Trotskyism, Ukraine and Hypocrisy: An Analysis

The far-left has thoroughly disgraced itself over Ukraine. Across the world, they are shilling for Russian imperialism and slandering Ukraine’s government as ‘fascist’ (a repetition of Russian propaganda), or at the very least, shamefully equivocating between the murderous, chauvinistic imperialism of the avaricious Putin regime and ‘Western imperialism’. Reading the articles these people produce, you would think that the interests of the Ukrainian people were of minimal relevance. This is nothing more than a quarrel between ‘imperialisms’. That is certainly true for a great many of the loathsome Trotskyist sects. Invariably, they will dedicate a few lines of disingenuous and half-hearted condemnation of Russia, before laying into ‘Western imperialism’ for ‘provoking’ Putin into invading by refusing to rule out the inclusion of Ukraine into NATO. Seen in this light, Putin’s actions are just the ‘rational’ response of a rival imperialist power to legitimate security threats on its borders. You would forget that the whole reason why Ukraine and other countries bordering Russia have wanted to join NATO in the first place is precisely because they do not want to be bullied or invaded in this way.

In the interests of fairness, there at least a couple of these organisations that have taken a clear position in support of Ukraine’s right to be free of Russian imperialism. The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (regularly lambasted by other Trot cults for having somewhat sensible positions on Israel and the Iraq War) recently published an article criticising Trotskyist groups like the Socialist Worker for failing to clearly defend the right of the Ukrainian people to national self-determination. The AWL has declared itself wholeheartedly in solidarity with Ukraine against Russian imperialism, without disingenuous qualifications. The reunified Fourth International has taken a similar position.

Alas, the same cannot be said of others. Let us see what the old fool Alan Woods of the International Marxist Tendency has to say:

At the heart of the present dispute is, therefore, Ukraine’s future membership of NATO. Guaranteeing against this was a central Russian demand, which has been repeatedly refused by Washington – a refusal that was all the more absurd because the West acknowledges that Ukraine does not meet the minimum requirements for NATO membership at this point in time. It is not quite clear whether acceptance of this demand would, in itself, have prevented an invasion. But continually rejecting it out of hand made it inevitable.

Of course, Woods should know, as he himself half-concedes towards the end of that pitiful paragraph, that NATO is little more than an excuse for Putin to impose a puppet regime on his neighbour. He obviously did not pay attention to Putin’s vile speech of 21 February, in which he ranted in Trumpian fashion about the illegitimacy of the Ukrainian nation, describing it as a creation of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and unsubtly suggested that it should be reincorporated into a greater Russian Empire under Tsar Vladimir I Putin. This is a man who has made it his mission to rebuild the old Russia, and that means gobbling up all the territories that once belonged to the former Soviet Union. NATO or no NATO, Putin was always going to do this. The idea that America should have agreed to hand over Ukraine’s sovereignty to Putin is the height of idiocy, and, had America acquiesced in such a shameful deed, Marxists like Woods would be condemning the imperialist powers for making arrangements over the heads of the Ukrainian people. It is Ukraine itself that has asked for admission into NATO to protect it from Russian aggression, and Putin’s actions have only further driven Ukraine into the arms of the West, as well as encouraging other non-NATO countries close to Russia to consider joining NATO. If his goal was to dissuade NATO from expanding any further, his behaviour has proven to be totally irrational and counter-productive. There is no reason to believe that even if the West had come to an understanding over Ukraine, Putin would have kept his word. We are dealing with a psychopathic killer, a lunatic and an imperialist with fantasies of Russian expansion and the restoration of lost glory. This demented, irredentist, revanchist crackpottery cannot be reasoned with. He has no legitimate, rational demands that can in any way be met or be the basis for compromise – something that his apologists on both the far-left and far-right, as well as preposterous ‘realist’ academics of international relations theory, cannot understand.

Woods is positively gleeful about the prospect of Ukraine’s defeat. Here is what he has to say about the defiance of the Ukrainian government:

Brave words! But this is just so much empty bravado. The Ukrainian army is in disarray, being taken hopelessly off guard by the suddenness of the attack. In any case, it was in no position to resist the might of the Russian army. The moment the West announced that it did not intend to send troops to defend Ukraine, the matter was settled in advance.

The assertion that there is no panic in the capital is belied by television pictures that show long lines of cars fleeing Kiev.

From the very start, the Kiev government has been a picture of helplessness. By stubbornly insisting on its right to join NATO – a clear provocation to Moscow – it threw itself unto the arms of the West as its only hope for survival. That was a very foolish mistake.

One gets the impression that Woods wants this to be the case. He actually wants the Ukrainian army to be ‘in disarray’, to be smashed beneath the hammer blows of Putin’s army. As it happens, Woods’ fantasies could not be further from the truth. Russia has done terribly over the last couple of days, its advance bogged down by fierce Ukrainian resistance. It has not even managed to completely destroy Ukraine’s air defences, despite claims to the contrary. Morale is high within the Ukrainian army, who are prepared to fight to the last drop of their blood against Russian imperialism. Woods even has the gall to blame Ukraine for ‘provoking’ the attack by appealing for help from NATO. How dare this relatively weak, colonial nation plead for Western aid against its aggressive neighbour and its powerful armed forces. How upsetting this all is for the unrepentant Marxist and Russophile, Woods, who is the real victim in this situation. He is not even encouraging the Ukrainian workers, for whom he is supposedly so concerned, to proletarian resistance against imperialist aggression! He wants them to surrender to Russia. What a morally bankrupt individual.

There is a consensus that Putin has failed to attain his military objectives in the past couple of days, having barely penetrated the bulk of the country. Russian aircraft has been downed by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defences. Russian tanks have been disabled by the dozen. Hundreds of invaders have already been killed. Young and old Ukrainians are signing up to join the military. Ukrainian workers are being given arms by the government and sent into battle, and even being taught how to make Molotov cocktails. Woods is blind to all this. He paints the picture of a broken nation ready to give in to Russia, precisely because he wants this to be true. He wants Ukraine to be conquered and raped by Russian imperialism so that he and his repulsive minions can bleat ‘I told you so!’ and further rubbish Ukrainian nationalism as a reactionary distraction from the struggle for world socialism. He is not remotely concerned about the suffering of ordinary Ukrainians, but is desperate to fit the unedifying spectacle into his ideological straitjacket. He even expresses the belief (or rather, the barely disguised hope) that Ukraine will soon fall:

There were reports on Thursday evening on Russian state media that airborne troops had captured the airport in Boryspil near Kiev. Whether these reports are true or false, it is only a matter of time before the Ukrainian capital is in Russian hands. The war will then, to all intents and purposes, be over.

Unfortunately for our Russia-loving friend, Woods, the Russians have barely penetrated Kiev (nor have they taken over any other Ukrainian city) and will face stiff Ukrainian resistance. There will be street fighting. There will be mass death and destruction. It was once believed that Putin would seize the capital within days. Now it looks like it will be at least a little longer, if he even manages to succeed in the end. The West is (belatedly) sending in aid. Volunteers are pouring into the country from neighbouring Poland. Russia’s troops are poorly-trained, demoralised and unwilling to fight. It is they who are reluctant to enter into battle, not the brave people of Ukraine, who have more fortitude in their little fingers than Dr. Woods (who sits in his comfortable East London living room and imagines he is directing the world revolution) has in his whole body. There is a mood of defiance and determination. The Ukrainian nation refuses to bow before the oppressor, as Woods would prefer them to do. Woods rubs his hands with delight as he watches what he regards as a ‘fascist’ government in Kiev (led, irony of ironies, by a Jewish President) about to be pulverised by Russian imperialism. The national aspirations of the Ukrainian people are of no relevance to him, since this is an inter-imperialist conflict and according to him, Ukraine is just a pawn, thus, the workers of the world should be ‘neutral’ and oppose both sides equally, whilst being more critical of the West and Ukraine (which, for Woods, is just a Western proxy and thus tantamount to the same thing).

The most malicious part of the whole thing is when Woods quotes, at length, a rather questionable source named Dmitri Kovalevich, supposedly a commentator based in Kiev, who asserts that Ukraine’s army is collapsing before Russia and that the Russian conquest is only a matter of time. I googled this guy. Here is what I found about him. Turns out he is a far-left propagandist who works for an organisation called the Geopolitical Economy Research group. The ‘about’ section of this organisation’s website disguises its real aims, making it seem like just another innocuous think-tank, but the content of its articles has a distinctly anti-Western, anti-American, pro-Russia and pro-China orientation, in favour of what they call ‘multipolarity’ against American hegemony. This is Woods’ sordid source of information about the military situation in Ukraine. It’s good to know what bullshit he is feeding himself with, and what garbage cans he is trawling through in his desperate search for stuff with which to bolster his absurd narrative about the evils of Western imperialism, the chronic weakness of Ukraine (which he shamelessly revels in) and the imminent downfall of the United States. Much of the information in Kovalevich’s account is either unconfirmed hearsay or demonstrably false – for example, his claim that all of Ukraine’s anti-aircraft weaponry has been taken out (even though Russian aircraft are still being brought down as we speak). The truth is that the Russian army’s performance thus far has been pitiful. It was easy enough fighting Chechen bandits and Georgia’s smallfry army, or killing Syrian children, but it’s a different thing invading the second-largest country in Europe with a military that is at least capable of putting up a sustained fight, even if defeat is still a distinct possibility.

Continuing with his pro-Russian propaganda, Woods makes the idiotic claim that ‘It is not easy to determine the precise mood of the Ukrainian people.’ He is clearly not convinced by the scenes of ordinary Ukrainians arming themselves to fight for their country. He desperately wants to believe that the Ukrainian people don’t want to put up a fight and are ready to roll over and let the Russians in. He has that low an opinion of the Ukrainian working-class. What Ukrainian worker would join his organisation, knowing that it regards him and his fellows with such contempt? He even smears the ex-President Poroshenko, suggesting that Putin might make him the head of a puppet regime! The same Poroshenko who was on CNN defiantly brandishing his Kalashnikov, ready to fight for his country against the invader. A wealthy businessman who could easily flee the country with his billions and live a life of comfortable exile, feted by Western diplomats, but is instead choosing to risk his life alongside his fellow countrymen. A far braver and more noble human being than the pro-Russian lickspittle Woods will ever be.

He concedes that Putin will seek to annex territory, but qualifies this by saying that it will be a ‘purely defensive move’. Again, I ask myself whether Woods actually listened to Putin’s idiotic speech the other day, in which he made it quite clear that he doesn’t regard Ukraine as having the right to exist. This is a war of imperial conquest, not a war of self-defence. Here I was thinking Woods actually keeps up with world affairs. He is deluding himself into believing that Putin is a rational actor, when it has become clear to everyone else that he has become progressively unmoored from reality. If he is not utterly mad, then he is at the very least not acting in accordance with the dictates of rational statecraft.

Towards the end of his article, Woods reassures us that no, he does not in fact support Putin:

Do we support Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchy whose interests he backs? No, Putin is no friend of the working class, either in Russia, Ukraine or anywhere else. The invasion of Ukraine is merely a continuation of his own cynical and reactionary agenda.

But…there’s always a but:

But that is not the question we should ask ourselves at this time. The question is: can we in any shape or form appear to be in the same camp as US and British imperialism? Can we associate ourselves, directly or indirectly with NATO, that reactionary imperialist gang? Or with Boris Johnson and the war-monger Liz Truss, or that Blairite traitor Starmer?

It is the task of the Russian working class to deal with Putin. Our fight is against imperialism, NATO and our own reactionary Tory government and those miserable so-called Labour leaders who are its partners in crime. As Lenin always insisted: the main enemy is at home. It is high time we reminded ourselves of that fact.

At no point in this sorry article did the Russian mouthpiece Woods say one word in defence of Ukraine’s right to self-determination. Not one! They are irrelevant! All that matters is the narrative Woods has crafted of two rival imperialisms, between which he and his sect, and the entire working-class by his recommendation, should remain ‘neutral’, albeit with harsher criticisms of the West. Of course, in practice, Woods’ article is an exercise in apologia for Putinism disguised as a criticism of imperialism in general. He slanders the entire Ukrainian army and working-class, and has not a word to say to them about what they should do in the unfolding disaster. As far as he is concerned, they are dead meat and of no importance to the international working-class. After all, it’s their fault – they poked the Russian bear by wanting to join NATO and rising up in the Euromaidan revolution against their pro-Russian puppet President back in 2014, so they’ve got what’s coming to them. An utterly sick attitude, but entirely unexpected if you know anything about this loathsome man. All of the IMT’s writings on what has been happening are in the same vein. Here is what Fred Weston and Jorge Martin have to say in an editorial of 21 February:

From the point of view of the working class of Ukraine and Russia, nothing has been solved and nothing has been gained. When Putin said that Ukraine was Lenin’s creation, he was not correct, of course, as Ukraine’s complex national identity existed before 1917. But it was Lenin’s careful policy on national self-determination – a question over which he clashed with Stalin – that allowed for the union of Soviet Ukraine with Soviet Russia on an equal voluntary basis, as was recognised in the setting up of the USSR in 1922, exactly 100 years ago. Only in that sense, could you say that Ukraine, with its present borders, was created by Lenin, and it has now been destroyed by reactionary Ukrainian nationalists who came to power after the Euromaidan.

The working people of Ukraine and of Russia are linked by strong historical bonds, although these have been weakened by the poison of reactionary Ukrainian nationalism and Great Russian chauvinism, particularly since 2014. The country is mired in civil war, and millions have been forced to emigrate because of the economic crisis.

From this organisation’s absurd perspective, both sides – ‘reactionary Ukrainian nationalism’ and ‘Great Russian chauvinism’ – are equally bad! They cannot see that on one side is a free people defending itself from imperialist aggression and on the other side is a reactionary, fascist regime that wants to destroy Ukraine as an independent state, impose a kleptocratic puppet regime modelled on Putin’s own, and will, if it takes power, subject Ukrainian workers, ethnic minorities and LGBT people to monstrous repression. Even from a Marxist perspective, the position this organisation is taking of condemning both sides equally (but in practice reserving the bulk of its condemnation for the West) is simply sickening and utterly out-of-touch with reality. A flawed, imperfect liberal democracy stands on one side, and an invading, imperialist power that has historically oppressed its neighbours, stands on the other. If Britain invaded Ireland, would the IMT be proclaiming working-class ‘neutrality’ in the ‘inter-imperialist’ conflict? Or would it recognise that Ireland is an oppressed colony, being invaded by an imperialist power? For all their bleating about Lenin’s policy on national self-determination, they cannot see that this very desire for self-determination is what led Ukraine to break free of the USSR in 1991 – something that Lenin’s constitution in theory provided for (though in practice suppressed), and which none other than Putin condemned. They believe that Euromaidan was a ‘fascist coup’, rather than the desire of the Ukrainian working-class to be free of Russian imperialist interference and oppression. They have never forgiven the Ukrainian workers for deserting the banner of pure socialism, and see the Russian invasion some sort of punishment for the evil Euromaidan ringleaders and for those ‘backward’ Ukrainian workers who supported them. No doubt the IMT cult leaders will be rubbing their hands with glee if Russia gets to implement its ‘kill list’ and seizes all of the leading figures in the events of 2014 so they can be shot/imprisoned/deported to Russia. We are reassured that only unity between Russian and Ukrainian workers on a ‘socialist basis’ can bring peace – even though for 70 years, this was tried and failed in the form of the USSR! What makes these clowns think things will go differently in a hypothetical, future USSR? Shock, horror, the implementation of a socialist planned economy does not resolve national differences.

Peter Taaffe’s Socialist Party/CWI takes an equally idiotic position on Ukraine, condemning ‘imperialism’ in the abstract without clearly coming out in defence of Ukrainian national self-determination. The Socialist Workers’ Party, too, spends more time attacking imperialism in general than denouncing Russian imperialism in particular. This abstract anti-imperialism is delusional, even from a Marxist point of view. Even from a Trotskyist point of view. Because I know my Trotsky very well. I was well ‘educated’ in the cult of Socialist Appeal, and I read Trotsky voraciously and attentively. And yes, you can find plenty of stuff by Trotsky justifying this sort of abstract anti-imperialism and the concept of proletarian neutrality in an inter-imperialist conflict. Alas, Trotskyism being what it is – a theology rather than a ‘science’ – you can find plenty of stuff from Trotsky justifying a very different position.

Take, for example, Trotsky’s argument that if semi-fascist Brazil, led by Getulio Vargas, came under attack from an imperialist power, even from a liberal-democratic one like Great Britain, then all Marxists should give critical support to Vargas’ regime against Britain. Similarly, he argued for giving ‘critical support’ to Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia when it was attacked by Fascist Italy in 1935, despite Selassie presiding over a ‘feudal’ and ‘reactionary’ regime. Why? Because, said Trotsky, these were oppressed, colonial nations which had been exploited by European imperialism. It was objectively in the interests of the working-class to give critical support to these admittedly reactionary regimes, because, if they defeated the big imperialist powers, this would galvanise the oppressed colonial peoples of the entire world and help bring down imperialism and capitalism. Now, does Ukraine not clearly fall under the heading of a historically oppressed, colonial regime? What is ‘imperialist’ about the Ukrainian government? Wanting to be independent of Russia does not constitute imperialism. Seeking to suppress Russian-backed separatists in its east does not constitute imperialism. That is like accusing Ireland of imperialism for wanting the reunification of Northern Ireland with the rest of the country. If we take the ‘Leninist’ definition of imperialism – a foreign policy conducted in the interests of finance capital – we will find that Ukraine, with the lowest GDP per capita in Europe, and an economy heavily dependent on other, bigger, more powerful countries as it is, comes nowhere close to the definition of an imperialist power. Tell me one conflict Ukraine has started in the name of access to foreign markets and/or capital, or one country where Ukraine has significant control over the economy. You will not be able to name one. It is rather Ukraine whose economy is dominated by others. A list of the 15 largest banks in Ukraine shows that a third of them are Austrian, Russian, French, Hungarian and Luxembourgian. A third of its banking sector is owned by foreigners! Tell me again that Ukraine is imperialist. Using the Leninist, Trotskyist, definition of imperialism, Russia is clearly the imperialist aggressor here and all Marxists should be giving ‘critical support’ to the heroic Ukrainian working-class, who are resisting imperialism in the name of anti-colonialism.

Moreover, did Trotsky not mock the opposition in the American SWP in 1939 for arguing that the Polish workers and peasants should resist both Hitler and Stalin simultaneously? Trotsky argued instead that the Polish workers and peasants would be justified in temporary allying with Stalin to defeat Hitler, before turning on Stalin and the bureaucracy and fighting for democratic socialism:

But if the question thus shapes itself – some comrades say – is it proper to speak of the defense of the USSR and the occupied provinces? Is it not more correct to call upon the workers and peasants in both parts of former Poland to arise against Hitler as well as against Stalin? Naturally, this is very attractive. If revolution surges up simultaneously in Germany and in the USSR, including the newly occupied provinces, this would resolve many questions at one blow. But our policy cannot be based upon only the most favorable, the most happy combination of circumstances. The question is posed thus: What to do if Hitler, before he is crushed by revolution, attacks the Ukraine before revolution has smashed Stalin? Will the partisans of the Fourth International in this case fight against the troops of Hitler as they fought in Spain in the ranks of the Republican troops against Franco? We are completely and whole-heartedly for an independent (of Hitler as well as of Stalin) Soviet Ukraine. But what to do if, before having obtained this independence, Hitler attempts to seize the Ukraine which is under the domination of the Stalinist bureaucracy? The Fourth International answers: Against Hitler we will defend this Ukraine enslaved by Stalin.

As it happens, the case of Ukraine is simpler. To demand that Ukrainian workers adopt a position of ‘neutrality’ between ‘Western imperialism’ on the one hand, and ‘Russian imperialism’ on the other, or even that they should attempt to fight both at the same time, when one side is the one responsible for invading it, is sheer idiocy and tantamount to a request that the Ukrainians commit national suicide. Therefore, one could conceive, on a Trotskyist basis, of giving ‘critical support’ to Ukraine in the fight against imperialism, because it would deal a blow to the chauvinistic Putin regime and galvanise both the Ukrainian and the Russian working-class to push for serious social concessions, and, in the case of Russia, the outright overthrow of the Putin regime. I would very much like Alan Woods, or one of the activists in his groupuscule, to go to Ukraine and explain to the Ukrainian workers being armed by their government why they should throw down their arms, proclaim neutrality and do nothing, or refuse the valuable (albeit minimal) aid they are receiving from the West, or worse still, overthrow their own ‘bourgeois’ and ‘reactionary’ government, in the middle of a war for national survival, as they are subjected to murderous bombardment and invasion by Russian imperialists. They would deserve the physical and verbal abuse that would undoubtedly follow. Even if a revolution happened in Kiev tomorrow, a Ukrainian Marxist regime would still have to tactically ally with Western imperialism to stop Russian expansionism, because ‘the revolution does not change geography’, as Trotsky himself observed. As he said in IDOM:

An isolated workers’ state cannot fail to maneuver between the hostile imperialist camps. Maneuvering means temporarily supporting one of them against the other. To know exactly which one of the two camps it is more advantageous or less dangerous to support at a certain moment is not a question of principle but of practical calculation and foresight. The inevitable disadvantage which is engendered as a consequence of this constrained support for one bourgeois state against another is more than covered by the fact that the isolated workers’ state is thus given the possibility of continuing its existence.

After all, the Bolsheviks had no problem making deals with imperialist powers. Why shouldn’t Ukraine, fighting for its life in the face of imperialist aggression, do likewise?

Even if one was to counsel a Ukrainian revolution in the middle of an invasion, this could be made compatible with the fight for national self-determination. Let’s also look at the ‘proletarian military policy’ that Trotsky and his followers in the American SWP unveiled in 1940. According to this policy, Trotskyists would remain politically opposed to their governments and seek their overthrow, whilst nevertheless joining the army if conscripted, and using their position in the army to raise transitional demands for workers’ control over military training and the democratisation of the war effort. This, according to Trotsky and Cannon, would lay the basis for the working-class to eventually overthrow the government and impose a workers’ government which alone could win the war against fascism. If today’s Trotskyist sects had leaders with some brains rather than epigones, they would be encouraging Ukrainian workers to take advantage of this historic opportunity to do precisely this, at a time when the desperate Ukrainian government is arming ordinary civilians with weaponry in order to save itself. Admittedly, the PMP was a hypocritical policy which allowed Trotsky to say that he was against ‘political support’ for the bourgeois regimes of WWII, whilst allowing his followers to provide their ‘military support’ by going into the army and thus becoming enmeshed in the ‘bourgeois’ command structures. Moreover, if the Ukrainian workers actually overthrew their government in the name of revolutionary socialism, they would almost certainly guarantee their defeat at the hands of Russia, not least because Western ‘imperialist’ nations will be less willing to give them vital aid, and the division and confusion this would cause in the Ukrainian camp would make Putin’s work of conquering the country easier, just as the chaos caused by the Spanish Revolution helped Franco conquer Spain, and that of the Russian Revolution gave the Whites a winning shot at snuffing out the Bolshevik regime during the Russian Civil War. I’m just playing devil’s advocate and showing how, even on a Trotskyist basis, one can make an argument for giving critical support to Ukraine against Russia.

And what of the workers here in the West? Woods and Taaffe and the other Trot sect leaders counsel us to oppose our ‘own’ bourgeoisie, which has only imperialist aims in Ukraine. Let’s say they have a point. Even then, this could be reconciled with support for Ukraine. Trotsky lays out a scenario in which Algeria rebels against colonial rule by Paris. Fascist Italy steps in to support the rebels. Should the Italian workers, knowing that their government has ulterior motives, stand in the way of this support? No, says Trotsky, they should go out of their way to send over the weaponry to the colonial revolt, because if it succeeds, its progressive ramifications will outweigh any advantage the short-sighted Italian bourgeoisie might get out of it, and wound inspire similar revolts against capitalism and imperialism worldwide. By contrast, the French working-class should do everything to sabotage the war effort against the Algerian rebels.

Let us assume that rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria under the banner of national independence and that the Italian government, motivated by its own imperialist interests, prepares to send weapons to the rebels. What should the attitude of the Italian workers be in this case? I have purposely taken an example of rebellion against a democratic imperialism with intervention on the side of the rebels from a fascist imperialism. Should the Italian workers prevent the shipping of arms to the Algerians? Let any ultra-leftists dare answer this question in the affirmative. Every revolutionist, together with the Italian workers and the rebellious Algerians, would spurn such an answer with indignation. Even if a general maritime strike broke out in fascist Italy at the same time, even in this case the strikers should make an exception in favor of those ships carrying aid to the colonial slaves in revolt; otherwise they would be no more than wretched trade unionists – not proletarian revolutionists.

At the same time, the French maritime workers, even though not faced with any strike whatsoever, would be compelled to exert every effort to block the shipment of ammunition intended for use against the rebels. Only such a policy on the part of the Italian and French workers constitutes the policy of revolutionary internationalism.

Does this not signify, however, that the Italian workers moderate their struggle in this case against the fascist regime? Not in the slightest. Fascism renders “aid” to the Algerians only in order to weaken its enemy, France, and to lay its rapacious hand on her colonies. The revolutionary Italian workers do not forget this for a single moment. They call upon the Algerians not to trust their treacherous “ally” and at the same time continue their own irreconcilable struggle against fascism, “the main enemy in their own country”. Only in this way can they gain the confidence of the rebels, help the rebellion and strengthen their own revolutionary position.

Replace Algeria with Ukraine, Fascist Italy with the West/NATO/America/EU, and France with Russia. I think that the analogy works. The difference in this analogy is that it is the fascist imperialism that is the aggressor and the democratic imperialisms that are supporting the anti-colonial rebels, so there is even stronger justification for Western workers to support Ukraine. I don’t see any analysis like this being given by any of the Trotskyist sects, even the ones with a decent position. I wonder why. Could it be that they are so blinded by hatred for the West and America that they are no longer thinking lucidly? Could it be that they simply cherry-pick from Trotsky everything that justifies their prejudices, and ignore all the examples where he showed himself to be more nuanced and tactical in his thinking? I suppose the competition for revolutionary purity between these different sects is one factor in why they are all falling over themselves to denounce ‘Western imperialism’ and proclaim their opposition to ‘both sides’, as if they were morally or politically equal. If only they realised, even on the basis of their own doctrine, how bankrupt this position is.

Here is the hypocrisy. These people will shout from the rooftops about the virtues of Irish nationalism, Palestinian nationalism, Kurdish nationalism etc and salute all these as anti-colonial struggles. Indeed, the IMT has recently criticised the old Militant position that the Irish nationalists and the pro-British Unionists in Northern Ireland were equally reactionary and that Marxists should take a middle position between both sides, in the name of abstract ‘class struggle’. This sectarian attitude is counterposed to the idea of ‘critical support’ for Irish nationalism, despite its ‘ultra-left’ errors like adopting individual terrorism as a weapon against the British government. Yet they somehow manage to commit the same error in Ukraine by denouncing Great Russian chauvinism and Ukrainian nationalism as equally reactionary. We are talking about a country that has a history of centuries of monstrous oppression at the hands of Russia, from the Russification policies of the Tsardom up to and including the deportation of a large portion of its population by Stalin, and the starvation of a great many in the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as a result of the hare-brained policy of forced collectivisation (Ukraine’s version of the Irish Potato Famine on steroids) through to the 1990s when it finally gained its independence from Soviet rule. There is simply no equivalence between the two sides, and anyone advancing such an idea is a useful idiot for Putin, who now claims to be ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine from a country that has a Jewish President.

I am not a Trotskyist or a Marxist anymore. But if I was, my position on the national question would be a million times better than what these cults have to offer – one reason why none of them will ever build a Ukrainian section any time soon. And it would be in line with the analysis I have laid out here, which shows how, even on Trotskyist terms, not supporting Ukraine is idiotic. I also think it is worth pointing out the sheer idiocy of blaming this war on ‘capitalism’. Vladimir Putin has shown himself willing to tank his economy, and possibly that of the entire world, and risk sanctions on himself and his oligarch cronies, in the name of winning national glory. This is not the rational decision of a man running his country in the interests of a capitalist ruling-class. These are the actions of a nationalist dictator, for whom the achievement of certain ideological goals are more important than economic well-being. This is not a fight among capitalists, this is a fight between two worldviews – liberal democracy and reactionary nationalism. The IMT and its fellow Trots can have their holier-than-thou position of ‘a plague on both your houses’, or they can defend freedom and stand with the Ukrainian people.

To finish, I would like to say something about the sheer hypocrisy of the left and all its bullshit about ‘working-class solidarity’. Why is it that all of these far-left micro-sects never miss an opportunity to raise funds – to buy a new printer, to hire more full-timers, to buy bigger offices – yet none of them are calling for emergency fundraising to support the workers in Ukraine fighting fascism, money that can be sent to Ukrainian trade unionists and associated organisations? Nor, for that matter, do I see any other ‘workers’ organisations’ doing so. At least the old-school left put its money where its mouth was – see the support given to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, for instance. It’s almost as if they don’t actually want to do anything to help real workers. They will raise funds for all sorts of irrelevant bullshit, but when it comes to people who actually need help? NEVER!