Ukraine: The French Left and Imperialism

8/9/2019 Ukraine: The French Left and Imperialism

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In Defence ofTrotskyism No 12£1 waged, 50p unwaged/low waged, €1.50

Ukraine: The French Left and Imperialism The NPA capitulates outright to French Imperialism on Ukraine

Lutte Ouvrière hides their revolutionary colours under the flag ofsyndicalism

Videos and pictures were posted by thefascists to celebrate the Odessa Massacre:

This picture montage is entitled, Joy of the “Ukrainian patriot” – his arrow points to the victim, a pregnant woman clean-er in the building, the killer at the window (he appeared thereto celebrate just after her screams stopped) and the crime sce-ne. Play on the word “mother” -- future mother (strangled

pregnant woman) and Odessa- mama (“Mother Odessa”, aslocals call it) have both been “extinguished”. Bottom title is“Glory to Ukraine!”, common nationalist/fascist slogan.


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Where We Stand

1. WE STAND WITHKARL MARX: ‘Theemancipation of the work-ing classes must be con-quered by the workingclasses themselves. Thestruggle for the emancipa-tion of the working classmeans not a struggle forclass privileges and mo-nopolies but for equalrights and duties and theabolition of all classrule’ (The International

Workingmen’s Association1864, General Rules).2. The capitalist stateconsists, in the last analy-sis, of ruling-class laws within a judicial systemand detention centresoverseen by the armedbodies of police/army whoare under the direction andare controlled in acts ofdefence of capitalist prop-erty rights against the in-terests of the majority ofcivil society. The workingclass must overthrow the

capitalist state and replaceit with a workers’ statebased on democratic sovi-ets/workers’ councils tosuppress the inevitable

counter-revolution of pri- va te capitalist profitagainst planned productionfor the satisfaction of so-cialised human need.3. We recognise thenecessity for revolutionar-ies to carry out seriousideological and politicalstruggle as direct partici-pants in the trade unions(always) and in the massreformist social democraticbourgeois workers’ partiesdespite their pro-capitalistleaderships when condi-tions are favourable. Be-cause we see the tradeunion bureaucracy andtheir allies in the Labourparty leadership as themost fundamental obstacleto the struggle for powerof the working class, out-side of the state forces andtheir direct agencies them-selves, we must fight anddefeat and replace them with a revolutionaryleadership by mobilis-ing the base against thepro-capitalist bureau-cratic misleaders toopen the way forwardfor the struggle for

workers’ power.4. We are fully insupport of all massmobilisations againstthe onslaught of thisreactionary Con-LibDem coalition. Howev-

er, whilst participating inthis struggle we will op-pose all policies whichsubordinate the workingclass to the political agenda

of the petty-bourgeoisreformist leaders of theLabour party and tradeunions5. We oppose all immi-gration controls. Interna-tional finance capitalroams the planet in searchof profit and imperialistgovernments disrupts thelives of workers and causethe collapse of whole na-tions with their direct in-tervention in the Balkans,Iraq and Afghanistan andtheir proxy wars in Soma-lia and the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo,etc. Workers have the rightto sell their labour interna-tionally wherever they getthe best price. Only unionmembership and pay ratescan counter employers who seek to exploit immi-grant workers as cheaplabour to undermine thegains of past struggles.

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The LCFI assertsthat the roots causeof the deaths at theCharlie Hebdooffice in Paris on 7 January is imperial-ism’s wars on Mus-lim lands, Afghani-stan, Iraq, Libya,Mali, Syria, etc.

Marxists neverequate the violenceof the oppressor with that of theoppressed, wemake no moraljudgements on thepeople who havecarried out theseattacks and recog-nise the deathscaused by imperial-ism in these landsrun into the hun-dreds of thousands,if not the low millions. Already by May 12, 1996, in response to thequestion from Lesley Stahl, “We have heardthat half a million children have died. I mean,that’s more children than died in Hiroshima.

And, you know, is the price worth it?” Made-leine Albright, then United States Ambassa-dor to the United Nations replied, “We thinkthe price is worth it.” We do not have the right to dictate to themilitant representatives of the oppressed howthey conduct their struggles, not the IRA orthe Palestinians or those fighting imperialismin the Middle East today. But as Marxists weoppose individual acts of terror like this onthe political grounds that it cannot achieve its

aims of defeating imperialism by these meth-ods and in fact only ends up doing the oppo-

site; strengthening thehands of the stateagainst them and alien-ation their only truepotential allies, theFrench and interna-tional working class, as we discuss below. As Trotsky said:“In our eyes, individual

terror is inadmissibleprecisely because itbelittles the role of themasses in their ownconsciousness, recon-ciles them to theirpowerlessness, andturns their eyes andhopes towards a greatavenger and liberator who some day willcome and accomplishhis mission. The anar-chist prophets of the‘propaganda of the

deed’ can argue all they want about the elevat-ing and stimulating influence of terrorist actson the masses. Theoretical considerations andpolitical experience prove otherwise. Themore ‘effective’ the terrorist acts, the greatertheir impact, the more they reduce the interestof the masses in self-organisation and self-education. But the smoke from the confusionclears away, the panic disappears, the succes-sor of the murdered minister makes his ap-pearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as be-fore; only the police repression grows moresavage and brazen. And as a result, in place ofthe kindled hopes and artificially arousedexcitement comes disillusionment and apa-

thy.” [1] Free Speech and Gross Hypocrisy

Islamophobia is the racism de jourLCFI statement on Charlie Hebdo: 10 1 15


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The great cry of imperial-ism today is “freedom ofspeech”. One is not permit-ted to shout ‘fire’ in acrowded theatre because

although this would appearto fall under the remit offreedom of expression thisfreedom is curtailed due tosocial responsibilities. Assuch one should not cry‘scrounger’ at a minoritygroup who suffer disproportionately fromunemployment, and it may cause a socialstampede and get someone beaten up in thestreet. The WSWS commented on 9 January:“In its use of crude and vulgar caricaturesthat purvey a sinister and stereotyped imageof Muslims, Charlie Hebdo recalls the cheapracist publications that played a significantrole in fostering the anti-Semitic agitationthat swept France during the famous Dreyfus Affair, which erupted in 1894 after a Jewishofficer was accused and falsely convicted ofespionage on behalf of Germany. In whip-ping up popular hatred of Jews, La LibreParole [“Free Speech”], published by theinfamous Edoard Adolfe Drumont, madehighly effective use of cartoons that em-ployed the familiar anti-Semitic devices. Thecaricatures served to inflame public opinion,inciting mobs against Dreyfus and his de-fenders, such as Emile Zola, the great novel-ist and author of J’Accuse.” [2] Freedom of expression is not an abstract,

free-floating right, but rather should be em-ployed in conjunction with, and properlysituated amongst, the social, historical andpolitical context of the day. In that greatbastion of “free speech”, in California, by farthe wealthiest and most ‘liberal’ state of theunion, a rap artist, Brandon Duncan, alsoknown as Tiny Doo, with no criminal record,faces life in prison for album lyrics. And hereis the convoluted ‘logic’ behind the charge: “We’re not just talking about a CD of any-thing, of love songs. We’re talking about a

CD (cover) … there isa revolver with bul-lets,” Deputy District Attorney AnthonyCampagna said, justi-

fying his unconstitu-tional prosecution ofthe musician. Duncanis charged with “gangconspiracy” becausehis “gang gained instatus” from crimes,

and this – prosecutors argue – allowed himto “sell more albums.” [3] The state of California wants to affirm in lawthat freedom of speech is a privilege, not aright. Apparently, prosecutors believe that writing lyrics about crime is a crime itself – and one punishable by a life sentence inprison. If we are to compare the case ofBrandon Duncan and Charlie Hebdo ‘grosshypocrisy’ is the only phrase that springs tomind.Of course the ‘free speech’ of Charlie Hebdoattacks the ruling class Christians, Jews etc.but that is not used to justify the mass mur-der of hundreds of thousands. So you coulddefend racism against Irish people because it was only a little fun and not understand howit justified the British army murders in Ire-land? And those 1920s and 1930s anti-Semitic cartoons; just a little fun and notideological preparation for the Holocaust?Freedom of Expression and RacismCharlie Hebdo is a right-wing libertarianmagazine which promotes racism, Islam-

ophobia, sexism and homophobia. Whateverthe origins of these journalists in the leftism1968 and after since the 2001 9/11 attackthey have become ever more the mouthpieceof French imperialism. At the height of war in Ireland anti Irishjokes and racist cartoons were everywhere.The Evening Standardpublished one called,‘The Irish’, by JAK, on 29 October 1982 andKen Livingstone withdrew all GLC advertis-ing from them. The poster featured grotesque figures wield-


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ing a variety of gruesome weapons and waspart of a wider series of images and writingsthat have appeared in the UK for over 100years that have portrayed the Irish as apelike,stupid, violent etc.

The cartoon led to protests by the BritishIrish community and resulted in the GLC ledby Ken Livingstone banning advertising(worth some £100,000 per year) in the Stand-ard.Ken Livingstone stated:“The clear message of the cartoon is that theIrish, as a race and as a community, are mur-derous, mindless thugs . . . I do not believe infree speech for racists . . . We will not put

another penny into the Standard while theycontinue to vilify the Irish.” The purpose of the attacks was to portray theIrish as sub human savages and so make theBritish army killing of them acceptable. It istruly pathetic that those leftists who support-ed the stance taken by Livingstone then can-not do so over Charlie Hebdo today.In 1930s America when white people wereburning black people on trees, whites couldequally have used the argument that they, likeCharlie Hebdo, attack all religions equally. After all, there were cartoons even about the American president! However, making insult-ing cartoons about white people who con-trolled the power structures was not the sameas demonizing black people- a powerlessunderclass.Imagery of black peoplebeing dumb, violent, lazythieves who looked like

monkeys- upheld a politi-cal reality, the very image-ry re-enforced the preju-dices of those in powerand subjugated blacks.Until the 1950s, signs likeno dogs, no Negros, noMexicans were commonmarkers of legally en-forced laws of racial seg-regation in America. TheFrench law against Mus-

lim women wearing the veil/hijab is alongthose same lines. The same with Jews in Nazi Germany — Imagine today’s spurious and conceited argu-ment being used by the Nazi’s — could a

German newspaper hide behind the claim italso made fun of white Germans? How un-justified that only the Jews complained so!

After all, Germans didn’t complain whenthey were made fun of — those backward

Jews and their greedy religion didn’t under-

stand free speech! This is the memory of a Jewish person of what it was like in the Germany of the 1930s:“My earliest personal encounter with anti-Semitism were the horrible cartoons of Jewsin the official Nazi propaganda papers, “DasSchwarze Korps”, an SS paper, and “Der

Vőlkische Beobachter”, displayed behindglass in showcases fixedat eye level to walls atstreet corners. Theyshowed the most ugly

Jews with the most enor-mous noses clad in eitherRussian-Bolshevik uni-forms or with an “UncleSam” Stars and Stripestop hat and called Pluto-crats, both apparentlydominating the world, ortrying to, profiting fromexploiting good-lookinginnocent Germans. Howunlike the truth!” [4]


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The Muslims of France andother European countries aresuffering that same type ofattacks today. As the Muslimsof the Middle East and Af-

ghanistan have been slaugh-tered in their hundreds ofthousands by imperialist ar-mies in the last few decadesracism against Muslims justi-fied this mass slaughter. Weidentify anti Muslim racismtoday as gelling with the impe-rialist slaughter in the MiddleEast and only superficially likethe anti Christian and antiSemitic stuff, repulsive andreactionary as this is.

The French workingclass must defend theoppressed Muslims The blogger Asghar Bukhariput it this way:“White people don’t like to admit it, but thosecartoons upheld their prejudice, their racism,their political supremacy, and cut it how you will — images like that upheld a political orderbuilt on discrimination. The Muslims todayare a demonized underclass in France. A peo-ple vilified and attacked by the power struc-tures. A poor people with little or no powerand these vile cartoons made their lives worseand heightened the racist prejudice againstthem. Even white liberals have acted in themost prejudiced way. It was as if white people

had a right to offend Muslims and Muslimshad no right to be offended?” [5] But we really do need a ‘health warning’ aboutthis approach. “White people” are not theproblem but Imperialism itself whose ideolo-gy does reach deep into the French workingclass, it is true. In line with this non-classapproach Asghar Bukhari frequently confuses‘Zionist’ with ‘Jew’ and therefore is open tothe charge of anti-Semitism. And as an edu-

cated representative of the oppressed Muslimsit really is not acceptable to confuse the two. The task of Marxists is to forge a programme

of action to defend theMuslims of France and ofEurope against the stateand the far right by forg-ing unity with the working

class.In this we concur entirely with the RCIT statement:

“A chief task for socialistsin France and Europenow is to organize self-defence units in order todefend mosques and mi-grant districts againstchauvinist attacks. It isequally urgent to build abroad united front againstthe anti-Muslim chauvin-ism. Finally, it is urgent tobuild a strong anti-warmovement against thespreading imperialist wardrive in the Middle East

and in Africa.” [6] Equally we concur with their condemnationof the French left like the French Communistparty (PCF) whose national chauvinism hasled them to support ‘national unity’ in effectthat is their own ruling class attacks on Mus-lims. The NPA and Lutte Ouvrière, whilstcourageously defending the Muslims, werealso wrong not to put the attack in its histori-cal and political context:“The RCIT severely condemns the FrenchCommunist Party (PCF) and many other so-called “leftist” groups for their support of

Hollande’s pro-imperialist call for “nationalunity.” While the centrist forces – the NPA(whose leading forces are part of the Mandeli-te “Fourth International”) and Lutte Ouvrière

– in their statements of January 7 have notjoined Hollande’s reactionary “national unity,”they both condemn the attack on CharlieHebdo as an attack on “freedom of expres-sion.” At the same time, they fail to mentioneven in a single word the connection betweenthis event and France’s imperialist warsagainst Muslim peoples, or its oppression andsuper-exploitation of migrants. In their state-


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ments, both of these centrist groups refer totheir close relations with the journalists ofCharlie Hebdo and thereby reveal their affilia-tion with the bourgeois-liberal milieu.” [7] This collaboration and silence of the left is all

the more appalling considering the history ofFrench Imperialism’s exploitation of North Africa and the massacres in both MuslimNorth Africa and in Paris itself. We summarise and quote from the article byMawuna Remarque Koutonin in Wiki:Still to this day fourteen African countries areforced to pay colonial tax for the benefits ofslavery and colonization. The crucial confron-tations were by De Gaulle with Guinea, Togoand Senegal, the rest were forced to followsuit. In 1958 the French left Guinea and de-stroyed all infrastructure when they left,crushing cars and leveling buildings in an orgyof destruction. The next up was Togo, who were forced to agree to pay an annual debt toFrance for the so called benefits Togo gotfrom French colonization. Senegal scaredabout the consequence of choosing independ-ence from France, Leopold Sédar Senghor thefirst president of Senegal declared: “Thechoice of the Senegalese people is independ-ence; they want it to take place only in friend-ship with France, not in dispute.”From thenon France accepted only an “independence onpaper” for his colonies, but signed binding“Cooperation Accords”, detailing the natureof their relations with France, in particular tiesto France colonial currency (the Franc),France educational system, military and com-mercial preferences. [8]

We recall the Paris massacre of up to 200 Algerians on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War (1954 – 62). The Wiki articlegives us a true picture of the nature of theFrench state and its police forces even today:“Under orders from the head of the Parisianpolice, Maurice Papon, the French policeattacked a forbidden demonstration of some30,000 pro-FLN Algerians… Many demon-strators died when they were violently herdedby police into the River Seine, with somethrown from bridges after being beaten un-conscious. Other demonstrators were killed

within the courtyard of the Paris police head-quarters after being arrested and deliveredthere in police buses.…Maurice Papon, who died in 2007, was theonly Vichy France official to be convicted forhis role in the deportation of Jews during World War Two. According to historian Jean-Luc Einaudi, a specialist in the 17 October1961 massacre, some of the causes of the violent repression of the 17 October 1961demonstration can best be understood interms of the composition of the French policeforce itself, which still included many formermembers of the force in place during the World War II Vichy regime which had collab-orated with the Gestapo to detain Jews, as forexample in the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup of 16– 17 July 1942.

…Encouraged by far-right deputy Jean-MarieLe Pen, (in March 1958) 2,000 of them at-tempted to enter the Palais Bourbon, seat ofthe National Assembly, with shouts of “Sales

Juifs! A la Seine! Mort aux fellaghas!” (Dirty Jews! Into the Seine (river)! Death to the(Algerian) rebels!). With the recommendationof Minister of Interior Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury, Maurice Papon was next daynamed prefect of the police.” [9]

Butchery by cowards“Butchery by cowards” is what one Facebookpost called the attack on Charlie Hebdo. But“Butchery by cowards” is dropping bombsfrom 20,000 feet on defenceless civilians be-cause you never have to see their faces or look

A US B-52 drops its 750-pounds bombs over Vietnam Nov. 5, 1965, the real ‘butchery bycowards’ of some 1.5 – 3.5 million Vietnam-ese, Cambodians and Laotians.


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at what ‘doing your job’ does to built-up areas. The biggest cowards and butchers sit in the White House, Downing Street, the ÉlyséePalace and Tel Aviv. Their outraged victims’relatives are often not very politically sussed

on how to extract revolutionary justice fromthese mass murderers. They assassinate andtarget workers in imperialist countries whohave no responsibility for what happened tothem. And the imperialist spy agencies of theCIA, MI5, DGSE, Mossad etc. encourage andfoster these methods by ‘false flag’ operations which are calculate to inflame sectarian ten-sions and strengthen the hand of the stateagainst the oppressed. The cause of the violence is imperialism notreligious fundamentalism. Of course a revolu-tionary government would have to tackle thisreal problem sensitivity to separate the sec-ondary oppressors from their victims, defendthe peasants from the landlords, women fromthe imposition of the veil etc. But never, nev-er as an ally of the ‘civilising mission’ of impe-rialism, never be taken in by that peace anddemocracy bullshit which only puts doublechains on these oppressed people. That is

unforgivable in Ukraine, in Palestine, in the whole of the Middle East and the whole semi-colonial world. The contrast between thebureaucratic/Stalinist/liberal imperialist ap-proach to religion and the Marxist approachas practiced by the early Comintern is outlinehere in the 1997 document: Afghanistan:Marxist Method vs. Bureaucratic method, ByGerry Downing 1997. The following quoteindicates the tasks that a reforged Fourth

International would face in these lands andhow to tackle them:“It took fifteen years of warfare to subdue theuprisings in the Soviet Central Asian republicscaused in the main by Menshevik and Stalinistbureaucratic methods. Some conflict was andis inevitable if the power of the Mullahs,Khans and fundamentalists is again to bebroken in the countries of Soviet Central Asiaand in Afghanistan, Iran through to Algeria. What terrible price humanity must pay for themarginalisation of the transitional method ofthe Bolsheviks and the triumph of the counter

-revolutionary bureaucratic methods offighting reaction of Stalinism and petty-bourgeois nationalism in these states.” [10] We defy anyone to say the cartoon of thekidnapped Nigerian women is not a vile racist,

Islamophobic, sexist piece of French imperial-ist propaganda. It has a double meaning whichsuggests that the young women are ‘finally’angry because their benefits were removedand they did not mind being kidnapped andrepeatedly raped.Islamophobia is the “racism du Jour” in thecurrent political climate. And Charlie Hebdolobbed in the anti Russian stuff on theUkraine to make sure no one doubted wheretheir true pro-Imperialist political loyalties lay.

Notes[1] Trotsky, Leon.Why Marxists Oppose IndividualTer ror i sm, ( November 1911), ht tp: / / www.marxists.org/archive/t ro tsky/1911/11/tia09.htm[2] WSWS,“Free Speech” hypocrisy in the aftermath of theattack on Charlie Hebdo, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/09/pers-j09.html[3] Rap Artist With No Criminal Record Faces Life InPrison For Album Lyrics , Nov. 19, 2014, http://

countercurrentnews.com/2014/11/rap-artist-with-no-criminal-record-faces-life-in-prison-for-album-lyrics/[ 4 ] T h e F a m i l y B r i c h t a , h t t p : / / www.holocaust researchpro ject .org/survivor /brichta1.html[5] https://medium.com/@asgharbukhari/charlie-hebdo-this-attack-was-nothing-to-do-with-free-speech-it-was-about-war-26aff1c3e998.[6] Statement of the Revolutionary Communist InternationalTe n d e n c y ( R C I T ), 9 . 1 . 2015 , h t t p : / / www.thecommunists.net[7] Ibid.[8] 14 African Countries Forced by France to Pay ColonialTax For the Benefits of Slavery and Colonization , ByMawuna Remarque Koutonin http:// www.siliconafrica.com/france-colonial-tax/[9] Paris massacre of 196 1, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961[10] Afghanistan: Marxist Method vs. Bureaucratic method ,By Ger ry Downing 1997 , h t tp : / /socialistfight.com/2014/08/15/afghanistan-marxist-method-vs-bureaucratic-method-by-gerry-downing -1997/


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The Minsk Agreement and the fall of Debaltseve LCFI Statement 22/2/2015

The Empire strikes back

The fall of Debaltseve to theDonbass army on 18 February2015 is a great victory for anti-imperialist fighters everywhereand for the global workingclass. Coming just a week afterthe signing of Minsk 2, it is ablow both to the plans of An-glo-American imperialism to

force Franco-German imperial-ism into war with Russia and tothe plans of the European impe-rialist powers in alliance with Russia to forcea compromise with Kiev on the Donetskand Lugansk Peoples’ Republics to saveDebaltseve and keep the working class incheck. Minsk 2 is Russia’s attempt to brokera new compromise for itself with global

imperialism. According to the Borotba leader VictorShapinov Interview on page 30 of SocialistFight No19: “The Ukrainian state in theDonbass region collapsed in the spring andsummer. Real power rests with the militias. They themselves function as police, prose-cutors and intelligence agencies, courts andprisons.” The Russian TASS news agencyreports:

“Kiev insists on Donetsk, Luhansk leaders’participation in peace talks on Ukraine. Asenior Ukrainian foreign ministry official saidthe peace talks on the conflict in Ukraine’seast must be attended by leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’sRepublics (DPR and LPR).”We’ve learnedthis morning that DPR and LPR have sentquite different people – Pushilin and Deine-

go. But we should adhere to the format wehave agreed upon,” the official, Dmitry Ku-

leba, told journalists. At the same time, theplenipotentiary representatives of the Do-netsk and Luhansk republics, Denis Pushilinand Vladislav Deinego, who arrived in theBelarusian capital of Minsk on Friday, saidthey had full authority to negotiate, a TASScorrespondent reported from the site.” [1]

Presumably Kiev, acting as the mouthpieceof US imperialism, were objecting that theDonbass had sent the wrong leaders. Eitherthey regarded Deinego and Pushilin asPutin’s supporters and wanted the heads ofstate Alexander Zakharchenko from theDonetsk and Igor Plotnitsky and/or PrimeMinister Hennadiy Tsypkalov from LuganskPeoples Republic or they wanted represent-atives of the heads of the militias who wereprepared to compromise and who wieldedthe real power in the Donbass as Shapinovtells us above.Either way Minsk 2 failed to save De-baltseve; the anti-imperialist struggle andthereby the working class of Ukraine andthe global working has been enormouslystrengthened by this victory. Despite therenewed ceasefire now taking effect theimpetus is with the fighters of the Donbassmilitias and this will strengthen their self-

Ukraine’s demoralised army retreats from Debaltseve, 18Feb. 2015, after defeat by the Donbass Militias


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consciousness as leadersand therefore their classconsciousness. These de-bates have echoes of the Truce and Treaty debates

that led to the Irish Civil War in 1922-3 – see Broker-ing a sell-out to Kiev inSF19, page 27 for thesecontradictions within theDonbass.

The central aggressive power is Anglo-

American imperialismLet us now reassert that the central aggressivepower here is Anglo-American imperialismand that their central target is the Eurasiancapitalist bloc of Russia and China. The war inthe Ukraine, the war against Iraq, Afghanistan,ISIS, Assad and Gaddafi cannot be properlyoutside of this geopolitical struggle being waged by US imperialism in the first place tosecure global domination and protect andenhance the profits of its great finance housesand global transnational companies. Russiamobilises its forces to defend the Caspian Seabecause of its strategic importance; this regionhas the second biggest crude oil reserves inthe world, also the Caspian region is a bound-ary between the West and East, the region

where “the great game” has been played be-

tween great powers for over a century and ahalf.But it is now clear that a huge gulf has devel-oped between the US policy of arming theirKiev puppets to risk WWIII and the far morecautious Merkel and Hollande who know thatthe USA is only too willing to fight to the lastEuropean to defeat Russia. The real inter-imperialist power blocs are Anglo-American

imperialism and the Franco-German Europe-an bloc. As the global crisis of capitalism

deepens these tensions become greater andgreater. In Africa for example French imperi-alism is being continually undermined and outmanoeuvred by US imperialism; Rwanda wasFrench speaking it now speaks English, orrather American. Its only resort to that wouldbe to ally with China. [2] Again and again the US shows its contemptfor France (“cheese eating surrender mon-keys” on the Iraq invasion by the US in 2003and sending no representative to the reaction-ary Charlie Hebdo photo op march in Parison 11 January), for the EU (Nuland’s “Fuckthe EU”) and for Germany, bugging Merkel’spersonal mobile phone, spying on the wholeGerman nation (and every other one!) viaGCHQ etc. and the latest move where Merkeland Hollande snubbed Obama and Cameronin the Minsk talks provoking a furious reac-tion from the likes of McCain and Kerry andBritish Tory politicians. The following is typi-cal:

“The German publication Der Spiegel de-scribed a closed-door meeting, apparently re-ported on anonymously both to it and to theBild newspaper, held by Assistant Secretary ofState Nuland at the Munich Security Confer-ence, with “perhaps two dozen U.S. diplomatsand Senators.” There Nuland gave instructions

Vladimir Putin, François Hollande, Angela Merkel and PetroPoroshenko in Minsk on 11 Feb. 2015.


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to “fight against the Europeans” on the issueof arming Ukraine to fight Russia. She wasdescribed as “bitterly” referring to the Ger-man Chancellor’s and French President Hol-lande’s meeting with Russian President Putin

as “Merkel’s Moscow junk,” and “Moscowbullshit,” and she welcomed a Senator’s call-ing German Defence Minister Ursula von derLeyen the “Defeatism Minister”.” [3]

Russia does not have to accept defeat, theyare a nuclear power. And the British rulingclass itself is far more split than the USA isright now. The warmongering Timothy Gar-ton Ash on 2 February laughed at the liberal

Guardian readership, “America does thecooking but Europe does the washing up” hecrowed in a wisdom from the pre-nuclearage. [4] We insist that by far the best thing for theBritish and American working-class is defeatof their proxy army in the Ukraine. Remem-ber the Vietnam Syndrome and the greatleftist impulse this gave to the global workingclass before and after 1975 despite the liberalpatriotism of the ‘bring our boys home’peaceniks. We must re-establish the revolu-tionary Marxist understanding that defeat forimperialism in a foreign war opens up revolu-tionary possibilities for the working class inimperialist countries and we must want it and work for it with all our might. What will happen next in Ukraine? Putin capitulates to Obama’s diplomaticblackmail negotiated by Germany andFrance. However on the day followingPutin’s capitulation Merkel followed up withblackmail and announced new sanctionsagainst Russia to be implemented if Putindoes not force the popular republics of Don-bass to accept the agreed surrender. The first

few days of what should be a cease-fire weremarked by the resurgence of Ukrainian artil-

lery against the AFDs in Debaltseve. At thesame time in another city, Shirokino, theNazi paramilitary Azov Battalion, opened fire with artillery and tanks against residentialareas. In both the ADFs the regions are re-quired to respond to coordinated attacks byagents of imperialism. The Opera magazine highlights this well:

“The Right Sector will continue to attack theEast and the East will be forced to fight back. The backlash will be reported throughout thepro-Western media as the non-fulfilment ofthe agreement and new sanctions will be ap-plied against Russia – perhaps even the long-awaited shipment of arms to Kiev will materi-alize and Poroshenko will be back in the East with his best trained and armed forces anddifficult days are close for the Eastern com-batants.”

With the failure of the agreement, Putin will

Before the battle of Debalseve

After the battle on 18 February – the redhas replaced the blue.


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be charged by the international media withattempting to break the truce just signed.Simultaneously, the military force of Obamaare beginning the deployment of marines in

the Pacific against China and in the MiddleEast they are using the fight against ISIS asjustification. Closing the encirclement viaEastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, the MiddleEast and Latin America, Venezuela and Bra-zil, with the right to privatization as a resolu-tion of most of the Brazilian state and mys-terious ship sinking platform and simultane-ously the scandal makes the murder of Nis-

man against the Cristina government in Ar-gentina.In this way imperialism closes the siegeagainst the Eurasian core. This rapid ongo-ing movement of Russia in the Caspian Seais an attempt to break this encirclement.Putin has taken note of imperialism manoeuvres. Perhaps, in addition to all commercialand wars of the last three years, we shouldnot rule out that among the possible scenari-os to unfold that this counterattack imperial-ist would be the beginning of World War III.

Russia is not imperialist; no to ‘DualDefeatism’

The former Workers Power group, the Rev-olutionary Communist Tendency (RCIT)demonstrate their outright capitulation to US

-led imperialist propaganda in the followingextract:

“The situation changed qualitatively when, in July-August 2014, the Ukrainian army gainedhuge military advances and brought the Don-bass republics close to defeat. At that mo-ment the Putin government decided to mas-sively intervene. Moscow replaced the leader-ship of the People’s Republics and put incharge Russian as well as pro-Russian politi-cians from the Donbass region who had ahistory of being loyal instruments of Moscow.In addition, the Putin government deployedthousands of troops in the eastern Ukrainethereby tipping the balance of forces andhelping the Donbass republics regain substan-tial ground. In early September, Moscowimposed a ceasefire.The August interventionof the Russian imperialist state marked a qual-itative turning point, as we have outlined inthe RCIT’s analysis of these events. Fromthat moment on, the uprising has been trans-formed into one which is predominantly atool of an imperialistic Russian foreign poli-cy.” [5]

There is no proof for the assertion that:“Moscow replaced the leadership of the Peo-ple’s Republics (with those) who had a histo-ry of being loyal instruments of Moscow” orthat “the Putin government (sic!) deployedthousands of troops in the eastern Ukraine”.No doubt that Russia seeks to direct thestruggle and that they allowed thousands of VOLUNTEERS to enter the Donbass butto echo John McCain’s propaganda on this isunforgivable as it the political decision tothen withdraw unconditional support from

Max Shachtman’s Third Camp Labor Action repudiates defence of the USSR during WWII.


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the Donbass whilst it was under such viciousattack for fascist led forces who were slaugh-tering the civilian population in the cities ofthe east. We categorically reject the proposition thatthis war is one between rival imperialist pow-ers. For instance the RCIT say:

“In addition, the Minsk Agreement demon-strates once again the character of the militaryconflict in the eastern Ukraine as a proxy warof rival Great Powers. It is not the separatistleaders and the Kiev government which nego-tiated the agreement, but rather the leaders ofthe two biggest Western European imperialist

nations opposite Russian imperialism on thebehalf of the former.”[6]

Whilst this might seem better than the out-right national chauvinist positions taken bythe likes of Socialist Resistance (USFI), the Alliance for Workers Liberty and the majori-ty leadership of the Labour RepresentationCommittee nonetheless it is profoundly inerror. In particular we reject the propositionthat the fighters of the Donbass have be-come simply a proxy army for Putin (just as we rejected this in Libya in 2011 and in Syriasince then). The only proxy armies in these three con-flicts are US/EU proxy armies; the Benghazirebels, the Free Syrian Army and the jihadistsof the Al-Nusra Front and the ISIS and theKiev regime and its fascist infested army.Libya, Syria and the Donbass fought or arefighting genuine wars of national liberationagainst imperialist aggression despite the factthat they are led by reactionary bourgeoisnationalist politicians. They have a right toget arms and assistance from anyone who will supply it, including Russia in the case ofSyria and the Donbass. The RCIT says:

“Instead, they have to pursue a dual defeatist

position, i.e., to wage a struggle on two fronts:against the imperialist bourgeoisie of the USand EU and their Kiev marionette, as well asagainst Russian imperialism and their stoogesat the head of the Donbass republics.” [7]

And then go on to take an openly Shacht-manite position in its list of demands at theend of their article, The Minsk Agreementand the Civil War in the Ukraine; “Down with the reactionary, pro-Western imperialistregime in Kiev! Down with the Putin regimeand its puppets in the Donbass republics!”and “Neither Brussels nor Moscow! For anindependent workers’ republic!” [8] they say

and draw the same conclusions in almost thesame words as Max Shachtman did against Trotsky and Trotskyism in 1939 and subse-quently.[9]

The RCIT and Workers Power’s line“Neither Brussels nor Moscow!” is obvi-ously a genuine offspring of Sha-chrmann’s “Neither Washington norMoscow but the Third Camp of Inde-

pendent Socialism!” was used by Shacht-man but originally formulated by JosephCarter. This is profoundly incorrect, it will not assistthe working class in its struggles against USimperialist aggression. It will only spreaddefeatism and confusion. If taken seriouslythat position would have dire consequencesfor the working class of the Donbass and the

revolutionary socialists in the region fightingfor the leadership of the working class. It would demoralise them and undermine theposition of a working class growing in confi-dence and class consciousness following theirgreat victory at Debaltseve.

Conclusion The big working class base of the Donbassarmy desires socialism and harks back to thenationalised property relations that existed in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Carterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Carterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Carterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Carter


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the days of the USSR, when conditions forthe working class were far better and theoligarchs had not seized all the collective wealth of the country with the assistance of Yeltsin and US imperialism. The conscriptUkraine army (59 is now the upper conscriptage!) is demoralised and do not want to fighta war in defence of the corrupt and fascistinfested Kiev regime whilst their own condi-tions of life approach starvation levels; onlythe Banderaite [10] fascist militias are moti- vated and these by Nazi ideology.Out task here as revolutionary socialist is tooffer all the political and practical assistance

we can to the fighters of the Donbass. We donot call for the overthrow of the Donbassleadership in the circumstances of this civil war until they have exposed themselves asanti-working class AND collaborators withimperialism and the class has grown instrength and class consciousness to over-throw them with a revolutionary socialistleadership that can appeal to the working

class in western Ukraine, in Russia and the whole region and the world to rally to theircause and the cause of international social-ism. To the revolutionary socialist of theBorotba union we offer all the political andpractical assistance we can to assist them intheir internationalist task of winning the lead-ership of the Donbass struggle for the work-ing class. That is our understanding of thecorrect way to pose the task of the Anti-Imperialist United Front in this conflict● Victory to the peoples’ Republics ofDonetsk and Lugansk!

● Down with the fascist -infested re-gime in Kiev, the tool of Anglo Amer-ican imperialism!● For the right of the Donbass to sep-

arate as an independent state or tojoin Russia if they chose.

● Nationalise under workers controlall the industries, mines and banks inthe Donbass!

Notes[ 1] Russian News Agency TASS:http://tass.ru/en/world/774571 [2] Why Rwanda said adieu to French,http:// www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/16/rwanda-english-genocide [3] Will Nuland’s Nazis Push the World into War? By Jeffrey Steinberg Executive IntelligenceReview, February 20, 2015,http:// www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.html [4] Putin must be stopped. And sometimes onlyguns can stop guns By Timothy Garton Ash,http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propaganda [5] Ibid.[6] The Minsk Agreement and the Civil War inthe Ukraine, By Michael Pröbsting, Revolution-

ary Communist International Tendency (RCIT),20.2.2015,http://www.thecommunists.net/ worldwide/europe/minsk-agreement/ [7] Ibid.[8] Ibid.[9] Spartacus Educational Max Shachtman:“Shachtman became disillusioned with the Sovi-et Union when it signed the Soviet-Nazi Pact. These feelings were intensified when the Red Army invaded Poland (September, 1939) and

Finland (November 1939). James Cannon con-tinued to support the foreign policy of JosephStalin. Cannon, like Leon Trotsky, believed thatthe Soviet Union was a “degenerated workers’state”, whereas Shachtman argued that Stalin was developing an imperialist policy in EasternEurope.” http://spartacus-educational.com/USAshachtman.htm [10] Stephan Bandera, the war time Nazi collab-orator glorified by the Kiev regime and almost

deified by the Kiev fascist battalions.

http://tass.ru/en/world/774571http://tass.ru/en/world/774571http://tass.ru/en/world/774571http://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/16/rwanda-english-genocidehttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/16/rwanda-english-genocidehttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/16/rwanda-english-genocidehttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/16/rwanda-english-genocidehttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.htmlhttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.htmlhttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.htmlhttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.htmlhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propagandahttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propagandahttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propagandahttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propagandahttp://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/minsk-agreement/http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/minsk-agreement/http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/minsk-agreement/http://spartacus-educational.com/USAshachtman.htmhttp://spartacus-educational.com/USAshachtman.htmhttp://spartacus-educational.com/USAshachtman.htmhttp://spartacus-educational.com/USAshachtman.htmhttp://spartacus-educational.com/USAshachtman.htmhttp://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/minsk-agreement/http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/minsk-agreement/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propagandahttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propagandahttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/01/putin-stopped-ukraine-military-support-russian-propagandahttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.htmlhttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.htmlhttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2015/4208nuland_nazis_world_war.htmlhttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/16/rwanda-english-genocidehttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/16/rwanda-english-genocidehttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/jan/16/rwanda-english-genocidehttp://tass.ru/en/world/774571http://tass.ru/en/world/774571


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Why US imperialism has supported,financed and armed a coup d’état inUkraine and put in place the govern-ment of Poroshenko.Imperialism mainly targets the semi-oppressed and semi-colonized nations whodemonstra te

some inde-pendence, likeRussia andChina that theUnited Statescan no longertolerate. Espe-cially sincethese countries, with othersalso, are tryingto threaten thesupremacy ofthe dollar.Ukraine as animportant step to reach the Russia and Eura-sia and the vast resources of this region.

What was the political and class na-

ture of the Maidan Movement? The movement of Maidan was far right ori-ented, US sponsored, mostly petty bourgeoisand lumpen working class. It received theopen support of the United States to over-throw the corrupt government of Yanu-kovych. The result was a coalition govern-ment based in Kiev of oligarchs and fascistultra-nationalists seeking closer economic

agreements with the EU and IMF to pave the way for accession to the EU and the NATO.

(This part of the American plan was sabo-taged, we do not know for how long, byFrance President Hollande during his sur-prise visit to Russia and has not the supportof the UK because of their rivalries withemerging German imperialism). The Svo-boda party that has big influence in the

Ukrainian govern-

ment is a directdescendant of theOrganization ofUkrainian National-ists led by Nazicollaborator StepanBandera.

Why the eastern workers rebelledagainst the coupd’état and the

puppet govern-ment issuedfrom this bla-

tant intervention of the Western imperialist block?

This coup d’état caused a wave of opposition

to the imperialist coup from the workingclass in eastern Ukraine. The East is highlyindustrialized and many of the inhabitantsspeak Russian or a mixture of Russian andUkrainian. They understood that Svobodahad declared they wanted to exterminatethem physically. Within days, the governmenttried to ban the use of minority languages. The working class of the East also under-

stand that the agreements with the IMF andthe EU would lead to privatization, de-

US Aggression in Ukraine and the Anti imperialist United Front

By Chiang Ching

A Ukraine “patriot” celebrates the massacre at the Trade Union house in Odessa on 2 May 2014.


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industrialization, and reduce the already pre-carious social services after the “reforms” ofother oligarchs governments. They just hadto look at Greece to see the results, theyknew they had no choice but to resist, first inCrimea and Odessa, then in Donetsk andLugansk.

What was the answer of the“democratic” oligarch Poroshenko? Repression and war against the workers andinhabitants of the East. The Kiev govern-ment and the oligarchs were quick to estab-lish a “national guard” in the fascist party

base to support the military operations of theUkrainian army. These fascist gangs, mainlyPrivy Sektor / Praviy Sector (Right Sector)terrorized workers who tried to organize,tortured and murdered socialists of the Bo-rotba organization and revolutionary com-munists. They committed the horrible massa-cre of Odessa in the House of Unions on 2May, the anniversary of the liquidation of

German trade unions by Hitler’s storm troop-ers in 1933.Kiev has effectively banned the CommunistParty of Ukraine, which had an electorate oftwo million people first and today every“manifestation of communism” is prosecuted

legally as a crime. There can be no clearerindication of the fascist tendencies that thesystem uses as a tool of US financial capital.

What was the reaction of the pro-

western press? The Western media were quick to present the working class resistance as an “aggression”from Russia, especially since Russia wasforced to restore Crimea to its territory. This was a defensive measure and not an actionparallel to the annexation of Austria and theSudetenland by Hitler in 1938. Russia has anaval base in the Crimea which is of great

strategic military importance to it. It hadevery right to resume full control of it follow-ing the challenge from the Pentagon whotried to take control of the peninsula fromthe moment Ukraine requested admission toNATO.

Why has Russia occupied Crimea?Russia acted primarily to prevent threats to its

sovereignty and protect the majority Russianpopulation from a violently hostile govern-ment of Kiev. It is the United States and thecountries of the North Atlantic bloc who arepracticing the type of aggressive expansionsimilar to the Third Reich and the Axis pow-

ers, in fact. Since thebeginning of the 21stcentury the UnitedStates and NATOhave caused war andimposed “regimechange” on any na-tion that does notallow the economicand political domina-tion of the interestsof US finance capital. This has also led tomilitary invasionsnear Russian territory


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in the Baltic and the Black Sea and has evenbegun manoeuvres against China in the Pa-cific. The destruction of independent Libya was of course also one of the highlights ofthis policy, even if it was through theirFrench vassal. President Poroshenko is em-boldened by US imperialism and NATO, andtheir threats of aggression against Russia andis assured that there will be no pause in mili-tary attacks against cities that resist the Kievgovernment which is sponsored by the IMF.

Why have the US and EU sanctionedRussia?

The mysterious attack against the flight MH117 Malaysia Airlines has been used as anexcuse by the United States and the EU toimpose sanctions on Russia, which begancreating economic difficulties in Europe. Themain representative of the ruling classes ofthe EU, Angela Merkel, at a meeting in Ger-many with the dictator oligarch Poroshenkostressed that there should be no abandon-

ment of the sanctions against Russia unless itgives in to Western imperialism. The UnitedStates and NATO now believe they canlaunch a pre-emptive strike against Russia orChina and win; they concentrate thousandsof troops in Central and Eastern Europe,they stand ready to fight with nuclear bomb-ers in the Baltic sea and the Balkans; theydominate the seas of the world with theiraircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. World War III is potentially upon us, and theslightest miscalculation could see Europe andprobably the world enveloped in the flamesof a nuclear war.

The threat of a Third World War andthe working class leadership.However, at this crucial time in history, thecurrent leadership of the working class isbetraying us again as in 1914. We must or-ganize our class to call the leaders of the la-

bour movement to support the resistance tofascism in Ukraine, which means the for-mation of a united anti-imperialist front withthe people of semi oppressed countries un-der the threat of imperialism, mainly in thecurrent crisis, Syria and Russia. Ukrainian workers who struggle against fascism andimperialism have the same interest in defeat-ing them that the Russian ruling class and theRussian people have, it is they who suffer theconsequences of economic sanctions. TheRussian and world working class must pushin the same direction against the same ene-my.Do we support Russian capitalists? This does not mean that we call for the polit-ical subordination of conscious workers forRussian capitalists, but we do call on them to“march separately and fight together”. Infact, we cannot trust any capitalist class. Wehave already seen that Putin is trying to adaptto American and German imperialism, but

still he is unable to get any other result thanconstant demonization of himself and Russiain the Western media.

Who is the main enemy of humanitytoday? Against the United States, which is the mainenemy of the world working class, the oli-garchs and Putin are secondary enemies. There are many people on the left and in thelabour movement who see the United Statesand Russia as equal enemies of the workingclass, merging everything and refuse to adopta policy that advocates the defeat of Ameri-can imperialism. They have become bour-geois liberals and are anti-communists.

What is needed to fight US imperialism? The struggle against imperialism and thestruggle for socialist revolution requires thatthe working class forms a temporary alliance


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with the forces opposing US financial capital, which dominates the planet. We must alsorecognize the need to form temporary alli-ances with existing mass workers’ organiza-tions despite their pro-capitalist leaders. Wemust rely on the masses and urge them forward, when possible, to attack the base offinancial capital that rules over them. Wemust strengthen our moral and material soli-darity with the working class in easternUkraine who are struggling against fascismand the imperialism of the IMF. We mustchampion the independence of the People’sRepublics of Donbass as voted by their peo-ples. Ultimately, we must denounce the per-fidious role of the current leadership of the working class and forge a new revolutionaryleadership capable of reversing the globaldominant US capitalism by opposing it with a world party of socialist revolution. What must we fight for?

● Against NATO imperialism!

● No to World War III! ● Freedom and independence for the Don-bass!● Solidarity with the resistance against theterror of Poroshenko!● Anti-imperialist united front of all forcesactive in the fight against world imperial-ism!● Withdrawal of imperialist troops fromcountries occupied by the US and its EUallies.

This short introduction sets out the problemin order and to develop the correct politicalline, today a minority, but defended by sever-al trends: consistent Marxists-Leninists, or-thodox Trotskyists mainly Anglo-Saxons, and

some “left” revisionists who have not forgot-ten all basic principles of Marxism or interna-

tionalism. We will try to justify theoreticallythis in reference to the principles of com-munism.

Which are the principled basis of an

international communist policy?References for the communists on the na-tional question and imperialism are the reso-lutions of the Communist International dur-ing its Second Congress and Lenin’s text,“Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capital-ism” and his writings before and after thetrigger of the First World War. This are: “Thebankruptcy of the Second International”,“Socialism and War” and all the articles ofthe time.

The very first distinction; oppressedand oppressor nationsIn his speech on this subject, Lenin said:“First, What is the main idea of our funda-mental theses? The distinction between op-pressed and oppressor nations. We empha-

size this distinction, unlike bourgeois democ-racy and the Second International. In the eraof imperialism, it is particularly important forthe proletariat and the Communist Interna-tional to see concrete economic facts and toresolve all colonial and national issues, leav-ing not abstract concepts, but concrete reali-ties. The characteristic feature of imperialismis that the world as we see it, is currently divided into a large number of oppressed na-tions and an insignificant number of oppres-sor nations, which have enormous wealth anda powerful military force.”

The ones who had “forgotten” thishave passed to the bourgeois camp This is the essential starting point for anyanalysis of an international question. Which isexactly what all supporters of the aggressivepolicy of US imperialism seem to forget. In-stead of studying the reality on the ground,


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they leaned inthe books to finda n “ i n t e r -imperialist con-flict”; they donot see the hugeclaws of US im-perialism, theycan only see thatfantasy about“Russian imperi-alism”. Such a“Russian imperi-alism” may have

its own ambi-tions; Russianoligarchs mayplan to becomeone, but that isnot the situationthat exists today, nor is it relevant to Ukrainesituation. Communists do not deal with“ambitions” or “wants” that have no influ-

ence on reality. We seek above all to deter-mine who is the oppressor and the op-pressed, or is about to become one of these. The latest developments in the situation, the“sanctions” against Russia by the US / EUand the hidden manoeuvres to crash the ru-ble and the oil price, fully validate the diagno-sis we have always made: it is an imperialistaggression against a backward Third Worldcountry, Russia.

Which are the real aims of this attackon East Ukraine and Russia? This attack can even take an even more acuteform and become a step in the confrontationbetween the United States and China for world supremacy (another unequal conflict inperspective) and does not affect the questionof fundamental principles. Some will say thatLenin’s theses were referring to semi-colonialand colonized capitalist countries and not

just backward and dependent countries likeRussia and / or China.Can we compare the conflict between

westerns imperialism and Russia to-day with the situation just beforeFirst and Second World Wars? Although the situation has changed, the basicpolitical features of the problem persist (acoordinated imperialist aggression conductedby the US) and we can never, as some do,make and equals sign between the current

situation and the conflicting forces duringthe First and Second World Wars. It is notthe military capacity or rather the nuclearforce, which could support such arguments,because the armies of Russia and China, eventogether, cannot be compared in any way with the military power of the Western bloc.Even the Russian nuclear force is in a verypoor condition and reconstruction has onlyrecently begun. The China is in an even weaker military position.


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The weakness of the international political movement of the workingclass is an aggravating factor .

This situation of imperialist aggressionagainst much weaker countries is accompa-nied by unprecedented weakness of the inter-national labour movement. This lack of polit-ical presence of the working class and its or-ganizations, including its ideology, not onlyinternationally but also nationally, consideringtheir actual relative weight, is one of rootcauses of the ease with which imperialist ad- ventures and all kinds of military aggressionoccur. They use scandalous pressure, theyoverturn governments who have sometimesbecome only slightly divergent from theirinterests or just because they have begun tocovet their natural resources.

Who is the main aggressor in the world for many long years?Particularly since the end of the USSR, USimperialism has committed all kinds of mili-

tary aggression, destroying whole countries,practiced state terrorism, torture, murderoutside its borders, the overthrow of govern-ments through “colour revolutions”, thephysical liquidation of its former employeesand / or dictators put in place by the CIA orsupported by them. This victorious drunken-ness, which sought to consolidate the ad- vantage gained by the fall of the USSR be-trayed and sold by her rotten and treacherousleaders, has fed their dreams of world domi-

nation, even at the expense of their former“allies” (who know what kind of “friend”they have, and are only aligned with thembecause of their own relative weakness).

What is the main goal of US imperialism? All their policy is geared to maintaining thisdomination but it is decaying by slow degrees with the emergence of new economic powers who can become as a real threat to their he-gemony in the future. This international situa-tion, a hegemonic superpower dominance without shearing, began to be threatened bynew capitalist powers in the making, in a situ-ation in which the working class has lost itspolitical presence, where it is plunged intomajor political and ideological confusion buthas grown in number and still continues tofight. The class desperately needs a strategyand appropriate tactics to stop the race ofhumanity towards the abyss.Could the US imperialist plans bestopped by criticism ?

The aggressive plans of US imperialism tomaintain its global dominance are not goingto stop. These plans are essential to continuethe operations and financial dominance of theUnited States to export its systemic crisis andfuel its military-industrial complex which isthe centre of its profits from their produc-tion. It can only continue to cause more warsor local or global firefights by a more acute

struggle against Russia, China or Iran, or withtwo or three of them together. The domi-


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nance of energy sources and the exploitationof Eurasia are among the most importantplans of US imperialism. They will findstrong opposition from Russia, China andIran, which is not by a “conflict betweenimperialist”, but an attempt to defend theresources of the major countries of the Third World against the most powerful imperialistcoalition in the world.Should communist support oppressedand exploited countries no mattertheir actual leaders against an imperi-alist aggression?

Faced with this alternative the famous quotefrom Lenin comes to mind; he said that theCommunists should always actively supportthe wars of the oppressed and exploitedcountries (or those that may become so), whatever the nature of these states or charac-teristics of their leaders. He illustrated this with the hypothetical case of a war between“democratic” Britain and feudal India, and he

said it was the duty of the Communists tosupport India, even if Hindus were the initia-tors of the war, because it was a just national war against an imperialist nation. What is the nature of the resistance ofthe East Ukrainian workers? The conflict in Ukraine has the same charac-teristics. It is mostly an insurrection of East-

ern workers (despite the prevailing ideas, andsome reactionary nationalists). We had theproclamation of self-determination first andindependence of the Popular Republics later. The government of the oligarchies and theNazis, strongly pushed, advised and support-ed by the imperialist bloc of Germany,France and the United States went to waragainst them to force them to accept cultural

apartheid, dictatorship from fascists gangsand the dictates of the IMF. All these

measures involve the liquidation of Ukrainianindustry and the social benefits of the work-ing class. They seek to transform Ukraineinto an arena for NATO exercises againstRussia and to impose the dictatorship of in-ternational finance. The fate of Albania beck-ons for these regions and for the wholeUkraine.

What promises enticed some Ukraini-an workers to fight for the oligarchs,fascists and US imperialist policies? The purported compensation they were toget for all this trouble was their integrationinto the EU and NATO, but it will not hap-pen, because the French and English imperi-alists do not want the strengthening of Ger-man power in Europe, even less so now.Policy changes are the “specialty” of the new“diplomacy” of the French imperialists. Infact they seek to transform Ukraine into anexporter of agricultural products, mineral andother raw materials, without industry and

without national independence. Ukrainianoligarchs would be satisfied with the status ofparasites whilst collecting the crumbs fromthe imperialist table.Is it an armed resistance the correctanswer to the oligarch-fascist imperi-alist aggression? A national or regional war to oppose these

plans is quite fair and correct. Especially when the Ukrainian army acts as an aggressorunder the command of US imperialism,

which has the nerve to install its “intelligenceservice” and his mercenaries and agents di-rectly in the Ukrainian land still controlled bythe oligarchs and the fascists.How can the most conscious sectors ofthe working class intervene and are they

ideologically prepared to do it underthese conditions?


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For a long time Marxist-Leninists have de-fined the contradictions between classes andcountries in the world. Even when the USSRstill existed as a socialist country despite allthe internal distortions that eventually led toits fall, the following contradictions (except

the contradiction between the socialist campand the imperialist camp) were still same:● The contradiction of the oppressed na-tions on the one hand, against the imperial-ist superpower, the United States and otherimperialist powers.● Inter -imperialist contradictions. a) TheUS imperialist superpower against the im-perialist powers like France, Britain, Ger-many, Japan, etc. b) The contradictionsbetween small imperialist powers.● The contradiction between the bourgeoi-sie and the proletariat, which will alwaysbethe most antagonist.● The various contradictions between thedifferent layers of the petty bourgeoisie andthe working class, and in certain circum-

stances, against imperialism and the com-prador bourgeoisie, who are closely linked

to foreign capital in the colonial and semi-colonial world.

What is the real solution to all thesecontradictions? The solution of these contradictions is the

world socialist revolution that will passthrough intermediate steps because it doesnot develop in a single pulse, due to the une- ven development of world countries. Howcan Revolutionary Communists and all those who really oppose the aggressive actions ofimperialism and want to support the struggleof Donbass Republics participate in thisfight? Some people measure the magnitudeof the task and are discouraged in advance,forgetting that the people of Donbass arealready struggling. They see the enormousdifficulties of such a struggle and the veryreal possibility that these fighters for social-ism and national independence may be aban-doned (by Putin) because of short term geo-political calculations. They may lose becauseof lack of arms and ammunition. Thesefighters are increasingly communists andhave many other Marxists in their ranks;there are also those elements who are nostal-


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gic for the Soviet era. They may lose becausea large part of the European and global lefthave betrayed them objectively.Others would materially help and some haveeven gone to fight alongside them. Othersare willing to accept any peaceful solution,any waiver of independence so they can get aminimum peace and stop the attacks againstcivilians carried by the fascist oligarchy.

What is the only policy the true Leftcan propose? The Anti-imperialistUnited ! The only policy to support these fighters is

that of an anti-imperialist united front tofight together against American led-imperialism by all possible means. A united front is defined as the tactics of theCommunists and is summed up in the phrase“march separately, strike together.” Thisunited front of workers and conscious com-munists must be open to all the forces op-posed in fact, to the main aggressor withoutfear of the political nature of the attackedstate, much less the nature and characteristics

of their rulers. Therefore, wepropose this type of UnitedFront to all those who arefighting or preparing to fightagainst imperialist in Ukraineor another country, as Syria,Iraq, Yemen or even Russia orChina. The acceptance of sucha united front in turn dependson the degree of importanceof the movement of workersaround the world who supportthe Front.Is this an easy fight? Are

we supporting Putin?Fighting US imperialismis only a first step?

The difficulties are real but it is the only po-litical line accords with communist politicalprinciples. We stand alongside Russia to fightagainst the main imperialism without makingany political concessions to Putin nor theleaders of the People’s Republic of Donbassif these leaders are not on the path of strug-gle for socialism and the national independ-ence. As we also know that once finished the fightthat requires us to strike together, we will goagainst the policies of the Russian oligarchsand the Donbass. Some may say that, giventhe state of our forces and our influence(quite small actually) it is a sword thrust inthe water, or a statement of principles emptyof all content. We reject this claim. Today thepolitical and consistent ideological defence with all the practice, experience and Marxist-Leninist theory, its preservation and dissemi-nation are the seeds that will bear fruit. Theother road is to follow the line of opportun-ism, ultra-leftism of centrism and betrayal;

that is the real impasse facing all Revolution-ary Communists.

Trotsky, Lenin and Kamenev at the Second Party Congress ofthe Communist Party of Russia in 1919


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The Ukrainian question appears as the con-tinuation of many other conflicts and attacksagainst dependent or semi colonial countriesafter the fall of the USSR.US-led imperialism’s direct aggressions havebeen backed by and have and counted in thecollaboration of other secondary imperial-isms such as Great Britain and France butalso of Germany, Spain, Italy and even vassalstates or close allies like Qatar, Saudi Arabia,Egypt and Israel.Since Yugoslavia wars and through to Af-ghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, according toUS imperialism’s obvious geopolitical strate-gy, they have smashed any country or anyneighbouring former ally of the former Sovi-et Union on one pretext or another but always targeting, as their final goal, Russia andChina.In the state of decay of Yeltsin’s Russia that would have happened without too muchopposition but since Russia has recovered abit of its strength, this is done openly againstit now. It is also directed in a more muted way against China, for the moment.Beginning with the fall of the Soviet UnionUkraine has been designated by the US impe-rialist strategists as the weakest link to con-

quer. They see there the potential to limitand / or break up Russia and keep it in back- wardness vassalage, what they had been dur-ing the decade under Yeltsin after the fousterof Gorbachev. Ukraine therefore has beenfor more than a year a place for the imperial-ist manoeuvres and aggressions, first by USimperialism with its dismemberment plansfor the political or military liquidation ofRussia if necessary. But also for the risingambitions of German imperialism that has itsown, ancient designs on the “East” i.e. from

the “black lands” of Ukrainian to the Carpa-thian mountains as in the First and Second World Wars. The Euromaidan movement melds into thisperspective and so the Ukrainian issue is ofglobal importance because of its political

consequences. A victory for US imperialismand their puppet oligarchs and their Nazipawns (who are even more dangerous), mayhave devastating consequences for the strug-gle of the international working class.Such international situation, which has goneon since the 2011 Libyan conflict, at least,has divided the international left in threeperfectly distinct currents. This aggressionagainst a small nation by an imperialist coali-tion, met with the open and/ or the hiddensupport of countless political movements of

UKRAINE AND INTERNATIONALLEFT


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all sorts (Trotskyists, Maoists, Revisionists,in short the whole political movement thatposes, rightly or wrongly, on the workers’side) who have forgotten and/or hidden theyet clear teachings of the Communist Inter-national Congress and its leaders, as dis-cussed later.In France all organizations are located or arein an almost open support of imperialistpolicy (the NPA, Mélenchon, PCF) on theright, the centrist “neither -nor” position,such as the so called Trotskyst LutteOuvrière and the so called Maoist VoiePtolétarienne. These say they cannot support

either the imperialist on the one hand nor adictator on the other, under the pretext thateven if the imperialist aggression appearsclear, a revolutionary communist party couldnot support a “bloody dictator”, followingthe name given to the political leader on siteby the imperialist mass media services ofdisinformation. In this way they contributedto the imperialist propaganda among the

working class in their respective countriesand indirectly helped the assault and subse-quent destruction of that country. These currents are found everywhere, andeverywhere the same ideological tendencies, Trotskyists, Maoists, Stalinists, Hoxhaists(followers of Enver Hoxha of Albania) orother revisionists of all colours, are dividedin three or at least two of this currents, onthe issue. A political crisis like the one known in 1914during the first imperialist war exists today. This coincidence which does not bode wellfor the near future. The only correct position against this impe-rialist aggression and plans is to maintain its world supremacy at the risk of provoking anew world war is that which we defend:

The Anti Imperialist United Front We defend the principle of the Anti Imperi-

alist United Front (AIUF) in all conflictsbetween imperialist powers, or their proxies who carry pursue their war aims with theirsupport, and semi-colonial countries likeIraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Venezuela and theDonbass region of the Ukraine, the focus ofthis article. We also defend countries of in-termediate development, with features ofboth imperialism and semi-colonies, likeRussia, China, Greece, Portugal and someformer ‘Iron Curtain’ countries in EasternEurope, from Imperialist attack. A United Front has as its first condition thatit be led by the industrial working class guid-

ed by their revolutionary communist partyand each temporary alliance he made shouldbe made strictly in the short and long terminterests of the working class. The principles of the Anti Imperialist UnitedFront are simple as laid out by the revolu-tionary Comintern in 1922:“The workers’ united front is the sloganadvanced in the West during the transition

period, characterised by the organised gath-ering of forces. Similarly in the colonial Eastat the present time the key slogan to advanceis the anti-imperialist united front. Its expe-diency follows from the perspective of along-drawn-out struggle with world imperial-ism that will demand the mobilisation of allrevolutionary elements. This mobilisation ismade all the more necessary by the tendencyof the indigenous ruling classes to makecompromises with foreign capital directedagainst the fundamental interests of the massof the people. Just as in the West the sloganof the workers’ united front has helped andis still helping to expose the social demo-crats’ sell-out of proletarian interests, so theslogan of an anti-imperialist united front willhelp to expose the vacillations of the variousbourgeois-nationalist groups. This slogan will also help the working masses to developtheir revolutionary will and to increase their


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class consciousness; it will place them in thefront ranks of those fighting not only imperi-

alism, but the remnants of feudalism.” As Lenin said in his speech at that Congress:"The Communist International should ac-company the revolutionary movement in thecolonial and backward countries for part ofthe way, and should even make an alliance with it, but must unconditionally maintainthe independent character of the proletarianmovement, be it only in embryo." And Stuart King, then a central leader of Workers Power, pointed out in his debate with the GOR of Italy in 1986:“What we believe is necessary in countriesoppressed and attacked by imperialism andits agents is a fighting bloc of all social forcesand their parties willing and able to resist. This may be extremely episodic - for a singledemonstration or a rally - or it may be a mili-tary bloc. Our position is that it is incorrectin non-imperialist countries to exclude thebourgeoisie on principle. Indeed where the

bourgeoisie has mass influence amongst theoppressed classes (and where has it not?)refusal to offer the united front is tostrengthen that influence not undermineit.” [1]

The NPA supported the Euro-Maidan The NPA has supported Euromaidan andmade it an alibi, claiming that Euromaidancould be saved from his leadership and ex-treme fascist right and, in spite of these lead-ers, it was a “ democratic revolution “. Theysaid:“While the main organized forces are, fornow, right and far right, we support the so-cial and political forces that are trying tobuild a left opposition within the movement.In doing so, they refused stay out of themovement and to identify all the movement with his right- wing component. “ Zakhar Popovych, the fraudster who rippedoff a dozen or more far-left groups in the

West while pretending to be a member of all,is now a leader of the Ukrainian group LeftOpposition, he said: “The first attacks againstthe riot of Berkut Police (anti mutinous po-lice) were organized mainly by neo-Nazis ofPravdiy Sektor, who are even more radicalthan the movement of the extreme right Svo-boda “. In their statement of 7 March the Left Oppo-sition, the USFI group wrote: “Ukraine willbe saved dune intervention by solidarity,”and she accepted the coup led by fascists:“Our Government was legitimized by thethreat of foreign intervention “and went onto say:” It is necessary to create internationalbrigades to maintain legal order, to opposethe chauvinism of us, to defend strategicfacilities, to propaganda among the troops,and to oppose the disarmament of theUkrainian Armed detachments ... Organize with whom you trust, or with whom you are

EuroMaidan Nazi emblem


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ready to elect! The Ukrainian army must actunder the control of citizens “. Of course, the “international brigades” offascists from Sweden, Poland and elsewhererushed to Kiev and actual international so-cialist brigades from Spain gathered to de-fend the Donbass these fascist monsters. The silence of the NPA on the Odessa mas-sacre of May 2, 2014 is more eloquent thanany of their political degeneration. It is im-possible to imagine that a Marxist Interna-tional Group, for example, may tacitly ap-prove the massacre of at least 48 anti-fascistsby Nazi thugs, saying they did not know who

had done this heinous crime by building onthe occult by the Ukrainian dominated by theextreme right government and so avoid itsresponsibilities Socialists. Their British com-rades of the Socialist Resistance brought anequally reactionary contribution to their rightskid. In an article on their website March 24,2014, “Ukraine - the Russians are the aggres-sors,” Liam Mac Uaid begins:

“The Russian occupation of Crimea sharplydivided opinion in the British left” wroteLiam Mac Uaid, he continues. “The Europe-an Commission will formally present morethan 1.1 billion € this week to extremeputschists Right Kiev who eliminated bystreet violence the elected government “ A fairly direct statement in fact, we couldhave thought. But no, naive, non-dialecticalpeople fail to perceive the “revolutionarycontent” behind the reactionary appearancehe tell us in a terrible section of political chi-canery:“However, the socialist participants in theseevents, as Ilya Boudraïtksis of” Vpered(“Forward “), the Russian section of theFourth International saw in this mass move-ment as if it contained the seeds of a revolu-tionary process: “... each element exudes an

authentic revolutionary consciousness, paint-ed in a strange color, unusual - a propaganda

kaleidoscope of all possible sects and far-right parties, with countless symbols” Celtic“and runes on walls. The dissonance betweenthe incredibly sickening revolutionary contentof the process and its reactionary form arenot demanding circumstances no ethical eval-uations disgusted, but an action which seeksto amend an ugly equation.” In the comments on this article a Japanesecomrade, sigesige00, replied:“This article makes clear the degeneration ofthe USFI in a neo-conservative organizationopenly against-revolutionary and pro-imperialist under the direction of Professor

Gilbert Achcar (in fact, he is not a memberof the NPA, but a mouthpiece for the USFI).Now the USFI clearly works for Westernimperialism, in the same way that Achcar hassupported the Western imperialist attackagainst Libya. I urge these “Trotskyists” to behonest and say: “We are not Communists atall, but left apologists for US imperialism andthe EU.”

It’s hard to find a better political explanation. Lutte Ouvrière and Ukraine We will treat the position of Lutte Ouvrièreas a typical rightist and centrist tendency which have arisen in France and leave asidethe criticism of Voie Proletarienne that hasmade a copy and paste of these positions with some small variations. Their positioning is indistinguishable fromthe one they have taken during the imperialistaggression in Libya and can, with no doubt,be described as centrist. It has been alsocalled Schatmanite in allusion to a politicalleader who had the position in 1939 of“neither Moscow nor Washington, for the

working class” or as a Kautskite position,similar to the “intermediate” position takenby Kautsky during the First World War, in

fact a hypocritical support for their own im-perialism. This centrist policy was also used


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to describe the imperialist aggression in Syriaand it is again in service in Ukraine, wherethey arrived at the point of describing boththe Nazi bands and the leaders which count

in their ranks communists and Borotbists of workers in struggle against Kiev’s typical mili-tary aggression, openly backed by US imperi-alism as: “All bandits” P.Lafitte wrote in their

weekly “Lutte Ouvrière” last August:“Admittedly, the separatist leaders of Don-bass, supported by leaders of parts of theRussian state apparatus, if not Putin, arebloodthirsty henchmen. They are bandits inthe pay of some oligarchs, gangsters that areblessed by the priests and the Great Russiannationalist thugs who get rich by the lootingof the region.”

A fight between “bandits”, that’s their justifi-cation for their political line. As in Libya andSyria they tune their violins to the imperialistpropaganda.Let us see what they wrote in one of thoserare comments on this issue they made which

is, nonetheless, central not only in interna-tional politics but that which determines and will determine increasingly, any national poli-cy (Already the military budgets of countriesconcerned are increasing):In the journal Worker’s Fight No. 101 ofMarch, the sister British organisation ofLutte Ouvrière, the article“Ukraine - The pettybourgeoisie, bureaucracy and the games of the imperi-

alist powers: from showdown to bloodbath”is atranslation with some additional comments,of a section that appeared in the No. 158 of“Lutte de Classes” monthly, in French. It follows the general line of LO articles oninternational questions as the ‘balanced’ titlesuggests, the working class are caught be-tween the petty-bourgeoisie, the bureaucracyand West. The term ‘bureaucracy’ is a very

vague term and which particular ‘petty -bourgeoisie’ we are referring to is also vague.However the content of the article itself sug-

gests very strongly that there is not an equalsign between the two contending sides. Actu-ally the two sides are Western imperialismand the Ukraine oligarchs with Russia sup-porting a section of the oligarchs in the East. Very unlike the NPA they are in no doubt what the EuroMaidan was:“The “self -appointed provisional govern-ment” immediately announced “a drasticausterity programme designed to make themajority of the population foot the bill of thecountry's catastrophic economic situation,

without affecting the considerable wealth ofits "oligarchs"… this government includesfour representatives of neo-fascist organisa-tions, including its deputy prime minister.Meanwhile, taking opportunity of the power vacuum created by Yanukovych's hurrieddeparture and by the illegitimacy of this gov-ernment, the armed thugs of the neo-fascistgroups have been openly parading in the

streets of western Ukraine, taking over con-trol of police stations and establishing roadblocks to enforce their own "order".” Moreover there was not:““A "Russian invasion" of the Crimean prov-ince. This was hypocritically ignoring thefacts. Indeed, the Russian army did not haveto "invade" Crimea since it is permanentlystationed there. Moreover, it enjoyed thesympathy of a large part of the Crimean pop-ulation which, being ethnic Russians, hadevery reason to fear a backlash from neo-


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fascist groups whose hateful demagogy tar-gets all minorities - including the Russian-speaking one.” The article then goes into very useful detailof what happened, who was who and thehistory of the region. All this strongly sug-gest an anti-imperialist united front. Although also in this article are foundphrases that show how constant is their ten-dency to position itself as impartial judges ofa situation that concerns them little, canmanifest. Against all minimum observation of themanoeuvres of US imperialism who pre-

pared and set fire to this situation since thebeginning, following very clear strategicplans, they write "Caught off guard, Westerngovernments, which had bet on an outputscenario of negotiated crisis and whose for-eign ministers were scheduled to meet Yanu-kovych the following day, made it known onthe same mode

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Ukraine: The French Left and Imperialism

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