Michael, We might disagree over platforming contributions promoting the view that the war in Ukraine is " primarily a conflict between NATO and Russia with Ukraine as a de facto NATO forward base", but your analogy of the Vietnam War is spot on, very important and not cited enough against the very view I've just quoted.
B eing of a certain vintage only heightens the sense of the uncanny inconsistency between the almost universal support on the left for the Vietnamese struggle and the distinctly divided (and in places almost devoid) support for Ukraine today. The contrast applies especially to that trotskyist and even 'state capitalist' left who today consider the war in Ukraine to be a proxy inter-imperialist war. Because for much of the anti - stalinist left marching for victory to the Viet Cong in the 1960s and 1970s the Eastern Bloc was as bad, just as imperialist, as the Western Bloc and had just, for instance, sent tanks into Czechoslovakia. The USSR and China supplied North Vietnam with tonnes of arms and materiel. Kept it going. There was not a word across the left, least of all from trotskyists and 's t ate caps' , about this making the Vietnam War a proxy war between the USSR - China and the US etc. The Vietnam W ar was about a national liberation struggle, full stop. Everyone said it. So why today does support and arms from the US and other unpalatable imperialisms define the def ensive war of Ukraine against Russian invasion a s a proxy inter-imperialist war (apart from geopolitical prejudgment)? Did Soviet arms make Vietnam the de facto "Communist" forward base - as was precisely argued by much of the Western establishment?! The analogy of national and even insurrectionary struggles receiving assistance from rival empires can of course be extended right back into recent and not so recent history. Starting with Palestine. PS. Would someone consistently arguing that the war in Vietnam was primarily a conflict between the USSR-China and the US have been given a platform 'for debate' in a marxist publications in 1968? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29967): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29967 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105561161/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
