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carlos55
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31 Jul 2022, 9:05 am

xenon13 wrote:
SkinnedWolf wrote:
I heard an unconfirmed statement.
Russia carried out compulsory conscription in the occupied pro-Russian areas.
These people are not Russian citizens, so they don't get guarantee like Russian soldiers.

But another statement is that they were sent to the newly occupied areas to exercise control. So this is an attractive job.


The political status of the territories taken over is not the same. There are two categories of territory. The first is territory that Russia recognises as being part of the Donetsk People's Republic or Lugansk People's Republic. The second is territory that is not so recognised. On the first territories, the governments of the Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic are mobilising the people on their territories and as they control more and more territory, they can mobilise more people.

As for the other territory not recognised in the People's Republics, notably part of Kharkov, part of Zaporizhia and most of Kherson, as far as I know, there is no mobilisation as there is no claimed authority of a local army that can do this.


I read Russia is using only around 10% of its forces in Ukraine.

Apart from a few commando and Chechen regiments the bulk of the ground fighting is being done by older men from the two breakaway republics.

They are suffering high casualties because they were never professional soldiers to start off with.

I can understand the logic of wanting the people who live in those areas to fight for their own land but there is something morally wrong of having a huge army sitting on their hands while leaving the dying to the 50 year old village postman.


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07 Aug 2022, 12:35 pm

SkinnedWolf wrote:
As far as I know, the eastern part of Ukraine is more likely to be described as Russian before the Soviet Union takes it as a stability tool, or a gift, to Ukraine, depending on your perspective.

Here is an article briefly introducing the relevant history.
Quote:
Ukraine: made by Lenin, unmade by Putin?
The Bolsheviks may have created Ukraine’s current borders, but that doesn’t mean dismantling them is good for today’s Russia.
Image


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08 Aug 2022, 11:09 am

Miners rally in favor of separatists in eastern Ukraine MAY 28, 2014

Quote:
Up to 1,000 coal miners rallied on Wednesday in support of armed pro-Russian separatists who are battling Ukrainian forces in defense of their self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) in eastern Ukraine.

A day after Kiev unleashed warplanes and paratroopers against the separatists in a major offensive that killed at least 50 rebels, the miners marched through Donetsk city center to demand the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the region.
...
“I want peace and to be able to work and make money. I want the occupying soldiers to leave and return to their Kiev junta,” said Valery, who works at the state-owned Abakumova mine.

He said the miners backed the DNR, which was declared after a makeshift referendum on May 11 condemned by Kiev and the West.

“FASCISTS”

Echoing Russia, the separatists often refer to Kiev’s pro-Western authorities as “fascists” who they say seized power illegally after mass street protests toppled Ukraine’s Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich in February.
...
The Union of Mine Workers to which most of Wednesday’s protesters belong has close links to the Party of the Regions, which ousted president Yanukovich once led.

Some independent miners’ unions distanced themselves from Wednesday’s rally in Donetsk.

“We did not organize this action,” said Mykola Volynko, head of the Independent Miners’ Trade Union of the Donbass, on Ukrainian television.

“(The protesters and the Party of the Regions) continue to do everything to break up the country.”


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nadyia
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08 Aug 2022, 12:36 pm

SkinnedWolf wrote:
I'm not an insider. Additional information is welcome.

The government that took power in Ukraine in the wake of the U.S.-backed “Euro-Maidan” coup of 2014 outlawed the Communist Party and banned it from running candidates in elections.
------Across the country, the government enforced a so-called “de-communization” law that not only outlawed the CPU, but also forbid the use of any Communist names or symbols in public, mandated the destruction of Soviet war memorials, and prevented any teaching about the positive aspects of Soviet history in schools.


In an interview featured in People’s World in November 2019, Mikhail Kononovich—one of the two activists currently being held by the state—discussed Communist Youth Union mobilizations against.

After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1990-91, the Ukrainian government abandoned the collective farm system that had defined socialist agriculture in the USSR. The former collectively-owned land was distributed among the members of the farms, however, and bans on further sales were put in place to protect small farmers from being swallowed up by corporate industrial giants.
-------The Zelensky government reversed that longstanding policy in 2019, leading to fears that Ukrainian farmland—which takes up as much space as France and Germany combined—would be gobbled up by foreign agribusiness giants.
.
[/quote]

The article has brings up very pressing current issues: that Globally, farmland is at ever-increasing risk of being swallowed by billionaires and corporations.

For example, Dutch, French, Australian, NZ farmers are finding it increasingly hard to abide to environmental regulations and pay their bills. Bill Gates is also the biggest farmland owner in the US, and still buying. This, after he (according to Vandana Shiva) wrecked havoc within the Indian small farmers community.
People are facing a similar situation with housing in Australia and NZ: several private entities and corporations (local or from overseas) have bought many houses and are now renting them out. With the soaring of house prices post-covid, the neofeudalization will only accelerate.

In saying that, I feel that the article engages in all sorts of obfuscations in order to do veiled pro-Russia propaganda.
While kudos to the The Ukrainian Communist Party for trying to oppose the neofeudalization of Ukrainian farmland, that Party (or at least the article makes it sound like it) also advocates for the former Soviet Union.
I suspect somehow that their pro-Soviet propaganda led to Zelensky's ban on the Ukraine CCP.

Now coming back to the initial point: what were Zelensky's explanations for reversing that longstanding policy in 201[/u]9?
(the one that the article says "put bans on further sales, in order to to protect small farmers from being swallowed up by corporate industrial giants.



nadyia
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08 Aug 2022, 3:16 pm

Interesting trivia: (just saw it on Wikipedia, so I can't attest to it's trustworthinness)

Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova

Did you guys know that it was the ruling party in Moldova between 2005-2010, leading to the 2009 Moldovan unrest?
The protesters claimed that, by lobbying a Moldovan identity over a Romanian-related identity, it was clearly a rusophile organiizatiion.


The history of that region (Ukraine-Moldova) is very complicated. So many Russsians-Ukrainians living side by side.



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11 Aug 2022, 12:07 pm

Digression: Some reactions of the Greek Communist Party to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia:
2/25/2022:
Supporters of the Greek Communist party stage a protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Quote:
Supporters of the Greek Communist party stage a protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in front of the Russian embassy in Athens, on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Russian troops bore down on Ukraine’s capital Friday, with gunfire and explosions resonating ever closer to the government quarter, in an invasion of a democratic country that has fueled fears of wider war in Europe and triggered worldwide efforts to make Russia stop.

4/5/2022:
Greece: Communist Party members blocked train carrying US-NATO military equipment
Quote:
Members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Communist Youth (KNE) set up a blockade on a train carrying US-NATO military equipment and combat vehicles at the exist of the port of Alexandroupolis.

Shouting anti-imperialist slogans, the protesters blocked the railroad and with demanded an end to Greece's involvement in the ongoing imperialist war in Ukraine, as well as in the transformation of Alexandroupolis into a hub of NATO aggression.

It must be reminded that, for weeks now, the port of Alexandroupolis in north-east Greece has become a key hub for the deployment of US-NATO troops in Eastern Europe. The armoured and other combat vehicles of the US Army arrive by ship and are then transported by road and rail to Romania and Poland.

4/29/2022:
On the stance of the RCWP on the imperialist war in Ukraine
It refuted the position statement made by the Russian Communist Party on March 23. (the Russian Communist Party made a further response on May 16)

5/12/2022:
Greek communists protest country’s involvement in Ukraine War with banners on the Acropolis
Quote:
“The murders of civilians is the most atrocious and barbarous picture of the imperialistic wars from whenever it comes from wherever they take place, either now in Ukraine due to the Russian invasion or in the past in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere with the responsibility of USA and NATO,” said the KKE regarding the “murders of civilians in the town of Bucha in Ukraine.”

“The condemnation of such abhorrent acts should be total without selective ‘sensitivities’ that lead to the acquittal of the crime of one or the other camps of ‘robbers’,” concluded KKE in its announcement.


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11 Aug 2022, 12:14 pm

nadyia wrote:
I suspect somehow that their pro-Soviet propaganda led to Zelensky's ban on the Ukraine CCP.

When the Ukrainian government abolished the Communist Party, President Zelensky is not a thing yet.
Communist Party of Ukraine, WIKI
Quote:
After being revived in 1993, the Communist Party was represented in the Ukrainian parliament from 1994 until the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election which resulted in national representation for Communists in Ukraine ending for the first time since 1918.The Communist Party and its immediate predecessor emerged as the largest political force after each Ukrainian parliamentary election from 1990 until 2002 and until the aftermath of the Orange Revolution in 2004 the Communist Party was continuously the largest single party in the Ukrainian parliament.

In the aftermath of the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine have both filed charges against the party. The charges include supporting the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and "financing terrorism" (i.e. providing support to separatists in Donbas), both acts of treason against the Ukrainian state. In particular, regional party cells in Donetsk Oblast created the so-called Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic, which actively supports the separatists.

In May 2015, laws that ban communist symbols came into effect in Ukraine. Because of these laws, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry stripped the party of its right to participate in elections on 24 July 2015. On 16 December 2015, Kyiv District Administrative Court validated the claim of the Ministry of Justice in full, banning the activities of the party in Ukraine. The party appealed the ban to the European Court of Human Rights.

Eastern Ukraine is pro Russian and nostalgic for the Soviet Union, while western Ukraine is the opposite. At least before the war.
Therefore, most of the supporters of the Ukrainian Communist Party come from the East. It is hard to believe that none of them will sympathize with the separatism of Donbas.


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nadyia
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11 Aug 2022, 9:05 pm

SkinnedWolf wrote:
nadyia wrote:
I suspect somehow that their pro-Soviet propaganda led to Zelensky's ban on the Ukraine CCP.

When the Ukrainian government abolished the Communist Party, President Zelensky is not a thing yet.
Communist Party of Ukraine, WIKI
Quote:
After being revived in 1993, the Communist Party was represented in the Ukrainian parliament from 1994 until the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election which resulted in national representation for Communists in Ukraine ending for the first time since 1918.The Communist Party and its immediate predecessor emerged as the largest political force after each Ukrainian parliamentary election from 1990 until 2002 and until the aftermath of the Orange Revolution in 2004 the Communist Party was continuously the largest single party in the Ukrainian parliament.

Eastern Ukraine is pro Russian and nostalgic for the Soviet Union, while western Ukraine is the opposite. At least before the war.
Therefore, most of the supporters of the Ukrainian Communist Party come from the East. It is hard to believe that none of them will sympathize with the separatism of Donbas.



Thank you for that, I really appreciate you answering my comment.
See, if not for your earlier post, I would have had no clue about the fact that a similar situation is happening in Moldova. Same inter-ethnic mixe] and clashes (russians-romanians), same ascension of the Communist Party after 2000.

I'm going to follow you and comment occasionally, your posts are so knowledgeable, and with a refreshing perspective that the mainstream propaganda lacks.


A PERSONAL WORD, THO

Your equating ethnically Russian people's rooting for Mother Russia, with their approval of the Communist Party.
Incorrect.

DON'T do those fallacies, don't do unintentional Communist propaganda.

I see that you're from China. But you're in your 20's, you never saw the horrors of CCP like your parents and grandparents did.

I'm a bit like that, I grew up when Russia's influence in the Eastern half of Europe was declining, and I never saw the horrid stuff. Plus I used to listen to RT shows
But after the 2022 war I talked to my Eastern European friends, and their parents and grandparents told them horrendous things about Communism and Russia.



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12 Aug 2022, 5:20 am

nadyia wrote:
DON'T do those fallacies, don't do unintentional Communist propaganda.

I see that you're from China. But you're in your 20's, you never saw the horrors of CCP like your parents and grandparents did.

I'm a bit like that, I grew up when Russia's influence in the Eastern half of Europe was declining, and I never saw the horrid stuff. Plus I used to listen to RT shows
But after the 2022 war I talked to my Eastern European friends, and their parents and grandparents told them horrendous things about Communism and Russia.

I am very clear about CPC's behavior in the Mao Zedong era. I do not support their past, nor their present. The same of the Soviet Union.
Authoritarian communism will not work.

I have never gotten along well with Chinese Maoists. But among the anti-establishment leftists, only they have the courage to organize in China.
I have more observation and sympathy for them than approval.
Malicious practice is better than well intentioned rhetoric.


On the other hand, the connection between whether to experience that era and whether to praise it is very vague. Among my parents and grandparents, there are fanatical admirers of Mao Zedong.
My grandfather worships his shrine at home.
nadyia wrote:
Your equating ethnically Russian people's rooting for Mother Russia, with their approval of the Communist Party.
Incorrect.

Russian nationalism has nothing to do with the Soviet Union.
Russian nationalism contributed to the disintegration of the Soviet Union – not that it was not a good thing.

However, for the non-Russian former member states of the Soviet Union, their attitude towards the Soviet Union is often confused with their attitude towards Russia in practice. This is not just about Ukraine.


On the other hand, many organizations that are still "Communist Party" in name are only social democratic party in practice. (the Communist Party of Japanese even no longer advocates banning the emperor.)
It is an unnecessary loss to refuse to obtain information from them because of the name.


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carlos55
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12 Aug 2022, 6:51 am

SkinnedWolf wrote:
nadyia wrote:
DON'T do those fallacies, don't do unintentional Communist propaganda.

I see that you're from China. But you're in your 20's, you never saw the horrors of CCP like your parents and grandparents did.

I'm a bit like that, I grew up when Russia's influence in the Eastern half of Europe was declining, and I never saw the horrid stuff. Plus I used to listen to RT shows
But after the 2022 war I talked to my Eastern European friends, and their parents and grandparents told them horrendous things about Communism and Russia.

I am very clear about CPC's behavior in the Mao Zedong era. I do not support their past, nor their present. The same of the Soviet Union.
Authoritarian communism will not work.

I have never gotten along well with Chinese Maoists. But among the anti-establishment leftists, only they have the courage to organize in China.
I have more observation and sympathy for them than approval.
Malicious practice is better than well intentioned rhetoric.


On the other hand, the connection between whether to experience that era and whether to praise it is very vague. Among my parents and grandparents, there are fanatical admirers of Mao Zedong.
My grandfather worships his shrine at home.
nadyia wrote:
Your equating ethnically Russian people's rooting for Mother Russia, with their approval of the Communist Party.
Incorrect.

Russian nationalism has nothing to do with the Soviet Union.
Russian nationalism contributed to the disintegration of the Soviet Union – not that it was not a good thing.

However, for the non-Russian former member states of the Soviet Union, their attitude towards the Soviet Union is often confused with their attitude towards Russia in practice. This is not just about Ukraine.


On the other hand, many organizations that are still "Communist Party" in name are only social democratic party in practice. (the Communist Party of Japanese even no longer advocates banning the emperor.)
It is an unnecessary loss to refuse to obtain information from them because of the name.


It should be remembered that the USSR was made up of 15 states excluding E Europe.

Many USSR presidents were Ukrainian.

Stalin was Georgian which is a separate country now, not Russian

I don’t know so much about the other 13 states ( exc Russia / Ukraine) but I know Ukraine and Russia were equal and dominant partners in the USSR.

Sure Ukrainians had it tough but so did Russians under communism.

You were just as likely to get a knock at the door living in Moscow as Kiev.

So I don’t buy all this we’re just innocent like Poland / E Germany-Ukraine has nothing to do with crimes USSR committed. The senior Ukrainians were equal partners in crime.


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12 Aug 2022, 6:58 am

carlos55 wrote:
It should be remembered that the USSR was made up of 15 states excluding E Europe.

Many USSR presidents were Ukrainian.

Stalin was Georgian which is a separate country now, not Russian

I don’t know so much about the other 13 states ( exc Russia / Ukraine) but I know Ukraine and Russia were equal and dominant partners in the USSR.

Sure Ukrainians had it tough but so did Russians under communism.

You were just as likely to get a knock at the door living in Moscow as Kiev.

So I don’t buy all this we’re just innocent like Poland / E Germany-Ukraine has nothing to do with crimes USSR committed. The senior Ukrainians were equal partners in crime.

The definition of Eastern Europe is actually somewhat vague. Ukraine certainly belongs to the present Eastern Europe, but it is not often described as Eastern Europe in the Soviet era. This also applies to the Baltic States and Belarus.

Westerners, especially residents of North America and Australia, may find it difficult to understand the ethnic structure within Communist imperialism except from the perspective of "white guilt".(their internal structure is more like China's Manchu Qing Dynasty or PRC...or the Ottoman Empire, if we compare it with Turkey today.)
This is not to say that there is no serious racism against "yellow people" in Russian society and other Eastern European societies. But the system in the Soviet Union did not favor the majority. On the contrary, the system is more afraid of the nationalism of the majority.
Ethnic minorities enjoy privileges from the very beginning - some of which are beyond the understanding of affirmative action. (In my impression, an example of the Soviet era is that each ethnic minority has their own bedroom while the Russians sleep in the corridor.)
The system suppressed all opponents, not ethnic minorities. Depriving the interests of the majority to replenish the minority is an effective means to reduce separatist rebellion. This structure is not even limited to ethnicity.
To be less serious, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was because the Russians were tired of supporting the "barbarians of Central Asia".

Therefore, it is unfair to blame the Russians for the Soviet Union's fault.


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12 Aug 2022, 11:17 am

The Communist Party of Greece is quite interesting...as a Marxist-Leninist Party.
Prohibition or misrepresentation and defamation?(Greek, Google Translate)

Quote:
The two tactics of the bourgeoisie towards the communist movement in the territories of the former USSR and the imperialist war in Ukraine

The side of every war and the imperialist one, such as the one currently being waged in Ukraine for interests other than the people's, is also ideological. Through the ideological attack of each bourgeois class, which is carried out before and during the war, pressures are exerted, interventions are made to trap labor-popular forces, to take sides with one or the other side of the imperialist war.

The tactics of the prosecution

Thus, the Ukrainian bourgeoisie has for years highlighted anti-communism and anti-Sovietism as its main ideological "edge". It exploits Goebbels' fabricated version of historical events of the 1930s, cultivating the myth of "genocide" of the Ukrainian people.

In this direction, he has vindicated the local collaborators of the Nazis, such as St. Banner of all Ukrainian fascist organizations, which during the Second World War imperialist fought against the USSR, on the side of Nazi Germany. He has integrated the fascist paramilitary organizations into the Armed Forces and Security Forces of the country.

The Ukrainian bourgeoisie, on the basis of anti-communism, the prohibition of communist ideology, the Communist Party and of course anti-Sovietism, "builds" the new "national idea" of the right to choose an alliance, with the integration of Ukraine into the NATO "struga" and of the EU, supposedly to bring prosperity to the people.

The tactics of urban integration and degeneration

For its part, the Russian bourgeoisie, without having renounced anti-communism, as Putin's speech showed, seeks at the same time to exploit the pro-Soviet sentiments of the Russian people. Thus, he exploits the symbols of the socialist era, seeking to cut them off from their real content. In the hands of the Russian bourgeoisie the Red Banner with the hammer and sickle, the flag of the social alliance of the working class with the poor peasantry, the flag of the socialist Revolution and construction and the heroic Victory against fascism, which was born of capitalism, is presented "shorn ” from its real content, “clipped” as a flagof a military "Victory" of the "Homeland", concealing that " fascism can only be fought as capitalism in its crudest and most oppressive form, as the most brazen and most treacherous capitalism" .

In its own ideological "narrative", the Russian bourgeoisie exploits the symbols of the Soviet era, in order to promote in every way the plans of capitalist unification in the former USSR, in order to once again become a "great Motherland". In this direction, he builds the perception of the so-called "Russian world", which must be united. In there he also places the Ukrainian people, who he considers a "piece" of the "Russian world", even questioning the existence of a separate Ukrainian nation and language, accusing the Bolsheviks of supposedly artificially creating Ukraine.

The Red Flag , included in their plans, becomes a tool of manipulation and when today it is raised in the territories of another country, invaded and occupied by the current bourgeois Russian army, it is treated as a symbol of occupation and discrediting the cause of socialism.

Both tactics are worse

What could be worse? Banning the Red Flag in the context of Ukrainian nationalist hysteria or using it to manipulate the people to the goals of the Russian bourgeoisie and its own nationalist propaganda of the so-called "Russian world"?

The banning of communist symbols or their exploitation by bourgeois forces by falsifying their class content?

The banning of the Communist Party, the persecution of communists or the manipulation of the Communist Party, its ideological-political degeneration and its reproduction of the basic arguments of the bourgeoisie?

Certain forces internationally and in our country, either in the name of "defense of international law", or in the name of anti-NATOism or anti-fascism, enter the dilemma of choice and choose sides, choose methods, forgetting that in reality either with one or the other method promotes anti-popular interests, interests of the bourgeois classes, monopolies, who profit from the exploitation of workers and wars.

It would be a great misplace to enter into the logic of choosing the so-called "lesser evil". Lenin and Stalin wrote that when you are asked to choose between two bad options, you should say "both are worse", and not look for the supposedly lesser evil, and even want to document it ideologically and politically.

The grandmother with the Red Flag

Since April 7, 2022, the following video has been circulating on YouTube, which appears to have been taken by Ukrainian soldiers distributing food in an area of ​​Kharkiv:

An elderly couple thinks they are Russian soldiers and welcomes them. The Ukrainians decide to continue this mess for a while, as they find it extremely entertaining. Thus, the Ukrainian soldier calls the grandfather first to say "Glory to Putin, glory to the Russian troops". The grandfather, who seems to have seen the Ukrainian insignia on the uniform and is beginning to understand, refuses. The soldier tells him that "that's what your wife just said."

At that moment, the grandmother, who still does not understand what is happening, appears from the yard of her house with a Red Flag , the flag of the Soviet Union.

“Oh! Here is the grandmother, with the red flag welcoming the Russian troops," says the soldier mockingly. "Spread this rag," he says to the grandmother. "Yes, the flag , spread it."

The grandmother waving the red flag approaches and the following dialogue briefly follows:

"Were you waiting for us?", the soldier asks her.

"Yes, of course I was waiting for you," the grandmother replies. "And we were praying for you and for Putin and for all the people."

The soldier starts giving her food "because you waited for us".

Grandma refuses to take them, saying "you need them more".

Then the soldier takes the flag from her, says "glory to Ukraine" and throws the flag to the ground and begins to trample it.

The grandmother then realizes what is happening and returns the cans to the Ukrainian soldier and pointing to the flag that he is trampling, says: "My parents fought for this flag ".

"I step on her because they came to my house. I speak Russian to you. I'm not a banderophile. But even if I am banderophic, what difference does it make? I am fighting for my land. I didn't invade," the Ukrainian soldier answers her.

We don't know the end of the story, but already this grandmother has become a symbol in Russia, she is made into murals, a statue, posters, a doll, a key ring, even the Russian space monopoly "ROSKOSMOS" announced that they will send her into space, not her, but as an illustration on one of his next space rockets.

In the above snapshot, it is obvious both the political exploitation of the grandmother and the delusion she harbors, that the current Russian army is the Red Army, as well as the hatred of the Ukrainian soldier, who considers the Red Flag a symbol of the invader. Delusions on both sides, which unfortunately are not the only ones who have them.

However, no matter how much the bourgeois rage either by banning the Red Flag and other communist symbols, or by using it in their own designs, communists will not stop being proud of them. To fight for their correct content and meaning, which all the bourgeois classes trample on and which is what bothers them, because this includes the end of their power. This struggle is represented by the Red Banner , the struggle for the socialist society, the society in which the Russian and Ukrainian people lived peacefully and worked together. With this flag , the Soviet Union and the Red Army defeated the Nazi atrocity. Isflag of the struggle for the cause of workers' power, for the new socialist-communist society, because " the flag of reason is red ", as B. Brecht wrote.


They are looking for an“absolution certificate” in the Red Flag
Quote:
The 9th of May is approaching and the Russian bourgeoisie once again utilizes the red flag to take advantage of the anti-fascist and pro-Soviet sentiments of the Russian people. In areas occupied by the Russian army in Ukraine, the red flag of Victory is raised, i.e. the flag of the unit of the Red Army that occupied the Reichstag in May 1945. The CP of the Russian Federation (CPRF) went one step further. It introduced a bill to replace the current tricolourof Russia, the flag of the tsars and the traitor Vlasov, a Nazi collaborator in the Second World War,with thered flag.

We wonder, in the unlikely event that this bill is passed, will factories, coal mines, banks, and oilfields stop belonging to those leeches who live in palaces, tourist resorts, and yachts?

Will the Russian people stop paying for health, education, and the other social needs that are commodities?

Will capitalist Russia stop having the fifth-highest number of billionaires worldwide? Will it change the position it occupies, which is one of the worst in the world, in terms of inequality between the rich and the poor?

Will the means of production become the people’s property without a precedingsocial socialist revolution?

Will the war in Ukraine stop being imperialist;will it stop being waged for the interests of monopolies,over raw materials, geopolitical pillars, and market shares? Will it stop being unfair and criminal on both sides?

We could continue the rhetorical questions, to which the answer is NO.

That is why this proposal of the CPRF is just an “absolution certificate” for the Russian bourgeoisie, for the crimes it commits every day against the workers and the other popular strata. Thanks to this “absolution certificate”, this notion is currentlydisseminated once a year, on 9 May. With the CPRF bill, if adopted, it will be disseminated 365 days a year.

Thirty years after the overthrow of socialism and despite themud-slinging against itin Russia as well, its imprint does not fade. That is why an attempt is being made to arrogate it…


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13 Aug 2022, 8:36 am

Back to the Ukrainian Marxists.

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The following brief theses were produced by supporters of the IMT in Ukraine, translated into English, discussing the origins of the ongoing war, and the reactionary effect it has had on the country. For an internationalist solution to the Ukraine war, and all war! For socialist revolution!

1. The war in Ukraine is a consequence of conflict between imperialist bandits.

On the one hand, we have the powerful imperialism of Washington, which has held a dominant position in the international arena since the end of the Cold War. On the other hand, there is the Kremlin's imperialism, which inherited most of its natural, productive and military forces from the former USSR. It is a powerful imperialism in its own right, but is not a world leader.

What are the ingredients of conflict here?

In recent years, US and NATO interests have increasingly shifted to Russia's borders. As a consequence, the Kremlin's regional interests are threatened by Western imperialism encircling Russia. The last straw was the fact that the post-Maidan authorities in Kyiv have repeatedly raised the issue of Ukraine's membership in NATO and the EU. Therefore, Putin decided to strengthen the precarious position of Russian imperialism by waging an imperialist war in Ukraine.

2. Why does Washington not send troops to Ukraine?

Even for the world’s most powerful imperialist country, resources for war are limited. US imperialism has recently been defeated in Afghanistan, and the global economic crisis has only exposed Washington's Achilles heel. Therefore, they have no choice but to continue to impose sanctions and wait for the actions of Kremlin imperialism.

3. Ukraine has fallen victim to this conflict.

The war is increasingly fueling Ukrainian national chauvinism toward the Russian people. These reactionary ideas offer no way out for the Ukrainian masses in the fight against Russian imperialism. We call for worldwide solidarity of oppressed masses. Neither NATO, the EU nor the United States will help us, because they have already shown that their primary interests are to make profits for their own capitalists. Only the international unity of workers will help us in the fight against imperialism and our own bourgeoisie.

Ukrainian nationalism protects the interests of those who quickly abandoned the Ukrainian people in the days before 24 February: the bureaucrats, oligarchs and other parasites of Ukrainian society. We say: no to Ukrainian nationalism, but rather support the world unity and commonwealth of proletarians.

Only in a joint struggle with the Russian working class can we defeat the imperialism of the Kremlin clique. So we emphasize once again that narrow-minded chauvinism is not a way out of this situation and merely disorientates the working class in the struggle against imperialism in all its variants.


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13 Aug 2022, 12:39 pm

International Socialist Alternative, Trotskyism,(I get information from the Chinese branch, )

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We firmly oppose the invasion of Ukraine by Russian imperialism. In his pre war speech, Putin accused the Bolsheviks of allowing Ukraine to become independent and completely denied the historical facts of the Ukrainian nation. Putin's out and out reactionary invasion has triggered a humanitarian crisis - more than three million Ukrainian refugees have fled the country and more than six million people have been internally displaced.

Putin claimed that his aim was to "demilitarize" and "de Nazi" Ukraine. We support the Ukrainian people's struggle against military occupation, but at the same time we firmly oppose the Zelensky regime, which is obviously not fascist but is reactionary in nature. Both Putin and Zelensky have cooperated with the far right both domestically and internationally. Putin supports and even finances far right and fascist parties in Europe, including the golden dawn in Greece and the National Front in France (now renamed the National Alliance). While Zelensky relied on the Neo Nazis, the Azov Regiment, and his regime also vindicated Nazi accomplices in WWII.

Because Zelensky occupied a leading position in resisting the Russian invasion, he became a hero in the eyes of millions of Ukrainians and even the international community. This is largely due to the propaganda and molding of Western media. However, Zelensky has countless ties with the country's most powerful oligarchs and actively pursues a policy of sucking the bones of the Ukrainian public. He himself is the owner of a bunch of offshore companies. Zelensky had suppressed the rights of workers' organizations when he was in power before the war. One of the earliest policies promulgated after the outbreak of the war was the imposition of martial law, which included the prohibition of the right to strike. Although we cannot ignore the people's illusions about Zelensky, we should patiently explain that Zelensky and his regime are by no means allies of the Ukrainian working class.

We are also firmly opposed to the calculations of the United States and Western imperialism - they used NATO to encircle Russia and create the conditions for war. Now they are pouring war materials into Ukraine and imposing unprecedented sanctions on Russia. Sanctions not only implicate the Russian people, but also act as an act of war, and also serve as a warning to China.

However, I think it is reasonable to ban strikes during a full-scale hot war.


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23 Aug 2022, 6:11 pm

Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine Slavoj Žižek

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For me, John Lennon’s mega-hit Imagine was always a song popular for the wrong reasons. Imagine that “the world will live as one” is the best way to end in hell.

Those who cling to pacifism in the face of the Russian attack on Ukraine remain caught in their own version of “imagine”. Imagine a world in which tensions are no longer resolved through armed conflicts … Europe persisted in this world of “imagine”, ignoring the brutal reality outside its borders. Now it’s the time to awaken.


The dream of a quick Ukrainian victory, the repetition of the initial dream of a quick Russian victory, is over. In what looks more and more as a protracted stalemate, Russia is slowly progressing, and its ultimate goal is clearly stated. There is no longer any need to read between the lines when Putin compares himself with Peter the Great: “On the face of it, he was at war with Sweden taking something away from it … He was not taking away anything, he was returning … He was returning and reinforcing, that is what he was doing … Clearly, it fell to our lot to return and reinforce as well.”

More than focus on particular issues (is Russia really just “returning”, and to what?) we should read carefully Putin’s general justification of his claim: “In order to claim some kind of leadership – I am not even talking about global leadership, I mean leadership in any area – any country, any people, any ethnic group should ensure their sovereignty. Because there is no in-between, no intermediate state: either a country is sovereign, or it is a colony, no matter what the colonies are called.”

The implication of these lines, as one commentator put it, is clear: there are two categories of state: “The sovereign and the conquered. In Putin’s imperial view, Ukraine should fall into the latter category.”


And, as it is no less clear from Russian official statements in the last months, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Finland, the Baltic states … and ultimately Europe itself “fall into the latter category”.

We now know what the call to allow Putin to “save his face” means. It means accepting not a minor territorial compromise in Donbas but Putin’s imperial ambition. The reason this ambition should be unconditionally rejected is that in today’s global world in which we are all haunted by the same catastrophes we are all in-between, in an intermediate state, neither a sovereign country nor a conquered one: to insist on full sovereignty in the face of global warming is sheer madness since our very survival hinges on tight global cooperation.


But Russia doesn’t simply ignore global warming – why was it so mad at the Scandinavian countries when they expressed their intention to join Nato? With global warming, what is at stake is the control of the Arctic passage. (That’s why Trump wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark.) Due to the explosive development of China, Japan and South Korea, the main transport route will run north of Russia and Scandinavia. Russia’s strategic plan is to profit from global warming: control the world’s main transport route, plus develop Siberia and control Ukraine. In this way, Russia will dominate so much food production that it will be able to blackmail the whole world. This is the ultimate economic reality beneath Putin’s imperial dream.

Those who advocate less support for Ukraine and more pressure on it to negotiate, inclusive of accepting painful territorial renunciations, like to repeat that Ukraine simply cannot win the war against Russia. True, but I see exactly in this the greatness of Ukrainian resistance: they risked the impossible, defying pragmatic calculations, and the least we owe them is full support, and to do this, we need a stronger Nato – but not as a prolongation of the US politics.


The US strategy to counteract through Europe is far from self-evident: not just Ukraine, Europe itself is becoming the place of the proxy war between US and Russia, which may well end up by a compromise between the two at Europe’s expense. There are only two ways for Europe to step out of this place: to play the game of neutrality – a short-cut to catastrophe – or to become an autonomous agent. (Just think how the situation may change if Trump wins the next US elections.)

While some leftists claim that the ongoing war is in the interest of the Nato industrial-military complex, which uses the need for new arms to avoid crisis and gain new profits, their true message to Ukraine is: OK, you are victims of a brutal aggression, but do not rely on our arms because in this way you play in the hands of the industrial-military complex …


The disorientation caused by the Ukrainian war is producing strange bedfellows like Henry Kissinger and Noam Chomsky who “come from opposing ends of the political spectrum – Kissinger serving as secretary of state under Republican presidents and Chomsky one of the leading leftwing intellectuals in the United States – and have frequently clashed. But when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both recently advocated for Ukraine to consider a settlement that could see it dropping claim to some land to achieve a quicker peace deal.”

In short, the two stand for the same version of “pacifism” which only works if we neglect the key fact that the war is not about Ukraine but a moment of the brutal attempt to change our entire geopolitical situation. The true target of the war is the dismantlement of the European unity advocated not only by the US conservatives and Russia but also by the European extreme right and left – at this point, in France, Melenchon meets Le Pen.

The craziest notion floating around these days is that, to counter the new polarity between the US and China (which stand for the excesses of western liberalism and oriental authoritarianism), Europe and Russia should rejoin forces and form a third “Eurasian” block based on the Christian legacy purified of its liberal excess. The very idea of an “Eurasian” third way is a form of today’s fascism.


So what will happen “when voters in Europe and America, faced with soaring energy costs and broader inflation driven by sanctions against Russia, might lose their appetite for a war that seems to have no end, with needs that are only expanding as both sides head for a protracted stalemate”? The answer is clear: at that point, the European legacy will be lost, and Europe will be de facto divided between an American and a Russian sphere of influence. In short, Europe itself will become the place of a war that seems to have no end …

What is absolutely unacceptable for a true leftist today is not only to support Russia but also to make a more “modest” neutral claim that the left is divided between pacifists and supporters of Ukraine, and that one should treat this division as a minor fact which shouldn’t affect the left’s global struggle against global capitalism.

When a country is occupied, it is the ruling class which is usually bribed to collaborate with the occupiers to maintain its privileged position, so that the struggle against the occupiers becomes a priority. The same can go for the struggle against racism; in a state of racial tension and exploitation, the only way to effectively struggle for the working class is to focus on fighting racism (this is why any appeal to the white working class, as in today’s alt-right populism, betrays class struggle).


Today, one cannot be a leftist if one does not unequivocally stand behind Ukraine. To be a leftist who “shows understanding” for Russia is like to be one of those leftists who, before Germany attacked the Soviet Union, took seriously German “anti-imperialist” rhetoric directed at the UK and advocated neutrality in the war of Germany against France and the UK.

If the left will fail here, the game is over for it. But does this mean that the Left should simply take the side of the west, inclusive of the rightist fundamentalists who also support Ukraine?

In a speech in Dallas on 18 May 2022, while criticizing Russia’s political system, the ex-president Bush said: “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” He quickly corrected himself: “I mean, of Ukraine,” then said “Iraq, anyway” to laughter from the crowd, and added “75”, referring to his age.


As many commentators noted, two things cannot but strike the eye in this rather obvious Freudian slip: the fact that the public received Bush’s implicit confession that the US attack on Iraq (ordered by him) was “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion” with laughter, instead of treating it as an admission of a crime comparable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine; plus Bush’s enigmatic continuation of his self-correction “Iraq, anyway” – what did he mean by it? That the difference between Ukraine and Iraq doesn’t really matter? The final reference to his advanced age doesn’t affect in any way this enigma.

But the enigma is dispelled the moment we take Bush’s statement seriously and literally: yes, with all differences taken into account (Zelenskiy is not a dictator like Saddam), Bush did the same thing as Putin is now doing to Ukraine, so they should be both judged by the same standard.

On the day I am writing this, we learned from the media that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US has been approved by the UK home secretary, Priti Patel. His crime? Nothing other than to render public the crimes confessed by Bush’s slip of tongue: the documents revealed by WikiLeaks revealed how, under Bush’s presidency, “the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the war in Afghanistan, while leaked Iraq war files showed 66,000 civilians had been killed, and prisoners tortured.” Crimes fully comparable with what Putin is doing in Ukraine. From today’s hindsight, we can say that WikiLeaks disclosed dozens of American Buchas and Mariupols.

So while putting Bush on trial is no less illusory than bringing Putin to the Hague tribunal, the minimum to be done by those who oppose Russian invasion of Ukraine is to demand Assange’s immediate release. Ukraine claims it fights for Europe, and Russia claims it fights for the rest of the world against western unipolar hegemony. Both claims should be rejected, and here the difference between right and left enters the stage.

From the rightist standpoint, Ukraine fights for European values against the non-European authoritarians; from the leftist standpoint, Ukraine fights for global freedom, inclusive of the freedom of Russians themselves. That’s why the heart of every true Russian patriot beats for Ukraine.


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SkinnedWolf
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31 Aug 2022, 8:35 am

A strong Pro Russian Ukrainian right winger.


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