Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a speech to the Russian nation yesterday, claimed that "Ukraine was created by Lenin." The truth is that the October Revolution had the great merit of liberating the nationalities that had been oppressed by Tsarist Russia, which Lenin called a "prison of the nations", and denied all rights to ethnic minorities. We present this letter from Lenin, written in 1919, which develops in a few pages the position of Marxism on the question of nationalities. Let Lenin speak!

This document was written in December 2014 in the aftermath of the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine, the uprisings in Donetsk and Luhansk, and the Russian annexation of Crimea. At that time, the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) had been involved in launching the Solidarity with Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU) campaign. Meanwhile, several so-called Marxist organisations had capitulated to reactionary Ukrainian nationalism. As such, it was important to go back and provide some background to the historical development of the national question in Ukraine.

The following theses were approved at the World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency, held between 29 July and 3 August 2014, in Greece. Despite the time that has elapsed, we believe that the core points of this analysis remain completely valid: its assessment of the situation in Ukraine; of the civil war in Donbas; of the character of the government that emerged from the Maidan events; the role of Russia and NATO, etc. The points explained within these theses are key to understanding the crisis that is currently unfolding.

In a cynical attempt to distract from his crises back home, Boris Johnson is whipping up hysteria around the ‘threat’ of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Socialists must expose these lies – and the imperialist interests that hide behind them.

In the current crisis over Ukraine, Canada has not played its usual role as the mild-mannered younger brother of U.S. imperialism. As a recent op-ed in the Toronto Starpointed out, Canada has been “playing the cowboy” and being “unusually hawkish”. Far from unusual, this is entirely consistent with Canada’s typical approach to Ukraine. Posing as a benevolent protector to cover its own imperialist maneuvers, Canada’s denunciations of “Russian aggression” ring with hypocrisy.

Over the past few months, the world’s media has been full of talk of a new war in Europe. According to US intelligence services, Russia has moved over 100,000 troops to its border with Ukraine. It is also carrying out a joint military exercise with Belarus. The US and NATO have held a series of talks with Russia, although none have yet resolved the situation.

Tensions from the build-up of military forces on the Ukraine-Russia border have made their yearly return at the beginning of 2022, although they have recently been overshadowed by events in Kazakhstan. Even until Kazakhstan supplanted the sabre-rattling on the news, there was little sign that anyone really believed something on the scale of war would happen. The people in Ukraine and Russia have grown weary of the political poker game being played with their futures. Now only the well-paid media shills speak seriously about war.

The 30-year anniversary since the fall of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism in Ukraine was marked by celebrations in Kiev on 24 August. Front-and-centre during the festivities were former presidents Yushenko, Kuchma and Poroshenko, who all presided over the transition to the market economy. But behind the jubilation lies three decades of mounting poverty, inequality and repression. This is the real story of capitalism in Ukraine.

An escalation of tension in the Donbas region raised the spectre of open conflict, which would plunge people on both sides into a nightmare of bloodshed once more. Although troops have now withdrawn from the border, why did this scare take place? And who stands to benefit from continued strife in the region?

On 2 February, the Ukrainian president issued sanctions on three of the most popular television news channels in the country. Media outlets getting shut down is nothing new in Ukraine, ever since the Euromaidan brought a right-wing government to power in 2014. However, the recent events represent the most concerted move to shut down opposition media in Ukraine’s history.

On 19 May, Ukrainian opposition MP Andriy Derkach called a press conference to release a series of recordings of phone conversations in 2016 between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and then-US Vice President Joe Biden, along with US Secretary of State John Kerry. The recordings reveal several aspects of the relationship between the administrations of Poroshenko and Obama at the time; and furthermore, the influence that US imperialism had on the actions of the Poroshenko administration from 2014 to 2019. Just a couple of months later, Derkach revealed recordings between Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although these discussions were much shorter, they revealed a

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Since June 6, a mass strike of miners has been going on in the territory of the Lugansk (also known as the Lugansk People’s Republic). A significant number of the striking miners (119 people) are currently underground in one of the mines. 

Last Sunday, Servant of the People, the parliamentary party of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, swept the elections, gaining 254 out of a possible 424 seats. This represents one of the largest parliamentary majorities ever, but with another record low turnout of less than half of potential voters.

The disastrous presidency of Petro Poroshenko has resulted in him losing the presidential election to comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, by 73 percent to 24 percent. The almost-50 percent margin of victory was the most-lopsided second round in Ukrainian history. The only Ukrainian province where Poroshenko won was the nationalist bastion of Lviv.