The new Cold War

By Rob Gowland

Or perhaps the heading should more correctly be “The Renewed Cold War”, for the original Cold War against the USSR never really ended. How could it? After all, it was simply a manifestation of the class war between capital and labour, between bosses and workers. And that won’t end until we have Socialism and do away with exploiting classes once and for all.
    The Soviet Union, a workers’ state, embodied all that the boss class loathed, so big business everywhere rejoiced when gullible Gorby succeeded in his plan to become General Secretary of the CPSU and then to show the Soviet people that capitalism and Socialism were essentially the same (he didn’t believe what the Communists said about capitalism and anyway capitalist politicians everywhere loudly proclaimed that they were in favour of peace, so that was surely true, for they wouldn’t lie, right?).
    Gorbachov abolished the Soviet Union and to his evident surprise he was subsequently spurned by Russians of all political persuasions. The Cold War was temporarily suspended, or more accurately diverted, to be focused on those former parts of the USSR that refused to accept the overthrow of Socialism. Such as Moldova and Belarus.
    Despite winning the civil war that the capitalist West inflicted on Moldova, the Communists there were only allowed 10 years in which to keep the country out of the clutches of NATO before it was subjected to one of a series of very well prepared ‘colour revolutions’ that swept the region.
    These combined some genuine grievances with racist populism and the usual airy-fairy glib demands of the typical capitalist ‘pro-democracy’ campaign. The campaigners were often imported from as far afield as Israel and Chechnya, anywhere where anti-Russian sentiment could be stirred up. As soon as the Communists were forced out of office, Moldova became staunchly embedded within NATO, as always intended.
    Imperialism’s intelligence agencies have become highly adept at managing these “popular counter-revolutions”, backed up by a constant barrage of propaganda to the effect that bourgeois democracy is the only form of democracy: any other sort is false or fake, “like they had in the Socialist countries”.
    Today, another ‘colour revolution’ is being attempted in Belarus, a former part of the USSR that opted to retain the Soviet system. For this act of defiance, it was hit with hyper-inflation, but has managed to maintain its economic independence and its Soviet-style social system in the face of capitalist hostility. The Communist Party of Belarus actively supports President Lukashenko. We should all join the campaign around the slogan “Hands off Belarus”.
    Make no mistake, the present ‘pro-democracy’ campaign against Belarus, like the similar campaign in Hong Kong, has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with clawing back territory, markets and resources for capitalism.
    The pundits of capitalism are well aware that today their favoured exploitative system is very much on the back foot. The economic and industrial superiority they used to enjoy has evaporated. That they enjoyed it was thanks in large part to not being invaded in the Second World War plus the huge profits to be made catering to capitalism’s unending stream of ‘small wars’. Instead, to their dismay, their former superiority has passed to the mixed economy of China.
    Any hopes that imperialists (and certain Trotskyists) held that China was “going down the capitalist road” were dealt a severe blow at the recent Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) where Xi Jinping reminded delegates that “what we are building is Socialism with Chinese characteristics, not some other ism”.
    Whilst some European imperialists are eager to grab whatever share they can of China’s economic and financial good fortune, US imperialism is deeply divided. The ruling elite, behind President Trump – a billionaire property developer – apparently believe that they can solve their problems with China and its ally Russia by resorting to the same bully boy tactics they use against small and powerless countries.
    Neither People's China nor Russia, however, is small or powerless. US war-hawks such as Mike Pompeo must have nightmares full of Chinese warships and Russian ultra-sonic missiles, amidst the very real prospect of Chinese companies taking over all America’s traditional markets.
    Trump is essentially a fascist, and as we know ‘fascism means war’. His main capitalist rivals, those backing the Democrats, are in many ways almost as reactionary but they believe bourgeois democracy provides a less troublesome climate for capitalist exploitation than fascism.
    The Trump administration, however, is in the driving seat at present and is pushing hard to initiate a trade war against both China and Russia, but especially China, being the main economic threat. As part of this campaign, it has also initiated a propaganda blitz, to convince people in Western countries that China is their enemy.
    Western governments are busy discovering Chinese plots to interfere in their internal affairs or simply to spy on them. To convince people that this is truly terrifying, Britain’s Tory government has actually set back the country’s development of a fifth-generation mobile phone network, in order to exclude Chinese tech giant Huawei from participating in its roll out!
    Capitalist pundits credit the problems caused by the Cold War with bringing about the overthrow of Socialism in the USSR. That is far too simplistic for what was in fact a complex amalgam of ideological, economic and subjective factors. Yet they clearly hope that by reverting to the worst tactics of the Cold War against the USSR, they will prevent the combined resources of China and Russia from burying them.
    With the massive ‘Belt and Road’ initiative well under way, and the focus of world trade inevitably shifting to the East, the ‘American century’ has already become a hollow mockery. This stepped up Cold War will not save it.

'Black Ribbon Day': more lies from the bourgeois camp!

By Nikos Mottas

The European Union  once again resorts to hideous anti-communism on the occasion of the so-called ‘European Day of Remembrance for victims of Stalinism and Nazism’ (known as ‘Black Ribbon Day’), which is observed annually on 23rd August.
    In a joint statement, the vice-president of the EU Commission Vera Jourova and the EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders reproduce the same old anti-communist slanders about the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Without any respect for history, the EU officials repeat the blatant lie about the supposed “alliance between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany”.
    In their statement, Jourova and Reynders shamelessly write that the Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression Pact “plunged Europe into darkness” and “led to the violation of the fundamental rights of millions of Europeans and it claimed the lives of millions more”.
    Once again the EU proves that anti-communism is a core part of its official ideology. The above statement by EU officials distorts history in order to vilify the Soviet Union and communism.
    Vera Jourova and Didier Reynders hide the fact that the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact followed the 1938 Munich Agreement between Nazi Germany, Italy, Britain and France. The apologists of imperialism try to downgrade the significance of the 1938 Munich Agreement; however, it had a tremendous impact as an act of appeasement towards the Nazis. Following the agreement, Nazi Germany annexed Czechoslovakia and intensified their expansionist aggression towards Eastern Europe.
    The EU deliberately hides the fact that long before the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression Pact, the Soviet Union tried many times to reach a defensive deal with Britain and France. Even a few months before the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, on 23rd July 1939, the Soviets proposed the formation of a defence plan to Britain and France in case of a German attack; they refused, as long as the British had been secretly negotiating in London a non-aggression pact with Hitler’s representatives.
    What the EU and its bourgeois governments and parties are trying to do is to sow the seeds of anti-communism in the younger generations. That is why they blatantly distort history by shamelessly equating Communism with Nazism.
    The EU establishes “memorial days against totalitarianism” in order to hide that the only existing totalitarianism is the one of capitalist barbarity. Behind the rhetoric about “democracy” and “human rights”, the EU hides its participation in imperialist crimes, wars and interventions.
    But what kind of ‘democracy’ exists in Poland or the Baltic States where the communist parties face persecution, where communist symbols are banned, where the communists are being imprisoned?
    What ‘human rights’ does the EU defend when it participates in imperialist wars against the people of other countries (such as Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Syria), or when it promotes and sponsors openly fascist coups such as the one in Ukraine?
    The people of Europe must draw conclusions. The EU’s anti-communism goes hand-in-hand with the intensification of the attack against workers’ rights; it is connected to the strengthening of repression mechanisms in every member-state.
    Let the EU imperialists and their stooges – conservative, social democratic or liberals alike – be aware: Anti-communism shall not pass!

Playing with fire in the Himalayas…

India is playing a dangerous game in the Himalayas. Indian attempts to encroach into Chinese territory were beaten back in a skirmish in which at least 20 Indian troops were killed and 120 more wounded this week.

In the past India followed the path of independence and established friendly relations with the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies in Asia and eastern Europe. Leaders such as Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi were pillars of the non-aligned movement. Now it’s led by Narendra Modi, the leader of the BJP, a front led by the secret Hindu nationalist RSS militia, a fascist bloc of high-castes, landlords and industrialists.

The BJP leaders replaced India's traditional policy with one of support for Israel and partnership with US imperialism. Some of them even talk of joining NATO now.

The Modi government claims it wants to make India “self-sufficient”. Modi says a self-sufficient India would be fully integrated with the world economy whilst not dependent on anyone in strategic areas. In practice, all this means is privatising the country’s natural resources for the benefit of foreign and Indian big business.

The Indian government has proved totally incapable of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic that is sweeping across the sub-continent. The mostly privatised health service cannot cope and at least an additional 150 million people have been rendered unemployed during the lockdown period.

The needs of millions upon millions of Indians who live in abject poverty are ignored by the government that seeks to establish authoritarian rule throughout the country.

Despite being the country's largest religious minority, India's Muslims are frequently subjected to violent attacks by Hindu fanatics, like the riots in Delhi last February that forced many Muslims to flee the capital in terror.

India’s corrupt ruling class hopes to divert the masses down the barren road of sectarian violence whilst they dream of riches to come by squandering billions on weapons in a drive to become America’s chief enforcer in the region.

The hidden hand of US imperialism clearly lies behind the latest Indian provocation in the Galwan Valley, like it did when it covertly backed Indian support for the Dalai Lama’s futile revolt in Tibet in 1959 and the border war of 1962. On both occasions the Americans did nothing and the Indians got a bloody nose. Let’s hope wiser counsel prevails in Delhi this time round.

…and on the Korean peninsula

Democratic Korea dramatically countered recent south Korean provocations by blowing up the empty north–south liaison office in the border town of Kaesong this week. This dramatic piece of street art was clearly intended to send a message to the Seoul regime that has resorted to old Cold War tricks along the de-militarised zone that divides the Korean peninsula.

Helium balloons carrying anti-communist propaganda leaflets have regularly been launched into the DPR Korea by what the puppet regime calls “defectors”. But everyone knows that these people, more accurately called “riff-raff” and “human scum” by the north, are agents of south Korean intelligence, which itself is but an arm of the CIA.

During the height of the Cold War the Americans and their local lackeys used balloons to drop dollars and propaganda across the armistice line drawn up at the end of the Korean war in 1953. Donald Trump’s summits with Kim Jong Un raised hopes of a new page in inter-Korean relations. But despite the fine words, the Americans have done nothing apart from stepping up their blockade of the DPRK.

Defend Polish communists!

by New Worker correspondent

 

 The persecution of the Communist Party of Poland continues. The trial against the members of the editorial board of the party's newspaper Brzask (Dawn) is scheduled to restart new month. The first court session will be held on the 3^rd March. The trial has gone on for over four years despite the acquittal verdict of the court issued last year. The appeal of the prosecutor was the basis for restarting the trial. For the last four years, the prosecutors' office has been directly subordinated to the government. This trial is a part of a campaign made by the state authorities to ban the Communist Party of Poland.

Another anti-communist attack is an attempt to criminalise communist activity by changes of the penal code. The amended article 256 of the code bans communism and equates it with Nazism and fascism. Previously it penalised communists under the law that banned the promotion of “fascist or other totalitarian systems of the state". In recent years this law was used very widely as shown in the trial of the CPP and Brzask. The new version of the law bans the ideology, symbols or any other content (including prints and recordings) associated with communism. The new code also increases the penalty from two to three years of imprisonment. These changes were voted by parliament last year and were sent to the Constitutional Court.

This repression is accompanied by an anti-communist policy of rewriting history and removing monuments and names of the streets associated with communism and workers' movement from the public space. But the renaming of streets campaign was halted following protests throughout the country.

Polish communists are calling for the immediate halt to all the prosecutions against the communists and penalisation of communist ideas in Poland. The Communist Party of Poland is calling on communist and workers parties throughout the world to demonstrate their solidarity with the Polish communists on an international day of action on 2^nd March. They call for solidarity protests including petitions and holding demonstrations outside Polish embassies on the day.

The Longest Day

Although we were promised vast spectacles on 6^th June to mark the 75^th anniversary of the D-Day landings earlier in the month, the commemorative events were clearly overshadowed by the hostile reception to President Trump in London and the Brexit crisis that brought down Theresa May, who formally stepped down as Prime Minister the day after.

Donald Trump joined the Queen and some other NATO politicians for a ceremony in Portsmouth and the signing of a pointless joint statement that committed its 16 signatories to “work constructively as friends and allies to find common ground”, even where their opinions differ, and "to work together to resolve international tensions peacefully”. Apart from Trump, the only other heads of state and government at the ceremony were French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Russians were pointedly not invited to the Portsmouth event nor to the Battle of Normandy celebrations held across the Channel on the same day.

The Normandy landings did, of course, hasten the end of the Third Reich but they weren’t in themselves the deciding factor in the defeat of Nazi Germany. It was the Red Army that even Winston Churchill said had "torn the guts out of the Nazi war machine" on the eastern front during the Second World War. Churchill, of course, was a rabid anti-communist, who saw the alliance with Stalin’s Soviet Union as a marriage of convenience that would end as soon as the Nazi threat was over.

It was only when the Hitler’s Wehrmacht was on the run that Anglo-American imperialism moved towards a ‘Second Front’. Fearing that the Soviet army would soon liberate the entire European continent, their forces landed in France and fought their way to western Germany.

It is always important to remember the sacrifice of all those who fought in the struggle against fascism during the Second World War. The Normandy landings liberated France and hastened the end of Hitler’s regime. But it was the sacrifice of the Soviet people of all nationalities who rallied to the call to defend their socialist motherland that brought Hitler to his knees. Over 20 million Soviet citizens, including the flower of their youth, died in the epic struggle to defeat the brutal Nazi war-machine – a struggle that ended in victory over Hitler’s Third Reich in 1945.

Fascism will fall in Ukraine

By Theo Russell

Solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance in London

Five years after a coup planned and executed by the USA at a cost of $5 billion with enthusiastic support from European Union (EU) leaders, the illegitimate president Petro Poroshenko’s fascist-infested regime is in deep crisis and has nowhere to turn.

He is so unpopular that many expect him to lose elections in June; Ukraine’s economy is a basket case and worse off than any other ex-Soviet republic. He is powerless to end the war in the Donbas without permission from his masters in Washington.

We now know that the ‘sniper’s massacre’ the day before the 22^nd February 2014 coup was organised by the USA to frame president Viktor Yanukovych. In an interview last February, a group of snipers brought in from Georgia, a close ally of the USA, admitted that they were ordered by leaders of the ‘Euro-Maidan’ protests to fire on both police officers and protesters.

At the time, Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet told EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton in a leaked phone call that he had heard the shootings were carried out by “provocateurs”.

That coup ushered in a reign of fascist dictatorship and war. There is not enough space here to list all the fascist outrages against communists, trade unionists, gay people, Jewish memorials and Roma communities, nor the intimidation of courts and judges by armed fascist gangs.

Mention must be made, however, of the Odessa Trade Union House Fire massacre on 2^nd May 2014, in which over 50 anti-Maidan protestors were killed by a fascist mob whilst the police stood by. A Ukrainian government investigation into the murders has so far produced nothing.

Last year Poroshenko repeatedly announced new “all out offensives” in the war in the east. But the Armed Forces of Ukraine (UAF) and the strutting loud mouths of the fascist battalions are not capable of defeating the anti-fascist People's Militias of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR).

The UAF learned a hard lesson in 2015, when two Ukraine army battalions were surrounded at Debaltseve by a much smaller Donbas force, with hundreds killed and thousands captured. Another major war could lead its total collapse.

The hearts and minds of the UAF’s conscript troops are not behind the war, and hundreds have defected to the Donbas side. Many have to buy their own food and essential equipment due to the venal corruption of their commanders.

Poroshenko has no control over the fascist militias that were incorporated into a US-trained and equipped Ukraine National Guard in 2014. Two years ago the Azov, Donbas and Right Sector fascist battalions moved to the front line without his permission.

The powerful Azov Battalion, sponsored by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, has threatened to remove Poroshenko if fails to implement their demands. But on the battlefield it is no match for the Donbas fighters.

There is no love lost between the fascists and Kiev’s army. Last June members of the Right Sector (avid Hitler fans) fought with Ukrainian troops near the front line and similar clashes have occurred elsewhere.

High morale of anti-fascists

In contrast, the morale of the Donbas militias is as high as ever, despite Kiev’s blockade and sanctions, and their fighters are committed to the anti-fascist struggle.

The republics emerged from the ‘anti-Maidan’ uprisings in 2014, which also took place in the neighbouring province of Kharkov, in Odessa and Crimea. The populations of the mainly Russian-speaking areas of the east and south had no desire to see heavily armed, Nazi-admiring thugs marching into their towns and villages.

Claims of thousands of Russian tanks invading Ukraine in 2014–15 were a fairy tale created by NATO, but a number of Russian volunteers with valuable military experience and skills have joined the Donbas rebels, as have anti-fascist fighters from many other countries, particularly Italy and Spain.

In an interview in 2017, the Italian commander of the InterUnit battalion of international volunteers, Commander Nemo, explained where the Donbas forces’ weapons came from: privately owned weapons, weapons from police stations, secret stockpiles of Soviet weapons, and restored artillery from parks and museums.

He added: “The Ukrainian army has lost five million light weapons, of which one million were taken by the People's Republics.” Many more have been bought from corrupt Ukrainian army officers.

Without doubt Russia’s support for the Donbas has been of vital importance, with regular humanitarian aid convoys still being sent and breaks in Russian holiday camps for thousands of children from the Donbas.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and Russian Communist Workers Party have also sent aid convoys, including cultural and educational materials.

The Donbas republics are governed by bourgeois social democratic movements – the ‘Donetsk Republic’ and ‘Peace for Lugansk Region’ parties – which have nationalised most of the factories and mines that were owned by Ukrainian oligarchs. The communist parties of the republics also have a strong base however, especially amongst the People's Militias.

The Lugansk and Donetsk communist parties emerged from the provincial branches of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), led by Petro Symonenko. Unfortunately the CPU’s lack of fighting spirit was exposed as soon as it was tested in struggle.

When President Viktor Yanukovych was removed by the unconstitutional vote of the Ukraine parliament on 22nd February 2014, which fell far short of the required three-quarters, the CPU’s delegates backed the move, effectively endorsing the coup. When Borotba (Struggle), an alliance of communist and left forces, emerged as the main anti-fascist resistance movement in Ukraine and led the rebellion in Kharkov province, the CPU refused its support.

Instead of supporting the anti-fascist Donbas people's republics, the CPU declared its support for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” and expelled its “separatist” members. The CPU members in the Donbas still loyal to Symonenko abandoned the anti-fascist fight and crossed into Kiev-controlled Ukraine.

Last September Symonenko announced that the party would participate in elections, legitimising the illegitimate regime yet again. (Although communist or Soviet symbols and propaganda were banned in 2016, the party itself has not been outlawed.)

In 2014 the remaining members of the CPU’s provincial branches organised the new Communist Parties of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which were recognised by the CPRF in 2016, a major defeat for the CPU.

The myth of ‘fascist-controlled Donbas’

It is very unfortunate that by far the most dangerous manifestation of fascism anywhere in the world since 1945 has been ignored by anti-fascist organisations and almost all the left parties in Britain.

This is partly because they have fallen into the trap of anti-Russian, anti-Putin hysteria and fake news, but also due to a widespread belief that the Donbas republics are dominated by fascists and right-wing religious nationalists.

It is true that right wing, or rather “red-brown” Russian nationalists such as Aleksandr Dugin’s National Bolshevik Party have promoted the idea of a Russian orthodox “Novorussia”, but the National Bolsheviks have been banned in Russia.

It is also true that a handful of local and European fascists have fought in the Donbas, and that at one point when Igor Plotnitsky was the leader of the LPR, "red-brown” populists controlled the official press agency.

Plotnitsky, however, was overthrown in a coup last November for doing large coal and petrol deals with Ukrainian oligarchs, and for considering returning Lugansk to Kiev’s control. Under the new LPR leader Leonid Pasechnik ties with the sister DPR have been greatly strengthened.

In his 2017 interview Commander Nemo explained that attempts to establish fascist battalions in the Donbas “were immediately dismantled because they were totally incompatible with the antifascist nature of the Donbas people. There are absolutely no fascist military formations that fight for the People's Republics, this is an invention.

“As for the fascists, there were two who actually fought, whilst there were about 10 who were at the front for short periods. It must be considered that there are six fascists who say they are combatants whilst they have always been in the second line.”

According to Nemo, local Ukrainian Russian and the European fascists made up 0.9 per cent of the Donbas fighters, and together with nationalists and religious fundamentalists (ultra-Orthodox and neopagans), only two per cent.

Rampant fascism in Kiev-controlled Ukraine

In contrast, there is too much evidence of the fascist nature of the western-backed regime in Kiev to cover in this article. It is now abundantly clear that fascist, openly Nazi allegiance goes right to the very top and Poroshenko himself.

Soon after taking office in 2014, Poroshenko publicly identified himself as a ‘Banderite’, a follower of Stepan Bandera, whose faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists collaborated with Nazi Germany in the massacres of 1.5 million Jews and 70,000 Poles during the Second World War.

Last July an adviser to Poroshenko and his defence minister, Yuri Biryukov, wrote a Facebook post using the neo-Nazi symbol ‘1488’, an internationally shared Nazi code that combines a white supremacist message and ‘Heil Hitler’.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, closely tied to the Azov Battalion (the most powerful of about 80 fascist militias), belongs to Poroshenko’s own party, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.

The Azov makes no attempt to hide its fascism – its symbol is based on the war-time Nazi SS ‘Wolfsangel’. Ex-Azov member Vadym Troyan is now Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Interior and chief of police for the Kiev Region.

The Azov has established a ‘street patrol unit’ funded by the government, the National Druzhina, that aims to “restore Ukrainian order”. In 2018 it carried out lethal pogroms against Roma communities, stormed city council meetings and vandalised the offices of insufficiently pliant politicians. Yet nothing is reported in the western media.

In April 2018 Mariana Batiuk, a city deputy in Lviv, posted a Facebook message congratulating Adolf Hitler on his birthday; and in December, 1st January, Stepan Bandera’s birthday, was designated a national holiday.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s fascists are actively exporting their brand of fascism to the rest of the world.

Last October Olena Semanyaka, international secretary of the National Corps, the Azov’s political wing, boasted at a ‘Paneuropa’ Conference in Kiev: “For the first time since the Second World War, nationalist formations have managed to create their own military wings.”

Last November the US website ‘The Grayzone Project’ revealed that the FBI had indicted four members of the Rise Above Movement (RAM) for going to Ukraine to train with the Azov Battalion, and said Azov was “believed to have participated in training and radicalising United States-based white supremacy organizations.”

The RAM, which emerged after Donald Trump’s election, participated in violent riots in California and in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has held burnings of ‘Cultural Marxist’ books.

Grayzone also revealed that the USA has directly armed the Azov Battalion with anti-tank rockets and that a team of US Army officers met with Azov commanders in 2017.

A democratic, fascist-free Ukraine

Ukraine has fallen out of the news since 2015, with a ‘frozen’ conflict in the Donbas and total silence from the western media on the fascist destruction of all democratic rights.

Vladimir Putin has made it clear that Russian support for the Donbas republics will continue and said last June: “It is impossible to intimidate the Donbas people. We see how they endure all these hardships, we send them help and we will continue doing this.”

When Alexander Zakharchenko, president of the DPR, was assassinated last September, Putin declared "Russia will always stand by you".

There has been widespread speculation that the Donbas republics might be integrated into the Russian Federation. The Donetsk republics, supported by the CPRF and other Russian communist parties, have asked for this since 2014.

The republics held elections in November that were a signal to Kiev from both the Donbas and Russia that they cannot wait forever for Kiev to implement the separate status for the republics promised in the 2015 Minsk peace agreement.

In February 2017 Russia announced that it would temporarily recognise passports issued by the Donbas republics, which many saw as a step towards recognition.

In December however, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov repeated that Moscow had no plans to recognise the Donbas republics, let alone bring them into the Russian Federation.

He pointed out instead that Ukraine’s problems were "much broader and deeper", and that recognising the republics would mean leaving the rest of Ukraine in the hands of the Nazi regime: "You want to recognize the LPR and DPR? And what’s next? To lose the rest of Ukraine and abandon it to the Nazis?"

This shows that Russia’s concern is not just with the future of the Donbas but includes achieving a future Ukraine free of fascism where basic democratic rights are restored.

The fact is that Washington’s puppet government in Ukraine has failed and like Poroshenko the USA has few options available.

Although thousands of anti-fascists have gone into exile and hundreds languish in Ukraine’s prisons, with Russia’s support the resistance in the Donbas cannot be defeated. The junta in Kiev is under constant threat of military defeat in a new war, the collapse of its army, or a popular anti-fascist revolt.

It is only a matter of time before the illegitimate dictatorship is swept away and peace and freedom are restored, not only in the Donbas but in all of Ukraine. Our work in Britain is to mobilise the widest possible support for anti-fascists in Ukraine, where they are currently waging the most difficult struggle against fascism in the world.