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.

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.

To hear the U.S. corporate media tell it, the entire world has joined Washington in condemning Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in Donbass and their joint anti-fascist military operation in Ukraine. But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. 

It’s a fact that NATO allies and dependents have repeated the lies of an “unjustified Russian invasion” verbatim from U.S. State Department news releases. U.S.-owned social media platforms are flooded with “Pray for Ukraine” propaganda, much of it spiced up with photos of alleged Russian war horrors – often from attacks actually carried out by the U.S. and its proxies (in Yugoslavia, Palestine and even Donbass itself). 

What’s being carefully hidden from workers and oppressed people here is the opposition of many countries and movements to NATO expansion. They are aware of Washington’s true role: making an armed conflict inevitable by stoking the flames of war in the region for months and years. 

This is especially true in the case of the many countries that are themselves targets of U.S. war, sanctions and slander campaigns.

Bolivarian Venezuela

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has faced down many U.S.-instigated coups and assassination attempts. On Venezolana de Televisión Feb. 22, Maduro announced his government’s support for Russia’s decision to recognize the Donbass republics.

“We have been attentive to the events in Russia and in Ukraine, and we have been observing, not just now, but the whole evolution of the process where the North American empire and NATO intend by military means to end Russia, and to end this multipolar world that is already a reality.

“The Lugansk territory and the Donetsk territory assumed the functions of People’s Republics to defend themselves from a massacre that the fascist sectors, which had seized power in Ukraine, began to carry out. Hunting men, hunting women, assaulting families, bombing with heavy weapons.”

Maduro noted that during “all the stages” of this “extremely harsh conflict” in the region, “the diplomatic proposal, calling for dialogue, of President Putin has always been present.” This resulted in the Minsk agreements that were established to guarantee peace. However, these were “ripped to shreds by the neo-fascist ruling elite of Ukraine.”

He added: “The old colonialisms of Europe and the United States attack Russia, China and Iran, they threaten Turkey and Latin America, they also attack Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela. The old colonialisms, the old superiority complexes of Europe and the old complexes of rapacious colonialism represented by NATO and the neo-colonialism of the U.S. empire.”

Maduro called Putin on March 1. “Putin shared his assessments of developments around Ukraine, noting that the goals of the special military operation are to protect civilians in Donbass, Kiev’s recognizing the DPR and LPR and Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, as well as the demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state, and ensuring its neutral and nuclear-free status,” the Kremlin press service reported.

“Nicolas Maduro expressed strong support for Russia’s decisive actions, condemned the destabilizing activity of the United States and NATO, and stressed the importance of countering the campaign of lies and disinformation launched by Western countries.”

Socialist Cuba

On Feb. 23, on the eve of the anti-fascist military operation, President Miguel Diaz-Canel and a large, high-level Cuban delegation met with visiting chair of the Russian Federation’s State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin. 

Granma reports, “The Cuban president expressed his solidarity with the Russian Federation also facing escalating U.S. aggression and the expansion of NATO toward its borders.” Volodin emphasized Russia’s “condemnation of U.S. hostility toward [Cuba] and reiterated the will to continue strengthening exchanges at all levels.”

An official Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Feb. 26 stated: “The American determination to continue the progressive expansion of NATO towards the borders of the Russian Federation has led to a scenario, with implications of unpredictable scope, that could have been avoided. …

“History will hold the U.S. government accountable for the consequences of an increasingly offensive military doctrine outside NATO’s borders, which threatens international peace, security and stability.

“Our concerns are reinforced by the decision recently adopted by NATO to activate, for the first time, the Response Force of that military alliance.

“It was a mistake to ignore for decades the well-founded demands for security guarantees by the Russian Federation and to assume that the country would remain defenseless in the face of a direct threat to its national security. Russia has the right to defend itself. It is not possible to achieve peace by encircling or cornering states.”

Nicaragua and Bolivia

Speaking Feb. 21, on the anniversary of the assassination of the great revolutionary Augusto Sandino, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said: “President Putin has taken a step today whereby he recognized … republics bordering Russia that did not recognize the coup government [in Ukraine] and created their own governments there.

“They set up their governments, they took on that fight, they have engaged in that struggle for independence. They have written to us, sending us messages explaining why they are waging this struggle. And meanwhile Ukrainian troops are looking for ways to overcome them, to liquidate them, to murder them; there have been thousands of deaths there over all these years. 

“Despite the aggression by the Ukrainian army, they have not been able to defeat them. So [Putin] has recognized these governments, and of course this also implies military support so that these governments have security.”

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales was the victim of a U.S.-backed coup in 2019, after an election marred by Washington’s interference. Fortunately, the militant people’s movement, led by Indigenous workers and peasants, returned the Movement Toward Socialism to power and Morales was able to come home in 2020. 

Morales said: “NATO is a serious threat to international peace and security; it’s record of invasions and aggression proves it. Now, its expansionist attempt is one of the main reasons for the situation in Ukraine.”

Socialist Korea

A declaration by the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Feb. 26 said in part: “The U.S. unilateral and unfair cold war mentality and its bloc-forming external policy transformed the structure of international relations into one of a new cold war, and they strain politico-military situations with each passing day and continue to spawn new knotty problems in different parts of the world. …

“In particular, the air raid conducted by NATO against Yugoslavia at the end of the last century served as an occasion of bringing to light the extent of U.S. and Western hypocrisy in their much-touted global peace and stability, territorial integrity and safeguarding of sovereignty, as well as of exposing in all its nakedness who is the real destroyer of international peace and stability.

“The Iraq war, the Afghan War and other ‘color revolutions’ which brought tragedy to the 21st century clearly substantiate the fact that the U.S. and the West would seek their policies of hegemony by fair means or foul.

“The present international order is that it has become an immutable law that seeds of discord are sown in every region and country where the U.S. intervenes, and that the relations between the states deteriorate.

“The root cause of the Ukrainian crisis also lies in the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. which has held on solely to the unilateral sanctions and pressure while pursuing only global hegemony and military supremacy in disregard of the legitimate demand of Russia for its security.”

People’s Republic of China

In numerous official statements, articles and social media posts, the government and people of China – the world’s most populous country and another target of the U.S. New Cold War – have made it crystal clear that Washington and NATO are responsible for the unfolding crisis in Eastern Europe.

On Feb. 27, the diplomatic legation of the Chinese Embassy in Moscow reminded the world that “Of the 248 armed conflicts that occurred between the years 1945 and 2001 in 153 regions of the world, 201 were initiated by the U.S., accounting for 81 percent of the total number.

“Never forget who is the real threat to the world,” the Chinese embassy said.

It added that the administration of President Joe Biden is to “blame for the current tensions around Ukraine” as it poured fuel on the fire “while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire.”

At a Feb. 23 news conference in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying stated: “When the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia’s doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?”

“The next day, as Ms. Hua was peppered with questions about whether China considered Russia’s ‘special military operation’ an invasion, she turned the briefing into a critique of the United States,” reported the New York Times. “‘You may go ask the U.S.: they started the fire and fanned the flames,’ she said. “How are they going to put out the fire now?’

“She bristled at the U.S. State Department’s comment that China should respect state sovereignty and territorial integrity, a longstanding tenet of Chinese foreign policy.

“‘The U.S. is in no position to tell China off,’ she said. Then she mentioned the three journalists who were killed in NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, a tragic incident that prompted widespread anti-U.S. protests in China.

“‘NATO still owes the Chinese people a debt of blood,’ she said.

“That sentence became the top Weibo hashtag as Russia was bombing Ukraine. The hashtag, created by the state-run People’s Daily newspaper, has been viewed more than a billion times. In posts below it, users called the United States a ‘warmonger’ and a ‘paper tiger.’”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah

The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah rejected a statement by the country’s Foreign Ministry that condemned Russia’s actions. During a Feb. 25 cabinet session in Beirut, Minister of Labor Mustafa Bayram, a member of Hezbollah, said the statement violated the principles of neutrality espoused by the Lebanese government.

Ibraham Al-Moussawi, a member of parliament from the Loyalty and Resistance bloc, criticized government officials who “distance themselves and pretend to be neutral where they want, and … interfere and condemn where they want.”

In a March 1 televised speech, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah slammed the West’s “double standards” and stressed that the U.S. is not trustworthy.

“The U.S. is to blame over the crisis in Ukraine,” Nasrallah said. “Washington has been inciting and working on this scenario for weeks.

“How did the international community react to wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria and Yemen? And how did it react to Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine? Such stances prove that the strongest is respected in this world while the weak are oppressed.”

Syria

Hezbollah, along with the governments of Syria and Iran, form the Axis of Resistance against U.S. imperialism in Western Asia. Together with Russia, they have fought to free Syria from the ultra-right Daesh movement and other Western allied “rebels,” and from U.S. occupation troops, in a war that has gone on for more than a decade.

Syria was among the first countries to welcome the news of Russia’s decision to recognize the Donbass republics. On Feb. 22, SANA reported, Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari affirmed that Syria “supports Russia’s recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, indicating that it had expressed its willingness two months ago to work on building relations with the two republics in the context of common interests.”

In an interview, al-Jaafari said: “The question is whether or not the United States will succeed in imposing a unipolar regime on all countries of the world, including Russia and China. That is, the issue is related to geopolitics and not to politics in the simple sense of the word. Therefore, Syria is part of the scene, and China, Venezuela and Iran are part of this scene in the geopolitical sense.”

On Feb. 25, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spoke with Russian President Putin to express his solidarity with the anti-fascist military operation and condemn the imperialists’ “dirty methods to support terrorists in Syria and Nazis in Ukraine.”

“President Assad stressed that what is happening today is a correction of history and a restoration of balance in the global order after the fall of the Soviet Union,” the Syrian government announced.

Assad also said that “Syria stands with the Russian Federation based on its conviction that its position is correct and because confronting NATO expansionism is Russia’s right.”

Iran 

On March 1, Iran’s religious leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei blamed the U.S. for the crisis in Ukraine, saying the Islamic Republic of Iran has always opposed war and destruction anywhere in the world.

“The U.S. disrupted the stability of the country by interfering in its affairs and organizing rallies and creating a color coup,” Khamenei explained. “We oppose the killing of people and the destruction of the infrastructure of nations.

“If the people of Ukraine had been involved, the Ukrainian government wouldn’t be in this situation. The people didn’t get involved because they didn’t approve of the government,” he said.

“The American regime is a perfect example of modern ignorance. This regime is a crisis-producing and crisis-consuming regime, and it feeds off creating crises in the world.”

According to Press TV, “As an example, the leader pointed to the U.S. formation of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, denouncing Washington for plundering oil resources in eastern Syria, stealing Afghanistan’s assets, and supporting Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

“The leader then pointed to the West’s double standards in dealing with the crisis in Ukraine, stating that Western countries support the killing of Yemeni people in the Saudi war, but they call for an end to the Ukraine crisis.”

“If the United States fails to create a crisis, the arms factories will not be able to make the most of it,” Khamenei said. “They have to create crises in order to maximize the interests of these mafias.”

Turkish movements

Turkey’s repressive government, a NATO member, has been waging war on Syria. It is also arming Ukraine with deadly drones and threatens to block Russian access to the Black Sea by closing the Dardanelles Strait.

The revolutionary music group Grup Yorum has suffered greatly from repression by Turkey’s government. Not only is it banned from giving concerts, but several members are imprisoned, and some have died after torture and hunger strikes. 

At a news conference in Moscow Feb. 21, visiting members of Grup Yorum declared their support for the people of Donbass in their fight against NATO imperialism and the far-right Ukrainian regime. Members said they would like to perform a solidarity concert there again, as they did in 2015.

The group opened its concert in Moscow Feb. 24 with these words: “We support the struggle of the people of Donbass against U.S. imperialism, against NATO, and against the fascist Ukrainian government. … Even a rock thrown against imperialism is a forward action for the people.”

The Communist Labor Party of Turkey/Leninist announced Feb. 24: “Our party, TKEP/Leninist, calls on all revolutionary, communist and progressive forces and the working class and oppressed peoples of the world to support both of these People’s Republics [Donetsk and Lugansk.] …

“The fact that the bourgeois government of Russia has been forced to support the People’s Republics because of its national interests should not be cause for hesitation. Imperialist apologists in Turkey and around the world have, either using Russia as an excuse or with empty words, abandoned this internationalist duty and argued for remaining neutral. 

“In fact, as a necessary outcome of its own national interests, Russia has supported socialist, popular governments in countries like Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Nicaragua against U.S. imperialism, acting as a shield, so to speak.

“If this operation … against Ukrainian fascism and which boldly challenges U.S., British, and German imperialism is victorious, it will be an enormous source of morale and embolden the working class and the oppressed and exploited working peoples of the world.”

Actions in support of Russia’s recognition of the Donbass republics and the joint military operation have been held by movements in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy and Serbia. 

For socialists, the fundamental understanding of imperialism goes back to World War I and is found in the pamphlet written by V.I. Lenin, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.”

Imperialism is not a policy chosen by one government and dropped by another. Imperialism is a system.

The first world war was the outcome of imperialism, Lenin wrote, an imperialist war waged for the political and economic exploitation of the world, export markets, sources of raw material, spheres of capital investment, etc. The imperialist powers raised huge armies and navies, not only to forcibly subjugate oppressed people in the colonies, but to make war against other imperialist countries competing for control.

According to Lenin, the world was already divided among the great capitalist powers when he wrote “Imperialism” in 1916. The war resulted from inter-imperialist rivalries to redivide the world.

The wars since WWI have changed circumstances. And World War II signaled a turning point in world imperialist relations. The United States emerged from WWII as the world’s most powerful imperialist country, gaining control of former European empires in Asia and Africa.

The overturn of the socialist Soviet Union and the breakup of the Soviet republics into individual nation states was a dismantling of a planned economy, resulting in capitalist economies that are under-developed. Out of these ruins, there has not been a sudden, almost magical appearance of an imperialist Russia.

Lenin thought that there were a few characteristics of imperialism, including the rise of finance capital and the export of capital, not just commodities. The U.S., for example, exports not just commodities but capital — mostly in the form of loans or investments. U.S. banks are at the center of world commerce.

Russia’s economy almost neocolonial

Today, capitalist Russia’s GDP is smaller than that of South Korea or India. Russia’s economy is almost neocolonial, dependent on the exchange of raw materials such as oil and ores. This is the classic economic relationship of a colony to imperialist finance capital. In the list of the top 50 banks in the world, not one is Russian. The ruble is not a currency of trade. Russia does not export capital.

During the Soviet period, Russia and the other republics that formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics made remarkable industrial progress. Indeed, between 1921 and 1988 there were no years of negative economic growth — no recessions — except for the World War II years.

The Soviet economy fell into recession only in 1989 as the Gorbachev government began to dismantle the planned economy.

Under Gorbachev and then even more drastically under the openly anti-communist, anti-socialist government of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian Federal Republic, and in the new non-Russian former Soviet republics including Ukraine, socialist industry was dismantled.

Yeltsin finished the job of dismantling the Soviet economy that Gorbachev began. The years of Yeltsin are now remembered as perhaps the worst period in Russia’s 1,000-year history. This was the greatest economic disaster any country has seen in modern times, in war or peace.

Ukraine had the second-largest economy in the USSR. “Independent” Ukraine is now the poorest country in Europe. By the end of 2020, some 45% of the population were in the poor category, according to a study by the Ptukha Institute. The deep poverty has created the conditions for fascist gangs to emerge.

Putin’s role

Putin, who was Yeltsin’s prime minister and chosen successor, took a more protectionist direction, unlike Yeltsin and Gorbachev, who had fawned on the West.

Does that mean Putin moved away from the policies of Yeltsin and Gorbachev that had oriented the economy to exporting raw materials? Did Putin adopt a policy of industrialization?

Under Putin, there has been little growth of Russia’s manufacturing production that had been demolished by the “perestroika” reforms. Manufacturing is the foundation of any successful modern economy. Yet, under Putin, Russia continues mainly as an exporter of raw materials.

Russia now accounts for about 6% of the global aluminum supply, 3.5% of the copper supply, and 4% of the cobalt supply. And Russia is the world’s largest producer of crude oil and second-largest producer of dry natural gas, after the U.S.

Russia is in the top 10 exporters of grain crops, including barley, corn, rye, oats and especially wheat. From 2017-2019, it was the biggest exporter of wheat, accounting for about 20% of the world market.

Russia is a capitalist state, but that does not make it imperialist. Not all capitalist countries are imperialist nations. For example, Mexico is a capitalist country with an economy that’s similar in size to Russia’s, but is Mexico an imperialist country or an exploited country? Saying that it is capitalist is not enough to know the answer.

Lenin named five characteristics of imperialism: concentration of production into monopoly; merging of bank capital with industrial capital, creating finance capital; the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities; the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations that share the world among themselves; the territorial division of the world among the biggest capitalist powers.

The role of finance capital and the export of capital may be most important. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have taken over the economies of the world. The dollar (not gold) is the currency of world trade. Today almost every country is capitalist, and most of those are exploited by imperialism, by finance capital.

Mexico is capitalist but it is not imperialist. Russia, too, is an exploited country in relation to imperialism, like Mexico.

NATO targets Russia

Russia is the primary provider of gas and oil to much of Europe. The European Union imports 40% of its gas from Russia. That’s put Russia in competition with the U.S., the biggest producer of gas in the world. 

The U.S. has been on a drive to control the world market in oil and gas. This can be seen in its attacks, actually acts of war (sanctions), against Iran and Venezuela as well as its war on Iraq. These are countries that had sought national sovereignty over oil and gas.

Russia, too, has been a target, especially its Nord Stream 2 pipeline, but not just for that. 

Look at a map of NATO’s expansion since the breakup of the USSR. The countries put under NATO include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, North Macedonia.

In 2008, NATO put the inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia, both bordering Russia, on the table.

NATO war on Yugoslavia

Despite the war propaganda that’s presented as news these days, the first war in Europe since World War II didn’t just start. That war was launched by the U.S. and NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999. 

For 78 days, from March 24 to June 10, 1999, NATO bombers hit Belgrade, Pristina in Kosovo, Podgorica in Montenegro and several other cities. On the first day more than 20 buildings in Belgrade were leveled. 

Much of the U.S./NATO bombing hit civilian targets. A passenger train was bombed. Cruise missiles could be seen flying down the streets. The U.S. directly bombed the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Belgrade, killing three Chinese reporters.

Russia understood the lesson of Yugoslavia and told the U.S. and NATO “no” to expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, on Russia’s borders – 5 minutes by missile to Moscow.

The former U.S. ambassador to Russia, William J. Burns, who is now director of the CIA, said in a February 2008 embassy cable that Ukraine joining NATO constituted a security threat for Russia. Burns noted that to push for this “could potentially split the country [Ukraine] in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”

The U.S. never withdrew the proposal to include Ukraine.

Maidan coup

In Ukraine, the so-called Maidan coup in 2014 that was openly supported and financed by NATO put in a government that made NATO membership a policy mandate. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly requested Ukraine’s entrance into NATO. On Feb. 19, Zelensky demanded, once again, entry to NATO, saying, “Eight years ago, Ukrainians made their choice [the Maidan coup].”

Actually, many Ukrainians resisted the Maidan coup, particularly in the working class. In the Maidan civil war, fascist gangs emerged as a force for the coup. Resistance to the coup was strongest in the eastern section of the country. In Odessa, a neo-nazi pro-Maidan gang targeted the Odessa House of Trade Unions, near the center of the resistance. The building was firebombed and at least 46 anti-fascists and labor activists were burned alive.

The resistance to the Maidan coup has continued from 2014 to today. The independent Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic were created when the people there voted overwhelmingly (89% and 96%) to secede from the Maidan regime. They have been subjected to continuous attack since then, particularly by the Ukrainian National Guard’s Azov regiment, a neo-nazi stormtrooper-like operation. More than 14,000 have been killed in Ukraine’s war on Donetsk and Lugansk.

As U.S. Ambassador Burns predicted, Russia was pushed into a corner by the unrelenting drive for NATO entry to Ukraine as well as the growing buildup of neo-nazi militias and the war on Donetsk and Lugansk. Ukraine had promised in the Minsk agreements it signed in 2014 and 2015 there would be a ceasefire, an end to all fighting, withdrawal of heavy weapons, release of prisoners of war, and the recognition of self-government in Donetsk and Lugansk. Ukraine fulfilled none of these promises.

Putin may not be an anti-imperialist leader, but the Russian military operation to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine and recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic is a move against imperialism, U.S. and NATO imperialism.

Since it began, 2022 has been a year of intense U.S. imperialist saber rattling against Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. The U.S. military-industrial complex and Western media have pushed a narrative that any Russian incursion into the Ukraine is an invasion. Prior to the start of actual Russian military action, the U.S. propaganda machine sensationalized for months that a “Russian invasion is imminent.” 

As we have previously written, Russia is not the true aggressor in this situation. Since an alliance of fascists and military brass couped the popularly elected government in 2014, Ukraine and its imperialist allies have waged literal and economic warfare against the two Donbass republics. Struggle-La Lucha has thoroughly covered the real reasons behind this aggression. Any Russian military operation in the Ukraine is really an act of self-defense against nearly a decade of war and provocation from NATO and the Ukrainian government. 

In recent weeks, in addition to the fever-pitch saber rattling, another disturbing trend has developed in the media in regard to the Ukrainian Jewish community. The U.S. and their allies have used this war crisis as an opportunity to push Zionist ideology and muddle history. The aim of this media blitz has been to falsely compare Russia and Nazi Germany, with the hopes of pushing more Jews towards Zionism. This strategy is as insidious as it is cynical. What makes this propaganda beyond despicable is the long history of Ukrainian nationalist collaboration with Nazi Germany and the present alliance between the government and neo-Nazis.

Personal note

In 1905, a young Ukrainian Jewish woman arrived at Ellis Island, New York. Her name was Anna Goldstein. Jacob Goldstein, Anna’s father, decided it was time to move his family after pogroms devastated his village. Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire at the time, where anti-Semitic pogroms were as common as the sunrise. That young woman, Anna, was my great grandmother. 

Fewer than 15 years after my great grandmother left her small village in the Ukraine, the Bolshevik revolution led Russia into a new era. It is important to realize that the Tzar’s oppression of the Jewish community was a significant contributing factor to the Bolshevik revolution. My community was tired of the violence and the hate. It was for that reason that many Jews took up arms against the Tzar in the revolution of 1917. 

That revolution led to the formation of the USSR, a socialist state that fought for the rights of all oppressed people inside and outside of its borders. Less than 40 years after that revolution, the vile specter of fascism and hatred would haunt Ukraine and the surrounding area again. Eventually, it would be the troops of the USSR that destroyed that specter and liberated Jews from Nazi concentration camps.

Ukraine and the Holocaust

In 1941, there were just under three million Jews living in what is now known as Ukraine. That same year, Nazi Germany gained control of most of the western part of the USSR as part of Operation Barbarossa. This offensive was a violation of the non-agression pact between the two countries and resulted in the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. 

Almost immediately after Nazi forces occupied the western USSR, Adolf Hitler ordered the formation of SS death squads. These death squads were called “einsatzgruppen” and were particularly brutal in the Nazi-occupied regions of Eastern Europe. These death squads went to work immediately, targeting the Jewish community, as well as all other Soviet citizens in Ukraine, with confinement, torture, and murder. 

Starting on Sept. 16, 1941, Nazi forces commenced an extermination campaign against the city of Mykolaiv, Ukraine. Within two weeks, over 35,000 people were murdered, the majority of them Jewish. Towards the end of the Mykolaiv massacre, the most infamous Nazi massacre of Jews occurred. 

In a single day – a single day – Nazi forces killed 33,771 Jews in the Babi Yar ravine outside of Kiev. This author’s extended family were some of the many who fell at Babi Yar. The Babi Yar massacre was followed by a violent campaign of terror against all Soviet citizens in the area that resulted in approximately 150,000 deaths. Many were Jews. Many were not. 

It would be dishonest to discuss these atrocities without discussing Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. German Nazis were unforutnately not the sole perpetrators of these crimes against humnanity. In fact, many of these massacres were carried out by Ukraininan Nazis. Large movements of Ukranian Nazis branding themselves as “nationalists” enacted constant horrors against Jewish, Ukraininan, and Russian people in the region. These groups included the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgency Army (UPA). 

Both of these organizations espoused fascist and anti-Semitic ideology, and openly collaborated with Adolf Hitler’s forces. Tens of thousands of Jews, Poles, and Russians were slaughtered at the hands of these groups. Many of their leaders ultimately joined SS police battalions. This included the massacre of 6,000 Jews in Lviv by the Ukranian People’s Milita, a wing of the OUN, immediately after the city fell to Nazi forces. 

The remaining years of the war would see a littany of attrocities carried out not only by the Nazi army, but by the OUN and the UPA. The horrors inflicted by these groups and their leaders cannot be understated. When the holocaust ended, the Nazis and their Ukrainian allies had killed over one million Ukrainian Jews. The Jewish population in Ukraine was nearly halved. 

Unfortunately, and inexplicably, today the Ukrainian government lauds many of the OUN and UPA’s leaders as national heroes. In 2010, outgoing right-wing Ukrainian President Viktor Yushcenko awarded UPA leader Stepan Bandera the “Hero of Ukraine” award. Bandera was a virulent and violent anti-Semite who organized many pogroms against the Jewish community during World War 2. Yuschenko’s successor, Viktor Yanukovych, officially repealed the award. However, the Ukrainian parliament has attempted twice, in 2018 and 2019, to reinstate the award. The 2019 attempt was championed by Servant of the People, current President Vlodymyr Zelensky’s political party. As recently as Jan. 1, 2022, various Ukrainian nationalist organizations led mass marches through Kyiv in celebration of nazi-collarborator Bandera’s birthday.

Also in 2019, the Kiev City Council renamed two city streets after notorious Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, Nil Khasevych and Ivan Pavelnko. Pavlenko was personally responsible for the murder of Jews during World War 2 and eventually commanded an SS battalion. Khasevych was a leader in the OUN and one of the most famous Nazi propagandists of the time. It should be noted that Vitali Klitschko, the Mayor of Kiev who championed these proposals, is still in office.

As can be seen, the Ukrainian government has continued to honor fascists, particularly since 2014. This has not changed even with the election of a Jewish president, Vlodymyr Zelensky. 

Contemporary neo-Nazi movements in Ukraine and government collaboration

Corporate media today would have us believe that Russia is an inherent threat to Jewish life. There is no doubt that at the turn of the 20th century, the Russian Tzar and his empire were a grave threat to Jewish life. However, times have changed. The only threat to Jewish life in this conflict is the fasicst Ukranian government filled to the brim with Nazi collarborators. 

As if the incessant historical praise of World War II-era Nazis wasn’t enough, the Ukrainian government has continued to support various neo-Nazi militas and political parties in the present day. Ever since the Euromaidan of 2014, the Ukrainian government has been heavily influenced, if not controlled, by the fascist movement. 

Just three years ago, The Nation published a telling exposé on the growing nature of the fascist movement in Ukraine. The article describes large scale neo-Nazi marches with thousands of tiki torches and Nazi flags. However, the level of neo-Nazi infiltration in the current government coupled with NATO funds and arms getting to neo-Nazi militas is even more concerning. 

Since 2014, NATO has consistently trained and equipped the Azov Battalion, a fascist militia operating in the Donbass republics. This milita’s goal has been clear: to rid Ukraine of any “ethnic impurity.” This presumably includes Jews, Russians, and even progressive Ukrainians. In 2019, the Azov Battalion was officially integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. 

As if that wasn’t enough, the current leader of the Ukrainian National Police, Vadim Troyan, is a veteran of the Azov brigade and a known neo-Nazi collaborator. Troyan consistently encourages his troops and deputies to study Stepan Bandera and carry on the proud tradition of “Ukrainian nationalism,” which is really just Nazism. 

It would seem that the current Ukranian government is simply a revival of the pro-Nazi organizations of the 1940s. 

So, should Jews support the governments of Ukraine and their NATO allies? 

Well, the answer is simple. No. 

For the record, Israel should be included in that no. 

Beginning around Feb. 21, mainstream media and multiple Jewish media outlets were blitzed with stories encouraging Ukraine’s roughly 300,000 Jews to emigrate to Israel because of the impending “Russian invasion.” These stories originated from the statements of several prominent rabbis to media outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post. These rabbis include the Chief Rabbi of Israel and a prominent Rabbi in Odessa. 

It should be noted, both of these rabbis are IDF veterans and support right-wing Zionist ideology. The implication of these articles and those alike is that Vladimir Putin is built in the mold of Adolf Hitler and that the fascist state of Israel is the only safe place for Jews. 

Given all of the historical and present connections between Ukrainian nationalists and the fascist movement outlined in the article, that assertion is far from the truth. This is not to say that Ukrainian Jews aren’t under threat. They certainly are. This threat just isn’t from Russia. It is from the fascist aligned Ukrainian government and its neo-Nazi militias. These are organizations that openly wave swastika flags and call for new pogroms against the Jewish community. 

There is also a sick irony in that idea that Israel is this place where war is as common as the air we breathe. The Israeli government commands one of the most aggressive and vicious militaries and police forces on the planet. No country bombs or attacks its neighbors more than Israel. There is no better demonstration of this than the Israeli military offensives against innocent Palestinian people in 2014 and 2021. To this day, Israel continues to launch unprovoked attacks on countries like Syria, all on behalf of the U.S. ruling class. 

As if this warfare on the Arab world wasn’t enough, Israel’s constant disdain for its own people, whether it be 18-year-old Israeli communist Roman Levin who refused to continue serving in a military that enforced apartheid against Palestine, or Ehtiopian Orthodox Jewish teenager Solomon Tekah, who Israeli police brutally murdered in 2019. 

As a global Jewish community, we need to be honest with ourselves. Why do we swallow whole the propaganda of countries like the U.S. and Israel when these countries could give a damn about us? Neither of these two countries care about the welfare of the Jewish community, or any other oppressed community for that matter. 

Russia is not the enemy of the Jewish community. Palestine is not the enemy of the Jewish community. The Donbass republics are not the enemy of the Jewish community. Fascism is the enemy of the Jewish community. Imperialism is the enemy of the Jewish community. 

We must resist both. That means refusing to support a NATO-backed Ukrainian fascist war. That means questioning the use of Israel as a cudgel to turn us against our brothers and sisters in the Donbass and Palestine. That means analyzing the true nature of past Ukrainian nationalist movements and the current fascist-friendly Ukrainian regime. 

Emigration to Israel won’t keep the Jewish community safe. Only solidarity will. We must do better. 

In the West, media outlets are claiming that Russia’s agenda to “denazify” Ukraine is unfounded. At the same time, public opinion in Western countries is totally alienated from the Ukrainian reality, tending to believe only what is reported by the hegemonic media. The result of this is strong disapproval of the Russian attitude based on the lie that there is no trace of Nazism in contemporary Ukraine. In this sense, it is urgent that quality information be disseminated to the Western audience to avoid the proliferation of lies about the Ukrainian reality.

On almost every TV channel and newspaper in the West, Ukrainian Nazism is questioned with the worst possible arguments: Zelensky is Jewish, and the Ukrainian state is democratic. This kind of superficial thinking prevents a detailed analysis of the catastrophic situation in Kiev since the Maidan, when, through a coup d’état, an anti-Russian junta took power and institutionalized a racist and anti-Russian ideology, which remains until the current days.

When we talk about “Ukrainian Nazism” we are not saying that Kiev is a contemporary copy of Hitler’s Berlin, but that the neo-Nazi element is a fundamental point of post-2014 Ukraine. The Maidan coup was openly supported and financed by NATO as a way of undermining any Russian influence in Moscow’s own strategic environment. The aim was to make Ukraine a puppet state, commanded from Washington, ending any link with Russia. There was not only the objective to annihilate political, economic, and diplomatic relations between Kiev and Moscow, but also to eliminate cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic ties between both nations.

Since then, anti-Russian plans have been implemented. Ethnic Russians have been persecuted for the past eight years – even through systematic extermination in some regions. The Russian language has been criminalized in entire cities where the population does not speak Ukrainian. Schisms in the Orthodox Church have been supported to form a Ukrainian “national church” out of the Moscow Patriarchate. But the question remains: how has this been possible if Ukrainians and Russians are such close peoples? Many Ukrainians speak Russian and marry ethnic Russians, in addition to the fact that most of the country’s population follows the Orthodox Church. So how was it possible to initiate such a successful racist policy?

This was certainly one of the biggest concerns of the Maidan planners. And the answer lies in the Nazi element, which was very well worked out by Arsen Avakov, Minister of the Interior during the Poroshenko government. Avakov initiated a process of instrumentalizing neo-Nazi militias that had supported Maidan, making these extremist groups key points in the defense of the new Ukrainian regime. In the West, due to collective ignorance about Slavic history, many people think that Nazi racism was restricted to Jews, but in fact, anti-Russian hatred was one of the biggest locomotives of WWII, having led Hitler to the irrational decision to invade and try to annex the USSR. This sentiment is alive in these neo-Nazi militias, who are literally ready to do anything to annihilate the Russians, being much more fanatical in their racist convictions than the Ukrainian armed forces.

Groups such as the Azov Battalion, C14 and the armed militias of rightist parties such as Pravyy sektor and Svoboda operate freely in Ukraine and are most responsible for the extermination of ethnic Russians in the Donbass. These groups act with more violence and using more sophisticated equipment than the Ukrainian armed forces themselves, being the real face of Kiev’s anti-Russian brutality. As neo-Nazis, these militias have no obstacles in complying with the government’s objective of destroying any ties between Russians and Ukrainians, thus being the main allies of the Maidan era.

In a 2020 Freedom House’s report, “A new Eurasian far right rising”, it is said that the far right is one of the strongest and most influential elements in Ukrainian society today, being a sophisticated, highly professionalized, and visible political force. In other words, what would be violent and criminal urban groups elsewhere on the planet have been converted by Kiev into a pro-Maidan parallel armed force. The inspiration for this model of action comes from the original Nazism: the Schutzstaffel (SS) was one of the largest German armed political forces during the 1930s and 1940s, but the group was not part of the German Armed Forces, but a paramilitary militia instrumentalized by the government apart from the official troops. There was a major strategic objective with this: while the German military was commanded by the government, the SS fought for the Nazi Party and for Hitler – that is, if Germany surrendered, the SS would declare war on the German military. This type of “double-shielded” military system is the same one that Kiev has implemented: if one day a pro-Russian government is elected, the neo-Nazi militias will declare war on Kiev – and will be strong enough to defeat the official troops in the same way as the SS was stronger than the German armed forces.

It is necessary to note that these groups operate not only in the sphere of military force, but also in the cultural field, fomenting anti-Russian hatred among ordinary Ukrainians. The exaltation of Stepan Bandera (Ukrainian anti-Soviet nationalist leader who collaborated with Nazi Germany) is one of the symptoms of this. Before the Maidan, Bandera was a name like any other in Ukrainian history, but he came to be remembered and venerated as a national hero by neo-Nazis and anti-Russian politicians. In the same sense, these groups vandalize parishes and monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church and are responsible for the consolidation of a Ukrainian mentality entirely hostile to Russia, which is gradually permeating the local population.

Ukraine is in fact ruled by a Jew and the country’s power structure is indeed publicly “democratic”, despite being internally authoritarian and corrupt. But the Nazi element is not in these aspects, but in the structure of protection of the post-Maidan Ukrainian state, which is supported by a national coalition of neo-Nazi militias whose objective is simply to persecute and kill Russians, regardless of who is in power in Kiev. It does not matter to these militias if the President of the Republic is a Jew – what matters is that Russians are dying, which favors both neo-Nazis and the pro-NATO politicians they protect. In other words, the Western media’s arguments to deny Putin’s claims about Ukrainian Nazism are weak and superficial.

Moscow is right in its concern to denazify Ukraine. It is a measure that should be taken in coalition by several countries. All over the world, Nazism is “condemned”, but only when it benefits the West. The closest political experience to Nazism in the present days has been seen and peacefully tolerated by liberal governments that claim to be defenders of human rights and democracy. Russia is simply no longer willing to put up with crimes being committed by neo-Nazis against its people and there is nothing wrong with that decision.

Lucas Leiroz, researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

24 de febrero de 2022 

Para tener hoy una clara posición contra la guerra y el antiimperialismo, las/os trabajadores con conciencia de clase deben comprender el significado de la decisión del 21 de febrero de la Federación Rusa de reconocer a las repúblicas Donetsk y Lugansk del Donbas como países independientes y soberanos, casi ocho años después de que declararan por primera vez su independencia de Ucrania.

Luego de una transmisión en vivo sin precedentes de la reunión del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional de Rusia, el presidente Vladimir Putin anunció: “Considero necesario tomar una decisión que debería haberse tomado hace mucho tiempo: reconocer de inmediato la independencia y la soberanía de la República Popular de Donetsk (RPD) y la República Popular de Lugansk (RPL)”.

Putin firmó decretos presidenciales reconociendo las repúblicas; estableciendo tratados de amistad y cooperación mutua entre ellos, y autorizando el despliegue de fuerzas de paz rusas en el Donbas si así lo solicitaban. Los líderes de la RPD y la RPL, Denis Pushilin y Leonid Pasechnik, firmaron decretos recíprocos.

Estados Unidos y sus aliados globales denunciaron la decisión.

La decisión de Rusia se produjo después de varios días de intensos ataques militares ucranianos contra las dos pequeñas repúblicas. Dos terceras partes de las fuerzas militares ucranianas, armadas y entrenadas por la OTAN, se encuentran en la “línea de contacto” de aproximadamente 200 millas con Donetsk y Lugansk, cerca de Rusia. Mientras tanto, unas 175.000 tropas de la OTAN también están estacionadas en la frontera occidental de Rusia.

Cientos de ataques de artillería, tiroteos y actos terroristas ucranianos se han llevado a cabo desde el 17 de febrero, matando e hiriendo a civiles y miembros de las Milicias Populares del Donbas, destruyendo hogares y dañando infraestructura vital como plantas de filtración de agua, tuberías de gas y escuelas.

Las evacuaciones masivas de civiles de Donetsk y Lugansk comenzaron el 18 de febrero. Todos entendieron que una invasión ucraniana era inminente, a pesar de que la administración Biden, tergiversando la realidad, repetía que Rusia planeaba invadir Ucrania.

Aunque el bombardeo de Donetsk, la capital de la RPD, disminuyó brevemente después del anuncio de Rusia, pronto se reanudaron los ataques ucranianos, incluyendo un bombardeo en el centro de televisión de Donetsk y la muerte de dos civiles de Lugansk por un misil antitanque ucraniano el 22 de febrero.

Lo que quiere Washington

Desde noviembre del 2021, Washington ha presionado persistentemente a Ucrania para que lance un gran ataque contra el Donbas con la esperanza de involucrar a Rusia en un conflicto y así justificar una mayor expansión de la OTAN y cerrar las exportaciones de combustible ruso a Europa Occidental.

Durante tres décadas, el objetivo bipartidista del capitalismo estadounidense ha sido dividir a Rusia y ponerla firmemente bajo el control de Washington, algo que Putin reconoció en su discurso del 21 de febrero al pueblo ruso.

El 22 de febrero, Biden y el secretario de “Defensa”, Lloyd Austin, ordenaron el despliegue de miles de tropas más, helicópteros de ataque y aviones de combate estadounidenses en Europa del Este.

Biden impuso nuevas y extensas sanciones a Rusia, incluidas sanciones individuales a los parlamentarios que apoyaron la decisión de reconocer las repúblicas del Donbas. Otros países imperialistas y regímenes títeres de EUA rápidamente siguieron su ejemplo.

Quizás lo más importante fue cuando Alemania anunció el 22 de febrero que detendría la autorización del recién terminado gasoducto Nord Stream 2 que estaba destinado a aumentar significativamente el flujo de combustible de Rusia a la Unión Europea.

Cortando esta relación, obliga a que Europa compre productos de gas y petróleo de fuentes controladas y de propiedad estadounidense, dirigiendo las ganancias a los bancos de EUA. Este fue un objetivo principal de la campaña contra Rusia de Washington. Justo entonces, los precios del petróleo y el gas subieron a niveles casi récord, con el petróleo cerca de los 100 dólares el barril el 23 de febrero.

De todos los imperialistas de la OTAN, Alemania fue el país que más se demoró en apoyar la campaña de guerra de EUA. Pero es importante recordar que Alemania, aunque es la potencia económica más fuerte de Europa, también está ocupada militarmente por el Pentágono, con la friolera de 119 bases militares estadounidenses, solo superada por otro enemigo imperialista, Japón, con 120.

La verdadera importancia del reconocimiento

El reconocimiento de Rusia de las repúblicas de Donetsk y Lugansk fue recibido con gran entusiasmo por los residentes del Donbas, quienes han vivido ocho años de guerra y sanciones de Ucrania, y les ha costado más de 14.000 vidas. Fue un reconocimiento importante, aunque tardío, de su decisión democrática en el referéndum del 11 de mayo de 2014 y los sacrificios que han hecho para defenderse de la ocupación neo-nazi y la OTAN.

Ellos entienden, al igual que los fascistas ucranianos que buscan “limpiar” la región del Donbas, que una mayor agresión de Kiev ahora significa una confrontación militar con Rusia. El presidente de Ucrania, Volodymyr Zelensky teme esto, pero como herramienta voluntaria de Washington, no tiene poder para resistir.

Al mismo tiempo, Rusia no tuvo más remedio que dar este paso, obligado por Washington. Durante ocho años, desde el golpe de estado en Kiev del 2014 respaldado por Estados Unidos, Moscú ha evitado numerosos intentos occidentales de llevar a las fuerzas rusas a una lucha con Ucrania. Pero se ha hecho evidente que se ha agotado el margen de maniobra.

Entre el pueblo ruso hay un apoyo masivo a los residentes del Donbas. Es dudoso que el gobierno de Putin pudiera haber sobrevivido el abandono de Donetsk y Lugansk.

El discurso televisado de Putin combinó una evaluación clara de lo que está en juego en la confrontación actual para Rusia con un análisis de la historia de Ucrania severamente distorsionada por el antisovietismo y el nacionalismo ruso. Debemos reconocer honestamente que esto es un impedimento para reconstruir la solidaridad entre los trabajadores rusos y ucranianos.

Pero el verdadero significado de la decisión de Rusia de reconocer las Repúblicas Populares de Donetsk y Lugansk va en otra dirección. Es un reconocimiento de las tradiciones antifascistas e internacionalistas profundamente arraigadas de la clase obrera soviética multinacional, incluso tres décadas después de la disolución de la URSS socialista.

Hoy como nunca antes, las/os trabajadores y oprimidos de los Estados Unidos y el mundo deben rechazar las mentiras de Washington, Wall Street y los medios corporativos y exigir: ¡No a la guerra con Rusia! ¡Biden, reconoce Donetsk y Lugansk! ¡Estados Unidos fuera de Ucrania!

The Leninist view of how to fight against imperialist war remains one of the most controversial and defining characteristics of the communist movement, because it means standing up to the capitalist class at the moment its fangs are bared.

Why do we think it’s important to study what Russian revolutionary V.I. Lenin wrote and did during World War I, over 100 years ago?

There are two good reasons. First, Lenin’s Marxist analysis of war shows how capitalism in its highest stage, imperialism, has an insatiable thirst for new markets and bigger profits that drives it to war. That hasn’t changed.

And second, Lenin successfully used this working-class understanding of war to help bring about the socialist revolution in Russia.

In the pamphlet “Socialism and War,” Lenin called the war that had just broken out in Europe “a war between the biggest slaveholders for the maintenance and consolidation of slavery.”

Differentiating the communist position from the pacifists, who condemn all wars equally, Lenin said, “We understand that wars cannot be abolished until classes are abolished and socialism is created.”

He defined as just wars “civil wars, i.e., wars waged by an oppressed class against the oppressor class,” and wars of national liberation by oppressed countries.

“If tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on [World War I era, pre-revolutionary] Russia, and so forth,” he wrote, “those would be ‘just,’ ‘defensive’ wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every socialist would sympathize with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slave-owning, predatory ‘Great’ Powers.”

Communists “of the oppressor countries should recognize and champion the oppressed nation’s right to self-determination,” Lenin wrote. “The socialist of a ruling country who does not stand for that right is a chauvinist.”

Revolutionary defeatism

“The defeat of one’s own capitalist government is the lesser evil in the struggle against the war,” he wrote. “A revolutionary class cannot but wish for the defeat of its government in a reactionary war, and cannot fail to see that the latter’s military reverses must facilitate its overthrow.”

Lenin’s thoroughly internationalist perspective is called revolutionary defeatism.

Instead of using the war as an excuse to pull back from the class struggle, Lenin and his co-thinkers argued that it was exactly the time to step up the struggle against capitalism.

It would be a hard road, especially during the first wave of patriotic propaganda. But as the war dragged on and the death and suffering mounted, more workers would turn against the government and capitalism, he argued.

This is the origin of the famous communist slogan, “Turn the imperialist war into civil war.”

Some people misunderstand what Lenin meant by this. They think it means you have to show up at the very first demonstration against the war with signs reading “Turn the imperialist war into civil war.” 

In fact, Lenin argues in his pamphlet that communists should give strong support to all manifestations for peace. This is often the first step by the workers, youths and others toward anti-war consciousness.

All five Bolshevik deputies in the Duma, or parliament, took a strong anti-war stand, and the Czar exiled them to hard labor in Siberia. Factory workers passed anti-war resolutions. Strikes and demonstrations were organized. Agitation was conducted in the army, and fraternization with enemy troops was encouraged.

Because of their correct analysis of the war and their determination to continue and deepen the class struggle, the Bolsheviks were ready when mass anger at the war boiled over. In February 1917, the Russian people rose up and overthrew the Czar. Several months later, after a new pro-capitalist government showed it would continue the war, Lenin and the Bolsheviks led a successful workers’ and peasants’ revolution for socialism under the banner of “Peace, Land, Bread.”

The new Soviet government’s first act was to call on all countries to end the World War and renounce all annexations and occupations. It guaranteed the right of self-determination for all the peoples and nations oppressed by Russian capitalism.

Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido statement on the military conflict in Ukraine

On Feb. 24, the anti-fascist Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, together with the Russian Federation, launched a military action with the goal of “demilitarization and denazification” of the U.S.-NATO coup regime in Ukraine. It is in the interest of poor and working people, anti-war and anti-imperialist forces, especially in the U.S. and other NATO countries, to take a clear and unambiguous position in solidarity with the anti-fascist forces. The real war danger comes from U.S. and NATO forces surrounding Russia. The government in Kiev is a proxy of these forces of war, with no regard for the people of Ukraine.

For eight years, the people of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbass region have maintained their independence in the face of constant bombing, shooting and terrorist attacks by the Ukrainian government – a regime installed by a fascist coup orchestrated with bipartisan U.S. support. More than 14,000 people have died in Ukraine’s war on Donbass, according to the United Nations. 

Since November 2021, the U.S. has pushed Kiev to launch a new murderous invasion of the Donbass, while claiming that the real threat was from Russia against Ukraine. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its NATO military allies poured weapons and “trainers” into Ukraine, and built up their own imperialist armies on Russia’s Western borders and throughout Eastern Europe. The U.S. rejected Moscow’s just demands to guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality and pull back NATO’s armies. 

Russia officially recognized the independence of Lugansk and Donetsk on Feb. 21 – nearly eight years after the people of Donbass overwhelmingly chose independence in a democratic referendum, rejecting the rule of the pro-Western/neo-fascist coup government in Ukraine. 

The response of the U.S. and its allies was to impose new sanctions on Russia – an act of war – and to send still more troops and weapons to threaten the independent countries of the region. This included blocking the Nord Stream II gas pipeline project between Russia and the European Union, a major goal of Big Oil and Wall Street banks.

Washington and NATO deliberately and methodically pushed the Donbass republics and Russia into a corner, from which there were only two options: submit or fight back. 

On the night of Feb. 23-24, the People’s Militias of Donetsk and Lugansk and their Russian allies launched a military action with the goals of reclaiming Ukrainian-occupied areas of Donbass and demilitarizing and denazifying the Ukrainian-NATO regime. 

The People’s Militias are fighting to drive back the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including neo-Nazi battalions armed and trained by the U.S., Canada and NATO, that constantly threaten the lives of their residents. U.S. white supremacists have trained with the Ukrainian fascist gangs, something even admitted by the FBI, and gained military experience fighting against Donbass which they bring back to attack oppressed communities here. They were key players in the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia., and the murder of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer.  

The Russian armed forces have carried out attacks on at least 74 military bases throughout Ukraine, many of them constructed and upgraded by NATO specifically to facilitate war against Russia. Russian, Donbass and the Ukrainian anti-fascist underground are also working to locate, capture or eliminate neo-Nazi forces, including the ringleaders of the 2014 Odessa massacre, when at least 46 people were killed at the House of Trade Unions.

The anti-fascist military action, forced on Donbass and Russia by the Western imperialist powers – principally President Joe Biden and the U.S. government – has exposed confusion and equivocation in the U.S. anti-war movement, even among socialists and communists. 

Let’s be clear: Modern capitalist Russia is not an imperialist country. It had no means to become one after the counterrevolution in the USSR. It is a regional power akin to India or Brazil, primarily an exporter of commodities, not capital. In order to maintain its independence, Russia had to ally itself with other countries in opposition to imperialism.

Ukraine’s coup regime, by contrast, is a pawn of U.S. imperialism that has been waging a brutal war on its neighbors in Donbass for eight years and offered itself as a base for NATO aggression against Russia. 

We want to remind the movement of the principles laid down at the dawn of imperialism by V.I. Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. Differentiating the communist position from the pacifists, who condemn all wars equally, Lenin said, “We understand that wars cannot be abolished until classes are abolished and socialism is created.”

If Iran attacked Saudi Arabia to stop the genocidal U.S. war on Yemen (carried out by Saudi Arabia at Washington’s behest), which also threatens Iran and its regional allies, we hope that anti-imperialists would recognize that this was a just war, despite some of our ideological differences with the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet this is exactly what is happening in Ukraine today.

Our responsibility is to stop U.S. imperialism and its wars in all forms, and to stand in solidarity with those who fight against U.S. domination.

Victory to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and their allies!

Solidarity with the anti-fascist underground and exiles of Ukraine!

U.S./NATO: Hands off Russia! Get out of Ukraine and Eastern Europe!

Dismantle the imperialist NATO war machine – bring all the troops home now!

Comunicado del Partido de Socialismo Unido sobre el conflicto militar en Ucrania

El 24 de febrero, las Repúblicas Populares antifascistas de Donetsk y Lugansk, junto con la Federación Rusa, lanzaron una acción militar con el objetivo de “desmilitarizar y desnazificar” el régimen golpista de Estados Unidos y la OTAN en Ucrania. Es en el interés de las/os pobres y trabajadores, fuerzas contra la guerra y antiimperialistas, especialmente en EUA y otros países de la OTAN, tener una posición clara e inequívoca en solidaridad con las fuerzas antifascistas. El verdadero peligro de guerra proviene de las fuerzas estadounidenses y de la OTAN que rodean a Rusia. El gobierno de Kiev es un representante de estas fuerzas guerreristas, y no tienen en cuenta al pueblo de Ucrania.

Durante ocho años, las/os habitantes de Donetsk y Lugansk en la región del Donbas han mantenido su independencia frente a los constantes bombardeos, disparos y ataques terroristas del gobierno ucraniano, un régimen instalado por un golpe fascista orquestado con el apoyo bipartidista de EUA. Más de 14.000 personas han muerto en la guerra de Ucrania en Donbas, según las Naciones Unidas.

Desde noviembre del 2021, EUA ha presionado a Kiev para que lance una nueva invasión asesina del Donbas, al tiempo que afirma que la verdadera amenaza viene de Rusia contra Ucrania. Mientras tanto, EUA y sus aliados militares de la OTAN vertieron armas y “entrenadores” en Ucrania y construyeron sus propios ejércitos imperialistas en las fronteras occidentales de Rusia y en toda Europa del Este. Estados Unidos rechazó las justas demandas de Moscú de garantizar la neutralidad de Ucrania y retirar los ejércitos de la OTAN.

Rusia reconoció oficialmente la independencia de Lugansk y Donetsk el 21 de febrero, casi ocho años después de que el pueblo de Donbas eligiera abrumadoramente la independencia en un referéndum democrático, rechazando el régimen del gobierno golpista prooccidental y neofascista en Ucrania.

La respuesta de EUA y sus aliados fue imponer nuevas sanciones a Rusia, un acto de guerra, y enviar aún más tropas y armas para amenazar a los países independientes de la región. Esto incluyó el bloqueo del proyecto de gasoducto Nord Stream II entre Rusia y la Unión Europea, un objetivo importante de los bancos de Wall Street y las grandes petroleras.

Washington y la OTAN empujaron deliberada y metódicamente a las repúblicas del Donbas y Rusia a un rincón, del que solo había dos opciones para salir: someterse o contraatacar.

En la noche del 23 al 24 de febrero, las Milicias Populares de Donetsk y Lugansk y sus aliados rusos lanzaron una acción militar con el objetivo de recuperar las áreas ocupadas por Ucrania en el Donbas y desmilitarizar y desnazificar el régimen ucraniano-OTAN.

Las Milicias Populares están luchando para hacer retroceder a las Fuerzas Armadas de Ucrania, incluidos los batallones neonazis armados y entrenados por EUA, Canadá y la OTAN, que amenazan constantemente la vida de sus residentes. Los supremacistas blancos de EUA se han entrenado con las bandas fascistas ucranianas, algo que incluso el FBI admitió, y adquirieron experiencia militar luchando contra Donbas; experiencia que traen para atacar a las comunidades oprimidas aquí. Fueron actores clave en la manifestación “Unir a la derecha” en Charlottesville, Virginia, y en el asesinato de la activista antirracista Heather Heyer.

Las fuerzas armadas rusas han llevado a cabo ataques contra al menos 74 bases militares en toda Ucrania, muchas de ellas construidas y mejoradas por la OTAN específicamente para facilitar la guerra contra Rusia. Antifascistas de Rusia, Donbass y Ucrania clandestinos también están trabajando para localizar, capturar o eliminar a las fuerzas neonazis, incluidos los cabecillas de la masacre de Odessa de 2014, cuando al menos 46 personas fueron asesinadas en la Casa de los Sindicatos.

La acción militar antifascista impuesta en Donbas y Rusia por las potencias imperialistas occidentales, principalmente el presidente Joe Biden y el gobierno de EUA, ha expuesto confusión y equivocaciones en el movimiento contra la guerra de EUA, incluso entre socialistas y comunistas.

Estemos claros: la Rusia capitalista moderna no es un país imperialista. No tenía medios para convertirse en uno después de la contrarrevolución en la URSS. Es una potencia regional similar a la India o Brasil, principalmente un exportador de productos básicos, no de capital. Para mantener su independencia, Rusia tuvo que aliarse con otros países en oposición al imperialismo.

El régimen golpista de Ucrania, por el contrario, es un peón del imperialismo estadounidense que ha estado librando una guerra brutal contra sus vecinos en Donbas durante ocho años y se ofreció como base para la agresión de la OTAN contra Rusia.

Queremos recordar al movimiento los principios establecidos en los albores del imperialismo por V.I. Lenin, el líder de la revolución bolchevique. Al diferenciar la posición comunista de la de los pacifistas, que condenan todas las guerras por igual, Lenin dijo: “Entendemos que las guerras no se pueden abolir hasta que se acaben las clases y se cree el socialismo”.

Si Irán atacó a Arabia Saudita para detener la guerra genocida de Estados Unidos contra Yemen (llevada a cabo por Arabia Saudita a instancias de Washington), que también amenaza a Irán y sus aliados regionales, esperamos que los antiimperialistas reconozcan que esta fue una guerra justa, a pesar de algunas de nuestras diferencias ideológicas con el gobierno de la República Islámica de Irán. Sin embargo, esto es exactamente lo que está sucediendo hoy en Ucrania.

Nuestra responsabilidad es detener el imperialismo estadounidense y sus guerras en todas sus formas, y solidarizarnos con quienes luchan contra la dominación estadounidense.

¡Victoria para las Repúblicas Populares de Donetsk y Lugansk y sus aliados!

¡Solidaridad con la clandestinidad antifascista y los exiliados de Ucrania!

EUA/OTAN: ¡Fuera sus manos de Rusia! ¡Fuera de Ucrania y Europa del Este!

¡Desmantelamiento de la maquinaria de guerra imperialista de la OTAN – que regresen todas las tropas a casa ahora!