Searchlight ill-informed and incoherent attack on ‘Solidarity with the Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine’

  

Borotba - Ukraine

 

Democracy and Class Struggle is concerned at the co-ordinated attacks on Borotba and  deliberate misinformation orchestrated from Kiev by disgraceful Maidan Leftists of which the latest statement from Searchlight is a recent example.

 

We respectfully suggest Searchlight's attention to be drawn to the real frauds on the Left in Ukraine like Zakhar Popovych and Ilya Budraitskis .

 

It is very sad to see that Gerry Gable, editor of the antifascist magazine Searchlight, has written an ill-informed and incoherent attack (Warning to antifascists invited to meeting in SOAS) on the newly formed campaign Solidarity with the Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine, which was founded last night at a meeting of more than 150 people in London.

Gerry’s article makes three points, and none of them has the slightest credibility.

The first is that the Russian television station RT gives a platform to fascists. This is irrelevant. We are not sponsored by or funded by RT in any way. Nor does he give any evidence that we are.

The second is that RT journalists have links to shadowy groups such as the Lyndon LaRouche cult, and that someone in Donetsk also has such links, and that the Ukrainian socialist group Borotba who addressed our launch meeting support the struggle in Donetsk.

This implication that we are connected to a universally despised cult is a transparent attempt at guilt by association. But the association is nil and Gerry gives no evidence of any.

All attentive readers will reject this as a baseless smear.

Furthermore, while Borotba issued a balanced statement on the formation of the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples’ Republics, it then went on to criticise the conservative turn represented by the Constitution which was published.

The attack against Borotba includes one point which requires further clarification. Gerry’s unnamed sources alleges that: “Borotba is a fake left-wing organisation the representatives of which are now travelling across Europe to get funding for their dodgy activities.”

Getting funding from left wing organisations for “dodgy activities” is a serious charge and we ask Gerry and his unnamed source to please provide some evidence for that, or else retract the allegation.

In all our dealings with Borotba, in gathering information and providing solidarity for their comrades, one of whom was killed at the Odessa Trade Union building, some of whom suffered an attempted kidnap by paramilitary fascist thugs in Kharkov, etc., they have never requested any funding from us for their activities, dodgy or otherwise.

Gerry’s third ‘point’ is a mere republication of comments by an unnamed source who is, we are told, “one of the most experienced investigators of what really goes on in Moscow and Kiev.” We wonder who this person is?

His investigative skills are in question because his information amounts to no more than republication of a recent attack on the socialist Borotba Union of Ukraine by the six-strong Kiev group that publish ‘autonomia.net’. Their libel against Borotba has been comprehensively answered:
http://borotba.orgstatement_of_the_union_borotba_over_recent_smear_campaign_against_anti-fascists_in_ukraine.html/

Finally, we have to report that Gerry never approached us for our comments, never asked us if the allegations were true, never sought our opinions. He could have contacted me, or Lindsey German of Stop the War, or Andrew Murray of the Communist Party, and put these allegations to us. He did not.

Instead he swallowed them whole, and then accused us of being ‘enemies of the anti-fascist struggle’ and ‘political crooks’.

No one can take any pleasure in concluding that Gerry Gable’s investigative methods are deeply flawed, his approach biased, and his treatment of sources credulous in the extreme.

Antifascists should reject this as an outrageous smear campaign against Solidarity with the Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine.

Richard Brenner

Solidarity with the Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine

 

Source :http://ukraineantifascistsolidarity.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/searchlight-ill-informed-and-incoherent-attack-on-solidarity-with-the-antifascist-resistance-in-ukraine/

 

Demonstration in Hyde Park London 8th June 2014 - Punjab under seige - Delhi's undeclared War on the Sikhs

Join the Demonstration in Hyde Park, London on Sunday 8th June 2014 – 12:00 h

Condemn Indian Army’s ‘Operation Blue Star’ 1984

Mark the 30th Anniversary of Sikh Genocide

Demand justice for the people of Punjab and rest of India

Abolish Death Penalty; Release all Political Prisoners 

 

 

Punjab under seige - Delhi’s undeclared War on Sikhs

On 6 June 1984, tanks, mortars, missiles and sophisticated guns roared in a pre-planned concerted operation to crush the ‘enemy’. The ‘enemy’ was not a foreign aggressor nation but the Indian people themselves.

A full scale army attack was launched simultaneously on the holy shrines of Amritsar Golden Temple and 40 other Sikh temples across Punjab.

Between 6 - 8 June thousands of innocent Sikhs - men, women and children were killed along with hundreds of Sikh fighters. Many of the dead have never been accounted for. In the 20^th century this was the second biggest tragedy that the people of Amritsar had faced after Jallianwalah Bagh massacre.

The added new dimension to this is the recent news report about the secret document from British national archives that revealed UK government’s collaboration with Indian government in planning the attack on Sikhs, when Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister.

The Anandpur Sahib Resolution - a reflection of the aspirations of the people of Punjab

The Central government, instead of considering the democratic demands of the Akali movement based on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, it had sought to drown the just struggle of the Sikhs in a pool of blood The Anandpur Sahib Resolution passed by Akali Dal in 1973 contained genuine demands such as a) regional autonomy for Punjab state, b) return of Chandigarh and Punjabi speaking areas to Punjab; c) review of Ravi-Beas river waters by supreme court for an equitable distribution of river waters between Punjab and its neighbors; d) a fair share of electricity to Punjab and some minor religious demands. These democratic demands concerned the entire Punjabi people and are not just limited to Sikhs.

Indian Union: a prison-house of oppressed nationalities, minorities, Dalits and Adivasis

India is a multi-national country in which all nationalities are being oppressed by the Central government, though at varying degrees. The constitution of Indian is Federal on paper and Unitary in practice. Almost all important matters are controlled by the Union Government that favours the big corporate houses such as Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis, allowing them to bulldoze their way into any state in India and letting them loot the local natural resources and the local market.

The right to self determination of people of Kashmir and the Northeastern states such as Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Mizoram have been taken away by Delhi, which imposed Army rule in these states, though name-sake Assemblies exist in parallel. India comprises a large number of minorities, who are coming more and more under the heel of Hindu fascist forces sponsored by the Indian state. The killings of thousands of Sikhs across India after assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, genocide of Muslims in Gujarat, atrocities on Christians in Orissa and more recently on Muslims in Muzaffarnager - are only a few glaring examples of atrocities on minorities.

On the other hand, violence and atrocities on Dalits (the most downtrodden people of Indian society) such as Laxmanpur Bathe, Kairlanji, and Dharmapuri are increasing. In the states of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Orissa, hundreds of battalions of state paramilitary forces are engaged in an undeclared war against the Adivasis (indigenous people). This war, code named ‘Operation Green Hunt’ is being waged by the Indian Government in an attempt to uproot millions of Adivasis from their ancestral lands, in order to facilitate huge corporate mining projects.

The Indian Army has been building fortifications and at the same time the Indian Air Force has been building air strips - all in preparations for a full-scale war on India’s own people. Rapes, abductions, killings, burning of homes and crops have become a routine, wherever the Indian Police, the Paramilitary and the Army are deployed in ‘security’ operations up and down the country.

Scores of people are on death row - Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, Balwant Singh Rajoana, Kishna Mochi, Bir Kuer Pawan, Dhamendra Singh, Nanche Lal Mochi and Shobitt Chamar to mention a few. Tens of thousands across the country have been languishing in jails for years, many of them without trial. Hundreds of political prisoners such as Kobad Ghandy, Kabir Kala Manch members and the above mentioned people are jailed indefinitely and Delhi University professor Dr GN Saibaba is the recent addition to the long list. Locking up of dissenting voices has become the norm in the ‘world’s largest (farcical) democracy’

Sikhs must unite with other oppressed nationalities, minorities and democratic forces

In order to achieve justice for the families of those who got killed in ‘Operation Blue Star’ and the Dehli massacre and to achieve the democratic demands of the people of Punjab on the lines of Anandpur Sahib Resolution, Sikhs must ally themselves with the struggling people of all other oppressed nationalities and religious minorities of India. They must unite with the progressive forces in the country that stand for equality of all religions and nationalities of India. Only this combined strength can act as an effective force against the oppressive and repressive policies of the Indian government. Only then can the democratic demands of the people of Punjab and other states in India be achieved.

Indian Workers’ Association, Great Britain

iwagb1938@hotmail.com

 

See Also:

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/india -1984-operation-bluestar-untold.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/oppose-operation-bluestar-and-long-live.html 

Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain, by Robert Ford and Matthew J. Goodwin

A study of Ukip’s rise yields surprising facts about the party’s followers, says Daphne Halikiopoulou.
 

Published on the eve of the European Union elections, Revolt on the Right is a highly topical account of what the authors term “one of the most successful challenges to the established political parties in modern Britain”.

Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin follow the UK Independence Party from its establishment in “the dusty office” of a London School of Economics history lecturer to its current status as the “most significant new British political party in a generation” under the leadership of Nigel Farage. Their most important findings concern the nature of the party’s voting base.

In short, Ukip supporters are not who we think they are.

They are neither single-issue anti-EU voters nor middle-aged, middle-class Tories suspicious of David Cameron’s policies.

Rather, Ukip’s support base is predominantly working class – in fact, the most working-class base for a major party since Michael Foot’s Labour.

Drawing on an impressive pool of survey data, the authors show that those most likely to vote Ukip are angry old white men: the older, less skilled, less educated working-class voters who have been “written out of the political debate”.

These voters attach a broader meaning to their dislike of the EU, linking it to concerns about immigration, access to welfare, Britain’s sovereignty and future, and dissatisfaction with mainstream parties.

These groups had initially turned their backs on politics, but Ukip has offered them an outlet and a voice for their concerns.

This finding is significant. Ford and Goodwin argue that because Ukip’s support is predominantly working class, it poses a significant threat to Labour, not just the Tories as has been assumed.

Therefore Ukip is dangerous.

Curbing its support is not simply a question of the Tories pushing for stricter immigration policies and a stronger anti-EU stance.

The party’s rise is largely attributable to its ability to push a “value divide” to the forefront of the political agenda.

Yet why should the finding that Ukip’s support base includes predominantly older working-class white men necessarily entail a big threat to Labour?

After all, there has always been a sizeable proportion of the working class that voted for parties other than Labour.

These voters could simply be part of the Tory working-class base, swing voters or voters who abstain altogether, all part of a pool on which Labour support does not necessarily depend.

And if this is true, how does it compare with support for the radical Right across Europe? While many such European parties make a similar “value divide” pitch, in some cases the support base differs fundamentally. For example, in contrast to Ukip’s angry old white men – and even the BNP’s angry young white men – supporters of Golden Dawn in Greece come from many different educational, professional, age and class backgrounds.

If Ford and Goodwin are correct – if Ukip’s rise isn’t just about annoyed Tories but about deeply disenfranchised, “left behind”, working-class groups – then Labour will find itself in a precarious situation in coming elections.

Even more importantly, the cultural divide will play a fundamental role in reconfiguring partisan alignments, and Ukip may be here to stay. Yet the main test for the party will not necessarily be its performance during the second-order EU elections, but rather the 2015 national elections and beyond.

Don’t think of Ukip as just a party; think of them as a symptom of far deeper social and value divisions in Britain. Farage is winning over working-class, white male voters because they feel left behind by Britain’s rapid economic and social transformation and left out of our political conversation; struggling people who feel like strangers in a society whose ruling elites do not talk like them or value the things which matter to them.

This should ring loud alarm bells on the left. In a time of falling incomes, rising inequality and spending cuts, such voters should be lining up behind the party that traditionally stood for social protection and redistribution. Instead, they are switching their loyalty to a right-wing party headed by a stockbroker and staffed by activists who worship Thatcher. Those who are getting hit hardest by the crisis and austerity are turning not to Labour, but to Farage for solutions.

One reason for this is that for those left behind, politics is no longer about economics. These voters are not backing Ukip because of their economic concerns; they are backing the party because they see Farage as representing an identity and set of values they cherish but do not see expressed anywhere else. These voters have been left behind not just by wider trends, but the rise to dominance of a university-educated, professional middle-class elite whose priorities and outlook now define the mainstream.

The dramatic nature of this shift is often missed because it has been accomplished over decades. Yet in only 50 years Britain has gone from a society where working-class voters with little education decided elections to one where such voters are now only spectators, and the crucial and decisive battle is fought between middle-class graduate candidates seeking middle-class graduate votes. When Harold Wilson was elected in 1964, working-class voters outnumbered professional middle-class voters two to one; by 2010 the professional middle classes had a four to three advantage.

Both Tony Blair and Cameron have sought to revive their party’s prospects by appealing to the rising middle classes. Neither has shown much interest in the struggling, left-behind voters, and since 1997 these voters have made their feelings about being marginalised clear: turnout from these groups has collapsed, and dissatisfaction with politics has increased. Ukip’s deputy leader, Paul Nuttall, captured this sense of exclusion in a 2013 speech: “In the days of Clement Attlee, Labour MPs came from the mills, the mines and the factories. The Labour MPs today go to private school, to Oxbridge, [then] they get a job in an MP’s office.”

These changes have been accompanied by a major transformation in the values that dominate the country. Across Europe it is no coincidence that radical right parties similar to Ukip win support from the same working-class voters, and accomplish this by targeting the same issues: national identity; immigration; Europe; and resentment of political and social elites. This is because there is now a deep and growing divide in the values of the left-behind and the professional middle-class mainstream.


Democracy and Class Struggle welcomes this study even if we do not agree with all its conclusions, it is the most detailed survey of UKIP voters and should be studied by all on the Left to understand UKIP and what propels it, and how it can effectively be combated.

Confronting Financialisation on Steroids by Costas Lapavitsas

Save Tamil Refugees - Protest in London at UNHCR - Friday 6th June 2014

Protest rape & murder of Dalit & tribal women in India at Indian High Commission London on 4th June 2014

Wednesday 4 June  4.30pm
Protest rape & murder of Dalit & tribal women in India

Indian High Commission,
The Aldwych, London WC2
(nearest tube: Holborn)

Organised by Freedom Without Fear Platform

 

Please come and support this important protest.  On 28 May, two teenage girls were brutally gang raped and lynched by higher class landowners in Uttar Pradesh, India. Hundreds of villagers, including many women and girls, held a sit in under the tree where the bodies were found to press authorities to arrest the suspects -- some are police officers.

 

The local chief of police had ignored the father’s report of the girls’ abduction for over twelve hours.  Had police acted sooner, the girls might still be alive.

The village protesters’ determination to get justice resulted in the police finally arresting three of the suspects and two police officers for shielding the perpetrators. The search continues for the other men suspected of being involved.

 

Women of Colour GWs is going to the London protest to show international support for the victims’ families, Dalit women and their communities.  Please come and circulate the call widely in your network

. 

 

See more information here

"The recent election victory of Narendra Modi and the BJP has further emboldened upper caste and economically powerful rapists. The Brahmanical-patriarchal ideas of the Hindu right, in which Dalit women’s lives have no value, are being combined with intensified neoliberal economic policies which leave Dalits and other exploited and marginalised people even more vulnerable.

While Modi tried to reach out to Dalits in his election campaign, his close ally Baba Ramdev’s offensive remarks about Dalit women as the sexual property of upper castes exposed once again the misogynistic casteism of the Hindu right.

In the wake of the Badaun case, Modi has condemned the appalling levels of gender violence in opposition-ruled UP, but the fact that he has given a Ministerial post in his government to Sanjeev Baliyan, one of the main accused in the Muzaffarnagar communal violence in UP last year which involved mass rapes of Muslim women, sends out a very different signal".
 

Democracy and Class Struggle Salutes the Merthyr Revolt of 1st - 7th of June 1831

They have talked of Merthyr Tydfil
wherever men were free

To honour those who toiled and died
for human liberty

And men have told her troubled tale
to spur the sons of men

When hopes were faint or flagging,
to lift their hearts again

by Idris Davies

The disgrace of the Maidan leftists by Dave Stockton

One of the most striking features of the events in Ukraine, both before and after the February coup, was the disgraceful response of some groups on the British and international left, including Socialist Resistance (British section of the Fourth International).

First they denied the fundamentally reactionary nature of the Maidan movement. Then, when the far-right and fascist parties seized power and formed a coalition, rather than correct their error they deepened it by downplaying the illegitimacy of the regime and the fascist element within it. Then, to complete the ugly picture, they opposed the inevitable resistance to the far right and its Right Sector squads that broke out in the south and east of Ukraine.

In an ultimate disgrace, they reproduced patent lies from dodgy Ukrainian sources that claimed the victims of the 2 May massacre in Odessa had brought it on themselves, denying that they were murdered by the Right Sector fascists, despite clear contemporaneous reports, photographs and video evidence to the contrary.

That this has happened now is no accident, no “different reading of events”. Through all of this, they play down the role of Nato and the EU in egging on the Kiev regime, and of the US in promoting the fascists’ participation in the government. Instead, they put all their emphasis on the threat of Russian imperialism.

Exactly 100 years after the start of the First World War, with a strong wind of reaction blowing and a new period of inter-imperialist rivalry opening, for these “post-Leninists” the main enemy is anywhere but at home.

Maidan left in denial

Socialist Resistance backed the Maidan movement despite its overtly pro-European Union, neoliberal and nationalist leadership. They downplayed the increasingly obvious domination on the Square by extreme right wing forces and their repulsive fascist iconography, such as the Swastika-like “Wolfsangel” and the straight-arm salute.

The Maidan socialists minimised the Right Sector and Svoboda’s role in overthrowing Yanukovych and in imposing the new regime – in exactly the same way as the Western media and the imperialist politicians did. In particular, they tried to ignore the integration of fascist militia into the repressive forces of the new regime, via appointments to key ministries and the formation of a new “National Guard”.

Proven fraudster from 2003 Ilya Budraitskis has now popped up as the main spokesperson of the Fourth International’s Russian section, Vpered. Although he acknowledged the hegemony of fascist stormtroopers in Maidan, he concluded that the movement itself remained progressive, despite the absence of anything but reactionary demands, saying: “the incredibly sickening dissonance between the revolutionary content of the process and its reactionary form represents circumstances demanding not squeamish ethical evaluations, but action aimed at changing such an ugly equation.”1

The “action” he advocated was the building of a “Left Sector” within the Maidan, even though countless reports indicate that the left could not even distribute leaflets in Maidan, let alone Kalashnikovs. In fact, as reality has shown, it was necessary to build a movement not within but against the Maidan – but now this has actually happened, the FI refuses to support it.

In the same way, they downplayed the interference of Western imperialism, indeed its key role in initiating the entire movement. Again this was curious, given the flood of US and EU statesmen and women into Maidan Square. The leaked phone call of the neo-conservative US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, demanding that Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Fatherland, not Germany’s favourite, Vitali Klitschko, should head the government – with her infamous phrase, “Fuck the EU” – should have alerted socialists. The government that was formed has many ministers from the fascist Svoboda party and handed control of security to key leaders of the neo-Nazi Right Sector.

Nuland herself came to the Maidan to glad-hand nationalists and fascists, and John McCain to hug them. Those who thought this was another Occupy Wall Street or a Tahrir Square might pause to consider why these ladies and gentlemen never appeared there with their kisses and cookies. Indeed, why they did not support genuinely democratic uprisings at all.

Like the western media – and David Cameron, Barack Obama and Angela Merkel – the “Maidan socialists” knew from day one who they thought the main enemy was: Vladimir Putin. For them, the main danger was not fascists in power in Kyiv, but a Russian military invasion of Ukraine. “Putin’s strategy is to gouge out chunks of Ukrainian territory,” wrote Liam Mac Uaid on Socialist Resistance’s website – even though Putin has twice now refused to come to the support of the beleaguered Russophone community in the east and south.2

The secession of Crimea and its application to join Russia apparently justified this fear. Yet, even the journalists sent by the Western media found no evidence of coercion to vote yes and could not maintain that the referendum was unrepresentative of the wishes of the majority of Crimeans. Hardly surprising given that the majority of Crimeans are Russian, Crimea never voted to join Ukraine, and the new Kyiv junta tried to downgrade the status of the Russian language. Putin didn’t exactly have to force people to vote to secede!

However, this has not stopped Mac Uaid claiming it was “a flagrantly ridiculous referendum”3, a trick played by Russia and nothing more. Clearly the right of nations to self-determination – or at least Russian-speaking nations – counts for nothing for this “socialist”.

The referendum then became the pretext for international sanctions and more serious military threats aimed at Russia. For the Kyiv regime, it served as the pretext for a “campaign against terrorism”, in reality a war on the population of southern and eastern Ukraine, in which Kyiv’s forces, backed by their irregular National Guard and Right Sector militias have killed dozens, if not hundreds, of civilians.

The announcement of Nato summer manoeuvres in Ukraine itself, the entry of US and French warships into the Black Sea, plus the declared intention of offering Nato membership to Ukraine just did not show up on these leftists’ antique anti-imperialist radar. All they could see were the 40,000 Russian troops on Russian territory.

All socialists agree that Putin’s regime is repressive, homophobic, even dictatorial. But if, at the same time as stressing this, you totally ignore the offensive character of Nato’s eastward expansion and its blatant political grab for Ukraine by supporting a coup there, the implication is that “our” imperialist powers are impelled by “democratic” motives. Tell that to the Iraqis, and to the defenders of Donetsk and Slaviansk today.

Odessa

The most shameful act came when these apologists for Maidan reacted to the 2 May Odessa massacre of over 40 antifascists, who had fled from an attack by Right Sector Nazis and right wing football gangs into the nearby House of Trade Unions. An “eye-witness” article on the dubious Left Opposition’s website, shamefully reproduced without balance by Workers Liberty and shared by Socialist Resistance and International Socialist Network members, opens: “Who bears the guilt for the tragedy in Odessa? For me, the answer is obvious: Russian fascists and the police.”

The article derides the peaceful protesters for autonomy (Western media propaganda and lazy “socialists” alike call them “pro-Russian separatists” but in fact they are “anti-Maidan federalists”) in patently racist terms, showing the full contempt for Russians common today in western Ukraine: “worshippers of Stalin and lovers of the ‘Father Czar’, Russian Nazis and music-hall Cossacks, Russian-Orthodox fanatics and grandmas”.

But even this obviously twisted account can only go so far as to say:

“Who set fire to the House of the Trade Unions is unknown – Molotov cocktails were being thrown by both sides.”4

In other words, throw a lot of mud and confusion, half-truths and lies at an event, then decide it’s “too difficult” to find out what happened. A disgraceful attempt to cover up responsibility for a fascist massacre. Worse, Suhail Ilyas, on the website of a recent breakaway from the SWP called RS21, simply claims that “news sources differ on the sequence of events” and concludes: “Neither side requires their version of events to be true, they simply need to entrench division”.5

Fortunately for genuine anti-fascists, there is a reliable source. We reproduce some of the evidence of what really happened on page 2 of this supplement (Never forget Odessa and Mariupol!).

However, Zakhar Popovych, another proven fraudster from 2003 and now leader of the Ukrainian Left Opposition, tries to blame the victims of the massacre for their own deaths at the hands of the Right Sector fascists – for, in effect, “provoking” them:

“Andrey Brazhevsky, a 27 year old programmer, a member of the ‘Borotba’ organization, was killed in the ‘House of Unions’. He was in a pro-Russian ‘Odesskaya druzhina’ paramilitary unit. Another young man from the ‘antifa’ football fans movement was shot on Sobornaya Square. It appears that left activists became the infantry, the cannon fodder in the war which clearly has nothing to do with the class interests of Ukrainian workers.”6

It seems “the interests of Ukrainian workers” require that workers in southern and eastern Ukraine, deeply alarmed and angered by the armed fascists and football ultras parading through their streets, should remain disorganised and defenceless. Why? So as not to provoke (!) violence.

In fact the reason the Right Sector was able to wreak such murderous havoc was precisely that the Odessa defence units were not numerous or well-armed enough to stop the Nazis. (Note Popovych’s use of the term “paramilitary” to “otherise” someone who jumped from a torched trade union building and was then beaten to death on the ground).

Imagine if this had happened in Britain, if the BNP or English Defence League had murdered antifascists after our side had blocked a provocative “demo for England” through their streets. Would RS21 or SR have denounced both sides because a few anti-Nazis had taken up baseball bats or stolen a few handguns from the useless police? Would they have blamed the anti-Nazis for starting it by blocking the march or pointed to the participation of non-combatants on the fascist demo? If they did, there would be uproar in their ranks – as there should be over this betrayal of workers, socialists and ethnic minorities in Ukraine.

Fraud and the Fourth International

Socialist Resistance rests its case on the evidence of a dubious grouping the FI is linked to in Ukraine: the Left Opposition.

Dubious because a number of their spokespersons have been identified as the perpetrators of a major fraud on the international left in the early 2000s, though at the time these fraudsters were attached to the Committee for a Workers’ International, whose British section is the Socialist Party.7

To repeatedly cite such people as witnesses, whose evidence always seems to come a couple of days after events, to contradict contemporaneous accounts, and to be unsubstantiated by photographic or video evidence is perverse in the extreme. To cite them as evidence of the progressive character of the Maidan movement and the legitimacy of the Kyiv regime, and to discredit and libel as “Russian nationalists” those revolutionary socialists, like Borotba, who are resisting that regime, in our view, marks a serious degeneration for Socialist Resistance and the leadership of the Fourth International, which takes the same line.

Fortunately, individual members and some sections of the FI (notably OKDE-Spartakos, its Greek section, and some individuals in Socialist Resistance) have resisted this shameful political line.
The Left Opposition consistently downplays the right wing nationalist character of the forces in the Kyiv regime, demanding recognition of its “legitimacy” and painting its opponents as Russian separatists, if not agents of Putin.

At a meeting in London on 10 March, LO leader Zakhar Popovych said that he “recognised this Ukrainian government as legitimate and revolutionary. We appeal to all other governments to recognise it as legitimate. But we don’t support it politically.” In particular, “we don’t support its chauvinistic and anti-communist history.”8

Of course, if you recognise the coup regime as “legitimate”, when its parliament has been purged of over a hundred deputies from the east of the country, disenfranchising those regions, and its government includes ministers who elevate the Nazi-ally Stepan Bandera into national hero, and whose supporters deface Soviet war memorials, then it must seem natural to stigmatise its opponents as rebels, agents of a foreign power, etc. In short, they have adopted the narrative of Ukrainian nationalism and western imperialism.

It is time to ask if the Fourth International is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One with its very own 4 August.9

Notes
1 http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3275
2 http://socialistresistance.org/6085/
ukraine-the-russians-are-the-aggressors
3 ibid
4 http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2014/05/05/eye-witnesses-odessa
5 http://rs21.org.uk/2014/05/07/the-tragedy-of-odessa/
6 http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3398
7 This is the most comprehensive account of the fraudsters: http://komepd.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/maidan-and-a-ukranian-story-of-a-lasting-fraud/
It should be noted that Ilya Budraitskis is the current leader of the FI’s Russian section, Vpered, and Zakhar Popovych is the leader of the Ukrainian Left Opposition. Both are fraudsters.
8 http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2014/03/11/russian-and-ukrainian-socialists-speak-out
9 4 August 1914 was the day the German SPD voted for war credits, which Lenin recognised as the end of the Socialist International as an instrument for world revolution.

SOURCE : http://www.workerspower.co.uk/2014/05/the-disgrace-of-the-maidan-leftists/

Capitalism: A Ghost Story - by Arundhati Roy

Democracy and Class Struggle says the recent Hay Festival in Wales an annual literary festival dedicated to books and authors was this year sponsored by Tata.

That immediately made us think of Arundhati Roy and how corporates now fund and yes control global cultural and literary discourse.

NGO's are also funded by corporates - this is the real corporate totalitarianism  that Arundhati Roy speaks about in Capitalism A Ghost Story.

Corporate's are not just satisfied with their totalitarian power but they must also control the opposition to their power.

From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India.

India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country's 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India's gross domestic product. Capitalism:

A Ghost Story examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India, and shows how the demands of globalized capitalism has subjugated billions of people to the highest and most intense forms of racism and exploitation.

See Also:

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/arundhati-roy-on-narendra-modi-and.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/india-is-corporate-hindu-state.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/narendra-modi-leader-of-bjp-wins-indian.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/india-arundhati-roy-annas-movement-is.html

Costas Lapavitsas - Financialization and the Collapse of European Social Democracy