Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Social-Imperialism and Ukraine - Part 9 of 37

The USC also leap to the defence of Zelensky's regime in respect of accusations of anti-Semitism, pointing to the fact that Zelensky is Jewish. But, such confidence in the regime is not shared by many Jews in Ukraine itself. The NYT, for example, reported,

“Eduard Dolinsky, director general of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, a group representing Ukrainian Jews, said that some in the country do derisively refer to those far-right groups as ‘Naziki’ - ‘little Nazis’ - as Mr Putin does. On social media, Mr Dolinsky in recent years has frequently called attention to things like the renaming of a major stadium in western Ukraine for Roman Shukhevych, a Ukrainian nationalist leader. He commanded troops that were implicated in mass killings of Jews and Poles during World War II.”

And, in Dolisnky's Twitter feed, we find further evidence of such anti-semitism, as WW reported.

“Dolinsky’s Twitter feed describes a steady stream of anti-Semitic incidents that would be a major scandal anywhere else except Ukraine. On February 8, he tweeted about an upcoming event at Kyiv’s Maidan Museum, devoted to the “ideas and modern challenges” of the Nazi-collaborationist, Stepan Bandera (“The main ideas of World War II Ukrainian ultranationalist Stepan Bandera,” he interjected, are “the ethnic cleansing of Poles and murder of Jews”). On February 7, he tweeted about a skit at an Orthodox church featuring Ukrainians in traditional dress pledging to boycott paysatye: i.e., Jews with payot or side curls. On February 4, he tweeted footage of a school play in Lviv about a Jew named Moshko who “takes a little, cheating, robbing, always with money, hryvna, euro, cents - he will lend it with percent. And if you not return - he’ll get all your stuff ...” On February 3, he tweeted about a nativity play featuring yet another skulking Jew, who declares that the messiah will give “us - kikes with peysim - a lot of money””

Public beheading of Chinese Communist By KMT 
And, so, when we come, also, to this fascist influence, we have again apologia of a type that almost certainly would not be produced, were it not that the USC find themselves in bed with these fascistic elements, in order to support the war being waged by the Ukrainian state, in which those elements have a role. This is almost identical to the role of the Stalinists during the Chinese Revolution, in 1927, as part of their Popular Front with the bourgeois-nationalists of the Kuomintang, even on the day before the KMT, murdered thousands of communists in Shanghai.  The fact that the 2014 Maidan Coup was financed and sponsored by the US, is glossed over, and we are simply told that it was “contradictory”, and aimed at corruption, which is a joke given the corrupt nature of the current regime. We are told,

“The tragic fire in Odesa was not part of a generalised pattern of repression of trade unionists but an isolated incident. Those killed were not trade union activists but supporters of the overthrown regime who took refuge there after clashing with opponents. Atrocious as these deaths were, they were not murders of trade union leaders or activists by the Ukrainian government.”

Oh so that's alright then! So, now we have the grotesque spectacle of supposed Marxists and international socialists apologising for Ukrainian fascists, by claiming that its just an isolated incident, and ridiculously that it was not carried out by the government, as though it is not always the case that fascist goons undertake such actions via paramilitary organisation rather than in state uniforms, although there has been plenty of violence meted out by people in Ukrainian uniforms too.

And, as Irish Marxism has indicated, in relation to the corrupt, illiberal nature of the regime,

“The right wing US think-tank The CATO Institute has an annual ‘Human Freedom’ index, a combination of separate indices for personal and economic freedom. Its 2021 report shows that Ukraine is the third worst country out of 22 in Eastern Europe while the Russian Federation is the worst. Over 165 countries Ukraine is number 98 while Russia is 126. The freest country at number 1 is Switzerland, which scores 9.11 for human freedom while Ukraine scores 6.86 (75% of the Swiss score) and Russia scores 6.23 (or 68% of the Swiss score). We are expected to support the war of Ukraine with 75% of the ‘human freedom’ of the freest against Russia with 68%. The war of 7%. It is relevant to note that while in 2021 Ukraine ranked 98th, it ranked higher at 82nd in 2008, so that relatively it has gotten worse, but so has Russia from 112th to 126th.

The second index is that of ‘Transparency International’ which reports the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 180 countries/territories around the world. It scores these countries out of 100, with the lower the score the more corrupt a country is perceived to be. The 2021 publication reports that the least corrupt countries included Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, scoring 88 each. Ukraine is 123rd on the list while Russia is 139th. A better indication of the difference is that Ukraine scores 32 out of 100 while Russia scores 29, meaning that the former scores 36% of Denmark etc. while Russia scores 33%. Not a pile of difference; 3 to be exact.”


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