In Ukraine, of course, its not a matter of the workers aligning themselves with a revolutionary bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, itself fighting against an existing ruling class, as it was in 1848, or as it was in respect of Chiang Kai Shek in 1927, but of an already entrenched Ukrainian ruling class, firmly in control of a capitalist state, and with the huge state and military power of NATO imperialism standing behind it! The calls for defence of Ukraine, to “Defend The Fatherland”, are no different to those made by social-patriots in World War I and II. Indeed, they are worse, because it is not only a call to ally with the Ukrainian ruling class and its state, but to ally with the NATO imperialism that stands behind it, which is still the dominating component of imperialism, and as a result of which, as Trotsky put it in “Problem of the Ukraine” it “sell(s) the Ukrainian people to one imperialism or another in return for a promise of fictitious independence.”
In the Spanish Civil War, Trotsky notes that the tragic mistake made by Nin and the POUM was that, because they saw the Spanish Stalinists as being a very small party, they thought that they would be forced to play a subordinate role, within the Popular Front, given the much larger forces of the anarchists of the CNT, and the centrists of the POUM. That mistake, Trotsky says, was to forget the fact that, behind the Spanish Stalinists, stood the Comintern, and the powerful force of the USSR itself, so that, within a few years, it was the Stalinists that had become the dominating force within the Popular Front, and able to perform their function as hangman of the proletariat.
It was a failure to think dialectically. The failure of the centrists and anarchists to see that, and to maintain a strict organisational and political separation from the Popular Front led to disaster, just as it had done in China. But, the forces of the Comintern, standing behind the Stalinists, in Spain, are as nothing compared to the forces of NATO imperialism standing behind the Ukrainian ruling class and its state, and any idea that tiny socialist forces in Ukraine, or internationally, can ally with them without being completely absorbed and subordinated to them, is dangerous, if not wilful, fantasy, representing an equally appalling betrayal.
As Marx continues,
“To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered;
Although the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realization of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development, this time they can at least be certain that the first act of the approaching revolutionary drama will coincide with the direct victory of their own class in France and will thereby be accelerated. But they themselves must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organized party of the proletariat. Their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution.”
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