Ukraine – The Role Of Dmytro Yarosh, Leader Of The Fascist Paramilitary, Right Sector

By Peter Schwarz , WSWS
On April 22, Spiegel Online published an interview with Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Ukrainian fascist paramilitary organisation Right Sector. This interview confirms that the fascists not only played a decisive role in the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February, but that also play a significant role in the current transitional government headed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Yarosh explained that the armed wing of his organisation had not been disbanded, but legalised. “Our battalions are part of the new territorial defence. We have close contact with the intelligence services, and the general staff. We actually have good relations with everyone, apart from the police,” he told Spiegel Online.Yarosh is closely connected to Andriy Parubiy, who commanded the self-defence forces during the protests on Independence Square (the Maidan). Parubiy was the co-founder of the fascist Ukrainian Social National Party, the predecessor of Svoboda. He is now a leading member of the Fatherland Party of Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, and heads Ukraine’s security and defence council. Yarosh was originally supposed to have been his deputy, but rejected the offer in order to maintain his freedom to manoeuvre against the government.

In the interview, he made clear that Right Sector does not accept the authority of the current government, nor would it accept a future elected government. “Our revolution will only be completed when we have totally renewed the state,” he stated.

His goals are clearly of a fascist character. His choice of words was similar to those of the Nazis, whose terror regime he described as a “government of national revolution.”

Asked by Spiegel Online about his motives, Yarosh answered, “I am a Ukrainian nationalist. My goal is a strong state.” He described liberalism as “a form of totalitarianism.” On the EU, he criticised its alleged “anti-Christian orientation.”

“We oppose the destruction of the traditional family, and are against same-sex marriage.” By contrast he supported the EU’s social and economic policies, calling for tax cuts to support the middle classes and foreign investment.

In his militarist work “Nation and Revolution,” Yarosh expressed himself even more explicitly, as Spiegel Online pointed out. In it, he openly opposes parliamentary democracy and advocated an ethnically-based nationalism. He intends to spread “the nationalist ideology throughout the entire territory of our state,” “de-russify” eastern Ukraine, and ensure that the native people have the leading role in the state.

Yarosh no longer appears in a military uniform. He is a candidate for the upcoming presidential election and now wears a suit and tie. In his interview with Spiegel Online, he sought to downplay his anti-Semitic beliefs, which could prove embarrassing for the Western supporters of the new regime in Kiev.

The interview with Yarosh—and the fact that he was provided a political platform by Spiegel Onlin—shows the thoroughly reactionary nature of the forces Western powers relied upon to force regime change in Kiev and provoke a confrontation with Russia. In February, the armed provocateurs of Right Sector played a key role in escalating the conflict with security forces, leading to the loss of hundreds of lives and the overthrow of the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych.

Meanwhile, there are reports indicating that western cooperation with Right Sector goes back some time. According to a report in the Polish weekly Nie (“No”), published by 80-year-old journalist Jerzy Urban, the Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorski invited 86 members of Right Sector to an intensive, four-week training course at the Police Training Centre Legionowo near Warsaw last September.

The fascists were trained in crowd management, person recognition, combat tactics, command skills, behaviour in crisis situations, protection against gases used by police, erecting barricades, and especially shooting, including the handling of sniper rifles. The training was officially described as “student exchange.”

The visit took place a full two months before the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an Association Agreement with the EU on 21 November—the event that triggered the Maidan protests. If the report in Nie is true, it shows that the events leading up to the regime change in Kiev were a carefully planned provocation.

The Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski has close links to ruling circles of the USA. He is married to the right-wing American author Anne Applebaum and was director of the Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, starting in 2002.

On February 21, Sikorski together with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, negotiated the agreement between President Yanukovych and the Ukrainian opposition, which was then sabotaged within the space of a few hours by the Right Sector and other armed groups. If Sikorski maintained close links to the Right Sector then he must have known of or possibly planned the provocation with the fascists.

Unconditional Support to the Union Borotba! Motion to Brent and Harrow Labour Representation Committee From Gerry Downing, Socialist Fight

Gerry Downing, Socialist Fight.
Brent and Harrow LRC condemns the illegal coup that overthrew the democratic elected President Yanukovich which was funded by the US to the tune of $5 Billion and implemented by a mob led by the far right and neo-fascists, and has resulted in a government where Neo-Nazis are in control of the Armed Forces, National Security, Economy, Justice and Education. (Global Research, March 02, 2014). According to the New York Times, “The United States and the European Union have embraced the revolution here as another flowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space.”. See The U.S. has Installed a Neo-Nazi Government in Ukraine, By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 02, 2014,

In this situation the organisations of the working class in the Ukraine are under violent assault by these neo-Nazi thugs, particularly in the East, where the big workers organisations are concentrated in the heavy industry. We therefore give our unconditional support to those forces that are fighting heroically against this mortal threat to their organisations and indeed to their very lives.

We therefore pledge out solidarity with the Union Borotba, which is leading that struggle. The press has reported severe state oppression allied to the armed marauding gangs of fascist thugs who are now spreading terror in East Ukraine. Leading members of Borotba have been arrested; “On the morning of April 1, Ukrainian Security Forces (SBU) agents raided the apartment of Odessa, Ukraine, (Borotba) anti-fascist leader Alexei Albu with a warrant authorizing them to search for lists of activists and for weapons… On the eve of the raid, the local “Euromaidan” movement — supporters of the pro-Western, fascist-dominated junta in Kiev — held a rally outside police headquarters demanding the arrest of Albu and other prominent anti-fascists.

“The Euromaidan nationalists openly demand that the special services subject us to violence,” Albu said. “This shows how repressive and anti-democratic in its essence the Euromaidan movement and the Kiev regime truly are.” Albu was not staying in the apartment and is safe — for now.

See Ukraine: Coup regime raids home of Odessa anti-fascist leader, By Greg Butterfield, http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/04/01/ukraine-coup-regime-raids-home-odessa-anti-fascist-leader/

We therefore call on the LRC nationally to give its unconditional support to the Union Borotba and to campaign in the Labour party wards, GCs and at every level for this.

Proposed by Gerry Downing:

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Information on Borotba from their website:
(“Borotba” means “Struggle”) and was founded in May 2011 by several Ukrainian political groups, in particular: “The Organization of Marxists” (Ukraine); former members of “the Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine” (youth organization of the Ukrainian Communist Party); members of  the Ukranian “Youth Against Capitalism” movement; “All-Ukrainian union of workers”; and the Ukranian “Che Guevara Youth Association”; as well as other organizations and individual activists.

Union “Borotba” has chosen non-parliamentary methods of political struggle. “In terms of class polarization and concentration of wealth, democratic rights and institutions are transformed into the force to keep all the power in the capitalists’ hands. However, “Borotba” members will participate in the elections to promote the program of social revolution.

In 2012 “Borotba” Union has started a broad campaign against increasing right-wing sentiments in Ukraine in particular against neo-Nazi party ”Svoboda”. Now “Borotba” is the leader of the Anti-Fascist movement in Ukraine. Besides street actions and demonstrations activists of the “Borotba” Union participate in the network of social cinema clubs and festivals of Anti-Fascist movies. They also publish and distribute an Anti-Fascist newspaper.

Regional organizations of “Borotba” are making efforts to establish contacts with workers and independent trade unions all over the country. They support workers in their struggle against liquidations and reorganizations of their enterprises. The organization is also involved in social and political campaigns. For example, against the adoption of the new Labor Code and Educational Law; student protests against the neo-liberal project of the Housing Code “Against Housing Slavery! Against capitalism!”; against tariffs; for the social rights of workers, and for women rights.

In 2011 and 2012 “Borotba” members participated in the alternative May Day demonstration in Kiev together with trade unions and left-wing radical youth organizations. And has started international solidarity campaigns with Cuba, demanding freedom for The Cuban Five; and campaigns of solidarity with the Palestine and Venezuelan revolutions.

The Draft Manifest of the Organization declares: Union “Borotba” stands for Revolutionary Marxism. The Manifesto also states that the organization will support principles of Anti-Capitalism, Internationalism, Anti-Fascism, Political radicalism and Gender equality.

Ukraine: Anti-Fascist Rebellion Grows, Coup Government Attempting Violent Crackdown

By Steven Argue, 13th April
In nine cities in eastern Ukraine the government buildings, including security agencies, police stations, and administrative buildings, have been seized in an anti-fascist uprising. Barricades have been erected in the cities and anti-fascist checkpoints have been erected across the countryside. Those holding the barricades and checkpoints are largely the mine workers and industrial workers of the heavily industrial region. The uprising is calling for equality between nationalities. This is in opposition to the U.S. backed ultra-nationalist government in Kiev. Protesters are also demanding a referendum on some form of self-determination, allowing them to determine their own affairs independently of the illegitimate government in Kiev that overthrew Ukraine’s elected president in February.Cops and fascist paramilitaries from western Ukraine are mobilizing against the anti-fascist uprising.

The coup government in Kiev has declared the anti-fascists terrorists and attacked. In a joint operation of Ukrainian police and fascists of Right Sector in Sloviansk, the Kiev government has killed at least one protester and one fighting for the coup government has been killed as well. Sloviansk, however, remains under working class and not fascist control. The leadership of the neo-Nazi group Right Sector has called for a full mobilization of its forces to go to war in eastern Ukraine. In addition, Russian intelligence report that the private U.S. mercenaries of Greystone are on the ground and involved in repressive activities in Ukraine. These private mercenaries have also committed many crimes against the Iraqi people.Showing typical U.S. imperialist hypocrisy, U.S. spokesmen are backing this ultra-nationalist crackdown on protesters. Yet, during the Maiden protests the U.S. continually threatened sanctions to protect the ultra-nationalists who eventually came to power with U.S. aid in the February 22 coup. In that case, the U.S. repeatedly claimed that the ultra-nationalists were peaceful protesters, despite the fact that they were shooting and killing cops, lighting them on fire with Molotov cocktails, and beating them with clubs.

Ultimately, all evidence shows, the U.S. backed ultra-nationalists opened fire on their own men with snipers in order to blame the police of the elected government and create the crisis needed to overthrow that government. Today, the new U.S. backed coup government has a number of open neo-Nazis in key posts. Now that the working class of eastern Ukraine is rising up against this same ultra-nationalist government, the United States is somehow blaming Russia for a revolt that is, in fact, a result of the U.S. imperialist coup.

A tenth city was seized by anti-fascists on Sunday, the town of Mariupol.
 As usual, the New York Times echoed the official lies of the Kiev government with a headline saying,” Ukraine Forces Storm a Town, Defying Russia”. Yet later in the article they admit: “By Sunday afternoon, the government’s push to reassert its authority in a vitally important industrial and coal-mining region appeared to have made little headway. Pro-Russian protesters appeared to control not only the police station but also the entire town of Slovyansk, having set up checkpoints at major streets leading into town.”

 Fact is, reports from anti-fascist activists appear to be truthful when they say pro-coup forces (cops and fascists of the Right Sector) opened up with machine gun fire on a roadblock outside of Slovyansk, killing two people. One cop was killed in return fire and the pro-coup forces never made their way into Slovyansk. In addition, liberated Slovyansk has officially merged with the Donetsk People’s Republic.

For more on Ukraine:
Against Ukraine repression: ‘In Donetsk and Kharkov, The people continue to fight’ By Greg Butterfield (April 9th)
Support the Ukrainian Anti-fascist Rebellion; For the Donetsk People’s Republic By Steve Argue (March 31st)
Anti-fascists organize resistance as crisis grips Ukraine coup regime By Workers World (March 28th)

Against Ukraine repression: ‘In Donetsk and Kharkov, The people continue to fight’

By Greg Butterfield, Workers World
 April 10 – Desperate to stamp out a popular uprising in Southeastern Ukraine, the fascist junta in Kiev -which came to power through a violent coup against elected President Viktor Yanukovich -is moving to crush the newly declared People’s Republic of Donetsk and rebellions in other cities.  But anti-fascists throughout the region continue to resist in the face of increasing repression by the U.S.-backed regime.

Arsen Avakov, the junta’s Interior Minister, arrived in the Southeast April 9, delivering a 48-hour ultimatum to protesters occupying government buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk to surrender or face military attack. The deadline expires at nightfall on April 11. Avakov, a leader of the far-right Fatherland party, was tasked with bringing the various neo-Nazi groups under the regime’s discipline. To this end he created a “National Guard” composed of members of the Right Sector, Euromaidan Self Defense Forces, and other racist gangs from Western Ukraine. The Communist Party of Ukraine’s headquarters in Kiev was set on fire April 9, just hours after a court ordered the Interior Ministry to remove fascists who’ve occupied it since the coup. Euromaidan Self Defense goons, now employed by the Interior Ministry, were photographed tearing up red flags outside the building shortly before it was torched. In the Southeast, police and military units unwilling to act against the local populace have been replaced by “special task forces” from Western Ukraine.

 According to Ukrainian and Russian sources, Avakov has also enlisted foreign mercenaries from the U.S.-based Greystone Ltd.  U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, in charge of NATO forces in Europe, told the Associated Press April 10 that U.S. troops could soon be deployed in the region. NATO has scheduled an “emergency meeting” on Ukraine for April 14.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy destroyer U.S.S. Donald Cook was expected to arrive in the Black Sea April 10 near Russian waters, where it will join other U.S., Bulgarian and Romanian warships in provocative “war games” aimed at Russia. All of these forces are now deployed against the popular resistance in the largely Russian-speaking Southeast, where the anti-fascist and working-class traditions of Soviet times still run deep, and where some look to Russia as a last line of defense against the neo-Nazi threat from Kiev.

 But instead of intimidating the resistance, the fight-back has continued and spread. After losing ground earlier in the week, anti-fascists in Lugansk held onto government buildings. Miners in the Donbas region have downed tools to go to the defense of Donetsk. Hundreds have remained in the streets of Kharkov despite a ban on protests. And even in the Western Ukraine city of Lviv, near the Polish border, activists briefly seized the local prosecutor’s office to protest a new appointment by Kiev.

Donetsk prepares to fight
In Donetsk, capital of the Donbas mining region, protesters seized the Regional State Administration building April 6 and declared an independent People’s Republic of Donetsk. The new people’s council, with the support of thousands of demonstrators in the main square, announced a referendum for May 11 to determine the future of the region. The demand for a referendum has gripped the masses throughout the Southeast, who want autonomy or independence from the fascist, pro-NATO regime in Kiev, which is in the process of imposing austerity in return for International Monetary Fund loans. Calling for a general mobilization of the populace, the People’s Council said April 9: “According to information from our activists at civilian roadblocks, Ukrainian armored vehicles are on their way to Donetsk. The Kiev junta has decided to solve the problem posed by our protest by military force.  “But their politicians and security forces are afraid of the presence of civilians near the building, where a large number of foreign journalists are also present.

 “Last night, thanks to the presence of thousands of people around the Lugansk state security headquarters, people formed a human shield around the building to protect it and the presence of militias barricaded inside prevented police from carrying out their orders to kill our comrades.  “Let’s be worthy of our comrades from Lugansk! Protect our militia guarding the building of the People’s Council! Let’s defend our independence and freedom!”

And the people responded. Activists and volunteers, including many youth and retirees, have built barricades around the RSA building and other protest strongholds, set up checkpoints on roads, gathered food, water and medical supplies, and joined defense trainings against the expected military assault.

 On the night of April 9-10, teams of activists blocked several military buses and prevented them from deploying troops near the RSA.  “We will be on duty here all night, because the assault could begin at any moment,” one activist on nightwatch duty told Ria Novosti.  Sergey Tsyplakov, deputy director of the People’s Militia of Donbas, said: “In Donetsk airport, about 100 people from the National Guard have been housed. Around 100 Right Sector bandits are also in the city, as well as a hundred employees from a private U.S. military company operating under contract with the Kiev junta. “In total, there are around 300 professionals or well-trained and motivated fanatics,” Tsyplakov said. “This is a major force, but we are ready to fight.”

Kharkov: ‘Resistance does not subside’
  In the city of Kharkov, where the struggle has been led by the People’s Unity coalition and the leftist Union Borotba (Struggle), protesters seized the local RSA building and declared a People’s Republic on April 7.  The People’s Council called for regional autonomy, including independence of NATO, re-nationalization of former Soviet industry, and priority to collective forms of ownership.

That night, hundreds of fascists and mercenaries wearing Special Forces uniforms attacked the building. They arrested 70 people and dispersed the protesters – but only temporarily. Kiev-allied city officials declared they would ban mass protests in Freedom Square and the city center.

But the next day, hundreds again gathered on the square and outside the fascist-occupied RSA building. On April 9, more than 500 people turned out to demand the release of the detained activists, Borotba reported. The fearful authorities had the courthouse surrounded by 1,000 police and refused to admit members of the public. People picketed the courthouse for several hours, chanting “Power to the people, freedom for the Kharkov defenders,” while parents shouted, “Free our children!”

 The activists were sentenced to two months imprisonment or a fine of 180,000 hryvnia – about $14,000 each. Simultaneously, hundreds more rallied at Freedom Square ahead of a court hearing on the planned demonstration ban. “The ban is aimed not only at us, but at all Kharkovites,” charged Borotba’s Svetlana Tsiberganova.  Borotba and People’s Unity have called for a major demonstration on April 12 in defiance of the ban.  “Despite the repression, the resistance does not subside,” declared Borotba coordinator Sergei Kirichuk.  “The people are going to continue the fight.”

Support the Ukrainian Anti-fascist Rebellion; For the Donetsk People’s Republic

By Steven Argue
On February 23, one day after taking power, the coup government in Kiev voted to take away the language rights of Hungarian, Romanian, Tatar, and Russian speaking minorities. Eventually the bill was not signed, due in part to large uprisings against it, but the chauvinistic intentions and priorities of the anti-democratic government were made clear. That coup government is made up of a closely knit coalition of three capitalist parties, one of which is the neo-Nazi party Svoboda. For neo-Nazi Svoboda leader, Oleg Tyagnibok, taking away the language rights of the Russian minority will be just the beginning. He recently spoke before supporters in Kiev calling for criminal penalties for speaking in the Russian language. In addition, he called for stripping all ethnic Russians of their Ukrainian citizenship, forcing them to become non-citizens in their own land. In 2010 the official Svoboda internet website included in its program their desire to “physically liquidate all Russian-speaking intellectuals and all Ukrainophobes (Fast, without a trial, shot. Registering Ukrainophobes can be done here by any member of Svoboda).”

Political leaders and people in the media who defend the oppressed Russian nationality have been violently attacked by these neo-Nazi fascists. This includes a neo-Nazi attack by the Svoboda Party that forced the acting CEO of the National Television Company of Ukraine, Aleksandr Panteleymonov, to resign. One of the neo-Nazi thugs participating in the attack is ironically the head of the government’s Freedom of Speech and Information Committee.Also attacked by fascists in the Ukrainian parliament was Communist MP Petro Symonenko who declared of the fascists who carried out the coup in February, “You are today doing everything to intimidate people. You arrest people, start fighting people who have a different point of view…” As if to prove him right, he was then interrupted by fascists of the Svoboda Party who physically attacked him. Likewise, on February 25th, fascist paramilitaries of Svoboda searched Petro Simonenko’s house, looking for evidence of anything, and upon finding nothing, burned down his house using Molotov cocktails.

“Give the scum promises, guarantees and then hang them.”
The Obama administration used these chauvinistic neo-Nazis to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and they now occupy many key posts in the coup government. In eastern Ukrainian regions where the Russian minority constitutes the majority, there have naturally been uprisings against the chauvinistic central government and its appointed governments in the east such as the deputy head of South Eastern Ukraine as appointed by the illegitimate government in Kiev. He is a wealthy capitalist and criminal named Boris Filatov. Of Nazi collaborator and Nazi mass murderer Stepan Bandera, Filatov states, “I am proud of Bandera. He is my Hero. Particularly, as I see that people are ready to die under red-and-black flags.” Filatov has also stated his recipe for the solution in the region saying, “Give the scum promises, guarantees and then hang them.” When questioned on this later he explained it was just something he said on social media and not an official statement.In addition to fascist hatred, the Obama installed coup government in Kiev is agreeing to IMF austerity and other dictates, including a 50% increase in the price of heating fuel. This IMF austerity comes on top of mass unemployment and much lower wages that have happened since the overthrow of the socialist economy in Ukraine with the destruction of the USSR. Higher fuel prices will cause the poor to freeze to death. To impose this austerity, the United States and EU supported the fascists and other ultra-nationalists who took power in Kiev in February.

Naturally, the oppressed Russian nationality of eastern Ukraine has risen up against the new imperialist imposed fascist infested government in Kiev. In Crimea the people voted to get out of Ukraine while the getting was good, with 96.5% of the people voting for Crimea to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia.

Likewise, the oppressed Czech nationality is looking to get out of Ukraine as well. An estimated 20,000 Czechs live in the Volyn region of Ukraine. During the week of March 20th, Emma Snidevicova, leader of Czechs in Ukraine’s Volyn region, spoke before the Czech parliament appealing for repatriation of Ukrainian Czechs: “The situation in Ukraine is that we are afraid for our lives, families and children. The situation is getting worse every day and pushes us to ask the Czech people to take us back home.”

Czech MP, Radim Fiala, said of the situation: “Crime and banditry is on the rise in western Ukraine, and the local radical groups abiding by the legacy of Stepan Bandera are to blame. Apprehensions of our compatriots who have an experience of clashing with nationalists during the Second World War cannot be ignored.”

Besides Crimea which has now rejoined Russia, and Czechs who are looking to immigrate, there are now strong anti-fascist uprisings across eastern Ukraine, including in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv. Buildings have been seized including facilities where weapons are stored. In Donetsk the rebellion has now organized a 12 member ruling panel, declared its independence, and renamed itself the Donetsk People’s Republic. They are asking for a Russian peace keeping contingent to defend them from the illegitimate government in Kiev.

Regarding the potential for an anti-capitalist program in Donetsk, People’s Republic Commissar Nikolai Solntsev has declared the economic policy of the new government would focus on supporting “the working class, not the bourgeoisie.” Unlike the United States, which continues to carry out measures like an economic blockade against Cuba, the Russian Federation already has close relationships with countries with socialist economies, including Russia’s close ties to Belarus. This flows in part from the fact that Russia is only a weak capitalist country with little direct foreign investment, even in neighboring capitalist countries like Ukraine. Russia’s interests in the region have more to do with maintaining good mutual regional trading relationships while the imperialist U.S. and EU are seeking to maximize foreign exploitation while they also seek to isolate Russia.

In response to the uprisings in eastern Ukraine, the Obama administration, EU, and Kiev government are blaming Russia. The reality, however, is that it is the imperialist imposed coup in Kiev and the chauvinism of that government are the cause the anti-fascist uprisings in eastern Ukraine, not Russian intervention.

Leninist-Trotskyists support the anti-fascist uprisings in eastern Ukraine and call for the continued building of non-sectarian self-defense militias to protect oppressed nationalities, Jews, women, unions, and opposition political parties from fascist attacks. In addition, we call for the building of Leninist-Trotskyist parties that fights to overthrow the capitalist system itself, ending IMF austerity, massive unemployment, national oppression, and other devastation capitalism has brought to Ukraine.

For more articles by Steven Argue on recent events in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, check-out:
US & EU Imperialist Hands Off Crimea, Ukraine, Belarus, & Russia! (In Depth)
http://www.class-struggle.com/2014/03/down-with-us-sponsored-neo-nazi-coup-in.html

Communist Party Wins Mayoral Election in Russia’s 3rd Largest City
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/220100/index.php

For Ukraine’s Self-Defense Militias! For Crimea’s Right To National Self Determination!
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/219919/index.php

Belarus: President Lukashenko Vows to Prevent a Coup Similar to Ukraine
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/219864/index.php

Imperialists Out of Ukraine! Stop Supporting Neo-Nazis! (An earlier article before the coup with in-depth analysis)
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/01/26/18749806.php

Anti-fascists organize resistance as crisis grips Ukraine coup regime

Workers World, March 28, 2014
Just a month after a U.S.-backed coup d’état in Ukraine brought to power a regime dominated by neo-Nazis and pro-Western capitalist politicians, the ruling junta finds itself in deep crisis.

Threats from the government in Kiev and its U.S. and Western European patrons were unable to intimidate the people of the Crimean autonomous region, who voted overwhelmingly to break away from Ukraine and affiliate with Russia on March 16. Russian President Vladimir Putin and local leaders made it official on March 18.

Now infighting has exploded among the fascist factions in the ruling coalition in Kiev.
The International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, has agreed to give the coup-makers an $18 billion loan — but only if they accept painful austerity measures. These are almost certain to throw Ukraine deeper into chaos.

Further, Kiev has been unable to subdue the rebellious eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, where anti-fascists are digging in to organize grassroots resistance.

People in these major working-class industrial and mining areas are rising to oppose the junta and demand political and economic autonomy. They reject the rule of the billionaire oligarchs appointed as new regional governors by Kiev. Some are even calling for re-nationalization of privatized industries.

Thieves fall out
Overnight on March 27-28, members of the neo-Nazi Right Sector gang surrounded the Ukrainian Rada [parliament] and threatened to storm it — much as they had done a month earlier, when the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled.

But this time, the Right Sector was protesting its own erstwhile partners, some of whom were barricaded inside, including members of the far-right Fatherhood party and neo-Nazi Svoboda party. European television broadcast images of Svoboda politicians hanging out of windows shouting epithets while Right Sector goons hurled rocks at them from the street.

What happened?
On March 24, Right Sector leader Aleksandr Muzychko was shot dead during a police raid in the western city of Rovno. Muzychko had a long history of fascist terrorism and was on several international “most wanted” lists — a Ukrainian version of the anti-Cuba terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

The assassination of Muzychko was followed by raids on Right Sector hideouts and seizures of weapons. The hit came on orders from acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, a representative of the Fatherland party associated with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Avakov has established a “National Guard” under his command to deputize the fascist gangs and bring them all under the junta’s control. He also masterminded the joint neo-Nazi/police patrols that have suppressed any resistance in the western cities.

Avakov represents the coalition of far-right forces that control the commanding heights of police, military and prosecutorial powers of the new regime. Some forces in the Right Sector, like Muzychko, didn’t want to follow orders. Avakov and his colleagues decided that those who wouldn’t play ball must be eliminated.

The fascist street gangs served their purpose as the violent fists of the Euromaidan protests that ousted Yanukovych. But when it comes to investments and military strategy, Washington, Bonn and the IMF prefer to work with well-groomed, business-suited fascists like Avakov and Svoboda leader Oleh Tyanhybok.

Tymoshenko: ‘Grab a machine gun’
U.S. imperialism has big plans for Ukraine. First, it contains pipelines that control much of the flow of oil and gas between Russia and Western Europe. In addition, stationing NATO troops and weaponry there is also key to U.S. plans to isolate and dismember Russia.

Even after promising the Kiev junta $10 billion in loans, Washington is worried about the stability of the coup. Means have to be found to stabilize the country — that is, make it profitable for the Western imperialists. That means not only controlling the far-right factions in the western part, but quelling the anti-fascist resistance in the south and east.

While the inter-regime crisis was unfolding in Kiev, a leaked phone call posted online revealed more about the fires of war that the Obama administration and congressional leaders are furiously stoking. The call was from former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, considered a leading candidate in the presidential elections planned for May 25. Tymoshenko, a leader of the so-called Orange Revolution of 2004, was imprisoned for corruption before the coup.

Speaking with a former military official after the Crimea referendum, Tymoshenko urged her supporters to “take up arms and kill the fucking Russians along with their leader.” Tymoshenko also said she was ready to “grab a machine gun and shoot [Putin] in the head.” The recording ends with Tymoshenko threatening to use nuclear weapons against the 8 million Russian-speakers living in Ukraine. After the call went public, Tymoshenko claimed the part about using nukes was manipulated. The rest, she confirmed, was accurate.

Anti-fascists build resistance
In the cities of southern and eastern Ukraine, the leftist Union Borotba (Struggle) is one of the groups organizing anti-fascist resistance. Borotba’s central office in Kiev was ransacked after the coup and its activists forced underground. Outside Kiev, Borotba and other anti-fascists work in a hazy state of semi-legality, operating more or less openly depending on the level of organized resistance in each city.

This creates special challenges for organizers. For example, print shop owners refuse to print flyers or newspapers due to threats from the fascists. However, Borotba has managed to get help from sympathetic workers to publish its materials. A 10,000-copy run of “Front,” the first issue of a newspaper published by Borotba and the Antifascist Resistance Center, sold out in just three days. Borotba activists have set up tents and information tables to spread their message and recruit people to local anti-fascist defense committees composed of activists, workers, youths and former Red Army soldiers.

In Kharkov, where the Right Sector murdered two anti-fascists on March 14, Borotba plays a leading role in organizing mass resistance. On March 22, some 2,000 people defied a ban and rallied at Freedom Square for a people’s speakout initiated by Borotba. A major goal of the event was to recruit supporters for the local defense organization, People’s Unity.

The following day, hundreds marched down Rymarska Street to remember the two slain activists. They chanted: “Fascists kill! Power covers up!” Police then charged Borotba leader Denis Levin, a convener of the rally, with violating the ban and ordered him to appear in court on March 26. After a crowd of supporters picketed the court during his hearing, the judge dismissed the charge as “baseless.”

In Odessa, Borotba activists took up the case of Anton Davidchenko, a local resistance leader who was seized by the “Alpha” special police unit on March 17 and kidnapped to Kiev, where he is being held incommunicado. Some 1,000 people defied fascist threats and rallied at Odessa’s Kulikovo Field on March 23 to demand a referendum on autonomy. Led by Regional Council Deputy and Borotba activist Alex Albu, they marched to the prosecutor’s office to demand Davidchenko’s release and an end to the regime’s political repression.

Communist Party holds congress
The Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) has also been targeted by the junta. On its first day, the new regime threatened an outright ban of the KPU. The party’s headquarters in Kiev was trashed and is still occupied by the Right Sector. Party members have been attacked and beaten. KPU leaders have continued to assert their membership in the parliament although they have been effectively banned from Kiev since the coup.

On March 26, the KPU held its 47th Extraordinary Congress in the eastern industrial city of Donetsk. The party nominated its general secretary, Peter Simonenko, to run for president in the May elections. It is unclear whether the KPU will be allowed on the ballot, or what dangers party candidates might face.

Emphasizing the need of the party to preserve its cadres and organization, Simonenko said: “We have grounds for optimism. In a short time, the new regime showed its anti-people nature and incompetence, its inability to govern. The inevitable deterioration of the situation of workers as a result of the requirements of the IMF will inevitably create the basis for a new protest movement.”

Workers, youths and retirees alike are determined to defeat the far-right gangs and push back Western imperialism. They remember their history as part of the Soviet Ukraine, which defeated the fascist occupation during World War II, with support from the Red Army.

The fight by Ukraine to defeat the EU and the US accentuates the decline of “Pax Americana”

The fight by Ukraine to defeat the EU and the US
accentuates the decline of “Pax Americana”

Statement by the Liaison Committee for the Fourth International
(From Socialist Fight No. 16)
Russia’s agreement with Ukraine temporarily dispelled tensions that have created the “EuroMaidan”, demonstrations in favour of the recolonisation of Ukraine by the European Union (EU) on “Maidan” Square (Independence Square) in the centre of the capital Kiev. But the current might not last months and can come back in the form of open civil war in the near future or already a conflict of global proportions, paving the way for a World War III.

A new diplomatic offensive by the European Union against Ukraine is scheduled for April. The furore was a response to the refusal of the current Ukrainian Government to accept the conditions of the country in November for the Summit in Lithuania, on the eastern flank of the EU, which wanted to celebrate the integration of six former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus: Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to 28 EU Nations block.

The Ukraine was the highest prize of the agreement, with their nuclear power plants, factories, farms and pipelines. The failure of the Summit dragged in Lithuania on the side of Russia and also Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus. Desperate, Angela Merkel, Putin warned: “we should overcome the mentality of we or they, the cold war is over” (AFP, 11/28/2013)

The dispute goes in the opposite direction to the false plea of the German Chancellor and will warm up even more and become more intense the more we approach the elections by the Ukrainian Government in 2015. The current battle was only the beginning of the election campaign where the Ukrainian parties represent different interests the world bourgeoisie.It is worth remembering that the “Orange Revolution”, a precursor to the current wave of protests, was unleashed just when European and American imperialism were rejecting the election results that led to the victory of the current President Viktor Yanukovych in 2004, overthrew him and imposed the victory of one candidate pro-imperialist Viktor Yushchenko. It is worth noting that the economic situation in which Ukraine has arrived is the product of the country’s EU integration by all Governments after the capitalist restoration, including Yanukovych.

“Vasyl Gouliï, a businessman from 49 years of Ternopil (west) blamed Europe which, according to him, was not firm enough after the episodes of police brutality against demonstrators in Kiev in November. “Europe could have pressed the Government, but she abandoned the Ukraine “, he lamented. “The opposition must act more actively. They should tell you how to get the impeachment of President Viktor Yanukovych” declared 23 year old AFP Pantchuk Lessia, who comes from the region of Chernivtsi in the west.

The signing in Moscow of economic agreements providing for a credit of $15 billion to Ukraine and the decrease by a third in the price of Russian gas, while the country is on the verge of bankruptcy, appears to have destabilized the leaders of the defence, unprecedented since the pro-Western Orange Revolution in 2004. After the Moscow agreements, “attempts to form a “technical” Government to sign an association agreement with the EU are no longer valid. The revolt of the oligarchs was drowned out by the cheap gas”, former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko said recently and he made an appeal in favour of the expansion of the defence forces which are stronger today than in 2004, when he was overthrown by the Orange Revolution, says Volodymyr Fessenko. (AFP, 12/22/2013)

Result of 2013 this battle of the new “cold war”
In the battle for the Ukraine, US and EU imperialism has suffered its third major defeat of 2013 for the composite block by Russia and China. The first defeat was in Syria, when Russia stopped the bombing was announced by a US-led military coalition and France against Damascus. The second defeat for the information war, with the asylum given by Moscow to Snowden, former CIA/NSA spy.

It is a war of positions. The Western hegemonic imperialism has been losing ground to the Eurasian pre-imperialist block. 2013 marked a trend which re-versed the imperialist offensive of 2011. The core Sino-Russian counter offensive began after the bloody occupation of Libya and they saw the eminent risk of repetition of the same defeat in Syria, with warmongering escalating in the Pacific Ocean, particularly on the Korean peninsula and retreat in favour of reconciliation between Venezuela and Iran with the United States. But by mid February Venezuela was back in the firing line and the western imperialist counter offensive had resumed in Ukraine.Before the three losses, the White House acted quickly to crush the anti-Western coup in South Sudan, the newest nation on the planet, arising from the division of Sudan by imperialism. All this accentuates the decline of world forces correlation established for the entire period of the Pax Americana. Decline that is leveraged by the rise of new block of pre-imperialist bourgeois in Russia and China, a kind of late imperial-ism which must be taken advantage of by the world proletariat in its favour against the whole world bourgeoisie.

What is at stake in Ukraine?
After Russia, Ukraine is the richest and militarily powerful of the 14 former Soviet republics. The Ukraine depends on Russian natural gas, although it is self-sufficient in terms of electrical production, due to nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams. In 2005, was the seventh largest steel producer in the world. The Ukraine has a huge high-tech industrial base; they inherited much of this from the USSR. It includes electronics, armaments and space articles, most of which are still under State control. In the manufacturing sector the country produces metallurgical equipment, diesel locomotives, tractors and automobiles.

The Ukraine is one of the European countries with the highest consumption of energy, in proportion to its GDP, Ukraine consumes twice the amount of energy consumed in Germany. 45% of the energy produced in the country is through its nuclear power plants. The largest nuclear plant in Europe, the Nuclear power plant of Zaporijia, is located in Ukraine.

The issue of Russian gas
25% of the natural gas consumed in the country is produced in Ukraine, but about 35% comes from Russia and the remaining 40% of Central Asia through transit routes controlled by Russia. 85% of Russian gas is delivered to Western Europe via Ukraine. There is one of the core issues which divides the country and the capitalists between west and east. The great economic importance of Ukraine to European imperialism lies in the fact that it’s through Ukrainian pipe-lines almost all Russian gas supplies to Europe pass.

It was precisely to prevent the installation of more NATO military bases in Ukraine and in exchange for control of the Ukrainian pipelines that Russia has agreed to invest $15 billion in debt securities of the Government of Ukraine and reduce by about one-third the price that Naftogaz, Ukraine’s national energy company, pays for gas from Russian State-owned Gazprom, the largest exporter of natural gas on the planet. While the IMF and the European Union require a 40% increase in the price of gas and the de-valuation of the Ukrainian currency, the Grivna.

With the Russian-Ukrainian agreement the EU will be more directly de-pendent on the Russian blue fuel without being able to use Ukrainian pipelines that distribute Russian gas to many nations, as a bargaining chip against Moscow.The economic crisis and the austerity policies of the imperialists pushed the Ukrainian bourgeoisie into the arms of Russia. Until the Lithuania Summit in November, Yanukovych seemed sincerely focused on closer ties with the EU. The turnaround came when he realized that the Ukraine, in the hands of the “Big Three” would go through an intermediate crisis like that suffered by Greece and Spain.

Yanukovych said he needed 160 billion dollars over three years to compensate for the reduction of trade with Russia and Ukraine to help deaden the pain of austerity reforms required by the EU. The EU had little room for manoeuvre, be-cause they couldn’t follow a different road, requiring compliance with the austerity plans by other members of the block and throwing a lifeline to Ukraine. That’s why the EU refused to give the amount required by the Ukrainian Government, offering only half of it.

The Ukraine doesn’t want to follow the path of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain. The “reforms” required by the EU include the currency devaluation, the increase in energy prices for consumers, and cuts in salaries and pensions. The opening of its economy to competition from the west would break many industries Ukraine, especially in the east of the country.

The Ukraine is strongly divided between east and west. In the east is the Soviet-era heavy industry, industries that are threatened with going bankrupt if the wolves of imperialism are let loose on the Ukrainian economy. The New York Times reports: “this is how it works in Ukraine: the east makes money, and the west eats it”. This demonstrates the division; the WSWS reports: “A survey con-ducted by pro-EU European Centre for a Modern Ukraine recorded that only 13% of the population in the east of the country are supporting the protests against the Government, compared to 84% in the west. Yanukovych’s decision not to sign an association agreement with the EU, which was the impetus for the demonstrations, is rejected by most in the west, but supported by 70% in the east”.

Many of the protesters were wrong in the current economic crisis, induced to think that the EU would resolve their crisis, driven by the support given to them by Germany and the US in particular. It serves the economic interests of a few oligarchs who dominate politically Parliament and politics in Ukraine today. How-ever, a sufficient number of them fear Personal ruin if they accept the terms of the EU and remain in the opposition.The role of imperialism-vassal of Germany
The greatest imperialist economy in Western Europe, Germany, is a power exporter of capital to the rest of the planet, but militarily, even after the annexation of Eastern Germany, the country remains, since the end of World War II, a US military colony that hosts no less than 227 military bases and 50 thousand soldiers.

36% of the gas consumed in the country comes from Russia passing through Ukraine and the recolonisation of the latter by the EU would represent the liquidation of the Ukrainian industrial base and the dismissal of thousands of workers, destroying the main point of resistance to recolonisation of Ukraine.

The bourgeois interests of Germany are the spearhead of economic recolonisation of Ukraine. Also, the expansion of NATO to the east requires of imperialism take ownership of all the nuclear power, energy and Ukrainian space. In turn, a defeat of the imperialist interests in Ukraine can awaken the anti-imperialist democratic and anti-fascist struggle throughout the region and in particular in Poland and Austria.

Another openly pro-imperialist “revolution”
What we see today in Ukraine is a fraudulent pro-imperialist “revolution” like dozens of other contrived by the CIA during the cold war, in the processes of capitalist restoration of 1989-1991 and the “Arab spring”. The main claim of the “revolution” was the requirement that the country’s Government to sign a recolonisation agreement of “free trade” with the European Union.

The “popular movement” was triggered after the failure of the pressure exerted directly by the heads of the so-called “Big Three”, Merkel, Hollande and Cameron and the US threat to impose sanctions on the country if US “revolutions” directed by the CIA, the US Embassy, CEOs of multinational companies, NGOs, churches and neo-Nazi parties as the Svoboda (Freedom) which held the emblematic destruction of the monument to Lenin during the recent wave of pro-tests Ukrainian pro-EU [1].

While among organizations that claim to be revolutionary, the study of historical experience of proletarian revolutions of the 20th century is still something pre-dominantly amateur, within the intelligence services and military academies in the pay of big business tactics and the revolutionary strategy are subject to meticulous analysis. So much so that since the cold war imperialism has been improving its know-how in coups camouflaged as “revolutionary”.The first “pro-imperialist revolution” was orchestrated by the intelligence services of England and USA was in 1953 in Iran [2], with the overthrow of the democratically elected Government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh who had thwarted the imperialist interests of the multinational British Petroleum by nationalising it.

The behind-the-scenes description of the successful “Operation Ajax” is made by journalist Stephen Kinzer for the New York Times, in his book All the Shah’s men: An American coup and the roots of terror in the Middle East, he shows that “the CIA engineered a scenario that gives the impression of a popular revolt when in fact it is a covert operation. The highlight of the show was a demonstration in Tehran with eight thousand extras paid by the Agency in order to provide convincing photos the Western press,”(All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle east Terror, 2003).

Anti-imperialist tactic and long term strategy for the Ukraine
The Ukrainian industrial proletariat is the main bulwark against the recolonisation of the country in favour of a “Green Europe” with the spoils of the bureaucratised workers states, with Germany as the control tower of the interests of American imperialism.

How many times in history has capitalist economic crises put the issue of Ukrainian national aspirations on the agenda? The question returns again and again to play an important role on the arena of global class struggle. Here are combined elements of imperialist domination, anti worker and fascism, the anti-Communist eminence of a new imperialist war and a historical reckoning with the Stalinist anti worker policy disaster. On this last question, the greatest of all Ukrainian revolutionaries declared: “Toward the sections of the Ukraine now outside its frontiers, the Kremlin’s attitude today is the same as it is toward all oppressed nationalities, all colonies, and semi-colonies, i.e., small change in its international combinations with imperialist governments. (Leon Trotsky, the Ukrainian question, 2/4/1939)”.

Although the negotiation Putin-Yanukovych has benefited enormously the Ukraine with a reduction in the price of gas in relation to the Greek panorama which proposed the EU, the current Russian bourgeois Government uses much more to Ukraine as a bargaining chip than did the Stalinist bureaucracy in the past. And the current Ukrainian bourgeois Government, representative of regional oligarchies, appropriates part of the ad-vantage of reducing the energy costs that could benefit the people.

Even for democratic demagoguery of Putin in Russia, winter pre-Olympiads, the defeat of imperialism in this battle, cheered the struggle for democratic rights in Russia. However, the struggle for democratic rights in Russia, as it had been for a long time in the USSR, is not addressed by the Communist proletarian vanguard, is almost entirely deformed and influenced the politics of democratic reaction of Western imperialism. The first by-product of this new situation was the release of the members of the rock band Pussy Riot, activists from Greenpeace and the Russian oil Tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an ally of Western imperialism against Putin.

In this battle and the civil war that temporarily ebbed but that accentuate in the coming months, the Liaison Committee for the Fourth International (CLQI) believes that the only option for Ukraine is the struggle which combines the tactics of the Anti-Imperialist Front (AIUF) and the strategy of Permanent Revolution. So, join the methods and goals of permanent revolution in the struggle for national independence, i.e. Ukrainian self-determination against the European Union.

This fight is not about to align itself with the lesser of two evils, in the case with the Russian bourgeoisie, but to fight the greater evil, hegemonic imperialism across the globe. Therefore, tactically we’re with the proletariat of Eastern Ukrainian in a Anti-imperialist Front with the Yanukovych Government against the EU and its mercenaries and fascist agents.

But we denounce the Government of Yanukovych as bourgeois oligarch for having led the country to this situation by betting on a gradual plan of privatization and capitalist restoration. We demand the Government defends and restore the Soviet monuments, the statues of Lenin and the monuments that symbolize the victory of the proletariat over fascism, which now serve as inspiration against the imperialist resettlement already suffered by our Greeks, Irish, Italian, Polish and Spanish brothers and sisters.

The LCFI struggle for the construction of a Bolshevik-type party and inter-nationalist in Ukraine that has as its goals a new social revolution against the bourgeois oligarchies both pro-imperialist and pro-Russian. We fight for workers’ control and the Sovietisation of all the country’s economy, in particular the nuclear plants and alongside the tankers Ukrainians fought for control of exploration, gas production and distribution by the workers themselves, as well as the gas pipelines that the Government wants to deliver to the realm of Gazprom as part of the agreement with Putin.

Under the guidance of the most revolutionary of all Ukrainians, Leon Trotsky, we must fight the Ukrainian worker popu-lation to overcome all prejudices built up historically against communism thanks to bureaucratic centralization of Stalin on his country and that today are used by the fascist nationalism to seduce the masses in favour of imperialism. We are aware that in the words of Trotsky, but for the rape of Soviet Ukraine by the Stalinist bureaucracy there would be no Hitlerite Ukrainian policy. The Fourth International must clearly understand the enormous importance of the Ukrainian question in the fate not only of South-eastern and Eastern Europe but also of Europe as a whole. We are dealing with a people that has proved its viability, that is numerically equal to the population of France and occupies an exceptionally rich territory which, moreover, is of the highest strategical importance. The question of the fate of the Ukraine has been posed in its full scope. A clear and definite slogan is necessary that corresponds to the new situation. In my opinion there can be at the present time only one such slogan: A united, free and independent workers’ and peasants’ Soviet Ukraine. [3].

For us, the LCFI the program of independence of Ukraine at the time of imperialism is directly and inextricably linked to the programme of the proletarian revolution. The liberation of Ukraine from webs of bourgeois domination assumes the complete independence of the country in relation to the Russian bourgeoisie and the domestic fronts oligarchies of some large corporations block II. The real Ukrainian national independence can only be achieved through the fight for a Socialist and Soviet Ukraine as part of the struggle for a new Federation of Socialists and Soviet republics.

Notes
[1] In an interview reproduced on the site, a Ukrainian anarchist Freedom Journal describes how the Svoboda: Today, the main political force in the panorama of the extreme right in Ukraine is, undeniably, the Svoboda. If I had to provide some comparison, compare them with other right-wing parties present in Eastern Europe, as the Hungarian Jobbik party, with which I think the American listeners may be aware. There was a great scandal when a couple of years ago they received many votes in Hungary Svoboda is pretty much the same thing, is a political party that has its own design of a so-called “national” Constitution, which would bring a lot of horrible things, such as the death penalty for what they call “anti-Ukrainian” activities, without defini-tions of what are these “activities”. Basically, anything contrary to the spirit of that party could be considered “anti-Ukrainian”.

Today, in EuroMaidan, they are urging a political strike, but, in fact, what most people do not realize is that in their proposed the new Constitution Svoboda politics would make striking a criminal offence. The paradox is that they have become extremely popular among the educated liberal middle class of urban areas, especially in Kiev. So, today Kiev votes Svoboda, as the western regions of Ukraine make, why don’t they just say, “well, I don’t know what your program. I have not read anything about it, but they seem so hard, they’re good guys, and I’m sure that at least they would break the necks of the corrupt who are now in the ruling party.

This is of course a great reminiscence of his-torical situations in other countries in the 21st century. I don’t want to seem too panicked, but there are some similar features, because the middle class bourgeois people don’t see anything wrong with this. And, to some extent, they’re right, because, if the extreme right WINS across the country, these people will not feel any great difficulties in their lives. The main difficulties would be to the extreme left, against all the leftist parties and movements, and to ethnic minorities and to racial minorities.

But normal people don’t feel anything, at least for some time, and that’s the problem. Also another interesting fact about the Svoboda: they went through a rebranding and now they call themselves “freedom”. This is a generic word for the European right, but until 2005 or 2004, they called themselves Socialist National Party of Ukraine. [Transcriber’s note in original: in fact, the current leader of the Svoboda said that all Ukrainians must become Nazis]. http://www.diarioliberdade.org/mundo/antifascismo-e-anti-racismo/45455-ucr%C3%A2nia-anarquista-ucraniano-dissipa-mitos-que-cercam-os-protestos-do-euromaidan-e-alerta-sobre-a-influ%C3%AAnciafascista.html#.UuQqBaZLY6c.facebook

[2] http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operação_Ajax

[3] Leon Trotsky, Problem of the Ukraine (April 1939), http://www.marxists.org/archive/

Socialist Fight Group Public meeting: What way forward for the revolution in South Africa? Saturday 22nd March.

Speakers

Peter Banda, Acting GS General Industries Workers’ Union of South Africa (GIWUSA)
Shaheen Khan, chief co-ordinator, Bolshevik Study Circles (ex-RMG).
Latief Parker, Critique journal Editorial Board
Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the RCIT
Gerry Downing, Secretary Socialist Fight Group
Chair, Laurence Humphries, Socialist Fight CC
Shaheen Khan speaks of their work with the Workers and Socialist party (WASP )

“Some of our comrades in the North are members of WASP. Our relationship with WASP starts off with the work our comrades did in the mine workers strike of 2012.
Two of our comrades were part of the mine workers committee in Rustenburg and one in Carletonville, and other comrades regularly attended the WASP meetings in Johannesburg.
I have been asked to do Marxist classes with the youth in the Socialist Youth Movement as well as the National Transport Movement.
We have also hosted WASP in Potchefstroom where they addressed Civic and Youth groups. Our view generally is that we support the WASP in the forthcoming elections and will participate actively to promote a vote for the WASP.”

Westminster Tories bring in a bylaw making it an offence to “give out food for free”!

From Daily Mirror
Westminster Tories have ­revealed their true colours by  banning charities from running soup kitchens for the ­homeless.Conservative Westminster council in Central London also wants to make it an  offence to sleep rough – while slashing £5million of funding to hostels. Astonishingly, town hall chiefs claimed soup kitchens only “encourage” people  to sleep on the streets.

Westminster council, one of the richest in the land, wants to bring in a  bylaw making it an offence to “give out food for free”, punishable by fines. The  twisted move blows apart David Cameron’s Big Society boast that an army of ­volunteers will flock to help those worse off.

And it sparked a storm of ­criticism. Reverend Alison Tomlin of the  Methodist church in ­Westminster said: “The proposals are nothing short of  disgusting. This bylaw punishes people solely for their misfortune and belongs  in a ­Victorian statute book, not the 21st century.”

Labour’s London mayoral ­candidate Ken Livingstone added: “Only the  Conservatives would try to make it illegal to give food to the homeless. “With Tory mayor Boris Johnson cutting affordable housing to a trickle, the  number of people sleeping on the streets is rising and cuts to housing benefit  threaten ­thousands more with eviction and homelessness.”

Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour Group, said: “Nothing  illustrates the cold-hearted and callous approach of the Conservatives than this  attempt to criminalise those offering help to ­homeless people. “I thought this was what the Big Society was supposed to be all about,  generous-hearted people giving their time to those less fortunate, at no cost to  the public purse. This is a nasty, mean move from a nasty, mean party.”

A consultation paper says rough sleeping and soup runs would be banned in the  Westminster Cathedral Piazza and surrounding area. Labour said the cruel move  comes as the council ­withdraws funding for three hostels in the borough and  housing trust.

Westminster’s Daniel Astaire provoked fury by declaring  free food “keeps people on the street longer”. He added: “Soup runs have no  place in the 21st century. It is undignified that people are being fed on the  streets. They actually encourage people to sleep rough with all the dangers that  entails. Our priority is to get people off the streets altogether. We have a  range of services that can help do that.”

Focus on Ukraine: As the situation in Ukraine worsens, the fascists become more violent, and the Crimea prepares to secede.

As the situation in Ukraine worsens, the fascists become more violent, and the Crimea prepares to secede.

Meanwhile, the debate on the left is proceeding on drearily predictable lines. One side stresses the unarguably grim nature of Putin’s regime and plays down the [very] dark side of those it chooses to support, the other side does the same but the other way round. Both sides shamelessly cherry-pick such data as are to be had and are equally handicapped by knowing little or nothing about the region and even less about the EU. Rather than scooting off to do some work (read a book or two? perish the thought), name-calling becomes the order of the day and the discussion becomes increasingly sterile.

That said, there’s something odd about how everyone is banging on about Putin’s “invasion” of the Crimea without noticing one key point. By any reckoning, it’s a funny sort of invasion. Western incursions into e.g. Iraq typically involve the preliminary destruction of key targets in extensive (but “precision”) bombing of key cities, tens of thousands of troops crossing borders, columns of smoke over villages, pitiful streams of refugees, “collateral damage” and all the bizz. (It’s what you join the army for.)

All we had here was a few goons slipping out of the local barracks (handily, already sited in the “invaded” country), changing into scary uniforms c/w Halloween hats and standing outside the other side’s office looking very tough indeed. OK, it may have escalated a bit since then but not a single fatality can as yet, it seems, be blamed on the Russian military. What kind of invasion is that?

It occurs to me that the hysteria over Russian sabre-rattling is down less to the impact of military “atrocities” and more to the fact that there is little or nothing that the EU or the US can do about Russia’s not entirely unreasonable (and certainly predictable) defence of its interests. Sanctions? Forget it, the Germans would never wear/can’t afford them. Cut off the gas? Neither side wants that. Invade? C’mon. The EU/US axis has over-reached itself in its hubristic zeal to humiliate Moscow, itself a declining power. The Atlantic Powers are still smarting from their humiliation over Syria. And so on.

I wonder if the real risk is not that some dirty, face-saving deal will be struck, that the US will, as it usually does, declare a victory and leave and that the EU will pick up the tab for Ukraine’s unpaid bills and set about “liberalising” the economy (aka flogging off the silver and screwing the poor) to get its money back. Meanwhile, just as happened in the Balkans twenty-odd years ago, the fiasco has unleashed some very grim forces on both sides whose victims will be left to defend themselves with little by way of succour, the Eurocrats having scuttled back to Brussels and the US having found a new game to play. One has to hope that the Ukranian left is up to the challenge and that the western left does not move on with the same aplomb as its masters.