New Books Network Denys Gorbach, "The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class: Everyday Politics and Moral Economy in a Post-Soviet City" (Berghahn Books, 2024)
Feb 19, 2026
Denys Gorbach, an ethnographic researcher of Ukrainian social and political life, discusses life in Kryvyi Rih’s industrial workplaces. He explores fieldwork in factories and mines. He examines everyday politics, moral economy, housing privatization, shifting factory regimes, workforce mobility, identity fluidity, and how the 2022 war reshaped local power and mobilization.
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Free Flats Reshaped Local Expectations
- Kryvyi Rih's housing privatization gave residents free ownership of flats, creating an "intermediary property regime" between public and private.
- This shaped expectations about utilities and fueled disputes when authorities later demanded market payments.
Public Perception Outlasts Ownership
- Big Soviet-era enterprises remain viewed as public despite legal privatization, so public norms and labor rights expectations persist.
- New post-1991 private firms are seen as legitimately sovereign, reducing workers' claims on owners.
Multiple Factory Regimes Persist
- Gorbach identifies a Soviet factory regime, a post-Soviet survival regime, and two stable post-post regimes: neofeudal (oligarchic paternalism) and neoliberal private firms.
- These regimes shape legitimacy, labor practices, and workers' expectations differently.
