{"id":425,"date":"2014-05-18T10:47:24","date_gmt":"2014-05-18T10:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2014\/05\/18\/russia-ukraine-and-the-internationl-left-eric-lee-2014\/"},"modified":"2014-05-18T10:47:24","modified_gmt":"2014-05-18T10:47:24","slug":"russia-ukraine-and-the-internationl-left-eric-lee-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2014\/05\/18\/russia-ukraine-and-the-internationl-left-eric-lee-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia, Ukraine and the Internationl Left – Eric Lee (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nEric Leeericlee@labourstart.org
\n03\/03\/2014
\nRussia, Ukraine and the International Left<\/strong>
\n\u201cThe policy of Russia is changeless \u2026 Its methods, its tactics, its maneuvers may change, but the polar star of its policy \u2014 world domination \u2014 is a fixed star.\u201d
\n\u2013 Karl Marx, 1867
\nThat extraordinary passage by Marx appears in a little-known collection of his writings (as well as those of Friedrich Engels) which was published in 1952 under the title \u201cThe Russian Menace to Europe\u201d.
\nThat book aimed to show the fundamental continuity of Russian foreign policy from the tsars through Stalin.
\nIts editors, Paul W. Blackstock and Bert F. Hoselitz, argued that \u201cthe analysis made by Marx and Engels of the external as well as internal polices and socio-political trends of Czarist Russia are fully applicable to similar aspects of Stalinist Russia. The main provisional and final objectives of Russian foreign policy have not been altered \u2026\u201d
\nIt was a bold argument, and one not widely appreciated by the Left during the Cold War. Many leftists believed Russia played a progressive role in international affairs right up until the end.
\nWith the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was widely hoped that the predatory foreign policy of the tsars and their Stalinist successors had finally come to an end.
\nAnd yet within a few short years, those hopes were to be dashed \u2014 first by the barbaric war against Chechnya, and later by Russian aggression directed against Georgia.
\nThe seizure of the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were dress rehearsals for the seizure this week of Crimea.
\nThough few would accept that the Putin regime still dreams of world domination, there can no longer be any question of its dreams regarding the countries of the former USSR \u2014 the so-called \u201cnear abroad\u201d.
\nWhat should be the response of the international Left to the latest Russian aggression, this time targetting democratic Ukraine?
\nIn my view, the slogan \u201cHands Off Ukraine!\u201d should be embraced by all socialists and democrats but this has not been the case.
\nIn the UK, the Communist Party\u2019s daily newspaper, the Morning Star \u2014 which is funded by Britain\u2019s largest union \u2014 has enthusiastically supported Russian aggression yet again.
\nThe \u201cStop the War Coalition\u201d which spearheaded opposition to British involvement in the Afghan and Iraq wars has called on Nato and the USA to back down. Here\u2019s an example of their thinking:
\n\u201cVladimir Putin\u2019s troop movements in Crimea, which are supported by most Russians, are of questionable legality under the terms of the peace and friendship treaty that Russia signed with Ukraine in 1997. But their illegality is considerably less clear-cut than that of the US-led invasion of Iraq, or of Afghanistan, where the UN security council only authorised the intervention several weeks after it had happened.\u201d
\nIn other words, Putin may be bad \u2014 but Obama is worse.
\nPutin\u2019s propaganda message has spread far and wide, and is being embraced by people who should know better.
\nI don\u2019t only mean publicity-hungry and unprincipled fools like George Galloway or Thom Hartmann, who have sold out to get a show on Putin\u2019s \u201cRussia Today\u201d television channel.
\nThere are plenty of people out there who have no sympathy for Putin, but who are buying into the official Russian propaganda line.
\nThe allegation that Nazi bandits have taken control of Kyiv is patently absurd. Even the Jewish leadership in Ukraine has gone out of its way to reassure people that there have been very few anti-Semitic incidents.
\nOf course there are political forces in Ukraine that are vile, such as Svoboda.
\nThe task of the international Left surely is to oppose them, to support the democratic and progressive elements in Ukraine, first and foremost the independent trade union movement.
\nThose unions were in the Maidan square from the beginning with their flags and banners and played a key role in the revolution which toppled the rotten and corrupt Yanukovich regime.
\nIf the Ukrainian far-Right is to be defeated, it will be defeated by Ukrainians \u2014 not by Russian troops.
\nDemocrats in Russia understand all this, and have protested demanding that their country stop its aggression against Ukraine.
\nHundreds have been arrested.
\nThe international Left should be focused on supporting those people, our comrades, in Russia and elsewhere who are challenging Putin.
\nWe should not become apologists for Putin and his cronies, as some on the Left have become.
\nOur message should be loud and clear:
\nHands off Ukraine!
\nNo to Russian aggression!
\nSolidarity with the Ukrainian revolution!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}