New Form of "Left" Chauvinism: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

During World War I, the European left split over whether to support the war aims of one's own capitalist government or to oppose the war as an attack against all working people. The left chauvinists were the political ancestors of some of the parliamentary parties in Europe today. Now, there is a new and very ugly kind of chauvinism displayed by American leftists who defend Russian imperialism and its invasion of Ukraine. They do this by ignoring the Ukrainian people and their aspirations and by trying to understand Ukraine solely in terms of great power politics. Because Putin's Russia is opposed to US and European imperialist governments, they automatically become adherents of Putin, they spout his propaganda, and they ignore the realities on the ground.

If Putin had invaded Brooklyn and a few Russian-speaking residents supported them, would those residents be called rebels or separatists? Would Putin's troops be ignored, and would the war in Brooklyn be called a "civil war"? Yet this is precisely what is happening in Ukraine.

The Russian invasion began in Crimea when Russian troops wearing unmarked uniforms left the Russian naval base in Sevastapol and seized the entire Crimean Peninsula. The Russian government at first denied that these were Russian troops. They pretended that these were Russian-speaking residents of Crimea. After a few weeks, however, the Russian government lifted this ridiculous facade and admitted that there were no Crimean rebels, only Russian soldiers. In the last opinion polls conducted in Ukraine before recent events, 54 percent of the residents of Crimea did say they wanted to be part of Russia. Of course, that meant that 46 percent wanted to remain part of Ukraine, but they had no opportunity to express those views.

Let us not forget that when Ukraine gained its independence, it was a major nuclear power. In a 1994 agreement signed by Ukraine, Russia, the USA, and the UK, Russia agreed to respect Ukrainian territorial integrity if Ukraine surrendered all its nuclear weapons and sent them to Russia.

Next, Russian began its invasion of eastern Ukraine. They used the excuse of fascism, even though in Ukraine, fascist parties are only able to get a few percent of the vote in elections, unlike the 25 percent fascist vote in France, for example. They used the excuse of oppression of Russian speakers, even though most Ukrainians speak Russian as well as Ukrainian and even though Russian-speaking Ukrainians were very active in support of the demonstrations in Ukraine, including in eastern cities. In the same public opinion polls mentioned earlier, Ukrainians as a whole polled 90 percent to remain independent from Russia. In the areas of eastern Ukraine where the fighting is going on, they polled 80 percent to remain independent from Russia.

So, where did the so-called rebels or separatists gain their support and their heavy arms? The simple answer is that invading Russians brought both the fighters and their weapons. Not all of them were regular Russian troops. Former soldiers and mercenaries of many varieties were recruited and paid by Putin's government. These were all Russians. I'm sure that a tiny number of Ukrainians joined them, but it makes no sense to call them rebels or separatists. They are collaborators with a Russian-orchestrated invasion.

To be sure, the US and European governments want to fish in these troubled waters. They have recklessly expanded NATO eastward in recent decades. They would like to bring Ukraine into their own sphere of control. But does that change the fundamental character of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from an invasion to a civil war? It certainly does not.

Russia is currently engaging in provocative military behavior elsewhere. Russian military jets flew over the English channel this week. They have flown over Swedish air space. These are no small matters. But Russia did not invade Ukraine because of a perceived military threat. Both Putin and Ukrainians know that the Russian military could easily conquer Ukraine in a few weeks at most if it chose to do so. Ukraine has no desire to join NATO and perhaps not even the EEU. What the Ukrainian people rose up against in massive numbers in 2013 and 2014 was a massively corrupt government and economic system, indeed a system quite similar to that in Russia itself and in neighboring Belarus, which is ruled by a brutal dictator.

Putin's invasion of Ukraine has very little to do with great power rivalries and everything to do with his desire to maintain his own corrupt power. He will not tolerate a neighboring country breaking free from corruption and trying to build a genuinely democratic and economically functional society. The Ukrainian people do not have reliable and time-tested leaders or parties who could lead them in that direction, but Putin is unwilling to take the risk that those could eventually develop. He is telling the peoples of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus to give up all hope of improving their lives, and they are getting the message.

The fight of the nascent Ukrainian anticorruption and democracy movement is exactly the kind of thing that principled leftists should support. Instead, the "left" chauvinists are supporting Putin's government, perhaps because they confuse Putin with the Soviet government from decades ago. They spread the totally false narrative of a civil war, of rebels and separatists, and of a US-instigated uprising and coup in Ukraine, as if the US had the influence in Ukraine to cause millions of Ukrainians to go into the streets. Principled leftists, democrats, socialists, and others support the Ukrainian people against a hostile foreign invasion. Principled leftists denounce Putin's imperial objectives just as much as we denounce the imperial objectives of our own governments. What I'm wondering is: where are these principled leftists hiding and why are they not speaking out.