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Defend Ukraine! Revolutionary Opposition to Russian and U.S. Imperialism!

category russia / ukraine / belarus | imperialism / war | opinion / analysis author Tuesday March 01, 2022 09:18author by Wayne Price Report this post to the editors

Ukrainian Self-Determination and Anti-Imperialism

Anti-war activists, anti-imperialists, and radicals need to be in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, against Russian aggression, while opposing both U.S. and Russian imperialism.
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The Ukrainian crisis may be seen as two intersecting and overlapping conflicts. One is the underlying competition between the U.S. imperial state and the Russian imperial state (and the allies of each). The other is between the Russian imperial state and the weaker, oppressed, nation of Ukraine.

The traditions of revolutionary anarchism and left-Marxism have opposed all imperialist states in their inter-imperialist conflict, rejecting all sides. Also they have generally opposed the oppression and exploitation of weaker countries by stronger, imperial, states. The question of “who is the aggressor?” (or “who fired the first shot?”) is not central, compared to the dynamics of oppression and domination.

U.S. and Russian Imperialisms

Both the U.S.A. and Russia are capitalist states which throw their weight around internationally. Together they have 90% of the world’s nuclear bombs—which risks exterminating humanity and other species. They supply a large proportion of the world’s oil and gas, setting the stage for global climate catastrophe. The U.S. is the biggest, wealthiest, state with the biggest armed forces and most foreign bases in the world, even if it is in decline. Russia is much weaker and less economically significant but still a large militarized state. The US state wants to counter its own international decay, especially in comparison to its allies in Europe and to its other main competitor, China. The Russian state, under its authoritarian ruler Vladimir Putin, wants to expand politically, economically, and militarily, to make up for the collapse of the empire of the Soviet Union.

The U.S. laid the basis for the current crisis. In 1991, the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to end the Cold War. Russia agreed to let Germany be reunited. The U.S. government promised to not expand NATO’s military alliance further to the east, “not one inch.” However, the U.S. did not keep its promise. It incorporated 14 more countries into NATO, coming up to Russia’s borders. It provided military supplies and bases for these countries, which included Poland. This went along with the eastward expansion of the European Union. (A few far-sighted politicians and military people warned of the dangers of U.S. policy but they were ignored.) The Russians were not directly or immediately threatened, but—by the logic of national states—this inevitably put pressure on them to push back. The expansion of NATO may have been a reason for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or it may only have served as an excuse—but either way it destabilized the region.

There are many on the left who see the U.S. as the only danger and therefore support any anti-U,S. force, no matter how oppressive or undemocratic (this is “campism”). But U.S. imperialism is not the only imperialism, just as imperialism is not the only capitalist evil (as is demonstrated by the repressive dictatorships among the poorer nations).

In this case, Ukraine has been oppressed by Russia for centuries. It was ruled by the Czarist empire and then by the Stalinist-Communist dictatorship. Now the present authoritarian Russian state wants to dominate it again. Unlike many U.S. leftists, every Ukrainian is aware of this history.

While opposing the imperialism of the various great powers, revolutionary socialists defend the self-determination of oppressed nations. That does not require endorsing the governments or leaderships of these nations. It means being in solidarity with the people (who are mostly workers, peasants, local merchants, and the poor). It means supporting these nations' independence, self-organization, choice of social, economic, and political system, etc. Anarchists may not agree with the political and economic opinions of the majority of the people (who usually want their own national state). But revolutionary libertarian socialists are in solidarity with the people and their right to make their own choices—including their right to learn from their own mistakes.

The United States government makes a big show of supporting Ukraine’s national self-determination. Before the Russian invasion, the U.S. insisted that Ukraine had the right to join NATO. The Russians had asked that the U.S. promise that Ukraine would never join the Western military alliance. In fact it was well-known that Ukraine was not going to be allowed into NATO in any foreseeable future. But the U.S. state insisted piously that it could not provide Russia with a guarantee on this, because every sovereign state had the right to chose whatever alliance it wanted to join. While abstractly true, this assertion by the U.S. deserved a horselaugh. Consider the reaction of the U.S. when Cuba allied with the Soviet Union: boycotts and quarantines, attempts to assassinate President Castro, organizing the Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles, etc Then when Castro and Russia’s Khrushchev put nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba, the U.S. blockaded the island militarily and risked a nuclear world war. (I am not supporting the reckless decision of the Cuban and Russian states to install these nuclear missiles.)

Imagine today the U.S. reaction if Mexico were to announce a military accord with China, with Chinese missile bases on the U.S. border!

Right now the U.S. is militarily supporting monarchist Saudi Arabia, in its war in Yemen, with horrible consequences for the Yemeni people. And the U.S. is continuing its large-scale support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people, denying them any sort of national self-determination.

The hypocrisy is so obvious that even an intelligent (“Never Trump”) conservative, Bret Stephens, could write:

Who are we, with our long history of invasions and interventions, to lecture Vladimir Putin about respecting national sovereignty and international law? Who are we, with our domestic record of slavery and discrimination, our foreign record of supporting friendly dictators, … after 198 years of the Monroe Doctrine, to try to stop Russia from delineating its own sphere of influence?” (Stephens 2022; A22)

Being a bourgeois pundit, he concludes that the U.S. should still intervene in the Ukraine vs. Russia conflict, asking, “Who but us?” (The working people of Ukraine and Russia?)

Russian Aggression

The Russian government is more ambiguous in its justification of its war on Ukraine. Vladimir Putin denies that Ukraine is a country or that Ukrainians are a people He has repeatedly asserted that they are merely a part of Russia and always have been. In a conversation with George Wl Bush, he said, “Ukraine is not even a State.” Putin blamed Lenin and the Bolsheviks for regarding the Ukrainians as a people who needed their own republic when the USSR was established. Since, he claims, Ukraine is not a nation, it can have no national self-determination.

Instead, Putin’s regime has worked up a bunch of other reasons to justify its war on the Ukrainians. He claims that their state is Nazi, for example, and promises to "de-nazify" Ukraine. It is true that neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist far-right trends have grown in Ukraine, feeding off the reaction against Russian imperialism. Ukrainian anarchists and others have opposed them. But such groupings do not, by any means, control the government. They have almost no representatives in parliament and the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is a Jew. In any case, the cruel dictatorship of Saddam Hussein did not justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq nor the mysogyny of the Taliban the U.S. war on the Afghanistani people.

Putin and his minions have a nerve denouncing supposedly fascist governments. Putin has allied himself with neo-Nazi and far-right forces in Russia and internationally. He has built up an undemocratic ultra-nationalist bourgeois regime, tied to the Russian Orthodox Church. He has whipped up rage against LGBT people as "Western" threats to Russia. In the U.S., Putin and the far-right Donald Trump have long had a lovefest, recently demonstrated in Trump’s praise of Putin’s actions in Ukraine. Who is the fascist? (Further, speaking of mass-murdering totalitarians, any process of Russian “de-Stalinization,” rooting out those who made the Soviet Union so oppressive, would surely include punishment for officers of the KGB police, such as Vladimir Putin!)

Putin also charges that the Ukrainian government has been committing “genocide” against the Russian-speaking minority in eastern Ukraine (the Donbas), which is a lie. For eight years Russian forces have supported two breakaway states in eastern Ukraine, in a secessionist war with the majority of the country. Most of the Russian-speakers there had voted for an independent whole Ukraine in 1991. What they want now, under the conditions of authoritarian pro-Russian rule and civil war is anyone’s guess. The Ukrainian regime has not handled this well, removing Russian from being an official language and not providing autonomy for the eastern Russian-speakers. Whatever the failures of Ukraine in its treatment of its Russian-speakers, they hardly justify Russia invading and taking over the country,

The same point can be made in relation to Putin’s other complaints. The Ukrainian government asked to join NATO (but was rejected). It might someday set up nuclear missiles (but in 1994 it got rid of the nuclear missiles it inherited from the Soviet Union, sending many to Russia). The government is corrupt and undemocratic (this from Putin!). And so on, none of which remotely justifies a Russian invasion.

Some on the libertarian left argue that anarchists do not support national liberation, and therefore should not take sides in the Russian war on the Ukrainians. Some ignorant anarchists think that “national self-determination” was invented by Lenin. Actually it has long been part of the program of bourgeois-democracy and classical liberalism, along with freedom of speech and association, freedom of religion, land to the farmers who use it, the right to bear arms, the election of officials, equality of races, genders, and nationalities, trial by jury, and so on. (The bourgeoisie has always failed to consistently carry out its democratic program.)

The revolutionary anarchist Michael Bakunin wrote, “Nationality, like individuality, is a natural fact. It denotes the inalienable right of individuals, groups, associations, and regions to their own way of life. And this way of life is the product of a long historical development [a confluence of human beings with a common history, language, and a common cultural background]. And this is why I will always champion the cause of oppressed nationalities struggling to liberate themselves….” (Dolgoff, 1980, p. 401) By “nationality...is a natural fact,” he meant, not that nationality is a biological fact, but that it is created mostly by unplanned, unpurposive, social history.

As Peter Kropotkin wrote, “True internationalism will never be obtained except by the independence of each nationality, little or large, compact or disunited--just as [the essence of] anarchy is in the independence of each individual. If we say, no government of man over man, how can [we] permit the government of conquered nationalities by the conquering nationalities?” (quoted in Miller, 1976, p. 231)
The basic principles of the situation should be clear: support for the Ukrainians against the Russian invaders. Oppose both Russian and U.S. imperialism. It is a tactical question to decide how to implement these principles. In Russia there has developed an antiwar movement, whose main demand is peace and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. In Ukraine, they certainly want Russian troops to withdraw, but a call for “peace” is probably mistaken. Rather they have to fight against the invaders. In the U.S. radicals should stay clear from endorsing the government’s policies, and should call for the withdrawal and dismemberment of NATO.

However, it would be a mistake to oppose the U.S. sending arms to the Ukrainian army or people. The Ukrainian people are literally under the gun. It is up to them how to fight and from whom to get arms. They should not be criticized for taking weapons from the U..S. or elsewhere—although they should be warned not to trust the U.S. or NATO.

The same point applies to Ukrainian anarchists.Should they form guerrilla groups to resist the Russians? Join various volunteer organizations to aid the fight? Join the official army? These are issues best left to those on the ground, facing the enemy (or enemies). But wherever possible, they should try to promote political independence of the majority of people, the working class and oppressed, from the national state, the capitalist rulers, and U.S. imperialism—and promote a reliance on their own forces.

The U.S. Left

The U.S. Left has fractured over the Ukrainian-Russian war. By and large, most liberals have accepted the administration’s views uncritically. They ignore what the U.S. and NATO have done to prepare the conflict and their hypocrisy in opposing Russian aggression.

Many radicals and far-leftists have been on the side of Russia, finding excuses for the invasion. They have learned so well to oppose U.S. imperialism that they can only see the world through anti-U.S. lenses, ignoring the complexity of reality.They care nothing at all about the self-determination of Ukraine, so long as there is peace between Russia and the U.S. We can expect a similar non-reaction if China were to attack Taiwan—looking at every aspect of the issue except what the people of Taiwan want.

But there is a part of the radical left which opposes both U.S. and Russian imperialisms. Sometimes this minority has little to say about defending Ukrainians. But often it also calls for the self-determination of Ukraine, including its right to self-defense. It looks for splits in ruling classes and those behind them.

Popularly, in Russia there have been demonstrations against the war in over 50 cities so far—bravely done, since so many demonstrators were arrested. Also, the Confederation of Labor of Russia [KTR], with more than 20 unions and about 2 million members, denounced the war and called for a negotiated peace. These reflect discontent among Russia’s working classes and oppressed people, a discontent which may lead anywhere.

The people of Ukraine have risen to the challenge of the invasion, and shown a remarkable degree of courage and determination. Both the official army and the volunteer forces have heroically fought back against better armed and larger military forces How this will play out, cannot be presently known, but the Russians will pay a far greater price than they expected to.

The world is in a dangerous place. The deadly pandemic is far from under control—and there will be more plagues. The international economy, while back from the brink of collapse, remains unstable and vulnerable, with a vast expansion of economic inequality. The global climate continues to come unstuck, devolving toward a climate catastrophe, along with cataclysms in every aspect of the ecology. Despite the end of the Cold War, the great powers have never been able to disarm their nuclear bombs. Political democracy (however limited under capitalist states) has been under attack wherever it exists.

It is in this context that a major imperial state has invaded another, relatively developed, country. This has put the invader, Russia, in confrontation with the U.S.—a confrontation of two nuclear-armed states.

The international capitalist class, with its states and world corporate market, is not capable of maintaining society. It cannot be depended on to keep the peace, provide ecologically balanced prosperity for everyone, and develop a self-governing radically democratic, cooperative society the world around. Working people and the oppressed of all lands must work together and replace these rulers with freedom, equality, and full democracy. This can begin by being in solidarity with the Ukrainians, against both Russian and U.S. imperialism.

References

Dolgoff, Sam (ed. and trans.). (1980). Bakunin on Anarchism. Montreal: Black Rose Books.


Miller, Martin (1976). Kropotkin. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Stephens, Bret (2/23/2022). “Ukraine and America’s Self-Belief” NY Times. A22.

*
written for www.Anarkismo.net

author by Gato Negropublication date Wed Mar 02, 2022 23:52author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I have a pronostic: the war go full to U.S. .

Russian lose this control and Ucrany, to a form other, grent implemente to Russian.

The war afair to U.S. and lose this power.

Win China and Swidland.

End.

author by mazen kamalmazpublication date Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:14author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I will focus on two of what I perceive as our problems , firstly that everyone focus mainly on his direct enemy , on their direct oppressors and exploiters , giving some undeserved credibility to other indirect , possible or potential ones .. The situation is so complicated that anyone can criticize fairly any of the fighting governments while they would be saying the truth , at least part of it ... Even Taliban and ISIS or Iranian grand mullah can say a lot of true stories about the unfairness , brutality and dishonesty of their opponents .. I think that it is totally justified to attack any of these governments , generals and statesmen , more even : all of them , but it's a grave mistake to defend or support any of them , under any alibi .. I don't know who can or has the right to decide whether Ukrainians constitute a nation or not , don’t think that any has such right to decide so , neither Putin nor NATO or EU leaders , even UN , or that Ukrainians have no right to change their minds over time as they like , but I don't feel comfortable defending the Ukrainian government for it is the fruit of the *will of Ukrainians* , or because it doesn’t totally fit the definition of a Nazi state as Putin accuses it , I don't find the Ukrainian state or government worthy of such defense or support , for it is , like other states and governments , just a tool and system of manipulation and repression .. I feel so different when it comes to ordinary Ukrainians , I would not spare any effort to defend them but without being lured to support or defend any of their actual or possible manipulators or oppressors , or convince them to be ruled by any of these wholeheartedly willing manipulators and repressors .. I don’t know what difference it would make for ordinary Ukrainians to be oppressed by an Ukrainian oligarch or policeman rather than a Russian or American one

author by Waynepublication date Sun Mar 06, 2022 08:17author address author phone Report this post to the editors

To Mazen Kamalmaz,

The people of Ukraine are getting a thorough lesson in the “difference it would make for ordinary Ukrainians to be oppressed by an Ukrainian oligarch or policeman rather than a Russian one.” Their burning cities and dead citizens show them the difference.

Like you I am not a supporter of the Ukrainian national state or its capitalist economy. But it is the job of the Ukrainian workers and oppressed to change them, not that of the Russian army.

author by mazen kamalmazpublication date Mon Mar 07, 2022 07:17author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Accept without hesitation that *reforming* their corrupt government and going after their oligarchs are the mission of Ukrainians themselves only , but I doubt that Mr Zelensky or any local ruler will act differently from Mr Putin if ordinary Ukrainians would rebel against them .. Hope that I am wrong and that local oligarchs will surrender peacefully to their fellow citizens’ will when their time will come

author by Waynepublication date Tue Mar 08, 2022 05:14author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Mazen,

The issue is not whether the Ukrainian capitalists and their state agents would give up peacefully to a Ukrainian workers' revolution. I agree with you that this is very unlikely (although a strong popular movement might demoralizie the ruling class into giving up). The issue is how to win over the mass of Ukrainian working people to want an anarchist-socialist revolution (or whatever it would be called). They would not listen to anarchists who refused to participate in the national resistance to the foreign invader. They are more likely to be won over to libertarian socialism if it is argued that capitalism and national states are what causes oppression, poverty, and wars, an argument made by fellow fighters against the invasion.

author by Mazen kamalmazpublication date Tue Mar 08, 2022 15:43author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Thanks Wayne , I really need to discus the issue with others who look at it differently as I lost total confidence after a lot of disappointments .. I agree that Zelensky will prefer to run away in front of a popular revolt but the Ukrainian capitalists will fight to the bitter end even they will welcome not only Mr Biden’s intervention but even Mr putin’s to survive such threat .. I don’t think that the issue is to make the Ukrainian workers willing to listen to anarchist propaganda , their nationalist concerns look very genuine .. But their and our problem is that such an argument , to prefer the policeman you know than the ones you don’t, works not only for Mr Zelensky , but also for Biden , Trump , and imagine who , Stalin , for Hitler’s army was for sure more destructive and a bigger threat than Stalin’ checka.. American workers have no reason to stand against their police , military and political establishments that don’t favour them for these will be less brutal than their enemy’s ones , killing Floyd is still better than genocide ..

author by Mazen kamalmazpublication date Tue Mar 08, 2022 15:58author address author phone Report this post to the editors

For those who knew very well who were Hitler and Stalin , and weren’t willing to act according to the theory of lesser evil , their choice was very difficult .. We know that lot of Ukrainians or Russians opted to fight for Hitler or Stalin , some decided not to do so , a poet called Daniel Kharms chose neither , he ended dying of hunger in a Stalinist prison surrounded by Hitler army in what was then Leningrad

author by Eugene Lernerpublication date Sat Mar 19, 2022 05:09author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The Maidan movement can be understood as both an anti-colonial revolution, and as an attempt at a bourgeois-democratic revolution against the variety of neo-feudalism that crystallized out of the chaos of post-soviet shock therapy economic policy. Putin's war is both a campaign of imperial reconquest, and a neo-feudalist/neo-tsarist war of reaction against the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the Russian sphere broadly speaking.

Many of you seem to simply reduce Ukraine's independence struggle to a conflict between the great powers. By doing so you are taking the side of the great powers against the Ukrainian people by denying them any historical agency.

Ukraine is far from the first small country to have ever oriented itself towards a rival power bloc in order to pry itself loose from its overbearing colonial master. This is simply how small countries assert what independence they can, and it always has been. And generally speaking, finally getting out from under the old master is a good thing for a small country. It was good for Finland, and it was good for Vietnam. And I can't see why it wouldn't be good for Ukraine.

If the Ukrainian government seeks to align itself with the West rather than with Russia, then this is primarily because this is the will of the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian people you will remember overthrew a previous elected government over this very question 8 years ago. And that is when Russia started this war by invading her wayward colony, and taking territory, followed by years of further Russian military raids and incursions from the sham republics she had created.

Ukraine is not a baby bird that fell out of her nest. And Russia is not her mother. If you think that what’s behind all this is that the US, NATO, the EU, etc picked up poor, confused Ukraine and now her mother doesn’t recognize her, then you should muster up a little more respect for the Ukrainian people. Because the fact of the matter is that they don’t need the USDOS to tell them which way the wind is blowing.

---

NATO by the way is an utter sideshow here. You're watching the fucker's mouth when you oughta be watching his hands if you think otherwise. That makes you a mark by the way. Now look at the fucker's hands.

In 2014 he sought to carve up and balkanize Ukraine after it had tossed out a Russian puppet. Now eight years later he has launched a full scale invasion on the heels of having put down popular risings in Belarus and Kazakhstan. Watch his hands, not his mouth.

He says that he's worried about NATO, but everything that he's doing screams that what he's really afraid of is his own people. And he's willing to drive every ex Russian vassal that isn't in NATO yet onto the waiting list by the monstrous things he is now doing to show his people what happens to disobedient subjects.

If he was primarily worried about NATO expansion, invading Ukraine would probably be on his big list of things to avoid. But the hand is quicker than the eye, if you only watch the fucker's mouth anyway.

author by Waynepublication date Sat Mar 19, 2022 10:25author address author phone Report this post to the editors

While I am not sure what Eugene Lerner means by "neo-feudal," I am in agreement with his support for the Ukrainian struggle. Especially important is his view that the Ukrainian people should be considered as self-acting agents, not just pawns.

However, I am less comfortable than he is about Ukraine switching to NATO. Western imperialist powers do not support the Ukrainian people out of the goodness of their hearts but due to their opinion of their own interests. They would betray Ukraine in a heartbeat if they thought it worthwhile (the history of the Kurds is relevant here). The only real freedom and independence of the people of Ukraine would come if there were to be eventually an international revolution of workers and oppressed, in Europe and Russia especially.

author by Dewyn Contis - drywall installation near mepublication date Wed Mar 23, 2022 11:52author address author phone Report this post to the editors

It means supporting these nations' independence, self-organization, choice of social, economic, and political system, etc.

author by Tom - Freedompublication date Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:26author email author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Those who understood who Hitler and Stalin were and were unwilling to behave according to the principle of lesser evil had a difficult option. We know that many Ukrainians and Russians chose to fight for Hitler or Stalin, while others chose not to. A poet named Daniel Kharms chose neither, and he died of starvation in a Stalinist jail surrounded by Hitler's troops in what was then Leningrad.

Related Link: https://www.drywallamarillo.com
author by Anthony Scotte - ge dishwasher repairspublication date Sat Dec 17, 2022 14:23author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Everything is very open with a very clear explanation of the challenges. It was truly informative.

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