More on Socialist Appeal and Ukraine here, here and here.
Armed only with a biro and a startling amount of pomposity the leader of Socialist Appeal, Alan Woods, has found a new issue to misunderstand: the war in Ukraine.
Woods’ articles, and those of his co-thinkers in Socialist Appeal, are noteworthy for what they do not say, as well as what they do say. You will not find an answer to the question: should the Russian troops get out of Ukraine? in the pages of Socialist Appeal.
The war should end, it seems, but without Socialist Appeal being willing to tell us what the peace should look like. Should Ukraine sign away Donbas, for example?
Apparently the national question is Ukraine is “extremely complicated”. So complicated, in fact, that Socialist Appeal are unable to say any more than that.
But the big majority of Ukrainian workers and all their trade unions which back Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion and occupation while simultaneously opposing the attacks on workers’ rights by the Zelenskyy government. That’s not so complicated, is it?
In Socialist Appeal’s pages, we can find dogmatically stated certainties which were typical of the old Militant tradition which Socialist Appeal is rooted in: “Of course, the use of nuclear weapons is out of the question.” I wish I could be so certain that Putin, if backed into a corner and facing defeat at home, would not resort to using chemical or nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
And here we also find bizarre accusations: “[The Ukrainian state] has waged a brutal civil war against its own people for years.” Which is presumably a reference to its defensive battles against Russian forces and Russian proxies in Donbas after 2014. “The vicious oppression suffered by the Russian-speaking people of Donetsk at the hands of the Ukrainian army is not in question.” Except it is “in question”. The main problem the remaining people of Donetsk faced after 2014 is the gangster-run, lawless regime which Russia installed there.
And we even find in Socialist Appeal a defence of the new boss of the Russian army, Sergei Surovikin. “General Sergei Surovikin… has been given a bad press in the West, which portrays him as a ruthless man with a reputation for brutality and for bombing civilians in Russia’s campaign in Syria.”
Indeed, Surovikin has had a bad press in the West on Syria. Quite right, too.
In a comical piece of Whataboutery, and omitting reference to Daesh, they continue: “… [The Western press] conveniently forget the brutal American bombing that reduced Mosul to a pile of smoking rubble…”
You see, we must understand that, “Surovikin’s Syria campaign was also highly successful… And we must judge Surovikin, just as we would judge a professional in any other field: solely by the results he achieves.”
Yes, but unfortunately the Marxist voice of Labour and Youth leaves it right there. What exactly, politically, did Surovikin achieve during his bloody campaign in Syria? He helped to keep Assad’s disgusting, corrupt, homicidal regime in power on behalf of Russian imperialism. And that’s not good, is it?
Socialist Appeal believes: “The [Russia-Ukraine] conflict is fundamentally a proxy war… This is a reactionary imperialist war on both sides — that of Russia, but also that of NATO.”
Except that NATO is not fighting, and Russia has invaded with the intention of destroying the Ukrainian state.
“The driving force [to war] has been, on the one hand, NATO’s aggressive push towards Russia’s borders; on the other, the exaggerated ambitions of Vladimir Putin and his desire to enhance his personal prestige and his grip on power.” The US aims to “weaken Russia militarily and economically; to bleed it dry and to inflict harm on it; to kill its soldiers and ruin its economy. It was this aim that induced them to push the Ukrainians into an entirely unnecessary conflict with Russia over NATO membership.”
What a mess, Mr Woods. We oppose NATO. But Ukraine has been refused membership of NATO. The main cause of NATO expansion (Finland and Sweden have applied) and massive increases in arms spending (Germany) has been small nations’ fears driven by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US, France and Germany certainly did not want a war with Russia which has brought political chaos, uncertainty and disrupted trade. The US is reacting to a war it did not want, sending limited amounts of weapons to Ukraine as the least-worst option in the circumstances. The West wants the war to end and would do a deal with Putin (possibly at Ukraine’s expense) if only Putin would negotiate.
Woods and co. do not care about the enormous suffering of the Ukrainian people. They have nothing to say about the brutal Russian occupation, the right of the Ukrainians to resist terror, or the right of the Ukrainians to fight for self-determination.
Woods has no suggestions for the Ukrainian working class. For Woods the Ukrainian working-class is not an actor, it has no part to play.
Finally, designating US imperialism as “the most counter-revolutionary force on the planet” is not Marxist but a recycling of the “main enemy” theory of world politics used for decades by Stalinists. In Melitopol or Kyiv it’s just not true.
So yes, solidarity with Ukraine!