The arrest of Aleksandr Kononovich and Mikhail Kononovich, leaders of the Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine, has been condemned by the World Federation of Democratic Youth and other progressive organizations

On Sunday, March 6, the Ukrainian security services arrested Mikhail Kononovich and his brother Aleksandr Kononovich. Both are from the leadership of the Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine (LKSMU). The press service of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) stated on Sunday that the Kononovich brothers were arrested from capital Kiev and put in jail. The SBU has accused them of being propagandists with pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian views with the goal of destabilizing the internal situation in Ukraine and create the “necessary information picture” for Russian and Belarusian channels. The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) denounced the arrest of the LKSMU leaders in Ukraine and urged progressive youth groups across the world to mobilize to demand for their freedom as their lives are in serious danger in the custody of the security forces.

Following the Euromaidan coup in Ukraine in 2014, leftist groups have been targeted and persecuted by the government, as well as by ultra nationalist and neo-Nazi forces. In 2015, decommunization laws were passed in order to ban communist symbolism and based on that, the election commission barred the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) from participating in elections in 2019. The activities of LKSMU were also threatened by the Ukrainian authorities. Its leadership, including the Kononovich brothers, were targeted by government forces and neo-Nazis on multiple occasions for leading communist politics in the country.

LKSMU is a member organization in the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and had recently organized a campaign named “Komsomol for Peace!’ in Ukrainian cities calling for Ukraine to sever ties with the NATO alliance and to peacefully resolve the conflict with Russia.

On February 16, the two had participated in LKSMU’s protest in front of the US embassy in Kiev, demanding that the US get out of Ukraine and stop its imperialist pursuit of expansionism that has provoked a military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. They were also active in the Anti-fascist Committee of Ukraine (AFCU). The two were brutally assaulted in Kiev by neo-Nazis from “C14“ and “National Corpus” in February 2018.

Source: Peoples Dispatch

Here are my opening remarks at the International Tribute to Alicia on March 5. The link to the entire event can be found at the bottom of the page. 

On behalf of myself, Alicia’s three children and six grandchildren, we thank you for being here. After Alicia passed I expected that a lot of people would send their remembrance of her because being around and working with Alicia always made you feel like you were doing something positive and making some contribution towards a better world, one with less injustice, less racism and more human solidarity, it was an experience that people remembered. She was always tolerant and easy to work with and whether it was a long campaign or a short encounter her leadership style was attractive; always making people feel included and appreciated.

Alicia was a socialist, ..a Fidelista to be precise… but that didn’t get in the way of her rare ability to bring different political circles to work together for common cause, she once said, “The success of our efforts in the struggle to free the Cuban Five was based in the fact that we opened the door wide to work with all sorts of people some of whom I am not sure we can even call progressive”. Her sincerity always showed through making people’s defenses melt. Danny Glover told me that he could never figure out how to say no to Alicia.

But back to the response; what I didn’t expect was the avalanche of solidarity and appreciation that we have received and continue to receive from around the world….. Alicia always kept her focus on the objective; on the goals, and never ever looked for any accolades for her efforts, perhaps that is why she is getting so many now.

In all the projects and campaigns that she and I worked on we had an unwritten division of labor. We never started off trying to figure out who was going to be responsible for what, we just knew. Her office was on the kitchen table and mine here on the living room table and when we did need to figure something out we would leave the house and go walk the three miles around Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland.

Working on this tribute made me realize how little I actually knew about the depth of what Alicia did because of all the great things there were thousands of little things that went unnoticed. Alicia would of taken the lead on putting together an event like this and it’s made me think that you never really know a person until you’ve had to lift their load.

I know that there are many of you who would of liked to tell a story about Alicia today, but we have had to limit it to just a few of her closest collaborators. We hopefully are going to have a live event in the Bay Area in the not too distant future and one in Cuba when possible.

Having said that, of all the people that Alicia worked with none was closer than Graciela Ramirez, now the editor of Cuba en Resumen and the coordinator of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity in Havana. Both Alicia and Graciela were pushed into the struggle in Argentina during the US backed military dictatorship of their country in the 1970’s, and although they didn’t know each other at the time they could not have become closer sisters than they did… especially in the long campaign to free the Cuban 5,  the constant work to end the blockade of Cuba and establishing Resumen Latinoamericano in English.

So now in the spirit of International Women’s Day you will see in Graciela’s intervention how it was that these 2 powerful women became even stronger and more effective in the struggle by working together as one.

To watch the full tribute in English go to:

Source: Resumen

When Russian troops entered Ukraine on February 24, 2022 the mass media in the United States and the rest of the capitalist countries howled in outrage. President Joseph Biden, in his State of the Union address on March 1, lashed out at Russia and announced the severest economic sanctions against that country.

Is Russia the reckless aggressor as it is portrayed? Actually it is the complete opposite. The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are entirely to blame.

From 1922 until 1991 Ukraine was one of the constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), formed following the worker and peasant Revolution of 1917. In 1991 the USSR dissolved and Ukraine (along with 10 other member republics) became independent capitalist nations including Russia, itself.

From 1991 to 2014, a total of 23 years, Russia respected Ukraine’s independence. But inside Ukraine a political struggle went on as to whether Ukraine should have stronger ties to capitalist Europe or with Russia, with which it shares a 1200 mile border. In 2008 NATO announced that Ukraine would be welcomed into the anti-Russia alliance after President George W. Bush pressed NATO members, but no timeframe was given when that would happen.

In 2010 Viktor Yanukovich was elected president of Ukraine promising closer ties to Russia. He dropped the bid to enter NATO. In 2014 protests broke out in Ukraine’s capital with the support and connivance of the CIA and the U.S. government with a healthy $5 billion “donation” to pro-Western groups.  A secret phone call by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, speaking to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, was leaked to the press in February 2014 during the Maidan Square protests.

Nuland and Pyatt discussed the different Ukrainian presidential candidates and how to manipulate them to make sure their favorite would win. The text of the call shows that then Vice-President Biden was involved in this plot. When Pyatt explains that the European Union (E.U. – U.S. “allies”) had a different view of things, with a less anti-Moscow program, Nuland responds “Fuck the EU!”

The 2014 protests escalated with armed ultra-rightwing groups participating. President Yanukovich was illegally ousted, since the Ukrainian Parliament lacked the necessary votes for his impeachment.  He fled for his life. A string of leaders have controlled Ukraine ever since. They all have had a pro-U.S. orientation. This includes their avowed position to have Ukraine join NATO.

What Is NATO?

Following World War II the North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949 by 10 European nations and the U.S. and Canada. It was a collective military agreement clearly and openly aimed at the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist states. That NATO was and is an arm of United States imperialism is shown by the fact that by the 1960s there were 400,000 U.S. troops stationed in various European military bases. Additional countries were admitted to the alliance over the years.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist governments from 1989-91 the U.S. directed NATO to focus on wider imperialist interests. NATO militarily intervened to break up Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1999. Other NATO areas of military operations include Afghanistan, Iraq, east Africa, Libya and Turkey. Actions included enforcing no-fly zones, blockades on the high seas, bombing and providing military supplies and troops.

With the counter-revolutions in the eastern European nations, those countries were incorporated into NATO. In 1999 Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined. In 2004 Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Bulgaria entered NATO. Albania, Croatia (2009) Montenegro (2017) and North Macedonia (2020) also became members. With these additions,  NATO military bases, some including U.S. troops and nuclear missiles, were positioned closer and closer to Russia’s borders.

With the advent of the anti-Russian, right-wing coup in Ukraine, Russia reacted to secure its long standing huge naval base in the Crimea region, at Sevastopol. Russia also came to the aid of two small Ukrainian regions on its border who, resisting “ethnic cleansing” attacks by anti-Russian militias and government forces, declared themselves independent “people’s republics.”

In 2021 the Ukrainian government pushed forward with its intention to join NATO, advancing the strategic plans of the U.S. to put military bases and missiles right on the western Russian border. Ukrainian President Zelensky, whose campaign was based on bringing peace with the republics, announced that NATO is the “only solution” to his country’s ethnic problem.

All diplomatic efforts by Russia to get an agreement to keep Ukraine out of NATO and NATO bases/missiles off its border, were refused. The U.S. made an empty claim that it had made every attempt at diplomacy. But it refused to address Russia’s main legitimate demand – a guarantee that Ukraine would remain neutral and never join NATO. There really was no diplomacy conducted by the U.S.

A buildup of Russian military forces on the east and north borders of Ukraine made it clear to all that Russia would never accept this blatant threat to its security. On February 24, 2022 Russian forces moved into Ukraine and fighting has continued since then.

The U.S. and its imperialist allies are perfectly content to let Ukrainian people fight the Russians. Proxy wars are their “tried and true” policy. The U.S. is also eager to impose economic sanctions (an act of war) against Russia which will weaken it economically and politically. Not content with the destruction of the Soviet Union thirty-odd years ago, the U.S. also wants to subjugate a capitalist rival it sees in Russia. Regime change in Russia tops their agenda

It is unfortunate that the people of the Ukraine are suffering as pawns, fighting to subordinate their country to be colonized by the U.S. and other western imperialist powers.

The people of the United States are today drenched to the bone in propaganda from all the mass capitalist media. This flood has also engulfed many who should know better than to believe anything that comes from the Pentagon, State Department or the White House about the situation in Ukraine. Just as in all previous imperialist military operations, the truth will slowly make itself known as economic effects (inflation, etc.) and casualties mount.

It is entirely possible that continued fighting in Ukraine could draw in U.S. military aircraft and troops. Already billions of dollars in military hardware is flowing to the Ukrainians from the U.S. and EU. Thousands of more U.S. troops have been airlifted to neighboring NATO bases near the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Those who rush to blame Russia for this situation ignore, at their peril, the decades-long push by the United States to expand NATO and subjugate more and more territory to Wall Street’s and the Pentagon’s will.

Source: Fighting Words

The first casualty of war is truth.

To that could be added: Propaganda is the first weapon used in war.

The U.S. military-industrial-media complex is working overtime on Ukraine.

Unreported or hidden by the U.S. media, for example, is the fact that civilian casualties in Ukraine are relatively few. The Ukrainian health ministry, after the first week of the Russian “demilitarization and denazification” operation, put the number of civilian deaths at around 200. 

Five days later, as this is being written, the number is now in the range of 300 to 400, according to Michael Brenner, professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

By contrast, when the U.S. launched George Bush’s “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq in 2003, some 7,186 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first weeks of the murderous assault.

Professor Brenner says of Ukraine today: “Russian forces are calculatingly avoiding attacks on urban centers … Moscow has no interest in subjugating the country to its rule. 

“In comparison, the Ukrainian army has been shelling the city centers of Lugansk and Donetsk, producing casualties estimated by a UN agency at more than 1,300 (3 or 4 times what objective observers estimate on the Ukrainian government’s side of the battle lines). Also, the [Lugansk and Donetsk] water system has been destroyed [by Ukraine forces]. Yet, these facts are unreported and unnoticed.”

On March 2, President Biden was asked whether Russian forces are deliberately targeting civilian areas in Ukraine. Biden answered, “It’s clear they are.” Brenner notes that this was an outright lie, picked up and transmitted by the U.S. media without comment.

Readers and viewers of the U.S. media are being fed propaganda that’s meant to whip up an anti-Russia, anti-Putin war frenzy. Like all U.S. war propaganda, there is an underlying white supremacist theme.

“White supremacy is at the heart of U.S. war propaganda,” says Margaret Kimberley, executive editor of Black Agenda Report. “The exhortation to ‘stand with Ukraine’ is no exception to this rule.”

This also means there is no understanding of what is happening, including the actual events now taking place in Ukraine.

Putin is not crazy, Russia is not failing

The British Daily Mail warned in a headline: “Putin is NOT crazy and the Russian invasion is NOT failing.”

Patrick Armstrong, a former analyst in the Canadian Department of National Defense who was in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow in 1993-1996, wrote on March 4: “So far the Russian military operation in Ukraine has been a reconnaissance in force preceded by the destruction of the supplies and headquarters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces …

“At the moment they are readying for the next phase. The long column that so obsessed the ‘experts’ on CNN is the preparation for the next phase. …

“As far as I can see they’ve created three cauldrons (encirclements). Probably the most important one is the one around Mariupol where the main concentration of Azov, the principal nazi force, is. 

“Another is being established around the main concentration of the Ukrainian Armed Forces facing [the Lugansk People’s Republic]. And there appears to be another developing to the east of Kiev. A super cauldron of all three is visible. The nazis will be exterminated; the ordinary Ukrainian soldiers will be allowed to go home. …

“The dilemma for the Russians is city fighting. They do not want to have a Raqqa [Syria] in which every building is destroyed, every person killed and [desolation] is declared to be [peace]. They know that at the end of the day there will still be Ukrainians and they will want them to be friends: Washington can create solitudes [ruins] far away, but Moscow cannot create them nearby.

“This greatly complicates their problem when they try to clear the nazis out of Mariupol, knowing that the nazis are using the city’s people as hostages. The same problem exists, to a lesser degree, in the other cities of [Ukrainian-occupied Donbass and eastern Ukraine]. My guess is they will surround most cities and hope that Zelinsky & Co. come to their senses. But I fear that the Mariupol battle will be horrible.

“I would expect large-scale surrenders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to begin in the next 24/48 hours (Chechen forces already claim one and have an impressive collection of ‘trophies’ to prove it). A significant proportion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is now surrounded and, as is usual (see Sun Tsu’s ‘The Art of War’) the Russians have left them an exit.

“As to Western sanctions against Russia, I think there’s a very simple answer to that: last week 1,000 cubic meters of gas cost $1,000; today it’s over twice that. Next week it certainly won’t be cheaper. Ditto for aluminum, potash, titanium, wheat. …

“What the people in the West do not understand is the ruble is the currency the Russians use inside the country but the price of oil and gas is the Russian currency outside the country. I am astounded at the stupidity: [the U.S. and NATO] are cutting their own throats and destroying their own economies.”

MONDAY AT 3:45 PM – 4:30 PM
Press Conference & Rally Pay Unemployed Workers Now
1100 N Eutaw St, Baltimore, MD 21201

Let’s continue the fight. The State of Maryland continues to ignore the pleas of unemployed workers who still have not received their benefits.

The Unemployed Workers Union is filing a “Writ of Mandamus” petition in circuit court this Monday, March7, on behalf of unemployed workers. Please join us for a Press Conference & Rally at 4 pm sharp in front of the Department of Labor Unemployment Office, 1100 N Eutaw St, Baltimore, MD 21201.

We are continuing to take cases for our next round of affiants. This petition is for individuals whose unemployment payments are “on hold” or “pending identity verification.” In this case we want as many plaintiffs as possible.

Please come out and speak out! Everyone is invited. Bring family and friends.

If you would like to be a plaintiff in future cases please reach out to pro bono attorney Alec Summerfield at attorney.summerfield@unemployedworkersunion.org or text 443-324-8644.

Please join us on Saturday’s from 12 noon to 2 pm for the “Unemployed & Workers Rights Clinic” at 2011 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. You do not need to make an appointment just show up. Volunteers will help you with filing on overpayments and will help sign you up for the legal case.

From a presentation by Struggle-La Lucha co-editor Greg Butterfield at a Feb. 27 film showing of Oliver Stone’s film “Ukraine on Fire,” hosted by Youth Against War and Racism.

At the beginning of a war crisis, the most urgent task is to cut through the wall of imperialist lies and propaganda. So it’s vital to state clearly that the situation in Eastern Europe today was created by the U.S. and NATO, which bear full responsibility for the military conflict unfolding in Ukraine. 

Ukraine and its Western sponsors spent the last seven years sabotaging the 2015 Minsk II agreements meant to end Kiev’s attacks on the people of the Donbass region. Washington and Kiev spent the last three months preparing an invasion of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic as a means to draw Russia into a war. 

President Joe Biden, Congress and NATO were more than willing to sacrifice the lives of Donbass civilians as well as Ukrainian troops to achieve their goal.

The situation changed drastically Feb. 21,  when the Russian government formally recognized the DPR and LPR and signed treaties of friendship and mutual defense with them – eight years after the people of the Donbass declared independence from Ukraine.

It was the last warning to Ukrainian President Voldomyr Zelensky to back off from the attacks. But Ukraine, prodded by its masters in Washington, continued to bomb, shoot and carry out terrorist acts against the people of Donetsk and Lugansk. 

On Feb. 24, the Donbass republics and Russia launched a joint military operation against the Ukrainian government. Its goals are to stop the constant threats and attacks on Donetsk and Lugansk; to retake areas on Donbass occupied by the Ukrainian military; and to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine. 

The point is to make the Ukrainian regime unable to continue acting as a de facto NATO military base and existential threat to its neighbors. 

The Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La Lucha call for the victory of the Donbass Republics and their Russian allies in this operation. U.S.-NATO imperialism and Ukrainian Nazism can only be stopped by forceful action there combined with militant solidarity here.

Stand with which Ukraine?

During a war crisis, when the capitalists push out campaigns like “Pray for Ukraine” or “Stand with Ukraine,” preying on the humanitarian impulses of uninformed people, we have to ask: Who are they actually trying to rally support for? 

It’s not for the common people, the workers or the rank and file soldiers. They are trying to tie people here to the fortunes of the neocolonial Ukrainian government, the capitalist elite, military leaders and neo-Nazi gangs that infest the state from top to bottom.  

The “suffering Ukrainians” aren’t an undifferentiated mass. Hidden from the people here is the fact that many Ukrainians have been ruthlessly repressed since the 2014 Euromaidan coup: imprisoned, killed, exiled or terrorized on the streets.

Progressive organizations were outlawed. Journalists and people who opposed the war against Donbass were jailed. National minorities were banned from using their native languages. 

Neo-Nazis in Kiev routinely attacked women’s marches, LGBTQ2S Pride parades and anti-fascist historical commemorations. Russian speakers, Roma, Jewish people, Vietnamese immigrants and African students were attacked. 

At least 48 people were killed by neo-Nazis at the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014. Thousands of activists were driven into exile under threat of imprisonment or death.

Those are the Ukrainians who need our solidarity.

We know from activists inside Ukraine that the anti-fascist underground is working with Russian troops to identify and capture fascist war criminals. Victory to them!

I hope that exiled comrades who were driven away from their homes, families and communities will soon be able to return.

Confusion in anti-war left

As revolutionary Marxists and Leninists, we understand that pacifism, especially of the “plague on both your houses” kind, amounts to backhanded support for imperialism and its goals. 

The job of the anti-war movement here is to end U.S. wars, proxy wars and sanctions by any means necessary, and to support those around the world who are fighting back. 

Unfortunately, many anti-war organizations and even some groups that describe themselves as revolutionary socialists and communists have bowed to the intense pressure of imperialist propaganda and taken positions of denouncing Russia or drawing an equal sign between the U.S./NATO and Russia. Just a week ago, they were warning that Washington was pushing Russia into a corner where it would have no choice but to take military action! 

Most of these groups have never raised the plight of the people of Donbass, who have endured brutal war and blockade at the cost of over 14,000 lives for eight years. 

Likewise, some are now downplaying the role of neo-Nazi and white supremacist forces in Ukraine. These groups were the motor force of the 2014 coup. Today they are completely integrated into the military, police and all sectors of the state, and are used by the U.S. to keep pressure on Kiev’s political elite to do Washington’s bidding. 

They don’t talk about how Ukraine has become a training ground for fascists and white supremacists from Europe and North America. In the film we are watching today, “Ukraine on Fire,” you’ll see how that situation came about and how both Democrats and Republicans were intimately involved. 

I want to be clear that my criticism is directed at the leaders of these anti-war groups, not the rank and file who may be confused or misinformed. We know there are also folks affiliated with these groups who take an anti-imperialist position and have done excellent work in recent weeks building opposition to war with Russia. 

We hope these organizations will come around to a principled view, and soon, because the workers and anti-fascists of the region need the widest possible support.

Proverb: a short pithy saying in general use, stating a general truth or piece of advice.

There are a couple of simple proverbs that have borne the wisdom of their meaning through the ages. Although limited, these two fit current developments in Ukraine.

• Divide and conquer
• Whose interest does it serve?

Everyone who has experienced the evil machinations of a boss who destroys unity between workers understands that the boss needs to “divide and conquer” in order to maintain dominance. Think of the sabotage of last year’s union drive of Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama.

Consider the history of the United States. Who benefited from the social construct of racism and why does it continue to play out in a myriad of lethal oppressions?

The militarization of the U.S. took root well before the U.S. Constitution was written. It began when settlers usurped the land of the original people. These settlers are still honored for stealing the homes of the Indigenous peoples.

The old colonial empires spanning the globe maintained their rule by creating divisions. Think of the history of Ireland.

In India, the seeds of the division between Hindus and Muslims were cemented by British colonialism. When the British were finally driven out, they left their former colony partitioned, with tens of millions displaced and more than a million killed. 

Currently the power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rests on its campaign against Muslims.

In modern times, an endless list of U.S. imperialist wars have ravaged the world. 

Beginning in 1980, the CIA-run contra war was designed to crush the liberation struggle in Central America. It was funded by traffic in guns and drugs. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North – a member of Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council – was found to be one of those orchestrating this. 

Those drugs flooded the streets of U.S. cities in an attempt to stifle the progressive movements fighting for jobs, housing, medical care and education.

Think of how the U.S. media portrays each new U.S. intervention as a “just fight” in wars where the social structures of the targeted countries are totally devastated. Then look at the deteriorating conditions within the U.S. itself.

There was a time when U.S. military expansion benefited the U.S. economy. Those who gained small privileges as a result were encouraged to support, or merely ignore, U.S. imperialist wars. Now very few enjoy the spoils, but the greed of the 1% is insatiable.

Much is gained by understanding the dynamics of the class struggle. Nothing is changed without a conscious struggle to change it. 

Press TV, March 3, 2022

Political analyst Bill Dores says Washington engineered “the Ukraine crisis in order to hurt not only Russia but the emerging bloc of countries seeking economic independence from the United States.”

“The corporate shills in Washington know that only war and destruction can maintain the outsized hold of Corporate America and the dollar in the world economy. It is part of a 30-year war to regain a stranglehold on the world’s energy resources,” he stated.

Dores, a writer for Struggle-La Lucha and longtime antiwar activist, said, “Ukraine’s blood is on U.S. and NATO hands.” He made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday after U,S, President Joe Biden praised the Ukrainian people as a “wall of strength” against Russia’s military action in their country, in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

“Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated,” Biden said.

“He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people,” he continued.

Putin last week announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine’s Donbass region to “defend people” subjected to “genocide” there against government forces, stressing that Moscow has “no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory.”

Biden called the Russian action an “unprovoked and unjustified attack,” and the U.S. media described it as the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two assault by Russia.

U.S. engineered ‘the Ukraine crisis to hurt Russia’

“I definitely think the United States engineered the Ukraine crisis in order to hurt Russia and by extension the entire emerging Eurasian economic bloc. The U.S. didn’t leave Russia much choice but to act,” Dores said.

He said, “The striking thing about the ‘hate Russia’ rally Biden led on Capitol Hill on March 1 was its triumphal character. It was nauseating to watch Democrat and Republican politicians, every one of them on the corporate pad, decked out in blue and gold of Ukraine.”

“Every one of them had voted for the murder of millions in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Western Sahara, the Philippines and elsewhere. Every one of them had voted to plunder working class and oppressed communities in the United States to pay for endless wars for corporate profit,” he stated.

“Indeed that very day, the Saudi kingdom attacked Yemen again with U.S.-made planes, missiles and bombs. Nearly 400,000 people have died in that US-sponsored war. Biden promised to end it when he came into office. He lied,” he added.

“Also March 1, U.S.-funded Israeli occupation forces invaded a refugee camp in Jenin, murdering three people. Two 13-year-olds are among those martyred by Israeli troops on the West Bank in the past few days. Every single politician on the Hill that night has voted to fund the endless war against the people of Palestine,” he continued.

“With a straight face, Biden praised US troops who are still illegally in Iraq and Syria while condemning Russia’s military operation in Ukraine,” he pointed out.

“On Tuesday the Capitol Hill gang was happy. War stocks were up. So were the stocks and profits of the energy monopolies. West Europe was back under Washington’s thumb. Congress had an excuse to deny even more money to people’s needs and spend it on war,” Dores noted.

U.S. politicians don’t care for the people of Ukraine

“They cared nothing for the people of Ukraine except as cannon fodder in a proxy war against Russia, a war that Washington has engineered deliberately and carefully. And their proxy war against Russia is also aimed at China, Bolivia, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Nicaragua, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe — at the emerging bloc of nations seeking economic independence from U.S. banks and corporate monopolies,” Dores said.

“In his speech, Biden couldn’t help but take credit. ‘We were ready,’ he said. ‘We prepared extensively and carefully.’ Last summer, in violation of the Minsk agreements, the U.S. and other NATO countries resurrected a plan to bring Ukraine into NATO. That would mean U.S. and West European troops and missiles on Russia’s border,” he stated.

“On Feb. 17, the Pentagon ordered its Ukrainian mercenaries to launch a full-scale offensive against the independent republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. They knew Russia would have little choice but to respond,” he said.

“The Western corporate media hides the fact that this battle did not begin last week. It has raged for eight years. 14,000 people have died in the Kiev regime’s war against the mostly Russian-speaking people of Donetsk and Lugansk,” he pointed out.

“It began in 2014, when a coup organized from the U.S. embassy installed a rightwing, Russophobic regime in Kiev. Neo-Nazi groups like Pravdiy Sektor and Svoboda Party were part of the U.S. operation. Their militias began an ‘ethnic cleansing’ campaign against the Russian-speaking people of Donbas in eastern Ukraine. At least 50 protesters were burned to death in Odessa when these gangs set fire to the trade union headquarters,” he said.

“In response, the people of Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence. Like the people of Gaza, they are under siege for their choice at the ballot box,” he explained.

“Had Russian troops simply gone to defend those areas, Washington and Kiev would still scream invasion, and they would be attacked with all the weapons systems the U.S. has given Kiev. Had Russia allowed a massacre to happen and Ukraine to join NATO, they would face a much bigger war in the near future. Because the only reason for NATO expansion is war,” the analyst said.

“The Russian military operation is not like the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Joe Biden supported. Russia is not destroying water pumping stations, power plants, sewage systems, telephones. Despite unsubstantiated headlines in Western media, they are targeting military infrastructure. Nonetheless, war is hell,” he pointed out.

“The corporate pawns inside the Beltway want war. They know that only war and destruction can maintain the obsolete position of U.S. banks and the dollar in the world economy. Ukraine’s blood is on their hands,” he said.

“The people of the world want peace. We need to demand an end to U.S./NATO intervention in Ukraine, bring home all troops and weapons, abolish the NATO alliance and allow Russia, Ukraine and the people of Donetsk and Lugansk to negotiate a solution. Russia is not our enemy. People in the U.S. need the corporate/Pentagon war machine off our backs,” he concluded.

Source: Press TV

Westerners have lost their memory and ignore their history. They are therefore easily blinded by war propaganda. They ignore that the Atlantic Alliance waged two wars without Security Council authorization, in Yugoslavia and in Libya (for the latter target, there was Council authorization, but not for what was done). They are also unaware that all NATO expansions east of the Oder-Neisse line (border between Germany and Poland) are illegal. Finally, they are unaware that the hierarchical functioning of NATO is also illegal because it is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations.

While landlords are raising rents by 40%, the capitalist media wants you to hate Russia. They are trying to turn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into a folk hero.

Zelensky is a professional clown. He played the role of a Ukrainian president in a TV sitcom. 

He was selected to be an actual president because U.S. imperialism needed a new look in Ukraine. Wasn’t that the role of José Napoleón Duarte in El Salvador during the 1980s?

He was cheated out of winning El Salvador’s 1972 presidential election by vote fraud. Duarte was later tortured and sentenced to death.

None of this prevented him from being the face of a bloody military regime that carried out the orders of the Pentagon.

When Duarte was a civilian president of a military junta, more than 800 people were murdered in the village of El Mozote. Most of the victims of this December 1981 massacre were children.

The Reagan administration desperately needed the atrocity to be covered up. They remembered how the My Lai massacre in Vietnam turned millions against that war.

Reagan was assisted by not only Duarte but also the New York Times. Because of their truthful reporting, Raymond Bonner at the Times and Alma Guillermoprieto at the Washington Post were viciously attacked by the right wing. Bonner was driven out by the Times’ management. 

Today the New York Times and the Washington Post are among the loudest voices in the hate Russia chorus. They’re much more influential in winning liberals and progressive people to NATO’s war drive than Fox News ever could be. The killing of over 14,000 people in the Donbass republics by the Ukrainian regime is hardly ever mentioned by the media. 

Duarte defeated the openly fascist Roberto D’Aubuisson in El Salvador’s 1984 presidential election. This gave an excuse to many Democratic Party members of Congress to give billions to the killers in El Salvador’s military. 

Who are the ones with the guns?

Zelensky is allowed to stay in Kiev’s Mariinsky Palace because of his usefulness to Wall Street and European banksters. Millions of Ukrainians voted for Zelensky in 2019 because they thought he would stop the fascist gangs terrorizing Ukraine. 

The fact that Zelensky is Jewish is used as alleged proof that fascism in Ukraine isn’t a big problem anymore. After Barack Obama was elected U.S. president, many media commentators claimed racism in the United States wasn’t much of a problem either.

The Black Lives Matter movement proved that to be a lie. Obama was put in the White House because a large section of the ruling class felt they needed a new brand for their empire.

Tens of millions of people rejoiced when the first U.S. Black president was elected. It also made it easier for the Pentagon to attack the African country of Libya than if some obvious racist had been in office.

While Zelensky is the figurehead seen on TV, fascists like those in the Azov Battalion and Right Sector have been brought into the Ukrainian army and police. One of the factors that allowed JFK’s assassination was that half of the Dallas cops were Ku Klux Klan members.

The Deep State is the real state. Lenin pointed this out in “The State and Revolution.” When Gen. Milley responded to Trump’s attempted coup by saying “we’re the ones with the guns,” he was expressing a Marxist truth.

The Odessa and Philadelphia massacres

Five years before Zelensky assumed office on May 20, 2019, at least 48 people at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa were murdered on May 2, 2014. Neo-Nazis prevented people from escaping. Many were burned to death.

It shows he fascist character of the Euromaidan movement’s leadership that the union hall was attacked. None of the criminals who carried out this atrocity have been prosecuted. Leftists were arrested instead.

Zelensky has done nothing to seek justice for the victims of this massacre, just as he has allowed the deadly shelling of the Donbass republics. Justice will only be carried out by Ukrainian leftists assisted by soldiers of the Russian Federation.

Six adults and five children were killed by Philadelphia police when the MOVE house was bombed on May 13, 1985. The cops were assisted by FBI agents and the Pentagon in dropping the bomb from a helicopter.

When Wilson Goode―Philadelphia’s first Black mayor―got up that morning, he wasn’t thinking 11 Black people would be killed along with the burning of four city blocks.

It was Philadelphia’s police chief who gave the order to “let it burn,” preventing the fire department from putting out the fire. But Mayor Goode still bears a responsibility for these murders.

The communist leader Sam Marcy could have added this terrorist crime as an appendix to his pamphlet “Generals Over the White House.” He might have entitled it “Cops Over City Hall.” 

“Neutrality” is a cop-out

President Vladimir Putin was forced to intervene in Ukraine in order to stop it from being a NATO base aimed at the Russian Federation. If this had happened, the next step would have been World War 3.

The entire imperialist metropolis led by the United States has issued severe sanctions against Russia. These include seizing Russian assets and cutting off Russian banks from the SWIFT financial clearing system. Sanctions are acts of war.

Sincere pacifists may condemn all wars, but revolutionaries know that some wars are progressive and indeed necessary. For socialists and communists to condemn “both sides” in the current crisis is a cop-out.

The world was horrified at the MOVE bombing. But some wanted to blame one of the victims, MOVE leader John Africa, for this terrorist act.

These liberals also refused to defend Mumia Abu-Jamal, a revolutionary who has been imprisoned for 40 years and whom the capitalist state wanted to execute. 

U.S. imperialism will not defeat itself. Revolutionaries have the right to accept assistance from anybody.

Soviet socialism was tragically overthrown and Russian Federation President Putin is no Lenin. Yet right now Russia’s armed forces are playing an indispensable role in rescuing the Donbass republics and Ukrainian workers from fascist terror.

It does no good to sit on the sidelines. Victory to the Donbass republics and their allies!