ukraine articles 2013-2014 from the pages of the militant newspaper

8/10/2019 Ukraine Articles 2013-2014 From the Pages of the Militant Newspaper

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Ukraine articles 2013-2014 from the pages of The Mil i tant newspaper


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Vol. 77/No. 46 December 23, 2013

Ukraine conflict grows as Moscowvies for influence with US, Europe

(front page)

BY JOHN STUDERIn one of a number of recent foreign policy setbacks for Washington, the Russian government,led by President and former KGB secret police leader Vladimir Putin, pressured the Ukrainegovernment of President Viktor Yanukovich Nov. 21 into reversing its decision to sign a set ofU.S.-backed political and trade agreements with the European Union.This development follows Moscows success in shoring up the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syriathrough a September agreement to dismantle his cache of chemical weapons. Putin has alsogained advantage from ongoing leaks about U.S. spying by Edward Snowden, a formercontractor at the U.S. National Security Agency who is now in Russia.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent breakaway of former Sovietrepublics in eastern Europe and Asia, Washington and the EU have sought to turn them awayfrom Russia.

Out of 28 regimes in the former Soviet bloc, 10 joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, including theCzech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia.

Russia has threatened to cut off the flow of oil and gas through some of these former republics.Skirmishes with Moscow have broken out in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Georgia.

Putin forces Ukraine into blocThe biggest prize Washington and European imperialist powers are sparring with Moscow overis Ukraine. The largest of the former Soviet republics with 46 million people, Ukraine is thehistoric breadbasket for Russia and a key source of steel, coal and access to warm-water portson the Black Sea.With Washingtons backing, the EU in 2009 set up what it called the Eastern Partnershipprogram to court the governments of Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine to integrate intothe EU market, with removal of tariffs on imports and exports.

The deal required the four governments to rewrite their laws to incorporate large chunks of EUlegislation, including increased participation of the private sector. The regimes would have torisk economic pain until they complete reforms attacks on their working class theFinancial Times said Nov. 29.

Ukraine faces severe economic difficulties. Following the 2008 world financial crisis thecountrys industrial output fell 34 percent. Ukraine needs $18 billion by March 2014 to roll overgovernment debt and pay Russia for outstanding gas and oil bills.

In 1995, figures in the former government bureaucracy in Ukraine launched a MassPrivatization Program, seizing big hunks of it for themselves.

Conflicts between different factions exploded around the 2004 presidential election. Yanukovich,


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Vol. 77/No. 47 December 30, 2013

Ukraine crisis grows as Putin, imperialists vie for influenceMoscow tightens grip with carrot and stick

BY EMMA JOHNSONSustained demonstrations in the Ukraine against Kievs pro-Russia foreign policy aremanifestations of a growing political crisis, marked by factional struggles between rivalprivileged social layers based in the eastern and western halves of the country. The catalyst isthe contest for influence between the imperialist rulers of the U.S. and Europe on one hand andthe secret-police regime representing the interests of a layer of rising capitalists in Russia. Moscow won the last round when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich signed a deal withRussia Dec. 17 lowering prices for gas imports from $400 to $268.50 per 1,000 cubic metersand a $15-billion bailout to stave off a government default. Tens of thousands gathered in Kiev,accusing Yanukovich of selling Ukraine out to the highest bidder.

Protests in Kievs Independence Square began in response to Yanukovichs Nov. 21announcement that he would not sign agreements to move toward integration into the EuropeanUnion trade bloc and instead maintain its close economic and political relationship with Russia.

After a police attack on a small group of students Dec. 1, the anti-government rallies swelled totens of thousands and over the weekends to hundreds of thousands. Participants are mainlyyoung and come from the western part of the country.

Over the past few weeks, thousands have camped in the square, fortifying their positions withbarricades and roadblocks. On Dec. 14, the government organized a one-time counterrally tosupport Yanukovich, numbering in the tens of thousands.

The unfolding events in Ukraine have historical roots in the anti-working-class course of theSoviet Union and Eastern bloc governments following the usurpation of political power byprivileged bureaucratic social layers in the 1920s a course which led to their collapse in theearly 1990s. Since then, the remnants of the ruling bureaucracies in Ukraine and the rest of theSoviet bloc have moved to reimpose capitalist exploitation on the working class. The socialcrisis resulting from this course is today exacerbated by the deepening crisis of capitalism on aworld scale..

With roots in different industries and other sources of capital, some emerging capitalists havegravitated toward traditional ties with Moscow, while others look to new opportunities in closereconomic integration with western Europe.

Conflicts between different factions of the new capitalist layers exploded around the 2004presidential election. Yanukovich, who emerged from the government-run eastern coal industryand had strong ties to Russia, claimed victory. His opponent, Viktor Yushchenko, came out ofthe state banking apparatus and oriented towards Washington and capitalist governments inEurope. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, backing Yushchenko and a breakwith Russia. But his rule ended six years later amid growing disdain for the thievery andcorruption of his government, laying the basis for Yanukovich and his clique to take theelections.


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The forces leading the opposition are capitalist parties with seats in Ukraines parliament. Oneof the main groups organizing the protests is the Fatherland party of jailed opposition leaderYulia Tymoshenko, prime minister in Yushchenkos cabinet, representing oligarchs on the outs.

UDAR punch in Ukrainian is led by Vitali Klitschko, a former heavyweight world boxingchampion who gained his wealth outside of any ties to Ukrainian politics and presents himself

as a savior, a fighter against corruption.

The third party in Independence Square is Svoboda. The party was founded in the early 1990s,but traces its roots to the Ukrainian partisan army in World War II, which was loosely allied withNazi Germany. Party leader Oleg Tyagnibok says Nationalism is love of the land and hascome out against a supposed Jewish-Russian mafia running Ukraine. Members of Svobodamake up a large part of the muscle defending the square against the cops.

The oligarchs competing allegiances with either side are based on pragmatic interests, notideological views on democracy, as is often presented in the big-business press of Europe andthe U.S.

The Eastern Partnership, which Yanukovich said no to Nov. 21, was set up in 2007, aiming tointegrate Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine into the EU with removal of tariffs on importsand exports.

Yanukovich said he couldnt sign the deal because of steep cuts to government expendituresand state enterprises demanded by the International Monetary Fund to grant a loan on onehand and threats of trade sanctions from Moscow on the other. On Dec. 15, the EuropeanUnion suspended talks with Ukraine, saying that Yanukovichs words and deeds wereincreasingly diverging.

Ukraine, like many other countries in the region, is going through an acute economic andfinancial crisis. The government needs $18 billion by March 2014 to roll over debt and payRussia for outstanding bills of oil and gas. In addition to the bailout and lower gas prices,Moscow has also pledged to resume oil supplies to a refinery after a three-year break.

Ukraine relies on Russia for about 60 percent of its gas consumption and the Russiangovernment has turned the gas off twice in the last seven years. Since July Moscow hadimposed trade restrictions that cost Ukraine $2 billion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the deal is not tied to any conditions and the issue ofUkraine joining the 2010 customs and trade agreement between Russia, Belarus andKazakhstan was not discussed.

Ukraine is Russias traditional breadbasket and a key source of steel, coal and access to warm-water ports on the Black Sea.

The entire eastern industrialized part of the country Yanukovichs traditional support base has seen very little participation in the demonstrations. The eastern Donbass region accountsfor one-fifth of Ukraines industrial production and export revenues. Russia imports machineryand manufactured goods. EU imports metals and light industrial products.

The cultural ties are also stronger. Speakers of the Russian language make up 17 percent of


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Ukraines population, in Donbass its nearly 40 percent.

Local industries are hugely dependent on Russian supplies and markets. The prospect ofjoining the EU is not very popular here. Before joining any international organizations, Ukraineshould first develop our own economy, a housewife in Donetsk told BBC Dec. 3. Look at ourpoor pensioners surviving on the breadline. I am against joining the EU.

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Vol. 78/No. 4 February 3, 2014

Ukrainians defy new law attacking right to protestFight against Russian boot fuels ongoing actions

BY SETH GALINSKYSome 100,000 people demonstrated in Kiev, Ukraines capital, Jan. 19 to demand repeal of newlaws that curtail the right to protest. Underlying months of anti-government protests are nationalaspirations of the Ukrainian people, who with the exception of the early years of the RussianRevolution have lived for centuries under Russian domination. Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich pushed through the law in an attempt to undercut proteststhat began in November when he backed out of a deal to sign a trade and associationagreement with the European Union and instead moved to maintain close economic andpolitical ties with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At the time hundreds of thousands took to the streets, demanding that Yanukovich resign. Acentral slogan at opposition demonstrations has been, Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the nation!

Ukraine above all!

The leadership of the protests comprises a heterogeneous coalition of bourgeois partiespressing for integration into the EU. Three of these parties have seats in Parliament: Fatherland,led by jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoschenko; UDAR punch in Ukrainian led byVitali Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion who campaigns on an anti-corruptionplatform; and ultrarightist Svoboda (Freedom), which scapegoats Jews and has introduced billsto ban abortions and communist ideology.

The new law passed by Parliament last week bans the unauthorized public installation of tentsor stages and the use of loudspeakers in public and imposes jail terms for participating in massdisorder and wearing balaclavas or helmets.

Some protesters who fought with police defiantly wore saucepans and colanders on their heads.Some 1,500 protesters needed medical attention after the clashes.

Centuries under Russian bootThe suppression of national rights in Ukraine goes back centuries. Eastern Ukraine became apossession of the Romanov Dynasty in 1654 and from that time on the feudal monarchy carriedout a policy of Russification there. While rule over the western part changed hands between

Austria, Poland and Russia over centuries, the tsars banned the Ukrainian language,suppressed the Ukrainian church and promoted Russian colonization, in the areas under itscontrol.By the early 1900s Ukraine made up 20 percent of the population of the Russian empire, whichat the time was comprised in its majority of non-Russian peoples who faced varying degrees ofsubjugation. It was a prison house of nations, in the words of V.I. Lenin, central leader of theBolshevik Party and 1917 Russian Revolution.

The Ukrainian bourgeoisie remained small and weak. The ruling class and urban middle classeswere drawn from Russia and other nationalities. In the Ukraine and White Russia, wroteRussian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky in 1932, the landlord, capitalist, lawyer, journalist,was a Great Russian, a Pole, a Jew, a foreigner; the rural population was wholly Ukrainian and


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White Russian.

At the same time, Ukraine was a key conquest of the empire, serving as a breadbasket forRussia and major source of its coal and iron production.

Among the central tasks of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution under Lenins leadership was the

emancipation of tens of millions of oppressed peoples from the culturally more advancedpeople of the Baltic region to the Muslims of the Caucasus to nomadic tribes of the Far East.

The Bolshevik Partys championing of the right of oppressed nations to self-determinationleading up to the revolution was decisive in uniting, educating and organizing the working classto take political power, which included forging an alliance with the peasant majority from allbackgrounds.

The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party stated in November 1919 thatBolsheviks in Ukraine must put into practice the right of the working people to study in theUkrainian language and to speak their native language in all Soviet institutions; they must inevery way counteract attempts at Russification that push the Ukrainian language into thebackground.

The new policy of Ukrainization helped the Bolsheviks win over the Ukrainian Borotba (struggle)Party, which merged with the Ukrainian Communist Party in 1920.

Stalin murder machineBut by the early 1920s the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party had begun, personified by therise to power of Josef Stalin after the death of Lenin in 1924. Stalin headed a counterrevolutionrepresenting the interests of a growing privileged social layer centered in the increasinglybureaucratic state apparatus. This reactionary caste reversed the Bolsheviks course andresurrected the Great Russian chauvinism of the empire, including the re-subjection ofoppressed people, this time under the false banner of communism.Nowhere did the purges and repression assume such a savage character as they did in theUkraine, Trotsky wrote in 1939.

Russification of Ukraine was revived. From 1959 to 1989 the number of Russians rose from16.9 percent of Ukraines population to 22.1 percent.

When the Stalinist regime in Russia and Eastern Europe finally collapsed under pressure ofgrowing social contradictions in the early 1990s, the new regime continued to dominate Ukraine,whose industry remained closely linked to that of Russia. Moscow supplies 60 percent of gasused in Ukraine and has turned off the spigot twice to force compliance with the Putingovernments demands.

Competing factions of emerging and aspiring capitalists arose following the collapse of theSoviet Union, drawn largely from remnants of the Soviet bureaucracy. In Ukraine, the factionalcontest was partially based on divisions of east and west, Russian and Ukrainian, orientationtoward Moscow and the West. Meanwhile, the national aspirations among Ukrainian workingpeople against the Russian boot remain strong.

At the end of 2004, in what became known as the Orange Revolution, hundreds of thousands ofpeople, mostly from the western part of the country took to the streets to oppose the continuing


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Russian domination of the country and what they saw as a rigged election that gave thepresidency to Yanukovich, who was then prime minister.

As a result, a new election was called and bourgeois opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenkowas elected president, taking office in 2005, but a series of corruption scandals left him with littlesupport by the end of his term.

Today about four out of every six people in Ukraine are ethnic Ukrainians and speak theUkrainian language. One in six are ethnic Russians who speak Russian and roughly one in sixare ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian. Russian is the main language in much of the easternand southern part of the country, areas which are more economically developed.

Yanukovich returned to the presidency after winning elections in 2010. In July 2012 his Party ofRegions successfully passed a language law that encourages making Russian an officiallanguage in some regions.

The Ukrainian Week reported in March last year that the top eight Ukrainian TV stationsbroadcast less than a quarter of their prime-time content in Ukrainian. Less than 5 percent of thesongs on the top six radio stations were in Ukrainian.

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Ukraine protests spread, demand govt step downMoscow makes threats, seeks continued domination

BY EMMA JOHNSONProtests in Ukraine demanding the government of President Viktor Yanukovich resign and callimmediate elections have spread across the country including into the east and south nearthe Russian border, Yanukovichs strongest base of support. The government has started tooffer concessions in an attempt to stem the rising tide.The motor force behind the protests is the national aspirations of the Ukrainian people, who with the exception of the early years of the Russian Revolution under the Bolshevik leadershipof V.I. Lenin have lived under Russian domination for centuries.

In the east and south, thousands have joined actions in Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk and Luhansk.In Zaporizhya, 5,000 laid siege to the regional government administration building.

President Yanukovich has begun offering government posts and political concessions to leadersof the opposition, who themselves appear to have less and less control over the spreadingprotests. Justice Minister Olena Lukash hinted Jan. 26 at declaring a state of emergency, butthere has been no attempt to impose one.

Protests began in November when Yanukovich, faced with threats and substantial economicincentives from Russian President Vladimir Putin, backed off from signing an associationagreement with the European Union. The biggest actions have been in Kiev, the capital, severalnumbering more than 100,000.

On Jan. 16 the government responded to mounting protests by passing new repressive lawsand deploying cops and security forces. At least three people were killed and hundreds injuredin the ensuing clashes in the capital.

Government repression has only strengthened protesters determination to bring down theregime. For weeks Kievs Independence Square has been occupied, protected by barricades ofburnt-out police buses, tires and other debris.

As of Jan. 26, government buildings have been occupied in 10 of Ukraines 25 regions.Repressive legislation restricting protests was repealed in a Jan. 28 emergency Parliamentmeeting. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his ministers resigned.

The Putin government responded with threats Jan. 28 to renege on promises of $15 billion infinancial aid and gas at preferential prices.

Standard & Poors cut Ukraines credit ratings, calling the regime a distressed civil society withweakened political institutions.

The eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, where protests have spread over the past week,represent the industrial heartland of the country. The Donbass region in the southeast, forexample, accounts for one-fifth of Ukraines industrial production and export revenues,concentrated in mining and steel. These regions near the Russian border have the closest


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economic and cultural ties to Russia. Speakers of the Russian language make up 24 percent ofUkraines population, in some areas in the east its as much as 40 percent.

Serhiy Nihoyan, 21, was one of the protesters killed in the clashes in Kiev. Some 1,000 peopleattended his funeral in a village outside the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk Jan. 26. My son diedfor Ukraine, his father, an Armenian immigrant, was quoted as saying in the local media.

The national protest movement has drawn other oppressed nationalities into the streets withtheir own demands, including the Crimean Tatars of Ukraines southeastern peninsula, amongothers.

Among the heterogeneous anti-government demonstrators are several ultrarightist currents some fielding paramilitary groups that seek to claim the mantle of the national struggle,including Svoboda, which has members in Parliament; Common Cause; and the UkrainianNational Assembly.

Russian Revolution advance for oppressed nationsAmong the central tasks of the 1917 Russian Revolution under the leadership of Lenin was theemancipation of oppressed peoples. In November 1919 the Central Committee of the RussianCommunist Party stated that Bolsheviks in Ukraine must put into practice the right of theworking people to study in the Ukrainian language in all Soviet institutions; they must in everyway counteract attempts at Russification that push the Ukrainian language into the background.This policy was decisive in winning Ukrainian working people to the proletarian revolution andvoluntary association of Soviet socialist republics.This course was reversed when a growing privileged layer centered in the state bureaucracyheaded by Josef Stalin rose to power after Lenins death in 1924. They resurrected the GreatRussian chauvinism of the tsarist empire and through bloody counterrevolution trampled overrights and aspirations of oppressed peoples. Russification a policy begun under the empire toresettle Russians in Ukraine was resurrected.

Events today are a continuation of a deeply rooted struggle against the Russian boot.


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Moscow, Kiev fail to stem mobilizations in UkraineProtesters determined to throw off Russian boot

BY SETH GALINSKYMore than 50,000 people demonstrated in Kiev Feb. 2 in the 10th week of protests demandingthat Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich resign and call new elections. At the heart of theprotests are the national aspirations of the Ukrainian people to throw off the boot of Russiandomination and widespread opposition to government thuggery by Moscow and Kiev. The protests began in November when Yanukovich, in face of threats by Moscow, backed out ofa deal for Ukraine to join a trade bloc with the European Union. The Russian government ofPresident Vladimir Putin tried to help Yanukovich defuse the demonstrations by offering $15billion in loans and lower prices on Russian gas.

Ukraine came under Russian control in the 17th century. In the 1917 Russian Revolution, theBolsheviks led by V.I. Lenin led the workers and farmers to power. They backed the right of self-determination of peoples subjugated by the czarist empire.

After Lenins death, this revolutionary course was reversed when a growing privileged layercentered in the state bureaucracy led by Josef Stalin carried out a bloody counterrevolution,including trampling on the national rights of the people of Ukraine. They brought back with avengeance the policies of subjugation and Russification begun by the czars.

Putin maintains Russian bootAfter the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine declared its formal independence, butstill remained a political and economic vassal of Russia. While Ukrainian is the principallanguage for two-thirds of the country, Russian predominates in large parts of the eastern andsouthern parts, which are also the more industrially developed regions.Former Soviet bureaucrats used their positions to assemble fortunes for themselves and theircronies as chunks of the Russian economy were privatized. Former KGB political policelieutenant-colonel Putin took the presidency on behalf of these new capitalist layers. His regimeis the true heir of the Stalinist police apparatus and murder machine.

Moscow still has close ties to Ukraines police apparatus and the armies of both countries haveheld joint exercises since Yanukovich took office.

Yanukovich attempted to quell the demonstrations with police violence and pushed through alaw restricting the right to protest. The move backfired. The protests widened, including to thesouthern and eastern parts of the country, which have been Yanukovichs main base of support.

As the protests spread, Yanukovich offered concessions, while his police forces continued toselectively go after leading activists in the opposition. His prime minister and cabinet resignedJan. 28, and Yanukovich invited opposition leaders to join the government. He signed a repealof the anti-protest law Jan. 31 and approved an amnesty for jailed protesters, on condition theyevacuate government buildings they have occupied in Kiev and other cities.

The main opposition parties rejected the concessions. They demanded the immediate releaseof more than 100 people arrested in recent weeks. At least six people have been killed by cops


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and pro-government thugs and many others kidnapped and beaten since the protests began.

The protests in Ukraine have begun to win support from other opponents of Putins autocraticrule, including in Russia itself. At a Feb. 1 protest of several thousand in Moscow calling forfreeing 20 people arrested at an anti-Putin demonstration in May 2012, some participantscarried Ukrainian flags in solidarity with the protests there.

In addition to suffering under Russian tyranny, Ukraine has been especially hard hit by theworldwide capitalist economic crisis. Its economy contracted by nearly 15 percent in 2009,among the biggest declines in the world.

The Ukraine government owes $5.5 billion in loans due in 2014, $3 billion of it to theInternational Monetary Fund, but its foreign currency reserves have dropped by about one-thirdover the past year. Another $10 billion is due next year.

The IMF, prior to the latest crisis, has been urging Kiev to cut fuel subsidies and othergovernment spending as a condition for more loans, steps that would fall heavily on workingpeople.

President Putin has sought to take advantage of Ukraines precarious economic crisis tostrengthen Moscows hand and to press Yanukovich to take a harder line on the protests.

Russian government freezes loansWhile $3 billion of the promised loan was previously released, Putin put a hold on the rest Jan.29. And Moscow has begun implementing stepped-up border checks on rail and truck trafficfrom Ukraine and demanded increased duties on food and machinery cargos. According toTime magazine, Customs agents forcedthe Ukrainian trucks to stop, unload their cargo andwait in the freezing cold while the cargo was inspected piece by piece.This is not the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union that Moscow has tightened thescrews to keep Ukraine in line. Numerous times Moscow has threatened to halt supplies ofnatural gas and followed through to press Ukraine to pay outstanding bills and kowtow toMoscows demands.


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Crimean Tatars join anti-Putin actions in Ukraine

With the exception of the early years of the Russian Revolution, the Crimean Tatars have beensubjected to more than two centuries of Russian domination.

The Bolshevik Party, which brought workers and farmers to power in 1917, backed the nationalrights and self-determination of the Crimean Tatars and other oppressed people. Crimea joinedthe voluntary Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as an autonomous region in 1921.

But in 1927 as part of a bloody counterrevolution led by Josef Stalin the leaders of theCrimean Tatar republic were branded bourgeois nationalists and executed. Thousands of thelargely peasant population were deported over the next decade and the land repopulated withRussians. The Tatars were placed in settlement camps and faced systematic discrimination byMoscow, which, for example, unilaterally changed their alphabet twice in 1928 from Arabicscript to Latin, and in 1938 to Russian Cyrillic.

During World War II, Stalin had the entire Tatar population rounded up and exiled to Uzbekistan,the Urals and Siberia, slandering an entire people as German agents. More than 46 percent ofthe population perished as a result.

In the 1960s Tatars began returning to the Crimea, where they found themselves landless andoppressed in their own homeland.

They returned in greater numbers following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But theRussian regime of President Vladimir Putin which grew out of the old secret-police apparatusput together under the Stalinist regime before it has continued the same Great Russiandomination over the Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians and many other nationalities.

JOHN STUDER


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Ukraine protests continue, hit censorship in Russia

The protest movement exploded on the scene in November after Yanukovich, under pressurefrom Moscow, backed out of a trade deal with the European Union. As part of the arrangement,Russian President Vladimir Putin promised $15 billion in loans to Ukraine and cheaper naturalgas prices. Now angered by Yanukovichs concessions to protesters in hopes of defusing theirmobilizations, Moscow has frozen further loan payments and insisted that Kiev pay a $2.7 billiongas debt.

Workers from across the country continue to come to Kiev for daily protests. The actions arefueled by opposition to Russian domination of the country, the trampling of democratic andpolitical rights in the Stalinist political police tradition by the government in Kiev, and the impactof the worsening economic crisis.

We dont want our country to be run by criminals. We dont want our children to be withoutwork, Valentina,64, a retired worker told Reuters.

Scores of demonstrators (above) held up umbrellas Feb. 9 as a symbol of solidarity with dozensof Putin opponents who were arrested in Moscow the day before after they opened upumbrellas while protesting government censorship of Russias TV Rain.

SETH GALINSKY


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Vol. 78/No. 8 March 3, 2014

Workers should back fight against Russian dominationMilitant Labor Forum discusses protests in Ukraine

BY SETH GALINSKY

NEW YORK Working people in the U.S. and around the world should support the massstruggle for self-determination that is unfolding in Ukraine today, Tom Fiske, a leader of theSocialist Workers Party in Minnesota, said at a Feb. 1 Militant Labor Forum here on the recentanti-government protests in Ukraine.The demonstrations began in November after Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich, underpressure from Moscow, declined to sign a trade agreement with the European Union. RussianPresident Vladimir Putin put heavy pressure on the Ukraine government a combination ofthreats along with the carrot of a $15 billion loan and lower natural gas prices in its quest tomaintain economic and political control over the country, said Fiske.

The protests that erupted were not about disagreements over whether the European Union orMoscow is offering Ukraine a better trade deal, Fiske said, but the fight of the masses inUkraine against Russian domination. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been taking tothe streets against the Yanukovich government and its policies.

Russian domination of most of what today is Ukraine goes back to the 17th century, Fiske said.The czars banned the Ukrainian language, tried to replace it with Russian, and broughthundreds of thousands of Russians to live there as a counterweight to Ukrainian nationalaspirations. Ukraine was typical of Czarist Russia, he said. As Vladimir Lenin, central leaderof the 1917 Russian Revolution, pointed out, the Russian empire was a prison house ofnations.

The socialist revolution that brought working people to power in Russia in 1917 and a few yearslater in the Ukraine began to throw open those prison doors. It marked a huge change indevelopment in the Ukraine. Soviets, revolutionary councils, spread throughout the country,Fiske said.

The Bolshevik Party and revolutionary government under Lenins leadership carried out apolicy of Ukrainization to undo the Russification of the Czars, encouraging the teaching of theUkrainian language and the flowering of Ukrainian national culture, Fiske said. The Bolshevikpolicy was for the right of self-determination, for complete freedom for oppressed nations to beindependent.

The rise of a privileged caste tied to the government bureaucracy, whose leadingrepresentative became Josef Stalin, reversed these gains, Fiske noted.

While stamping out the national rights of oppressed peoples throughout the former Russianempire, the Soviet Union government under Stalin reimposed the Russification of the Ukraine.Communist leaders in Ukraine were assassinated on the orders of Stalin.

The counterrevolutionary course of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union over decades led toits collapse in 1991, Fiske said. This opened up political space for working people to organize


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and enter politics with their own struggles and demands. At the same time, an aspiring capitalistclass drawn mostly from those with ties to the old government bureaucracy began toaccumulate wealth, largely through theft of state property. New governments adopted a courseof reimposing social relations of capitalist exploitation.

The current authoritarian regime of President Putin is run by the remnants of the Stalinist secret

police apparatus and represents a major obstacle. Putin himself was a long-time KGB operativewho rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and later headed the Federal Security Service, theKGBs successor.

While Ukraine won its formal independence in the early 90s, its government functions much likeMoscows, using police repression to stifle opposition to its anti-working-class course.

The imperialist governments in the E.U. and the U.S. are no friends of working people inUkraine, Fiske said. They want the Ukraine government to stop subsidizing gas and to cut whatthey see as too high a social wage, to ensure repayment of loans and maximize profits.

The struggles for independence from Russian domination in Ukraine is part of the fight to openup political space and prepare the working class for battles to come, Fiske said. It will inspireother oppressed nationalities to stand up for their rights against Russian domination in countriesof the former Soviet Union, including within Ukraine itself as with the Tatars in the Crimea.


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Vol. 78/No. 8 March 3, 2014

Ukraine govt cracks down onopposition protests

Ukrainian Interior Ministry cops and riot police amass during crackdown on anti-governmentprotesters in Kiev, Ukraine, Feb. 18. At least 26 were killed and hundreds injured in the mostviolent clashes since thousands took to the streets nearly three months ago to protest economicand political domination of the country by Moscow, backed by Ukrainian President ViktorYanukovich. Protesters burned down their encampment in Independence Square and the TradeUnion building they had occupied, creating barricades of fire as they were forced back. Theclashes erupted hours after the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin pledgedanother $2 billion in bailout loans and pushed for a crackdown on protesters, while Yanukovichput off the oppositions demand to restore the 2004 constitution, which would increase thepowers of parliament at the expense of the executive. Yanukovich and Putin announced that thecrackdown was launched to thwart a coup by rightist opposition groups. According to newsreports, some opposition forces had taken over government buildings in several cities, burningsome down and seizing weapons from police and military facilities.Doug Nelson


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Vol. 78/No. 9 March 10, 2014

Popular mobilizations topple Ukrainian govtSeek political rights, break from Moscows grip

BY JOHN STUDERThe regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has been overthrown following threemonths of mass mobilizations and clashes with government forces. The tyrant fled Feb. 22 ashundreds of thousands took to the streets, made more determined by a bloody crackdown daysearlier.People really changed their mind-set because of these events, Roman Dakus, who hadparticipated in protests against the regime for three months, told the New York Times. Before,people thought, Nothing really depends on me. But after this situation, they think differently.They believe in their struggle when they are all together.

At the heart of the struggle against Yanukovych by workers, youth and others are theaspirations of the Ukrainian people to break free from Russian domination that has lasted forcenturies, with the exception of the early years of the 1917 Russian Revolution under theleadership of V. I. Lenin. Yanukovych, hated for his corruption and repression of political rights,bowed at every turn to pressure from Russian President Vladimir Putin to maintain Moscowseconomic and political stranglehold on Ukraine.

On advice from Putin, Yanukovych mobilized Berkut riot police Feb. 18 to push thousands ofprotesters out of Independence Square, known as the Maidan, as demonstrators took oversome government buildings in Lviv.

The riot squad detachments were able to make it deep into the square before they were haltedby giant barricades set on fire by the retreating demonstrators. Around 28 people were killed inclashes, including 10 cops.

Riot cops then opened fire on demonstrators Feb. 20, killing more than 60.

The bloodshed emboldened opposition protesters and sapped the will of the regimes forces.Berkut troops began to break ranks and leave the square.

As events unfolded, many Ukrainian capitalists broke with Yanukovych and urged him tocompromise.

On Feb. 21 Yanukovych agreed to meet with representatives from Russia, France, Germanyand Poland, along with leaders of the three main bourgeois opposition parties Fatherland, theruling party before Yanukovych was elected in 2010; Punch, led by former heavyweight boxingchampion Vitali Klitschko; and Svoboda, a rightist party. Yanukovych agreed to give up somepowers and set a new election for December.

Parliament began passing a series of measures stripping the regime of its power.

When opposition leaders took the agreement to the square, they faced boos and rebellion.Volodymyr Parasiuk, a captain of one of the defense units that held the square, took the mikeand denounced the opposition for shaking hands with this killer.


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We ordinary people aresaying this to the politicians who stand behind us: No Yanukovych isgoing to be a president for a whole year, Parasiuk, who told the press he is not a member ofany party, said to a roaring crowd. Tomorrow, by 10 oclock, he has to be gone.

Opposition politicians scurried off the stage. Klitschko later returned and tried to apologize.

Asked by a Reuters reporter when the protesters would take their barricades down, Parasiuksaid, If the Maidan disperses, politicians will stop being afraid. We are not going away.

Yanukovych fled under cover of darkness that night. Organized forces from the Maidandeployed outside the square. They set up guards at the parliament building and othergovernment offices. They entered and secured the presidential palace.

In Yanukovych compound opposition forces found a private petting zoo, a collection of vintageautomobiles and other treasures, along with files that the ex-president clumsily attempted todestroy by submerging them in the Dnieper River.

The heads of the countrys paratroop unit, the Berkut, Alfa special operations forces and militaryintelligence went before parliament to declare their adherence to the opposition. On Feb. 26Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced the Berkut were disbanded.

Parliament voted to charge Yanukovych with mass murder and bar him from leaving thecountry. As of Feb. 26 he is at large.

While Putin has made no public comment, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said hewouldnt recognize any government that comes to power through revolutionary action byKalashnikov-toting people in black masks. He also announced previously promised financialaid was now on hold. Putin put Russian combat troops on high alert Feb. 26 near the Ukraineborder.

Crowds of ethnic Russians mobilized in Crimea, calling for breaking from Ukraine. They scuffledwith Crimean Tatars supporting the overthrow of Yanukovych. Like the Ukrainians, the Tatars,who are native to Crimea, have faced national oppression under the Russian czarist empire andlater the reactionary government of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union.

Parliament appointed Oleksandr Turchinov, a deputy from the Fatherland party, as interimpresident. Politicians in Kiev are now wrangling over ministries and powers behind closed doors.Parliament voted to set new presidential elections for May 25.

Sharp economic crisis

Turchinov immediately appealed to the European Union and Washington for immediate andsubstantial economic aid. He said Ukraine is sliding into the abyss.The value of the currency, the hryvnia, has fallen sharply. Ukraines bond rating has beendowngraded so steeply that the country can no longer borrow on international markets.

The Ukraine government will soon be unable to pay public salaries or pensions, the Timessaid.

Yuriy Kolobov, the acting finance minister, said Ukraine would need some $35 billion by the end


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of next year.

Though the West is claiming victory in the tugof war with Russia over Ukraine, the Feb. 25Times wrote, neither the European Union nor the United States has done anything more thanmake promises.

Lack of enthusiasm among U.S. and European capitalists betray their doubts that drawingUkraine from Moscow toward European integration would be worth the expense.

The International Monetary Fund has told Ukrainian officials it wont do anything without acommitment from the country to undertake painful austerity measures, the Times reported,tough reforms and a near-certain recession as a result.

Given the blatant corruption and graft by politicians tied to newly minted millionaires sinceUkraines independence, the Times said, aspirants for office are regarded with suspicion bymost Ukrainians, who would rather have a new face in the presidency.

We need new people who can say no to the oligarchs, not just the old faces, Irina Nikanchuk,

25, told the Times while demonstrating outside the parliament building Feb. 24, watchinglegislators drive up in BMWs and Mercedes.

Calls for new political faces, the Times said, were peppered with angry demands that theParliament raise pensions, reopen closed hospitals and find work for the jobless.


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Vol. 78/No. 9 March 10, 2014

Protests in US, Canada back Ukraine struggle

Thousands took part in demonstrations Feb. 23 in Toronto, New York, Chicago and other citiesin North America in support of the overturn of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and tocommemorate the deaths of those who fought for independence there. Chants in English andUkrainian included Glory to the Ukraine, Glory to the martyrs and Putin, hands off Ukraine.

I am here to support the struggle for democracy, civil rights and political freedom in mycountry, Iryna Stakhyra, who works in a medical office in Hackensack, N.J., told the Militant atthe New York rally of more than 400 across from the Ukraine Consulate. We need to be freefrom Russian interference. Supporters of the socialist newsweekly sold 71 copies of the paperand three subscriptions.

Vasyl Pryshliak, a 29-year-old electrician who came to Chicago two years ago, told the Militanthe joined the action of more than 200 there for the memory of those who died for Ukraineindependence and in the fight against government oppression.

Hundreds rallied in Torontos Queens Park across from the Ontario provincial legislativebuilding.

JOHN STUDER


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Vol. 78/No. 11 March 24, 2014

Russian troops out! Defend Ukraine sovereignty!(editorial)

Working people the world over should stand with fellow workers and farmers of Ukraine indemanding Russian troops out now! Defend the sovereignty of independent Ukraine!

The Russian government of President Vladimir Putin is raising the specter of war. This is athreat to workers and farmers of Ukraine Ukrainian, Russian, Tatar, Jews, etc. as well asto working people in Russia, the rest of the former Soviet republics, and beyond.

The Ukrainian toilers overthrew Moscows puppet government of Viktor Yanukovych, openingup space to debate, discuss and organize. Supporting their victory is part of advancing laborsfight around the world against the bosses assaults on our living standards, rights and verydignity.

The Putin governments annexationist maneuvers are being carried out under false claims ofdefending self-determination in Crimea and protecting ethnic Russians. Moscow is organizinga fake plebiscite at gunpoint as its state media spews a fountain of lies, which dries up in theface of every credible on-the-scene report. Russian speakers are not fleeing to the motherland.There is not a significant movement in Crimea in favor of joining Russia or becoming anindependent vassal of Moscow. Russian churches and Jewish synagogues in Ukraine are notunder assault.

The propertied rulers of both Russia and Ukraine as well as in Western Europe and Americaare driven by fear of the mobilization of working people. And it has found an echo in the left,including among many who claim to stand for socialism and the interests of the working class.

As self-serving justification for turning their back on the mobilizations of hundreds of thousandsof working people in Ukraine, much of the radical left has clung to a fantastic tale of conspiracy:Fascist forces have takenover in Ukraine, swept to power by a secret operation engineeredfrom Washington. The presumption is that U.S. imperialism is the one source of all problemsand the enemy of my enemy is automatically my friend.

Further confusion comes wrapped in notions that the Russian regime is a progressive force inthe world because it checks the influence of U.S. imperialism. Moscow is a rival of Washington.But both are enemies of working people. And in Ukraine, its Russian troops that are on theground.

Others claim there are residual gains of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia today. Thereare not. And if there were, would that not be also true of Ukraine? This is a case of a strongercapitalist nation, Russia, attacking a weaker capitalist nation, Ukraine. It is an example of theGreat Russian chauvinism that defined the czarist empires prison house of nations and thatwas revived as part of the bloody counterrevolution led by Joseph Stalin in the 1920s.

This is why the truth about the early years of the Bolshevik government under the leadership ofVladimir Lenin following the 1917 Russian Revolution is so important. It is the only time in whichthe rights and aspirations of nations and peoples oppressed under the Russian empire were


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respected and championed. It is in that same Leninist tradition that the sovereignty of Ukrainemust be defended today.

Hidden behind the slanders that demonstrators in Ukraine are fascists is a contemptuous viewof workers and farmers, of their backwardness, their supposed ignorance and lack ofsophistication. This begins with disdain toward workers at home, who naturally sympathize

when they see people like them fighting against tyranny.

Working people should oppose Washingtons denial of visas to Russian officials, imperialistthreats of sanctions against Russia or any U.S. intervention in the affairs of Ukraine, military orotherwise.

Workers in the U.S. and Western Europe should demand imperialist governments provideunconditional economic aid, not more loans, and cancel all debts to Ukraine on the brink ofeconomic collapse.

And what if Ukraine joins the European Union trade alliance? We would join struggles byUkrainian toilers against inevitable mass layoffs and other hardships the capitalist rulers ofEurope would impose. And we would welcome the deeper integration of Ukrainian workers withthe rest of their class in Europe.

The working class in the former Soviet republics was not defeated with the fall of the SovietUnion. The goal of the Russian regime in a war against Ukraine would be to deal major blows tothe morale, confidence and combativeness of the working class. This is what the Stalinistbureaucracy was never able to accomplish, to the chagrin of the capitalist rulers in Europe and

America.

Russian troops out! Defend Ukraine sovereignty! Oppose Moscows war moves!


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Vol. 78/No. 11 March 24, 2014

Lenin led political battle forliberation of oppressed nations(Books of the Month column)

In Democracy and Revolution, author George Novack (1905-1992), a longtime leader of theSocialist Workers Party, traces the evolution of democracy from ancient Greece to its declineunder modern capitalism. The chapter Socialism and Bureaucracy recounts the socialadvances of workers and peasants under the leadership of V.I. Lenin and the Bolshevik Party inthe early years of the 1917 Russian Revolution, as well as the historical circumstances thatenabled a privileged bureaucratic caste led by Joseph Stalin to organize a bloodycounterrevolution and reverse that course. The excerpt reprinted here focuses on the fightadvanced by Lenin for self-determination and for national liberation of peoples oppressed underthe czarist empire. Copyright 1971 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY GEORGE NOVACK

It is notorious that this program for a democratic workers state, envisaged by the founders ofMarxism and attempted after 1917 by the Bolsheviks led by Lenin and Trotsky, could not berealized under the given historical circumstances. The democratic initiatives and institutions ofthe Russian Revolution of the early years of the Soviet republic were extinguished after Leninsdeath and the suppression of the Communist Left Opposition. Soviet, party and trade-uniondemocracy, already curtailed by the imperatives of civil war and the first years of economicreconstruction, was totally extirpated by the Stalinist machine. The Russian people had to go through three years of imperialist bloodletting, two revolutions inone year and three years of civil war. After having given so much, they sank back in a collectiveexhaustion of their energies. The decimation of the revolutionary cadres, the weariness of theSoviet masses, the overwhelming preponderance of the peasantry over a small, fragmented

proletariat involved in a shattered industry, led to a loss of faith in immediate relief from outsideand in the original perspectives of international revolution.

These objective conditions facilitated the bureaucratization of the Soviet state apparatus and thegradual conservatizing of the Communist cadres at its head. The decline and destruction ofSoviet and party democracy, the crushing of the Leninist wing of the party and the replacementof socialist internationalism by nationalist considerations and conceptions, formulated in thetheory of building socialism in a single country, further promoted the arbitrary rule of a newaristocracy of functionaries.

Stalins tyranny was the outgrowth of special economic as well as historical conditions. Sovietdemocracy was laid low by the meager productivity of Russian industry and agriculture and theterrible poverty and misery it engendered. It has been pointed out that, even under capitalism, aflourishing democracy has largely been the privilege of wealthy nations and that, even wherepoor countries have set up democratic institutions, as in the colonial and semicolonial world,they are not very sturdy and stable.

The attitude of the workers state toward weak, poor, oppressed and underdevelopednationalities has turned out to be no less important for the world socialist revolution than it wasfor the bourgeois state in its democratic forms. There are two main sides to this problem. The


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first concerns national minorities situated within the boundaries of the given state.

In view of the deprivations and indignities they have suffered from chauvinist governing powersin the past and their apprehensions that the new regime may perpetuate such mistreatment,these sections of the population are entitled to special consideration and concessions.Discrimination or abuse against any grouping or person because of their ethnic origin, race or

color will be a serious crime in a workers state. Such acts will meet with especially severepenalties if committed by official sources or government jobholders. One of the functions ofeducation and culture in the new society will be the creation of a public opinion designed toforestall and quarantine such manifestations.

The second aspect involves the relations between independent workers states. Socialist policyand morality demands more than formal acknowledgment of respect for the rights and integrityof all nations and peoples. Even capitalist states profess to abide by that rule of equality,however much they disregard it in actuality.

A big, rich and powerful workers state has special obligations. It must lean over backwards inall dealings with small nations and weaker peoples to give them complete assurance that it is

not misusing its superiority and authority to their detriment. The Stalinized Soviet Union has hadan abominable record in both respects. Moscows maltreatment of its own national minorities,such as the Volga Germans, the Crimean Tartars and the Jews, its vilification of the Yugoslavsafter the Stalin-Tito split, its vassalization and attempted Russification of the East Europeanpeoples, the withdrawal of economic aid from the Peoples Republic of China, the suppressionof the Hungarians in 1956 and the invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 havebeen criminal transgressions of the spirit of Leninist policy on the national question. Thehaughty attitudes and infamous actions of the Soviet rulers in this domain befit orientalpotentates rather than socialists or democrats.

The right of a people to self-determination is hollow unless it can separate from its oppressorand form its own sovereign state. Though this democratic right was guaranteed by the

Bolsheviks and is still acknowledged in the Soviet constitution, the slightest hint of it from anyabused nationality under the Kremlins jurisdiction is treated as treason. Revolutionary Marxistssupport the demand of any nationality to be free and independent of both the Sovietbureaucracy and imperialism.


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Vol. 78/No. 12 March 31, 2014

Working people at center of fight for Ukraine sovereigntyMilitants on-the-scene report from Kiev

BY JOHN STUDERKIEV, Ukraine We are among the workers who have come to Maidan recently, said Sasha

Antoliavych, a former miner from the Donetsk region bordering Russia in eastern Ukraine March17, the day after Moscow stepped up its moves to annex the Crimea following a shamreferendum. We plan to stay here to help organize to defend our country from Russia.

Antoliavych is one of thousands from across Ukraine who remain encamped in the Maidan Independence Square after overthrowing the pro-Moscow government of President VictorYanukovych.

While we watch Russia, Antoliavych said, we also watch the politicians of the newgovernment. Most of them are not much different from those who fled.

A team of Militant correspondents talked with dozens of workers and others at various tents setup in the Maidan, many of which are organized by region.

Alexei, who is staying in the tent of protesters from Sevastopol, Crimea, said that someopponents of the Russian occupation there have fled the region.

Alexei, who didnt give his last name for fear of reprisals against others in Crimea, showed acopy of an affidavit from a Crimean resident named Igor who said he was interrogated,threatened and forced to leave his home by self-described members of the Russian Blocbecause of his support for the Maidan protests.

The fight against Yanukovych united people from different regions it was a real nationalbattle for our country, said Mykola Bondar, who has been at the Maidan since November, whenthey began organizing self-defense units to protect the few hundred mostly students who wereprotesting moves by the Yanukovych government to keep Ukraine under Russian domination.

Over the next three months demonstrations grew and spread as more than 1 million workers,farmers and others joined mobilizations in Kiev and across the country.

The protests reached a climax Feb. 18-20, when Yanukovych ordered the Berkut riot police todrive protesters out of the Madian, killing more than 100. The attack failed, the riot police meltedaway and Yanukovych fled to Russia Feb. 22. A veteran of the Soviet military campaign duringthe 1979-89 war in Afghanistan, Bondar helped train the self-defense units. We had problemswith provocations from some groups, said Bondar. Svoboda, for example, tore down the Leninstatue in the square to get publicity for their party.

Svoboda, a rightist party with a military wing and a reputation for strong-arm tactics, attemptedother provocations, Bondar said, including driving cars at police lines. Smashing statues ofLenin has given a handle to Moscows media campaign to smear demonstrators as fascistsand created obstacles to uniting workers from west to east against Russian domination.

The Trade Unions House was the military headquarters, the location of our food stocks and the


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hospital on the square, Bondar said. We would put the word out about what supplies weneeded and people from everywhere brought them. The Berkut set fire to the building in themidst of the February battles.

Union members join Maidan protestsVasyl Andreyev, chair of the Ukraine Building Workers Union, said in a Feb. 25 interview

published on the Building and Wood Workers International website that although his union didnot officially back the movement to oust Yanukovych, many members decided to go to thebarricades.The new politicians keep trying to get us to shut down the Maidan, Bondar said.

We have to keep this going, added Konstantyn Samoylenko.There are very few politicianswho are not touched by the oligarchs, the millionaires. Those who own the banks think theeconomic crisis in Ukraine has to be covered by the workers and the poor people.

Ukraine has been hard hit by the worldwide capitalist economic crisis. Acting PresidentOleksandr Tyrchynov says that the country is heading into the abyss, with more than $13billion in loan payments, mostly to European banks, due this year.

Antoliavych said Black Lung disease is prevalent among miners in the Donetz region, whoseworking and living conditions have gotten worse in recent decades. While the independentminers union was part of the fight for Ukrainian independence in the 1980s and 90s, before thefall of the Soviet Union, he said, union officials today do little to protect miners.

The only source of news in the eastern mining areas is Russian television, which is full of liesabout Maidan, Antoliavych said. Coal bosses tried to prevent miners from joining the Kievprotests by offering overtime bonuses to stay and work.

I hope that these events and the Maidan will help change the consciousness of the workers,get them more involved, said Anya Tchaikovska, who used to work in a bus and construction

equipment depot and has been volunteering for the last four months to help coordinate foodsupplies. If workers demands are not met, there will have to be another Maidan, she said.



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Vol. 78/No. 12 March 31, 2014

Moscow rally protests Russian occupation of Crimea

Tens of thousands marched through Moscow March 15 to protest the Russian militaryoccupation of Crimea and threats against Ukraine. Protesters held up banners that said, Foryour freedom and ours.

This is to show Ukrainian citizens our solidarity, so they will see there is another Russia, MariaLobanova told the Washington Post.

Demonstrators waved Ukrainian and Russian flags and chanted, Putin is afraid of the Maidanand Putin, go away.

Dont believe it when they say that we are few, that we are weak, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, amember of Pussy Riot, told the crowd. Together we will change this country.

A smaller demonstration backing the Russian invasion took place the same day, by menwearing identical red jackets, marching military style.

Its not just that Crimea should join Russia we should restore the whole Soviet Union, and Ithink this is what Putin wants, Sergei Prokopenko told the New York Times.

SETH GALINSKY


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Vol. 78/No. 12 March 31, 2014

Moscow moves to seize Crimea after sham vote

BY SETH GALINSKYMoscow moved rapidly to annex the Crimean Peninsula after pushing through a riggedreferendum there March 16. Russian soldiers and local thugs seized the headquarters of theUkrainian Navy in Sevastopol and arrested its commander March 19. Two days after the referendum Russian soldiers in ski masks took over a car dealership thatbelongs to a Ukrainian businessman who backs the government in Kiev.

Crimea has officially been part of Ukraine for six decades. Its geography, economy, andeveryday life remains intertwined with Ukraine. The only way to reach Crimea from Russia is byferry boat or plane the only roads are from Ukraine. The Crimean Peninsula gets 85 percentof its water and 82 percent of its electricity from the mainland.

Russian troops invaded Crimea a little more than two weeks ago, occupying its airports,surrounding Ukrainian military bases and imposing a new pro-Moscow prime minister on theprovince. The Russian government falsely claimed ethnic Russians there were in danger afterthe overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych by hundreds of thousands, who itslandered as nationalists, fascists, anti-Semites and Russophobes.

About 12 percent of the population of Crimea are Tatars, 25 percent Ukrainians and 58 percentethnic Russians. First the czars, then Joseph Stalin after he reversed the policy of theBolsheviks under the leadership of V.I. Lenin to advance the national rights of Ukrainians andother oppressed people encouraged Russians to move there to maintain Russian dominationof the region.

During World War II, Stalin exiled the entire Tatar population of Crimea. Nearly half of them diedduring the journey. After Stalins death they began returning to Crimea and in even greaternumbers after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today many live in neighborhoodswithout cooking gas, running water or paved roads.

Successive governments in Kiev have turned a deaf ear to Tatar demands for recognition oftheir rights, sufficient aid to compensate them for their forced deportation and a greater voice inthe Crimean parliament.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to take advantage of anti-Tatar discrimination byoffering to give their language official status in a Russian Crimea and guarantee them 20percent of posts in government bodies, according to the Ukrainian Week.

But Tatar organizations held roadside demonstrations urging Crimeans to boycott the fraudulentvote, holding signs that said, Crimea is Ukraine. Tatars also organized neighborhood defensegroups to prevent provocations by pro-Moscow thugs.

Supporters of Russian domination hung posters around Sevastopol saying that joining Russiawould bring higher wages and pensions, cheaper gas and more jobs. At the same time,armored personnel carriers and military convoys rumbled down streets across the region.


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There were only two choices on the ballot: for immediate separation from Ukraine andintegration into Russia; or for greater autonomy from Ukraine and possible integration intoRussia at a later time. The ballot boxes were made of clear plastic, making it easy to see howeach person voted.

Moscows show of military force shored up its support among a layer of ethnic Russians who

long for a return to open Russian domination.

I am Russian and my husband is Tatar. We never had a single problem with anyone, TatianaZhritov, whose husband is a car mechanic, told the Washington Post. Now Russia is trying todivide us, and it is a terrible crime.

Crimean officials announced that 96.77 percent of ballots backed joining the Russian Federationand claimed there was a 79 percent voter turnout.

Washington and its imperialist allies in the European Union responded by imposing sanctionson a few dozen Russian officials, mostly visa restrictions and asset freezes.

Earlier in the month the EU announced it would provide $15 billion in loans to Ukraine, which isin a deep economic crisis. Washington chimed in with $1 billion in loan guarantees. According toReuters, the so-called aid package is contingent on Ukraine agreeing to some harsh economicmedicine.


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Vol. 78/No. 12 March 31, 2014

Contribute to Militant reporting team in Ukraine

As Moscow moves with troops to rip Crimea from Ukraine and maintain Russian domination ofthe country, a team of worker-correspondents from the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdomare on the scene to report on the conditions of life and range of views among workers, farmers,youth and others and to talk with them about workers struggles and efforts to buildproletarian parties in the countries they are from. They will be traveling to different parts of theUkraine, speaking to people of various national backgrounds and solidarizing with the fight todefend Ukrainian sovereignty. Their first eyewitness report appears in this issue. Help defray the substantial costs of this unique coverage. Send a check or money order to: TheMilitant, 306 W. 37th St., 13th floor, New York, NY 10018.


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We have not been paid since November, said Olga Shkoropad at the unions office in thePublic Stakeholder Coal Company of Lviv, the coal enrichment plant here, where some 520women make up the majority of the workforce. The company is 37 percent state-owned with therest divided among individual capitalists.

The plant supplies three power plants, Shkoropad said. After these were privatized in 2012, theybegan to import processed coal from eastern Ukraine, cutting back production in the west.

Workers believe Rinat Akhmetov, the richest man in Ukraine, who is reported to control half ofthe countrys coal, steel, iron ore and thermoelectricity industries, is among the plantscontrolling owners, Shkoropad said. Ukraines capitalist class is drawn from those who werewell-positioned through ties to the government bureaucracy to claim ownership of state-ownedindustry and banking after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor Generals office reported March 22 that a search of an apartmentowned by Eduard Stavytsky, former Minister of Energy and Coal Mines who fled with the fall ofYanukovych, contained $4.8 million in U.S. cash, 110 pounds of gold bars and diamond, goldand platinum jewelry.

Workers fight for back payThe union has been organizing actions near the coal enrichment plant and in Kiev demandingback pay, Shkoropad said. The plant produces 11 rail coaches of processed coal a day, downfrom 37 a couple years ago.We are also demanding the government keep the coal mines and processing plants open sothat we can keep our jobs, she said.

The potholed-filled road to the plant outside the city reflected the decay of infrastructure thatruns alongside the road to capitalism here. When I first saw people driving I thought they weredrunk, said Volodia, a cab driver. Now I know what they were doing.

The mine equipment we have is decades behind modern technology, said Yura Sheremeta, a32-year-old miner who builds tunnels at the Chervonograd No. 2 coal mine. Some 1,500 work atthe mine, 800 underground.

We have low seams of coal, with miners on their hands and knees, he said. We putexplosives into the coal face, set them off, and go in with shovels to fill up the trams and get thecoal out. Nothing has changed under either of the last two regimes. Sheremeta was referring tothe rule of Yanukovych and his rival, former President Yulia Tymoshenko, who was jailed oncharges of corruption. Representatives of Tymoshenkos Fatherland party dominate the interimgovernment now in power.

There is no safety protection in the mine, Sheremeta said. Workers sign off on safety formseveryday, but it means nothing. One of my co-workers was killed in 2006, crushed to death by ashuttle coach.

The union officials did little in response, he said. Workers rely on themselves for safety, noton the union or mine managers.

Profit drive kills miners


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One hundred sixty-one coal miners in Ukraine were killed on the job in 2011, according toofficial reports, roughly two workers for every million tons produced. This is among the highestmining fatality rates in the world.In July 2011, 28 miners were killed in an underground explosion at the Suchodilska-Shidnamine in the Luhansk region, southeast of Kiev. The law says that the trade union representingminers who are killed must be involved in the official investigation. Seven of the dead miners

were members of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, but none of the unionsrepresentatives were allowed to take part.

Seven coal miners were killed last month in an underground methane explosion at thePivnichna mine near Donetsk in the east, BBC reported.

There were 300 mines in Ukraine in Soviet days, Volynets said March 20 in the unions Kievoffice. Today there are 143. Forty-three of those are private, and they are the richest mineswith the biggest reserves. The others are the most dangerous with more deaths.

Our independent union was born out of big battles in 1989 and 90, breaking from the oldSoviet official union, fighting for pay they wouldnt giveus and higher wages, he said. The

union led a mass march of miners from every mining area in the country.

One of the main problems we face today, Volynets said, is the spread of illegal mines in theeast.

These mines, known as kopanki, reportedly produce some 10 percent of the countrys coaloutput. Kopanki miners work under dangerous conditions and receive no government benefits.

The illegal mines were born after the fall of the Soviet Union, when many state-owned minesand other industries closed and tens of thousands were thrown out of work. Today they are abig business. The coal, greased by corruption, flows onto the state coal market and is countedas production from state mines.

My soul is with the people in the Maidan, said Sheremeta. I was deeply upset when I sawRussia take over Crimea without any fight. I was inspired by some of the soldiers who showedspirit and resistance. And I admire the Tatars who spoke out and protested against the invasion.

We are a sovereign nation, he said.We have spirit and we will continue to fight. If we dontsucceed this time, we will have another Maidan.

And I think there will be one in Russia too.


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Vol. 78/No. 13 April 7, 2014

Moscow troops grab Crimea, US sanctions target workers(front page)


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BY FRANK FORRESTALKIEV, Ukraine Russian troops took over the last of 189 Ukrainian military bases in CrimeaMarch 23 as part of their seizure of the peninsula and have taken up threatening positions alongUkraines eastern border.

Meanwhile, the imperialist powers of America and Europe imposed financial sanctions, for

which working people of Russia will bear the brunt. And Washington beefed up joint militarymaneuvers in the Black Sea with a number of former Soviet republics and other governments incentral and eastern Europe.

Col. Yuli Mamchur, former head of the last Ukrainian base in Crimea, had become a symbol ofresistance to the Russian annexation for his refusal to evacuate the air force barracks. He waswhisked into Russian custody after he and the troops under his command finally surrenderedthe Belbek base in face of overwhelming force.

A uniform is not for sale. You cannot buy it. You cannot sell it, Ukrainian Capt. AleksandrLantukh told reporters outside the base in Belbek a day after it was taken by Moscow, reportedthe Washington Post. Most of the troops on the base remained loyal to Ukraine.

But Ukraines interim Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh, who resigned after Moscow snatchedCrimea, said only about one-quarter of Ukrainian troops stationed throughout Crimea areexpected to leave the peninsula and remain under Ukrainian command, with most of the rest

joining the Russian military, reported McClatchy news service.

About 12 percent of the population in Crimea is Tatar, an oppressed nationality that has livedthere for centuries. Nearly 30 percent of Crimean Tatars voted in favor of reunification withRussia, Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev of the new pro-Moscow Crimeangovernment announced March 18, two days after a rigged referendum there. Temirgaliyev alsosaid Crimean Tatars will have to vacate part of their lands.

Considering that only 0.54 percent of Tatars actually voted; its disingenuous to say that 30percent supported Russia, a reader commented online in response to Temirgaliyevsstatements as reported in the Moscow Times.

My family is in Crimea and I am very concerned, Lenara Smedlyaeva, who works at a Tatarrestaurant near the Maidan here, told the Militant.

I try to visit my family every three months, but I dont know if that is possible now, saidSmedlyaeva, who works with Crimea SOS, an organization of Crimeans in Kiev. Hergrandmother was deported by the Russians during World War II, she said, when the Sovietgovernment of Premier Joseph Stalin forcefully expelled the entire Tatar population fromCrimea; nearly half did not survive the exodus.

My grandmother was deported on May 18, 1944, to Perm in the Urals, Smedlyaeva said. Shespent the next 45 years in the south of Russia working in the forests as a laborer, a very hard

job. Our family was so glad when she returned to the Crimea in 1989.

Top NATO commander Philip Breedlove described Russian military forces conductingmaneuvers along Ukraines eastern border March 23 as very, very sizable and very, veryready, reported Reuters. Moscow has its eyes not only on eastern Ukraine, but Transdniestria,


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which declared independence from Moldova in 1990 and lies some 300 miles from Ukraineseastern border. The speaker of parliament there has called for the province to be incorporatedinto Russia.

Interim Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has called for decentralization of power ineastern Ukraine in an effort to blunt Russian designs and provocations there.

Donetsk Mayor Oleksandr Lukyanchenko is among many political figures in the east whosupport Yatsenyuks calls for greater regional powers while opposing any Moscow-engineeredreferendums for closer ties with Russia.

Washington has imposed sanctions on 20 individuals and a major bank in Russia. Billions ofdollars were wiped off the value of companies linked to some of Russias wealthiest oligarchsyesterday as the effect of U.S. sanctions on President Vladimir Putins inner circle shook thecountrys financial sector, reported the Financial Times.

Russian Deputy Economy Minister Sergei Belyakov told a local business conference in MoscowMarch 24 that the economic situation shows clear signs of a crisis. The ruble is down 11

percent against the dollar this year.

Washington reinforced joint naval and air exercises in the Black Sea, adding at least a dozen F-16 fighters jets. The March 21-April 4 maneuvers, which had been planned since 2013, involvethe militaries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia,Ukraine, as well as Turkey, Belgium and NATO representatives.

Moscow has stepped up economic pressure on Ukraine, sealing the border to most trucks,raising prices of natural gas pumped in from Russia and shutting down a chocolate factory insouthern Russia owned by Ukrainian capitalist Petro Poroshenko, who announced plans to runfor president of Ukraine in the May 25 elections.

The government of Ukraine has requested $15 billion in loans from the International MonetaryFund to maintain bond payments and stave off financial collapse. IMF officials are demandingKiev slash 20 percent from its budget, cut energy subsidies, devalue its currency and take stepsto squeeze higher productivity from the working class as conditions for the loan package.


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Vol. 78/No. 14 April 14, 2014

(lead article)Ukraine workers resist pressure to demobilizeIMF offers more debt, Moscow hikes gas price

The Maidan Kievs Independence Square remains a center of resistance for workingpeople fighting for democratic and political rights in Ukraine. Above, March 30 demonstration.

BY FRANK FORRESTALKIEV, Ukraine Thousands assembled in Independence Square here March 30 to mark the40th day since the killing of the heavenly hundred, a reference to the demonstrators murderedby Berkut riot police under the government of President Viktor Yanukovych days before it wasoverthrown in a popular rebellion.

What motivated me to come to Maidan recently was the police violence against the people. Ialso came to stop the attacks from Russia and stand with Ukraine, said Sergey Nikolayevich, a

mason and former brick factory worker from Sumy in northeastern Ukraine. Ive been working,but unemployment in my town is around 40 percent.

Our main worry is the attempt by the government to dissolve Maidan, said Oleksei Kuznitsov,a former truck driver, who came from Donetsk last December. But the Maidan remains popularand many continue to bring us potatoes, meat, bread, everything we need, he said. Whiletalking to Kuznitsov, a water tank truck was filling gallon jugs for camped protesters.

The demobilization of working people is one thing the capitalist rulers of Ukraine and Russia, aswell as the U.S. and its imperialist allies, would all like to see.

The U.S. and Russia have differences of opinion about the events that led to this crisis, U.S.Secretary of State John Kerry said in a press conference following a March 30 meeting in Pariswith Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. But the two sides agreed, Kerry said, to workwith the Ukrainian government to assure the following priorities: the rights of nationalminorities; language rights; demobilization and disarmament of irregular forces andprovocateurs; an inclusive constitutional reform process; and free and fair elections monitoredby the international community.

Moscow has deployed some 40,000 military troops and has been establishing supply linesalong Ukraines eastern and southern borders, including in Transnistria, a pro-Russiabreakaway region of Moldova southwest of Ukraine. Another 25,000 Russian troops occupyCrimea to the south.

In a March 15 speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Moscows annexation ofCrimea on the basis that up until six decades ago the peninsula had been part of Russia, apossession of the czarist Russian empire before 1917. And he made similar claims to otherregions in Ukraine. After the [1917] revolution, the Bolsheviks may God judge them, addedlarge sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine, Putin said.

Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik Party brought to power in 1917 fought toreverse centuries of Great Russian chauvinism. But the Soviet Unions policy of backing the


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rights and national aspirations of the many peoples oppressed under the czarist empire wasreversed as part of a counterrevolution led by Joseph Stalin that began in the 1920s.

The Ukrainian military today reduced to some 140,000 troops, only 6,000 of whom areconsidered ready for duty has been seeking money from big Ukrainian capitalists andorganizing collections from Ukrainian working people.

And the government has sought to end the Maidan protest by recruiting young demonstrators tothe National Guard. We have to disarm them, because they simply cannot have arms, saidUkraines new defense chief and First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema.

Meanwhile, working people are organizing their own defense guards. In a recent trip to theeastern city of Krivii Rig, union members showed a flyer calling on all who are not indifferent tothe fate of their families and our country to organize voluntary local peoples self-defensedetachments.

We organized self-defense units here, starting with members of the miners union, saidSamoilov Juriy Petrovych, the local leader of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraineat the big iron ore mine in Krivii Rig, March 26. We were facing attacks from what they callTatushka, which are groups of thugs recruited from among unemployed, lumpen elements. Herethey were organized by the guard detachments of the mine owners.

Now were building on this to organize to meet whatever challenges to come from the cops,the thugs or Russian forces.

Effective April 1, the Russian government raised by 80 percent the price of natural gas importsinto Ukraine. Russias union of milk producers is asking for a ban on Ukrainian dairy products,and Russian steel companies are pressing for protectionist measures against Ukrainian ore.

Imperialist aid increases debt

The International Monetary Fund announced in Kiev March 27 an agreement to loan up to $18billion to the Ukrainian government over two years. The deal, subject to approval by the IMFboard, is designed to prevent Kiev from defaulting on interest payments on its foreign debt. Bythe end of 2003, the countrys foreign debt had climbed to more than $17 billion. By 2012 it hadsoared to $135 billion.Ukrainian Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told Ukraines parliament that grossdomestic product could drop 10 percent this year unless urgent steps were taken, reported theNew York Times. Steps include freezing the minimum wage and raising gas prices by more than50 percent by May 1, followed by further increases under a fixed timetable through 2018.

Since the Russian occupation of Crimea, thousands of Tatars have left the peninsula.Temporary shelters have been organized in several Ukrainian cities, including here in Kiev.

On March 20, the Ukrainian parliament, after decades of foot dragging, adopted a resolutionrecognizing the Crimean Tatars as an indigenous people with the right to self-determination inUkraine. Mustafa Dzhemilev, a central leader of the Crimean Tatars and member of theUkrainian parliament, said at a press conference in Kiev March 22 that the resolution was good,but a shame that it was done so late.

Dzhemilev also criticized Moscows ban on some 200 Crimean and other Ukrainian politicians


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from entering Crimea, including Dzhemilev, who voted for the dissolution of the Russian-imposed parliament there.

Putin recently told Dzhemilev that he would do everything to protect Crimean Tatars from anypossible aggression, according to Monkey Cage, a blog of the Washington Post. But hiswooing of the Tatars who were brutally oppressed by the czars and Stalin has largely

fallen on deaf ears.


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8/10/2019 Ukrai

ukraine articles 2013-2014 from the pages of the militant newspaper

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