#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #UK #UKRAINE #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #UK, #ACG: #Ukraine: war drums on the Dnieper (ca, de, it, fr, pt)

 Whilst tensions between Putin's Russia and Zelensky's Ukraine have reduced in

recent days, we are sharing the following article from Konflikt, a new
libertarian revolutionary group in Bulgaria, which analyses the situation and the
needed response from the working class: rejection of both camps and a struggle
for its own interests. ---- In ‘the West' we are presented with an image of the
Russian oligarchy as an enemy of ‘freedom and democracy', ever ready to spread
its influence by military force at the first opportunity. And the latter has
certainly been highlighted with Russian intervention in Crimea and the Donbas
region following the Ukrainian ‘Maidan' of 2014. But on the other side, NATO has
had its own interventions on behalf of Ukraine and built up forces in the region
as a ‘warning' to Putin. All of this posturing, including Ukraine's President
Zelensky's claim that Russia is preparing a coup in Ukraine itself, serves as a
smokescreen for domestic failures, particularly around the handling of the covid
crisis. Likewise, Russian chest-beating serves to drown out their own domestic
problems and disorientate the ‘opposition'.

To hell with both ‘sides'.

ACG

War drums on the Dnieper
Link to article on Konflikt's website here

There is talk of war in Ukraine. Actually there is already a war, but there is
talk of more war. Russia is massing it's forces along its borders. America is
warning Russia that if they attack, America will...well, not do very much
actually. How did we get here? Seven years ago, the streets of Kiev were full of
demonstrators calling for freedom, and an end to corruption. Now the country is
locked into a low level conflict with the possibility of Russian invasion
imminent. Understanding how we got here can explain a lot about the state of the
world today, the nature of conflicts between nation states, what cross class
movements mean today, and the situation of the working class. In order to
understand these things we need to go back, at least to the Arab spring, perhaps
even to the end of the Cold War and beyond to grasp the context within which
these developments can be understood.

The 1980s were terrible years for the working class in the west. It saw huge
defeats inflicted upon workers particularly in traditional industries, perhaps
best represented by the defeat of the British miners after a year long strike.
Reagan and Thatcher symbolised the end of Keynesianism, and the triumph of
monetarism. The decade was crowned by the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of
so-called socialism in Eastern Europe. In the transition privatisation ran
rampant. What had taken a decade in the west was accomplished in a matter of
months in the east. The economy was torn apart by vultures, and workers' living
standards tumbled. At the time it was hard to realise the depth of the defeat of
the working class. As the nineties wore on though, and new technologies caused
the complete destruction of traditional industries, and the work process was
completely restructured, the working class was decimated. It's fair to say that
it still hasn't recovered from these defeats.

Even worse than the restructuring suffered across the eastern block was what
happened in Yugoslavia. As the state disintegrated, workers turned upon each
other, and committed horrific massacres, and atrocities, often against people who
were former workmates or neighbours, at the behest of the bosses of the newly
emerging nation states. In Europe's deadliest conflict since the Second World
War, workers suffered ten years of horrific massacres, mass rapes, ethnic
cleansing, and genocide. Serbian workers, and Croatian workers aren't the people
who win in situations like this. They are the ones who suffer. Those who call for
the defence of the nation are the ones who cause this suffering. America,
following its almost complete victory in the Cold War, went onto the offensive.
It's ideologues proclaimed ‘the End of History', and it's generals took chaos and
destruction to the Middle East, beginning with Iraq.‘The End of History' was seen
as a world where all of the globe would be made up of free democratic states, and
because of this there would be an end to the causes of antagonism between these
states. Of course, it was never going to happen. Following the defeat of
America's leading ideological enemy, the so-called communism of the USSR, America
found a new ideological enemy. This time it was muslims. After supporting Islamic
extremists in Afghanistan and other places during the Cold War, America turned on
Muslims in general once the usefulness of their temporary allies was exhausted.
America fought its first war in Iraq to get rid of a dictator who had been
oppressing his own people, and had even used poison gas against his own citizens.
America knew that he was responsible for this because they had helped supply the
very same gas that he used when he was a useful ally against Russia. Iraq was
devastated, and so began the new series of wars across the Middle East.

Russia too was caught up in wars against Islamic militants in Chechnya. Meanwhile
America saw its chance to consolidate its victory against Russia in Europe. As
the Soviet Union fell apart, NATO expanded. A whole host of countries, such as
this one, which were once in the Russian zone of influence, and even some within
the USSR itself were integrated into NATO. Here lies the root of the current
conflict. America wants to expand the influence of NATO eastwards into Ukraine.
Russia wants to draw a red line here and retain its own influence. It's for the
interests of these two powers that workers are dying in Ukraine today.

To return to the Middle East America's interventions caused an increase in
Islamicism and reaction. After the destruction of the twin towers in New York
City, America unleashed its ‘War of Terror' across the region. Devastation
followed. Many countries across the region suffered American from drone strikes,
bombing raids, or had troops stationed there, alongside direct invasion of
Afghanistan, and, again, Iraq. In 2011, Spring hit the Arab world like a
whirlwind. After years of quietism, all across the Arab world people rose up
against their governments. In Tunisia at least, where the spark had been lit, the
previous December, the movement seemed to have been dominated by the working
class. In Egypt, two movements seemed to run alongside each other, contemporary,
but not really interacting, general society sitting down in Tahir Maydan, with
workers standing up on picket lines outside their factories.

Elsewhere the working class was less able to assert itself. Mass movements
ignited by people's hatred of their governments were pulled apart into religious,
sectarian, ethnic, and tribal conflicts. Instead of fighting for their own
interests, workers ended up killing each other on behalf of local, regional, and
global powers. Of course, the barbarism was more extreme in the places where the
US intervened under the banner of ‘freedom'. Libya, and Syria descended into
complete chaos. The scene is now set for Euromaidan. The years following the Arab
spring saw a repetition of similar events, where the working class was able to
make its voice heard to a greater or lesser extent, but was never able to exert
it's authority, perhaps the most notable one in our region was the one in Turkey
that blew up after the police attacked environmental protestors in Gezi Park in
Istanbul. There, at least, protestors didn't get pulled into fratricidal attacks
upon each other.

Ukraine was different from the start, the protestors were being used as tools by
international powers. The west manoeuvred to pull Ukraine out of Russia's orbit.
Moscow responded militarily, resulting in the occupation of the Crimea, and the
ongoing war. Workers, instead of fighting for their own interests were once again
killing each other on behalf of the great powers. And as in Syria, the war drags
on to today, comparatively smaller, but still thousands of deaths, and over two
million forced to flee their homes. Meanwhile as the war drags on America has
realised that it has over extended itself. First it pulled its troops out of
Syria abandoning its Kurdish allies. Then this year it withdrew from Afghanistan
leaving chaos in its wake. Currently China is making waves over Taiwan, an issue
over which the Americans seem very rattled. It's in this context that Putin is
making his play.

America, in its current isolationist mode, has little more than empty words to
threaten him with. Biden has talked of ‘the most comprehensive and meaningful set
of initiatives', and having ‘a long discussion' with Putin. He has made it clear
though, through its very omission, that military action is off the table. Perhaps
Putin is merely trying to put pressure upon the west. It could be that the more
than 100,000 troops upon Ukraine's borders are merely part of an aggressive
negotiating tactic. Russia's recent set of demands for solving the crisis which
include the withdrawal of troops from all of the Eastern European countries who
joined NATO since the collapse of the USSR will not be acceptable to America.
Moscow undoubtedly knows this. It merely expects to use these troops as a point
to open negotiations and would settle for far less. On the other hand, Biden
behaving as timidly as a kitten might encourage Putin to take more aggressive
action. Whatever course plays out, what is clear is that the interests of
ordinary working people won't come into consideration. Workers will continue to
be killed whatever happens. Neither side has anything to offer except on going
war, and horror.

https://kon-flikt.org/en/articles/war-drums-on-the-dnieper-2/

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2021/12/27/ukraine-war-drums-on-the-dnieper/
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