Monday, March 21, 2022

For a just peace in Ukraine

The conflict in Ukraine has rightly heightened fears of escalation that could take Europe and possibly the world to the brink of nuclear war. But the cause of peace is not helped by those in the anti-war movement who blame the Russians for the crisis, ignore the legitimate demands of the people of the Donbas and fail to recognise that this war began in 2014 when the legitimate Ukrainian government was overthrown by fascist gangs supported by Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism.
    The hidden hand is always at work amongst the fake left within the peace and anti-war movement who essentially argue that peace is only attainable on imperialist terms. We saw this time and time again over Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Palestine, and now we’re seeing it over Ukraine. Others, like Jeremy Corbyn, recognise the dangers of a nuclear conflict and understand that NATO’s aggressive expansion over the last 30 years has played a role in sparking the current conflict. But they still call for an unconditional Russian withdrawal from Ukraine – which is also the demand of US imperialism and its lackeys.
    The communist stand must be for a just peace in Ukraine – for a neutral and de-Nazified Ukraine that recognises the independence of the Donbas republics, Crimea’s decision to join the Russian Federation and equal rights for all the people of the regions of the Ukraine.


What a difference a day makes…


…and a week is a long time in politics – as a former Labour prime minister, the now largely forgotten Harold Wilson, once put it years ago.
    A few weeks ago the ‘Partygate’ crisis could have brought Boris Johnson down. Now it has been forgotten – drowned in an avalanche of anti-Russian hysteria in the bourgeois media in support of imperialist sanctions that has led to a Welsh orchestra dropping music by Tchaikovsky from a concert because of the Ukraine war, the possible collapse of Chelsea football club and even the dumping of the Meerkats from a long-standing ad campaign for British financial services.
    The Ukraine crisis has certainly given Johnson a new lease of life as he potters around eastern Europe pretending to be Winston Churchill and crawls to the House of Saud to get them to boost oil production to put a lid on the now soaring price of oil on the spot market.
    Labour still has a fourpoint lead over the Tories in the opinion polls, but the Tory supporters will now close ranks around Johnson at the local elections in spring whilst Labour flounders under the moribund leadership of Sir Keir Starmer.
    The Conservatives certainly have nothing to fear from Starmer, who has little or nothing to offer the workers his party claims to represent and spends most of his time rooting out what’s left of the Corbynistas in the Labour rather than campaigning to end the austerity regime that can only get worse in the post-Covid climate. The Tories now clearly believe they can maintain or even extend their hold on local government at the council elections in May. Whether this will benefit Johnson personally is another matter.
Johnson is a constant source of embarrassment to Tory campaign managers who never know what the next indiscretion may bring. The Remainers want him out to clear the way for a new campaign to re-establish good relations with the European Union, and he remains an obstacle to restoring the ‘special relationship’ with US imperialism that leading members of the ruling class believe is essential to preserve their interests across the globe. Johnson will go but only, it seems, when the grandees are good and ready for it.

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