A Crisis of the Left - Ukraine Solidarity Hub

From Opposing the Vietnam War to Supporting Russian Aggression against Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a disturbing example of a right-wing /neo-fascist escalation in geo-politics. The duty of the Left is to stand with the oppressed not the oppressor, and to oppose the rising tide of 21st Century authoritarianism. Yet the Left is deeply divided with some ‘leftists’ and ‘anti–imperialists’ giving comfort and aid to the right-wing Putin regime. This is an international problem that needs an international response – a broad unifying international democratic movement against right-wing authoritarianism and neo-fascism.

Introduction

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has become a crisis with global geo-political implications and consequences1. More broadly, the rise of right-wing populism and extremism in many countries, including in the United States and Russia, raises the spectre of an internationalisation of 21st Century neo-fascism

and right-wing authoritarianism2. In the 1930s and 1940s, when Hitlerite Nazism and Italian Fascism were confronted and eventually defeated, the Left was united in that great struggle and a major political force3. Today, however, faced with a resurgent extreme Right, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed deep divisions, rampant illusions and a disturbing disorientation on the Left at a time when the Left is a much weaker force in politics. During the Cold War, by contrast, US subversion of, and military intervention against, national liberation movements was opposed by a relatively united Left. The Vietnam War provides a case in point. Our commentary is a report from Australia.

The anti-Vietnam War movement compared

On 30 April 2025, it will be fifty years since the end of the Vietnam War. In the Vietnam War, the United States was engaged in an imperialist geo-political campaign to crush a struggle for national independence predominately led by the Indochinese Communist Party. U.S intervention4 followed victory by the Vietminh in 1954 against French colonialism. At its height, the U.S intervention deployed an expeditionary force of 500,000 American soldiers. Villages not controlled by the South Vietnamese Government were napalmed and towns throughout North Vietnam bombed. Altogether some 50,000 Australian soldiers served in Vietnam and 500 young Australians lost their lives.The Soviet Union and China both supplied arms to the Vietnamese without which the defeat of the US intervention and a unified nation would not have been achievable5. The Left internationally was united in its opposition to the Vietnam War. In Australia, it was the Left, despite its internal differences, that initiated and built the Moratorium movement that became a unifying cause for revolutionary Marxists, radical democrats, Soviet-line communists, pacifists, social democrats, left-liberals, and eventually a broad sympathetic constituency of the Australia population6. The Vietnam War was arguably the most significant politico-military issue of the second half of the Twentieth Century7.

Fast-forward to 2022 and the Russo-Ukrainian War seems destined to become the most globally significant conflict of the first half of the Twenty-first Century. However, this time the aggressor is not the United States, but the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin that seeks to destroy Ukraine’s national independence and incorporate Ukraine as part of Russia. Military support to the Ukrainian resistance is predominately coming from the United States and countries of the European Union and Eastern Europe. However, unlike the anti-Vietnam War movement, the Left, internationally and in Australia, is deeply divided between those who unconditionally support the Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invasion, those who in various ways lend support to the Russian invaders (or suggest that NATO is morally equivalent to them), and those whose anti-war stance parrots many of the talking points of the Putin regime. How and why has this happened?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’, began on February 24, 20228. This had been preceded by Russia’s seizure, using separatist proxies, of parts of Moldova (1990-92), Georgia (2008)9 and eastern Ukraine (2014). In 2014, Russia invaded Crimea. These early Russian territorial seizures had been allowed to pass with no meaningful Western response.

As Russian forces massed around the borders of Ukraine during March and April 2021, most commentators and many world leaders – particularly in Europe – saw the build-up as a ploy to pressure Ukraine to accede to Russian demands. Surely, they thought, Putin would not actually invade, and for months he vehemently denied any such intention.

When the invasion went ahead on 24 February 2022, Putin and his circle believed that it would be an almost unopposed armoured stroll down the 90 kilometre highway from the Belarus border. The plan was that Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders would be assassinated or captured, the Ukrainian Government toppled, and a puppet regime installed – a plan that would be achieved in about 10 days. After all, did not the Russian Federation have the world’s second most powerful military? But, Ukraine did not collapse, the Government did not flee the country and the Russian attack on Kyiv was a military disaster.

Zelensky’s famous comment, when the US offered to evacuate his government: “The fight is here. I need ammunition not a ride”, caught the mood of the Ukrainian people, and swung the previously wavering West behind his nation’s resistance to the invasion10.

In Bucha, a city of 37,000 residents near Kyiv, during the first weeks of the invasion, a reign of terror descended on the population as Russian troops went from house to house and shelled buildings in the city. After the Russian army had withdrawn, 419 bodies of murdered civilians were discovered in graves, or in some cases left on the streets where they had been wantonly shot, grisly evidence of a massacre perpetrated over just a few weeks11.

After the entire Kharkiv Oblast was liberated in May 2022, some 22 detention centres were found where civilians loyal to Ukraine had been interrogated, beaten, and tortured with electric shocks. Some were simply shot. Others, who were released, had harrowing tales to tell of their experiences and what they had witnessed12. More such torture chambers were found in Kherson after the Russian army retreated. United Nations and International Criminal Court investigations of Russian war crimes are underway13.

Pushed back by the Ukrainian armed forces, Russia has continued to rain down destruction using rockets, drones and artillery on residential buildings, schools,

hospitals and critical civilian infrastructure. In December 2022 it is estimated that Russia had done about $138b of damage to Ukraine – 149,300 houses and apartments, 14,400 public transport buses, 150,000 automobiles, some 3000 schools, 1100 hospitals and medical facilities – an extraordinary record of destruction in less than a year. The war is now into its second year, a grinding conflict with more than 200,000 military casualties on all sides and some 13,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths. Millions have become refugees. Nothing like this and on this scale has happened in Europe since World War II14.

Understanding the Putin regime

Vladimir Putin, an undistinguished former KGB agent in East Germany who served briefly as Director of the FSB (the successor of the KGB), then as Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, became Prime Minister of Russia in 1999. Putin is on record as saying that the breakup of the Soviet Union was the ‘greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th Century’. His view is not that of someone seeking to re- establish the Soviet Union but a lament about the ‘disintegration of historical Russia under the Soviet Union’15.

The breakup of the Soviet Union, a great political and economic upheaval over a short few years, did indeed set in motion forces of change that have swept through Russia and Ukraine and the Soviet republics, as well as through Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union was formally dissolved in December 1991. A powerful movement for self-determination in the Baltic States pressed for independence on the ground that their countries had been incorporated in the Soviet Union illegally during the time of the Hitler-Stalin Non-aggression Pact of 1939. Pro-Russia forces aided by the KGB and FSB attempted to sabotage popular movements for self- determination and national independence in various states with non-Russian majorities16.

In the post-Soviet period, Russia and Ukraine started off in a similar position, but in their development they have moved in very different directions. Ukraine, along with Georgia, opted not to join the Confederation of Independent States, a loose combination of former Soviet republics. A referendum in Ukraine was overwhelmingly supportive of independence. Eighty-four per cent of the eligible electorate voted, with 92 per cent in favour of independence17.

The population of Ukraine was one of the poorest on the European continent due to corruption, mismanagement of the independent economy, and the appropriation of its wealth by local and Russian kleptocrats. In many ways, Ukraine’s problems were similar to the problems in Russia, although Russia had the advantage of vast oil and gas resources. However, Ukraine’s turn to the European Union brought about some radical anti-corruption measures, improved standards of governance, and fair and free parliamentary elections. In Ukraine, 4 neo-Nazis and extreme right-wing elements have lost the limited influence they had in the past and have been substantially absorbed into the mainstream of Ukrainian nationalism18.

Putin’s Russia went down a different path19. The privatisation of state assets and resources has created an oligarchic elite of multi-millionaires and billionaires. Corruption had become rampant, the standard of living of working people plummeted dramatically, mafia-like criminal gangs were active, and former members of the KGB and Soviet officials moved into post-Soviet politics as born- again democrats and modernisers. Extreme right-wing and fascist groups have developed political influence. Democratic politics was unstable, but an independent press and media flourished and public criticism of government was not criminalised, at least not in the early post-Soviet years.

However, over some two decades, the Russian regime under Putin has progressively become more and more authoritarian, suppressing dissent and independent media and manipulating elections to prevent a change of government. A large number of journalists and oppositionists have been extra- judicially murdered or physically attacked. Some opposition politicians and individuals from inside the state apparatus, who have fled Russia, have been murdered. An extraordinary number of oligarchs have died under strange circumstances.

The Russian Government makes every attempt to seal off its population from access to information about what is really happening in Ukraine. The population is subjected through state controlled media to an outpouring of falsehoods about the true situation on the ground. Extreme nationalist propaganda about the West (and the US) seeking to destroy Russia is combined with genocidal rhetoric from some extreme pro-war commentators who call for the killing of all Ukrainians and the stealing of whatever Russians want to steal.

The poor showing of Russia’s sizable military in the first weeks of the invasion reflected the country’s rampant corruption. Nearly one million Russians fled abroad after the first mobilisation of men into the armed forces for service in Ukraine. While there is no simple way to assess how much support Putin has for his war, there is a growing disquiet amongst the broader population20. The war is not going according to Putin’s early rhetoric of a quick surgical takeover21. Anyone who dares speak against Putin or the Russian Army risks arrest and gaol time. The Russian Federation has become one of the most repressive countries in the world.

Debate is underway about the nature of the Putin regime. Is it illiberal and Eurasianist-anti-European right-wing authoritarianism, or the leading example of 21st Century neo-fascism which in a different historical context eschews the trappingof1930sNazismandFascism?22 However,eitherway,understandingthe reactionary and revanchist nature of the Putin regime and Russian state is surely highly relevant in terms of what to think and do about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 5

and what resolution and peace settlement can be considered appropriate and necessary.

Putin’s ‘justifications’

The Putin regime has a whole repertoire of justifications for launching a war in Europe and against one of its neighbours. The deluge of Russian propaganda is a raft of falsehoods and misinformation, but like all good propaganda it is plausible when directed skilfully to certain target audiences23. A major audience is the domestic Russian population. It is also aimed at the various European countries, most of whom are members of NATO, and at the United States. The propaganda finds willing accomplices and allies amongst the extreme Right and outright fascist parties in many countries, including the MAGA movement in the United States24. However, perversely, there is also a section of the Left internationally that lends support and comfort to Putin’s aggression, putatively opposing the invasion but excusing it as a defensive response to NATO expansion and aggression against the motherland of Russia. Putin’s accusation that NATO is bent on aggressive expansion and has strategic designs on destroying Russia is calculated to influence constituencies on the political Left, and this has been successful to a disturbing extent.

Accusations of ‘genocide’ against Russian minorities in independent states bordering the Russian Federation that were previously part of the Soviet Union, claims about fighting a Nazi government in Ukraine, and complaints about NATO ‘aggression’ have been a hallmark of Putin’s playbook since becoming President of the Russian Federation in 2000. Rather than accept any of these rationalisations at their face value it is important to carefully examine what has happened during the transition from the Soviet Union to the present state of geo-political affairs.

NATO aggression against Russia?

Putin frames NATO expansion and supposed threat to Russian security as prime reasons for his pre-emptive ‘defensive’ action. This argument has resonated particularly amongst sections of the Left outside Russia, as well as amongst ‘offensive realist’ academics such as John Mearsheimer and some international affairs officials. More countries have applied to join NATO seeking a defensive umbrella, but an aggressive NATO anti-Russian policy has no factual basis.

NATO was formed as a political and military alliance in 1949 at the outset of the Cold War as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and consisted of twelve founding member countries in Western Europe. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952. Germany joined in 1955 and was on the frontline of the Cold War, although rearmament was prohibited. Spain joined in 1976 after Franco’s death. However,

by the time the Cold War had effectively ended in 1991, NATO had become more a collective security arrangement for countries in the European Union. NATO doctrines did not envisage Russia as an adversary. NATO countries were not gearing up militarily as claimed.

The suggestion that NATO is a mere puppet of the United States does not stand up to scrutiny either. Further expansion in Eastern Europe did not take place until after the demise of the Soviet Union as former Warsaw Pact countries sought membership.

Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland joined in 1999. The impetus for these countries joining was not pressure from the US Government but rather their historical experience of Russian domination. Russian forces had invaded both Hungary in 1956 and the Czech Republic in 1968. Poland had been threatened with military intervention in 1980. Prior to this, NATO and the Russian Federation had concluded a Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security as a permanent body for consultation and coordination. There was talk of Russia joining NATO as a member country, but joining as a member country was not a status that Vladimir Putin was comfortable accepting.

Five years later (2004) another seven countries joined, including the three Baltic states bordering Russia, but no alarm was sounded by Putin. While Ukraine expressed an ambition to join the European Community and NATO, joining the latter was not considered to have a high chance of happening. The former was not a problem.

The application by Sweden and Finland in 2022 to join NATO was a radical change from their long-standing positions of neutrality outside of NATO. In these two countries, popular support for joining NATO had shifted dramatically following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Finland shares a 1340 kilometres border with Russia. This was an effect of Russia’s invasion, not part of its cause. In any case, Putin seemed quite sanguine about this prospect when he said: ‘We do not have such problems with Sweden and Finland, which, unfortunately, we have with Ukraine. We have no territorial issues… no disputes… we have nothing that could bother us from the point of view of Finland’s or Sweden’s membership in NATO’. What this comment reveals is that the difference is not about aggression from NATO, nor its expansion as such, but whether former Russian vassal states that were part of the Soviet Union become truly independent of Russia and more closely aligned with other European countries than with a Russian imperium.

NATO may have started out in 1949 as an anti-Soviet alliance led by the USA but 50-60 years on, and since the Soviet Union disbanded, NATO has developed into a largely defensive security alliance25. While it is true that the number of member countries has increased, the eastern European countries have actively sought membership as a defensive move against any attempt by Russia to re-assert its suzerainty in any form, given their experience since WWII.

Nuclear weapons in Ukraine?

Putin’s claims that Ukraine is developing nuclear weapons is in the realm of a conspiracy theory. In February 2022, Putin said that ‘If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will drastically change, especially for us, for Russia … we cannot but react to this real danger, all the more so since, let me repeat, Ukraine’s Western patrons may help it acquire these weapons to create yet another threat to our country’. In September 2022, Putin, with no evidence whatsoever, claimed that NATO had discussed the use of weapons of mass destruction against Russia. He also said that Russia would use all weapons systems available to protect its territorial integrity26. Again, in October 2022, Putin claimed, with no evidence whatsoever, that Russia was ‘aware of plans by Ukraine to use a dirty bomb as a provocation’. Putin fails to mention that in 1993 Ukraine transferred its nuclear arsenal to Russia and dismantled its nuclear infrastructure in return for security guarantees.

The United States and the Russian Federation both have large stockpiles. The United States, as the other major nuclear power, has warned Putin that the use of tactical nuclear weapons would elicit an overwhelming response. Exactly what that would be has not been disclosed, but former military leaders have speculated that this would be a massive conventional response, not nuclear, to destroy Russian military capacity in Ukraine and perhaps the Black Sea fleet. The US Government has been particularly cautious dealing with the Putin regime given that it is one of the world’s two major nuclear powers. Nuclear deterrence has effectively worked since WWII but the risk of nuclear weapon use has increased with Putin’s verbal escalations as he is faced with losing the war. Russian nuclear doctrine does not rule out the first use of tactical nuclear weapons27. Putin’s references about using the nuclear option is ‘information warfare’, calculated disinformation designed to create anxiety, undermine support for Ukraine in Europe, and weaken resistance to the invasion.

Nazism in Ukraine?

Apart from claims about NATO threatening Russian security, Putin’s propaganda about why the ‘Special Military Operation’ was launched in February 2022 has consistently emphasised the objective of demilitarisation of Ukraine, and particularly its de-nazification28. The vilification of Ukraine as threatening the rise of Nazism at Russia’s border did not begin in 2022 but years before. The 2014 mass protests (the ‘Maidan Revolution’ against the pro-Russian Ukrainian government led by Yanukovych) were derided by Russian media and propaganda, as well as by the Yanukovych government, as a movement of Jews and Nazis. The presence of far-right militants amongst the protesters was exaggerated to characterise the

Ukrainian protesters as neo-Nazis. In fact, Maidan was a diverse, pro-democratic, mass movement of people and organisations from across the political spectrum.

President Zelensky is derided as leading a Nazi regime that needs to be removed. When Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attacked Ukraine as a hotbed of Nazis during a visit to Italy and was confronted by the fact that President Zelensky is Jewish, he responded: ‘the fact that he is a Jew does not negate the Nazi elements in his country … I believe that Adolf Hitler also had Jewish blood … Zelensky can promote peace between the states if he stops giving orders to his Nazi forces that border on crime’. Putin apologised for Lavrov’s comments on a phone call with the Israeli Foreign Minister but did not share that apology with the Russian public29.

Much is made of the ‘Azov’ movement and the role of its militia in the struggle against Russian-backed separatism in the Donbas. “What about the Azov Nazis?”, an obvious example of ‘whataboutism’, is a frequent canard in Russian propaganda that has been amplified and spread through Western media30. Since 2014 the far-right in Russia wields significantly more influence than in Ukraine wheretheextremerighthasdeclinedasapoliticalforce.31 Thefar-rightisstronger in a number of countries in the European Union than in Ukraine. It is the Putin regime that has links with the extreme right in Europe and that supported the fascist MAGA America-First movement in the United States.

It is a perverse irony that a right-wing authoritarian and neo-fascist Russian Government, led by an unchallenged dictator astride the Russian state, appeals to the Russian people to support a war against Nazism at Russia’s borders. This is what Professor Timothy Snyder has characterised as ‘schizo-fascism’. Not only the Putin regime, but 21st Century fascist movements in advanced capitalist countries with a popular base in mainstream politics typically deny any connection with 1930s fascism, while freely accusing political opponents of ‘fascism’. However, given Russia’s sacrifices and trials and tribulations in the fight against Hitler and Nazism, this kind of propaganda strikes a chord amongst older Russians whose experience and memories are grounded in this past. Putin uses the symbols of the former Soviet Union when celebrating the Russian struggle against Nazism in WWII, while at the same time dissociating the kleptocratic and oligarchic present from the Soviet past. The underpinning ideological ambition that was always present but is now full-blown is the cause of re-establishing not the Soviet Union but the historic Russian Empire.

Genocide against the Russian minorities?

Vladimir Putin’s empire-building journey began well before 2022. Pro-Russia forces, in former republics of the Soviet Union with non-Russian majorities, attempted to sabotage popular movements for self-determination and national

independence. In the early 1990s, after Georgia declared independence, Russia supported Russian separatists in the border oblast of South Ossetia, and then the Abkhazia region, who were conducting armed opposition to the central Georgian Government. The military conflict was contained and a joint peacekeeping force established to keep the peace. By 2008, relations between Georgia and Russia had deteriorated, with Russia accusing Georgia of committing ‘genocide’ against Russian civilians in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and conducting a ‘war of aggression’32.

Similarly in the Transnistria region of Moldova, Russian separatists commenced armed subversion of the Moldovan Government and its small military forces. In 1992, Russian troops supported the separatists and created an autonomous zone outside Moldovan control. Russian General Alexander Lebed labelled the Moldovan government as the ‘shadow of fascism’, ‘a fascist state’ and a ‘fascist clique’. The same playbook, that Russia is protecting oppressed Russian minorities in former Soviet republics who have experienced discrimination and genocide, was used in 2014 when Russia moved to support separatists in the eastern oblast of Ukraine33, and occupied and annexed Crimea. None of the anti-Ukraine ‘genocide’ propaganda pouring out from the Putin regime’s disinformation machine is new34. All these themes have been used before.

The real reasons for Putin’s invasion

The real reasons for the invasion of Ukraine are not to be found amongst Putin’s justifications35. However, in various speeches and in an essay he wrote, On the historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, he has outlined his view on historic imperial Russia. This essay was published on 12 July 2021 shortly after the build- up of Russian military forces around the border of Ukraine. According to Putin, Ukraine as a country was artificially created by the Bolsheviks in 1918. He concedes that the Ukrainians experienced ‘many centuries of fragmentation and living within different states’, but nonetheless argues that what is now Ukraine only makes sense as part of the historic Russian nation. The essay has been criticised widely by competent historians. But then Putin’s essay was about crafting a justification for Russian imperialism.

The formation of the Soviet Republic of Ukraine was an attempt by Lenin and the Bolsheviks to combat Great Russian Chauvinism (GRC), or that deeply embedded sense of ethnic and cultural superiority that so many Russians felt towards non- Russian ethic populations within the historic Russian empire36. Despite Putin’s claim about Belarussians, Ukrainians and Russians being one people, that GRC way of thinking applied to the people in Belarussia and Ukraine who were referred to as ‘little Russians’. This is not unlike the taken for granted superiority expressed by the British upper classes towards the Irish and the Scots.

Putin has made speeches in which he has referred to Peter the Great with admiration and as an historic role model. In a speech to young scientists and entrepreneurs (10 June 2022), he referred to Russia’s wars in the 18th Century as Peter forged his new Russian Empire: “you might think he was fighting with Sweden, seizing their lands … but he seized nothing … he reclaimed it … it seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen”. The support for separatists, the subversion of the independence of former Soviet republics, the occupation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine all make sense once Putin’s imperialist perspective is understood. Likewise, his justifications make sense not because they are valid in themselves, but because in various ways they reveal and express Putin’s imperialist agenda to reclaim Russia’s historic lands and empire.

Former Soviet republics that have become part of the EU and NATO, or like Ukraine seek to join the EU and NATO in the future, are the existential threat that Putin so fears. Taking this direction rather than the ‘Russian Road’ has involved some difficult reforms, addressing corruption, adopting standards around human rights and upholding freer and generally fair democratic elections. As such, these countries threaten Putin and the oligarchs. When Russians were able to travel freely, they could compare life under Putin with everyday life in Europe or the USA, unfavourable to their homeland on almost every point of comparison.

The mass demonstrations that occurred in the Baltic states and in Belarussia after the last election, and in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004-5 and Euro-maidan mass protests in 2014, are derided as fascist coups or events stage-managed by the US and other external enemies of Russia. Putin and his regime do not fear Nazism or NATO. Putin’s anti-democratic views come from a lifetime of experiences as movements arose to challenge the Soviet order. Putin is known to reject any idea that movements of people can change history. For him, it’s always about conspiracies and plots.

The attacks on Ukraine beginning in 2014 and the invasion in 2022 are understandable as part of an imperialist agenda that seeks to extinguish Ukraine’s national identity as an independent country, even if this means reducing it to rubble and perpetrating war crimes against its people. So much for Putin’s reassurance to Ukrainians that ‘we respect the Ukrainian language and traditions … we respect Ukrainian‘s desire to see the country free, safe and prosperous’ – as ‘free’ as Belarussia under Lukashenko, as ‘safe’ as in Russia if you don’t agree with Putin or submit to his regime, and as ‘prosperous’ as it is possible to be when a kleptocracy of oligarchs and Putinist right-wing politicians pillage the wealth of their country?

It is totally understandable why Ukrainians, the Poles, and most of eastern Europe formerly under Russian domination in the Warsaw Pact, and the Baltic states, are so committed to resist the future that an aggressive, reactionary and ‘fascist’ Russia has in store for them.

The Left divided

Can there be any doubt that the regime that is raining rockets down not on military targets but on civilian infrastructure and residences in Ukraine is conducting war crimes on a scale not seen since World War II? Can there be any doubt that in this war, the oppressor is the Putin regime and the oppressed are the Ukrainian people? The Australian people overwhelmingly support the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. In 1942, Australia fought Japanese invasion forces from the north through PNG. The Australian government is providing both humanitarian and military aid. The Left, as the historical representative of the oppressed, dispossessed and marginalised, should be leading international opposition to Putin’s aggression and defending the right to self-determination for peoples who are seeking to free themselves from an imperial domination. On the left, there are Australian left organisations such as the Search Foundation37 and Socialist Alternative38 that do support the Ukrainian resistance. In the US there is an active Ukraine Solidarity Network39. In Europe, there is the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine40. However, perversely, the Left is deeply divided over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine41. There are others who directly support the Russian aggression, or echo Russian propaganda about Putin’s ‘defensive’ response to NATO aggression, repeating Russian lies about Ukraine being a country led by Nazis. Yet others denounce the carnage being meted out to the Ukrainian people while arguing that arms shipments and other Western support for Ukraine via NATO should be ended. This is a deep existential crisis for the Left at a time when transformative social and economic change in the face of global problems of inequality and climate change has never been more necessary.

‘Whatever happened to Noam Chomsky?’

There are notable independent left-wing figures who have opposed US aggression (and US subversion of progressive and left wing movements) for decades during the Cold War and who remain concerned and opposed to US hegemony in the world system. This line-up includes some prominent radicals such as Noam Chomsky, an outspoken critic of US imperialist policy for many decades, and some left journalists such as the Australian John Pilger42 and the Americans Glen Greenblatt43, Chris Hedges44, and Max Blumenthal45.

An eloquent and indignant response directed to Noam Chomsky has been issued by four Ukrainian academics at the University of California (Berkeley), expressing their dismay at a series of public comments made by Chomsky about the war. Chomsky is of course an acclaimed social scientist with a long history of opposition to US militarism. However, the criticisms of the Ukrainian academics reveal just how uninformed and unhelpful Chomsky’s comments are. When Chomsky accepts

that Russia should retain Crimea, they point out how fallacious this thinking is, once the history of Russia’s seizure of Crimea is understood. They object to Chomsky’s insinuations that Ukraine is merely a pawn of the United States because this ‘denies the agency of Ukraine and is a slap in the face to millions of Ukrainians who are risking their lives for the desire to live in a free country’46.

Chomsky, like many other ‘anti-imperialist’ commentators, buys into the claim that Russia was threatened by NATO and does not accept that Eastern European countries have had good reasons for seeking NATO membership, and have a sovereign right to do so. Chomsky is undoubtedly appalled by Russia’s violence against Ukraine but more worried about the history of past imperialist misdeeds by the US – ‘whataboutism’ once again. Finally, Chomsky is taken to task for ‘whitewashing Putin’s goals for invading Ukraine’ by accepting Putin’s stated goals of demilitarisation and neutralisation while paying little attention to Putin’s framing of Ukraine as a Nazi country that needs to be de-nazified.

Camilleri’s Call ‘To all who care about Humanity’s and the Planet’s Future’

An international effort to mobilise this kind of thinking into a political movement is the ‘Call’ To all who care about Humanity’s and the Planet’s Future initiated by Professors Richard Falk (USA), Joseph Camilleri (Australia) and Chandra Muzaffar (Malaysia), and endorsed by Kate Hudson (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK), Yanis Varoufakis, Chris Hedges, John Pilger, Jeffrey Sachs47, and Chomsky, among others48. The appeal is framed enticingly in terms of global peace and climate action, but its focus is the Ukraine War49.

The ‘Call’ statement seeks urgent action, an immediate ceasefire of a ‘conflict (that) is inflicting death, injury, displacement and destruction, exacerbating a global food crisis, driving Europe into recession, and creating shock waves across the world economy’. The problem is not the proliferation of right-wing extremism and the rise of 21st Century fascism but the change from a ‘West-centric world’ dominated by the US to a multi-centric and multi-civilisational world comprising the United States, Russia and China – ‘other centres of power and influence are demanding to be heard’50. What will happen after such a ceasefire? A more durable settlement is about ‘bringing to an end the cynical use of the Ukraine war by the great powers intent on pursuing their geo-political ambitions’ which in concrete terms would see an ‘end to the delivery of lethal military aid to Ukraine’, a ‘phased withdrawal of Russian military forces’, a neutral Ukraine, and some kind of resolution of the status of Crimea and the Donbas down the track, which Russia would continue to occupy in the meantime. In this scenario, Putin’s illegal gains would be consolidated51.

In the online Open Democracy journal and the Australian magazine Inside Story, British author Anthony Barnett draws attention to the ‘false equivalence (that) is compromising reactions to the war among some on the left’. Barnett points out that the ‘Call’ does not state that ‘any threat to use nuclear war is an outrage’ nor identify the Russian politicians issuing veiled and not-so-veiled nuclear threats. The ‘Call’ does not state that invading other countries is wrong. The ‘Call’ demands that Ukraine become a neutral country but it does not defend Ukraine’s right to decide its own economic and social future or to join the European Union. The ‘Call’ does not issue any solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion but depicts the Ukrainians as manipulated by the United States, an echo of Russian propaganda. Western failure to accept an emerging tripolar world of the United States, Russia and China is offered as the problem to be resolved. To this Barnett responds that ‘it is the authors and signatories who are unwilling to face up to new realities of the nature of the regimes now challenging the United States, the autonomy of the demands for democracy, especially those led by women, and the way these are responses to the fact of America’s irreversibly diminished role, which Washington is certainly aware of’52.

As Barnett explains, what the ‘Call’ fails to understand is that US hegemony ‘failed more than a decade ago’ which ‘in turn gave birth to monsters even worse than US hegemony’. The problem is not primarily United States global dominance which is in decline, but about ‘the struggle over how and by whom its dominance will be replaced’.

The initiators and signatories of the ‘Call’ To all who care about Humanity’s and the Planet’s Future are no doubt appalled by the carnage on the battlefields of Ukraine, and the destruction raining down on Ukrainian cities and towns, and the intimidation and torture and execution of civilians in occupied areas of Ukraine, but in the face of that, the ‘Call’ echoes point by point what Putin and the Russians want in Ukraine, in a war that they are clearly losing. The Russians want an immediate military freeze and ceasefire, and an immediate end to Western military aid to Ukraine (which the Russians use to continually stoke Western anxieties about escalating the war in Ukraine into a European war).

Not once during the webinar broadcast on 23 February 202353 did Professors Camilleri and Falk, or any of the other speakers, express any solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance, or any concerns about the spread of the extreme right, or about the nature of the Putin regime or the Chinese Government. One of the speakers, Malaysian Professor Chandra Muzaffar, confessed how depressed he was feeling about the Ukraine conflict until he learned about a demonstration in Germany demanding the end of military supplies to Ukraine, news which lifted his flagging spirits. It has now come to light that Putin is actively facilitating54 an anti- war campaign in Germany, bringing together left-wing and right-wing leaders and organisations55.The signatories to the ‘Call’, and the many others who have signed the statement, might well reflect on whether they really support a position that

on every key point lines up with what Putin and the right-wing Russian regime want and need at this time. Which is why Barnett’s rejoinder is entitled ‘A Betrayal of Ukraine and the Left’. Exactly!

At issue is not disagreement with most of the historical case studies of ‘decades of gross behaviour by the US governing elite’; the issue is the Left’s duty to oppose imperialist aggression in a case where the US is not the aggressor but the supplier of military aid to the victims of imperialist aggression (which it has been, at times, in the past).The core of the kind of political thinking behind the ‘Call’ is a formulaic parody of Marxism in the form of an anti-US political sclerosis against everything ever done by a US Government no matter what the context or the actual consequences – blaming the United States as mainly responsible for the war, and typically calling for an immediate ceasefire and a halt to military aid to Ukraine from the US and NATO.

Chamberlain “Peace in our time”

acting out a latter day 21st Century version of Neville Chamberlain’s vain attempt to secure ‘peace in our time’ and are destined to be recorded in the history books in much the same way as Chamberlain and his ilk56.

In calling for an end to US military aid to the Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression they seem to have forgotten the massive US military aid delivered to Russia (then the Soviet Union) in the war against fascism in Europe. Then, Russia was the victim of Hitlerite oppression and invasion, not the perpetrator of oppression and invasion.

The Australian Peace Movement – CICD

Where do the Australian peace and anti-nuclear movements stand in relation to the war and Russia’s aggression? In the campaign against Australian support for the Vietnam War in the sixties and seventies, the Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament (CICD) in Victoria, and its sister organisation Association for International Cooperation and Disarmament (AICD, now Movement for Nuclear Disarmament), fulfilled important coordinating and organisational support functions. This continued during the eighties, in the campaign for nuclear disarmament.

Did the appeasers who called for a ceasefire and peace after Adolf Hitler invaded the Sudetenland in 1939 bring an end to Nazi aggression? The appeasers of today who call for an immediate ceasefire, echoing Vladimir Putin’s hints that he is open to such a ceasefire, are

Formed in 1959 as a peace movement, CICD, over a period of sixty-four years, has earned a reputation as an anti-imperialist organisation because of its consistent opposition to U.S foreign policy during the Cold War and its support for national independence movements.

So when Ukraine, a country in the eastern region of Europe was invaded by a military force from its neighbour in February 2022, CICD might have been expected to speak up and speak out against the terrible destruction being visited upon the Ukrainian people. CICD might be expected to provide some leadership in rallying Australians against the invasion of Ukraine. But that has not been the case – quite to the contrary.

No policy statement or official commentary about Ukraine appears on the CICD website. The most recent statement from CICD published in July 2020 condemns ‘the relentless killings, illegal arrests, harassments, red tagging, and threats to civilians especially the human rights workers and advocates in the Philippines’ perpetrated by the Duterte regime and with some military support from Australia. Not a word of condemnation however about the razing of Ukrainian infrastructure, including a huge amount of residential infrastructure, by Russia.

CICD’s Facebook page is replete with posts defending the Putin regime’s barbaric war of aggression, denigrating the Zelensky Government in Kiev, and excoriating the U.S/NATO as the cause of Putin’s ‘defensive’ invasion. There are posts challenging credible and verified claims of Russian massacres while highlighting extremely dubious claims of U.S/NATO atrocities (for example the Pentagon’s ‘inhuman experiments on Ukrainian citizens in Kharkov psychiatric hospital’). According to the pro-Putin sources aired by CICD – apologists such as Jonathan Cook, George Galloway, and Scott Ritter – it is not Putin but Ukraine and its ‘Western handlers’ who started the conflict ‘after failed attempts to destroy Russia from within forced them to turn to terror measures’. Accordingly, Putin’s ‘special military operation’ is a defensive response to a U.S/NATO offensive driven by U.S capitalism’s addiction to war, the profits to be made by the U.S armaments industry, and the flirtation of the U.S Democratic Party (‘the party of permanent war’) with nuclear war. The West’s reckless adventure in Ukraine is the culmination of ‘U.S military aggression over a period of more than two decades’, and is aimed at provoking Russia to start World War Three. NATO and the U.S, not Russia, subverted the ‘rules-based international order’.

Facebook has deleted nine of CICD’s posts in the period December 16-31 (2022) because they contained ‘one or more links to a publisher that Facebook believes is wholly or partially under the editorial control of the Russian government’. There has not been a single criticism of Russian aggression or the Putin regime but a multitude of posts based on the lies and disinformation churned out by Putin and his inner circle.

From a key organisational hub for the Vietnam Moratorium movement, CICD has become a conduit for pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda, incapable of defending the peoples of Ukraine against aggression. Perhaps because the vast majority of the Australian population are horrified at the genocidal attacks being meted out to Ukraine and supportive of the Australian Government providing both military and humanitarian assistance, CICD officially has been struck dumb. CICD members and supporters who do genuinely oppose Russia’s aggression against Ukraine ought to give some serious thought to the fact they and their values have been compromised by their membership of an organisation that acts as if the Russo-Ukrainian War at the eastern end of Europe is not happening.

Since its foundation, CICD has campaigned against ‘nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction’ and for peace and reconciliation. Apart from the pariah state of North Korea and the Kim dynasty, what other leader and country has made repeated threats about using nuclear weapons? The answer is Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation. After the end of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was in possession of 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and about 1,700 nuclear warheads. Ukraine opted to transfer and destroy these weapons and join the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) with Russian security guarantees. Fourteen of the fifteen successor states of the Soviet Union also decided to be nuclear-free, leaving Russia alone with a marginally larger nuclear arsenal than the United States. CICD has had nothing to say about Putin’s thinly veiled threats about using nuclear weapons. How can this be explained?

Part of the explanation may lie in the origins of CICD as an organisation apologetic for every step made by the USSR in the nuclear arms race of the fifties and sixties. The other possible part of the explanation is that CICD is now acting as a mouthpiece for an Australian organisation that is closely aligned politically with the Putin regime. The CICD Facebook posts have definitely become a blog for like- minded pro-Russian and anti-American individuals. They would also appear to have become a blog for members and sympathisers of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). The shared thinking of CICD Facebook commentators and the CPA is patently obvious. Given its historical origins and contemporary behaviour, CICD looks rather like an organisational Russian Doll with a small CPA doll inside.

The Communist Party of Australia – from Soviet Russia to Putin’s Russia

It is well-known that the post-war international peace movement in Western countries was created at the initiative of the Soviet Union and was effectively supported and led by pro-Soviet Communist parties. The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) performed this role in Australia. However, after 1968, the CPA followed an independent course and dissociated itself from the CPSU. Experiencing continuing decline, the CPA dissolved in 1991, around the time of the

end of the Soviet Union. In 1996, a new party was formed by a pro-Moscow minority that took over the name of the ‘Communist Party of Australia’.

The present-day ‘Communist Party of Australia’, like some other Communist parties, upholds the historical alignment with the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and remains loyal to Russia, even though the Russian state and government of today, and its leader Vladimir Putin, repudiate the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union while returning to internal repression that Russians had thought was over never to return.

The CPA, like the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, is aligned with the Putin regime in its strategic ambition to rebuild the Russian Empire that predated the Soviet Union by at least two centuries from the time of Peter the Great. Early on, after the Bolshevik Revolution, a major effort was expended to deal with what Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders called out as ‘Great Russian Chauvinism’ – an imperialist ideology and a deeply ingrained culture of Russo-supremacy that conceived of an extended territory dominated by Russians but including a large number of lesser non-Russian peoples. Ukraine was one of the national Soviet republics created to counter the idea of a greater Russia.

The CPA ‘justifies’ the Russian onslaught against Ukraine and its people with a raft of spurious rationales. Unlike CICD, the CPA website does contain a number of statements on Ukraine, one of which is to support Putin’s claim to be acting to de- nazify Ukraine based on a potted account of the neo-Nazi origins and activities of the right-wing Azov militia in Eastern Ukraine in 2014-2016. The neo-Nazi elements in Ukrainian politics have declined in influence and are not linked with Australian extreme right-wing groups as the CPA tries to suggest57. Actually, it is the Putin regime that has links with the extreme right in France and Europe, and it supported the fascist MAGA America-First movement in the United States. The CPA condemns the ‘eastwards expansion of NATO’, denounces the popular Maidan mass movement as a ‘US and fascist-backed coup to replace Ukraine’s democratically elected president by pro-Western politicians in 2014’, and complains about ‘escalating attacks on the “people’s republics” in Donetsk and Lugansk’. Articles on the CPA website pose questions such as ‘why do Western countries such as Australia support fascism in places like the Ukraine?58’ and ‘why should Australia provide military aid to Ukraine?’. NATO is described as the ‘international arm of the Pentagon’.

The CPA does not attempt to justify the military offensive against Ukraine directly, but calls for an immediate ceasefire, a halt to all military operations, and ‘negotiations to bring about a just settlement of the Ukraine question’. What Putin, the Russian Government, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and the CPA regard as a ‘just settlement’ is open to speculation, but it would clearly involve ceding (to Russia) Crimea, the Donbas region, and possibly the annexed oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Disoriented ‘anti–imperialism’

On the left, there are some small Trotskyist and revolutionary socialist groups that have adopted equivocal positions on the war, not endorsing Putin’s aggression but at the same time refusing full and unconditional support for the Ukrainian resistance. The ‘Solidarity’ group, echoing its international mentor, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Britain, assesses the conflict in terms of two warring imperialist powers, on the grounds that the Russia-Ukraine war is basically no different to the inter-imperialist First World War. In this schema, the war is a ‘proxy war’ – Ukraine plays the role of ‘proxy’ for a US/NATO imperialist bloc that is the antagonistic equivalent of a Russian imperialist bloc59. In a leaflet distributed in February 2022, Solidarity demanded ‘Russia out of Ukraine now’, ‘Withdraw NATO troops from Eastern Europe’ and ‘Send aid, not weapons’60.

The proxy war characterisation denies Ukraine and the Ukrainians agency and therefore bears some similarity to the Russian charge that Ukraine is not really an independent country61. (NOTE: Soviet and Chinese military supplies to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War allowed the US to frame the War as a proxy war, but in the end the US had to negotiate directly with North Vietnam). Drawing an equivalence between Russia and the NATO alliance as ‘two bands of imperialist butchers’, and denouncing NATO (Western imperialism) as just as bad as Russia, ends up campaigning in the ‘peace’ movement against military support to Ukraine and against sanctions on Russia.

Other radical socialist groups in Australia such as the ‘Socialist Alliance’62 express discomfit about the Russian aggression against Ukraine but then turn around and accuse NATO, and the USA in particular, of responsibility for Putin’s military adventure, calling for the disbanding of NATO and an end to weapons shipments to the Ukrainians. The argument that NATO has expanded aggressively to threaten Russia does not survive a serious examination, but to oppose Russian aggression while at the same time seeking to deprive the victims of that aggression of the means to defend themselves is an extraordinary example of public duplicity.

There are even some former Maoists in Australia who unashamedly support Putin’s war on the grounds that it is striking a blow to the hegemony of US imperialism. At play here is a twisted but all too common perverse logic that ‘the enemy (Putin) of my enemy (US imperialism) is my friend’. In terms of ‘reductio ad absurdum’ this would be like opposing British imperialism, which in the 1930s was still the largest empire globally, by welcoming the Nazi war against Western Europe and the United Kingdom or the imperial Japanese thrust into Malaya, Burma and India.

The World Socialist Website (WSWS), the mouthpiece of tiny Socialist Equality Parties (SEPs) in several countries, is notable for its extreme sectarian

denunciations of everyone else on the Left while proclaiming leadership of the world revolution. Also, the WSWS has distinguished itself by its extreme hostility to any solidarity with Ukraine’s resistance to invasion, while channeling Putin’s absurd propaganda about fighting “Nazism” in Ukraine.

In February 2022, the WSWS said it ‘oppose[d] the Putin Government’s invasion of Ukraine’ but then zeroed in to denounce the US Government and NATO as ‘baiting’ Russia and using Ukraine as ‘a pretext for escalating confrontation’, describing the Ukrainian military as ‘fascistic’ and accusing the US and NATO of ‘mounting external threats’. The US and NATO are accused of being ‘prepared to take the world to the brink of nuclear war with all its horrific consequences’, and of engaging in a ‘staggering level of recklessness and aggressiveness’63. The WSWS trades in an alternative reality with its own alternative facts.

Where to now?

This article has sought to critically discuss, albeit from an Australian experience, the crisis on the Left that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has revealed. How should Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and in 2022, and the conflict with Georgia in 2008, as well as other military and subversive activity be understood? Is Russia merely defending its security interests against NATO and Western aggression, as claimed by some international affairs academics? Is Russia really fighting Nazism in Ukraine and other former vassal states? Are Russian minorities in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics facing genocidal extermination? Is the Russian homeland facing an existential threat from the West and NATO? Putin’s answers to these questions carry about as much credibility and truthfulness as Donald Trump’s statements on US politics – close to zero!

The spray of disinformation and propaganda directed to different audiences is an important component of what has become known as ‘hybrid warfare’. While on the military front Putin’s army has not fared well, their information offensive has been more successful. Sections of the Left have effectively become assets (if not agents) for Putin and Russian neo-fascism because they have accepted so completely Russia’s spurious rationales for the invasion of Ukraine.

The poet Maya Angelou once said ‘when people show you who they are, believe them the first time’. Putting much of the Russian propaganda to the side, Russian President Vladimir Putin has increasingly expressed what he really aspires to achieve, and how he plans to do it. Putin’s imperialist vision taps into the cultural roots of Great Russian Chauvinism or a taken-for-granted Russo-superiority embedded in Russian culture and woven into its history. The Russian Federation, a reduced version of the Russian empire of the past, still covers a huge geographical area in which ethnic Russians only comprise about 40 per cent of the

total population. The legacy Putin seeks is the re-establishment of that historical Russian Tsarist Empire.

Everything possible should to be done to enable the Ukrainians to recapture their illegally occupied territories and secure their national borders64. The defeat of the invading army is a precondition for any kind of lasting settlement65. A danger is that the US and Europe may not provide sufficient military aid in time enough to accomplish a decisive victory in the near future. A ceasefire, such as is being lobbied for by the ‘Call’ To all who care about Humanity’s and the Planet’s Future, would only serve Russia’s need for breathing space to reorganise and re-equip their military for a renewed war of aggression in the future. For Ukrainians, this would be the peace of the graveyard. The ‘Call’ is either naive appeasement or a conscious bias towards preserving Putin’s Russia as an intact power bloc.

On the other hand, there are reports of a growing restiveness inside Russia and an increasing number of unexplained fires, explosions and acts of resistance. There is evidence that Putin’s popularity is falling inversely to the stepping up of military mobilisation and his draconian measures against dissent. It is possible, but not calculable, and probably not an immediate prospect, that Russia’s defeat in Ukraine could lead to Putin’s downfall66 and an opportunity for progressive social renewal in Russia. Instead of ignoring the fascist and reactionary nature of the Putin regime and assisting the Russian war effort, wittingly or unwittingly, what is needed is a broad unifying international democratic movement against right-wing authoritarianism and neo-fascism.

Endnotes

1 Wood, Liz. Q&A: Elizabeth Wood on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. MIT historian analyses the uncertain dynamics of a global crisis. [MIT News interview conducted by Peter Dizikes], MIT News, 2 Mar. 2022. URL: https://news.mit.edu/2022/elizabeth-wood-ukraine-invasion-0302

2 Hartcher, Peter. Australia not immune from fascism’s global revival. Sydney Morning Herald, 17 Jan. 2023. URL: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-not-immune- from-fascism-s-global-revival-20230116-p5ccpe.html

3 Mason, Paul. How to Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance. Penguin Press, 2022.

4 Black, Jeremy. The Vietnam War: A Lesson in the Geopolitics of Southeast Asia. Foreign Policy Research Institute, 30 March 2018). https://www.fpri.org/article/2018/03/the- vietnam-war-a-lesson-in-the-geopolitics-of-southeast-asia/; also

5 Kuhn, Rick. The Australian left, nationalism and the Vietnam War. Labour History, No. 72, May 1997, 163-184.

6 Saunders, Malcom. The Vietnam Moratorium Movement in Australia: 1969-73. PhD Thesis, Flinders University, 1977. Mansell, Ken. ‘Taking to the Streets against the Vietnam War’: A Timeline History of Australian Protests 1962-1972. Labour History Melbourne, May 2020. URL: https://labourhistorymelbourne.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Ken-Mansell- Vietnam-Protest-Timeline-1962-1972.pdf.

7 Oliva, Mara. Vietnam war: how US involvement has influenced foreign policy decisions over 50 years. The Conversation, 9 January 2023. https://theconversation.com/vietnam-war-how- us-involvement-has-influenced-foreign-policy-decisions-over-50-years-194951

9 Dickinson, Peter. The 2008 Russo-Georgian War: Putin’s green light. Atlantic Council, 7 August 2021. URL: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/the-2008-russo- georgian-war-putins-green-light/

10 Kessler, Glenn. Zelensky’s famous quote of ‘need ammo, not a ride’ not easily confirmed. The Washington Post, 6 Mar. 2022. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/06/zelenskys-famous-quote-need- ammo-not-ride-not-easily-confirmed/

11 Bucha war crimes: United Nations. Bucha killings raise ‘serious’ questions about possible war crimes: Bachelet. UN News, 4 Apr 2022. URL: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115482

Browne, Malachy et al. Satellite images show bodies lay in Bucha for weeks, despite Russian claims. The New York Times, 6 Apr. 2022. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/bucha-ukraine-bodies.html/

12 Query, Alexander. How Russia organized its torture chamber network in Kharkiv Oblast. The Kyiv Independent, 22 October 2022. URL: https://kyivindependent.com/how-russia- organized-its-torture-chamber-network-in-kharkiv-oblast/.

13 Reuters/AP. Alleged war crimes in Ukraine to be investigated by International Criminal Court. ABC News, 1 Mar. 2022. URL: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-01/icc-alleged- war-crimes-ukraine/100870410/.

14 KSE ‘Russia Will Pay’ Project. Damages to Ukraine’s infrastructure, December 31. Kviv School of Economics , 24 Jan. 2023. URL: https://kse.ua/about-the-school/news/the-total- amount-of-damage-caused-to-ukraine-s-infrastructure-due-to-the-war-has-increased-to- almost-138-billion/.

15 Gessen, Marsha. The man without a face: The unlikely rise of Vladimir Putin. Riverhead Books, 2012.

16 Zubok, Vladislav. Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union. Yale University Press, 2021.
17 Wikipedia. 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum. Last edited 21 April 2023. URL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum/.
18 D’Anieri, Paul. Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War. Cambridge

University Press, 2019.

Harris, Shane, et al. Road to War: U.S. Struggled to Convince Allies, and Zelensky, of Risk of

Invasion [Part1 of 4 Parts]. The Washington Post, 16 Aug. 2022. URL:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/ukraine-road-to-war

19 Myers, Steven. The New Tsar: The rise and reign of Vladimir Putin. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

20 Lindstaedt, Natasha. Ukraine war: new figures suggest only one in four Russians support it, but that won’t be enough to oust Putin. The Conversation, 8 Dec. 2022. URL: https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-new-figures-suggest-only-one-in-four-russians- support-it-but-that-wont-be-enough-to-oust-putin-196163

21 News reports: Rathbone, John Paul. Morale falling among Russian troops in Ukraine, says British military chief. Financial Times, 1 April 2022. URL: https://www.ft.com/content/8dec0226-bef9-40c9-88e1-7894e88f6be2; Sauer, Pjotr. ‘We have already lost’: far-right Russian bloggers slam military failures. The Guardian, 8 Sept. 2022. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/08/we-have-already-lost-far- right-russian-bloggers-slam-kremlin-over-army-response

22 Snyder, Timothy. Fascism, Russia and Ukraine. The New York Review, 20 Mar. 2014. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/03/20/fascism-russia-and-ukraine/; Motyl, Alexander. Yes, Putin and Russia are fascist – a political scientist shows how they meet the textbook definition. The Conversation, 30 Mar. 2022. URL: https://theconversation.com/yes- putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook- definition-179063 ; Diamant, Gregory. 21st Century Fascism & its Antecedents. The Center for Global Justice, 17 July 2019. https://globaljusticecenter.org/papers/21st-century-fascism- its-antecedents; Umland, Andreas. Refining the Concept of Generic Fascism. European History Quarterly, 39(2), 2009, 298–309. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691408101443; Traverso, Enzo. The New Faces of Fascism: Popularism and the Far Right. Verso; Umberto Eco (2020). How to Spot a Fascist. Harvill Secker;

Palheta, Ugo. Fascism, Fascisation, Antifascism. Historical Materialism Blog, 7 Jan. 2021. URL: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/blog/fascism-fascisation-antifascism ; Traverso, Enzo. Universal Fascism? A response to Ugo Palheta. Historical Materialism Blog, 31 Mar. 2021. URL: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/blog/universal-fascism-response-to-ugo- palheta; but others define fascism in terms of Nazism and Italian Fascism, e.g. Griffin, Roger. The Nature of Fascism. Routledge, 1993, or an unique right-wing eurasianist authoritarianism such as Laruelle, Marlene. Is Russia Fascist? Unraveling propaganda East and West. Cornell University Press, 2021.

23 Media Resistance Group. Addressing Russian Propaganda. Praeliski.org Blog, 26 Feb. 2022. URL: https://syg.ma/@media-resistance-group/addressing-russian-propaganda/

24 Freedland, Jonathon. Putin still has friends in the west – and they’re gaining ground. The Guardian, 9 Apr. 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/08/vladimir-putin-viktor-orban-eu- marine-le-pen/.

25 Allen, Michael et al. The US military presence in Europe has been declining for 30 years – the current crisis in Ukraine may reverse that trend. The Conversation, 26 Jan. 2022. URL: https://theconversation.com/the-us-military-presence-in-europe-has-been-declining-for-30- years-the-current-crisis-in-ukraine-may-reverse-that-trend-175595/

26 Rogers, Paul. The risk of nuclear war over Ukraine is real. We need diplomacy now. Open Democracy, 14 April 2023. URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/russia-ukraine- nuclear-war-threat-crisis-diplomacy-resolve/?ref=pmp-magazine.com/

27 Schlosser, Eric. The Greatest Nuclear Threat we Face is a Russian Victory (Putin’s blackmail is dangerous; its success would be even worse). The Atlantic, 18 Jan. 2023. URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/russias-invasion-ukraine-war-nuclear- weapon-nato/672727/

28 Karadjis, Michael. Vladimir Putin: Can the God of global fascists and Nazis “de-Nazify” a country?. mkaradjis.com, 6 Apr. 2022. URL: https://mkaradjis.com/2022/04/06/vladimir- putin-can-the-god-of-global-fascists-and-nazis-de-nazify-a-country/

29 Jerusalem Post staff. Lavrov claims Zelensky has Jewish blood ‘just like Hitler’. Jerusalem Post, 2 May 2022. URL: https://www.jpost.com/international/article-705627/

30 McCallum, Alasdair. Much Azov about nothing: How the ‘Ukrainian neo-Nazis’ canard fooled the world. Monash University LENS, 19 Aug. 2022. URL: https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2022/08/19/1384992/much-azov-about- nothing-how-the-ukrainian-neo-nazis-canard-fooled-the-world

31 Likhachev, Vyacheslav. What is Azov Regiment? Honest answers to the most common questions. Euromaidan Press, 7 Apr. 2022. URL: https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/04/07/what-is-azov-regiment-honest-answers-to-the- most-common-questions/

32 Fortuin, Egbert. “Ukraine Commits Genocide on Russians: The Term “Genocide” in Russian Propaganda.” Russian Linguistics, vol. 46, 2022, pp. 313-347. URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11185-022-09258-5

33 Zoria, Yuri. The “Donbas genocide myth” in the making: a kindergarten shelling case study. Euromaidan Press, 17 Feb. 2017. https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/02/17/the-donbass- genocide-myth-in-the-making-a-kindergarten-shelling-case-study/

34 Ben, Bohdan. Putin’s Big Lie: The “Donbas Genocide” and “Impending Ukrainian Attack”. Euromaidan Press, 24 Feb. 2022. URL: https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/02/24/putins-big-lie-the-donbas-genocide-and- impending-ukrainian-attack/

35 Weinberg, Bill. Why Did Russia Invade Ukraine? Debunking Russia’s War Propaganda. Countervortex, 2023. URL: https://countervortex.org/why-did-russia-invade-ukraine/

36 Kessler, Mario. The Forgotten History of Ukrainian Independence. Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 21 Mar. 2022. URL: https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/46176/the-forgotten- history-of-ukrainian-independence/

37 Search Foundation. Search Committee Statement on Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, 26 Feb 2022. URL: https://www.search.org.au/search_committee_statement_mdb_section.

38 Bramble, Tom. Ukraine war: Russia out, no to NATO. Red Flag, 22 July 2022. URL: https://redflag.org.au/article/ukraine-war-russia-out-no-nato.

39 Fletcher, Bill. Nothing is Worse Than Silence in the face of Aggression: The Russo-Ukrainian War and the rest of us. The Nation, 20 Jan 2023. URL: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ukraine-solidarity-network/.

40 European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine. URL: https://ukraine-solidarity.eu/

41 Velichenko, Stepan. On the Left or in Russia? The Strange Case of Foreign pro-Kremlin Radical Leftists. Krytyka, September 2014. URL: https://krytyka.com/en/articles/left-or- russia-strange-case-foreign-pro-kremlin-radical-leftists; Kirchick, James. How the Anti-war Camp went Intellectually Bankrupt. The Atlantic, 29 September 2022. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/anti-war-camp-intellectually- bankrupt/671576/; Konopczynski, Filip. The Russian Invasion and the Anti-Ukrainian Left: A Central Eastern European perspective on the Western Left’s discourse surrounding the invasion. Visegrad/Insight, 3 Mar. 2022. URL: https://visegradinsight.eu/the-russian- invasion-and-the-anti-ukrainian-left/?fbclid=IwAR3rapFyEdLu4In- Z9_eFt9_I3jW_aQl9NPev_zI-l-WcOFKOOLHIOikp-I/.

42 Pilger, John. This is a war of Propaganda. Youtube video, 9 Jul. 2022. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9pEotvlW-s

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44 Hedges, Chris. The Ukraine catastrophe and how we got here: Chronicle of a war foretold. Salon, 26 Feb. 2022. URL: https://www.salon.com/2022/02/26/the-ukraine-and-how-we- got-here-chronicle-of-a-foretold/

45 Welch, Michael et al. Ukraine: Countering the Spin. “The Propaganda War”, An interview with Max Blumenthal. Just International, 6 Apr. 2022. URL: https://just- international.org/articles/ukraine-countering-the-spin-the-propaganda-war-max- blumenthal/

46 Gorodnichenko, Yuriy et al. Open Letter to Noam Chomsky (and other like-minded intellectuals) on the Russia-Ukraine war. University of California (Berkeley) – Berkeley Blog, 19 May 2022. URL: https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2022/05/19/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky- and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war

47 Gorodnichenko, Yuriy. Open letter to Jeffrey Sachs on the Russia-Ukraine war. Berkeley Blog, 20 Mar. 2023. URL: https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2023/03/20/open-letter-to-jeffrey- sachs-on-the-russia-ukraine-war/

48 Camilleri, Joseph, Falk, Richard, Muzaffar, Chandra. To All Who Care about Humanity’s and the Planet’s Future. Change.org, 27 Oct. 2022. URL: https://www.change.org/p/to-all-who- care-about-humanity-s-and-the-planet-s-future

49 Probert, Belinda. The Ukraine Crisis: A response to Joseph Camilleri. Conversations at the Crossroads, 4 Apr. 2022. https://crossroadsconversation.com.au/?p=1498/

50 Krishnan, Karvita. Multipolarity. The Mantra of Authoritarianism. India Forum, 23 Dec. 2022. URL: https://www.theindiaforum.in/politics/multipolarity-mantra-authoritarianism/

51 Green, Joseph. The crisis of the anti-war movement deepens (pt 1). Detroit Workers Voice, 3 Nov. 2022; Green, Joseph. The Crisis of the anti-war movement deepens (pt 2), Detroit Workers Voice, 11 Nov. 2022 [a statement in response to the document ‘To All Who Care about Humanity’s Future’]. URL: http://communistvoice.org/DSWV-221111.html/.

52 Barnett, Anthony. A betrayal of Ukraine and the left (a false equivalence is compromising reactions to the war among some on the left). Inside Story, 21 Oct. 2022. URL: https://insidestory.org.au/a-betrayal-of-ukraine-and-the-left/

53 Saving Humanity and Planet Earth [SHAPE] Project. Ukraine: Rethinking Global Security. SHAPE Webinar, 23 Feb. 2023. URL: https://www.theshapeproject.com/events/ukraine- rethinking-global-security/

54 Belton, Catherine et al. Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show. The Washington Post, 21 Apr. 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/21/germany-russia-interference-afd- wagenknecht/

55 Connolly, Kate. Thousands protest in Berlin against giving weapons to Ukraine. The Guardian, 26 Feb. 2023. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/25/thousands- protest-in-berlin-against-giving-weapons-to-ukraine

56 US Peace Council. Ukraine War: Those who Fail to Call for Negotiations, Fail to Understand the Dangerous Predicament that Faces our Planet!. IPAN Voice, 11 Feb. 2023. URL: https://uspeacecouncil.org/ukraine-war-those-who-fail-to-call-for-negotiations-fail-to- understand-the-dangerous-predicament-that-faces-the-planet/

57 Holton, Graeme. The far-right in Ukraine and the Australian connection. The Guardian, 28 Mar. 2022. URL: https://cpa.org.au/guardian/issue-2000/the-far-right-in-ukraine-and-the- australian-connection/

58 Nielsen, J. Why do Western countries like Australia support fascism?. The Guardian[CPA], 14 Mar 2022. URL: https://cpa.org.au/guardian/issue-1998/why-do-western-countries-like- australia-support-fascism/

59 Solidarity-Socialist Workers Party views: Adelpour, Adam. Dangerous new chapter in Ukraine war. Solidarity, 16 Sept. 2022. URL: https://solidarity.net.au/imperialism/dangerous-new-chapter-in-ukraine-war/; Adelpour, Adam. An imperialist alliance: NATO’s bloody history. Solidarity, 16 Sept. 2022. URL: https://solidarity.net.au/highlights/an-imperialist-alliance-natos-bloody-history/; Larkins, Maeve. Ukraine war set to grind on as U.S and Russia dismiss negotiations. Solidarity, 9 Dec. 2022. URL: https://solidarity.net.au/highlights/ukraine-war-set-to-grind-on-as-us-and- russia-dismiss-negotiations/;

Coates, Andrew. Anti-Imperialism of Fools: Charlie Kimber (SWP), Warns of ‘Inter-Imperialist War’ between Ukraine and Russia, Morning Star Pugilist John Wight Threatens Finland with ‘National Suicide’. Tendance Coatsey Blog, 18 May 2022. URL: https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2022/05/18/anti-imperialism-of-fools-charlie- kimber-swp-warns-of-inter-imperialist-war-between-ukraine-and-russia-morning-star- pugilist-john-wight-threatens-finland-with-national-suicide/

60 Solidarity. Russian troops out of Ukraine: Don’t look to NATO for peace. 27 Feb 2022. URL: https://solidarity.net.au/imperialism/russian-troops-ukraine-dont-look-nato-peace/.

61 Freedman, Lawrence. Proxies and Puppets, Comment is Freed Blogsite, 21 Jan. 2023. URL: https://samf.substack.com/p/proxies-and-puppets/

62 The following provide information of the position of the Socialist Alliance: Wainwright, Sam. Behind Russia’s War on Ukraine, Socialist Alliance, 24 Feb 2022. URL: https://socialist- alliance.org/our-common-cause/2022-02-24/behind-russias-war-ukraine; Socialist Alliance. Russia out of Ukraine – No to NATO expansionism. SA National Council Resolution, 18 Sept. 2022; Socialist Alliance. Russia out of Ukraine – No to NATO expansionism. SA National Council Resolution, 1 Mar. 2022. URL: https://socialist-alliance.org/our-common- cause/2022-03-01/russia-out-ukraine-no-nato-expansionism;

Socialist Alliance. Socialist Alliance opposes deepening military cooperation with Britain. SA National Executive Resolution, 5 Dec. 2022. URL: https://socialist-alliance.org/news/2022-12- 07/socialist-alliance-opposes-deepening-military-cooperation-britain/.

63 Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International [ICFI]. Oppose the US-NATO drive to war with Russia in Ukraine!. WSWS, 14 Feb. 2022. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/14/pers-f14.html; Statement of the ICFI. Oppose the Putin government’s invasion of Ukraine and US-NATO warmongering! For the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers!. WSWS, 24 Feb. 2022. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/25/pers-f25.html

64 The Left must unconditionally support the Ukrainian resistance: Langlois, Jeremie and Selga, Eriks. Sanctions and Solidarity — the Left Must Stand With Ukraine. Centre for European Policy Analysis [CEPA], 24 Feb. 2022. https://cepa.org/article/sanctions-and- solidarity-the-left-must-stand-with-ukraine/; Carey, Roane. Don’t Be a Tankie: How the Left Should Respond to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Those who don’t stand in solidarity with the oppressed cannot call themselves leftists. The Intercept, 2 Mar. 2022. https://theintercept.com/2022/03/01/ukraine-russia-leftists-tankie/

65 Applebaum, Anne and Goldberg, Jeffrey. The Counteroffensive. The Atlantic, 1 May 2023. URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/06/counteroffensive-ukraine- zelensky-crimea/673781/; Nichols, Tom. The World Awaits Ukraine’s Counteroffensive. The Atlantic, 1 May 2023. URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/05/ukraine-counteroffensive-june- cover/673923/; Freedland, Jonathon. Putin is gambling on the west growing impatient with Ukraine. We have to prove him wrong. The Guardian, 11 Feb. 2023; Nicholls, Tom. To Defend Civilization, Defeat Russia. The Atlantic, 23 Jan. 2023. URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/01/ukraine-russia-weapons-nato- germany/672817/; Lucas, Edward. Our safety and freedom are at stake: if we fail in our duty to help Ukraine defeat Vladimir Putin it is not only Britain’s honour on the line. The Mail, 12 Feb. 2023. URL: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11740331/If-fail-duty-help- Ukraine-not-Britains-honour-line-EDWARD-LUCAS.html/.

66 Smith, Jeremy. Vladimir Putin will be ousted – it’s just a matter of when and how. The Guardian, 15 Mar. 2022. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/14/vladimir- putin-will-be-ousted-its-just-a-matter-of-when-and-how

This paper is a product of the Ukraine Solidarity Hub project which seeks to combat misinformation and black propaganda directed against Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression. For more information contact:
David Mackenzie [email protected]

Ken Mansell [email protected]