International

By John Pickard

There are differences of opinion on the left of the British labour movement on the attitude that socialists should adopt towards the war in Ukraine. Unfortunately, many of those differences arise from some comrades forgetting the basic class nature of war. In war as in peace, the ruling class and their political representatives – in this case Trump, Starmer, Macron, Putin and Zelenskyy – follow policies that are in their own best interests and nothing else. What we always need to remember is that the working class of the USA, Britain, France, Russia or Ukraine have their own interests, opposed to their own ruling class, even in wartime.

One of the most common mistakes is to view the war in Ukraine only as a proxy war between Russia and NATO. It is a proxy war, but the question does not end there. When the full-scale invasion began three years ago, it was only after the first stages of the fighting (when it was clear that the outnumbered Ukrainians had far higher morale than the Russian troops) that it became a proxy war between two great power blocs.

Socialists in Britain oppose the NATO alliance. But because they oppose ‘their own’ ruling class, while forgetting to see the war from a class standpoint, some comrades, as it were by ‘accident’, imply support for Russia and Putin. This whole issue has evolved somewhat, because of the divisions within NATO and Trump’s ban on further US military support for Ukraine, which has been up to now about half of the total. Moreover, Trump has become an open cheerleader for Putin, a “Russian asset”, as some US commentators describe him.

Clear implication in the proxy-war argument

Nonetheless, there is a clear implication in the proxy-war argument that NATO and/or Ukraine ‘provoked’ the war. We hear this much more explicitly from Trump himself. The idea is rooted in the understandingbetween Russia and the USA, when the USSR collapsed in 1991, that there would be no eastern expansion of NATO, but it was an understanding broken by NATO.

The logic of this argument is that Boris Yeltsin and George Bush were empowered to prevent Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and, Ukraine – all former components or satellites of the USSR – from joining NATO. It is an acceptance, in other words, that the great powers should not interfere in each other’s spheres of influence.

The first thing that has to be noted here, is that no socialist should accept that these leaders should be able to decide what these countries can and cannot do. Socialists do not accept the idea of “spheres of influence” whereby big, powerful state are allowed to determine the economic, trading and political decisions of smaller states, usually (but not always) their neighbours.

It has never been Russia’s or Putin’s prerogative to decide the political fortunes of the newly-independent, former USSR member states, or any other states in eastern Europe that were once “satellites” in the sphere of influence of the USSR. We need to understand from the point of view of the working class of Eastern Europe how the NATO expansion came about, because there are those who see this, not in class terms, but only in terms of geopolitical machinations and CIA plots.

What social forces put their stamp the politics of Eastern Europe in the in the post-USSR decades? It was not the CIA or other agencies of the west, as some modern-day British activists imply. It was domestic factors. The two determining motivations in shaping the politics of the working class in eastern Europe were the higher living standards in the west, and greater political liberties, both of which were ‘on offer’ for the first time in many people’s living memory.

Political thinking shifted in eastern Europe

These two factors shifted political thinking in eastern Europe, within a large proportion of its population, towards the principles, methods, and outlook of western politics in general, ie, based on the market economy, on capitalism and on defence in NATO. That may not have been in the best long-term interests of workers, and something much to the regret of socialists in the west, but we have to face facts. Although western politicians and NATO generals would indeed have been trying to extend the reach of western powers, it was the shift in mass consciousness in the eastern European states that was decisive.

Whatever George Bush or Boris Yeltsin may have expected in 1991, the collapse of Stalinism came like a massive release of political pressure in eastern Europe, not least within the working class. Workers are not stupid, and they saw what it was like over the western borders. What they saw was what they wanted.

Workers in the east inevitably envied the higher living standards and the ready availability of high-quality consumer goods, far superior to the endless austerity they had suffered under the old regimes. And who can blame them? Who can argue with workers in the former East Germany, looking enviously at their fellow Germans a few miles away, enjoying far higher living standards and political freedoms?

Bureaucrats stealing state assets

The old Stalinist states of Eastern Europe had retained state planning to a degree, but long before 1989, bureaucrats were openly stealing state resources, giving away or planning to give away large swathes of industry to themselves and their friends. The rottenness and corruption of these governments weighed like a monstrous weight on the living standards of workers, so when the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR disappeared, it opened the floodgates to a surge of longing for the living standards and liberties of the west.

For a period after the Yelstin presidency, the Russian economy went through a deep slump, as the economy was almost completely privatised in a very short time. The living standards of Russian workers, already low, plummeted further. This became another reason why Russia was not a pole of attraction to workers elsewhere in Eastern Europe. As soon as they were able, east European governments joined the EU, and workers migrated west for work, and capitalist investments flowed in the other direction.

But there was another important reason why workers in the east faced towards the west. Their own experiences of the USSR and their status as satellite states was based on an absence of personal rights and liberties. The secret police, state police, censorship, restrictions on rights: these were the norm in eastern Europe. Workers understood that despite some restrictions placed on rights – such as Thatcher’s anti-union laws – workers in the west were immeasurably more free to express their political ideas, campaign for them and decide their futures. Western German parliamentary democracy was far more attractive than Stasi-style repression in the east.

Eastern European states were not ‘socialist’

The question of political freedom is not incidental or secondary. It is central to the shift in consciousness of workers in the former Soviet states and satellites. What is astonishing is that there are still labour movement activists today who refer to eastern Europe as having been made up of ‘socialist’ states, when they were nothing of the sort.

Once the dam burst, in terms of new political freedoms and relatively free elections, there was a groundswell of support among workers in the east in favour of trade with, then membership of, the EU. The same sentiments affected millions of workers in Ukraine, by 2013, although it had not by that time joined the EU. Indeed, that was the key point of contention at the time of the Maidan protests and the beginning of civil war in the eastern provinces.

There is no doubt that western politicians, diplomats and agencies were active in eastern Europe, agitating for EU and NATO membership, but In the final analysis, what was decisive were not their machinations, but a shift in the sentiments of the working class. This process cannot be glossed over, and if it is, then it leads comrades into the logical implication that EU and NATO expansion were the results of a conspiracy by western diplomats and the CIA; but such things are not the real motive forces of history.

A socialist alternative was not on offer to eastern workers

Of course, if there had been political movements with a genuine socialist programme, it may have been possible to lead workers in these states not in the direction of capitalism, but the opposite way. Not towards a ‘marketised’ economy, but towards retaining and extending public-ownership in industry, transport and utilities, but purging them of corrupt and parasitic bureaucrats and providing the oxygen of workers’ control and democratic management.

A genuine socialist movement would have been a far better alternative, and rather than east European workers looking west for their futures, it would have been western workers looking east for inspiration. Unfortunately, however, this option was not there, and so history followed a different path.

What would have been the attitude of socialists towards joining the EU, the ‘capitalist club’? Socialists would have warned about the iniquities of capitalism and the inevitability of eastern workers being exploited by western corporations. They would have warned against the end of state housing, health and welfare. But one cannot argue against concrete facts: after an initial economic recession, workers were far better off materially in the EU, than they had been before 1989, and they enjoyed greater political freedoms. It is not for socialists in the west to say ‘no’, you cannot have these things.

Therefore in discussions with those who argue that NATO ‘provoked’ Putin by expanding to the east, we would agree that he may have felt provoked, but that still did not give him the right to trample on Ukrainian sovereignty. More to the point, the ‘provocation’ is a story half told. What needs telling is why were the EU, and then NATO, strong poles of attraction to voters, including workers, in eastern Europe.

2022 invasion was not in Russian or Ukrainian workers’ interests

Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022 was not a ‘denazification’ operation; it was an attempt by force of arms to assert Russian hegemony – in part of what it regarded as its sphere of influence. The invasion was not in any way in the interests of Russian, much less Ukrainian, workers, but in the interests of Putin’s personal power, prestige and influence and those of the Russian oligarchs he represents.

As socialists in the west, we are opposed to NATO; it is the armed expression of imperialism, especially US imperialism, and although Trump’s new turn in international relations threatens the integrity of the alliance, the principle remains the same. So, what should a socialist have said to workers in eastern Europe?

We would have warned workers in the east about what NATO really represents and advised that such alliances work, in the last analysis, against the interests of the working class. We would have counselled against states joining NATO. But what we could not do was tell workers in Ukraine or anywhere else that they had no right to decide for themselves. NATO expansion for the most part rode on the coat-tails of EU expansion, and both happened because it was a reflection of the sentiments of the majority of workers in the east at that period in time.

Seeing the Ukraine war as a proxy war between NATO and Russia, has led some comrades to the view that because we oppose our own ruling class, which is in NATO, we should, therefore, support no side in the Ukraine war, and in some places in the labour movement even to support Putin.

Ukrainian workers have the right to conduct a defensive war

But if we view the war from a workers’ viewpoint, and particularly those on the ‘sharp end’ of the conflict, we have to say that Ukrainians workers have the right to make war in defence of their communities, their families and their national rights. Just because some in the west blame all these events on western ‘provocation’, does not mean that Ukrainian workers should surrender.

Part of the narrative around NATO provocations refers to the Maidan protests of 2013-14 and the change of government. This is characterised as a ‘coup’ orchestrated by the west. But, again, this is only a quarter of the truth. When the Maidan protests started in November 2013, the rallies in the central square of Kyiv were dominated mostly by youth and students, with a smattering of workers, and many who we might describe as ‘middle class’. The protests were described as the ‘Euromaidan’ because they opposed the then government switching its direction of policy from the west, which would mean facing towards the EU, to the east, towards greater trade and ties with Russia.

Incidentally, it should be noted that the main political parties in Ukraine at that time (as today) were representative of different factions of oligarchs, some grouped around industries in the eastern Russian-speaking provinces, based on coal and steel (like the party then in power in Kyiv), and others based on different industries around Kyiv and elsewhere (the opposition).

Euromaidan became a permanent protest movement

The youthful rallies of the Euromaidan became a semi-permanent manifestation of opposition to the government and were initially, by and large, peaceful. It was when the Ukrainian police tried to forcibly remove them that street battles began. The protesters organised self-defence groups and as the weeks progressed, there were regular running battles with the police, which culminated in serious clashes in late February 2014, when over a hundred protesters and more than a dozen police were killed.  

It was this clash that finally led to the fall of Yanukovych, the pro-Moscow president, and the establishment of an interim government. There is no doubt that diplomats, politicians and agencies of western governments, including the CIA, would have participated in the Euromaidan movement to promote a change of government.

This is what rival governments have always done to each other – in much the same way that Putin actively intervenes in western politics: to promote people like Trump, Farage, Le Pen and parties like the AfD, or anyone else who can be a ‘distruptive’ force in western politics. But, in analysing these right-wing movements, we would not overlook domestic social and economic factors and simply attribute the rise of Trump or Farage to Russian social media bots.

Likewise, to suggest that the turmoil and change of government in Ukraine in 2014 was entirely due to outsiders ‘stirring things up’ is utterly false and is an un-Marxist reading of the situation. The Euromaidan was essentially a domestic movement, and at least when it started, before it degenerated into constant street battles, it reflected the hopes and aspirations of Ukrainian workers and youth for the higher living standards and political freedoms of the EU.

Appalling fascist outrages, like in Odessa

It was in the escalating violence over the Euromaidan that fascist gangs began to participate in the street battles, on the side of the anti-government demonstrators and against the police. There were some appalling outrages committed by the fascists, the worst being the torching of the Odessa trade union building in May 2014. Pro-Maidan and anti-Maidan gangs battled each other in the streets that day in Odessa, and those killed in the trade union building – nearly 50 – were anti-Maidan activists.

The presence of fascist gangs in 2014 and later has led some comrades in the British movement to implicit agreement with Putin over the need for denazification. But as significant as these militias were in 2014, they were not an enduring movement, although their actions in the eastern provinces drove Russian speakers into the arms of the pro-Russian fascist gangs as fighting erupted on a large scale. Nonetheless, by 2022 they were no longer a serious political force, and Zelenskyy, elected in 2019, is no fascist, even if some liberties have been restricted during the past three years of war.

From around 2014 onwards there was open civil war between Ukrainian fascist groups and similar pro-Russian groups, the latter assisted by regular Russian army units coming over what was still, more or less, an open border. There were many atrocities and tens of thousands of deaths, long before the invasion of 2022. Parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, in the hands of pro-Russian militias, declared their ‘independence’ by the time the Russia army crossed the border in what was officially a “special military operation” to ‘denazify’ Ukraine.

We need to repeat that we view the war from a class point of view. In Russia, socialists would argue for the withdrawal of Russian troops and the ending of a war not in the interests of Russian workers.

Fundamental socialist view

In Ukraine, from the very beginning we argued, “socialists, where they can put forward slogans and demands, would support the principle of defending Ukrainian independence against Russian occupation – how could they not, when it is the overwhelming instinct of ordinary workers to protect their homes and livelihoods? But they would challenge the means employed by the Kyiv government and the still dominant influence, even in wartime, of the oligarchs and vested interests of capitalism and the rich” (Left Horizons, Feb 28, 2022).

That should remain our view today. We should reiterate the fundamental socialist view that Ukraine has a right to self-determination and independence. Since the war started, Putin has suggested that Ukraine should not even exist, but should be no more than a ‘province’ of Russia. That idea runs against the entire history of Ukraine, with its language, traditions, and bitter memories of economic and national oppression. Putin’s arrogant denial of Ukrainian nationhood is, in any case, rejected overwhelmingly by Ukrainians, including Russian speakers who are not confined to the eastern provinces.

In a socialist Ukraine, we would argue for full equality in terms of language rights, and for autonomy for the eastern provinces, according to their wishes. But unfortunately, the exigencies of civil war and war have all but wiped out the possibility for the foreseeable future of any democratic determination of the population’s wishes.

What would a socialist MP argue in parliament?

There is another issue that has been raised in the movement, albeit a secondary one. The question goes something like this: “What would you do, if you were the government? Would you send arms to Ukraine?” The short answer that is that socialists should have no confidence in, or give any support to, a government of capitalism.

The western states announce their ‘aid’ to Ukraine, but that is only for headlines and public relations. In reality, they sell arms on credit and offer financial loans. What is not publicised are the secret clauses in all of these agreements that bind Ukrainian workers to being exploited by western corporations and governments for generations.

NATO states do not care about Ukrainian freedoms. They care about profits – and Trump’s blatant pitch for half of Ukraine’s mineral rights is only a bare-faced expression of what the USA and the other western states have been thinking all along. We put no trust in capitalist governments, and neither should Ukrainian workers.

“So”, our questioner continues, “Would you or would you not vote for arms to go to Ukraine?” We have said we support the right of Ukrainian workers to conduct a defensive war, with whatever weapons they can find, wherever they find them. But we need to answer the question about what an individual Marxist MP should say or do in parliament. There used to be three Labour MPs who stood on the ideas of the Marxist newspaper Militant. What would they say if they were there today? How would they vote?

First of all, we should make the point that we need to avoid falling into the trap of what Marx and Engels called “parliamentary cretinism”, imagining that parliament is where real power lies: it does not. It lies in the cabinet office, the Foreign Office, in the civil service and in the forces of the state, and behind all of these in the boardrooms of big business. No matter which way a vote in parliament happens to go, a capitalist government will simply do what it has already decided to do in its own best interests.

All secret clauses in international agreements should be published

A Marxist MP understands that, and when he or she speaks, they do not address the serried ranks of MPs around them, but speak over their heads to the labour movement outside. In the best traditions of the movement, they might circulate their speech on social media or as a pamphlet. They would express their support for the rights of Ukrainian workers, their utter distrust of any capitalist government, demand that all the secret clauses of agreements be published, and call for the nationalisation of the UK arms industry.

They would appeal for solidarity action and support from the rank and file of the trade union movement for Ukrainian workers, including a call for Ukrainian trade unions to be fully free, and independent, and for the Ukrainian workers to have control and management of their local arms industry to avoid profiteering. Arms should be for workers defending their communities, not for oligarchs’ profiteering.

Whether at the end of this speech our MP would vote for arms or abstain in the vote would depend entirely on tactical issues like the wording of the motion. Having addressed the question of the war from the workers’ standpoint, our MP might say, “On this occasion, despite my support for Ukrainian workers, I am led by my utter distrust of this government to abstain…”. Or, alternatively, they might say, “Despite my utter distrust of anything this government does, I am minded to support the export of arms to Ukraine, because…” in reality, it matters little how one Marxist MP (or a small group of Marxist MPs) votes, because the government will have already decided what it is going to do.

In an article in the Guardian last week, Andrey Kurkov, who is a Ukrainian novelist, commented on Trump’s humiliation of Zelenskyy in the White House. “…some Ukrainians are convinced”, he wrote, “that the extraction of rare earth metals on Trump’s terms would turn our country into a “colony” of the US. Still, many Ukrainians would prefer to live in a US colony than in a Russian one, if that’s the choice”. (Emphasis added)

It is in no sense to support Donald Trump that Kurkov wrote this. But given the bitter history between Russia and Ukraine, unfortunately, however much it might stick in the craw of those out-and-out Stalinists who still exist in the British labour movement, what Kurkov writes is probably true.

[All pictures from Wikimedia Commons (some of them attributed to Ukrainian Defence Ministry)]