A contribution on the war and the debates on the left
WritesAlejandro Bodart
The Russian invasion has divided the waters of the world left. From the LIS we have contributed our points of view in various statements and articles. In this material I will develop the theoretical and political framework that the left must have to act in a principled manner and contribute to the construction of a revolutionary alternative in Ukraine and Eastern Europe., something that a large part of the left that considers itself revolutionary does not even consider.
The characterization of the war and the sides in dispute
The war in Ukraine has since its inception combined two processes at the same time. On the one hand, the fair defense of its sovereignty by Ukraine and, for another, the sharpening of inter-imperialist friction between the NATO powers and the emerging imperialisms of Russia and China. The incomprehension of this double character of the war, its rhythms and the most probable perspective is the basis of the confusion that reigns in an important part of the left.
the left camper, neo-Stalinist and marginal sectors of Trotskyism have openly aligned themselves with Putin's imperialist Russia. They ride on the hatred of the masses for American imperialism and NATO. This sector deserves nothing more than repudiation by any consistent revolutionary, since whatever the characterization of the current war, nothing justifies its alignment behind a capitalist power that oppresses the peoples and with a regime as reactionary as the Russian one. to justify, some go so far as to deny the capitalist character of Russia, others propagandize the fable that Russia and not Ukraine are the main victims of the war. All these organizations are a transmission belt for the lies that emanate from the enormous propaganda apparatus of Moscow..
Another section of the left, among them various currents of Trotskyism, they raise an abstentionist policy and call for defeatism in Russia… and in Ukraine. They refuse to characterize Russia as imperialist, although they have the contradiction that they characterize the war as inter-imperialist and act accordingly or apply a policy as if it were.. Objectively and beyond intentions, this sector also ends up being functional to Putin's Russia and, if the war were to evolve into a true military confrontation with NATO, it would not be surprising if they threw their defeatism overboard and sided with Russia and China.
To give some authority to their positions, these lefts often cite Lenin, referring to Austria's war against Serbia, which marked the start of World War I on 28 July 1914. Lenin, in a writing a year after the start of the world war[1], explains why the Austrian aggression against Serbia cannot be seen in isolation from the unfolding World War I and, Thus, the worldwide policy that revolutionaries should carry out should be revolutionary defeatism. The difference with the current situation is that four months, The Russian invasion has not become World War III and it is not yet defined that it will progress in that direction in the short term. Because, although it is part of the sharpening of inter-imperialist tensions and the new cold war in which we are immersed, we cannot yet define it as the beginning of an open world military confrontation. to avoid it, American and European imperialism has taken care to intervene directly with its armies and Russia has not yet advanced on any NATO country. That is why it is a mistake to define it at this time as an inter-imperialist war and not support the Ukrainian resistance..
Lenin himself, talking about the austrian aggression, to Serbia clarifies its point of view: “The only national element of the present war is the struggle of Serbia against Austria… It is only in Serbia and among the Serbs that we have a national liberation movement that has existed for many years., that encompasses millions of beings - the 'masses popular'- and whose 'continuation' is the Serbian war against Austria. If this war was an isolated war, that is to say, if it were not linked to the european war, to the selfish and rapacious goals of England, Russia, etc., all socialists would be obliged to wish the triumph of the bourgeoisie serbia: this is the oneonly correct and absolutely necessary conclusion to be deduced from the national element of the present war. And this is precisely what the sophist Kautsky does not do!, that today is at the service of the bourgeoisie, of clericals and Austrian generals!…
Specific, Lenin explains to us that, if the world war was not involved, he would definitely support Serbia. Today, when we do not have a declared world war and it is not clear whether this will finally happen in the next period, It is an obligation to support the attacked nation, where it exists“a national liberation movement…”, and that"It encompasses millions of beings -the popular masses-..."
Nor is the current war between two more or less similar capitalist states.. Russia is a power, for us imperialist, as we have demonstrated and documented in several elaborations of our current[2], and Ukraine is a backward capitalist country, semicolonial.
The Russian invasion had the objective of subduing Ukraine against its will and recovering it for its zone of influence., eliminate its relative independence and take away part of its territory. The workers and the people of Ukraine have every right to defend themselves and respond militarily to the invader. It's a just war[3], in defense of their right to self-determination. That is why it is an obligation of the revolutionary socialists to support this national liberation movement., collaborating with everything in our power to defeat the invader. In this war we cannot be neutral, abstentionists or call for defeatism in Ukraine. We must be for the defeat of Russia. There can be no ambiguities in this regard. The defeat of Russia would be a revolutionary triumph that would invigorate the Russian labor movement and all the nationalities oppressed by it., starting with ukrainian. It is false what the campers say that a possible Russian defeat by the Ukrainian resistance would be a victory for NATO. La Otan, that it was completely discredited and weakened before the war, has been greatly strengthened thanks to Putin. The aggression and brutalities against the Ukrainian people by Russia have allowed them to revitalize themselves, arm yourself to the teeth, end the neutrality of Sweden and Finland and present themselves as “saviors” to millions.
The real debate with the left that does not support the Ukrainian resistance is about the existence or not of an imperialism better than another. These sectors, openly or shamefully, they end up supporting Russian imperialism. we are clear: we are against all imperialisms. Because, in addition to giving our support to the Ukrainian resistance on the military level against Russian imperialism, We denounce the attempt of American and European imperialism to take advantage of the war to advance with its claws on the East and the countries of the former Soviet Union. That is why our military support for the Ukrainian resistance does not imply any political support or collaboration with the neoliberal government of Zelensky.. We support the resistance militarily from a class position and politically independent and delimited from the Ukrainian bourgeoisie.
We do all this because the national liberation of Ukraine is not the only task that we revolutionaries have to carry out in this conflict.. A systematic campaign against Western imperialism and NATO is also imposed., against the European Union and the USA., that they are using the war to reposition themselves politically and militarily in the region, weakening Russia as much as possible while deepening the trade war with China, which increases day by day the threat that in the near future the world will suffer the unpredictable consequences of a war of international scope. Not carrying out this permanent denunciation of Western imperialism throughout the world, including Ukraine, it would also be a very big mistake and a surrender, in this case to the USA. and the EU.
And if any of the NATO imperialist countries declared war on Russia, whatever the cause, the whole conflict would change character. If this finally happened, the current new cold war would become a Third World War. There we would enter into an inter-imperialist armed conflict and we would have to adapt our policy and orientation to the new situation.: the Ukrainian liberation struggle would remain in the background and the confrontation with the imperialist war would become the ordering axis. But for now none of the imperialist "camps" wants to advance on that path.. On the side of Western imperialism there are important differences on the way forward.. There are sectors of the EU that want to end the conflict as soon as possible, even if this means Ukraine ceding territories, due to the enormous economic cost that it has entailed and the fear that this will evolve into an explosive social situation, while others like the US. The US and Great Britain intend to deepen the siege on Russia to wear it down as much as possible and prevent China from deciding to follow the same path. This does not mean that the tensions have not reached a critical point or that beyond the intentions of the protagonists they cannot get out of hand.. We cannot minimize the confrontation. The new cold war that has started sooner or later may evolve into a new world conflagration, only way out to define if Yankee imperialism continues to be hegemonic, a bipolar world order is consolidated or China emerges as the new world policeman.
There are currents that completely minimize inter-imperialist friction. Some have even written that there was no cold war or major friction between the superpowers.. Even some of these organizations have a correct location in relation to the Ukrainian resistance, but by not seeing the other component of the war they end up having a unilateral orientation, lame in front of the OTAN.
Since the LIS, in all the countries where we have militants, Since the first day of the war, in addition to supporting the Ukrainian working people, we have clearly expressed our rejection of NATO's interference in Eastern Europe., demanding the dissolution of both it and the CSTO[4]. From Ukraine we have called for the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers, and from Russia and the countries in its area of influence we have promoted the mobilization against Putin and the war.
Ukraine and its path to independence
Russia failed in its goal of a quick victory that would allow it to seize control of the country and impose a puppet government due to massive resistance from the population, even from ethnic, Russian-speaking. This forced the Russian army to withdraw and concentrate on trying to control southern Ukraine and the Donbass region in the east.[5]. The combativeness and courage of the resistance has to do with a deep-rooted nationalist sentiment that is very important to know in order to understand Ukrainian society., to the labor movement and have a revolutionary policy that is as correct as possible.
Along its history, Ukraine has suffered the invasion of its territory by different powers. Unlike other states that were constituted as such around it, Ukrainian territory was divided and oppressed by other states. Since the 17th century, the influence of the Russian Empire was consolidated in the eastern part of its territory and the western part was successively occupied by Poland and the Austrian Empire.. in all those years, the struggle to achieve their territorial integrity and defend their language and cultural heritage gave shape to a nationalist movement that grew stronger and stronger.
The rise of the revolutionary left at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in the region, that would lead to the collapse of the empire of the tsars and the triumph of the Bolsheviks, was uniting in the Ukrainian masses the national aspirations to the struggle for the construction of a classless society, socialist. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the only ones who defended the right to self-determination of the oppressed nationalities from an internationalist perspective and that is why they became the determining force between the workers and the Ukrainian masses.. This was what Lenin said in 1914: “Forming an autonomous and independent national state remains for now, in Russia, only privilege of the Russian nation. We, Russian proletarians, we do not defend privileges of any kind and we do not defend this privilege. We fight on the ground of a certain State, we unify the workers of all the nations of this State, we cannot guarantee this or that path of national development, we go to our class objective by all possible routes. But it is not possible to go towards this objective without fighting against all nationalisms and without advocating the equality of all nations.. A) Yes, for example, depends on a thousand factors, unknown beforehand, whether Ukraine will be lucky enough to form an independent state. Y, as we don't want to make idle 'guess', we stand firmly for what is undoubted: Ukraine's right to such a state. We respect this right, we do not support the privileges of the Russian over the Ukrainians, we educate the masses in the spirit of recognition of this right, in the spirit of denying the state privileges of any nation.”[6]
The support of the Bolsheviks for the right to self-determination of nationalities was one of the pillars that allowed the triumph of the Russian Revolution, along with the policy against imperialist war and support for the struggles of the workers and poor peasants. And it was thanks to the triumph of the Russian Revolution that the first independent Ukrainian state emerged in 1919: the Ukrainian SSR, which became part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (ussr) since its foundation in 1921.
Nevertheless, the long pilgrimage for their right to be an independent nation, far from over, would quickly resume renewed strength. The heated debates that took place within Bolshevism about the policy to be followed towards the different nationalities that made up the Soviet Union and particularly towards Ukraine are public knowledge of every minimally educated Marxist.. Ukrainian communist militants together with Lenin and Trotsky gave a political battle against Stalin, at that time Commissioner for Nationalities, who tried to subdue the independence of the recently created Ukrainian Soviet Republic. Lenin's triumph in this polemic laid the foundations, which would later be transferred to the first Soviet Constitution, of the policy that the revolutionaries should have towards the nationalities: full right to their national self-determination, which included the right to their independence and to secede from the Soviet Union, to which each republic joined freely without any type of coercion.
This is how Lenin addressed the Ukrainian workers and peasants in 1919: “The independence of Ukraine has been recognized, both by the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR (Republic Russian Soviet Federative Socialist) as by the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks of Russia. Es, Thus, It is evident and recognized by all that only the Ukrainian workers and peasants themselves can and will decide in their Ukrainian Congress of Soviets., whether Ukraine will merge with Russia or whether it will bea separate and independent republic, and in this onelast case, what federative ties are to be established between that republic and Russia...
Workers must not forget that capitalism has divided nations into a small number of oppressive great powers. (imperialist), free and sovereign nations, and a vast majority of oppressed nations, dependent and semi-dependent, not sovereign. The arch-criminal and arch-reactionary war of 1914-1918 accentuatedthis division, festering with it the hatreds and grudges. For centuries, the indignation and distrust of non-sovereign and dependent nations towards the dominant and oppressive nations accumulated., such as Ukraine to nations like Greater Russia.
We want a voluntary union of nations –a union that excludes all coercion of one nation over another-, a union that is based on the fullest trust, in a clear recognition of brotherly unity, in an absolutely voluntary consent...
Among the Bolsheviks there are supporters of the full independence of Ukraine, supporters of a unionn more or less close federation and supporters of the total merger of Ukraine with Russia. There should be no divergences over these issues.. The Congress of Sovietsfrom Ukrainewill solve them."[7]
A few years later, when the 1920s had not yet ended, the Stalinist counterrevolution would begin to gradually reverse all this until it transformed the Soviet Union into a new prison of peoples. There was fierce resistance from genuine Bolsheviks and left-wing opposition to this Thermidorian turn that encompassed each and every one of the foundations and principles of the workers' state founded by Lenin and Trotsky.. The response of the bureaucracy was a brutal repression. In successive purges, all the old guard bolsheviks who had survived the revolution and civil war were killed in the 1930s or confined to death in the concentration camps that sprung up throughout the USSR.
The triumphant bureaucracy lashed out especially at the top Ukrainian leadership and cadres of the CP who had defended the right to self-determination in the debates of the nascent Soviet Union.. Ukrainian communist militancy was decimated in the 1930s, their leaders assassinated and by tens of thousands arrested and sent to die in the GULAG camps[8]. It is estimated that by the end of the 1930s the CP in Soviet Ukraine had been reduced by half. The same fate befell all those who tried to oppose the policy emanating from the new Great Russia., this time with a false socialist clothing. Stalin's forced collectivization caused a famine in the Ukraine between the years 1932 Y 1934 in which millions of people died. Russification prevailed more strongly in Ukraine than in other nationalities, the Russian language was re-imposed and the institutional authorities began to be replaced by Russians sent from the Kremlin. In addition, the implantation of the Russian population in the east and south of Ukraine was encouraged.. And when 1939 the Ukrainian part that had remained in the hands of Poland was annexed, the PC of that region was dissolved, which until then was part of the Third International, which was later dissolved as well. The theory of socialism had been imposed in a single country, and everything began to be based on the needs of the bureaucracy that centralized everything from Moscow. None of this could end the resistance to the oppressor, although it was configured in a completely different way from the end of the 19th century.
The void left by the Communist Party in Ukraine by becoming the tool of the oppressive state, Little by little, it would begin to be occupied by extreme right-wing nationalist organizations[9], who in opposition to the Stalinist regime and its false socialism took an openly pro-capitalist orientation. In the following decades, The hatred against Stalinism and what they considered emanating from Russian Marxism shaped the consciousness of an important part of the mass movement and the Ukrainian working class..
Cannot understand why Ukrainian nationalism gained so much weight during Stalin's "reign", its shift to the right and everything that happened after the fall of the Soviet Union without analyzing how events unfolded. Nor can the labor movement be held responsible for its confusion and the setback it suffered in its conscience, as this was brought about by decades of Stalinist barbarism.
In a world where there are still many widows of Stalinism, it is necessary to permanently refresh the monstrous role played by the largest counterrevolutionary apparatus within the labor movement that has ever existed. And also, that the bureaucrats who were in charge of it until the 1990s, today they have been recycled and are the oligarchs and officials who run the States where capitalism was restored, as is the case of Russia and China.
Ukrainian nationalism of the 21st century
The cynical Russian propaganda, that has confused a part of the left, tries to make people believe that all the Ukrainian people are far right and that the Nazis are a mass force in Ukraine. This is false.
there are nazis, as in Russia and most European countries, whose electoral representativeness never exceeded 2%, and they have just suffered the loss of most of their armed wing, the Azov Battalion[10]. But there is also an anarchist current that formed its own battalion to fight the Russians and other small left-wing organizations., such as the Social Movement and our Ukrainian Socialist League. Also several pro-Russian, stalinists, that were outlawed.
Although there is currently no organized nationalist party or movement with mass weight, It's important to put attention on, being a nationality oppressed for more than a century, in the mass movement the demand for their national identity is very strong. The war took this to its maximum expression and from there the combativeness of all the people against the invader.
As Lenin well explained, nationalism in the masses of the oppressor nations is not the same, deeply reactionary, that the nationalism of oppressed nations, which is more contradictory since it expresses a commitment to the struggle for their national liberation. We, that we are internationalists we must understand this phenomenon, not let only the right wing capitalize on it and dispute it with the masses and their most combative vanguard, demonstrating to them in practice that we are and will be in the front line of combat in the struggle for national liberation against all kinds of external oppression. Only in this way will we be able to be heard and gain authority to develop our entire program., which of course does not end there but is combined with the tasks that lead us to economic and social change, to a government of the workers that initiates a true socialism.
In some left-wing organizations, especially if they are from imperialist countries or from nations that oppress other peoples, there is a total misunderstanding of the fundamental weight that anti-imperialist and democratic tasks have in semi-colonial and oppressed countries.
The defense of the right to self-determination of peoples and the fight against all kinds of national oppression is an essential part of the program of the socialist revolution.. Not understanding this is criminal and implies breaking with the tradition of revolutionary Marxism.
in Ukraine, where the people wage ajust war against the invasion of its territory by a power like Russia, being a consistent revolutionary implies supporting with all our might the armed resistance against the invader, regardless of the bourgeois and neoliberal character of the Zelensky government, which is the one who leads this resistance. And the same orientation has to have all our international. don't act like that, as well as being on the wrong side of the trench, to actually support the oppressor, It implies renouncing to build a revolutionary socialist organization in the Ukraine and in all the former Soviet republics.
We have to understand that militarily supporting a just cause, direct who directs, it is an obligation and does not imply any political support or loss of independence and that this is what truly revolutionary Marxism has always done.
Trotsky, who has written a lot about how revolutionaries should act in situations like these, referring to the war between imperialist Japan and semi-colonial China, in a letter to the Mexican painter Diego Rivera of the 23 september 1937 it said the following: "In my statement to the bourgeois press, I said that all Chinese labor organizations have a duty to actively participate on the front line in the war against Japan., without for an instant abandoning his independent program and activity. "But that's 'socialpatriotism'!!, the eiffelistas cry out. It is to capitulate to Chiang Kai-shek!! It is abandoning the principle of the class struggle! Bolshevism preached revolutionary defeatism during the imperialist war. However, both the Spanish war and the Sino-Japanese war are imperialist wars…” These four sentences, taken from an eiffelista document of the 10 september 1937 are enough for us to affirm: here we are dealing with either true traitors or total morons. But imbecility raised to full power equals treason.
We do not and have never placed all wars on the same plane. Marx and Engels supported the revolutionary struggle of the Irish against Great Britain, that of the Poles against the Tsar, although in both wars the leaders were, for the most part, members of the bourgeoisie and sometimes even of the feudal aristocracy... in any case, reactionary Catholics… But we, Marxists and Bolsheviks, We consider the Riff's fight against domination imperialist a creeping war. Lenin devoted hundreds of pages to demonstrating the basic need to distinguish between imperialist nations and colonial and semi-colonial nations., that comprise the vast majority of humanity. Talk about 'revolutionary defeatism' in general, without distinguishing between exploiting and exploited countries, it is to make a miserable caricature of Bolshevism and put that caricature at the service of imperialism...
China is a semi-colonial country that Japan is transforming, before our very eyes, in colonial country. Japan's struggle is imperialist and reactionary. China's struggle is emancipatory and progressive. But, ¿y Chiang Kai-shek? We have no illusions about Chiang Kai-shek, his party and the entire Chinese ruling class as well as Marx and Engels did not deal with the ruling classes of Ireland and Poland. Chiang Kai-shek is the executioner of the Chinese workers and peasants. But today he is forced, against your will, to fight Japan for the remainder of Chinese independence. Maybe tomorrow I will betray again. it's possible. It is probable. it's even unavoidable. But today he is fighting. only the cowards, total morons or scoundrels, they can refuse to participate in that fight.”
The sectarians and ultra-leftists are afraid of getting dirty in the trenches of the just wars that many times, as is the case of Ukraine, they have to be shared with more or less extremist rightists. And that's why they decide not to participate, leaving the defense of just causes in the hands of the right and the masses at their mercy. And then they complain and usually blame the masses, of that right, in its different shades, is almost the only visible political expression.
Because of these confusions and its petty-bourgeois class character, these lefts end up abandoning any intention of building a revolutionary party in Ukraine, Eastern Europe and any country with complex processes. And there is no greater possible surrender to the bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy than not building the indispensable tool for the revolution!!!
Our Ukrainian Socialist League is one and a half years old. Is small, with a few experienced colleagues, but essentially union, and a majority of young people in the process of training. It is exposed to multiple pressures and permanent repression. You will surely make many mistakes. But it is the only Trotskyist organization in the Ukraine with a real existence., the only one that fights to provide a worker and revolutionary alternative to the masses, the only one that disputes the bourgeoisie and the right on the ground, while the rest of the left, follow what happens in the press about Putin or NATO, from thousands of kilometers and the comfort of your home.
27-06-2022
[1] The bankruptcy of the Second International, Lenin, May-June 1915.
[2] Ver: Putin and Russian imperialism, Putin and Russian imperialism, by Sergio García (MST) Ywhat is imperialism?Are China and Russia imperialists??, de Gunes Gumus (SEP), Both of 2022.
[3] This is how Lenin characterized this type of war. The term had been heard on one occasion from W. Liebknecht, leader of the German Social Democratic Party and father of the German revolutionary Karl Liebknecht.
[4] OTSC – Collective Security Treaty Organization, Russia's political and military agreement with a number of like-minded ex-Soviet republics.
[5] At the time of writing this material the Russian army is about to achieve these objectives..
[6] Lenin: The right of nations to self-determination, 1th of november 1914.
[7] Letter to the workers and peasants of Ukraine regarding the victories over Denikin. Lenin, 1919.
[8] The GULAG was the interior department of the Soviet Union that created the KGB-run forced labor camps under the Stalinist regime..
[9] In 1929 the Ukrainian Nationalist Organization was formed and divided into 1940 between the followers of Stepán Bandera and Andriy Mélnyk. Those of the first founded in 1942 the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, who with the flag of independence faced the Soviet army, sided with the Nazis when they invaded the Soviet Union, then broke and faced both. They also organized lynchings of Jews and other atrocities.. They were annihilated in 1960. Nowadays, two small organizations claim to be his heirs and there are attempts by the bourgeoisie to show Bandera as a hero of the fight for independence, hiding their crimes and reactionary character.
[10] Most of the members of the notorious Azov Battalion, formed by barrabravas and Nazi orientation, lost his life or was taken prisoner by the Russians.
