In Defense of Defense of Ukraine
Introduction
On February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine. Despite the disproportions between Russia and Ukraine, despite the massive destruction of cities and infrastructure, despite over 350,000 military and civilian casualties on both sides1, and despite alleged Russian war crimes, Ukraine has continued to resist.
The Russo-Ukrainian war has become one of the defining historical events of our time. It is the most significant war on the European land mass since the defeat of Hitler’s Germany in 1945. It is a war between Russia and Ukraine for control over territory internationally recognized as Ukrainian at least since 1991. It is also a war that has also brought the US/EU/NATO into so-far indirect conflict with Russia, raising the specter of thermonuclear confrontation.
This has given the war some historically specific and novel features combined in unique ways. The historical uniqueness poses challenges both for understanding the unfolding events, and also for developing strategies for addressing issues raised by the war. Old paradigms, like those used to understand the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, cannot be grafted seamlessly onto the current crisis. This has led to sharp debates (and more than a little confusion) within the left, both in the US and internationally, on how to understand and respond to the war’s challenges.
In this essay, I address some divergent views over the Russo-Ukrainian war from a socialist and an internationalist perspective by addressing ten questions. These questions emerged in large part from exchanges I have had with a variety of political activists, among them those within the Green Party US. I don’t claim a spurious neutrality. My own views are focused through the lens of socialist internationalism as expressed, for example, by the Ukraine Solidarity Network2.
1. What are the origins of the Russo-Ukrainian war?
The current phase of the Russo-Ukrainian war began with the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the both the north and the east, but the preconditions have developed over centuries, and especially since 2014. To better understand Russian government reasoning in advance of the invasion, consider several of Putin’s speeches and writings from 20213 and 20224,5. These allow us a glimpse of the ideological underpinnings for the invasion and occupation from Putin’s perspective..
The kernel of Putin’s explanation for the invasion can be reduced to two postulates: Ukraine is an integral part of historical Russia, not a nation of its own. As such, US-led NATO expansion into Ukraine poses an existential threat to Russia.
Here is a key section from one of Putin’s speeches shortly before the invasion commenced.
“Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.
“For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.”6
Putin calls his invasion a “special military operation” and not a “war”7. It is likely that this terminology reflects his view at the war’s outset that the invasion would achieve its specific and circumscribed operational objective of “demilitarization” and “denazification” (i.e., the overthrow and replacement of the Ukrainian government) within a matter of days8. We know now things did not turn out as Putin had hoped. Yet the term continues to be used for a war that has lasted for over a year with an estimated hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides.
The following Q&A’s address these and related issues. First, we consider the question of Ukraine as a nation. Then we consider the role of the US and NATO, seen as a proxy war. From there, we move on to consider the question of US/EU arms to Ukraine, among other issues.
2. Is Ukraine really a nation?
Begin by recognizing the distinction between ‘nation’ and ‘state’. I use the word ‘nation’ to refer to a people with a common territory, economy, culture, history, and language (or languages). By these criteria, Ukraine is now a nation. It has been a nation for several centuries and most of its residents regard themselves as members of the Ukrainian nation. A ‘state’ refers to the governmental institutions that comprise a political entity. Ukraine has been a state since 1991.
Ukrainian-Canadian historian Jean-Paul Himka has written a brief and accessible account of Ukrainian history9. Here, I attempt to extract the key issue of the historical existence of the Ukrainian nation from his account.
In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongol invasion of eastern Europe split what once had been a single emerging nation, the Kievan Rus, into eastern and western parts. The eastern part evolved into what we now know as Russia, while the western part included the nuclei of the Belorussian and Ukrainian nations. The development of a serf-based economy led to Cossack and peasant revolts facilitating a differentiation between Belarus and Ukraine. What we now recognize as the Ukrainian nation emerged by the 16th century, along with its majority adherence to the Orthodox faith.
Although already a nation, Ukraine lacked its own state. Ukrainian territory was ruled by a variety of different empires for several centuries, its territorial integrity often redefined.. Ukraine only became an independent state 1991, emerging out of the collapsing Soviet Union where it had been recognized as a republic since 1922 with the right of succession from the USSR.
In thinking about whether Ukraine is a nation, we may also take into account what Ukrainians themselves think of themselves. In the most recent census (in 2001)10, 77.8% of of the population self-identified as ethnically Ukrainian, 14.8% as Russian, and the remainder identifying with other nationalities (e.g., Tatar, Jews, Roma). 67.5% of Ukraine’s population declared Ukrainian as their native language and 29.6% declared it was Russian.
3. Isn’t it simply a proxy war between the US and Russia?
To understand the Russo-Ukrainian war, we must see it in its totality as comprised of three major factors (as well as innumerable but less determinate ones). First, it is a military and political conflict between two nations: Ukraine and Russia. Second, it is part of the inter-imperialist rivalry between the US and Russia over control of Europe and central Asia. Third, it interacts with the class struggle within national boundaries, including not only Ukraine, but also within Russia and within the US. Isolating only one of these three factors and ignoring the totality, leads (at best) to a flawed understanding of the dynamics of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Reducing the Russo-Ukrainian war to a simple proxy war narrative (a key Russian talking point) entails the conclusion that Ukraine is fighting primarily or exclusively in the interests of the US11, denying informed and conscious agency to the Ukrainian people themselves.
The proxy war perspective is held by influential politicians within both the US12,13,14 and Russia15,16,17,18, as well as among may leftists, especially within the US19.
The most important factor missed by reducing the war to a proxy war is the autonomous agency of the Ukrainian people themselves. For the Ukrainian people this is a war for democracy and national liberation. In a May, 2023 peace appeal, Ukrainian civil society activists “find the language on the right and left that Ukrainian soldiers are somehow fighting as proxy’s for the West deeply offensive. This argument denies us our humanity and diminishes Ukraine’s history of hard won independence and the legitimacy of the peoples’ choice of their democratically elected government. This is deceptive and harmful political rhetoric.”20
The people of Ukraine have expressed the overwhelming support in this fight for their freedom, with support from people of the entire region. A post-invasion poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology reports that “that at least 85% of respondents believe that there is no oppression of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine (in particular, 85% of ethnic Russians and 90% of Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine), that Ukraine has its own long history of formation and statehood (and not is an "artificial" creation of Soviet power) that Western powers did not want and did not provoke Ukraine to war against Russia, that the idea of "Nazis" in power in Ukraine is a fabrication that the war began because of Russia's desire to conquer Ukraine (and not because of fair claims) that Russian troops are deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure and civilians, that the Russian military is primarily to blame for the destruction of civilian infrastructure and civilian casualties.”21
Reducing Ukraine to nothing more than a US proxy is both seductively simple and tragically wrong. It mirrors the imperialist mindset that ignores or demonizes the agency of colonial peoples.
As Eric Draitser has pointed out, “opposing Ukraine’s right to defend itself and eject its invaders is an abandonment of every principle of internationalism, solidarity, and anti-colonial and anti-imperialist politics.”22
This resistance deserves our support, whatever our views of the current Ukrainian government and whatever the intentions of the US and the EU. We need to build solidarity from below with the Ukrainian people, independent of any government, as well as solidarity with the antiwar resisters in Russia and Belarus.
4. Should Ukraine acquire arms from the US and the EU?
The question of Ukraine obtaining arms from the US, the EU, and NATO to fight the Russian invasion is one of the most contentious issues within the self-identified left, especially within the US.
If the war were simply a proxy war between the US and Russia, then the answer would be a clear “no”. However, if we take into account the right of Ukraine to self determination and the imperial revanchist nature of the Russian invasion, we come to a different conclusion. Ukraine cannot compete on its own militarily with Russia, a country with a population and economy four times its size. Ukraine has both the need and the right to obtain arms from whatever sources it can find.
Without getting lost in too many details, there are several historical examples where many or most on the left came out in support of taking aid from or supporting one capitalist side over the other. Examples include Ethiopia (1935-36)23, Spain (1936-39), and the European war against Hitler (1939-1945).
5. Why the left should be in solidarity with Ukraine
Internationalism has been at the center of revolutionary socialism for almost two centuries. The Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, famously ends with “Proletarians of all countries, unite!”24
On the Russian side, Ukraine is Putin’s war for regime change and Ukraine’s annexation into the restored Russian empire. On the Ukrainian side, it is a war for national independence and self-determination. Just as the left opposed the US-initiated regime change wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the imperialist wars in Algeria and Vietnam, so too must we condemn equivalent behavior by Putin. Simply because Ukraine is adjacent to Russia while Afghanistan and Iraq are half a world away from the US should not make any principled difference.
To be a consistent socialist internationalist under the present historical circumstances is to defend Ukraine against imperialist aggression. There cannot be a just peace without without restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity. A just peace in Ukraine can help create conditions for the advance of the working-class struggle within Ukraine, within Russia, and internationally as well. Alternatively, a Russian victory would be a substantial setback for the working people of the world.
As Rosa Luxemburg argued25 (correctly, in my view), the right of nations to self determination should not be seen as a supra-historical abstraction. Contrary to Putin’s claim that Ukraine has always been part of historical Russia26, the argument for applying this national right to contemporary Ukraine seems clear. Ukraine is and has been historically an oppressed nation, gaining its independence from Russia in 1991 following a referendum which supported independence overwhelmingly. Ukraine has defining characteristics generally associated with a nation. It follows that Ukraine has a right to self-determination and independence. This entails the right to defend itself against imperialist aggression, in this case from Russia.
This does not mean that we are obliged to give uncritical political support to the neoliberal Zelensky government. What it reflects is a belief that a Ukrainian working class movement will be better off in the future with its own national state than it would be under a Russian imperial restorationist occupation regime.
This view that is supported by a broad range of Ukrainian socialists27, anarchists28, feminists29, and trade unionists30. According to Vitaly Doudine, a leading member of the of the Ukrainian Social Movement, “[w]e are fighting for the independence of Ukraine against Russian invaders, but in that time we are fighting for the socialism, which brings more protection to every working person.”31
As Ernest Mandel observed32 in an earlier historical context, nationalism of an oppressed nation (like Ukraine) has a dual character. Nationalism of an oppressed nation can help open the road to progressive change by transcending the limits of imperialist domination. At the same time it raises the danger of collaboration with the national ruling class. The outcome of this contradiction is undetermined, depending on the political and organizational capacities of the contending national classes.
Figure 1: Labour Movement in Solidarity with Ukraine (n.d.)
The Ukraine Solidarity Network writes that “[i]t is urgent to end this war as soon as possible. This can only be achieved through the success of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion. Ukraine is fighting a legitimate war of self-defense, indeed a war for its survival as a nation. Calling for “peace” in the abstract is meaningless in these circumstances.”33
6. What are the politics and ideologies within the US antiwar movement?
The US antiwar left is comprised ideologically of two distinct but overlapping tendencies which we may refer to as “anti-imperialist” and “pacifist”. There is also an antiwar right whose nationalist ideology is distinct from both left tendencies. While the antiwar left and right are generally easy to distinguish, the distinction between the anti-imperialists and the pacifists is often overlooked since many antiwar groups share some mixture of both anti-imperialist and pacifist views. My goal here is to help clarify this distinction as a contribution to building an internationalist left.
Many of Putin’s talking points talking points to justify the invasion of Ukraine have been adopted more or less uncritically by significant sections of the antiwar left. The include Ukraine as a proxy war, the Maidan coup narrative, and the expansion of NATO.
Anti-imperialist left. It is one of the sad ironies of history that much of the anti-imperialist left finds itself on the same side as an imperialist power (Russia) attempting a reconquest of its colonial territory (Ukraine) while the US imperialists provide arms to the Ukrainian resistance (for their own reasons, of course). This has led to considerable confusion within the left
It is not enough to say that much of the Left has absorbed and re-transmitted Russian talking points. We must ask why this has become largely the norm. Or, to rephrase the question, why has ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ come to dominate so much of anti-imperialist discourse?
There are two prinicipal factors moving antiwar discourse in this direction. First, the US has been the imperial hegemon since the defeat of Nazism in WWII, followed years later by the collapse of the eastern bloc and USSR in 1989-1991. Second, we lack a comprehensive and widely accepted theory of contemporary imperialism and its relevance it to the current world.
Combined with a campist perspective34 inherited from the Cold War era, the result has been an antiwar movement dominated by a US-centric view . By focusing largely or exclusively on the “proxy war” between the US and Russia, this tendency effectively ignores the agency of the Ukrainian people.
Pacifist left. Pacifists oppose war and advocate for peace. As abstraction, most of us would probably agree with this sentiment. But the problem is not who is for war and who is not. No sane person advocates for war in the abstract, especially with the threat of thermonuclear annihilation. The real question is what we should do when war is thrust upon us. This is the question posed by Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Let me cite some historical examples, raised as questions.
During the American civil war, was it justified to take up arms against the slave-owning, secessionist Confederacy, as thousands of former slaves, among others, did?
Was it right for the Soviet Union to defend itself against the Nazi invaders after the predictable and disastrous failure of the Hitler-Stalin pact?
In that same war, was armed partisan resistance to Nazi occupation and genocide (think Warsaw ghetto rebellion) justified?
Were the Vietnamese justified in taking up arms against first French and then US imperialism to win their national liberation?
I am sure we could find other examples, but I think these are sufficient to make the point that war may be justified, given the historical circumstances.
In the case of Ukraine, it is not enough to call for negotiations. At a minimum, we need to recognize the right of Ukraine to the restoration of its conquered territories as well as reparations.
A recent peace appeal from self-described "Ukrainian civil society activists, feminists, peacebuilders, mediators, dialogue facilitators, human rights defenders and academics [...]"35 makes some important points.
They "ask for nothing less than the full respect for internationally agreed humanitarian and human rights law and the UN Charter and the practical means to defend ourselves, our popular sovereignty and our territorial integrity, to resist the Kremlin’s expansionist and imperialistic attempts to re-colonize its neighbours. Yes, we need diplomacy, and yes, we need humanitarian aid, but make no mistake, Ukraine needs to continue to be supported with modern weaponry and other military assistance and strict economic and legal sanctions on the Kremlin." (emphasis in original)
They go on to "ask that international organisations and movements respect the right of Ukrainians to be at the front and centre of determining how to make their peace and how to defend themselves and their rights. We ask for respect for our calls for inclusion and that when it comes to determining our future there should be “nothing about us without us”. We object to conferences and marches for 'peace in Ukraine' where Ukrainians are neither meaningfully involved nor fairly represented." (emphasis in original)
Antiwar right. Isolationism is a right-wing US ideology that advocates non-involvement by the US in European and Asian wars (but may support those those in Latin America), retreating to fortress America. The isolationists generally oppose US weapons provision to Ukraine.
Isolationism has a history going back decades36. Its current instantiation includes prominent Republicans and Libertarians like Donald Trump, Ron and Rand Paul, Ron DeSantis, Marjory Taylor Green and others in the so-called House Freedom Caucus, among the more prominent examples.37, 38 Their voices are amplified by powerful right wing media influencers like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.
Some on the left have advocated that left and right join forces against further US military support for Ukraine. This was exemplified in the February 2023 Rage Against the War Machine rally39, sponsored by the Libertarian Party and the Movement for a Peoples’ Party, with the endorsement of several prominent groups and individuals on the left, including the Green Party’s 2016 presidential nominee, Jill Stein40, and Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin41.
Such a “Red-Brown’ alliance” appears desirable to some on the left. It seems to provide a weak left with an opportunity to ‘punch above its weight’ by allying with more powerful right-wing forces. In fact, the result is quite the opposite. Any such alliance comes with a cost that outweighs its apparent appeal. Right-wing, reactionary, and neo-fascist forces are provided cover by their leftist collaborators, while some on the left are disoriented into believing that they share common ground with these reactionaries.
7. Isn’t the Kyiv government a neo-Nazi regime installed by the US in the ‘Maidan coup’?
Significant sections of the antiwar left have adopted uncritically several Russian talking points to justify the invasion of Ukraine. The include Ukraine as a proxy war, the Maidan coup narrative, and the expansion of NATO. Rather than address all of these myths in detail here, I refer the reader to the indispensable work of Michael Karadjis on Donbas42,43, Crimea44, the language question45 the “Maidan coup”46, and the Minsk Accords47.
It is true that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine, just as there are neo-Nazis in Europe, the US, and elsewhere. Although the Ukrainian neo-Nazis and the far right more generally, remain marginalized at present, their continuing influence of groups like the Azov Battalion (now incorporated into the Ukrainian army) and the Russian Volunteer Corps48 remain a source of concern.
The 2019 election results provide us with one measure of far-right support in Ukraine. In the parliamentary elections that year, Svoboda, the larges of the far-right parties, received 2.15% of the vote, and obtained 1 seat in parliament49.
In my view, the real reason for Putin’s neo-Nazi claim must be found elsewhere. The claim functions as a bridge between the current war and the “Great Patriotic War” against Hitler. There is still a strong sympathetic resonance within Russia regarding that war and the role that the Soviet Union played in the defeat of Hitler’s Germany.
The “Maidan coup”. The myth of the 2014 Maiden “coup” is closely related to the denazification myth. For some on the left, Maidan was a far-right coup, engineered by the US50. For most Ukrainians, however, Maidan has become the “Revolution of Dignity”, especially among supporters of the Zelensky government.
The revolution began as mass protests in Maidan (Kyiv’s Independence Square) in the autumn of 2013. The protests, following the model of the Arab Spring (e.g., Tahrir Square) and Occupy Wall Street, taking over a public square in protest of then-president Yanukovych’s turn away from an economic and political orientation westward towards the EU. Instead Yanukovych chose to ally economically and politically with Putin’s Russia.
As the Maidan conflict intensified, Yanukovych called in the Berkut (riot police). At least 130 people were killed, mostly protesters, but also including 18 police officers.51 The escalating confrontation provided an opening to the far right. Well-armed and organized, motivated by anti-Russian, pro-Ukrainian, nationalism, the Right Sector and other ultra-nationalist groups became a visible face of the protests. Yanukovych, himself a corrupt oligarch, fled to Russia. He was then replaced by acting president Oleksandr Turchynov through a vote of the Ukrainian parliament.
As Inna Polianska has written with respect to Maidan and Ukrainian neo-Nazis: “To justify its invasion, the Kremlin tried to substitute a real Ukraine with a simulacrum made of cartoonish images, national stereotypes, and fakes.”52
8. Is Russia imperialist?
At the risk of considerable simplification, we note that imperialism may take one of two general forms, or some combination of the two. We may call these “classical” and “modern” imperialism.
Classical imperialist regimes expand their empire through geographic expansion. The expansion may take place through annexation of contiguous territory into the imperial core. Examples include Ottoman Turkey, the Austro-Hungarian empire, and (of special significance for our purpose) tsarist Russia.
Alternatively, classical imperial expansion may occur through colonial conquest of non-adjacent territory. This includes European colonization of Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and what is now Indonesia and the Philippines. This may include the creation of colonial settler states, as in North America and Australia. The political economic core of classical imperialism initially lay in the extraction of raw materials, other commodities, and especially slaves, both as commodities and as labor.
Modern imperialism, especially since the end of World War II, replaces expansion and colonization with the export of capital from the imperialist core for investment in the colonized periphery. Direct colonial rule has been superseded by rule through pliable local regime sin return for a share of the extracted profit. This is the path taken by the US in much of Latin America, for example.
One of the things that characterizes contemporary Russia is its combination of both classical and modern imperialist forms.
Since coming to power in 1991, one pf Putin’s central goals has been the restoration of what he sees as legitimate Russian territory lost in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Prior to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, these have included the 1997 re-acquisition of Sevastopol, the Chechen wars (1994-1996 and 1999-2000), the Georgian war (2008), and the annexation of Crimea (2014), among others.
These are exactly what might be expected from a classical imperialist. Putin seems to recognize this, by identifying his own quest with that of Tsar Peter the Great, comparing their military conquests to win back lands claimed by Russia53.
Not simply a classical imperialist power, Russia is a modern imperialist as well. Evidence for this may be seen in Figure 2, which illustrates foreign direct investment (FDI - a measure of capital outflow invested outside the country) for the Russian Federation, the US, and Nigeria. The data indicate that Russia invests capital abroad at roughly the same rate as the US, after correcting for the relative sizes of the two economies. Russia’s FDI is clearly much larger than Nigeria’s, chosen for example as a non-imperialist nation with a population comparable to that of Russia or the US.
Figure 2: Foreign direct investment as %GDP – Russia, US, Nigeria (data from World Bank)
The question of whether or not Russia is an imperialist nation is of more than academic interest. If we combine the idea that Russia is not imperialist and that the Russo-Ukrainian war is reducible to a proxy war between the US and Russia, we are left with the (false) conclusion that anti-imperialists should be in favor of a Russian victory over Ukraine., all other things equal.
9. Is Russia justified in invading Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
There is a widely held position within the US antiwar movement that NATO expansion explains Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. In his speech on February 24, 2022, Putin made clear that his special military operation against Ukraine was motivated by “the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.”54
While it is true that NATO expanded eastward following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, almost all of this expansion took place between 1990 and 2004. More recently Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, North Macedonia in 2020, and Finland in 2023.55
Although Putin may have a real fear of NATO expansion into Ukraine, the invasion appears to have had the opposite of Putin’s desired outcome. Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September, 2022, six months after the Russian invasion, following the post-invasion applications of Sweden and Finland. Furthermore, since Russia cannot plausibly claim a threat of imminent military attack from Ukraine (or NATO, for that matter), it would seem that the Russian invasion could hardly be described as act of self-defense against an actual or imminent armed attack on Russia.56
In reality, Putin doesn’t have an existential problem with NATO as such. He has a speific problem with Ukraine joining NATO, since, according to his view, Ukraine is really part of Russia. This is confirmed by the Russian response to Finland’s full membership into NATO in April 2023. Although Finland shares an 800 mile border with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Finland (and Sweden) joining NATO would make “no big difference”57.
10. What about the national rights of the Russians in Donbas?
The national question in the Ukraine is complicated, especially in the areas currently under Russian occupation. It is useful to consider Ukrainian territory to be comprised of several different regions.
The west and north of Ukraine, including the major cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Odesa are principally Ukrainian speaking, as are the Russian-occupied oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south.
Historically, the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, adjacent to Russia) has been a mixed (Russian speaking/Ukrainian speaking) region, with roughly equal numbers of each. According to the 2001 census, about 57% of the Donbas self-identified as ethically Ukrainian, while about 39% self-identified as Russian. Russian speakers tend to be urban, while the Ukrainians tended to be in the villages and the countryside. The two communities got along relatively peacefully with one another prior to 2014. There was considerable intermarriage and most educated people were bilingual. What differences there were have become magnified by Russian intervention since 2014.
Russia has a strategic interest in separating the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson from the rest of Ukraine. This will permit them to serve as a land bridge between Russia and Crimea, and possibly further west to Moldava, should Odesa fall under Russian control.
The status of Crimea and Donbas have been the most contentious issue since 2014. While Putin may have seized Crimea and Donbas illegally, he did not create the underlying situation of ethnic and linguistic conflict.
Crimea has historically been part of Russia (between 1783 until 1954). It’s warm water port is of great strategic significance to the Russian navy. If there were a real referendum, it would not be surprising (but not a foregone conclusion) that Crimea might vote to become part of the Russian Federation. However, any just resolution of the national question in Crimea must base itself on a genuine referendum/ It must also take into account the rights not only of the Ukrainians in Crimea, but also of the indigenous Crimean Tatars and their tragic history.
Conclusions
My principal claims are three. (1) In the war between Ukraine and Russia, socialists have an obligation to support the right of Ukraine to defend itself militarily against Russian occupation and annexation. (2) Socialists do not have a side in the confrontation between the US and Russian imperialist powers. (3) The class struggle continues in the shadow of the war, especially in Ukraine and in Russia.
How might the war end? Despite the carnage and destruction, Putin continues his occupation in the face of tens of thousands of casualties on both sides with no clear end in sight. While there are ongoing diplomatic contacts between Ukraine and Russia regarding gain shipments through Black Sea ports and prisoner exchanges, there is no obvious movements toward peace talks between the two nations. There has been a flurry of third-party discussions, notably including China, but these have not led to any visible progress.
The most prominent obstacle (though not the only one) appears to be the question of occupied Ukrainian territory, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea. On the Russian side, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said in an interview with Russian news network RTVI that Russia needs “[...] recognition by Kyiv and the international community of new territorial realities.”58 On the Ukrainian side, Ukraine’s conditions for negotiations require “restoring [Ukraine’s] integrity”59, according to President Zelensky. Without substantial movement on one side or both, perhaps consequent on a shift in the military force balance, there seems to be little near-term chance of agreement.
Wars typically end either through negotiations or through unconditional surrender of one side or the other, as was the case in World War II. In some circumstances, the war can go on (at least formally) for decades following a truce but with no agreed upon resolution (e.g., Korea)60. Cold war Germany, divided into nominally independent eastern and western states offers yet another historical model61. For now, endless war with or without a truce, seems most likely in the near term.
Ukrainian socialists Denys Bondar and Zakhar Popovych obsersve that “the responsibility for the fact that peace negotiations are not currently underway lies entirely with the Russian Federation, which does not provide, at least publicly, any proposals that the majority of Ukrainians could even hypothetically accept.”62
As Ukrainian civil society activists write: “We ask that international organisations and movements respect the right of Ukrainians to be at the front and centre of determining how to make their peace and how to defend themselves and their rights. We ask for respect for our calls for inclusion and that when it comes to determining our future there should be ‘nothing about us without us’.”63
It is time to build a new antiwar movement that unites the working class and the oppressed internationally. To do that, we need to oppose imperialists of all nations – American, Russian, or Chinese – and reject military alliances and the inter-imperialist arms race. We must stand in solidarity with those under imperialist attack, beginning with the Ukrainian people in the defense of their national rights.
=========================Notes==============
1 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-with-up-354000-casualties-likely-drag-us-documents-2023-04-12/
2 https://againstthecurrent.org/solidarity-with-ukraine/
3 V. Putin, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians (2021), http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
4 V. Putin (2022a), http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828
5 V. Putin (2022b), http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843
6 V. Putin 2022b, op.cit.
7 https://stories.state.gov/what-is-a-special-military-operation/
8 https://www.ndc.nato.int/research/research.php?icode=777
9 J-P Himka, 2022 ,Ten Turning Points: A brief history of Ukraine, https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2022/04/13/ten-turning-points-a-brief-history-of-ukraine/
10 https://www.eurac.edu/en/blogs/mobile-people-and-diverse-societies/ethnic-and-linguistic-identity-in-ukraine-it-s-complicated
11 See e.g., https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/proxy-war
12 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWu7cPPVv0
13 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/26/us-has-big-new-goal-ukraine-weaken-russia/
14 https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/25/world/ukraine-russia-war-news?smid=url-copy#here-are-the-latest-developments-in-the-war-in-ukraine
15 https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5028300?from=glavnoe_1#id2123318
16 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/26/russia-accuses-nato-of-proxy-war-in-ukraine-as-us-hosts-crucial-defence-summit
17 https://www.newsweek.com/russia-would-agree-talks-end-ukraine-war-these-conditions-kremlin-1755642; https://ria.ru/20221030/dialog-1827881114.html
18 https://tass.com/politics/1529835
19 e.g., https://www.liberationnews.org/anti-war-marchers-honor-mlk-say-no-to-nato-proxy-war-in-ukraine/
20 https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2023/05/26/ukraine-peace-appeal/
21 https://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1113&page=1
22 https://www.tempestmag.org/2023/01/making-sense-of-the-ukraine-war/
23 See e.g., https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/clr-james-ethiopian-war
24 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch04.htm; see Translator’s note.
25 R. Luxemburg, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1909), https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/ch01.htm
26 V. Putin, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians (2021),, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
27 https://newpol.org/issue_post/the-war-on-ukraine/
28 See https://newpol.org/the-class-war-in-ukraine/ for several Ukrainian anarchist Instagram sites
29 https://newpol.org/the-right-to-resist-a-feminist-manifesto/
30 https://newpol.org/unions-strive-to-keep-ukraines-mines-running-protect-civilians-and-appeal-for-solidarity/
31 www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwa3cbvqd7g&list=PLn18G_o1gaSscgpRqi_tbPNV_7MTBA-w6
32 E. Mandel, The Meaning of the Second World War, Verso:London, 1986, p. 88.
33 https://againstthecurrent.org/solidarity-with-ukraine/
34 See my Common Sense and the Ukraine War for a more extended discussion and definition of campism: https://beyondcapitalism.substack.com/p/common-sense-and-the-ukraine-war
35 https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2023/05/26/ukraine-peace-appeal/
36 https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/american-isolationism
37 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/opinion/republican-ukraine-russia.html
38 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/03/opinion/tucker-carlson-ukraine-trump-desantis.html
39 https://www.lp.org/rage-against-the-war-machine/
40 www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZz6LsNyO0g
41 https://twitter.com/medeabenjamin/status/1605972845485363208?lang=en
42 https://www.facebook.com/michael.karadjis/posts/pfbid0VGqHt6Bbdz8U1sdo6CGBLk48Kkm3efFUTNJtpjDVncKqo3tRW2NVtQ3FMSZrG9bRl, h
43 https://www.facebook.com/michael.karadjis/posts/pfbid0RePKDYotfnAuLEvtixHNbySYxnBKv33sDoRow2XXv6podZdLjf8hinQ8WQpSp5SBl,
44 https://www.facebook.com/michael.karadjis/posts/pfbid02ajKhnCWJcx9Gn6NwTZ52BLXi6q1Z7PsYvn1FcFLtrKhcMHWRQHKV6TBxN8mEpyTxl,
45 https://www.facebook.com/michael.karadjis/posts/pfbid0z3vtpovn5KawEpgtbuHkAzxjuUFWp7tzpxzoRsj42ssPsgDsWAnivCcB6erZvCgl
46 ttps://www.facebook.com/michael.karadjis/posts/pfbid02VgXkUr4XfNgTztaWxbaLYNQNZfHtjWqUELmh9W1Lm79VUJBjbkqWxtHqTmSBNU8ml; the Netflix documentary, Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s fight for Freedom, provides a useful video glimpse into what it was like to be a participant.
47 https://www.facebook.com/michael.karadjis/posts/pfbid0215RDJv179Mq8kyqoJc9UfTz4UrhZWXx9fA3JWz5MVitdjpCvfywDcSxf8wVWfZf7l
48 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/26/world/europe/the-leader-of-a-russian-group-involved-in-a-border-incursion-is-described-by-watchdogs-as-a-neo-nazi.html?searchResultPosition=1
49 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svoboda_(political_party)
50 e.g., https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/03/pers-m03.html
51 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_killed_during_the_Revolution_of_Dignity#cite_note-MSV-03.02.14-1
52 https://euvsdisinfo.eu/a-history-of-defamation-key-russian-narratives-on-ukrainian-sovereignty-2/
53 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/10/putin-compares-himself-to-peter-the-great-in-quest-to-take-back-russian-lands
54 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843
55 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO
56 See UN Charter, article 51: https://legal.un.org/repertory/art51.shtml
57 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-lavrov-says-finland-sweden-joining-nato-makes-no-big-difference-2022-05-17/
58 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/russia-sets-conditions-for-peace-talks-with-ukraine/2859005
59 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-zelensky-sets-conditions-for-genuine-peace-talks-with-russia-11667907501
60 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/18/ukraine-russia-south-korea-00097563
61 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/26/world/europe/ukraine-nato-germany.html
62 https://rev.org.ua/the-left-view-on-the-prospects-of-peace-negotiations/
63 https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2023/05/26/ukraine-peace-appeal/
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