Hands off Boris Litvinov and the Communist Party of Donetsk People’s Republic!

An assassination attempt was made July 19 against Boris Litvinov, first secretary of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic (KPDPR). Litvinov discovered a bomb strapped to the underside of his car. This message from Struggle-La Lucha was sent to the KPDPR on July 21.

Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and the Partido de Socialismo Unido/Socialist Unity Party of the U.S. were outraged to learn of the latest assassination attempt against Comrade Boris Litvinov on July 19. We send our solidarity to First Secretary Litvinov and all comrades of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

We hope the authorities in Donetsk will act quickly to find those responsible for planting the car bomb that threatened Comrade Litvinov. But we know that, whoever may have carried out this awful deed, the ultimate responsibility for this terrorist act and other war crimes against the people of Donbass rests with Western imperialism, especially the United States, which helped to engineer the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine and continues to arm, train and finance the Ukrainian regime and its neo-Nazi enforcers.

Ukraine is once again escalating its attacks on the civilian population of Donbass, as we saw with this weekend’s deadly shelling of Pervomaisk in the Lugansk People’s Republic. Despite the aspirations of many Ukrainians who voted for President Vladimir Zelensky in hopes of ending the fratricidal war, the crisis can’t be resolved through elections controlled by the very same oligarchs, fascists and imperialist powers that benefit from the war.

As Comrade Litvinov said: “Attempts on political figures of the DPR and LPR–like A. Zakharchenko, V. Bolotov, D. Pushilin, me and many others–indicate that it is too early for us all to relax. It is necessary to strengthen the unity of all politicians, public organizations and political parties which are ready to defend the ideas and principles of building a sovereign DPR and LPR, for which the overwhelming majority of Donbass residents voted in the referendum in the spring of 2014.”

In their desperate scramble for profits and global power, the U.S. imperialists are greatly overextending themselves everywhere–threatening war against Iran, Venezuela, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Palestinian people, to name just a few.

But this colossus has feet of clay. The U.S. ruling class faces growing internal resistance from the workers and oppressed peoples here. As we write this, there are mass protests throughout the country against Washington’s brutal treatment of refugees, as well as popular uprisings of the colonized peoples in Puerto Rico and Hawaii.

As we work to build solidarity between the workers of the U.S. and the people of the world, the valiant anti-fascist struggle of the Donbass remains a high priority for us. Though our united efforts, we can stop the imperialist war drive and unite the workers of the world to fight for a socialist future.