The IMT has always had an odd position on Ukraine. Back in 2014, the organisation declared its solidarity with the ‘anti-fascist resistance’ that erupted in Eastern Ukraine in response to the Western-backed ‘counter-revolution’ of Maidan. This narrative is straight out of the pages of Press TV and Russia Today, the kind of media no doubt being uncritically consumed by Alan Woods and his cronies. Louis Proyect was a staunch critic of this bizarre position. Note how the organisation’s official statement from 2014 mentions the banning of the Ukrainian Communist Party, making no mention of its support for Russian separatists in the east of the country (an act of treason). Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, and the Russian Mensheviks, were banned by the authorities for less. I have next to no sympathy with the Ukrainian Putinists or their plight, and their suppression is perfectly justified. But that is not the narrative this absurd organisation has been spinning for the past several years. Alan Woods can be seen here in 2014 speaking at a Ukraine solidarity event, repeating the calumny that the Maidan uprising was ‘fascist’ in character. I first saw the video when I was still in the sect, and even then, I recall finding it rather bizarre. The relevant articles have recently been republished on the IMT website in light of the current crisis. In eight years, the IMT has not changed its idiotic position.
In fairness to them, they make lip service criticisms of ‘Russian imperialism’ and occasionally criticise Putin, but the bulk of their attacks are on the West for supporting Ukraine’s right to exist as a peaceful, sovereign liberal democracy in the face of Russian imperialist pressure. Such is their hatred for the West, the EU and NATO that their knee-jerk response to the events of Maidan was to immediately denounce it as a counter-revolution and throw its weight behind the Russian operatives in Ukraine. These hypocrites denounce Maidan as ‘fascist’ because a small minority of Ukrainian ultranationalists gained prominence in the wake of events. These people never played a leading role and have since lost influence, but this was enough evidence for the organisation to smear the entire movement. Yet they have no problem giving ‘critical support’ to other revolutions and mass movements which happen to be infiltrated by far-right extremists – the Hong Kong movement, for example – so this is another example of pure hypocrisy on the part of the International Marxist Tendency. The Ukrainian government went as far as to ban Nazi propaganda in 2015. The current President, Zelensky, is a Jew. So much for the Ukrainian government being ‘fascist’. In elections held since 2014, Ukrainian ultranationalist groups have done incredibly badly, failing to clear the 5% threshold for a seat in parliament. Meanwhile, Putin’s regime is supported by literal fascists like Zhirinovsky and Dugin, and Russian fascists fight alongside the Russian army in Eastern Ukraine, whilst Putin’s favourite philosopher is the Russian fascist Ivan Ilyin, but this is to be overlooked. Russian imperialism is equated to Ukrainian ‘imperialism’. There is talk of ‘legitimate grievances’ among the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine. Even if these legitimate grievances exist, it is not an excuse for a Russian invasion of a sovereign country, especially when many of these Russian speakers want to remain part of Ukraine.
Whilst the rise of Ukrainian ultranationalism is concerning and should be condemned, that does not detract from the fact that the Maidan revolution was a peaceful, pro-liberal democracy movement against a Russian puppet government, which the IMT cannot bring itself to support because the working-class that it loves to speak of is supporting the ‘wrong’ cause – the cause of the EU, NATO and Western liberalism. Clearly, they are brainwashed by bourgeois propaganda. They should listen to the IMT, overthrow their government and install a workers’ state which will make an appeal to the working-class of Russia to join them in creating a Socialist Federation of Eastern Europe. You can’t make it up.
Woods is a life-long Russophile. He studied Russian as a young man at university. His romance with the Russian Revolution, and everything it represents, has biased him against Ukrainian nationalism. (Ironically, Putin blames the Bolsheviks for creating a Ukraine in the first place.) It is perhaps not surprising that he is giving his enthusiastic support to Russian fascism in Ukraine. After all, if the Taaffeites are to be believed, in the 1990s, Woods and his supporters allied themselves with Russian ultranationalists who were opposed to the Yeltsin regime. Horseshoe theory in action:
These people have also linked up with the Bietz group in Moscow, which claims to be ‘Marxist’, but is lumpen in its social composition and methods. (It has recently had four splits, one individual being expelled for advocating homosexuality.) When I spoke at a public meeting on May Day 1998, called by our party in Russia ‘Socialist Resistance’ – which is the biggest Trotskyist organisation and the only one organised on an all-CIS scale – I was confronted with the Bietz group trying to shout me down. The following are the comments of our comrades in Moscow on Woods’s CIS members: “Once they were unable to come to terms with the new political situation which followed the collapse of Stalinism, the Grant-Woods group were faced with a crisis – no group with any experience in the real movement would possibly accept their sterile and dogmatic approach based as it was in the historic past of the 70s and 80s, so they were left with no option to search around for any group that was prepared to work with them on any conditions.
“One such is the Russian sect, which calls itself the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (WRP), which Rob Sewell conveniently calls “Workers’ democracy”, knowing that the very name of this group will cause unease in his own ranks.
“The leader of this group, Sergei Bietz was once a member of the CWI. His revolutionary rhetoric was proved to be no more than a thin coating when, in August 1991, in the first hours of the coup against Gorbachev he refused to come out on the streets and preferred to watch it on the TV. Following this, ideological differences developed which led him and a few others to break from the CWI.
“As a theoretical justification for breaking with us, he claimed that there were specific Russian conditions that meant that Russian revolutionaries did not need an international. After his departure he maintained a small ultra-sectarian group around him, whose main aim in life appeared to be the disruption of CWI activities. Fuelled by personal pique he found, it seems, a true friend in Alan Woods, They forged a principled agreement not on the basis of political programme but of hatred of the CWI.
“The antics of this group would have been an extreme embarrassment to Ted Grant in the past. They show all the traits of a sectarian group from their stringent demands for violent revolution and lack of understanding of the transitional programme to a complete dishonesty about their size and influence. They are prepared to unite with anyone to attack the CWI.
“Typical were their antics at the public meeting addressed by Peter Taaffe organized by the CWI in Moscow in May 1998. The CWI at the time were heavily involved in an anti-fascist campaign whose main target was the so-called National Bolshevik Party led by Limonov – a right-wing nationalist organization which attracted a lot of youth by using radical, apparently left symbols such as Che Guevara but whose main ideologues were fascist. They use for example the Nazi armbands, the only difference being they have replaced the swastika with the hammer and sickle. When some of this group turned up at the meeting the Chair announced they would not be allowed to speak. Half way through the meeting they started heckling, accusing us of being Jews. Imagine our surprise to see Bietz urging them on and Woods quietly smiling.
It is no surprise that Woods’ personal prejudices have distorted the IMT’s position on this issue. That said, it is likely that even without Woods’ input, they would take this absurd position. The ‘anti-imperialist’ left has been close to unanimous in supporting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and denying Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation. They are not ‘anti-imperialists’, they are anti-West, and will back any regime which is an enemy of the West. It would not surprise me if it emerged that the IMT is receiving money from Putin, just like Gerry Healy’s regime was being bankrolled by Saddam’s Iraq and Gaddafi’s Libya. I wait with bated breath for the revelation of this perfidy in the next few years.
If I ever want a guide on what the correct position is on any issue these days, I go on the IMT website, and make a careful study of whatever it is they have to say. I then take the exact opposite position. I think this works very well for Ukraine. Rather than listen to the lies and obfuscations of Woods and his cronies, I prefer to side with the victims of imperialist aggression. Long live free Ukraine, and down with Putin!