The following statement on Ukraine was agreed by the International Committee of the Fourth International in Amsterdam in February 2015.
Political Information on Ukraine on 27 October 2014
23 April 2015, byBelow is a short note on the first results of the parliamentary elections of 26 October.
There then follows an article by Alexandr Volodarsky, a Ukrainian anarchist who is a native of Luhansk, a city which is at present occupied city by militias armed by Russia, and who took part in the battles of the Maidan. This article dates from the beginning of July. I have accompanied it by notes, either to update or to add elements of reflection or information. These notes naturally reflect my point of view and not necessarily that of the author.
V.P.
Zimmerwald 2014: “Stop the War in Ukraine!”
23 April 2015A gathering of leftist activists from Ukraine, Russia, and Belorussia that took place in Minks, June 7-8, issued the following resolution:
From borderlands to bloodlands
23 April 2015, byWith Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, the era of post-Soviet tolerance of blurred identities and multiple loyalties has ended. Borderlands have once again turned into bloodlands.
Peering through the fog of war
23 April 2015, byTwo weeks ago I wrote in this blog that Putin will not back off, that his strategy is to place an army in Eastern Ukraine rather than build an insurgency, that he may well send thousands of Russian soldiers over the border. This is happening as I write. 27 August 2014 will go down in history as the day even the most inveterate apologists for the Kremlin’s secret war in Eastern Ukraine can no longer deny this aggression.
The Normality of War
23 April 2015, by“What’s abnormal is not the worst. What’s normal, for example, is world war.”
(Franz Kafka)
The 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War takes place in a growing atmosphere of global conflict. The world seems to be once again teetering on the verge of catastrophe. A wave of violence is spreading around the globe, leaving destruction and death in its wake. This surge towards war has developed a momentum that at times seems uncontrollable. Palestine, Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Iraq – the list of conflicts is growing and war is once again becoming normal.
Interview with miners’ leader from Western Donbas
23 April 2015Mick Antoniw, Member of the National Assembly for Wales interviewed Sergey Yunak the leader of the Western Donbas Miners’ union, Dnipropetrovsk for Observer Ukraine in August 2014.
Freedom and Social Identity in the Donbas
23 April 2015, byThe past is the locomotive that pulls the future. Sometimes it is someone else’s past to boot. You go backwards and see only what has already disappeared. And to get off the train you need a ticket. You hold it in your hands. But whom are you going to show it to?
—Victor Pelevin, The Yellow Arrow
I was born in Donetsk to a family in whose home there were two diplomas on the bookshelf: a factory furnace builder’s and an artist’s. The holders of these diplomas desperately tried to (...)
Economics and politics of an escalating war
23 April 2015, byThe costs of the war are mounting. Over one thousand people have been killed, more than three thousand injured, almost a quarter of a million forced to leave their homes. The overwhelming majority of people killed, injured and displaced have been civilians playing no part in the fighting at all. There has been widespread destruction to infrastructure, enterprises, public utilities and homes. The productive economy – that which makes possible the reproduction of human society – is shrinking as a result of the simultaneous contraction of civilian industries and the expansion of the industries supplying the war. Arms and munitions are consumed only by way of their destruction.
On the Possible Banning of the Communist Party of Ukraine and Its Meaning for Democracy and the Left
23 April 2015, byOn July 24 the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Oleksandr Turchynov announced the disbanding of the parliamentary group of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) over a ridiculous technicality. The court trial over CPU’s ban as a political party started the same day withsimonenko the next session of the court scheduled for mid-August. The CPU is accused of supporting ‘terrorism’ and the separatism of Eastern Ukrainian pro-Russian rebels. While Ukrainian and international left should not have any illusions about the CPU just because of the “communist” word in its name, nevertheless, we should worry and actively oppose its ban pushed forward in the context of a major anti-democratic assault after the president Yanukovych has been toppled down.