First, a fascist victory in the Ukraine war is completely unacceptable for a leftist of any sort.
The Maidan coup regime since 2014 has committed atrocities against the people of eastern Ukraine. The very first act of the coup regime on February 22nd, 2014 was to repeal the Kolesnychenko-Kivalov Language Law, a 2012 bill that granted the status of regional language to Russian and other minority languages. The law was in full accordance to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages for the preservation of language-minority rights and had widespread societal support in Ukraine. The repeal of the Kolesnychenko-Kivalov Language Law by the fascist regime marked a severe infringement of minority rights and their intent to ethnically cleanse Russian culture in the country.
This sparked protests in eastern Ukraine, unsurprisingly, and the situation would soon devolve into a full fledged civil war as Donbass separatists rebelled against the coup regime. The protests would culminate in the 2014 Odessa Trade Unions House tragedy when the fascists surrounded and burned alive anti-Maidan protestors seeking refuge in the building.
Concurrent with these was the banning of left wing parties in Ukraine, together with the violent assault and murder of left wing activists and labor leaders. Since then, the Ukrainian regime has instituted various laws against labor, chief among which included mass privatization of public assets and land to foreign capitalists, as well as the stripping of labor rights in the country. All of which further undermined labor organizing in the country and which only benefited Western imperialism.
Since the Ukrainian Civil War, the fascists continued to shell the Donbass regions held by the separatists and committed violent atrocities and terror against the civilians. Not only were they not prosecuted by the government, they were instead glorified as heroes by the state media. Bandera statues were erected and pro-Bandera rallies were held across large Ukrainian cities. Just imagine if Germany decides to hold rallies that worship Hitler and the Nazi party today.
A Ukrainian victory in this war necessarily means a fascist victory, with the same brutal and oppressive measures being perpetrated not only in Ukraine, but also in the collapsing Russian state as well and the surrounding countries in the region destabilized by the war. We have a lot of criticisms against Russia as a bourgeois capitalist state, but it is very clear that none remotely approached the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the fascist regime in Ukraine.
In this sense, Russia is unequivocally the progressive side in this war for the worker’s movements. Just as Marx wrote in his commentary of the American Civil War, victory of the industrialist North was far preferable to the semi-feudalistic South, for the North was unequivocally the progressive side of the American Civil War toward the creation of a proletarian class in America, despite the many criticisms we as leftists can mount against the Union.
First, a fascist victory in the Ukraine war is completely unacceptable for a leftist of any sort.
The Maidan coup regime since 2014 has committed atrocities against the people of eastern Ukraine. The very first act of the coup regime on February 22nd, 2014 was to repeal the Kolesnychenko-Kivalov Language Law, a 2012 bill that granted the status of regional language to Russian and other minority languages. The law was in full accordance to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages for the preservation of language-minority rights and had widespread societal support in Ukraine. The repeal of the Kolesnychenko-Kivalov Language Law by the fascist regime marked a severe infringement of minority rights and their intent to ethnically cleanse Russian culture in the country.
This sparked protests in eastern Ukraine, unsurprisingly, and the situation would soon devolve into a full fledged civil war as Donbass separatists rebelled against the coup regime. The protests would culminate in the 2014 Odessa Trade Unions House tragedy when the fascists surrounded and burned alive anti-Maidan protestors seeking refuge in the building.
Concurrent with these was the banning of left wing parties in Ukraine, together with the violent assault and murder of left wing activists and labor leaders. Since then, the Ukrainian regime has instituted various laws against labor, chief among which included mass privatization of public assets and land to foreign capitalists, as well as the stripping of labor rights in the country. All of which further undermined labor organizing in the country and which only benefited Western imperialism.
Since the Ukrainian Civil War, the fascists continued to shell the Donbass regions held by the separatists and committed violent atrocities and terror against the civilians. Not only were they not prosecuted by the government, they were instead glorified as heroes by the state media. Bandera statues were erected and pro-Bandera rallies were held across large Ukrainian cities. Just imagine if Germany decides to hold rallies that worship Hitler and the Nazi party today.
A Ukrainian victory in this war necessarily means a fascist victory, with the same brutal and oppressive measures being perpetrated not only in Ukraine, but also in the collapsing Russian state as well and the surrounding countries in the region destabilized by the war. We have a lot of criticisms against Russia as a bourgeois capitalist state, but it is very clear that none remotely approached the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the fascist regime in Ukraine.
In this sense, Russia is unequivocally the progressive side in this war for the worker’s movements. Just as Marx wrote in his commentary of the American Civil War, victory of the industrialist North was far preferable to the semi-feudalistic South, for the North was unequivocally the progressive side of the American Civil War toward the creation of a proletarian class in America, despite the many criticisms we as leftists can mount against the Union.