Canadian Left Responses to War in Ukraine – a Provisional Balance Sheet

By Richard Fidler

February 24, 2022 marked the opening of a new phase in the developing reconfiguration of global capitalist and popular forces. Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine, the prompt mobilization of resistance by Ukrainians, and the quick shift toward public support for NATO in much of Europe, confronted the international Left and progressive forces with some major challenges. The Left in Canada was no exception.

“This conflict will change everything,” wrote Quebec socialist Pierre Beaudet in a memo to the solidarity organization Alternatives that he directed, just days before Beaudet’s sudden death March 8. “As in any important debate, there are theories, strategic issues, choices to make in our practice.”

Beaudet pointed to some key features of the new situation:

1. Russia’s determination to prevail, its denial of “the very reality of Ukraine as the sovereign state and territory of a people with the right of self-determination,” risked a long war in which “resistance to the aggression is the only outcome on offer.”

2. Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin’s approach “borrowed from the tradition of the USSR under Stalin in imposing a centralizing and repressive state along with attempts to carve out a place in the global arena.”

3. The post-Soviet expansion of NATO, and Washington’s failures in its intervention in the Middle East and Central Asia, prompting Putin’s belief that this was now the time to strike a major blow in Ukraine, where Russia had already annexed Crimea in 2014 and supported pro-Russian separatists in the east.

“Now that Russia has attacked, there is no turning back. Either Putin wins his bet by the subjugation of Ukraine, which would allow him to ‘entrust’ to a new government the job of ‘re-establishing order.’ Or the situation will drag on into an endless conflict – unless Russia decides to wage war in the cities even if it means destroying them, with their people, as was done in Syria.”

The result will be “an immense realignment of priorities and strategies.

“NATO, its relevance diminished in recent years, will return in force. The member states will be required to increase substantially their military spending and become directly involved in the strategy of counter-attacking and weakening Russia….”

4. The Canadian government will follow the U.S. line, as always. Military spending will surge, financed by severe cutbacks in other expenditures. Fossil fuel export projects – perhaps “the LNG project designed to bring Alberta’s gas through Quebec” – will be relaunched as part of the “war effort.”

5. “We act in solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance that aims to re-establish an inclusive and peaceful sovereignty without abuses of national minorities. Our solidarity can be exercised in the area of humanitarian assistance” which “must not be reduced to meet Ukraine’s needs.”

6. Russia’s invasion was a “blatant violation of the UN Charter and international law. The United States and their NATO allies, including Canada, have plunged us as well increasingly into this war by a flurry of sanctions and outrageous statements.” A peace process must include the United Nations, and not be left to the major protagonists like the European Union and NATO.

The analysis was prescient. With hindsight, we can think of some elements that can now be added. However, Beaudet’s argument had the virtue of centering our response on the need to support Ukraine’s defense of its territorial sovereignty and self-determination.

In the 18 months since Beaudet’s memo, his organization Alternatives has worked to promote solidarity with the Ukraine resistance while opposing Russian aggression and NATO expansion. It has also joined the international campaign for the release of Boris Kagarlitsky and other Russian antiwar prisoners. Its approach contrasts with that of the pacifist organization Échec à la guerre, which claims to oppose all imperialisms – especially U.S. “military domination” -- but has not rallied to defend Ukraine.

In what follows, I will outline and critically comment on some of the other responses to the war by the Canadian and Quebec left.

The parliamentary Left

When it comes to membership in NATO and its alliance with U.S. imperialism -- the bedrock of Canada’s foreign policy -- the labour-based New Democratic Party tends to march in lockstep with whatever government holds office in Ottawa. The Ukraine war is no exception. While supporting provision of weapons needed by Ukraine – as it should – the NDP has also agreed with moves to reinforce Canada’s military spending and NATO involvement as well as sanctions designed to harm the economic needs of the Russian people.

In a statement issued on the one-year anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion, the NDP reaffirmed its support of “the Ukrainians who are defending their country and … those who have been forced to flee.” But it called for strengthening the sanctions regime, and failed to raise the need to cancel Ukraine’s public debt as it seeks to rebuild.

The other party of Canada’s parliamentary Left, the pro-Quebec sovereignty party Québec solidaire, defends Ukraine of course. However, it has limited its support to a motion in Quebec’s National Assembly, on the eve of Russia’s aggression,[1] and a resolution adopted by its National Council on May 28, 2022. The resolution condemned Russia, reaffirmed Ukraine’s right to self-determination while calling for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the aggression, and urged rapid reception of Ukrainian refugees.

The QS council resolution emphasized that “this conflict must not be used as a justification to allow the exploitation of Quebec’s oil and gas resources, or to increase exports of fossil fuels from Canada on the pretext of replacing Russian oil and gas.”

Finally, it called on its members, and citizens, to “support peace demonstrations opposing the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army….”

However, QS has not itself initiated any such demonstrations although its program[2] declares that the party “will participate in building international mobilizations against military interventions (of imperialist powers) aimed at ensuring control over peoples and their wealth and attacking their sovereignty.” The party also calls for Canada’s immediate withdrawal from NATO and NORAD.[3]

Extraparliamentary Left

Québec solidaire identifies itself as “a party of the streets as well as the ballot-boxes,” and it is the extraparliamentary wing of the party that has taken the lead in defense of Ukraine. The popular website Presse-toi à gauche (PTàG) includes among its editors and writers the most prominent left-wing activists within QS. Since the war began each weekly edition has included a selection of articles on the war, the vast majority sympathetic to Ukraine.

Another left website based in Quebec, Pivot, has likewise supported Ukraine, although not as diligently as PTàG. In April it published a powerful rejoinder to a few accounts in mainstream media and left-leaning publications in Quebec that attributed the war to provocation of Russia by NATO and/or Ukraine.

In the rest of Canada, unfortunately, the major left publications and organizations have tended to ignore the Ukraine resistance or dismiss it as a “proxy” for what they portray as a NATO war against Russia.[4] People’s Voice, the Communist party monthly newspaper, not surprisingly supports Russia. “NATO, the US, EU and Canada have left Russia with few options,” said the CP in a statement issued in October 2022 that echoed some of the Kremlin’s narratives.

A prolific blogger on the war is Yves Engler, who has a well-earned reputation as the most prominent critic of Canadian foreign policy from an anti-imperialist standpoint. The author of many books and articles, Engler is associated with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, an NGO that sponsors online seminars and petitions critical of Canadian corporate and government intervention abroad. Engler and the CFPI have campaigned against the provision of Canadian arms to Ukraine, and joined the international chorus advocating a “negotiated peace” in Ukraine that is not predicated on Russian withdrawal.[5]

Engler’s articles have been republished by some on-line “progressive” websites such as rabble.ca, which otherwise have little to say about the war.

A widely-read online website The Maple publishes well-researched critiques of Canadian foreign policy but has said little about the Russian war on Ukraine. Its managing editor Alex Cosh published an article in another left publication Briarpatch that repeated much of the Kremlin narrative justifying its aggression.[6] However, The Maple also organized an on-line debate between Ukrainian socialist Taras Bilous and Quebec blogger Dimitri Lascaris on the issue “Should Leftists Support Sending Weapons to Ukraine?”[7] Lascaris, who once ran for leader of the Canadian Green party, is notorious for his support of Russia as a force for peace. A readers’ poll conducted by The Maple following the debate found a substantial majority supporting Bilous in his defense of the Ukraine resistance.

A rare debate on the war: Canadian Dimension

Canadian Dimension, a Winnipeg-based monthly magazine (founded in 1963, on-line only since 2019), is undoubtedly the most prominent publication on the English-Canadian left. Its extensive coverage of the war[8] has been slanted heavily against Ukraine’s resistance, some of it authored by writers like Yves Engler and Dimitri Lascaris, as well as U.S. sources like CodePink. However, CD also published five articles this year by Russian antiwar critic Boris Kagarlitsky, and recently published a strong editorial statement protesting Kagarlitsky’s arrest and urging its readers to support the international solidarity campaign for his release.

When Canadian Dimension introduced an article by Kagarlitsky with the headline “Clear-eyed veteran Russian leftist dissident offers a courageous and politically indispensable take on the Russia-Ukraine war,” Toronto socialist Sam Gindin and Montreal-based professor David Mandel wrote an angry “reply to Kagarlitsky” deriding his analysis as “shallow” and “simple-minded.” Their article was largely a defense of Putin based on a selective discourse analysis purporting to show that “there is no hint here, or indeed anywhere in Putin’s speeches or writing, of a denial of the right of the Ukrainian state or people to exist” – deliberately overlooking the ample well-documented evidence to the contrary.[9] As for Gindin and Mandel, they argued that Ukraine could not possibly strive for sovereignty given its reliance on US support. It was just a “proxy” for US imperialism in its attempt to weaken Russia.

In a subsequent article, Mandel repeated many of the now-familiar (and false) Kremlin talking points in its narrative of defensive war. Canadian Dimension has now published a devastating rebuttal, refuting many of Mandel’s “myths” one by one.

The Gindin-Mandel piece was a clear illustration of how viewing the war as a defensive reaction by Russia to U.S. aggression tends to translate into support of Russia and justification of its action. Both authors had been developing this position on an internal discussion list of the Toronto-based Socialist Project over the past 18 months. In Gindin’s case, it seemed to reflect the disorienting impact of the war’s outbreak on a thesis he had long defended with the late Leo Panitch, articulated at length in their magnum opus The Making of Global Capitalism.[10] As I have summarized it:

“The book’s central thesis is that the United States has dominated the planet since World War II, integrating other powers (and countries) by way of subordination to its ‘informal empire.’ This portrayal is distinguished from the conditions of inter-imperialist rivalry that Lenin had characterized as a central element of prewar capitalism…. This new world superpower has integrated ‘all the other major capitalist powers into an effective system of coordination under its aegis’.”[11]

Clearly, this portrayal of a harmonized (if competitive) global capitalism was a long shot from the brutal imperial savagery of capitalist Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. Gindin seems unable to explain this contradiction, and has fallen back on a more classic, but still unipolar, image of a U.S. empire determined to discipline, even militarily defeat a recalcitrant subaltern in its global order.

(If, as some argue, the war is fundamentally an inter-imperialist conflict, revolutionary socialists would support neither side, although they might still defend Ukraine state sovereignty.)

Gindin is by far the pre-eminent member of Socialist Project’s steering committee. Following his lead, the SP has refrained from campaigning in defense of the Ukrainian resistance. Instead, the few articles on the war published in its on-line Bullet have promoted pacifist themes and opposition to providing Ukraine with defensive weapons. The Bullet has also published two articles by David Mandel that attempt to “explain” and excuse the Russian invasion. Both articles proclaim that Ukrainian resistance is futile and should immediately cease.

It should also be noted that Socialist Project, unlike many groups and individuals representing a diversity of political perspectives, has not even endorsed the international campaign of protest against the arrest of Boris Kagarlitsky.[12]

Ex-Trotskyists rejecting Ukraine solidarity

Among the other political casualties of the war are some of the small groups with roots in various wings of the international Trotskyist movement. The Toronto-based International Socialists published a statement on February 24, 2022 denouncing “Russian expansionism” and calling for Russian withdrawal from Ukraine… and Canadian withdrawal from Eastern Europe, referring to its role in NATO “training fascists within the Ukrainian military.” Ukraine, it said, “is once again paying the price as a state stuck in between two major imperialist rivals,” Russia and NATO. The IS newspaper Socialist Worker has published several articles along the same lines since the invasion, all of them produced by their co-thinkers in Britain.

Spring, the on-line publication of a group that broke with the IS a few years ago, has reposted many articles on the war by Yves Engler, and two or three of its own. David Bush denounces the Russian aggression but insists “the main enemy is at home.” This means opposing “troop deployments and arms shipments” to Ukraine. James Clark, once a leader in the Canadian movement against U.S. aggression in the Middle East and Afghanistan, wrote a four-part series of articles on the antiwar movement of ten years ago, but made no attempt to link its lessons to the war on Ukraine.

Fightback (in Quebec, La Riposte, a recognized collective within Québec solidaire) is the Canadian member of the British-based International Marxist Tendency. At the outset of the war, its publications featured a lengthy statement by the IMT dismissing the Ukrainian resistance:

“All the talk of Ukrainian sovereignty is contradicted by the fact that the country has been under growing domination from the US since the victory of the 2014 Euromaidan movement. All the key levers of economic and political power are in the hands of a corrupt oligarchy and its government, which, in turn, is the puppet of US imperialism and a pawn in its hands…. In fact, the current war is to a large extent a US-Russia conflict, being played out in the territory of Ukraine.”

Subsequent articles on the war have replicated this approach.

Finally, it is worth noting the fate of a tiny current that originated in some 2004 expulsions from the U.S. Socialist Workers Party because they had questioned the SWP’s support of the Pentagon overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. John Riddell and Roger Annis, joined by Ian Angus, founded an on-line journal Socialist Voice and invited some other Marxists (including myself) to participate in its production. An on-line archive of the issues and pamphlets published before its demise in 2011 may be accessed here.

As it explains, Socialist Voice ceased publication because its key editors had become heavily committed to other enterprises. John Riddell had resumed publication of his massive volumes on the proceedings of the Communist International in Lenin’s day.[13] Ian Angus was publishing his website Climate & Capitalism and writing books on Ecosocialism.

As for Roger Annis, he travelled to Ukraine with two other Canadians – Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman – in 2014, at the invitation of Boris Kagarlitsky, and emerged as a supporter of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in Eastern Ukraine. He has since transformed his blog A Socialist in Canada into a shameless propaganda mouthpiece for Putin’s regime and its aggression, occupation and annexations in Ukraine. Independently of Annis, Desai and Freeman (he is a former Trotskyist, in Britain) have created their own website and authored a Manifesto that praises today’s China as “the indispensable nation in humankind’s struggle for socialism, offering aid and inspiration as a worthy example of a country pursuing socialism in accordance with its national conditions.” Among the initial signatories of the Manifesto is John Riddell.

The group praises China – and Russia – as paragons of “multipolarity,” the alternative they promote to U.S. unipolar hegemony. What this means for Ukraine is described by Radhika Desai in her recent book: “[T]his war takes the form of a US-led NATO war against Russia over Ukraine. In this war, Ukraine is the terrain, and a pawn—one that can be and is being sacrificed with the apparent cooperation of its West-oriented leadership.”

Conclusion

As in other countries, Canadian left responses to Russia’s war have tended to divide along two conflicting fault lines. Crudely put, there are those who see the war as a Russian imperialist assault on Ukraine and seek to mobilize solidarity with Ukraine’s popular resistance, including its right to acquire the weapons it needs for its defense. In contrast, there are those who reduce the war to a conflict between NATO and Russia, the Ukrainians being simply pawns of the Pentagon and its European allies. The first group call for immediate Russian withdrawal from Ukraine as the only path to a peaceful solution. The second claim that Russia has some legitimate interest in occupying all or part of Ukraine, and invent narratives to justify its aggression and deny Ukraine’s right of national self-determination. These differences cannot be reconciled. It is a fundamental rift.

Thanks to Art Young for his assistance in reviewing a draft of this article. – RF

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[1] “L’Assemblée nationale adopte une motion unanime de soutien à l’Ukraine,” February 23, 2022. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2022-02-23/l-assemblee-nationale-adopte-une-motion-unanime-de-soutien-a-l-ukraine.php.

[2] Programme de Québec solidaire. See, in particular, para. 9.2.1.

[3] North American Air Defense Agreement (NORAD).

[4] For a critical analysis of this convoluted reasoning, see “The war in Ukraine: four reductions we must avoid.”

[5] A typical article: “Cutting through Canada’s war propaganda.”

[6] See also “Yes, The Ukraine War Could Have Been Prevented,” by Alex Cosh, arguing that the war is a “NATO proxy war.”

[7] “Should Leftists Support Sending Weapons to Ukraine?”

[8] See the section “Crisis in Ukraine” on the CD website.

[9] See, for example, Putin’s speech on February 23, 2023 justifying his decision to invade Ukraine.

[10] The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire (Verso, 2013).

[11] Richard Fidler, “Remembering Leo Panitch.” See the text following the subhead “Global capitalism.”

[12] As one of the very few SP members on its discussion list to dispute Gindin and Mandel, I was barred by the steering committee from posting any comment on “the Ukraine-Russia war” (sic) for two months earlier this year.

[13] Pathfinder Press and Haymarket.

The war in Ukraine: four reductions we must avoid

By Rafael Bernabe

Rafael Bernabe is a Puerto Rican historian and sociologist who is currently an elected member of the Puerto Rico Senate representing the left-wing Citizens’ Victory Movement (Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana, or MVC). The following is a translation of his article La guerra en Ucrania: cuatro reducciones que debemos evitar. First published a year ago, it is all the more relevant today in light of the issues debated in the international Left since then. – Richard Fidler

“Reductionism” is an error that has been widely discussed in the history of Marxism. It is the mistake of reducing a complex process or phenomenon to one of its elements. It is a form of oversimplification or one-sidedness. The political and practical consequences of such one-sidedness can be considerable. In this sense, it seems to us that there are four reductions that we must avoid when analyzing and reacting to the armed conflict unleashed by the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.

First reduction. We must not reduce the war to a conflict between democracy and authoritarianism (or despotism, dictatorship, etc.). There should be no doubt about the authoritarian and anti-democratic nature of Vladimir Putin’s government, but that does not mean that we should see NATO or its members as a democratic force. Some of those members (Turkey) are far from being democratic governments, even by the most undemanding criteria. Some of its allies and favored governments are downright undemocratic (Saudi Arabia). On more than one occasion they have supported the overthrow of democratically elected governments and protected those who overthrew them (Greece). NATO is one of the weaponized arms of Western imperialism and, some argue, of US imperialism within the Western imperialist bloc (tensions exist and have existed within that bloc).

The idea that NATO would dissolve after the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was based on the idea that its raison d’être was the Cold War against the Soviet Union and its allies. but that was part of its objective: the broader objective is the defense of Western imperialist (and capitalist) rule on a global level, against any threat. In recent decades this has included the imposition of the neoliberal order across the planet. This is why the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, far from leading to the demise of NATO, was followed by its eastward expansion. And the frictions caused by this expansion led, as was foreseen since the mid-1990s, to the aggravation of tensions, which is undoubtedly one of the causes of the present conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation. Those who denounce the role of NATO expansion in the preparation of the conflict are right. That is undoubtedly an aspect of the war that we cannot lose sight of. Against this expansionism of NATO and against Western imperialist policy in general, how does the left respond? The general line of this response is well known: building a defense of the living standards and immediate interests of the majority of the population, linking them to an anti-armament, anti-interventionist and internationalist policy, a movement to which it must fight to give an increasingly frankly anti-capitalist meaning.

Second reduction. We must not reduce imperialism to Western imperialism or US imperialism. The transformations in Russia and China during the last decades have created two great capitalist powers interested in consolidating their own zones of influence and political, economic and military control and the projection of their interests beyond their borders. The fact that these imperialist projects are weaker than Western imperialism does not change their content or their nature. We are, as Lenin described in his classic study, faced with a world of growing inter-imperialist conflicts. NATO’s eastward expansion clashes with the Russian Federation’s attempt to create its own zone of influence in territories of the former Soviet Union. The preponderance of the United States and its allies in Asia and the Pacific clashes with China’s objective of carving out its sphere of influence in that vast region. Those who argue that Putin or China are reacting to Western imperialism are right: Western imperialism is a dominant and aggressive force. But it must be underlined that the Russian and Chinese governments respond, not as anti-imperialist forces, but with their own plans for control and dominance over the disputed areas. Given this, the left must respond with the position already formulated by Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and the internationalist current a century ago: we refuse to take sides in favor of one imperialism against another.

It should be stressed that, as all imperialisms are aggressive and predatory, when they denounce each other in many cases the complaints are true. During the First World War, German imperialism denounced the despotic character of Tsarism and French imperialism denounced German militarism. After the war, German imperialism denounced the abuses of the Versailles peace and Japanese imperialism denounced the excesses of Western imperialism in Asia. They were all true accusations. But none of them justified supporting German, Russian, or French imperialism during the war, or German rearmament after the war, or Japanese imperialism against Western imperialism, let alone supporting the Japanese invasion of Indochina, Indonesia, or the Philippines. Similarly, our rejection of NATO and Western imperialism cannot lead us to support or tolerate or fail to denounce the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.

We have heard speeches refusing to reject the invasion of Ukraine, bringing up Saudi Arabia’s aggression against Yemen, or Israel’s occupation of Palestine. But the crimes of Western imperialism cannot be used to justify Putin’s aggression. In any case, it is necessary to denounce all the aggressions and occupations indicated. It is the only consistent anti-imperialist position.

In short, we have to reject NATO imperialism, but not to support the expansionism of the Russian Federation headed by Putin or the ambitions of Xi Jinping’s government. We do not reject one imperialism to support another. Neither NATO to support Putin nor Putin to support NATO. We reject both. Therefore, while we do not stop denouncing Western imperialism, we unequivocally reject the invasion and occupation of areas of Ukraine by the Russian Federation and demand the immediate withdrawal of Russian military forces.

Third reduction. We must not reduce the war between Ukraine and Russia to an inter-imperialist (by proxy) war or conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation. The interest of Western imperialism in dealing a defeat to its Russian rival does not nullify the fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a violation of its right to self-determination (a right explicitly rejected by Putin in his polemic against Lenin in his speech justifying the invasion [[1]] and that the Ukrainian resistance is a just war against an imperialist aggression that we must support. For the same reason, we must recognize their right to obtain the necessary weapons to resist, wherever they can find them. Nothing prevents us from rejecting the increase in NATO’s arms spending, from demanding the dissolution of NATO and, at the same time, from recognizing the right of the Ukrainian people to obtain arms. To reject or denounce the Russian invasion, but to deny Ukraine’s right to arms (in the name of peace, for example), is to leave it literally defenseless against the invasion we are denouncing.

But here, our consistent anti-imperialist position obliges us to warn the people of Ukraine that their resistance agenda and that of Western imperialism are not identical, but divergent. While receiving weapons, they should have no illusions about this: NATO has an interest in handing Russia a defeat, and it does not and will not hesitate to subordinate the well-being of the Ukrainian people to that goal. We cannot dictate to Ukraine how or for how long to develop resistance, but we can warn Ukraine that letting NATO dictate such terms is not in the interests of its people.

Fourth reduction. This reduction is a variant and usually accompanies the first one we discussed above. We must not reduce the conflict between the Zelensky and Putin governments to a clash between democracy and despotism. As we indicated, there is no doubt about the authoritarian and undemocratic character of Putin’s government. But this does not make Zelensky’s a paragon of democracy. On the contrary, he has perpetuated or initiated frankly anti-democratic, repressive, nationalist and discriminatory, anti-worker and neoliberal measures and tolerated or encouraged the presence and action of frankly neo-fascist groups. Solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invasion does not extend to political support for or confidence in the Zelensky government. Putin has said that Ukraine must be “denazified”. One can partly agree with this idea, but in any case, the change of government in Ukraine is a task that will have to be carried out by the people of Ukraine, not an excuse that justifies the Russian invasion. Similarly, spokesmen for Western imperialism affirm that Russia must be freed from Putin’s despotism, which is true: but that is a task for the Russian people, not for NATO.

Let us recall again the precedent of Japanese imperialism. During the 1930s, the international left supported China in the face of Japanese aggression. China was supported, despite the fact that its government was controlled by the repressive and corrupt Guomindang apparatus, headed by Chiang Kai-Shek (fiercely anti-communist and perpetrator of the 1927 massacre) and that government was supported by western imperialism. Despite all that, the Chinese resistance was a just fight against Japanese imperialism. For the same reason, supporting this resistance, even with weapons provided by Western imperialism, should not imply support for the Guomindang government. Today we must support the Ukrainian resistance, despite its government and the support it receives from an imperialist camp.

Imperialisms, while denouncing each other, help to justify themselves before their peoples. Russian aggression against Ukraine helps legitimize NATO as a shield against Russian aggression. It has facilitated and accelerated its expansion and made it more difficult to build a broad anti-NATO and anti-imperialist movement in Europe. NATO aggressions help legitimize Putin as a defender of Russian sovereignty and make it more difficult to build a movement against his government. All of this makes the work of the anti-imperialists more difficult, but it remains equally urgent. To be effective, you must avoid all four reductions we have indicated.

The first reduction has been assumed by some progressive voices, including that of Paul Mason, in England. This position, in order to reject the Russian invasion, becomes an apology for NATO and Western imperialism. This position will be rightly rejected by all opponents of Western imperialism around the world, for example, in Latin America.

The second reduction is very common in Latin America. This position, in order to reject North American and Western imperialism, sides with or (at best) ignores the aggressions of the Russian Federation and the capitalist and repressive nature of Putin’s government. This position will be rightly rejected by all who suffer the consequences of Putin’s rule in Russia and outside of Russia, to begin with in the Ukraine.

The third reduction is a mistake on the part of the internationalist and anti-imperialist left, which rightly rejects both NATO and Putin. This position, in order to oppose NATO’s imperialist agenda or a prolongation of the war, leaves the Ukrainian resistance in the hands of the Russian invasion. It is a position that will be logically rejected by those in Ukraine resisting Russian aggression and those elsewhere who understand the justice of such resistance.

The fourth reduction often accompanies the first and becomes an apology for evading the reactionary policies of the Zelensky government.

We need a consistent, multilateral, non-reductionist position that can unite progressive forces in the West, in Russia, in Ukraine and throughout the world.

Let’s summarize our alternative:

· Rejection of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation and demand for the withdrawal of Russian forces.

· Recognition of Ukraine’s right to arm itself in order to defend itself against invasion.

· Rejection of the expansion and imperialist agenda of NATO and the increase in military spending.

· No political support, and rejection of the regressive policies, of the Ukrainian government.

· Support for initiatives and movements against the war in Russia

This is the only position that allows us to unite progressive forces from the West, Russia and Ukraine and beyond Europe under a common anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist orientation.

* * *

Many of Rafael Bernabe’s writings have been published in English in the US socialist publication Against the Current: https://againstthecurrent.org/rafael-bernabe/

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[1] “Text of Vladimir Putin’s Speech,” https://theprint.in/world/modern-ukraine-entirely-created-by-russia-read-full-text-of-vladimir-putins-speech/843801/.

Amid crisis, Putin’s Russia cracks down on anti-war dissent

By Federico Fuentes

August 7, 2023

Asked about the arrest of renowned socialist intellectual Boris Kagarlitsky, Russian president Vladimir Putin said on July 29: “It's the year 2023, and Russia is engaged in an armed conflict with a neighbour. And I think that there should be a certain attitude towards people who harm us inside the country.”

The “harm” Kagarlitsky is alleged to have caused relates to an October 8, 2022 Telegram post in which he analysed the military implications of an attack that had occurred just days before on the Crimea bridge. For this, he has been held in custody since July 25 and faces up to 7 years’ jail if found guilty of “justifying terrorism”.

“We must keep in mind”, Putin added, “that in order for us to achieve success, including in a conflict zone, everyone needs to follow certain rules.”

His comment led some to ironise on Russian anti-war Telegram channels that Kagarlitsky should have launched an armed mutiny instead of simply voicing his anti-war opinions — a reference to the contrasting treatment dealt to Yevgeny Prigozhin, whom Putin accused of “treason” after Prigozhin led his Wagner mercenary troops in a coup attempt in late June, only to then let him walk free.

While Prigozhin’s coup attempt failed, it exposed Putin's weaknesses and triggered a crisis on the domestic front. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Russian military leaders and pro-war bloggers are warning of flagging morale and heavy losses, as Ukrainian forces pursue their latest counteroffensive.

Crackdown

In weeks following the mutiny, the Kremlin has responded by purging high-profile military leaders, jailing pro-war critic and far-right extremist Igor Girkin, and sentencing opposition leader Alexy Navalny to an extra 19 years in prison.

The domestic crisis also explains the jailing of perhaps the most high-profile — and one of the last remaining — public left-wing voices opposing the war inside Russia.

But Kagarlitsky’s arrest is just the latest in an ongoing and escalating war against domestic dissent.

Since the start of June, several prominent left politicians and activists have been labelled “foreign agents”, a designation that imposes severe restrictions on personal and professional activities and which many view as the last step before arrest. These include Moscow City Duma deputies Yevgeny Stupin and Mikhail Timonov, municipal deputy Vitaly Bovar and democratic socialist Mikhail Lobanov, who was also fired from his university post.

That same month, anti-war activist Ivan Kudryashov was sentenced to six years’ jail. Arrested for a street art piece with the words “Fuck the War” last September, Federal Security Service (FSB) officers tortured Kudryashov until he “confessed” to preparing an arson attack on a military enlistment office.

Putin’s repression has not been limited to Russia’s borders: Left Bloc activist Lev Skoryakin and Left Resistance activist Alena Krylova, were detained in Kyrgyzstan in June and are set to be deported back to Russia at Moscow’s request, a fate already sealed for anarchist anti-war activist Alexey Rozhkov.

In total, some 21,000 individuals in Russia have faced reprisals for opposing the war, including  more than 2000 who have been jailed in a country where it is illegal to publicly criticise the self-dubbed “special military operation”, according to Amnesty International.

Given the circumstances, the Russian Socialists Against War coalition issued a statement on July 29 declaring: “The campaign in defence of Kagarlitsky is not just a matter for his relatives and colleagues or human rights activists. Opposition to each new attack is an important political action that reduces the likelihood of new repressions.

“In this case, such action could unite not only leftists, but also representatives of other segments of the Russian anti-war movement, and many thousands of people around the world who have heard Kagarlitsky's name, read his books and articles, and argued with him.”

Controversy

A broad international solidarity movement calling for Kagarlitsky’s release, along with all other political prisoners has emerged, involving individuals and organisations with often differing views over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Among those to declare their support are British politicians Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, Swiss parliamentarian Stefania Prezioso, European deputy Miguel Urbán Crespo, Brazilian federal MPs Fernanda Melchionna and Sâmia Bomfim, Puerto Rican senator Rafael Bernabe, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova and academics such as Slavoj Žižek, Enzo Traverso, Alina Bárbara López Hernández, Étienne Balibar, Simon Pirani and many more.

Yet Kagarlitsky’s case has caused controversy among certain sections of the left, due to various positions he has held towards Russia’s military interventions in Ukraine.

Back in 2014, Kagarlitsky supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military support for pro-Russian separatist movements in Donbas, which he viewed as progressive and “anti-imperialist”.

Ukrainian socialist Andriy Movchan notes this position led Kagarlitsky to become “a frequent guest on state television”, with “his new milieu” coming to be “dominated by people associated with Russia’s so-called ‘patriotic left’, which often involved conservative and imperialist positions.”

In contrast, in 2022, Kagarlitsky opposed Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The day of the invasion, Kagarlitsky helped convene the Anti-War Round Table of the Left Forces, which unequivocally condemned Putin’s “aggression against our brothers and sisters of the Ukrainian people” and urged Russian citizens “to lead an anti-war agitation with your neighbours, relatives, colleagues and other citizens of Russia”.

Outlining his position in an interview with theAnalysis.news — one he has repeated throughout the war — Kagarlitsky said: “In 2014, I was critical of the Ukrainian policy of military intervention in Donbas … This time, it’s the other way around … this time it is Putin and his entourage who started the war and are responsible. In some way or another, they have to be punished.”

Movchan writes that as a result of this shift, “Kagarlitsky’s Rabkor YouTube channel and website has published anti-war content from Marxist positions” since the invasion started and “other anti-war leftists and even liberals began to appear on Kagarlitsky’s live streams — people who were on the opposite side of the argument from him eight years ago.”

Because of this, some who have, to more or a lesser extent, taken Russia’s side in the war — and enthusiastically championed Kagarlitsky in 2014 — have remained silent on his arrest. On the flipside, some Ukraine supporters have argued Kagarlitsky is not worthy of solidarity or that his case is simply a “distraction”.

In light of this controversy, the editorial collective of Russian left anti-war site, Posle, declared: “[Kagarlitsky’s] numerous books and public speeches had a great influence on several generations of the Russian left, and that is why his responsibility for certain assessments remained exceptionally high.

“In 2014, Kagarlitsky actively supported the annexation of Crimea and the creation of the so-called ‘People's Republics’ in eastern Ukraine. This support, unfortunately, played a role in disorienting part of the Russian left.

“These, like many other moments in Kagarlitsky's activities, are completely unacceptable for the members of the Posle team. Our fundamental differences have not gone away, we will certainly discuss them with Boris — but only after his release.”

Anti-war movement needed

For Posle, “the arrest of Kagarlitsky is part of a new large-scale repressive campaign by the authorities aimed at completely clearing the political space of any critics of the war … it has become clear that repression is reaching a new level and the number of activists in the immediate risk zone has increased significantly".

Given this, they argue for an international campaign in support of Kagarlitsky and all political prisoners.

Noting he was detained for his anti-war convictions, Andriy Movchan writes that “for this reason alone, [Kagarlitsky] deserves international solidarity”.

But he adds a further important argument: “Without an anti-war movement inside Russia itself, it will be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to end the war in Ukraine.

“Russian society is far from ideal, of course, but only from this imperfect society, with its imperfect people with their imperfect biographies, can an anti-war and anti-government movement emerge.

“Anyone who delays this movement is doing harm. For the last 18 months, Kagarlitsky brought it closer.”

[Visit links.org.au to view a collection of petitions and statements in support of Kagarlitsky.]

Thanks to Green Left Weekly, where this article was first published. – Richard Fidler

See also

Solidarity needed for Russian anti-war socialist Boris Kagarlitsky

Socialist Alliance: Free Russian anti-war socialist Boris Kagalitsky!

Resisting Russia’s war in Ukraine: Left voices speak out

Solidarity needed for Russian anti-war socialist Boris Kagarlitsky

By Federico Fuentes

Internationally renowned Marxist sociologist and anti-war socialist Boris Kagarlitsky is currently being held in a Russian pre-trial detention centre and faces the possibility of up to 7 years’ jail if found guilty of the trumped-up charge of “justifying terrorism”.

The decision to detain him until his hearing in late September was made within a day of his arrest in Moscow on July 25, in a closed court in the remote city of Syktyvkar and without his lawyer present.

His lawyer has explained that the criminal case against Kagarlitsky relates to an October 8, 2022 post he made on Telegram analysing the military implications of an attack that had occurred on the Crimea bridge.

Kagarlitsky’s arrest is a politically-motivated attack against one of the most vocal critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is also part of a broader campaign to clamp down on anti-war dissidents in Russia.

As part of building its case against him, Federal Security Service (FSB) agents raided and interrogated at least three others associated with Rabkor (Worker Correspondent), an online leftist media platform Kagarlitsky edits.

Anna Ochkina, a former candidate for governor of the Penza region who left the Just Russia party in March last year over its support for the war, was also targeted by FSB agents.

The Russian Socialist Movement (RSD), in a statement released on July 26, noted that leftist anti-war dissidents have increasingly become the target of state repression.

Since the start of June, the Ministry of Justice has declared Moscow City Duma deputies Yevgeny Stupin and Mikhail Timonov, municipal deputy Vitaly Bovar and democratic socialist Mikhail Lobanov as “foreign agents”. Lobanov, an activist with the University Solidarity union since its foundation, was also fired from his post at Moscow State University and is now in exile.

The RSD said: “Each of them has organised and continues to organise communities of different levels around them. Each of them is an ‘assembly point’ for rapidly left-leaning citizens. By the same logic, they came after Kagarlitsky and Rabkor.”

From the day the full-scale invasion began — February 24, 2022 — Kagarlitsky and Rabkor have played a key role in anti-war activities and propaganda.

That same day, Kagarlitsky helped convene the Anti-War Round Table of the Left Forces, which unequivocally condemned Putin’s invasion and urged Russian citizens “to lead an anti-war agitation with your neighbours, relatives, colleagues and other citizens of Russia”.

The round table’s statement concluded: “If the current government is not able to bring peace to the people, then the way forward to achieve this will be a radical change of government and the entire socio-political system.”

For this, Kagarlitsky was labelled a “foreign agent” by the Russian state as early as May 2022. Speaking to Green Left last August, he explained how this label is used to intimidate anti-war activists: “Everyone knows that the next step after being labelled a foreign agent is that you are put in jail, which is why many have left.

“They have labelled me a foreign agent, I imagine with the intention of wanting me to leave, but I’m not going to leave.”

History of dissent

It is ironic that the Russian state would accuse him of being under foreign influence, given few Russians have done more to help explain Russian politics and influence the ideas of socialist activists outside the country than Kagarlitsky.

Along with founding the Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements, Kagarlitsky is a professor at the Moscow Higher School for Social and Economic Sciences and author of several influential books, including Empire of the Periphery: Russia and the World System and Russia Under Yeltsin And Putin: Neo-Liberal Autocracy.

His ideas have appeared in left publications the world over, including through articles and interviews in Green Left and its sister publication, LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal, dating as far back as the early 1990s. At the invitation of GL, Kagarlitsky has spoken at several conferences in Australia since.

Kagarlitsky’s authority comes from decades of dissident activism, beginning during the Soviet Union era when he edited the underground publication Left Turn before being jailed for “anti-Soviet” activities in 1982 under Leonid Brezhnev.

As a deputy to the Moscow City Soviet between 1990‒93, Kagarlitsky opposed the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet, for which he was severely beaten and imprisoned once again, this time under Boris Yeltsin. And in 2021, Kagarlitsky was again jailed, this time under Putin, for supporting protests against electoral fraud committed against independent left candidates in elections to the State Duma.

His most recent arrest has been met with opposition from anti-war sectors, but even prominent pro-Kremlin intellectual Sergei Markov called it a “gross political mistake”, adding that his imprisonment would cause “huge harm to Russia in the world”.

“Boris Kagarlitsky today is probably the most influential Russian politician and expert of the left camp in the world,” Markov said.

Need for solidarity

In an appeal for international support, the Rabkor editorial board said: “Boris is not only a left-wing intellectual and scholar of international renown, but also a Marxist who gained his knowledge on the fields of class wars, was a Soviet left-wing dissident and now may become a political prisoner in Putin’s Russia.

“He is part of the world socialist movement, has educated more than one generation of Marxists, and continues to be faithful to his principles for many years.

“Kagarlitsky cannot sit in jail, for in 2023 politics cannot and should not be a crime. We are categorically opposed to his detention.

“We, however, continue to work. Rabkor is far more than just Boris Kagarlitsky. It is a text site with editors and admins, YouTube channel presenters and those who work behind the scenes.

“The most important thing our team can do for Boris right now is to keep Rabkor alive and make it the centrepiece of an international solidarity campaign for Kagarlitsky's release.

“We call on all left socialist movements to stand in solidarity and publicise this situation.”

A separate RSD statement said: “The criminal case against Boris Kagarlitsky is an attack on the whole Left Movement in Russia. We can disagree with some of his statements and conclusions made during different periods of his long political career but these arguments do not matter now. We can continue the discussion of our different positions as soon as he is free.

“We are calling on all fellow socialist organisations to organise a broad campaign of solidarity to demand the immediate release of Boris Kagarlitsky and all political prisoners, and to support the editorial team of Rabkor as much as possible.

“Kagarlitsky remained invariably optimistic about the absence of prospects of the Russian authorities in his articles and speeches. Current events demonstrate that his optimism is justified: Putin’s regime, having started the total mop up of the remnants of civil society. is trying to plug the leak the size of the cannonball with a bottle cork.”

[Rabkor have launched a fund appeal for the campaign to free Boris Kagarlitsky. Donate via: 2200700700600473069 — Tinkoff; or 5269880012324208 — Freedom Bank (for foreign transfers).]

First published in Green Left Weekly, Issue 1386, July 27, 2023

* * *

(Statements) Freedom for Boris Kagarlitsky! Freedom for all Russian political prisoners!

[Editor's note: This page will be continuously updated. Please send statements to editor@links.org.au.]

Below the international petition (which readers are encouraged to sign) are statements by: Russian Socialists Against War, Rabkor (Russia), Russian Socialist Movement, Posle (Russia), Left Socialist Action (Russia), Socialist Alliance (Australia), Party of the European Left, Transnational Institute, Counterpunch, Canadian Dimension, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency/Socialist Tendency (Russia) and Rosa Luxembourg Foundation.

International petition: Freedom for Boris Kagarlitsky

On July 25, renowned intellectual and socialist activist Boris Kagarlitsky was detained and accused of "justifying terrorism" by the Federal Security Service (FSB) before being immediately transported to the city of Syktyvkar, 1300 kilometres from Moscow. There, in a closed hearing and without his lawyer present, a court decided he should be detained until his trial in September, where he will face the possibility of up to 7 years in prison.

The arrest and detention of Kagarlitsky has taken place within the context of a repressive campaign that the government has been carrying out with the intention of silencing all those voices that oppose the invasion of Ukraine and its domestic policies. Since last year, the Putin government has dedicated itself to persecuting, jailing or forcing into exile recognised politicians, intellectuals and activists that have publicly opposed the war as well as simple citizens that have expressed their opinions on social media. Kagarlitsky himself had been labelled a "foreign agent" in May last year.

We express our solidarity with Boris Kagarlitsky and demand his immediate release, as well as the release of all those detained for political reasons.

Add your name here: https://tinyurl.com/Libertad-Boris-K.

* * *

Russian socialist dissident Boris Kagarlitsky on Putin’s growing domestic crisis: ‘People will not fight for this regime’

Interview with Boris Kagarlitsky by Federico Fuentes.

[Following the Maidan uprising in 2014, Boris Kagarlitsky became known internationally as a Left supporter of Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its intervention in parts of Ukraine’s Donbas region. In this he helped to disorient many progressives around the world. However, in later years he became increasingly critical of the autocratic actions of the Putin regime, and supportive of mass opposition demonstrations in Russia. A tipping point in his approach was the February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which he strongly denounced along with many antiwar activists in Russia. He then became an outspoken critic of the war – attacking the strategic ineptness of the Kremlin, albeit not as a proponent of Ukraine self-determination and sovereignty. However, his opposition to the Russian aggression allowed him to point to some obvious truths previously unstated, such as the popular unity behind the Ukrainian resistance notwithstanding earlier linguistic and economic divisions with the country. – Richard Fidler]

In this interview with Federico Fuentes, Kagarlitsky provides insight into the domestic factors behind the Russian regime’s decision to invade Ukraine, why President Vladimir Putin is seeking an “everlasting war”, the critical role being played by the left in anti-war organising, and prospects for social upheaval in Russia. A much shorter version of this interview first appeared in Green Left.

Discussions in the West regarding Putin’s invasion of Ukraine have largely focused on NATO expansionism, the Kremlin’s imperialist ambitions or Putin’s mental health. But you argue none of these were the key driving force behind the invasion. Why?

When a huge event occurs, such as the war on Ukraine, there are generally various factors at play. But you have to put these factors into the context of real political and social processes. In that sense, all these factors, along with the long-term conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the conflict within Ukraine and between Ukrainian elites, are present. However, these factors do not explain much; they're very superficial.

Let’s start with NATO. NATO’s expansion is definitely real. NATO not only expanded into former Eastern bloc countries, such as Poland and Hungary; it also expanded into former territories of the Soviet Union, such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In that sense, NATO cannot technically expand any closer to Russia, as its frontier is already less than 200 kilometres from St Petersburg. We should also not forget that in the early years of Putin’s rule, Russia had very good relations with NATO. Putin himself confessed he wanted Russia to join NATO. It was the West that refused Russia’s membership when relations started to deteriorate – precisely because of the conflict in and around Ukraine.

Yet it was always clear that NATO was not going to accept Ukraine as a full member because this was going to pose a big problem for NATO. In many ways, Ukrainian ambitions to join NATO created more problems for NATO than for Russia, because it meant Ukraine wanting NATO to spend lots of money on Ukraine’s military. The irony is that Putin’s attack on Ukraine not only led to Sweden and Finland joining, but it has now made Ukrainian membership possible. Up until February 24, the chances of Ukraine becoming a full member were remote. Now, the situation has changed, and the perspective of Ukraine becoming a de facto NATO country is not only very real, it is already becoming a reality. So if we want to view this war as a conflict between Russia and NATO, then it is obvious that Putin’s policies have been counterproductive and achieved the exact opposite of what is presented as an excuse for the war.

In terms of Russia, or rather Putin’s imperialist ambitions, this was also present: You just have to watch or listen to Russian propaganda to see how it goes beyond all limits in terms of jingoism and racism. Russian propaganda continuously states that Ukraine shouldn’t exist, that Ukrainian territory is actually Russian territory that has been conquered by Ukrainians. It says Russia is going to liberate these territories from the population that lives there; that they are not the right population for that territory. All sorts of racist, fascist statements are made on state channels. It’s an absolutely incredible flood of aggression, xenophobia and hatred.

We could also say that the internal conflict in Ukraine is to some extent a cause of the war. But this conflict has been present for eight years, with very little change. Frozen conflicts can persist, sometimes for hundreds of years, without leading to war. When they do lead to war, the real causes of the wars are to be found not in the origins of the conflict but in the context of concrete situations. Take for example, the Malvinas/Falkland Islands conflict between Britain and Argentina, which persisted for centuries. The explanation for why a war erupted in 1981 cannot be found in the origins of the conflict, but rather in the internal crisis within the Argentine military junta and, to some extent, Margaret Thatcher’s need for some kind of success story to help turn around the polls. So this was exactly the right time for war to erupt: both sides needed the war for their own domestic reasons.

So the real question is why did this war erupt now, despite problems within Ukraine and between Russia and Ukraine existing for years. Even just a week before the war, most rational Russian political commentators were extremely sceptical that a war would break out, because everyone knew Russia was absolutely not ready for war. This brings us to the issue not of Putin’s mental health, but his capacity to make rational decisions. Everyone knew the war would not turn out the way it was planned or announced by Putin’s team. Nevertheless, they went to war. This demonstrates that these people were not able to even calculate the most basic things. I am no military analyst, but even I could predict that Russia had no chance of taking Kyiv and achieving a full-scale victory. You had to be totally incompetent or totally disconnected from reality to think otherwise. Yet government propaganda said the exact opposite. Well, it is pretty clear now who was right. In that sense, Putin’s mental health and the way decisions are made in the Kremlin played a role.

So what would you say were the real causes of the war?

I think there were two major causes.

The first one is basically global and long-term. It was the Great Recession of 2007-8, which changed the global economy and Russia’s situation within it. The recession revealed the tremendous weakness of the Russian economy. Yet, at the same time, Russian oligarchs benefited from it. When the recession erupted, Russia’s economy declined at a much faster rate than any other major economy in the world. Then it recovered faster than any economy in the world. Why? Because Russia’s economy was dependent on raw materials, and in particular oil. To deal with the Great Recession, the US Federal Reserve began printing money, much of which ended up in financial markets and, ultimately, as speculative investments. Oil is a perfect commodity for speculative investment, as it is deeply connected to financial markets. Yet, at the same time, it is part of the real economy. So the Federal Reserve’s policy led to an enormous increase in oil prices, which in turn created a situation where, while the Russian economy continued to deteriorate, Russia was showered in petrodollars, with more and more income going into the pockets of the oligarchs and the state. A Russian economist once commented that the Russian government’s best friend was the Federal Reserve. The Russian government depended directly on money printed by the Federal Reserve: the more money the Federal Reserve printed, the more money Russian elites got. They didn’t have to do anything except wait for the Federal Reserve to print more dollars. That was their whole strategy. But once the Federal Reserve started to print less money, or at least started to use this money in a different way, as happened during COVID-19, then this became a problem for Russian capital.

All this led to an enormous expansion of corruption. Russia was always very corrupt, but corruption now hit new heights. Russian elites were faced with an incredible crisis of overaccumulation, much like what Rosa Luxemburg described in her book. One solution was to channel this extra money towards military expansion and producing a lot of military hardware, But then you have to use this military hardware somehow if you want to continue investing more money into this sector.

But that’s just one side of the story because, at the same time, the domestic situation was drastically deteriorating. While all this money was going in the hands of the elite and a small sector of the middle class, healthcare, social services, welfare – sectors that were already tremendously underfunded – underwent further cuts to expenditure in order for the elites to accumulate even more capital. One example of this was the pension reform of 2018, which faced stiff opposition.

Imagine how an average Russian citizen felt. They knew that there was an enormous amount of money flowing into the hands of the oligarchy, the state bureaucracy, top administrators, and Putin's friends. They could see the construction of incredible palaces – forget about Versailles in France; just near where I have my dacha [holiday home], you can see some huge walls as you drive from there to Moscow. What’s behind these walls? Palaces. We know that because the internet allows you to discover everything. These palaces are much bigger than what you will find in Versailles. And this is in an area regarded by the wealthy to be second-class; it is not even where the wealthiest Russian oligarchs live.

So people see that and see that the material situation of the great majority is getting dramatically worse, that real income is declining and prices are rising, that they are having problems getting decent jobs. All this generates tremendous discontent. This discontent is very often not political, but it creates a terrible mood. So much so that it has even become a problem for the Russian government’s war plans, because it cannot mobilise people for the army. People will just not fight for this regime. Nobody wants to make any sacrifices for them, because they are hated by everybody.

On top of this, you have the fact that political institutions – even the fake parliamentary democracy that we had with elections contested by parties that were very much under the regime’s control – have been destroyed over the past two years due to attempts by Putin’s teams to consolidate power. Putin is getting older and more ill, so the problem of a transition of power is very real, but any kind of institutional transition is not possible in this context.

So how do you deal with all this? Well, the best solution is to come up with some kind of extreme and extraordinary situation. A situation that justifies a state of emergency, whereby the people who make decisions can override any institutional or constitutional hurdle and make whatever decisions they want to make. And a war is perhaps the best way to create such a situation.

Given what you say about the Kremlin’s obvious lack of strategy going into war, is there any sense as to what Putin’s aims are in Ukraine, and whether they are interested in negotiations with Ukraine to obtain them?

The invasion was very much improvised and did not have any long-term strategy behind it. Once the regime’s improvised strategy failed, they clearly started inventing new causes and goals for the war post-facto. We are dealing with a very rare case in which a country wages an aggressive war but struggles to define what its goals are or explain them to the public. This is partly because the elite is confused, they don’t know what to do and they’re desperately looking for a way out. But at this point they cannot find one.

The main problem now is not that they do not want to negotiate; the main problem is that, no matter what they achieve through negotiations, they won’t be able to sell it to the public given the tremendous discontent that exists. This is why it is so hard for the Russian elite and Russian government to reach a settlement. It is not just a case of having to make a deal with Ukraine and the West, which they could do. They have to be able to sell any deal they make to the domestic public, which is something that they cannot do. No matter how this ends, it’s going to generate a massive moral, political, ideological crisis and, even perhaps, upheaval in the country…

From what you are saying, continuation of the war is therefore preferable for Putin than negotiations? I ask this because within the Western left, it is common to hear the argument that it is NATO and Ukraine who want to drag out the war and who reject negotiations. But your comments seem to suggest the opposite…

Absolutely. That is why, in recent statements, Putin has revealed his eagerness to prolong the crisis as much as possible. As I have written about, they have been very clear about waging an everlasting war that continues forever, in which agreements are never reached, because they do not know what to agree on. And, as I said before, it’s not because they cannot compromise or even because they do not want to compromise; it’s because they cannot sell this to the public domestically. Especially as the invasion did generate a strong sense of jingoism and genuine enthusiasm for the war among a section of society. They managed to consolidate the most reactionary, most aggressive, the most evil elements of Russian society behind the war. The problem now is that these elements have become dangerous even for the regime itself, because at the very moment the regime negotiates and achieves any kind of settlement, it will immediately become the target of these reactionary forces.

This was already visible in April, when a meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul agreed to some kind of settlement that included a Ukrainian declaration that it would not join NATO. This was something Russia could have used to justify its invasion and point to as a victory. But while the Ukrainians were ready to sign it, Russia did not sign. To understand why, we need to look at what happened inside Russia. The very same day that they announced this preliminary agreement, there was a real eruption of anger and hatred in the pro-government media, a real rebellion by the pro-war party, that included threats to kill negotiators. In response, Russia pulled back from the agreement. Faced with the forces from hell they had unleashed, Putin’s people became scared.

Then consider that, on the other side, you have anti-war sentiment that is very strong, even if it’s severely repressed. The Putin administration is very much stuck between a rock and a hard place, because you have very strong anti-war sentiment and you have a pro-war, jingoistic, militaristic, nationalistic movement that will become oppositional the very moment that the regime reaches a settlement.

The worst case scenario for Putin – and it is certainly not excluded that at some point this might happen, particularly if Russia is defeated militarily – is that these forces, which are very different and oppose each other on every single issue, could suddenly attack the regime simultaneously from opposite sides. This is what happened in Russia in 1917, when the tsarist regime collapsed not just because of the anti-war forces, but also because of the anger of those within the military and the regime who were not happy with the way the war was being fought. These two forces attacked the tsarist regime simultaneously, leading to its collapse. Putin’s people are aware of this history, but there is very little they can do about it.

I want to return to the anti-war movement in Russia, but I would like to follow up on a point you raised regarding the far-right nationalists forces that have been unleashed in Russia. This has to do with the discussion surrounding fascism in Russia and Ukraine. How do you charaterise the governments in Moscow and Kyiv and the role played by fascist or far-right nationalists inside or outside these governments? Has the war helped to stoke these tendencies or has it opened up space for other voices?

Both sides accuse the other side of being fascist, but I think that neither side is fascist. That said, the ideology of the far right, and the tendencies that are typical of right-wing populism, and even fascism, are present in both countries.

In terms of their political and social content, the two sides are not very different. Of course, there are differences. For example, Ukraine has a much weaker state. This creates spaces in which the far right can carry out non-state-controlled repressive activities, in some cases with the support of elements of the Ukrainian security services. The Russian state does not allow such things to happen. There are no private repressive apparatuses or paramilitaries because the Russian state has an absolute monopoly over repression. In Russia, repression is centralised, while in Ukraine it is decentralised. At the same time, unlike Russia, Ukraine has a civil society that is not repressed, precisely because the state is weaker. The state has not repressed civil society in Ukraine because it does not have the capacity to repress it like in Russia.

Another difference is that the Ukrainian oligarchy is not consolidated, while the Russian oligarchy is consolidated around Putin – or at least was until recently. The Ukrainian oligarchy was never consolidated because it didn’t have much in the way of oil or other resources that could be sold on the global market to generate easy income. Instead, Ukrainian oligarchs systematically fought against each other. This created an image of Ukraine as a pluralistic democracy, which it is not. Rather, it is a weak state with competing oligarchies, something more akin to what famous political theorist Robert Dahl called a polyarchy.

So there are differences, but it does not change the fact that the ideological content of Russian and Ukrainian nationalism is very similar and the social nature of the state and capitalism in both countries is very similar. Both are dominated by oligarchic, peripheral capitalism.

However, it is important to note that there are some very positive signs on the Ukrainian side. Let’s be clear, there is no way that you can have an anti-war movement in Ukraine. That is understandable because Ukraine is the country that is being attacked. It is a victim of Russian aggression. When your city is being bombed and shelled daily, you cannot protest against your own armed forces, who are fighting back to keep you safe.

But there is a growing tendency against Ukrainian nationalism within Ukrainian society and a growing debate about what to do, if and when Ukraine wins. It’s a very active and sometimes aggressive debate, in which one of the most interesting characters is Oleksiy Arestovych. He is from the military and is an advisor and spokesperson for Zelensky. I’m not sure how strong his position is within the administration, but he has become very popular, both in Russia and Ukraine. Arestovych keeps pushing a message about what kind of new Ukraine should emerge from this war: one that overcomes divisions between east and west, between Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers. He speaks about the need to appropriate Russian language as the language of Ukrainian identity, to promote Russian culture in Ukraine, and to give hope to those from Russia who want to live and work in Kyiv. He says the new Ukraine has to overcome divisions and integrate everyone.

Because of this, he is systematically attacked by the far right, including via threats against him and his family. Ukrainian nationalists hate him, but there’s very little they can do, because he has become a popular figure, including within the army. It is important to note that on the frontline, the Ukrainian army is mostly composed of Russian speakers. On top of this, you have the Territorial Defence Force, a volunteer force which has about 200,000 armed troops fighting in eastern Ukrainian, who are also predominantly Russian speakers. So it seems quite possible that Ukraine is going to undergo some very serious shifts in the directions of a more integrated society once the war ends. It is also not excluded that it may face some sort of civil conflict – even potentially a civil war – but it’s too early to judge.

Let’s now turn to the anti-war movement in Russia. What is the current state of anti-war organising?

When the war started, there were initially quite a lot of protests in Russia, but they were brutally repressed. The reality is that there was no way in which you could protest on the streets, because you would immediately be beaten up and put in jail. The government’s repression machine managed to early on win the struggle for control of the streets, though they needed a lot of repression to achieve this. It is important not to forget that there had been massive protests, involving hundreds of thousands of people, during the past two years, along with a long-term sustained effort by the repressive apparatus to destroy these movements. They achieved this, at least temporarily.

People can now be sent to jail just for making a public anti-war statement. Simply using particular words can mean you face jail time. They sentenced a municipal deputy in Moscow to seven years jail just for saying something critical of the war during a session of the municipal council. When I publish something in Russian, I never use the word war, because just using the word war means I could receive a fine or jail. So you can imagine what the atmosphere is like.

Nevertheless, if you look on Russian social media networks, where you can post anonymously, the atmosphere is very negative towards the war. People are very critical and publish a lot of very angry texts against the war. So the anti-war movement is very weak, but it has tremendous potential.

What role has the left played in anti-war organising? What can you tell us about the positions taken towards the war by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation?

The official parties within the Duma support the war and the regime, including the two parties that pretend to be “left-wing”: the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and the so-called social democrats of A Just Russia. But if you look deeper, you can see that where they have any rank-and-file activists on the ground, these people are usually very anti-war. Quite a lot of them are now leaving these parties. Some have declared their opposition publicly, such as Yevgeny Stupin, a very charismatic and well-known [CPRF] deputy in the Moscow City Duma, or Andrei Danilov, an interesting and popular intellectual from Yakutia. There are also new leaders emerging, including from within these parties. You have, for example, Anna Ochkina, who was one of the major voices of the left within A Just Russia but who left the party, making a public statement against the war. In that sense, while the leaders speak out in favour of the war, they are not supported by any serious forces on the ground. On the ground, the left is, I shouldn’t say it is “well” but it is definitely alive, and it is definitely active and growing.

One thing to note is that a lot of people from the liberal opposition have left the country. The government publicly labelled a number of them “foreign agents”. Everyone knows that the next step after being labelled a foreign agent is that you are put in jail, which is why many have left. They have labelled me a foreign agent, I imagine with the intention of wanting me to leave, but I’m not going to leave. An interesting by-product of this policy has been that, while most of the leaders of the liberal opposition have left the country – with a few exceptions, such as Alexey Navalny, who was already in jail, and Ilya Yashin, who was recently put in jail – those who have stayed in Russia are mostly from the left. So, interestingly, the left is now becoming a kind of hegemonic force within the anti-war movement.

The anti-war movement is real, even if it’s been forced underground. And it is radicalising, because people are beginning to understand that it is not just about the war: it’s about the political and social system. A very interesting sign of this is that segments of the liberal opposition that used to be very suspicious of anything left-wing, are now moving leftward. For example, Yashin recently declared that he had certain disagreements with Navalny because he himself identifies more as a person of the left, which was a surprise to us because we always thought of him as being a liberal. Another example is Yulia Galyamina, a very charismatic and important figure of the liberal opposition, who recently made a statement that her best friends in the movement are communists. So there is definitely a shift to the left within the movement.

Finally, I want to turn to the West’s aim for Russia and the issue of regime change. You wrote recently that while western leaders “will not allow Russia to win the war ... they don’t necessarily wish for a change of the Russian regime.” This seems to cut across the dominant narrative in the West, and even the Western left, that behind the US’ motives in the Ukraine war is to weaken Russia and promote some kind of regime change. Why do you believe that they are not interested in changing the Russian regime?

Well, it depends on what you mean by regime change. If by regime change you simply mean changing the name of the president, then that is exactly what the West wants. They definitely want Putin to step down because Putin went too far, because Putin is totally unreliable, because Putin is toxic and, to some extent, he’s crazy or at least unpredictable and dangerous. So they want to get rid of him.

But do they want Russia to become a democratic, open society, dominated by people who are not corrupt and who care about the social and economic development of the country? I definitely doubt it. What they want is Putinism without Putin. They might also want some minor cosmetic changes, such as placing certain liberal economists in the government, although, it must be said, that the government is already dominated by neoliberal economists. All these economists, inside and outside the government, share the same views and approach to the economy. They all share the same idea of Russia being integrated into the global economy as a seller of raw materials and energy, and therefore increasingly dependent on Western markets.

The West definitely wants Putin to step down and the Russian elites want exactly the same thing – there is a total consensus on this. There is just one small problem: Putin is not going to step down. Moreover, if and when he finally does step down – in whatever form this might take – it will not be the end of the story, as Western and Russian elites hope; instead it will be the beginning of a much deeper crisis. By this I am not talking about Russia falling apart; I’m talking about social and political struggles within Russia for power and influence.

Real change means turning Russia into a democratic society, one dominated by domestic interests and not by the interests of foreign markets, foreign capital and Russian investment abroad, which is an important issue for Russian elites when it comes to decision-making. Russian society wants a different kind of economic development and people understand that this is necessary. This goes completely against the perspective envisaged by elites in Russia and the West.

In some sense, we have a situation that is very similar to the one Russia faced in 1916-17, when it was clear that the British and Germans were fed up with the tsar. This created a very strange situation, because the Germans and British were at war with each other, but they were in agreement that Nicolas II had to go. The Germans wanted this because they expected that Russia would then negotiate and get out of the war. The English expected a new regime to continue the war in a more effective manner. If you recall, Nicholas II resigned and then a revolution started – something that was not contemplated in either the plans of the Germans or British.

I think the situation today is very similar: they want Putin to go but they want the regime to stay largely intact, even if perhaps there might be a certain winding back in the level of authoritarianism to what existed before 2020. Essentially, a “return to normal” without Putin and without some of the more extreme repression and extreme militarisation. But it’s not going to happen that way. The regime will collapse sooner or later – and probably sooner rather than later. Much depends on the Ukrainian offensive – if it happens, when it happens and how it happens. It may end up leading to a political transition in Russia. I cannot say this will happen for sure, but it may, if the Ukrainian offensive succeeds.

But the important thing is that there is no going back to the status quo ante. Ukraine is going to undergo tremendous changes. And Russia will undergo even deeper changes. As a Belarusan comrade recently said to me, we – meaning Russians, Belarusians, all of us ex-Soviet Union and ex-Russian imperial subjects – have a good tradition: Every time we lose a war, we either start radical reforms or revolutions.

 

Also by Boris Kagarlitsky…

The Blitzkrieg Failed. What’s Next?

A Plea to My Western Progressive Friends: Stop Helping Putin with Your Conciliatory and Ambiguous Statements

Russia: Idiots, No Longer Useful  (his last published article before arrest)

James Connolly and Ukraine

Well aware there would be socialists criticizing him for taking weapons from an imperial power, Connolly had this banner made: We Serve Neither King Nor Kaiser but Ireland

The war in Ukraine has been hotly debated in Ireland, where many compare Ukraine’s resistance to Russian imperialism with Ireland’s historic opposition to British imperialism. In the following article, Conor Kostick, a prominent Irish writer and socialist, discusses how the great Irish revolutionary socialist James Connolly, executed by the British in 1916, might have approached the Ukraine war. And he addresses an issue that has confused many on the Left internationally: Ukraine’s reliance on the US and NATO for the weapons needed for its self-defense. – RF

By Conor Kostick

The war in Ukraine is a political earthquake. It has divided the left internationally. I am one of those who believes that the defeat of Russian imperialism by the people of Ukraine is vital for the future of humanity. Either the far-right and authoritarian governments are going to be strengthened or they will be thrown back and Putin toppled.

Does thinking about the conflict through the perspective of James Connolly’s politics help understand it? I believe so and – interestingly – so do those who take a very different approach to the war in Ukraine.

In Ireland the Socialist Workers Network controls a broader party called People Before Profit. The position of the SWN on the war in Ukraine is therefore that of PBP and it is what I have termed evasionist. It condemns Russia but refuses to support Ukraine’s efforts to force Russia to withdraw and prides itself on preventing arms and even anti-mine assistance going to Ukraine. This is because the SWN see the war as an inter-imperialist one, with Ukraine acting as a proxy for US imperialism.

Kieran Allen has written about Ukraine through a lens that purports to be inspired by James Connolly in a feature for the Rebel website, the website of the SWN. I’d like to use the opportunity of this talk to rescue Connolly’s reputation from the harm that Allen does to it. Allen presents Connolly’s thinking on the Great War accurately enough: it was the result of rivalry between the great powers, especially Germany and Britain and the outbreak of war should have heralded a working-class rebellion in the cause of internationalism.

The violence to James Connolly’s politics happens because of what is not said. Allen concludes: “Connolly’s message that war is a product of capitalism and that the overthrow of that system is necessary could not be more relevant today.” Well yes, capitalism is bad and Connolly wanted socialism. But what about the very specific and relevant questions arising out of the occupation of smaller nations by stronger imperial powers. Specifically:

1. When those smaller nations fight for independence, should socialists support them?

2. Does that support cease if the leadership of the national independence movement is pro-capitalist?

3. Does that support cease if the leadership of the national independence movement seek weapons from other imperial powers?

James Connolly and Ukraine: Questions Answered

As soon as you pose these questions instead of evading them, there can be no argument over the answers that James Connolly would and did give to them. One. Yes, socialists are in favour of the right of nations to self-determination and not to be ruled by imperial powers. Two no, that support does not cease if the leadership of the national independence movement are pro-capitalist. In fact, Connolly’s major argument here, powerfully expressed in his book Labour in Irish History is that because Ireland’s elite are bound by a thousand golden threads to the capitalism of the British empire, they will betray the national movement. Not only should Irish socialists fight for independence, they should appreciate that the working class are the class most fit to achieve it. And Three, yes, you should take advantage of divisions among imperial powers to get arms for the national movement of an oppressed nation.

On this last point, I just want to emphasise how far Connolly was prepared to go to get military assistance from Germany, whilst retaining his opposition to all empires including the German one. Germany allowed the sale of 900 rifles and 29,000 rounds of ammunition to the Irish volunteers in 1914, brought to Ireland on a yacht, The Asgard. In 1916, Germany sent a ship, The Aud, with 20,000 rifles, 10 machine guns and a million rounds of ammunition to the west coast of Ireland. Roger Casement, the negotiator for the volunteers, was brought to the same area by U-boat. These were welcomed by Connolly, who also forwarded, to the readers of his Workers Republic, letters from leaders of the Irish Brigade, which was being trained in Germany.

Of course Connolly had political opponents who he knew would condemn him for dealing with Germany and approving of German assistance. The same kind of socialists who say they are against all capitalist powers and that to support Ukraine is to support NATO. He therefore had a huge banner made to make it absolutely and unmistakeably clear that you could take advantage of German willingness to promote rebellion in Ireland without supporting German imperialism: We Serve Neither King Nor Kaiser but Ireland.

I’m confident therefore, especially given the many similarities of history in the relationship between Ukraine and Russia and Ireland and Britain that Connolly would be on the side of Ukraine’s workers in their resistance to invasion, their willingness to use whatever weapons they can obtain and to fight alongside Zelensky, even while making the point that the fight would be more effective without neo-liberal policies holding it back.

My last point is one of method. Connolly had a simple but powerful way of assessing where he stood in novel situations. He started by listening to those affected. As he put it in 1915 after engagement with the nascent women’s movement in Ireland, None so fitted to break the chains as they who wear them, none so well equipped to decide what is a fetter.

Connolly gave voice to the working class and the oppressed more generally. The truly shocking evasion is that in over 500 days of the invasion not one voice from Ukraine has appeared on the websites of SWN or been articulated by the politicians of PBP. This is in stark contrast to Connolly’s approach to politics. Even if he disagreed with an opponent, he’d present their views, in order to swipe at them with relish. He was a master polemicist and very funny too. I believe Connolly would have sided with the Ukrainian left and helped working class refugees find their feet in Ireland, as he did for Jewish workers at the turn of the century. But let’s suppose he had a disagreement with them, it’s impossible to imagine him carrying out the cowardice and deception necessary to pretend that the millions of Ukrainian trade unionists, feminists, socialists, anarchists, etc. are not fighting as hard as they can to get the Russian rapists out of their country. To suggest Connolly would have ignored the Ukrainian left in the name of a vague opposition to capitalism is where the real violence to his legacy happens.

20/07/2023

Conor Kostick’s text is based on a talk he gave to Workers Liberty’s conference Ideas for Freedom on July 15, 2023.