======================================================================
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
======================================================================
On 7/27/14 1:18 AM, glparramatta via Marxism wrote:
By *Barry Sheppard*
July 28, 2014 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ --
It is clear that people who consider themselves to be some form of
revolutionary socialist do not agree on the facts about Ukraine. We do
not even have agreement on whether or not Russia is imperialist, or even
what the word means.
I would urge caution and patience in assessing the current situation.
But here is my take in a nutshell of what I think are the facts, culled
from various sources.
Full article at http://links.org.au/node/3973
This article is obviously in line with Kagarlitsky-soft, the unfortunate
position adopted by the Socialist Alliance at its last conference. There
is not a single word in it that allows for the possibility that
Ukrainians, except for the ones backed by Russia, have legitimate
grievances.
It is also besotted with a typo that almost certainly reflects
Sheppard's unfamiliarity with the terrain: "The main participants of
Maiden were not Right Sector, but at no time disassociated from it."
Maiden? Maiden? Get your red-hot virgins here.
Everything is about Russia, not about Ukraine. Barry writes:
In the 2004-2005 “Orange Revolution”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution) the desire for Ukraine
to become part of NATO was proclaimed. Zero interest in the other side
of the Orange Revolution (why the scare quotes for Barry? Obviously to
scare people.)
Given Barry's "old school" Leninism, it is not surprising to see him
refer to Bolshevik policy in an uncritical manner: "When Ukraine was
incorporated into the USSR, it was as an independent Soviet Socialist
Republic, under the Bolshevik's policy of national self-determination of
the oppressed nationalities under the former heel of tsarism...As we
know, the Stalinist counter-revolution reversed Bolshevik policy on this
and many other questions, and re-instituted Great Russian chauvinism."
In reality, there was not that much "re-institution" under Stalin since
there was never that much self-determination to begin with. For that sad
tale, I recommend this:
http://louisproyect.org/2014/04/20/lenins-party-great-russian-chauvinism-and-the-betrayal-of-ukrainian-national-aspirations/
Finally, in this sorry mess of an article, there is this: "How much
Russia is backing these groups is unclear, but what is clear is that
other than in words, Russia is not at this time resisting the
destruction of eastern Ukraine by Kiev forces (at least some of which
are Svoboda and Right Sector)." This is so ignorant that you have to
wonder whether Barry has even bothered to read a single article that
deviates from the Kagarlitsky-Borotba-RT.com perspective. Strelkov, The
military leader of the Donestk People's Republic, is a veteran of
Russian colonial campaigns, most particularly the blood-drenched
Chechnya affair, while the prime minister is a Russian citizen who used
to edit Zavtra, a far right magazine.
This is from Zbigniew Kowaleski, the author of the article linked to
above. Read it and weep:
Who is this Strelkov? “I consider myself a supporter of the autocratic
monarchy in Russia”, he explains. Moreover: “I am firmly convinced that
to this day the Bolshevik power continues to exist in Russia. Yes, it
has changed, become unrecognisable, but in its essence it remains
unchanged: from the point of view of its anti-Russian, anti-patriotic
and anti-religious orientation. In its ranks can be found the direct
descendants of the people who ‘made’ the revolution of 1917. Quite
simply, they have been disguised, but their substance has not changed.
They have remained in power, having thrown away the ideology that
prevented them from enriching themselves and enjoying material goods.
But the process of direct destruction of the Russian nation (and of
other aboriginal peoples of the Russian Empire) continues by other
means; with a ‘success’ such as makes one dizzy. In 1991 there was a
putsch; but the counter-revolution has not been completed.”
“To save the situation, we need in Russia a fundamentally new White
ideal”. New, Strelkov explains, because “a large part of the population
meets the ideology of the White movement with hostility. To take it to
the masses ‘in its pure form’ would mean to condemn ourselves in advance
to failure.”
“Probably, with the present government we can only build a Great
Honduras, where before there was Great Russia. I have the impression
that this has already been fully successful.” This government “is the
enemy of Great Russia, just as is ‘the opposition’. They came to power
with the help of the West, and they do not want to give it up to the new
‘chosen ones’ of the West.” […] Strelkov also writes that: “All the
‘explosions’ of discontent in Moscow and Petersburg are funded secretly
from abroad. Of course, ‘the money for the revolution’ is not directly
given by the West to its puppets. It is the local oligarchs-sponsors
(‘of democratic orientation’) who give it … because their interests are
inextricably linked to international Judeo-Anglo-Saxon capital, of which
they are a subsidiary.”
This political orientation is shared by Aleksandr Borodai, whom Strelkov
recalled from Russia to make him the “Prime Minister of the Donetsk
People’s Republic”. The separatist movement in Ukraine, which they lead,
is – according to their strategy – the armed base of the Russian
monarchical counter-revolution, indissolubly linked to the
reconstruction of the empire, as well as to “the politico-religious
revolution that can save humanity from degradation and extinction, with
as the objective of its development: the transcendental values of the
spirit and the aspiration to divinity.” Borodai, son of a philosopher,
supporter of the ideas of Lev Gumilev[5] and nationalist militant, is
also a militant ideologue of the far right.
Borodai affirms: “It seems that only we – the Russians – are suited to
play this role of initiators of the religious revolution. For if we
believe Gumilev, our superethnos is still very young; although it has
used, in a few centuries, enormous resources to create super-states
(Third Rome – the Russian Empire – the USSR), it is still capable of
finding within itself the strength necessary to undertake a crusade in
the name of the higher values of the spirit. [...] The religious
revolution is an inevitable war against evil; it is also a bitter,
ruthless war. Is the Russian nation capable of such a feat? What will be
the contours of the future religious revolution? Will its banners and
flags carry Orthodox crosses and other Christian symbols?”
In the “Constitution of the Donetsk People’s Republic”, Borodai and
Strelkov inserted a formula copied verbatim from the Fundamental Laws of
the Russian Empire of 1906, which states that “the supreme and ruling
faith” in this “republic” is the Orthodox faith. They also wrote there
that this faith “is the matrix of matrices of the Russian World”. They
added that it is the faith “professed by the Russian Orthodox Church
(Moscow Patriarchate)”. In Ukraine, there are also other churches,
including the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches.
From the Ukrainian periphery, the counter-revolution must extend to the
whole “Russian World” and lead to the restoration of “historical Russia”
– the Russia of the Tsars. In their “constitution”, Borodai and Strelkov
have proclaimed “the creation of a sovereign and independent state,
oriented towards the restoration of a single cultural and civilisational
space of the Russian World, on the basis of its traditional religious,
social, cultural and moral values, in the perspective of accession to
Great Russia, halo [sic] of the territories of the Russian World”. What
will become of the rest of Ukraine, when it also falls, after
“Novorossia”? All of Ukraine, affirm Borodai and Strelkov, must, along
with Russia and Belarus, “be reunited in a single viable state, provided
with a Slavic national core”.
full:
http://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/ukraine-russian-white-guards-in-the-donbass/
________________________________________________
Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu
Set your options at:
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
