Whilst Ukrainian revolutionaries might find themselves conscripted into Zelensky's army, and have to try to work inside it to build revolutionary cadres, to turn its guns on Zelensky and his government, no such condition applies to the USC, or socialists outside Ukraine, who should simply argue the Bolshevist position that “The Main Enemy Is At Home”. In fact, its mostly not the case in Ukraine either, which operates with a largely professional army. Prior to WWII, Trotsky set out the kind of demands that revolutionaries can put forward, in those conditions.
He elaborates in his article, “On The Question of Workers Self Defence”
“We Bolsheviks also want to defend democracy, but not the kind that is run by the sixty uncrowned kings. (NB. Trotsky was writing to his US supporters, and this reference is to the 60 top financial families) First, let’s sweep our democracy clean of capitalist magnates, then we will defend it to the last drop of blood. Are you, who are not Bolsheviks, really ready to defend this democracy? But, you must at least, be able to the best of your ability to defend it so as not to be a blind instrument in the hands of the sixty families and the bourgeois officers devoted to them. The working class must learn military affairs in order to advance the largest possible number of officers from its own ranks.”
Instead, we see the USC, apologising for the Ukrainian oligarchs and their state, in order to ally with it, and NATO imperialism, in their war. As Zelensky's regime attacks Ukrainian workers, on behalf of those oligarchs, and the imperialist capital that stands behind them, the USC can only make impotent complaints about it, as it prioritises its alliance with imperialism and its war against Russia. Nowhere, does it raise these basic demands in support of the interests of Ukrainian workers, as against the oligarchs and imperialism.
Trotsky continues,
“We must demand that the state, which tomorrow will ask for the workers’ blood, today give the workers the opportunity to master military technique in the best possible way in order to achieve the military objectives with the minimum expenditure of human lives.
To accomplish that, a regular army and barracks by themselves are not enough. Workers must have the opportunity to get military training at their factories, plants and mines at specified times, while being paid by the Capitalists. If the workers are destined to give their lives, the bourgeois patriots can at least make a small material sacrifice.
The state must issue a rifle to every worker capable of bearing arms and set up rifle and artillery ranges for military training purposes in places accessible to the workers.
Our agitation in connection with the war must be as uncompromising in relation to the pacifists as to the imperialists.
This war is not our war, the responsibility for it lies squarely on the Capitalists. But, so long as we are still not strong enough to overthrow them and must fight in the ranks of their army, we are obliged to learn to use arms as well as possible….
Just as every worker, exploited by the Capitalists, seeks to learn as well as possible the production techniques, so every proletarian soldier in the imperialist army must learn as well as possible the art of war so as to be able, when the conditions change to apply it in the interests of the working class.
We are not pacifists. No we are revolutionaries. And we know what lies ahead for us.”
And, in a series of discussions, in June 1940, with US comrades, Trotsky outlined his position further, which whilst recognising the continuing degree of patriotism that infused the workers, keyed into it without making any concessions to principle.
“We must oppose sending untrained boys into battle. The Trade Unions not only must protect the workers in peaceful times and protect their industrial skill, but they must now demand the possibility of learning the military art from the state.”
“For instance, in the Trade Unions we can argue like this: ‘I am a socialist and you are a patriot. Good. We will discuss this difference between us. But, we should agree that the workers be trained at Government expense to become military experts. Schools should be set up in connection with the trade unions – at government expense but under the control of the trade unions.’ This kind of approach would give us access to the workers, who are 95 to 98% patriotic even at the present time.”
“But, we place our whole agitation on a class basis. We are against the bourgeois officers who treat you like cattle, who use you for cannon-fodder. We are concerned for the deaths of the workers, unlike the bourgeois officers. We want workers officers.”
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