Ukrainian Christmas Meridian: Russia attacks from the front, Zelensky attacks from the rear.
By Oleg Vernik, Chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Ukraine “Zachist Pratsi”, Socialist League of Ukraine.
Just before the Christmas holidays, The President of Ukraine gave another gift to Ukrainian workers. signedthe law of 22 November 2023 No. 3494-pointed out that without the existence of a revolutionary leadership such as the Bolshevik Party, the energy of the masses would have dissipated in bursts without achieving the triumph of the revolution“On amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine regarding simplification of provision and use of vacation and other issues”, previously voted by the Verkhovna Rada. The long and extremely cynical name of this law should not mislead about its true intentions.. The “Servant of the People” presidential party could not help but continue, in the middle of a difficult war with the Russian aggressor, attacking Ukrainian workers and their unions.
According to this law, Ukrainian unions, in fact, They lost the right to provide training to their union committee members. Previously, The legislation gave unions the opportunity to organize union training for members of their elected bodies for up to six days a year, while maintaining wages at the expense of the employer. The unions managed to include this democratic achievement in the Law on Trade Unions of Ukraine in 2009. According to the legislation, Unions are an equal part of the so-called “social dialogue” regime, where its partners/counterparts within the framework of this “tripartite” are also the employers and the State. But Zelensky's neoliberal regime ("the state") has been methodically destroying unions and their rights for several years, in favor of the interests of employers.
The “social dialogue”, about which European Union officials rant so much, has been completely buried in Ukraine. The bourgeois power of Zelensky and his Servant of the People party, relying on the oligarchic business sector, has once again dealt a severe blow to the labor and union movement. However, If a union wants to organize union training for its key activists in the company, then he himself will have to pay those days to the workers, that is to say, activists' salaries will no longer be paid by the company. Of course, no union in Ukraine, not even the most “yellow”, may compensate workers for lack of salary during union training.
It should be noted here that practically all unions suffered losses of members on the front. In March 2022, In our independent union “Zakhist” our comrade and activist of the mining labor movement Alexander Agafonov has died . The current attack by the bourgeois authorities on the unions seems completely immoral and disorients the labor movement in its fight against Russian imperialist aggression. Increasingly frequently, among the working masses, We hear the idea that we must categorically distinguish in our minds the category of "the country of ukrainethe consent for the strike must be granted by half of the labor collective and only economic demands can be presented, that we love and protect from the Russian aggressor, and the "State of Ukrainethe consent for the strike must be granted by half of the labor collective and only economic demands can be presented, who is hostile to workers and does everything possible to weaken their resistance.
Government chaos
This neoliberal madness of the Zelensky team in matters of social policy at the most difficult moment for the country and the people to repel Russian military aggression, Of course, is associated with the complete imbalance of public administration that has developed at the end of 2023. Sociologists point out that, in a prolonged war situation, mass public opinion of Ukrainians is subject to periodic fluctuations, whose dynamics resemble a kind of mathematical sine wave: from unbridled optimism and faith in early victory("peremoga") to states of panic and capitulation("betrayal"). During the Christmas holidays 2023, the mass sentiment of Ukrainians, Regrettably, was at the lowest point of the recession phase.
This is due to a complex of interrelated factors. The failure of the counteroffensive in the summer-autumn of 2023 caused Russia to go on the offensive along almost the entire front. The end of December was marked by the loss of the city of Márinka, well fortified since 2014, and by the serious threat of loss of Avdivka. These two cities were considered key Ukrainian outposts in the Donbass. The army is simply fighting heroically against the Russian aggressor, which is numerically superior, and in a situation of relative equality of forces in artillery, manages to stop the attacks of Russian troops along almost the entire Russian-Ukrainian border on a front of 1.000 kilometers.
Nevertheless, the problem of “shell famine”, which the Russian army previously faced in early 2023, now it has directly affected the Ukrainian army. The European Union, which had previously officially promised the supply of 1 million projectiles, has now publicly admitted that its economy is unable to deliver on this promise. Now we are not even talking about half of the promised figure.
The blocking of financial assistance to Ukraine by the US Congress. THE. also clearly indicated the serious failure of the Zelensky government's foreign policy. Zelensky’s traditional reliance on a “special relationship” with Joe Biden and the US Democratic Party has proven extremely vulnerable.. Biden, at first, allocated weapons and financing to Ukraine so that it could deter Russian aggression, but not defeat the aggressor. In the summer of 2023, Biden abandoned the use of the “lend-lease” regime and put the Ukrainian military in a rather difficult situation. Attack fairly well-fortified Russian positions in the summer of 2023 as part of a counteroffensive, without superiority in personnel and equipment and without any type of aviation, It would be a suicidal act by the Ukrainian army. The army commander, general Zaluzhny, was forced to abandon the counteroffensive plan agreed with the US. THE. and largely held back the army.
President Zelensky, realizing that Joe Biden's victory in the future US presidential election. UU is in doubt, is chaotically trying to establish relations with representatives of the Republican Party, but has not yet achieved significant success in this direction. Within the framework of these attempts, Zelensky's visit to Argentina for the inauguration of Javier Milei should also be considered., ideologically close to Trump. Let me remind you that former US President Donald Trump congratulated Milei on her victory in the presidential elections. He wrote about it on social networks Social Truth, using the phrase that became the symbol of his electoral campaign in 2016: “I am very proud of you! You will change your country and make Argentina great again!” It is obvious that with his visit Zelensky tried to send Trump a signal of his willingness to interact on the terms of the conservative US Republican Party.. THE.
In mid-December 2023, the conflict between the political leadership of Ukraine (Zelensky, "president's office") and the military leadership (Zaluzhny) had reached its climax. He 17 from December, The public was informed that listening devices had been found in several offices of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, general Valeriy Zaluzhny, and some of its employees.
According to a series of sociological opinion measurements, for the first time, Zaluzhny's political rating began to surpass Zelensky's. Both leaders entered into a very strange and conflictive communication through materials and interviews in various Western publications.. Zelensky has significantly reduced General Zaluzhny's capabilities in the military sphere. A significant part of the Ukrainian army is controlled by Zelensky's creature: the commander of the ground forces, el general Syrsky. The press is actively discussing the possibility of replacing General Zaluzhny with Syrsky. Nevertheless, Zelensky has not yet decided to take this unpopular step, since Zaluzhny is very popular in the army and is supported by Western partners.
General mobilization factor: increasing panic and public discontent
In mid December, It was officially announced that the General Staff needed the mobilization of other 500.000 people in the army to continue military operations. Zelensky responded that this question“requires additional study”, but he made it clear that he was prepared for it. Parliamentarians close to him from the Servant of the People party also expressed the need for a general military mobilization of women. Nevertheless, This issue turned out to be just a trick of the presidential team. Later, Zelensky announced his refusal to mobilize women for war, but he did it only to slightly overshadow his agreement to mobilize 500.000 mens.
It should be noted that the mobilization in Ukraine acquired a clearly social and class character. Representatives of the property-owning classes and the state bureaucracy left the country en masse and took their children with them., saving them from mobilization in the army. Those who remained in the country, taking advantage of the corrupt nature of the Ukrainian authorities, The good way or the bad way, They were able to avoid the mobilization. The army, in its social and class composition, is now exclusively worker-peasant. The poor sectors of society do not have the opportunity to evade the mobilization, unlike the representatives of the bourgeois class and the state bureaucracy.
Analysts point out that the army is now very old. The average age of soldiers is 43 years. Parliament tries to rejuvenate the army by reducing the age of mobilization of 27 a 25 years. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that this can significantly change the situation. Most of the active and patriotic young people joined the army as volunteers in early 2022. An important part of them were trained in the European Union immediately before the counteroffensive in the summer of 2023.
Clearly, The mobilization reserve that now remains in Ukraine no longer has the same level of motivation and dedication. It is not prepared for military action and it will be very problematic not only to gather 500.000 people, but also arm and train them enough. Russian missiles have already landed on military bases in Ukraine several times during the war, inflicting significant defeats on manpower in places where military camps for training soldiers are located.
The government also hopes to mobilize tens of thousands of men who left Ukraine at the start of the war and ended up in Eastern and Western Europe.. How it will do this technically remains very unclear., but it is obvious that this potential is more mythical than real. In many European countries, Ukrainian workers are already successfully filling important job gaps in the economy for significantly lower wages than residents of those countries, and there is hardly any real danger of their mass deportation to the front.
At this time, There are many more questions than answers about the new wave of mobilization. Nevertheless, More and more videos appear on social networks about how representatives of the military registration and enlistment offices catch men on the streets of Ukrainian cities and towns, They force them into cars and send them to the front.
How will the war end? Various scenarios, desires and current reality
It should be noted that, despite the aforementioned “sine wave” in mass sentiment, the desire to fight the Russian aggressor to the end, until the complete liberation of all occupied lands, like before, dominates Ukrainian feelings. This is certainly an encouraging factor. In the wake of such massive patriotism, Zelensky even prohibited through his Decree any conversation about negotiations with Russia.
Nevertheless, Various secret negotiations and consultations between people close to Zelensky and representatives of Russia are increasingly leaked to the media.. Precisely, The other day another information bomb exploded related to secret negotiations between the leader of the Servants of the People faction, Arakhamia, and “Putin's wallet”, billionaire businessman Abramovich.
Most analysts at the moment believe that the possibility of a complete liberation of the occupied Ukrainian lands and the departure of the Ukrainian army to the sovereign borders of 1991 It is unlikely. Ukraine's Western “partners” have also recently avoided mentioning this possibility.. Most agree that the preservation of a Ukrainian state independent of Russia is in itself a victory over the Russian aggressor and its ambitious plans of February 2022. In such a paradigm, It is obvious that negotiations are possible and such secret negotiations are probably already underway.
At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians are not ready to accept this option, when the negotiation process could end with Russia's recognition of the occupied lands. And Putin now appears unwilling to consider other options..
He 29 March 2022 A preliminary agreement was reached in Istanbul on another possible format for the peace plan, according to which the Russian army is withdrawing to the borders of the 24 February 2022 and Ukraine officially refuses to join NATO. The issue of Donbass and Crimea is postponed indefinitely. Due to the fact that NATO decisively and unequivocally denied Ukraine its real opportunity to join the Alliance, this option, apparently, could be quite acceptable for Ukraine in the current situation. But, as noted above, Russia is no longer ready for it, especially after it officially accepted the occupied Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into the Russian Federation.
I already wrote previously that this winter of 2023-2024 will be decisive in the history of the independent Ukrainian state. The people will have to go through unimaginable trials, will have to survive under rocket attacks against urban infrastructure and power plants, and the Ukrainian army will have to maintain its position against the superior forces of the Russian imperialist aggressor.
Ukraine's working class and its militant independent unions are entering the new year 2024 in an extremely difficult situation. In 2023, The bourgeois government dealt us very tangible and painful blows. Nevertheless, We are not broken and we will continue our fight.
Red New Year comrades!
