A least expected ally? Past-communists and Ukraine's "European Choice”

Abstract

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, some historical legacies of the communist system still influence individual political attitudes. This article explores how historical legacies influence individual political and geopolitical preferences in three Ukrainian cities. We focus on the effects of parental and individual CPSU membership over individual support for EU/NATO membership, on perceptions of the Soviet period for Ukraine, and on the perceived legitimacy of the 11 May 2014 “Donetsk People’s Republic” independence referendum. Using survey data collected in Dnipro and Kharkiv in 2018, and in Mariupol in 2020, we show that (individual or parental) CPSU affiliation is positively correlated with pro-Western attitudes, indicating that many former members of the CPSU and their descendants have reoriented their geopolitical allegiances from East to West. Or, alternatively, that they are relatively politically adaptive and that their allegiance to communism wasn’t fully solid in the first place.