The People's Republic of Donetsk?

Veering back quickly onto the goings on in Ukraine, it appears that things are coming to a head in the eastern oblasts.  Donetsk, Kharkiiv, and Lugansk have central governmental administrative facilities under seige by pro-Russian demonstrators, the central government in Kiev is increasingly displaying a willingness to employ armed security forces to retake these facilities from protesters (many of whom seem to be well armed as well!), and Russia continues to display a significant military presence in the bordering Russian oblasts of Belgorod and Rostov.  Reiterating the broader points that I attempted to advance in my much longer post on the "Impending National Division of Ukraine," it is imperative that the U.S. and EU act in order to address a situation that may be spriraling toward a violent confrontation between Ukraine and Russia, one which Ukraine will certainly lose.  In this manner, I further consider it imperative that the West stop projecting an analysis of the situation in Ukraine through the spectrum of Munich, 1938.  Rather, there may yet be ways to extract a peaceful resolution to the crisis in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts if the interim government in Kiev can be persuaded to part with these territories in exchange for a firm commitment by the U.S. and EU to bolster the economic developmental possibilities for the remainder of the country. 
              In this respect, I mean to assert that, notwithstanding present capacity of Russia to invest petroleum revenues heavily into the redevelopment of the Don Basin, unification of the Ukrainian oblasts in the Don Basin with Russia is, under present circumstances with Russia driving political wedges between itself and the West, an economic dead end for the good people of Donetsk, Lugansk, and Kharkiiv.  If a majority of these populations sincerely want to go in this direction, Kiev should let them veer off into oblivion.  On the other hand, the project of a Ukraine fully integrated into Europe is too important for the larger population of Ukraine, especially those west of the Dneiper, to be granted short shrift by the U.S. and EU in the interests of defending borders that don't mean anything against Russian aggression.  If, as a result of commitments by Western states to support a thoroughly democratic restructuring of state political processes (combatting corruption) and enhanced access to by the state and national financial system to global financial resources, promoting private investments in export processing and implantation of more advanced industrial processes in Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, and other western Ukrainian urban centers, Ukraine becomes an economic developmental success story at the edge of former Soviet space, its example might constitute the West's best argument for changing, over the long run, Russian governmental behavior and pulling Russia into Europe.
            At the present moment, the best argument that I can make in regard to the situation in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts is that the U.S. and EU should be recommending extreme caution by Kiev, while extending the promise of long term economic support and assistance.  Any effort to subdue pro-Russian populations is unlikely to end well for Ukraine.  If these oblasts want referendums to gauge their support for secession and unification with Russia, then Kiev should not only grant them their referendums, but bring in international observers to ensure the process is entirely fair to all populations in the oblasts (assuming that something of this nature could be negotiated by responsible parties on both sides in Kiev, Kharkiiv, Donetsk, and Lugansk).  Finally, if Kiev is truly serious about wanting to hold onto these oblasts, it could do much more to announce its willingness to acquiesce in the continued pervasive use of the Russian language in local government and commerce, and to support a broader ethnic diversity in the Don Basin, relative to the robust assertion of liberal Ukrainian nationalism evident in the Euromaidan revolution and its aftermath.  Vigorous assertions of Russian nationalism in the eastern oblasts appear to be emphatically about the fears of the local populations, especially ethnic Russians, that the government in Kiev will impose a culturally radical, Ukrainian nationalist politics, inconsistent with the understanding of most residents in these oblasts that a fundamental ethno-cultural kinship existed between Ukraine and Russia.  For all the noise that Russia has made about radical U.S. and European intervention in the eastern oblasts in support of a rightist agenda in Kiev, and for all the effort of Washington and Brussels to reduce the Ukrainian crisis to an instance of unacceptable Russian aggression, both sides closer to the ground in Donetsk, Kharkiiv, and Lugansk need to resituate the discussion to extract the fundamental interests of local people from the blare of international power politics.  In the end, if these oblasts are going to remain within Ukraine, Kiev might have to agree to accept some sort of loose federal relationship of the sort that Russia has been supporting. 
             As a final point, approaching as a Marxist, I find the recurrence of socialistic metaphors in the Ukrainian crisis peculiar.  Clearly, on the Russian side of the dispute, the notion of recreating the Soviet Union as a contiguous, politically unified geopolitical superpower has conveyed itself to the reintroduction of a socialist rhetoric, readily comprehended within the consciousness of, at least, older residents in the Don Basin.  Thus, in its efforts to appeal to residents in the eastern oblasts, Moscow has been excoriating the interim government in Kiev as a regime of right wing, culturally intolerant Ukrainian ethno-fascists, charges for which many right wing politicians in Kiev appear to be handing Moscow abundant ammunition!  The idea of an autonomous "People's Republic of Donetsk" strikes me as the most emphatic Rip Van Winkle moment here, however.  Furthermore, in view of current trends in cultural politics and ethnic xenophobia in the Russian Federation, it comes off, relative to the broader Marxian tradition, as a cynical joke.  I have hopes for the people of Donetsk, that they will one day be part of a broader economically integrated, culturally cosmopolitan, and politically harmonious world, in community with the entire Russian ethnic and political sphere.  The idea of Donetsk existing in autonomy from Kiev, moreover, seems not only logical but, in view of the oblast's lingering economic ties to Russia, mutually beneficial to all parties.  This framework appears implicit within the idea of transforming Ukraine into a loose federation.  One way or another, such a reorganization would certainly reinforce the possibilities for a democratic consensus within the population of the oblast in reference to its economic developmental future, something that would be more difficult if the oblast was forced to harmonize its vision against the westward leaning priorities of Kiev.  In this sense, maybe the idea of a People's Republic of Donetsk is something that I can embrace, but only to the extent that it strives for the kind of cosmopolitan tolerance of cultural differences, vigorous radically democratic political experimentation within and outside of state political processes, and consistent support for anti-capitalist, non-exploitative, decentralized, and entrepreneurial communist experimentation, all of which I would find consistent with the application of a Marxian-inspired metaphor.  In view of Russia's contemporary drift into a politically reactionary, culturally intolerant, and crony-capitalistic economic model, I would consider the likelihood that an autonomous People's Republic of Donetsk could live up to my hopes miniscule.