[ “Sovereignty and self-determination are important concepts to
keep at the heart of Left analysis” — and can help orient us in
the confusion and misinformation surrounding Russia’s war on
Ukraine.]
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Q&A: NAVIGATING THE LEFT’S UKRAINE DEBATE  
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Elly Leary
November 15, 2022
Convergence Magazine
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_ “Sovereignty and self-determination are important concepts to
keep at the heart of Left analysis” — and can help orient us in
the confusion and misinformation surrounding Russia’s war on
Ukraine. _

Scheme of administrative divisivion of Ukraine, January 17, 2010, in
preparation for presidential election, (Wikipedia Commons),

 

1. Why is the principle of self-determination so important to
understanding the conflict in Ukraine?  

There are three aspects to the question of national
self-determination. One, a recognition that “nations” of peoples
have a right to assert their own identity and form a political unit
separate from or included within a larger geo-political grouping. Two,
that a recognized nation-state has the internationally recognized
right to national sovereignty. Specifically, regarding national
sovereignty, no outside power has the right to intervene in the
internal affairs of another country (unless under terms agreed upon by
the United Nations). And third, self-determination is a basic element
of freedom that has tremendous power to forge unity as it resonates
amongst a people.

In the case of Ukraine, the international borders of an independent
Ukraine were recognized in 1991 in the context of the collapse of the
USSR. Ukraine, however, did have a national-territorial status as a
recognized nation after the formation of the USSR and, further, in the
context of the formation of the United Nations. The internationally
recognized borders of Ukraine were affirmed in 1994, with the signing
of the Budapest Accords
[//efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https:/www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_1994_1399.pdf] whereby
Ukraine turned over nuclear weapons on the condition that Russia
pledged to never invade Ukraine and to always respect Ukrainian
sovereignty.

Russia violated this agreement in 2014 with the invasion and
annexation of Crimea, on the pretext of an alleged coup in Kyiv. Even
if one agreed that a coup took place—and we do not—that would not
justify a foreign intervention.

Sovereignty and self-determination are important concepts to keep at
the heart of left analysis.

The US and others have a long and sordid history of meddling in the
internal affairs of countries. The entire 1950s US regime of Allan and
John Foster Dulles (State Department and CIA) was based on this
principle. Ukraine has been the subject of much external plotting and
conniving, certainly by the US
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Even with outside meddling from numerous forces, what took place in
2014 was a matter internal to the Ukraine—the result of its own
internal contradictions. The political outcome was not favorable to
Russia, but was in no way an attack on Russia. As such, it should not
have justified any sort of intervention. Consider the US invasion of
Panama in 1989. It was based on the pretext that Manuel Noriega was a
criminal and that the US had to bring him to justice. While Noriega
certainly was a criminal—and one who had regularly worked in
cooperation with the USA—he was also the president of a sovereign
nation. As with Ukraine, there was no internationally legal
justification for a US invasion (of Panama).

National self-determination for Ukraine is of further importance given
the semi-colonial relationship the country has historically had with
Russia, despite the close linguistic and cultural ties. Asserting that
Russia has no need to recognize Ukrainian sovereignty due to historic
ties would be the equivalent of suggesting that the US has no need to
recognize Canadian sovereignty given the close linguistic and cultural
ties that go back at least two hundred years.

2. Is this a proxy war between the US/NATO and Russia?

It has become almost fashionable, among some segments of the Left, to
call the Russo-Ukrainian War a “proxy war” between Russia and
NATO: that is a war in which the principal contradiction is the
instigation of war by foreign powers, and in which internal
contradictions are secondary.

An excellent example of a “proxy war” would be the conflicts
within the Democratic Republic of the Congo post-1997 wherein the
domestic forces were largely eclipsed by or dominated by foreign
actors, e.g., Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, multi-national
corporations. While there was certainly an internal conflict, various
militias were doing the bidding of foreign actors.

The Russo-Ukrainian War is no more a “proxy war” than was the
Vietnam War. Yet it is important to remember that many liberals and
right-wingers described the Vietnam War as a proxy war between the US,
on the one hand, and the USSR and China on the other. They ignored the
national question—the fact that the Vietnam War was about US
aggression against the people of Vietnam (and, later, the people of
Laos and Cambodia). A proxy war is taking place when there are bad
actors on both sides, not when one side is fighting for their
independence—even if the side fighting for independence seeks help
from other nations.

The Russo-Ukrainian War is the direct result of Russia violating the
sovereignty of Ukraine. About this there is little debate. The
question is whether their violation was justified by acts of NATO.
 Since there was no evidence that NATO has armed Ukraine with nuclear
weapons and since there is ample evidence that several NATO
member-states were actively opposed to the inclusion of Ukraine within
NATO, the argument falls flat.

Putin’s stated objective is to end the national sovereignty of
Ukraine. Any mention of the role of NATO is a red herring that hides
the real aim of Russia to expand its sphere of influence.

3. What has been the role of NATO? Is it the aggressor in this current
conflict?

Let’s be clear: the fall of the Berlin Wall offered a unique
opportunity to reconfigure international relations worldwide. Leftists
and progressives argued vigorously for the disbanding of NATO and for
a new framework to be drawn based on mutual respect, democracy and
security. That did not happen. Despite sufficient evidence that the US
agreed or implied that NATO would not expand, without this being
codified in writing all bets were off once the USSR collapsed.

The irony is that the invasion ended any hope for a new framework
beyond NATO; in fact, it accomplished the opposite. There appear to
have been major conflicts within the NATO community regarding what
should unfold. What did happen, however, is that NATO expanded
eastward towards the Russian border when countries that had been
formerly in the Soviet bloc indicated that they needed protection
against a potential Russian expansionist/hegemonist threat. NATO was
not pushed on these countries, though NATO could have and should have
stopped the expansion. The expansion largely stopped in 2004.

What changed was the 2014 crisis in Ukraine. Remember that that the
Budapest Accords of 1994 did not have any sort of “exception”
clause that would ever justify a Russian invasion. When the 2014
crisis unfolded, the so-called Maidan uprisings, a pro-Russian
administration was chased out of the country by a broad coalition
within which there were hard, rightwing forces. It is around this time
that Ukrainian chauvinists began pushing anti-ethnic Russian politics,
especially regarding usages of the language. The Putin regime utilized
the internal Ukrainian conflict as a pretext for an intervention. This
included seizing Crimea and supporting separatist regimes in the
Donbas region.

It was in the context of the Russian intervention in the _internal
affairs of Ukraine_ that the matter of NATO arose. Prior to 2014
there was little interest
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Ukraine joining NATO. As a result of Russian interference in Ukraine,
including but not limited to the seizing of Crimea, interest in NATO
emerged.

In the lead-up to the February 2022 invasion, the Ukrainian government
conveyed to Putin that it would not join NATO. This did not stop the
invasion, largely because the invasion had little to do with NATO.
Putin made the objectives very clear on the day of the invasion where
he declared that Ukraine was “national fiction.” Thus, for Putin,
the invasion was not about an alleged NATO threat and more about the
destiny of Ukraine as a country.

4. Is it right to call for a world that is divided into spheres of
influence so that peace can be maintained? Is this in the interest of
the working classes?

There have been many sincere progressives and leftists who have argued
that big countries, e.g., Russia, have a legitimate interest in a
sphere of influence. Some on the Left specifically propose the notion
of “multi-polarity” that says there needs to be several major
poles—powers—to counter the hegemonism of the USA. This is a
different definition from another one other leftists have used where
multi-polarity means the upholding of sovereignty and independence of
all nations. It is the former with which we take issue.

While most of the world, including some leftists and progressives,
talks about spheres of influence, we believe the principle of
self-determination must be our starting point. We have historically
protested the US invoking the so-called Monroe Doctrine to justify
endless violations of the national sovereignty of countries in the
Western Hemisphere. Sphere of influence arguments have always been
used by big powers to suppress national self-determination. US
antipathy towards Cuba (since 1959) and Nicaragua (1980s) are both
related to claims of spheres of influence. The Soviet invasions of
Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968) were justified based on
spheres of influence.

The argument regarding multi-polarity can sound, in a first hearing,
to be a progressive demand to restrain US imperialism. But that is not
always the case. The pre-1914 world was multi-polar as was the
pre-1939 world. That did not make them progressive in the least.
Certainly, the current expansion of rightwing authoritarian regimes
across the planet leaves little doubt multi-polarity could easily
result in a profoundly reactionary world.

Progressives support national self-determination and not spheres of
influence. Our demand needs to be for national self-determination and
a world guided by principles of international law.

5. Isn’t the USA being hypocritical in its stand? Doesn’t this
explain why many countries in the global South have been reluctant to
speak up?

The US has a history of profound hypocrisy. In the current war there
is little question but that the stand of the US is hypocritical. In
condemning Russian aggression, it ignores Israeli aggression against
the Palestinians and Moroccan aggression against the Sahrawis, and our
own illegal invasion of Iraq. And, yes, this is a reason that many
governments in the global South have equivocated—at least until
recently—in full condemnations of the Russian aggression. And there
is the issue of food: Russia and Ukraine are the bread baskets of
Africa. It is not too impolite to label this food blackmail.

That said, it is important to note that many governments in the global
South are also influenced by trade and financial arrangements that
they have with Russia as well as the West, leading them to be cautious
in response.

It is important to add that US hypocrisy has not stopped progressives
around the world from speaking out on other outrages. For example, the
Indonesian atrocities against East Timor were called out by people of
good will internationally and forced the US to back away from its
traditional alliance with the reactionary Indonesian regime.
Violations of international law and human rights were denounced
because they were wrong.

In this sense, the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by
genuine internationalists is entirely consistent with approaches from
the past. US supporters of Irish liberation did not remain silent
about British imperialism just because the US was an imperialist
power. And supporters of African liberation did not remain silent
about European colonialism just because the US was also a colonial
oppressor, e.g., against the Philippines.

6. Even if we oppose the invasion, is it correct to support weapons to
Ukraine or doesn’t that just prolong the fighting and bring us
closer to global war?

If one opposes the Russian invasion and supports Ukrainian
sovereignty, the logical question is really this: how are the
Ukrainians supposed to resist Russian aggression? With simply harsh
language? An appeal to the United Nations?

Those who say that weapons should not go to the Ukrainians are
insincere. They are, in essence, calling upon the Ukrainians to
surrender. They may believe that the Ukrainians can carry out passive
resistance against the Russians along the lines of the Danish
resistance to Nazi Germany. The only problem is that the Danish were
not resisting the Nazis in a vacuum. There was a world war underway.

When the Vietnamese were resisting the US, there were those who called
upon the Vietnamese to make concessions and to hold off on their
struggles. In fact, in 1954 both the USSR and China appealed to the
Vietminh to accept the “temporary” division of Vietnam into two
regions as a means of ending the conflict. We see where that ended.

The oppressed are regularly told that they should hold off on their
demands and tone down their efforts. Such arguments were made to the
US Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, arguments to which Dr. King
responded, condemning white moderates who wanted the Black Freedom
Movement to restrain itself. If we ask Ukraine to tone down their
efforts, we are in essence telling them to submit to the demands of
the aggressor, Putin’s Russia.

Is there a danger of global war? Absolutely. As long as there are
imperialist powers such a danger exists. Yet that should not mean that
the oppressed, and those victimized by aggression should restrain
their resistance.

7. Why has it been impossible to achieve a negotiated settlement to
this conflict? 

Simply put, the Putin regime sees no reason to negotiate. As one is
seeing now (October 2022), the Putin regime intends to implement the
approach that it took toward the suppression of the Chechnyans, i.e.,
total suppression through massive, indiscriminate use of violence.
This was also replicated in the Russian-backed assault on the Syrian
revolutionary movement, e.g., barrel bombs, attacking hospitals.

Ultimately the Russian government will need to decide what is their
bottom line. They may decide on a “Korean solution,” i.e., an
armistice without a treaty and with a “cold war” continuing
between Russia and Ukraine. This may not be acceptable for the
Ukrainians.  Moreover, the Ukrainian experience with Russia in
negotiations has been very problematic—starting with the Budapest
Accords in 1994 which guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for
the return of nuclear weapons to Russia and continuing with the Minsk
Accords.
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We should acknowledge that there has been a great deal of
organized misinformation
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by the Putin regime and their allies. These forces have suggested,
from the beginning, that the US and the Ukrainian government have
lacked an interest in a negotiated settlement. This is false.

There is an additional matter relative to negotiations. Those who
argue that the matter of the Russo-Ukrainian War needs to be settled
between the US/NATO and Russia treat Ukraine as a secondary player.
They are acting, against all evidence, as if this is a struggle that
is not about the national existence of Ukraine but is a battle between
two imperialist powers. Any settlement not negotiated with the
Ukrainians at the head of the table would be a settlement imposed on
the people. This is a position which the global Left has never
accepted.

8. Whereas other liberation struggles, such as the Palestinian,
Kurdish, or American First Nations’ have tended to unite most of the
Left, why has the debate over Ukrainian liberation seemed to have
divided it?

There are several reasons:

* Russian propaganda skillfully identified the 2014 events as a
fascist/US-led coup.
* A version of the “enemy of my enemy is my friend,” in this
case meaning that insofar as the US supports the Ukrainian government
this must mean, for some sections of the Left, that the Ukrainians are
on the wrong side of history.
* An inaccurate analysis of the Putin regime, including a tendency
towards nostalgia by some regarding the old USSR. This can be seen in
the fascination by some leftists that the flag of the former USSR has
been used at different points by the Russian forces. Thus, a denial of
the semi-fascist nature of the Putin regime
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including but not limited to its active support for far Right forces
globally.
* As we have seen in a number of struggles, it is relatively easy
for segments of the Western Left and progressive movements to become
destabilized if a particular government waves the “red flag” and
proclaims itself to be anti-imperialist. Rather than doing a concrete
analysis, many of us are taken in by the rhetoric and tend to belittle
charges against such governments as having been manufactured by the
CIA and other nefarious players.

9. What do we know about the anti-war movement in Russia and anti-war
sentiment more broadly? Is there any way we can support
anti-war/pro-democracy forces in Russia without putting them in
danger? 

One of the first things Putin did after the invasion was to outlaw
independent journalism and crack down on protests. Since then, things
have only intensified. Anti-war actions
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spread throughout Russia, sometimes appearing on mainstream news
outlets, while in other cases, street actions or various forms of
civil disobedience.

The question of supporting anti-war forces in Russia is complicated by
the nature of the authoritarian Putin regime. What seems to be in
order is calling attention to repression by the Russian government and
giving support to Russian refugees who are leaving the country to
avoid military service. Additional assistance can be rendered through
support for legitimate trade unionists in Russia who are standing in
opposition to the war. That said, the trade union movement is divided
on the question.

10. Can the US government play a positive role that doesn’t
undermine Ukrainian sovereignty? How can we best express solidarity
with Ukraine? Are there social movement forces we can reach out to?

Let’s be clear. The US cannot negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.
Ukraine is not acting as an agent of the US. The US can encourage both
parties to negotiate and pledge that it would support any steps to
guarantee security for both parties on the condition that there are no
further acts of aggression. The US could cease arms delivery beginning
when there is a legitimate RUSSIAN ceasefire and could stop them
altogether upon the removal of all Russian forces. The US could also
pledge to respect the neutrality of Ukraine and not support their
entry into NATO.

The Left can be most helpful to the Ukrainians by insisting that the
right of self-determination of the Ukrainian people is the principal
contradiction here. Even as forces around the world suggest frameworks
and conciliatory peace plans to stop the carnage, at the end of the
day it is in the hands of the Ukrainian people to decide what to
accept.

As once part of the USSR, “communist” parties have existed for
decades inside the Ukraine. Pro-Russian forces, inside and outside the
Ukraine including the contested oblasts in the East (Donbas, Crimea,
Kherson), have effectively used the “banning of communist parties”
and Russian language as examples of the anti-democratic (or even
fascist) nature of the Ukraine regime. While these laws were passed
prior to Zelensky’s election victory, and there has been some
attempt to soften the language issues, ultimately this is an internal
problem for the Ukrainian people to resolve. We can be in solidarity
with those in Ukraine who oppose internal repression and neoliberal
initiatives. But this should not confuse anyone, i.e., the main
challenge facing Ukraine is the Russian invasion.

There are also small but vital anti-capitalist, egalitarian formations
inside Ukraine, Sotsyalnyi Rukh [[link removed]] for
example. We, on the left, are obliged to listen to their voices
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There is also an on-line journal, Commons
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These are tremendous resources, and we should look to them for
information and guidance.

_[BILL FLETCHER, JR. is a longtime trade unionist, writer and speaker.
He was also a president of TransAfrica Forum, chairperson of the board
of directors of Advocates for Minor Leaguers, and co-coordinator of
the Campaign to End the Moroccan Occupation of Western Sahara. A
sequel to his murder mystery novel, THE MAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY,
will be published later in 2022._

_ELLY LEARY is a retired GM autoworker who was active in New
Directions and served as a chief contract negotiator. She has
participated in popular education workshops with workers all over the
world, often with Transnational Information Exchange. She is a member
of the Liberation Road's International Work Team.]_

_Convergence [[link removed]] is a magazine for radical
insights. We produce articles, videos, and podcasts to sharpen our
collective practice, lift up stories about organizing, and engage in
strategic debate — all with the goal of winning multi-racial
democracy and a radically democratic economy._
 

* Ukraine
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* Ukraine war
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* Russia
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* the Left
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* Vladimir Putin
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* Sovereignty
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* Self-determination
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* NATO
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* Europe
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* imperialism
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* Vietnam War
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* proxy war
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* Spheres of Influence
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