In this US presidential election, votes for ‘lesser-evil’ candidates can be a defense of democracy

I joined the US-based Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign in 2023 because there was no equivalent campaign in Canada, although I have not been actively involved in it.

The campaign’s statement on the 2024 U.S. Elections, reproduced below, corresponds to my own thinking on how socialist solidarity activists should approach the November 5 elections. Because the US election regime is so distorted and undemocratic, the voting formula the campaign advocates applies primarily in the half-dozen “swing” states, the decisive ones in this important election.

The US Left, including those who profess to be revolutionary socialists, are deeply divided in this election. There are some, like my old comrade Cliff Connor, who call for socialists not only to vote for Democrats but to actively campaign for that party’s candidates. Others advocate a boycott of the election and simply issue abstract calls for a non-existent “labor party.” These contrasting positions are illustrated here. And there are some like Kshama Sawant, a well-known West Coast socialist, who are now campaigning for the Greens in order to “punish” Kamala Harris and the Democrats for their support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – although a victory for Trump and the Republicans hardly expresses solidarity with the Palestinians.

The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign’s statement, below, is supplemented by an article by the campaign’s co-chair Cheryl Zuur, available here, outlining in further detail the reasoning behind its approach to the election. Footnotes below are mine. – Richard Fidler

* * *

 Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign Statement on 2024 U.S. Elections

Millions of voters have been looking for a way to keep Trump and his MAGA horde[1] out of the White House. They want to stop Project 2025, male supremacy, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, ethno-nationalism, science denialism, Putin apologetics, and ridiculous conspiracist ideas that are the basis for MAGA. All socialists should welcome that. There is only one candidate that can keep Trump out of the White House this year - Kamala Harris. The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign (USSC) endorses the following points:

• The Republican Party of today is fundamentally different from what it was in the past. They are openly working to turn the United States from a multi-party bourgeois democracy into an authoritarian single-party regime. This makes the GOP qualitatively different from today’s Democratic Party, which is not advocating a single-party authoritarian regime but rather maintaining the status quo, as flawed, genocidal, and unjust as that is.
• The Republicans are openly taking aim at, and vastly stepping up repression, disabling, and death of, multiple oppressed groups/identities in ways far more dangerous than either party did in the past.
• The Trump/Vance team is politically connected and theoretically aligned with multiple far right authoritarians around the world.
• Socialists and the left in general on principle must defend all historic left political gains represented in democratic rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to vote. 
• Socialists and the left in general must play a central role in helping build a movement to stop the GOP, MAGA, and the Thiel/Silicon Valley neo-reactionary “NRx” New Right.[2]

Behind the MAGA base stand strategists like Mike Flynn and Stephen Bannon and behind them are the billionaire fascistic ideologues, first and foremost Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin (who are the sponsors of JD Vance). They openly advocate strong man and even fascistic rule. In their world, anybody who doesn’t “contribute” is simply done away with, and the government is under total one-person authoritarian control. They even advocate eugenics.[3]

Trump and his party do not hide their intention to steal this election so the Trump regime can take power. This amounts to an overthrow of a basic democratic right — the very right to vote in public elections. The MAGA base openly advocates violence and retribution if their candidate is not “elected”.

It is an insurmountable contradiction for the so-called left to first minimize the differences between today’s Democrats and the MAGA Republicans and then turn around and call for organizing to resist MAGA. That is why the “left” is doing nothing serious to build a resistance.

In addition to the Trump regime taking power, the MAGA base openly advocates violence and retribution if their candidate is not “elected”. No one knows what will happen at BIPOC[4] voting polls in November and after. 

Harris and the Democrats are not talking about it much, other than Biden’s too little too late proposed SCOTUS reforms, but they know that the MAGA campaign intends, through its manipulation of the state electors, to throw the electoral results to the SCOTUS [Supreme Court], who will appoint Trump as supreme leader.

To repeat: The only candidate who can keep Trump out of the White House is Kamala Harris. However, we must have no illusions in Harris and the Democrats:

1. Harris, like the rest of her party, is committed to arming and supporting Israel. This means participating in Israel’s genocidal crimes against humanity. Any support for Harris, if it is serious about liberation, must at the same time oppose her and her party’s support for Israel. At the same time, we should note that Trump would be far worse for the Palestinian cause.
2. The Biden/Harris administration has been extremely hesitant to arm Ukraine. That country should have been getting and should now get all the arms it needs, when it needs them, and with no strings attached. We should insist that Harris reject Biden’s unjustifiably cautious, go-slow approach to supporting Ukraine. Stop sending arms to Israel, send them to Ukraine instead!
3. Within the labor movement many union leaders argue that we must not go on strike during an election because that will harm the Democrats. We reject that idea, especially now. Any labor struggle increases the class consciousness of workers, tends to bring them together, and puts all capitalist politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, on the defensive.
4. The election of Democrats in 2024 will slow down but not stop MAGA. That movement arose out of the contradictions of capitalism itself. What is needed is an independent movement of the working class, a movement that mobilizes workers and the oppressed in the streets, the work places and even in the unions to oppose the MAGA movement, starting with the MAGA threats to overturn this year’s elections. Such a working class movement could and should ultimately lead to the development of a mass working class party.

Conclusion: The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign was the first Ukraine solidarity group in the world to support Palestine. We are the only Ukraine solidarity group that openly advocates uniting all struggles against oppression and far right authoritarianism. Such struggles should not stop at the borders to the United States. Our support includes stopping Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that Ukraine’s present government is led by the neoliberal Zelensky. It also includes when the defeat of authoritarianism means putting or keeping a capitalist politician in power, (such as Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma/Myanmar, despite the fact that she participated in the murderous repression of the Rohingya people) because we recognize it is better to live and organize under bourgeois democracy than authoritarian conditions.

Socialists and the left generally should support and join any movement to stop MAGA and the Silicon Valley-led New Right both during and after the 2024 elections. That is not limited to but does include keeping Trump out of the White House in 2024.

The only candidates who can stop the MAGA Republicans from gaining office are the Democrats, and the Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign advocates voting for them. That is especially so since the only two “left” candidates (Jill Stein and Cornel West) apologize for Putin and advocate establishing the conditions which will lead to the victory of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Such a victory will encourage a wave of reaction and authoritarianism around the world, including in the United States. It will be easier for the working class to build its own movement under capitalist democracy than under the right wing authoritarianism that Trump would install.

 

---

[1] “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), the refrain of Trump’s Republican party.

[2] “NRx” New Right: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets.

[3] The Trump-Vance campaign’s content is illustrated here: “Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism,” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/us/trump-msg-rally.html.

[4] BIPOC: Black, Indigenous and People of Color.

In this US presidential election, votes for ‘lesser-evil’ candidates can be a defense of democracy

I joined the US-based Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign in 2023 because there was no equivalent campaign in Canada, although I have not been actively involved in it.

The campaign’s statement on the 2024 U.S. Elections, reproduced below, corresponds to my own thinking on how socialist solidarity activists should approach the November 5 elections. Because the US election regime is so distorted and undemocratic, the voting formula the campaign advocates applies primarily in the half-dozen “swing” states, the decisive ones in this important election.

The US Left, including those who profess to be revolutionary socialists, are deeply divided in this election. There are some, like my old comrade Cliff Connor, who call for socialists not only to vote for Democrats but to actively campaign for that party’s candidates. Others advocate a boycott of the election and simply issue abstract calls for a non-existent “labor party.” These contrasting positions are illustrated here. And there are some like Kshama Sawant, a well-known West Coast socialist, who are now campaigning for the Greens in order to “punish” Kamala Harris and the Democrats for their support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – although a victory for Trump and the Republicans hardly expresses solidarity with the Palestinians.

The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign’s statement, below, is supplemented by an article by the campaign’s co-chair Cheryl Zuur, available here, outlining in further detail the reasoning behind its approach to the election. Footnotes below are mine. – Richard Fidler

* * *

 Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign Statement on 2024 U.S. Elections

Millions of voters have been looking for a way to keep Trump and his MAGA horde[1] out of the White House. They want to stop Project 2025, male supremacy, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, ethno-nationalism, science denialism, Putin apologetics, and ridiculous conspiracist ideas that are the basis for MAGA. All socialists should welcome that. There is only one candidate that can keep Trump out of the White House this year - Kamala Harris. The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign (USSC) endorses the following points:

• The Republican Party of today is fundamentally different from what it was in the past. They are openly working to turn the United States from a multi-party bourgeois democracy into an authoritarian single-party regime. This makes the GOP qualitatively different from today’s Democratic Party, which is not advocating a single-party authoritarian regime but rather maintaining the status quo, as flawed, genocidal, and unjust as that is.
• The Republicans are openly taking aim at, and vastly stepping up repression, disabling, and death of, multiple oppressed groups/identities in ways far more dangerous than either party did in the past.
• The Trump/Vance team is politically connected and theoretically aligned with multiple far right authoritarians around the world.
• Socialists and the left in general on principle must defend all historic left political gains represented in democratic rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to vote. 
• Socialists and the left in general must play a central role in helping build a movement to stop the GOP, MAGA, and the Thiel/Silicon Valley neo-reactionary “NRx” New Right.[2]

Behind the MAGA base stand strategists like Mike Flynn and Stephen Bannon and behind them are the billionaire fascistic ideologues, first and foremost Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin (who are the sponsors of JD Vance). They openly advocate strong man and even fascistic rule. In their world, anybody who doesn’t “contribute” is simply done away with, and the government is under total one-person authoritarian control. They even advocate eugenics.[3]

Trump and his party do not hide their intention to steal this election so the Trump regime can take power. This amounts to an overthrow of a basic democratic right — the very right to vote in public elections. The MAGA base openly advocates violence and retribution if their candidate is not “elected”.

It is an insurmountable contradiction for the so-called left to first minimize the differences between today’s Democrats and the MAGA Republicans and then turn around and call for organizing to resist MAGA. That is why the “left” is doing nothing serious to build a resistance.

In addition to the Trump regime taking power, the MAGA base openly advocates violence and retribution if their candidate is not “elected”. No one knows what will happen at BIPOC[4] voting polls in November and after. 

Harris and the Democrats are not talking about it much, other than Biden’s too little too late proposed SCOTUS reforms, but they know that the MAGA campaign intends, through its manipulation of the state electors, to throw the electoral results to the SCOTUS [Supreme Court], who will appoint Trump as supreme leader.

To repeat: The only candidate who can keep Trump out of the White House is Kamala Harris. However, we must have no illusions in Harris and the Democrats:

1. Harris, like the rest of her party, is committed to arming and supporting Israel. This means participating in Israel’s genocidal crimes against humanity. Any support for Harris, if it is serious about liberation, must at the same time oppose her and her party’s support for Israel. At the same time, we should note that Trump would be far worse for the Palestinian cause.
2. The Biden/Harris administration has been extremely hesitant to arm Ukraine. That country should have been getting and should now get all the arms it needs, when it needs them, and with no strings attached. We should insist that Harris reject Biden’s unjustifiably cautious, go-slow approach to supporting Ukraine. Stop sending arms to Israel, send them to Ukraine instead!
3. Within the labor movement many union leaders argue that we must not go on strike during an election because that will harm the Democrats. We reject that idea, especially now. Any labor struggle increases the class consciousness of workers, tends to bring them together, and puts all capitalist politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, on the defensive.
4. The election of Democrats in 2024 will slow down but not stop MAGA. That movement arose out of the contradictions of capitalism itself. What is needed is an independent movement of the working class, a movement that mobilizes workers and the oppressed in the streets, the work places and even in the unions to oppose the MAGA movement, starting with the MAGA threats to overturn this year’s elections. Such a working class movement could and should ultimately lead to the development of a mass working class party.

Conclusion: The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign was the first Ukraine solidarity group in the world to support Palestine. We are the only Ukraine solidarity group that openly advocates uniting all struggles against oppression and far right authoritarianism. Such struggles should not stop at the borders to the United States. Our support includes stopping Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that Ukraine’s present government is led by the neoliberal Zelensky. It also includes when the defeat of authoritarianism means putting or keeping a capitalist politician in power, (such as Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma/Myanmar, despite the fact that she participated in the murderous repression of the Rohingya people) because we recognize it is better to live and organize under bourgeois democracy than authoritarian conditions.

Socialists and the left generally should support and join any movement to stop MAGA and the Silicon Valley-led New Right both during and after the 2024 elections. That is not limited to but does include keeping Trump out of the White House in 2024.

The only candidates who can stop the MAGA Republicans from gaining office are the Democrats, and the Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign advocates voting for them. That is especially so since the only two “left” candidates (Jill Stein and Cornel West) apologize for Putin and advocate establishing the conditions which will lead to the victory of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Such a victory will encourage a wave of reaction and authoritarianism around the world, including in the United States. It will be easier for the working class to build its own movement under capitalist democracy than under the right wing authoritarianism that Trump would install.

 

---

[1] “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), the refrain of Trump’s Republican party.

[2] “NRx” New Right: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets.

[3] The Trump-Vance campaign’s content is illustrated here: “Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism,” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/us/trump-msg-rally.html.

[4] BIPOC: Black, Indigenous and People of Color.

Ukraine ‘peace summit’ falters amidst growing international disunity

Russian and Ukrainian socialists issue joint appeal for solidarity, social and ecological reconstruction of Ukraine

 A peace conference initiated by Ukraine and hosted by Switzerland met June 15-16 with the participation of 57 heads of state and government, including Canada. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hoped the meeting would rally support for his 10-point peace plan released in October 2022, six months after the outset of Russia’s full-scale armed invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent occupation and annexation of about 20 percent of the country. However, the joint communiqué issued at its conclusion expressed “a common vision” on only three aspects: nuclear safety, global food security, and complete exchange of all prisoners of war and return to Ukraine of all Ukrainian civilians, including children, unlawfully detained or displaced by Russia.

The adopted text reiterated support for UN resolutions[1] affirming “the principles of sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, within their internationally recognized borders, including territorial waters, and the resolution of disputes through peaceful means as principles of international law.” However, it failed to commit the participating governments to any substantial program of economic reconstruction assistance to Ukraine, let alone cancellation of its enormous international public debt. Moreover, several countries from the expanded BRICS alliance – led by Brazil, India, and South Africa – abstained. China refused to attend the conference and Russia, of course, was not invited.

Russian president Vladimir Putin sought to refocus international attention on Russia’s absence from the summit through a statement June 14 reaffirming Russia’s supposed “willingness to negotiate” -- on terms tantamount to Ukraine’s capitulation. And Zelensky alleged that China had sought to persuade some countries not to attend. Such is “multipolarity” in today’s global context.

Socialists in Ukraine, Russia and Switzerland sought to supplement the ambitions of the official peace conference from an alternative internationalist perspective based on solidarity and oriented toward a radical social and ecological transformation in Europe as a whole. They drafted a joint declaration in support of Ukrainian self-determination and in favour of the democratic overthrow of the Putin regime. The declaration, with its 12 principles for a just peace in Ukraine, is reproduced below. As its authors indicated, its purpose is to “stimulate comprehensive discussions on national self-determination, inter-imperialist rivalry, geopolitical bloc thinking, rearmament, anti-imperialist and ecosocialist strategies and in general emancipatory working-class mobilizations, particularly with progressive social movements such as the feminist movement, the environmental movement, migration solidarity and trade unions.”

They started this discussion with an online conference on June 15, at which speakers from the launching organizations presented the major content and goal of the declaration and suggested ideas for further political discussion and collaboration. A dominant theme of this discussion, which I attended, was the need for the international Left to develop a comprehensive alternative ecosocialist strategy to capitalist multipolarity and imperialist rivalry. More than one participant noted the importance of the agreement just reached by France’s left parties, hastily assembled as a “New Popular Front,” to contest the snap legislative elections called by Macron around a program that included as a “common denominator” the pledge to “defend steadfastly Ukrainian sovereignty through the delivery of needed weapons.”

-- Richard Fidler

 * * *

 Ukraine: A People's Peace, not an Imperial Peace

 Joint declaration by ecosocialist, anarchist, feminist, environmental organisations, and groups in solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance and for a self-determined social and ecological reconstruction of Ukraine

The Swiss government will hold an international conference for a peace process in Ukraine on 15 and 16 June 2024 on the mountain Bürgenstock, close to Lucerne. The Ukrainian government supports this conference.

 his conference is taking place in a decisive phase of the war. For months, the Russian invasion forces have been hitting gaps in the Ukrainian defences and pushing them back, with heavy losses of their own. The Russian leadership has announced a major offensive and is attacking the people in Kharkiv, a city of millions.

We support all steps towards a peace that enables the Ukrainian people to rebuild the country in a self-determined manner. Peace requires the complete withdrawal of the Russian occupying forces from the entire territory of Ukraine. With this in mind, we hope that the peace conference in Switzerland will contribute to the restoration of Ukraine's sovereignty.

The conditions for this are extremely difficult. The representatives of the Putin regime regularly declare that they do not recognise an independent Ukraine and deny the existence of the Ukrainian people. The Putin regime purses a Great Russian project, subjugates the people in the occupied territories with terror and aims to eradicate the Ukrainian culture. The ruling regime in Russia regularly commits war crimes against the Ukraine population. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched on 24 February 2022, not only calls Ukraine's independence into question. It also encourages other authoritarian regimes to threaten neighbouring populations, occupy territories and massively expel people. In order to avoid resistance at home, the Russian army is now also recruiting people from neighbouring countries and the Global South to serve as cannon fodder.

Due to the massive – and surprising – resistance of the Ukrainian population, the governments of Europe and North America began to support the Ukrainian army in its defence against the Russian occupying forces. However, they are backing Ukraine to assert their own interests in the global imperialist rivalry. The US aim to weaken its Russian counterpart while showing strength against rising China and setting the pace for the European powers which are both partners and rivals. But despite the US Congress finally approving a comprehensive aid package for Ukraine on 20 April 2024, which had been blocked by the Republican Party for nine months, the support for Ukraine has always remained selective and insufficient.

Similarly, the economic sanctions that have been imposed by the EU and US governments against Russia and the exponents of the Putin regime are selective, inadequately targeted, and insufficient. They do not prevent Russia from continuing to export oil and gas, along with other strategically important raw materials, to fill its war chest. Some European countries have even significantly increased their imports of LNG from Russia since the start of the war. Others, such as Austria, obtain over 90% of their natural gas imports from Russia. The governments of these countries are forcing gas consumers to finance Putin’s war against the Ukrainian population.

The Swiss government, the host of the peace conference, has not only been giving tax breaks to Russian oligarchs for decades, it has also refused to confiscate the assets of these oligarchs since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. As a major hub of international commodities trading, Switzerland has offered Russian capital excellent opportunities to acquire wealth for many years. Many bourgeois politicians have gladly welcomed these businesses in Switzerland. Through the sale of dual-use products, Switzerland contributes to equipping the Russian war machine. And finally, the Swiss financial sector facilitates the trade of Russian oil.

Both in the US and in Europe, there is a growing number of voices in the political and economic establishment who want to tie their support for Ukraine to certain conditions. They aim to pressure Ukraine to cede large territories and several million people to the Putin regime. Such a peace, enforced by major imperial powers, would strengthen the Putin regime and fail to provide a basis for a lasting democratic reconstruction of Ukraine.

We need a peace that is based on, as well as supported by, the interests of the people and of workers in Ukraine and Russia. Such a perspective can only succeed if trade unions, women’s organisations, environmental initiatives and various civil society organisations from both Ukraine and Russia play a leading role in the peace talks.

Occupation is a crime! We are guided by the principles of self-liberation, emancipation, and self-determination of working-class and all oppressed peoples beyond geopolitical considerations. In this sense, we also stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have been fighting for their self-determination for decades. Likewise, we support the Kurdish and Armenian peoples and all other peoples threatened by occupation, national and cultural oppression.

Based on our positioning, supporting the Ukrainian resistance against the Russian occupation, we want to contribute to developing a common European perspective for radical socioecological reforms and ultimately for an ecosocialist transformation of the entire European continent in global solidarity.

By submitting this declaration for discussion, we want to contribute to a transnational process of understanding and political clarification among those left-wing forces throughout Europe and beyond that share these important convictions.

 

12 Principles for a Just Peace in Ukraine in a Europe based on Solidarity and Ecology

We, the undersigned organisations and initiatives, want to promote a peace process that adheres to the following 12 principles.

1. Achieving a socially just and ecologically sustainable peace requires the unconditional and complete withdrawal of Russian occupying forces from Ukraine, returning the entire territory to its internationally recognized borders.

2. Russia is systematically destroying cities, infrastructure, and the environment to demoralise the population and trigger a large wave of refugees. Against this daily terror, we demand that the “Western” governments support Ukraine in protecting its population and infrastructure against the bombing and missile attacks of the Russian occupying power. We are in favour of massive humanitarian, economic and military support for Ukraine from the rich states in Europe. The Ukrainian population urgently needs protection from Russian bombs and rockets.

3. We oppose attempts by “Western” governments, NATO and EU exponents to pressure Ukraine into making massive concessions to the Russian occupying power. We oppose the idea that Ukraine must cede several million people to the Putin regime. It is only up to the Ukrainian people to decide how to confront this atrocious situation of ongoing and possibly increasing occupation. We support the armed and unarmed resistance of Ukrainians against the Russian occupying power.

4. We demand that all Russians who refuse military service be granted secure residence status in the countries of Europe and North America. Mass desertion is important to weaken the Russian war machine.

5. We support the political struggle of Ukrainian trade unions, women’s organisations, and environmental initiatives against the neoliberal anti-labour policies of the government under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. These policies undermine Ukraine’s socially broad-based defence against Russian occupation and render a socially just and ecologically sustainable reconstruction impossible.

6. We stand in solidarity with the anti-war movement, democratic opposition, and independent labour struggles in Russia. We also stand in solidarity with the oppressed nationalities in Russia who suffer particularly badly from the war and fight for their self-determination. It is their youth that is being exploited as cannon fodder by the Putin regime. These movements are a key factor for achieving a just peace and a democratic Russia.

7. Russia has imprisoned numerous people from Ukraine as political prisoners. Many have been sentenced to decades in prison and penal camps. We demand their unconditional release. We demand that the International Red Cross be allowed to maintain regular contact with all prisoners of war. The exchange and release of prisoners of war is a prerequisite for any just peace.

8. Russia must pay reparations to the Ukrainian people. The oligarchs of Russia and Ukraine must be expropriated. Their assets must be made available to the reconstruction of Ukraine and, once the Putin regime falls to the democratic development of Russia.

9. We demand that the “Western” governments immediately cancel Ukraine's debts. This is a crucial condition for the sovereign reconstruction of the country. The rich states of Europe and North America must set up comprehensive and broad-based support programmes for the Ukrainian people and the reconstruction of the country. This reconstruction must take place under the democratic control of the population, trade unions, environmental initiatives, feminist organisations and organized neighbourhoods in the cities and villages.

10. We oppose all projects of the European and Northern American governments, as well as international organisations, to impose a neoliberal economic agenda on the Ukrainian people. This would prolong and deepen poverty and suffering. We also denounce all efforts to sell off the property and assets of the Ukrainian population to foreign corporations. The recovery and reorganisation of agriculture, industry, energy systems and the entire social infrastructure must serve the socio-ecological transformation of Ukraine, not the supply of cheap labour, grain and hydrogen to Western European countries.

11. An effective military support of Ukraine does not require a new wave of armaments. We oppose NATO’s rearmament programmes and weapon exports to third countries. Instead, the countries of Europe and North America must provide the weapons from their existing, huge arsenals that will help Ukraine to defend itself effectively. In this sense, we demand that the arms industry should not serve the profit interests of capital – to the contrary, we want to work towards the social appropriation of the arms industry. This industry should serve the immediate interests of Ukraine. At the same time, for social and urgent ecological reasons, we underline the imperative of democratically converting the arms industry into socially useful production on a global scale.

12. We want to initiate a debate on a radical reorganisation of Europe. We want to contribute to developing a common European perspective for radical socio-ecological reforms, and ultimately for a fundamental ecosocialist transformation of the entire European continent in global solidarity. Within this framework, we support the will of the Ukrainian people to join the EU, even though we reject the EU’s neoliberal foundations that impoverish millions of people and promote unequal development in Europe. We take the perspective of an accession of several countries in Eastern Europe and South-East Europe as an opportunity to reflect together on how such a radical socio-ecological change can be initiated throughout Europe, including a common energy strategy, ecological industrial conversion, pay-as-you-go unfunded pension systems, social labour regulation, solidarity-based migration policy, interregional transfer payments, and military security along with the conversion of the armaments industry. Trade union, feminist, ecological, anti-authoritarian left and socialist forces in Eastern Europe should play an important role in this debate.

This declaration has been launched jointly by Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement) in Ukraine, Posle Media Collective in Russia, Bewegung für den Sozialismus / Movement for socialism and solidarity in Switzerland. 

We invite all interested organisations, groups, initiatives, media collectives and individuals to circulate and sign this declaration by 30 June. Please send confirmation of your signing to: Joao_Woyzeck@proton.me and redaktion@emanzipation.org  Individuals, please, sign here: https://forms.gle/EAPYSoJCHpWq4bHR6

 For an initial list of organizations and individuals who have signed the declaration, see https://emanzipation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024_06_15_Ukraine_Peoples_Peace_Endorsements_Organisations_Individuals.pdf.

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[1] Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 2 March 2022, ES-11/1. Aggression against Ukraine; and Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 23 February 2023, ES-11/6. Principles of the Charter of the United Nations underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

[2] Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 2 March 2022, ES-11/1. Aggression against Ukraine; and Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 23 February 2023, ES-11/6. Principles of the Charter of the United Nations underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

Ukraine ‘peace summit’ falters amidst growing international disunity

Russian and Ukrainian socialists issue joint appeal for solidarity, social and ecological reconstruction of Ukraine

 A peace conference initiated by Ukraine and hosted by Switzerland met June 15-16 with the participation of 57 heads of state and government, including Canada. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hoped the meeting would rally support for his 10-point peace plan released in October 2022, six months after the outset of Russia’s full-scale armed invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent occupation and annexation of about 20 percent of the country. However, the joint communiqué issued at its conclusion expressed “a common vision” on only three aspects: nuclear safety, global food security, and complete exchange of all prisoners of war and return to Ukraine of all Ukrainian civilians, including children, unlawfully detained or displaced by Russia.

The adopted text reiterated support for UN resolutions[1] affirming “the principles of sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, within their internationally recognized borders, including territorial waters, and the resolution of disputes through peaceful means as principles of international law.” However, it failed to commit the participating governments to any substantial program of economic reconstruction assistance to Ukraine, let alone cancellation of its enormous international public debt. Moreover, several countries from the expanded BRICS alliance – led by Brazil, India, and South Africa – abstained. China refused to attend the conference and Russia, of course, was not invited.

Russian president Vladimir Putin sought to refocus international attention on Russia’s absence from the summit through a statement June 14 reaffirming Russia’s supposed “willingness to negotiate” -- on terms tantamount to Ukraine’s capitulation. And Zelensky alleged that China had sought to persuade some countries not to attend. Such is “multipolarity” in today’s global context.

Socialists in Ukraine, Russia and Switzerland sought to supplement the ambitions of the official peace conference from an alternative internationalist perspective based on solidarity and oriented toward a radical social and ecological transformation in Europe as a whole. They drafted a joint declaration in support of Ukrainian self-determination and in favour of the democratic overthrow of the Putin regime. The declaration, with its 12 principles for a just peace in Ukraine, is reproduced below. As its authors indicated, its purpose is to “stimulate comprehensive discussions on national self-determination, inter-imperialist rivalry, geopolitical bloc thinking, rearmament, anti-imperialist and ecosocialist strategies and in general emancipatory working-class mobilizations, particularly with progressive social movements such as the feminist movement, the environmental movement, migration solidarity and trade unions.”

They started this discussion with an online conference on June 15, at which speakers from the launching organizations presented the major content and goal of the declaration and suggested ideas for further political discussion and collaboration. A dominant theme of this discussion, which I attended, was the need for the international Left to develop a comprehensive alternative ecosocialist strategy to capitalist multipolarity and imperialist rivalry. More than one participant noted the importance of the agreement just reached by France’s left parties, hastily assembled as a “New Popular Front,” to contest the snap legislative elections called by Macron around a program that included as a “common denominator” the pledge to “defend steadfastly Ukrainian sovereignty through the delivery of needed weapons.”

-- Richard Fidler

 * * *

 Ukraine: A People's Peace, not an Imperial Peace

 Joint declaration by ecosocialist, anarchist, feminist, environmental organisations, and groups in solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance and for a self-determined social and ecological reconstruction of Ukraine

The Swiss government will hold an international conference for a peace process in Ukraine on 15 and 16 June 2024 on the mountain Bürgenstock, close to Lucerne. The Ukrainian government supports this conference.

 his conference is taking place in a decisive phase of the war. For months, the Russian invasion forces have been hitting gaps in the Ukrainian defences and pushing them back, with heavy losses of their own. The Russian leadership has announced a major offensive and is attacking the people in Kharkiv, a city of millions.

We support all steps towards a peace that enables the Ukrainian people to rebuild the country in a self-determined manner. Peace requires the complete withdrawal of the Russian occupying forces from the entire territory of Ukraine. With this in mind, we hope that the peace conference in Switzerland will contribute to the restoration of Ukraine's sovereignty.

The conditions for this are extremely difficult. The representatives of the Putin regime regularly declare that they do not recognise an independent Ukraine and deny the existence of the Ukrainian people. The Putin regime purses a Great Russian project, subjugates the people in the occupied territories with terror and aims to eradicate the Ukrainian culture. The ruling regime in Russia regularly commits war crimes against the Ukraine population. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched on 24 February 2022, not only calls Ukraine's independence into question. It also encourages other authoritarian regimes to threaten neighbouring populations, occupy territories and massively expel people. In order to avoid resistance at home, the Russian army is now also recruiting people from neighbouring countries and the Global South to serve as cannon fodder.

Due to the massive – and surprising – resistance of the Ukrainian population, the governments of Europe and North America began to support the Ukrainian army in its defence against the Russian occupying forces. However, they are backing Ukraine to assert their own interests in the global imperialist rivalry. The US aim to weaken its Russian counterpart while showing strength against rising China and setting the pace for the European powers which are both partners and rivals. But despite the US Congress finally approving a comprehensive aid package for Ukraine on 20 April 2024, which had been blocked by the Republican Party for nine months, the support for Ukraine has always remained selective and insufficient.

Similarly, the economic sanctions that have been imposed by the EU and US governments against Russia and the exponents of the Putin regime are selective, inadequately targeted, and insufficient. They do not prevent Russia from continuing to export oil and gas, along with other strategically important raw materials, to fill its war chest. Some European countries have even significantly increased their imports of LNG from Russia since the start of the war. Others, such as Austria, obtain over 90% of their natural gas imports from Russia. The governments of these countries are forcing gas consumers to finance Putin’s war against the Ukrainian population.

The Swiss government, the host of the peace conference, has not only been giving tax breaks to Russian oligarchs for decades, it has also refused to confiscate the assets of these oligarchs since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. As a major hub of international commodities trading, Switzerland has offered Russian capital excellent opportunities to acquire wealth for many years. Many bourgeois politicians have gladly welcomed these businesses in Switzerland. Through the sale of dual-use products, Switzerland contributes to equipping the Russian war machine. And finally, the Swiss financial sector facilitates the trade of Russian oil.

Both in the US and in Europe, there is a growing number of voices in the political and economic establishment who want to tie their support for Ukraine to certain conditions. They aim to pressure Ukraine to cede large territories and several million people to the Putin regime. Such a peace, enforced by major imperial powers, would strengthen the Putin regime and fail to provide a basis for a lasting democratic reconstruction of Ukraine.

We need a peace that is based on, as well as supported by, the interests of the people and of workers in Ukraine and Russia. Such a perspective can only succeed if trade unions, women’s organisations, environmental initiatives and various civil society organisations from both Ukraine and Russia play a leading role in the peace talks.

Occupation is a crime! We are guided by the principles of self-liberation, emancipation, and self-determination of working-class and all oppressed peoples beyond geopolitical considerations. In this sense, we also stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have been fighting for their self-determination for decades. Likewise, we support the Kurdish and Armenian peoples and all other peoples threatened by occupation, national and cultural oppression.

Based on our positioning, supporting the Ukrainian resistance against the Russian occupation, we want to contribute to developing a common European perspective for radical socioecological reforms and ultimately for an ecosocialist transformation of the entire European continent in global solidarity.

By submitting this declaration for discussion, we want to contribute to a transnational process of understanding and political clarification among those left-wing forces throughout Europe and beyond that share these important convictions.

 

12 Principles for a Just Peace in Ukraine in a Europe based on Solidarity and Ecology

We, the undersigned organisations and initiatives, want to promote a peace process that adheres to the following 12 principles.

1. Achieving a socially just and ecologically sustainable peace requires the unconditional and complete withdrawal of Russian occupying forces from Ukraine, returning the entire territory to its internationally recognized borders.

2. Russia is systematically destroying cities, infrastructure, and the environment to demoralise the population and trigger a large wave of refugees. Against this daily terror, we demand that the “Western” governments support Ukraine in protecting its population and infrastructure against the bombing and missile attacks of the Russian occupying power. We are in favour of massive humanitarian, economic and military support for Ukraine from the rich states in Europe. The Ukrainian population urgently needs protection from Russian bombs and rockets.

3. We oppose attempts by “Western” governments, NATO and EU exponents to pressure Ukraine into making massive concessions to the Russian occupying power. We oppose the idea that Ukraine must cede several million people to the Putin regime. It is only up to the Ukrainian people to decide how to confront this atrocious situation of ongoing and possibly increasing occupation. We support the armed and unarmed resistance of Ukrainians against the Russian occupying power.

4. We demand that all Russians who refuse military service be granted secure residence status in the countries of Europe and North America. Mass desertion is important to weaken the Russian war machine.

5. We support the political struggle of Ukrainian trade unions, women’s organisations, and environmental initiatives against the neoliberal anti-labour policies of the government under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. These policies undermine Ukraine’s socially broad-based defence against Russian occupation and render a socially just and ecologically sustainable reconstruction impossible.

6. We stand in solidarity with the anti-war movement, democratic opposition, and independent labour struggles in Russia. We also stand in solidarity with the oppressed nationalities in Russia who suffer particularly badly from the war and fight for their self-determination. It is their youth that is being exploited as cannon fodder by the Putin regime. These movements are a key factor for achieving a just peace and a democratic Russia.

7. Russia has imprisoned numerous people from Ukraine as political prisoners. Many have been sentenced to decades in prison and penal camps. We demand their unconditional release. We demand that the International Red Cross be allowed to maintain regular contact with all prisoners of war. The exchange and release of prisoners of war is a prerequisite for any just peace.

8. Russia must pay reparations to the Ukrainian people. The oligarchs of Russia and Ukraine must be expropriated. Their assets must be made available to the reconstruction of Ukraine and, once the Putin regime falls to the democratic development of Russia.

9. We demand that the “Western” governments immediately cancel Ukraine's debts. This is a crucial condition for the sovereign reconstruction of the country. The rich states of Europe and North America must set up comprehensive and broad-based support programmes for the Ukrainian people and the reconstruction of the country. This reconstruction must take place under the democratic control of the population, trade unions, environmental initiatives, feminist organisations and organized neighbourhoods in the cities and villages.

10. We oppose all projects of the European and Northern American governments, as well as international organisations, to impose a neoliberal economic agenda on the Ukrainian people. This would prolong and deepen poverty and suffering. We also denounce all efforts to sell off the property and assets of the Ukrainian population to foreign corporations. The recovery and reorganisation of agriculture, industry, energy systems and the entire social infrastructure must serve the socio-ecological transformation of Ukraine, not the supply of cheap labour, grain and hydrogen to Western European countries.

11. An effective military support of Ukraine does not require a new wave of armaments. We oppose NATO’s rearmament programmes and weapon exports to third countries. Instead, the countries of Europe and North America must provide the weapons from their existing, huge arsenals that will help Ukraine to defend itself effectively. In this sense, we demand that the arms industry should not serve the profit interests of capital – to the contrary, we want to work towards the social appropriation of the arms industry. This industry should serve the immediate interests of Ukraine. At the same time, for social and urgent ecological reasons, we underline the imperative of democratically converting the arms industry into socially useful production on a global scale.

12. We want to initiate a debate on a radical reorganisation of Europe. We want to contribute to developing a common European perspective for radical socio-ecological reforms, and ultimately for a fundamental ecosocialist transformation of the entire European continent in global solidarity. Within this framework, we support the will of the Ukrainian people to join the EU, even though we reject the EU’s neoliberal foundations that impoverish millions of people and promote unequal development in Europe. We take the perspective of an accession of several countries in Eastern Europe and South-East Europe as an opportunity to reflect together on how such a radical socio-ecological change can be initiated throughout Europe, including a common energy strategy, ecological industrial conversion, pay-as-you-go unfunded pension systems, social labour regulation, solidarity-based migration policy, interregional transfer payments, and military security along with the conversion of the armaments industry. Trade union, feminist, ecological, anti-authoritarian left and socialist forces in Eastern Europe should play an important role in this debate.

This declaration has been launched jointly by Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement) in Ukraine, Posle Media Collective in Russia, Bewegung für den Sozialismus / Movement for socialism and solidarity in Switzerland. 

We invite all interested organisations, groups, initiatives, media collectives and individuals to circulate and sign this declaration by 30 June. Please send confirmation of your signing to: Joao_Woyzeck@proton.me and redaktion@emanzipation.org  Individuals, please, sign here: https://forms.gle/EAPYSoJCHpWq4bHR6

 For an initial list of organizations and individuals who have signed the declaration, see https://emanzipation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024_06_15_Ukraine_Peoples_Peace_Endorsements_Organisations_Individuals.pdf.

---

[1] Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 2 March 2022, ES-11/1. Aggression against Ukraine; and Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 23 February 2023, ES-11/6. Principles of the Charter of the United Nations underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

[2] Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 2 March 2022, ES-11/1. Aggression against Ukraine; and Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 23 February 2023, ES-11/6. Principles of the Charter of the United Nations underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s fight for freedom: a socialist case for solidarity and self-determination

Historian and activist Paul Le Blanc offers an essential socialist perspective on the Russia-Ukraine war, arguing for solidarity with Ukraine's fight for self-determination while opposing the imperialist agendas of both Russia and Western powers. Drawing on history and revolutionary principles, Le Blanc makes the case that the democratic and socialist left must stand with Ukraine's resistance by any means necessary. The text is based on a talk that Le Blanc delivered on April 15, 2024. First published at Anti*Capitalist Resistance.

* * *

It is necessary for those who support socialism and democracy to support Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion of their country.  Here I want to offer some historical and political background as to why I think this is so. 

There have been many economic, political, and cultural similarities between Russia and Ukraine – in part because Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire since the reign of Catherine the Great in the late 1700s.  The Russian Empire was long known by revolutionaries as “a prison-house of nations” precisely because it was made up of the gradual conquest and forced absorption of multiple nations and peoples into an expanding territory dominated by the powerful, violent authoritarian monarchy of the Tsars.

The economy was initially a form of feudalism, in which a mass of peasants were brutally exploited by a wealthy minority of hereditary land-owning nobles, supported by the Tsarist regime.  In the course of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, the Tsars also sought to advance a process of capitalist industrialization throughout the Empire, to make Russia more competitive – economically and militarily – in the global power struggles of the time.

This had the unintended consequence, however, of helping to generate socialist and labor movements that were increasingly drawn to the banner of Marxism, and which culminated in the Communist revolution of 1917 led by Lenin and his comrades which – after a three-year civil war – replaced both feudalism and capitalism with what many hoped would blossom into a socialist economy.  Instead, as the regime of Lenin gave way to that of Joseph Stalin, a bureaucratic-authoritarian order dominated most of what had been the Russian Empire, including what is now Russia and now Ukraine.  A state-controlled “Command Economy” drove forward, through brutal means, the modernization of the economy of what became known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the USSR). 

Despite the economic gains of this new system, it was beset by deep-rooted contradictions and instabilities.  These were related to the oppressiveness of the bureaucratic system, with its systematic violations of human rights and popular aspirations; it was also related to ongoing hostility and economic rivalry from highly advanced capitalist sections of the world.  Such problems and pressures eventually led to the collapse of the economic and political system of the USSR.  One aspect of this collapse was a resurgent nationalism which caused the break-away of oppressed territories out of the old “prison-house of nations,” leading for example to the independence of Ukraine in 1991. The collapse also involved elements in the upper strata of the bureaucratic dictatorship embracing a transition back to capitalism, while taking what had been publicly owned resources and wealth into their own hands.  The rise of these capitalist “Oligarchs” occurred throughout the disintegrating USSR – in Ukraine and Russia alike.  The economy of both has been privatized, giving rise to domination by these self-interested economic oligarchs. This is combined with breath-taking corruption and soaring inequality, at the expense of the great majority of Russians and Ukrainians.  Such capitalism, in the period of the Russia-Ukraine war, is the dominant mode of production on both sides.

Some elements in the nationalist resurgence in the former USSR had connection with old versions of extreme right-wing, authoritarian, racist (often antisemitic) nationalism prevalent throughout Eastern Europe – very much including in Ukraine and Tsarist Russia.  While this was antithetical to Marxist and Communist ideology, since the collapse of Communism it has sometimes taken the form of neo-fascist and neo-Nazi ideologies and organizations, particularly on the war front, and on both sides.  Serious analysts, however, note that this is marginal – as would make sense, given the horrific experience of the murderous Nazi onslaught during World War II.

On the other hand, there are significant differences between the Putin and Zelensky regimes — as well as one significant similarity: that neither is worthy of socialist support.

We can look first at Russia.  When Boris Yeltsin displaced the reforming Communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev, leading to the destruction of the USSR, he introduced transition policies marked by corruption, chaos, and the downward spiral of the economy and of Russian living standards.  This was accompanied by the ballooning power of the Oligarchs. 

Out of this catastrophic situation, Vladimir Putin came to power, imposing a so-called “managed democracy” and a regulated capitalism.  The Oligarchs were cut down to size, forced to follow new rules set by Putin’s state. 

Putin and those close to him were able to secure their hold of colossal wealth, but in order to justify the increased centralization of political power and to provide an ideological rationale for an increasingly unified Russian state, they voiced the conservative ideals from the old Tsarist order: Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality. By “Orthodoxy” such ideologists referred to the dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church.  By “Autocracy” they referred to a despotic regime that does not tolerate challenges to its authority and makes use of brutally violent Cossacks and other repressive forces to intimidate critics and crush all serious dissent. By “Nationality” they referred to the aggressive domination of a vast empire in which all ethnic groups were to abandon their distinctive cultures and languages, adopting instead those of a unified Great Russia.  Putin has explained his outlook in terms such as these.

One source of Putin’s power he owed to his largely (but not entirely) inept predecessor Boris Yeltsin.  Yeltsin found himself challenged, in his inegalitarian and corrupt policies of capitalist transition, by a semi-democratic parliament established in the wake of Communism’s collapse. With support from the army, he rode roughshod over Russia’s parliament, finally physically assaulting it and ordering its dissolution. He pushed through a new constitution that created an authoritarian executive branch of government to enable him to rule by decree.  This paved the way for Putin’s later mode of operation, prevalent today.

This kind of political centralization and authoritarianism did not crystallize in Ukraine, although as Yuliya Yurchenko tells us an “authoritarian neoliberal kleptocracy” – not brought to heal by a figure like Putin – has continued to shape policies in Ukraine, at the expense of a majority of the country’s laboring people.  Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was elected on an anti-corruption platform, yet the assessment of the Zelensky government offered by Social Movement activist Vladyslav Starodubtsev is shared by many Ukrainian socialists:

Even before the war, this has been one of the most popular governments Ukraine has had — which is not saying anything good about it, it was just not as awful as the previous ones. Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People, has become the most progressive party in parliament on social issues such as LGBTQ rights, opposing violence against women, and so on. But most of these policies have been promoted with European integration in mind, and not because the party is itself progressive.

On the economic front, Zelensky’s party has a market fundamentalist orientation, adopting neoliberal legislation to deregulate labor relations, which has weakened the power of collective labor contracts and trade unions. Due to its market fundamentalist outlook, it views trade unions and any form of economic democracy as harmful to economic development.

We also must consider the global framework of the conflict, which involves the centrality of imperialism to world politics.  Those who believe in socialism and democracy — rule by the people over our economic and political life — must oppose it.  By imperialism, I am referring to military and/or political and/or economic expansion beyond the borders of one’s own country for the purpose of ensuring the well-being of one’s economy, including the need to secure markets, raw materials and investment opportunities.  US imperialism is a reality in our world. This has been so at least since the 1890s, although it could be argued that this has been the case since the 1790s.  But neither Lenin nor Rosa Luxemburg saw imperialism as representing a single evil country, but rather all countries in our epoch — oppressed by competing and contending elites of the so-called “Great Powers” — and reflecting the capitalist dynamics of the global economy. Both Lenin and Luxemburg saw imperialism as very much including both the US and Russia. That remains the case today.

Focusing for a moment on US imperialism, one must understand that a key imperialist instrument is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  It is a military alliance designed in 1949 to contain and push back the threat to capitalist interests represented by the Soviet Union and possible revolutionary insurgencies. Yet another instrument of capitalist expansion and stability has been the European Union (EU).  Both NATO and the EU figure into a shrewd analysis developed by political scientist John Mearsheimer, an influential critic of recent US foreign policy. He asserts that US policymakers “have moved forward to include Ukraine in the West to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border.”  He sees NATO expansion and EU expansion as seeking to make Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, at the expense of Russian power interests.

There are irreconcilable differences between Mearsheimer’s liberal-realist outlook and the revolutionary socialist approach of Lenin, which influences my own approach.   I want to conclude by describing what amounts to a debate between Mearsheimer and Lenin.  

Mearsheimer notes that the US power elite, when finding itself in a similar situation to that of Putin today, has overthrown “democratically elected leaders in the Western hemisphere during the Cold War because we were unhappy with their policies. This is the way great powers behave.”  He sees as reasonable, therefore, Putin’s desire “to install in Kyiv a pro-Russian government, a government that is attuned to Moscow’s interests.”  He believes that the US government and the Russian government can and should negotiate in way that respects each other’s “interests,” and work out a compromise consistent with those interests.

Lenin’s revolutionary Marxist approach is different from that of Mearsheimer.  He emphasizes the reality of class conflict, refusing to blur all classes together with the governments of their specific countries.  The foreign policies of the “great powers” are always in the interest of privileged and wealthy elites, and at the expense of the laboring majorities.  He absolutely rejects the right of “great powers” to insist on having their way. 

Mearsheimer tells us: “In an ideal world, it would be wonderful if the Ukrainians were free to choose their own political system and to choose their own foreign policy.  But,” he admonishes, “in the real world, that is not feasible. The Ukrainians have a vested interest in paying serious attention to what the Russians want from them. They run a grave risk if they alienate the Russians in a fundamental way.”

No, Lenin responds.  In an ideal world, the Ukrainians would have the right to self-determination – for a free and independent Ukraine, for political and economic democracy and a decent life for all.  True, in the “real world” such things are not feasible.  But instead of bowing to one’s oppressor, one should demand “the impossible” and fight to make what is “ideal” the new reality.  This will mean fighting against Putin’s invasion, just as it will mean fighting against Zelensky’s neoliberalism.  And one thing more – among “the Russians” there are people like us who hunger for political and economic democracy and a decent life for all.  And there are such people among the Western Europeans, among the peoples of the Americas and Asia and Africa.  The struggle must include all of us if we are to have a truly ideal world.

I want to add a couple of extra minutes to my presentation in order to take up an important question.  Where will Ukrainian freedom fighters get their arms?  They will get their arms wherever they can, however they can – otherwise their fight for freedom will inevitably go down to bloody defeat at the hands of their oppressors.

This life-or-death question has come up time and again down through history.  And freedom fighters sometimes acquire such arms from rivals of their oppressors, even from sources representing the opposite of what one is fighting for.

One of many examples can be found in the American Revolution of 1775-83. [1] Money, arms and direct military support from the French monarchy helped anti-colonial revolutionaries of North America to break free from the British monarchy. Some argue that imperialist powers provide such assistance to manipulate the situation for their own advantage. Absolutely — that is what imperialists always do.  But revolutionaries and freedom fighters also seek to manipulate the situation for the advantage of their cause.

This leads to my final point.  It would have been a mistake for American revolutionaries, in exchange for French assistance, to violate revolutionary principles by integrating themselves into the French Empire — just as it would be a mistake for revolutionaries of today to integrate themselves into NATO. But it is not a mistake, in a life and death struggle, for freedom fighters to accept weapons from either the French monarchy of 1778 or from nations belonging to NATO today.  If the cause of revolutionaries and freedom fighters is just, they will be inclined to struggle for victory by any means necessary.

[1] Among examples worth exploring from the 20th century: the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-36, the Spanish Civil War of 1935-39, the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45, numerous anti-colonial struggles from the 1940s through the 1970s.

Paul Le Blanc is the author of works on the labour and socialist movements, including Lenin and the Revolutionary Party (1990), From Marx to Gramsci (1996), and Leon Trotsky (2015). He is an editor of the eight-volume International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Protest, and a co-editor of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg.

See also:

Ireland and Ukraine’s Struggle for Independence, 1916-1923, https://newpol.org/ireland-and-ukraines-struggle-for-independence-1916-23/.

Ukraine’s fight for freedom: a socialist case for solidarity and self-determination

Historian and activist Paul Le Blanc offers an essential socialist perspective on the Russia-Ukraine war, arguing for solidarity with Ukraine's fight for self-determination while opposing the imperialist agendas of both Russia and Western powers. Drawing on history and revolutionary principles, Le Blanc makes the case that the democratic and socialist left must stand with Ukraine's resistance by any means necessary. The text is based on a talk that Le Blanc delivered on April 15, 2024. First published at Anti*Capitalist Resistance.

* * *

It is necessary for those who support socialism and democracy to support Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion of their country.  Here I want to offer some historical and political background as to why I think this is so. 

There have been many economic, political, and cultural similarities between Russia and Ukraine – in part because Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire since the reign of Catherine the Great in the late 1700s.  The Russian Empire was long known by revolutionaries as “a prison-house of nations” precisely because it was made up of the gradual conquest and forced absorption of multiple nations and peoples into an expanding territory dominated by the powerful, violent authoritarian monarchy of the Tsars.

The economy was initially a form of feudalism, in which a mass of peasants were brutally exploited by a wealthy minority of hereditary land-owning nobles, supported by the Tsarist regime.  In the course of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, the Tsars also sought to advance a process of capitalist industrialization throughout the Empire, to make Russia more competitive – economically and militarily – in the global power struggles of the time.

This had the unintended consequence, however, of helping to generate socialist and labor movements that were increasingly drawn to the banner of Marxism, and which culminated in the Communist revolution of 1917 led by Lenin and his comrades which – after a three-year civil war – replaced both feudalism and capitalism with what many hoped would blossom into a socialist economy.  Instead, as the regime of Lenin gave way to that of Joseph Stalin, a bureaucratic-authoritarian order dominated most of what had been the Russian Empire, including what is now Russia and now Ukraine.  A state-controlled “Command Economy” drove forward, through brutal means, the modernization of the economy of what became known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the USSR). 

Despite the economic gains of this new system, it was beset by deep-rooted contradictions and instabilities.  These were related to the oppressiveness of the bureaucratic system, with its systematic violations of human rights and popular aspirations; it was also related to ongoing hostility and economic rivalry from highly advanced capitalist sections of the world.  Such problems and pressures eventually led to the collapse of the economic and political system of the USSR.  One aspect of this collapse was a resurgent nationalism which caused the break-away of oppressed territories out of the old “prison-house of nations,” leading for example to the independence of Ukraine in 1991. The collapse also involved elements in the upper strata of the bureaucratic dictatorship embracing a transition back to capitalism, while taking what had been publicly owned resources and wealth into their own hands.  The rise of these capitalist “Oligarchs” occurred throughout the disintegrating USSR – in Ukraine and Russia alike.  The economy of both has been privatized, giving rise to domination by these self-interested economic oligarchs. This is combined with breath-taking corruption and soaring inequality, at the expense of the great majority of Russians and Ukrainians.  Such capitalism, in the period of the Russia-Ukraine war, is the dominant mode of production on both sides.

Some elements in the nationalist resurgence in the former USSR had connection with old versions of extreme right-wing, authoritarian, racist (often antisemitic) nationalism prevalent throughout Eastern Europe – very much including in Ukraine and Tsarist Russia.  While this was antithetical to Marxist and Communist ideology, since the collapse of Communism it has sometimes taken the form of neo-fascist and neo-Nazi ideologies and organizations, particularly on the war front, and on both sides.  Serious analysts, however, note that this is marginal – as would make sense, given the horrific experience of the murderous Nazi onslaught during World War II.

On the other hand, there are significant differences between the Putin and Zelensky regimes — as well as one significant similarity: that neither is worthy of socialist support.

We can look first at Russia.  When Boris Yeltsin displaced the reforming Communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev, leading to the destruction of the USSR, he introduced transition policies marked by corruption, chaos, and the downward spiral of the economy and of Russian living standards.  This was accompanied by the ballooning power of the Oligarchs. 

Out of this catastrophic situation, Vladimir Putin came to power, imposing a so-called “managed democracy” and a regulated capitalism.  The Oligarchs were cut down to size, forced to follow new rules set by Putin’s state. 

Putin and those close to him were able to secure their hold of colossal wealth, but in order to justify the increased centralization of political power and to provide an ideological rationale for an increasingly unified Russian state, they voiced the conservative ideals from the old Tsarist order: Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality. By “Orthodoxy” such ideologists referred to the dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church.  By “Autocracy” they referred to a despotic regime that does not tolerate challenges to its authority and makes use of brutally violent Cossacks and other repressive forces to intimidate critics and crush all serious dissent. By “Nationality” they referred to the aggressive domination of a vast empire in which all ethnic groups were to abandon their distinctive cultures and languages, adopting instead those of a unified Great Russia.  Putin has explained his outlook in terms such as these.

One source of Putin’s power he owed to his largely (but not entirely) inept predecessor Boris Yeltsin.  Yeltsin found himself challenged, in his inegalitarian and corrupt policies of capitalist transition, by a semi-democratic parliament established in the wake of Communism’s collapse. With support from the army, he rode roughshod over Russia’s parliament, finally physically assaulting it and ordering its dissolution. He pushed through a new constitution that created an authoritarian executive branch of government to enable him to rule by decree.  This paved the way for Putin’s later mode of operation, prevalent today.

This kind of political centralization and authoritarianism did not crystallize in Ukraine, although as Yuliya Yurchenko tells us an “authoritarian neoliberal kleptocracy” – not brought to heal by a figure like Putin – has continued to shape policies in Ukraine, at the expense of a majority of the country’s laboring people.  Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was elected on an anti-corruption platform, yet the assessment of the Zelensky government offered by Social Movement activist Vladyslav Starodubtsev is shared by many Ukrainian socialists:

Even before the war, this has been one of the most popular governments Ukraine has had — which is not saying anything good about it, it was just not as awful as the previous ones. Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People, has become the most progressive party in parliament on social issues such as LGBTQ rights, opposing violence against women, and so on. But most of these policies have been promoted with European integration in mind, and not because the party is itself progressive.

On the economic front, Zelensky’s party has a market fundamentalist orientation, adopting neoliberal legislation to deregulate labor relations, which has weakened the power of collective labor contracts and trade unions. Due to its market fundamentalist outlook, it views trade unions and any form of economic democracy as harmful to economic development.

We also must consider the global framework of the conflict, which involves the centrality of imperialism to world politics.  Those who believe in socialism and democracy — rule by the people over our economic and political life — must oppose it.  By imperialism, I am referring to military and/or political and/or economic expansion beyond the borders of one’s own country for the purpose of ensuring the well-being of one’s economy, including the need to secure markets, raw materials and investment opportunities.  US imperialism is a reality in our world. This has been so at least since the 1890s, although it could be argued that this has been the case since the 1790s.  But neither Lenin nor Rosa Luxemburg saw imperialism as representing a single evil country, but rather all countries in our epoch — oppressed by competing and contending elites of the so-called “Great Powers” — and reflecting the capitalist dynamics of the global economy. Both Lenin and Luxemburg saw imperialism as very much including both the US and Russia. That remains the case today.

Focusing for a moment on US imperialism, one must understand that a key imperialist instrument is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  It is a military alliance designed in 1949 to contain and push back the threat to capitalist interests represented by the Soviet Union and possible revolutionary insurgencies. Yet another instrument of capitalist expansion and stability has been the European Union (EU).  Both NATO and the EU figure into a shrewd analysis developed by political scientist John Mearsheimer, an influential critic of recent US foreign policy. He asserts that US policymakers “have moved forward to include Ukraine in the West to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border.”  He sees NATO expansion and EU expansion as seeking to make Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, at the expense of Russian power interests.

There are irreconcilable differences between Mearsheimer’s liberal-realist outlook and the revolutionary socialist approach of Lenin, which influences my own approach.   I want to conclude by describing what amounts to a debate between Mearsheimer and Lenin.  

Mearsheimer notes that the US power elite, when finding itself in a similar situation to that of Putin today, has overthrown “democratically elected leaders in the Western hemisphere during the Cold War because we were unhappy with their policies. This is the way great powers behave.”  He sees as reasonable, therefore, Putin’s desire “to install in Kyiv a pro-Russian government, a government that is attuned to Moscow’s interests.”  He believes that the US government and the Russian government can and should negotiate in way that respects each other’s “interests,” and work out a compromise consistent with those interests.

Lenin’s revolutionary Marxist approach is different from that of Mearsheimer.  He emphasizes the reality of class conflict, refusing to blur all classes together with the governments of their specific countries.  The foreign policies of the “great powers” are always in the interest of privileged and wealthy elites, and at the expense of the laboring majorities.  He absolutely rejects the right of “great powers” to insist on having their way. 

Mearsheimer tells us: “In an ideal world, it would be wonderful if the Ukrainians were free to choose their own political system and to choose their own foreign policy.  But,” he admonishes, “in the real world, that is not feasible. The Ukrainians have a vested interest in paying serious attention to what the Russians want from them. They run a grave risk if they alienate the Russians in a fundamental way.”

No, Lenin responds.  In an ideal world, the Ukrainians would have the right to self-determination – for a free and independent Ukraine, for political and economic democracy and a decent life for all.  True, in the “real world” such things are not feasible.  But instead of bowing to one’s oppressor, one should demand “the impossible” and fight to make what is “ideal” the new reality.  This will mean fighting against Putin’s invasion, just as it will mean fighting against Zelensky’s neoliberalism.  And one thing more – among “the Russians” there are people like us who hunger for political and economic democracy and a decent life for all.  And there are such people among the Western Europeans, among the peoples of the Americas and Asia and Africa.  The struggle must include all of us if we are to have a truly ideal world.

I want to add a couple of extra minutes to my presentation in order to take up an important question.  Where will Ukrainian freedom fighters get their arms?  They will get their arms wherever they can, however they can – otherwise their fight for freedom will inevitably go down to bloody defeat at the hands of their oppressors.

This life-or-death question has come up time and again down through history.  And freedom fighters sometimes acquire such arms from rivals of their oppressors, even from sources representing the opposite of what one is fighting for.

One of many examples can be found in the American Revolution of 1775-83. [1] Money, arms and direct military support from the French monarchy helped anti-colonial revolutionaries of North America to break free from the British monarchy. Some argue that imperialist powers provide such assistance to manipulate the situation for their own advantage. Absolutely — that is what imperialists always do.  But revolutionaries and freedom fighters also seek to manipulate the situation for the advantage of their cause.

This leads to my final point.  It would have been a mistake for American revolutionaries, in exchange for French assistance, to violate revolutionary principles by integrating themselves into the French Empire — just as it would be a mistake for revolutionaries of today to integrate themselves into NATO. But it is not a mistake, in a life and death struggle, for freedom fighters to accept weapons from either the French monarchy of 1778 or from nations belonging to NATO today.  If the cause of revolutionaries and freedom fighters is just, they will be inclined to struggle for victory by any means necessary.

[1] Among examples worth exploring from the 20th century: the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-36, the Spanish Civil War of 1935-39, the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45, numerous anti-colonial struggles from the 1940s through the 1970s.

Paul Le Blanc is the author of works on the labour and socialist movements, including Lenin and the Revolutionary Party (1990), From Marx to Gramsci (1996), and Leon Trotsky (2015). He is an editor of the eight-volume International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Protest, and a co-editor of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg.

See also:

Ireland and Ukraine’s Struggle for Independence, 1916-1923, https://newpol.org/ireland-and-ukraines-struggle-for-independence-1916-23/.