The following is a Workers World Party statement on the crisis in Ukraine.
U.S. and European Union imperialism have initiated an offensive against the Ukrainian government. It is part of their attempt to reconquer parts of the former Soviet Union and surround, weaken and destroy Russia.
The corporate media falsely present this conflict as one between the “democratic” West and a popular movement in Ukraine, on one side, and “autocratic” Russia and its supporters in the Ukrainian government on the other. This picture has no relation to the truth.
To overthrow and replace Ukraine’s current government, the Western imperialists are arming and relying on pro-fascist elements that are anti-Russian, xenophobic and anti-Semitic. The U.S./EU-provoked conflict threatens a civil war in Ukraine, or worse.
The corporate media are deceptively comparing the occupation of Maidan in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, to the Occupy Wall Street movement here. This can confuse some people about the character of the conflict in Ukraine. Far from fighting against the 1%, the Kiev occupiers are fighting for Wall Street and welcome the investment of Western capital in Ukraine.
The pro-Western Ukrainian nationalists are led by racist parties, like Svoboda and the Right Bloc, that are political allies of the National Front in France, the neo-Nazis in Germany and the most reactionary elements on the continent.
The people in the U.S. — especially the youth, workers and those facing oppression here — have nothing to gain from a Western victory over Ukraine and Russia. Regardless of the character of the Putin regime that now heads capitalist Russia, the worst outcome for the workers and the oppressed everywhere regarding the Ukraine struggle would be a victory for U.S. and/or European imperialism.
U.S. and European imperialist banks and corporate power aim to make Ukraine an open market for exports of goods and capital investments. The bosses want access to more low-wage labor so they can bring down wages even further and eliminate workers worldwide.
The EU had made an offer of inadequate loans to Ukraine with the following strings attached: that the EU gain open entry into the Ukrainian market; that the government impose austerity on the Ukrainian workers; and that Ukraine be incorporated into the NATO imperialist military alliance. It is the kind of offer that has brought misery to Portugal, Spain and Greece, without giving Ukraine real EU membership. Its rejection by the Yanukovich government in November opened the ongoing conflict.
Ever since world imperialism succeeded in overturning the socialist society in the former Soviet Union, the U.S. ruling class’s long-term goal has been to reduce all the Soviet republics, including Russia, to mere colonies. This goal leads Washington to try to surround Russia and brings it in conflict with strategic and economic Russian interests in Syria, Ukraine, Georgia, Iran and elsewhere.
In the infamous “F—- the EU!” intercepted phone call between U.S. diplomats — available all over the Internet — Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland spoke openly of how Washington was manipulating Ukrainian opposition politicians. Last December, after a visit to hand out pastries to the demonstrators in Maidan, Nuland bragged to a reactionary Ukrainian group in Washington that Washington had invested $5 billion in taking over Ukraine. The money was undoubtedly used for the 40,000 nongovernmental organizations the U.S. set up in that country before the 2004 “Orange Revolution.”
Should the U.S. and German maneuvers fail to capture all of Ukraine, the imperialists may, as they did in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, attempt to break it up and ignite civil war, a course far easier to start than to stop.
This Western assault on Ukraine is part of Washington’s campaign to reconquer all that was liberated from imperialism during the Soviet era, and is a continuation of the wars over Iraq, Libya, Syria and the ongoing offensive against the Bolivarian government in Venezuela.
“U.S. and EU imperialists, out of Ukraine!”
“Stop the U.S./EU-backed right-wing takeover!”
They are delusional – there will be no new USSR. A fascist state in Russia is emerging however, and will probably seek to expand its sphere and degree of influence in ex-USSR and beyond.
The Communist are pro Eurasianism because they want to recreate the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of Ukraine is pro Russian for this reason. They want Ukraine to be part of the Customs Union aka Eurasian Union to be to further Communism.
More like a mirror image.
BTW, communists did wear uniforms and armbands too, back then.
““Reverse Nazis”? What does that even mean? Would the reverse of a Nazi be anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, anti-corporatist pro-democracy and pro-liberty? And no uniforms.”
What National Socialism is to the far-far-right, Communism is to the far-left, or far-far left, period.
“Reverse Nazis”? What does that even mean? Would the reverse of a Nazi be anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, anti-corporatist pro-democracy and pro-liberty? And no uniforms.
There are neo-fascists involved in fighting the police. And most of the moderate protestors are not fascists, but in the face of the state coming after them, and the fascists being the ones willing to fight the police (although I have read abt how the neo-fascists have driven out the socialist and anarchist groups who came to fight the state because the neo-fascists want the “glory” and legitimacy for themselves alone), and the state being so violent, people say, We’ll at least someone is willing to fight back. So they put up with the fascists.
The thing is, the pro-Putin state are also employing volunteer, Panslavic, pro-Moscow fascists as back up for the cops.
The Worker’s World Party are a tiny sect of hacks who support anyone who the US opposes. Thus their blanket support for the pro-Moscow government. And for Moscow. They are also one of the bolshie sectlettes that claim that Assad and the Ba’athists are comrades! Disgusting.
If they really cared about the Ukraine, then they would also demand that Russia also should stop interfering with their affairs too.
But then again, like all communists, they are nothing but Reverse Nazis.
Not ONLY are you people lost in a time-warp, you’ve got it all back-asswards.
The EU and to a minimal extent the U.S. not to mention the people rioting in Kiev are trying to keep the Imperialist Russians from recapturing the now independent nations which formerly where part of the Russian/Soviet Empire.