Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red

"Stephen Velychenko's excellent book is very timely. It appears just as Ukraine is re-evaluating both its historical relations with Russia and communism's role in Ukrainian history. Velychenko demonstrates that already during the Revolution groups of Ukrainian leftists condemned Bolshevism as the continuation of Russian imperialism. These leftist Social Democrats went on to create the tiny Ukrainian Communist Party, which until its dispersal in the early 1920s criticized the colonialist attitudes in the official Communist Party of Ukraine. Velychenko shows that contemporary Ukrainian leftists wanted a Ukrainian socialist nation-state and saw the Bolshevik takeover of their country for what it was: an armed conquest. This is an extremely valuable book, as it deconstructs both Soviet and Russian historical mythologies. The appendix includes a treasure trove of historical documents in English translation." -- Serhy Yekelchyk, Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies and Department of History, University of Victoria "Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red examines a topic badly needed in the study of Ukrainian, Russian, and East European history. Its comparisons with other European Marxist and socialist movements will be invaluable to historians outside Ukrainian studies and Russian and Soviet history." -- William J. Risch, Department of History and Geography, Georgia College

In Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red, Stephen Velychenko traces the first expressions of national, anti-colonial Marxism to 1918 and the Russian Bolshevik occupation of Ukraine.

In Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red, Stephen Velychenko traces the first expressions of national, anti-colonial Marxism to 1918 and the Russian Bolshevik occupation of Ukraine. Velychenko reviews the work of early twentieth-century Ukrainians who regarded Russian rule over their country as colonialism. He then discusses the rise of "national communism" in Russia and Ukraine and the Ukrainian Marxist critique of Russian imperialism and colonialism. The first extended analysis of Russian communist rule in Ukraine to focus on the Ukrainian communists, their attempted anti-Bolshevik uprising in 1919, and their exclusion from the Comintern, Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red re-opens a long forgotten chapter of the early years of the Soviet Union and the relationship between nationalism and communism. An appendix provides a valuable selection of Ukrainian Marxist texts, all translated into English for the first time.