To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
May 25, 2022
by Frank Arango, Seattle Workers' Voice
On February 24, Russia brutally invaded Ukraine, where the people and
government have been resisting for more than three months. This
follows 30 years of Russian intervention against the sovereignty of the
other former Soviet republics (1), and Russia's aims in Ukraine are
purely imperialist, i.e., political, economic and cultural domination
of as much of the country as it can grab. Moreover, since last
summer, President Putin has been working to justify this imperialist
aggression to the Russian people by denying that the Ukrainian nation
and state have any foundation or justification. Never mind that
for a thousand years the Ukrainians have spoken their own language,
lived on their own territory, had their distinct culture and other
features of a nation, according to Putin, "Russians and Ukrainians were
one people – a single whole." Thus, autocrat Putin aimed to
"reunite" this whole, and the only way that could be done was through a
war of conquest.
So this is clear violation of the right of national self-determination,
which consistent democrats, anti-imperialists and socialists have
always stood for. But the left is divided on Ukraine.
There's a section that is nostalgic for the days of the old Stalinist
regimes while ignoring that they were tyrannies. There are those
who support dictators as being the only real opposition to U.S.
imperialism. There are those who confuse anti-imperialism with
liberal pacifism and therefore are opposed to the national uprising of
Ukrainian people against the Russian invasion. This shows that a
large section of the left thinks there is no point in national freedom
or in worrying about dictatorship vs democracy in a country so long as
the country is still capitalist. Most of this part of the left
won't say directly that it doesn't think that democracy or Ukraine's
national freedom matters, so one of the arguments it uses to hide this
is that the war is really over U.S.-NATO expansionism.
The ANSWER Coalition, CODEPINK, International Action Center, United
National Antiwar Coalition and others have united behind the slogan:
"Stop NATO War on Russia! No Sanctions! No War!" Another example
is that the editor of the journal Monthly Review, John Bellamy
Foster, has written an article in MR Online titled "The U.S. proxy
war in Ukraine," while the Monthly Review itself editorializes that
"On its east, along the borders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, NATO
has seen a major military buildup," and that "U.S. troops and NATO
multinational troops are massed in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland,
and Romania." (2)
The truth, however, is that there was no major NATO military buildup
before the present war crisis, nor was there a massing of U.S. and NATO
troops in Eastern Europe! Of the states bordering Russia, last
year Estonia and Latvia each had a grand total of 1,200 NATO troops,
while Lithuania had 1,200 NATO troops plus 450 U.S. troops. Of
the states mentioned that do not border Russia, Poland had roughly
7,000 NATO troops and Romania had 900 U.S. troops. Meanwhile, the
U.S. military footprint in Europe had been declining for
generations: In 1989 it stood at 297,000 troops, but it was
then quickly and radically reduced with the collapse of the
USSR. Then there was a further reduction from 2006 to 2008 that
left around 63,000 U.S. troops in all of Europe for some 14 years, and
by September 2021 the number may have been as low as 48,000, with only
a few of them stationed in countries near Russia. (3) Some
sources give slightly higher figures for the pre-war number of U.S.
troops in Europe, but it would be ridiculous to claim their number
represented a major military buildup, much less to claim that U.S.
troops were being massed in states bordering Russia. (4)
Alongside this, the United States had long been complaining that many NATO members weren't spending the NATO-required 2% of their Gross Domestic Product for their war machines. In fact, NATO had increasingly been losing support among its members prior to Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea and expansionism in the Donbas region of Ukraine. But with those aggressive endeavors and the present full-scale war, Putin has "saved" NATO. For example, Germany has more than doubled its military budget, previously neutral Finland and Sweden are likely to be accepted into NATO, and more.
Taking advantage of the just mass hatred of the NATO war alliance, another way our supposed leftists, anti-imperialists and socialists attempt to defend Russian aggression is constant chatter about NATO expansionism. But the major NATO enlargements occurred when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined in 1999, and when Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined in 2004. Since then, only four small countries that do not border Russia (Croatia, Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia) have been admitted to NATO over the last 18 years!
Moreover, it's worth noting what has happened to the two countries that NATO has refused to accept:
In early January 2008, Georgia held a non-binding referendum on NATO
membership with 77% voting in favor of joining. But in early
April 2008 the alliance couldn't offer Georgia a Membership Action Plan
because of opposition from Germany, France and five other countries,
and NATO rules require unanimity on accepting new members. This
was quickly followed by the August 2008 Russia invasion of Georgia,
where Russian troops remain in part of the north until this day.
Ukraine also wanted to enter NATO in 2008, but since Germany and France
objected, it could not. 14 years later Germany and France still
objected, and before the February 24 Russian invasion Putin knew that
Ukraine becoming a NATO member remained a distant prospect if it ever
occurred. What's more, in order to get negotiations going after
the invasion, on March 29 the Ukrainian government proposed that
Ukraine be a neutral state that was nonaligned with any blocs, and
vowed not to join any military coalitions or host any foreign military
bases or troop contingents. (5) But Russia's reply has been to
organize another bloody offensive in the east. These facts show
that its pre-war demand that Ukraine never join NATO was just a ruse
under which to commit imperialist aggression. And, of course, if
Ukraine had been on the verge of being accepted by NATO this aggression
would still have not been justified.
The above-mentioned "leftists" are doing political dirty work for Putin's imperial conquest of Ukraine. Thus, their rubbish must be exposed among the masses of people with facts like those in this article. And this work is made easier by the fact that the masses of working and other oppressed people globally instinctively and rightly sympathize with and support the Ukrainian resistance, a resistance which includes the Ukrainian radical left. (6) This is the trend in the world that represents true leftism, and it's a wave toward a better future, a future without imperialist wars and oppression.
Support the Ukrainian resistance!
1. Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list, "Timeline on 30 years of Russian intervention against the sovereignty of the other former Soviet republics," by Joseph Green, April 5, 2022.
2. Monthly Review, "Notes from the Editors," by The Editors, April 1, 2022.
3. The Conversation, "The US military presence in Europe has been declining for 30 years – the current crisis in Ukraine may reverse that trend," by Michael A. Allen, Carla Martinez Machain and Michael E. Flynn, January 25, 2022 .
4. GPB News, "Explaining
the U.S. military presence in Europe as 2,000
more troops deploy," by Becky Sullivan, February 4, 2022.
5. Meduza, "Ukraine's 10-point plan," by Kevin Rothrock, March 29, 2022.
6. Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list, "Ukrainian leftists fight the Russian invasion," by Pete Brown, May 13, 2022. <>
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Stand of the Ukrainian radical left: http://communistvoice.org/DSWV-220513.html.
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