions how we should live.

Well, and thirdly, they probably noticed what 1991 gave: freedom of thought and choice, to one degree or another. They want to take it away from them too. During this time, people got used to it. I just remember the 90s, when students walked when they were taken out, but still, many deliberately came out under the slogan “Get Kuchma out.” A lot of people came out with protests - these were the first orange revolutions, there were different people there, but there were also those who sincerely believed in it. When people from Donbass came to Kyiv for the anti-Maidan and proved that they were wrong, and then people were somehow listened to more or less.

But the events that recently took place are chaos and anarchy, which were proposed by the people who became in power. They believed that people are cattle, slaves who can do whatever they want. Donbass said: “No, we don’t want to live like this.” Who remembers what questions were planned to be asked at the referendum before May 2? There were three of them: this was to live in the old way, as part of Ukraine, there was another addition, this was “on the principle of a federation”; no one uttered the word “confederation” itself. A confederation is an enclave within Ukraine, but according to certain rules. The second is how it is a separate territory, and the third is who to join.

When the Odessa tragedy occurred, then the people who were involved in the referendum reconsidered this issue and made one decision: with or without Ukraine. In the future, people had to choose for themselves. There was freedom of choice, no one forced people to go and vote, they just went and voted. There were so many attempts to prevent this, and the first blood was shed in Krasnoarmeysk, if I’m not mistaken, it was the Dnepr that fired at the asphalt, the bullets ricocheted and killed a man. These are the processes that took place in Mariupol, in Donetsk, when ballots suddenly disappeared, then you had to look for them, and they were found, everything happened differently, but people had a chance, they were given freedom of choice, and not imposed “it will be so, or there’s no other way.” These, I think, are the three main vectors along which people began to come out to the squares.

I don’t even take into account the chaos associated with killing people and intimidation. What happened in Kyiv defies description at all. This is the stench, the dirt, the permissiveness, the visitors who were brought in for money, the courtyards that turned into just toilets, this is the robbery, and the violence, it’s scary to imagine what happened there. We saw it all, we didn’t like it. We kept telling them: “Let’s talk, let’s find those points of contact that unite us and not separate us.” We were told all the time: “The language is only Ukrainian, only in NATO, only in Europe.” Nobody gave us any more alternatives. Nobody said that it was Kravchuk who started this position of supposedly two state languages, but he is the first who did not do this. Russian and Ukrainian are two official languages ​​- I don’t see what the problem is. There are four of them in Switzerland. Every official should know them, because any citizen who comes to him with some request and addresses them in one of these four languages, he is obliged to talk to him in it. Then, even after the first Orange War, there was a proposal to create a federation, and not a unitary state, in which many of the problems that arose then, including those of an ethnic nature, we would be able to solve them in some time. No one agreed to this either. They didn't want to talk to us. They didn’t look at us like people – there’s such a harsh word, but that’s how it is. We are “cattle” for them. We are slaves who have to work for them for a bowl of soup, a piece of bread, and some kind of spectacle - these are fights in the Rada, they showed how they know how to relax, how they drove people to suicide - for them it was like a distraction, nothing else they didn't see.

P.N.: Well, approaching the end of the interview - when I first looked at that monument that was demolished in Kyiv, or rather, what was left of it: this empty pedestal, it implies that something else should appear there. But modern Ukraine is like a country that is without a head, when one meaning has been demolished and another is missing...

E.B.: I agree. Do you expect that they will deliver something?

P.N.: But I don’t know what will appear there, what do you think? Who will they put on these pedestals? Bandera or what?

E.B.: Well, the best option that could be, but he is still a traitor for Ukraine, is Mazepa. All this has been proven. He was ready to sign any agreement with the Swedes (with Charles XII), if only he would rule these territories. Khmelnitsky is not a hero for them, because they believe that he sold Ukraine. Although at that time there was no Ukraine anymore. This was a division of power between the Poles and the same Ukrainians who lived in this territory. It’s just that then he turned to Muscovy with a request to provide material and military assistance so that this territory could be governed by the people who live there...

Dovzhenko will never be installed either, because he is associated with communism. Not a single great military leader who could really unite the country will be made either, because this is connected with the Second World War. I am sure that soon it will be written in textbooks that only Ukraine won it. Then it will reach the point of absurdity. They won’t install Bandera either, much less Shukhevych. Those attempts that were made were still silent about Bandera, and when Shukhevych began to be canonized, to say that he became a hero, and he was brutally tortured in captivity, and yet he was young, both the Poles and Israel were already indignant. Since Europe is developing - in “tolerance” (I hate the word “tolerance”), well, it could be some kind of phallus-like multi-colored stone, some kind of rainbow, which, they say, will unite us all, I won’t be surprised at this.

P.N.: I believe that as long as the DPR army is active, all our Lenins will stand in place, always. Yes?

E.B.: As long as most of the people living on the other side of the conflict are alive, the monuments will remain standing. It is not only people in uniform with weapons who help defend the interests we are talking about. This is a large number of people who simply work, who were not afraid then, and stayed here; these are the displaced people who left the temporarily controlled part of both the Donetsk region and came from there. Therefore, we need to take a broader view here. Until a million are exterminated, the monument will remain standing. But if they exterminate a million, then there will be no monuments. In reality, in order to demolish the monuments, a million must be killed.