Russian Tensions
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While we are sorting out the sheep from the goats, here’s a different breed of goat, the pro-Russia ones. This is the position of the “New Communist Party” (a breakaway from the old Communist Party over the Russian action in Czechoslovakia in 1968, hence their name of “tankies”):
They justify still supporting Russia, despite it not claiming to be socialist and them admitting it is capitalist, on the grounds that Russia is an economically backward country and so a victim of “imperialism”.
They justify still supporting Russia, despite it not claiming to be socialist and them admitting it is capitalist, because Russia is an economically backward country and so a victim of “imperialism”.
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And absurd Leninist logic based on the concept of anti-imperialism, Ukraine is more backward than Russia and they do not have atomic bombs and it is a poor nation, and both are capitalist nations, therefore, a so-called communist party is taking side with one capitalist class, these Leninists have reduced socialism to a simple mockery or a theory of nationalists and patriots
This is another absurd concept written by them :
Modern capitalist Russia is not an imperialist country. It had no means to become one after the counter-revolution in the USSR. It is a regional power akin to India or Brazil, primarily an exporter of commodities, not capital. To maintain its independence, Russia had to ally 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 neighbours for eight years and offered itself as a base for NATO aggression against Russia.
————————-All capitalists countries ( small or large ) are potentially imperialists or expansionists, the exportation of commodities is expansionism. Which are those ‘anti imperialists’ countries with that Russia is making alliances with? China, Syria, Venezuela? , In Asia and other parts of the world China is an expansionist nation that wants to compete with the USA, Venezuela is also an expansionist nation in South America, as well Brazil and Argentina
I just watched the first part of a discussion between Canadian journalist Paul Jay and Indian commentator Vijay Prashad on ‘The Analysis’:
The main thesis of Prashad is that Ukraine is a pawn in the conflict between the US and China over which form of globalization should predominate: US–EU or One Belt One Road. He suggests that the US may have deliberately incited Russia into this adventure.
In our time the concept of Globalization is misleading, the real concept is capitalist expansion, and capitalism has been expanding itself since it emerged in England in the XVIII Century and now is one single world economic system
Rosa Luxembourg’s book titled: Accumulation of capital is a book that most socialists should read because it shows that any capitalist country is expansionist, and the leftists are trying to say that one single country is expansionist, even more, there are saying that Russia is not imperialist or expansionist
Globalization or Expansionism is a normal capitalist process, as well there is no new world order, we are living under the same new order which also started with the emergence of capitalism. One belt one road is also capitalist expansion.
Leftists are still talking about classical colonialism and that economic form was replaced by the world expansion of capitalism, they are still living in the past
Without capitalist expansion, socialism or a free access society can not be established
Just curious why we have a photo on the SS cover of people wrapping themselves in the Ukranian flag along with the slogan “Real freedom doesn’t have a flag”?
Considering that 9/10ths of the people on the Internet these days with that flag on their Facebook or Twitter page are begging NATO to provide more arms to the Ukranian government, it doesn’t seem like the best image to use.
And on top of that the cliched Anti-Putin banner, as if the whole war is just some crazy idea that he cooked up in a fit of depression.
Even the slogan “Stop All War” seems rather lame as we know that it there is simply no way to stop all war as long as capitalism continues. What we can do is clarify the concrete causes of this and other wars and the underlying connection to the profit system.
Interview here with the leader of one of the breakaway statelets in the Donbas in which he invokes the “right to self- determination”:
“You know that there are two contradictory articles in the United Nations Charter, written respectively: One: the right to self-determination. The other article: the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the states. Which one of these two articles is the essential one? I believe the right to self-determination should be the essential one, and the people should have the right to make their own decisions. This is my opinion and understanding on this subject. I believe if the needs and the plight of people were the principle – instead of the economic interests of the states – the global system would have been more just.”
“Real freedom doesn’t have a flag” is not part of the photo but what we as socialists say, added precisely as a criticism of those on the demonstration for wrapping themselves in a flag. The sane applies to the slogan “Stop All War”. It was meant as a criticism of the demonstrators who were demanding to stop one particular war (actually, to support one side in it).
I don’t know whether or not this is an April Fool but here is the front page of today’s Times:
“Don’t back down, Ukraine urged. Britain fears western allies will push Zelensky to settle for early peace deal.
Britain is concerned that the United States, France and Germany will push Ukraine to “settle” and make significant concessions in peace talks with Russia, The Times has been told. A senior government source said there were concerns that allies were “over-eager” to secure an early peace deal”https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-back-down-britain-urges-ukraine-wmtfkv3pn
Borys is clearly becoming too big for his boots when the poodle starts to tell its master what to do. Not doubt he will be slapped down but this is further evidence of Britain’s malign influence in trying to prolong the war with its death, destruction and misery.
When it comes to an analysis I do not think there are many who would go down the route of ourselves when it comes to invasion or sovereignty as explained in today’s SOYMB blog-post.
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2022/04/humanity-is-my-family-world-is-my.html
“If Russia wants to occupy and run Britain, they may have it as far as the Socialist Party is concerned…It matters nothing that Britain may be peopled by Russians, or by any other nationality on the capitalist globe. That would make no difference to the movement of the working class towards the world-embracing cooperative commonwealth. The workers of all nations make common causes against the common or capitalist exploiter. If an invasion is coming, let it come…”
Yes, as it has been pointed out, socialists would prefer the limited liberties that exist rather than an authoritarian regime but are to be wage-slaves, no matter the length of the chain and how gently it shackles us worth the lives of family and friends?
Ours is a tough truth to get across but it seems we are the only ones honest enough to say it. Let all the old boys of Eton such as Boris fight for what they own.
Is it better to be a dead citizen of Ukraine than a live subject of Russia? I think the latter. There are no death camps under annexation awaiting those of Ukrainian heritage.
I applaud those who seek sanctuary by becoming refugees in foreign lands rather than risk life and limb for the “nation”.
As a retiree ex-pat, a polite term for an economic migrant, I have already chosen where my allegiance lies despite being legally obliged to carry a particular passport, that just recently changed colour.
Our purpose is to present unpleasant facts no matter how unwelcomed they are by prevailing popular sentiment. The truth hurts.
Ukrainian pacifists
“On February 7, Kotsaba was detained, charged with “high treason” and “obstructing the lawful activities of the Ukrainian military.” He spent 16 months in appalling pre-trial conditions, during which Amnesty International named him their first prisoner-of-conscience in Ukraine since the Revolution, decrying his “treatment” as “a brazen restriction on the right to freedom of expression…one of the fundamental rallying cries of the [2014] protestors.””“As he says, this is a war pitting white supremacists against each other — the Azov Brigade, for example, versus the notorious Russian-funded Wagner Group — and while the spectacle of mutual neo-Nazi slaughter might say something about their strategic acumen, the bigger issue is the damage such a ‘brilliant green light’ for violence may wreak, however the war officially ‘ends,’ on an already deeply-damaged nation. As early as February 27, in an article for World Beyond War, Sheliazhenko was witnessing scenes bordering on social psychosis:”
A mystery unfolds
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/zelensky-strips-two-ukrainian-generals-100423182.html
Zelensky has sacked two senior members of the Ukrainian national security service, labelling them as traitors and antiheroes.
Zelensky said he had fired Naumov Andriy Olehovych, the chief of the main department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and Kryvoruchko Serhiy Oleksandrovych, the head of the SBU in Kherson, the first major city that fell to the Russians.
“Something prevented them from determining where their homeland was” and they “violated their military oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people”, the president said.
“Today another decision was made regarding anti-heroes,” he said. “I do not have time to deal with all the traitors, but they will gradually all be punished.”
He issued a wider warning to the Ukrainian forces, saying those “who break the military oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people… will inevitably be deprived of high military ranks”.
Today the International Workers’ Association issued a report on war resistance in Russia and Ukraine. I have reposted it on the WSPUS website:
http://www.wspus.org/2022/04/war-resistance-in-russia-and-ukraine/
There is also a Spanish version of this report
“Rich Russians of London”
That is indeed a mystery but it makes one thing clear — that the political regime in Ukraine and that in Russia are very similar.
The media speculate on whether or not Putin is angry with his generals but even he has not gone so far as to publicly denounce any of them. It is Zelensky who has done that, even going a step further in denouncing two of his as “traitors”. Together with the killing of one of his peace negotiators and the apparent poisoning of two others it appears that Ukrainian politics also has elements of gangsterism as in Russia. There is also the banning of opposition parties.
Whatever the war is about it is not Democracy v Dictatorship or Good versus Evil, as the warmongering politicians tell us. It’s war over territory between two capitalist states. We are told we must support one particular side but the answer can only be a plague on both their houses.
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