Russian Tensions
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https://www.codepink.org/openletter_ukraine
Russian Troops Out of Ukraine!
Ceasefire Now!
No NATO expansion!
Peace Talks NOW!DJP, in your comments on Andrew Kliman’s piece in MHI, you say: “My view is that it is in the interests of the people living in Ukraine that the conflict stop right away by whatever means necessary even if this means the Ukrainian state losing territory and influence”.
You represent this as a socialist view. But how is it different from a pacifist view?
If Biden wants China on side, threatening consequences is not the way to do it.
PGB, DJP will no doubt respond to you in due course but I think the blog when this war broke out back on 24 Feb reflected his view
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2022/02/another-war.html
“The World Socialist Movement is not concerned with the so-called rights and wrongs of this war, whether the niceties of international law were breached or if the sovereignty of Ukraine was disregarded…it is incumbent upon ourselves to affirm that not a drop of working people’s blood should be shed in supporting either side of this capitalist conflict of which bloc can claim territory as part of its sphere of influence. Whether it is the Ukrainian nation or the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, it is not worth the sacrifice of our fellow workers’ lives. Who cares which parasitic class claims to own which patch of dirt?”
Rather than stay and fight for the nation-state of Ukraine, many on this forum would counsel our Ukrainian brothers and sister to to flee to safety and live to advocate the socialist ideas that would put an end to the war and its accompanying brutality and atrocities. Our appeal would be exactly the same to the Russian troops and those Russian nationalists in the Donbas.
This may appear to be the pacifist position on the surface but deeper down we are saying that capitalism will bring about war after war because rivalry between countries is built into its essence.
Michael Albert of Parecon fame
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/03/19/war-and-warring-thoughts-reasons-rebel
“Whatever the motive of this invasion, all people of good will and human caring, much less leftists seeking a truly better world, need to steadfastly oppose it and, in particular, to support those opposing it around the world, especially inside Russia itself. When we find we disagree about interpretations of what is going on, or even about predictions of where events might turn next, this should have no effect on our supporting Ukraine, supporting the Russian people’s dissent, and opposing Russia, opposing NATO, and opposing the U.S. role in this and in other imperial and otherwise destructive, anti-human ventures around the world.”
Once again, what separates ourselves from such statements is the demand that we should support Ukraine because they are engaged in a war of defence against an aggressor. This is the mirror of the claim of Russia, too, that it is pre-empting NATO expansionism and encirclement.
Motherland and Fatherland are the proverbial wicked step-parents
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=30653
Atomic Orthodox Church!
DJP, in your comments on Andrew Kliman’s piece in MHI, you say: “My view is that it is in the interests of the people living in Ukraine that the conflict stop right away by whatever means necessary even if this means the Ukrainian state losing territory and influence”.
You represent this as a socialist view. But how is it different from a pacifist view?
As far as I understand it, pacifism is the view that you shouldn’t use physical force in *any* situation (perhaps there is an exemption for self-defence in cases of attacks on one’s own body?). So if you say what I said above, and that only, then it could be read a pacifist response. But the socialist case, or what I take to be one, doesn’t say *just* that – the case is that a socialist majority should seek to take control of the armed forces of the state and, if necessary, use these to secure a the socialist revolution against recalcitrant pro-capitalist forces. “Peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must” as the saying the goes.
A socialist revolution isn’t a possible result of resistance to the invasion of Ukraine. It’s understandable that people will want to forcibly defend themselves against attacks on their lives and homes, but one needs to remain as clear-headed as possible and a clear-headed analysis means making a clear separation between the people that live in Ukraine (and not all of them are subjects of the Ukrainian state) and the Ukrainian state. An inforced mass-suicide in defence of the state is not something that furthers the movement for socialism in any way. And calls for escalation or prolongation of the conflict are just calls for mass suicide on a wider scale.
St. Stalin, feast day June 2nd.
https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Controversy-in-Moscow:-Stalin-icon-revered-19792.html
“A socialist revolution isn’t a possible result of resistance to the invasion of invasion of Ukraine. It’s understandable that people will want to forcibly defend themselves against attacks on their lives and homes, but one needs to remain as clear-headed as possible and a clear-headed analysis means making a clear separation between the people that live in Ukraine (and not all of them are subjects of the Ukrainian state) and the Ukrainian state. An inforced mass-suicide in defence of the state is not something that furthers the movement for socialism in any way. And calls for escalation or prolongation of the conflict are just calls for mass suicide on a wider scale.”
Very well said, DJP! I have just submitted a comment on the website of the MHI along much the same lines. I would encourage others to do the same. I find it very disappointing that this organization should have taken the position it has done in support of the Ukrainian capitalist state.
Andrew Kliman says of Ukrainian workers “I’m going to listen to what they say is in their interests.” Does that mean he will be equally undiscriminating in listening to what Russian workers have to say when a lot of them seem to think it is in their interests for Russia to invade Ukraine?
Just because a worker says something is in her interests does not make it so. It is called “false consciousness”
So, when a British worker in a pub says “Nuke the Ruskies!”, one is to take it that that is his interest and support him in it!
Similarly, Brexit, adoring the Royals, conscription, and the death penalty, which many British workers support?
The so-called “right to national self-determination” is an incoherent concept as it assumes the pre-existence of a “nation” when whether nations exist and what they might be is precisely the point at issue.
Yes this is exactly it. How can you claim that a nation exists and has specific geographic boundaries without presuming what you need to prove? You could say something like “the Scottish nation is those people that are subject to the coercive force of the Scottish state”, but that doesn’t give a definition of what is usually meant by a “nation”. The only way you can define a nation is by drawing on some kind of shared story, but the only kinds of stories that make sense for nation building are ones that ultimately resolve themselves in some kind of blood and soil narrative – the opposite of what is required for socialism. Once you start drawing lines in the sand and promoting stories about which people are *from* this place and which are simply *in* it you end up with a recipe for forced rellocations and genocide, as the history of “national self-determination” in post-colonial Africa has shown.
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