Dear Gillian
I have written from a Pro-Russian perspective from the beginning of the latest development of this crisis (24.2.2022) – but only within the much broader context of supporting the Donbass anti-fascist United Front – which has resisted the Obama-initiated Neo-Nazi (Maidan) take-over (and attempted EU-NATO annexation) of Western and Central Ukraine. The ‘Maidan’ Junta was initiated through extensive US-backed terrorist activities during December 2013 and January 2014! This illegal usurping of the democratically elected centre-left and pro-Russia government is all but forgotten now – although these events were never fully reported or properly acknowledged as happening throughout the Western, mainstream media or the bourgeois political establishment in the West (although the New Worker newspaper of the New Communist Party in the UK did properly report all these happenings as they unfolded).
Modern Russia has always acknowledged these events, and has never accepted the US dictated, anti-intellectual position – insisting instead that the Neo-Nazi (Maidan) take-over of power in Western Ukraine was nothing other than what it was – a successful act of Neo-Nazi inspired terrorism perpetuated by the United States! This had the unfortunate effect of propelling a pro-Western, pro-capitalist and anti-Soviet and anti-Russian minority (supported by the Vatican as always), into power in Kyiv!
Obviously, the Obama US Military envoys throughout 2013 (and probably earlier), had done their jobs well, thoroughly penetrating and infiltrating the Ukrainian Armed Forces, particularly its Officer corps, (and after issuing all the correct bribes, reassurances and invitations), ensuring that this US-generated (Neo-Nazi) coup d’état would unbelievably be supported (and not opposed) by what is essentially the Ukrainian faction of the former ‘Red Army’ of the Soviet Union! This noble institution had once taken-on and destroyed the fascist armies Hitler and his allies!
I do not (and never have) supported modern Russian ‘nationalism’ – which contains disturbing elements of bourgeois racism and homophobia, much of it encouraged by the Orthodox Church. It is the same thinking that has Orthodox Icons placed in tanks as they are constructed in the factories – as if these religious objects possess a similar (or greater) power than the anti-missile technology that is also installed – the design of the tanks and technology being ‘Soviet’ in origin and quite often logical developments of this technology brought into the modern day.
At least that is the situation in Russia, although not in the Ukraine, whose Armed Forces are mostly pre-1991 Soviet Red Army – supplemented recently with a rapid NATO re-supply in a mostly failed attempt at generating a parity in arms technology and combat effectiveness with Russia (whose scientists have carried-on Soviet trajectories of technical development and vastly improved on the pre-1991 Red Army technology). This Western policy failed as it turns out that supplying your former Slavic enemy with Anglo-Saxon derived technology (designed to befuddle them if it falls into their hands) – actually does do just that! The firing and reloading systems run contrary to Soviet (Russian) logic and all the instructions are in English! To the Slavic (Ukrainian) mind all NATO Weaponry operates back to front and is generally of no use in a combat situation. From the Russian perspective, all NATO designs are out of date and technologically inferior.
However, one unsavoury element of Russian nationalism is to see the Ukrainian Army as being ‘inferior’ because it is ‘Soviet’! Older Soviet technology is so good that it could give a good fight with most militaries in the world – except the most advanced – of which Russia is one. The modern Russian Army is exactly what the ‘Red Army’ would be if it still existed! The difference is that today, there is no underpinning of Marxist-Leninism. The tanks that roll-out of the Russian factories today no longer belong to the International Working-Class – but rather are the property of the modern Russian, bourgeois State!
Therefore, I support the general anti-fascist war through the Communist Parties of Donetsk and Lugansk, but reject (with equal vigour) the bourgeois nationalism of Russia – which contains equally disturbing right-wing elements of racism, homophobia and religiosity! A broad example of this can be seen in the attached video (above) and the related post translated below (obtained from a Russian-language Telegram Channel). Russian nationalism is justified through a hint of the Soviet past – but nowhere is ‘Socialism’ suggested. Instead, Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism is simply being replaced by Russian bourgeois nationalism – both imported from the capitalist West post-1991:
‘All Ukrainian symbols dismantled in liberated Kherson Residents of Kherson finally got rid of Ukrainian symbols. The day before, in the square. Schmidt, a special team arrived in the city centre – the workers carefully dismantled a heavy sign with the coat of arms of Ukraine from the Iskra stele, and then carefully lowered it to the ground. “They removed the last signs of Ukraine. And soon new Russian signs will be hung in their place,” said Sergey Moroz. Earlier, a Ukrainian trident was removed on the Alley of Heroes of Kherson, and photos of the heroes of the Second World War were placed on pedestals nearby.’
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 