The EU Has Never Been a European Solidarity Organisation. The European Peoples Must Create their Own Unity

The EU and the Eurozone were created solely to favour capital and apply its principles: total liberty of movement for capital, free circulation of goods and services, unrestricted commercial competition and the undermining of the very principle of public services, among others.

Capital is given a free rein to maximise its profits, wrongly supposing that if private initiative is favoured all will be well. In following this principle and in reducing state intervention to a minimum in terms of regulations and budgets, we now have a Europe which costs only 1% of its GDP whereas the budgets of the most industrialised countries are at about 40% to 50% of their GDP! This 1% is scrawny and nearly half of it goes to the Common Agricultural Policy. In consequence Europe has not developed the means to reduce the differences between its strongest economies and the others. When these economies are put onto the same playing field their differences are aggravated.

Are there other points of division?

Not only do we have opposition between, on the one hand, countries like Greece, Ireland , Portugal, Spain and the East European countries, and on the other hand, the strongest EU countries, but also inside each of these countries, where income disparities have increased following reforms of the labour markets.

The policies that have been applied by the EU member states have contributed to these inequalities. A prime example is Germany, where counter-reforms, that aim to create a greater variety of employment models, have been put into place. There are currently 7 million full time employees earning less than 400 euros a month!

Tax policy is known to be at the heart of the European problem and of the indebtedness of member states. How can the fact that most European countries are maintaining internal competition be explained?

Europe has refused fiscal harmonisation. The result is that there is enormous disparity between systems of taxation. In Cyprus, corporation tax is 10%. That should change with the present crisis. In Ireland corporation tax is 12.5% and in Belgium, 33.99%. These differences allow companies to declare their revenues where the tax bite is the least. Current European fiscal policy protects tax evasion. Tax havens exist within the European Union – notably the City of London – and the Eurozone, with the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.

It is quite possible to implement measures of fiscal justice at a national level. The common belief that “being in the Eurozone it is impossible to apply major fiscal measures” is false. We are told there are no alternatives. Those who invoke these arguments are protecting the fraudsters. We can see that solutions previously considered impossible are being imagined in the “case” of Cyprus: bank deposits of over 100,000 euros are to be taxed; controls of capital movements are being put into place. I am against the plan imposed on Cyprus by the Troika because the goals are to impose global antisocial policies; but certain measures show the clear possibility of controlling capital flows and of greatly increasing tax-rates above a given level of wealth.

In spite of EU regulations, it is perfectly possible for countries to refuse the policies of the commission and impose renegotiations at the European level. Europe must be reconstructed democratically. In the meantime the left-wing governments must break ranks. If François Hollande really represented the will of the French people that elected him he would have insisted on renegotiating the European Fiscal Compact with Angela Merkel and if she refused he could have refused to vote it in. This would have prevented its adoption.

The euro crisis is clearly the result of an absence of sound political governance (lack of coherent economic, financial, fiscal and social policies). The lack of real European support for Greece in the face of its debt problems shows the fragility of a union that is not based on solidarity. Does this euro crisis toll the bell for European solidarity? Is the dream of European federalism dead and buried?

The EU as it exists has never hinged on solidarity, unless it be in favour of the big European companies. The European governments have continually applied measures that favour them and the European banks. When it comes to helping the weaker people and the weaker economies, there is no solidarity. One could say that there is one kind of solidarity: a class solidarity, a solidarity between capitalists.

Federalism is possible but it must be constituted by the peoples. Guy Verhofstadt and Daniel Cohn-Bendit advocate a federalism imposed from above. We need a federalism that arises from the will of the people.

Federation is possible and necessary, but that implies that the solution to the European crisis should come from the base. That does not mean a withdrawal behind national frontiers, but solidarity between European peoples and a European constitution decided by the people themselves.

What must be done to make the European institutions more democratic?

The existing non democratic institutions must be taken apart and replaced by new ones, created by a peoples’ constituent assembly! The legislative power (the European Parliament) is extremely weak, too much in the thrall of the Executive.

Awaiting this miracle remedy, do you have a concrete idea of how to reconcile Europe’s citizens with Europe?

Within national frontiers, initiatives must be taken by the social movements and corresponding left-wing organisations towards defining common objectives. At the European level, through the Alter Summit movement, we are trying to create a maximum of convergence between citizens’ movements, social movements and European trade unions |2|. It is not easy, up to now it has been too slow, but a coalition of European social movements must nevertheless be created. Relaunching the “Indignés” movement must be encouraged if it is possible, supporting Blockupy in Frankfurt against the ECB. |3| Also, feminist movements and actions against austerity programmes in Europe must be given all possible support |4|.

Along with this, other European initiatives must be reinforced, such as the the European and Mediterranean citizens’ audits networks (ICAN) |5|, the European network against the privatisation of health services |6| and the efforts to create a European anti-fascist movement |7|, the ” European peoples against the Troika”, which organised actions in dozens of towns and cities across Europe on 1st June 2013 |8|.

Europe has a purpose because…

Solidarity between the peoples is necessary and undoubtedly possible.

Europe has a purpose on condition that…

The process comes from the people. A constituent assembly of the European peoples must found a completely new Europe!

It is time to abandon the dominant ideology that has reigned for so long. There are several possible ways to resolve the crisis. The austerity measures currently applied can only make it worse. We are facing 10 to 15 years of crisis and very limited growth. Unless, that is, the social movements manage to put structural reforms into place, such as the socialisation of the banks; the consolidation of public services; the reconstruction of a Europe based on a peoples’constituent assembly; a Europe in solidarity with the rest of the World. Illegitimate public debt must also be abolished by developing initiatives of citizens’ audits as is the case in Belgium today |9|. This solution presupposes that the social movements and the radical left are capable of proposing real alternatives, with a coherent programme that goes beyond neo-Keynesianism. I would be disappointed if this capitalist crisis were to achieve no more than slightly better discipline. Regulated green capitalism is not a solution to the fundamental problem of climate change. We must abolish the capitalist system.

Russia’s Duma calls on West to not Interfere in Ukraine’ s Internal Affairs

With an overwhelming majority vote of 388 out of 450, the Russian State Duma passed a resolution slamming foreign politicians and forces interfering in what is now an escalating political crisis in Ukraine between protestors and law enforcement. The Crimean Parliament has also issued a statement in an emergency session.

 

The declaration was proposed by the speaker of the Russian State Duma Sergey Naryshkin and calls on foreign politicians to refrain from involvement in the ongoing developments in Ukraine. This is the first time that such a declaration has been passed and it is unique because it calls out western powers for meddling in the internal affairs of another country, something they have done with impunity for decades, including here in Russia.

According to media sources the resolution reads: “The State Duma urges Western political circles to stop meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign Ukraine in violation of international law and to stop contributing to further escalation of conflict.”

The Duma resolution comes as the level of violence has increased in Kiev on the heels of new Ukrainian legislation that seeks to limit the violent nature of the protests and after remarks by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who said the situation in Ukraine is “spinning out of control” and demanding the West stop “artificially undermining” the legitimately elected government.

Russia is also calling on al members of the Ukrainian opposition to refrain from using violence and to seek ways to bring about a constructive dialogue with the authorities.

As if to underline their meddling into the internal affairs of the country and their complete disregard for official Ukraine, the US Embassy in Kiev has responded to the escalation in unrest by issuing a statement saying that it would revoke the visas of several unnamed Ukrainian officials it claims are responsible for the violence. Of course the US does not call on the opposition they are backing and which is responsible for all of the unrest in the country to put an end to the violence and their reckless statements only serve to add fuel to an already raging fire.

The protests which began in November in Ukraine after an EU integration deal which had almost nothing to offer to benefit Ukraine was put on hold in favor of a very beneficial widening of trade ties with the Russian

Federation and the countries that are members of the Customs Union. The simple almost benign sovereign economic and trade decision was met by an extremely violent reaction from the West which had planned to use EU integration as the carrot to entice Ukraine to join NATO and eventually evict the Black Sea Fleet and cut Ukraine off from its brethren in Russia. The violent reaction from the West was also due to the recent loss the US faced in attempting to wgae yet another war of aggression against Syria.

US meddling in Ukraine became a blatantly open fact rather than a covert operation after western organized, backed, paid and supported opposition forces began occupying Kiev’s Independence Square, and a parade of western politicians came out of the woodwork to blast the government, call for early elections and even make unprecedented visits to Kiev, such as European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton and US Senator John McCain.

Although the US and the West continue to attempt to keep their dirty hands clean eschewing responsibility and obfuscating their ties to the violent protestors, many of whom receive 30 euros a day from the West, and continue to blame official Ukraine and Russia for the violence, even the Crimean Parliament has blasted the western backed opposition and even blamed them for the bloodshed.

In an emergency session the Supreme Council of Crimea adopted a statement on the political crisis in Ukraine which passed with the support of 78 of the 81 deputies. The Crimean parliamentarians blame opposition leaders for the bloodshed and have said they will not give Crimea to extremists and neo-Nazis who they state are attempting to seize power.

The Crimean Statement reads: “The political crisis, the formal pretext for which was a pause in Ukraine’ s European integration, has developed into armed resistance and street fights. Hundreds of people have been hurt and, unfortunately, some people have been killed. The price for the power ambitions of a bunch of political saboteurs – Klitschko, Yatsenyuk, and Tyagnibok – is too high. They have crossed the line by provoking bloodshed, using the interests of the people of Ukraine as a cover and pretending to act on their behalf.”

The statement adopted by the Crimean Parliament also blasts European officials who previously condemned the activities of the all-Ukrainian association Svoboda but have now joined with nationalists in the Ukrainian parliament “… in an unnatural ‘political love’ with Ukrainian neo-Nazis and their allies to ‘be friends’ against Russia.”

The Crimean Statement finishes by asserting that the Parliament and its members will stick to their mandate and not be swayed: “On behalf of the people of Crimea who elected us, we are saying that we will not give Crimea to extremists and neo-Nazis who are looking to seize power in Ukraine by dividing the country! The people of Crimea will never engage in illegitimate elections, will never recognize their results, and will not live in a ‘Bandera&# 39; Ukraine! We are full of determination to defend the historical choice that was made at a referendum on the issue of the restoration of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea 23 years ago.”

The level of violence in Ukraine is escalating as the West continues to meddle in the internal affairs of the country refusing to give up what was to be their crowning jewel in their takeover of Eastern Europe and their surrounding of Russia with missiles and NATO military infrastructure. Unfortunately for the people of Ukraine the West has no interest in the people of Ukraine and the level of bloodshed will continue to escalate as the people in the country begin to realize what the people of the Middle East already know, there is absolutely nothing humanitarian about US/NATO intervention, and the people are just a frivolous pesky problem for the Washington geopolitical planners.

FMI Sponsorizzati “democrazia” in Ucraina

 

C’è una lunga storia di rivoluzioni colorate in Ucraina risalenti al 1990.

Il movimento di protesta a Kiev ha una notevole somiglianza con la “rivoluzione arancione” del 2004, che è stato sostenuto segretamente da Washington. La “rivoluzione arancione” del 2004 ha portato alla cacciata del filorusso primo ministro Viktor Yanukovich, guidando al potere il governo delega occidentale del presidente Viktor Yushchenko e il primo ministro Julia Tymoshenko.

Ancora una volta Viktor Yanukovitch è il bersaglio di una cura messa in scena “movimento di protesta pro-Ue”. Quest’ultimo è stato avviato a seguito della decisione del presidente Yanukovitch per annullare il “accordo di associazione” con l’Unione europea.

I meccanismi di interferenza sono in certi aspetti differenti a quelli del 2004. Le proteste sono supportate direttamente da Bruxelles e Berlino (con i funzionari europei coinvolti attivamente), piuttosto che da Washington:

“I partiti di destra che conducono le proteste in coordinamento con i funzionari ei politici europei avevano chiesto una” Million Man March. “In definitiva, circa 250.000 a 300.000 persone si sono radunate sul Maidan (Indipendenza) Square. E ‘stata la più grande protesta a Kiev dopo la “rivoluzione colorata” 2004 organizzato da Europa e Usa imperialismo-la cosiddetta rivoluzione arancione che ha spodestato il filo-russo Yanukovich e ha portato il tandem filo-occidentale del presidente Viktor Yushchenko e il primo ministro Julia Tymoshenko al potere.

Evgenia Tymoshenko, la figlia dell’ex primo ministro e miliardario magnate del gas naturale Julia Tymoshenko, che Yanukovich ha imprigionato, ha letto un messaggio da sua madre che chiede estromissione “immediata” di Yanukovich. (Vedere Alex Lantier, 8 dicembre 2013 )

Il seguente articolo pubblicato nel novembre 2004, si concentra sulla “rivoluzione arancione” Ottobre-Novembre 2004 diretto contro l’allora primo ministro Viktor Yanukovich, fornendo anche dettagli sul ruolo insidiosa del FMI e della Banca mondiale a imporre l’agenda politica economica neoliberista a nome del “Washington Consensus”. 

Ukraine Protests Carefully Orchestrated: The Role of CANVAS, US-Financed “Color Revolution Training Group” photos

Ukraine Protests Carefully Orchestrated: The Role of CANVAS, US-Financed “Color Revolution Training Group”

The recent protests in Ukraine have the stench of a foreign-orchestrated attempt to destabilize the government of Viktor Yanukovych after he walked away from signing an EU Association Agreement that would have driven a deep wedge between Russia and Ukraine. Glamor-star boxer-turned political guru, Vitaly Klitschko, has been meeting with the US State Department and is close to Angela Merkel’s CDU political machine in Germany.

The EU association agreement with Ukraine is widely resisted by many EU member states with deep economic problems of their own. The two EU figures most pushing it—Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski—are both well known in the EU as close to Washington.

The US is strongly pushing the Ukraine EU integration just as it had been behind the 2004 failed “Orange Revolution” to split Ukraine from Russia in a  bid to isolate and weaken Russia. Now Ukrainians have found evidence of direct involvement of the Belgrade US-financed training group, CANVAS behind the carefully-orchestrated Kiev protests.

A copy of the pamphlet that was given out to opposition protestors in Kiev has been obtained. It is a word-for-word and picture-for-picture translation of the pamphlet used by US-financed Canvas organizers in the 2011 Cairo Tahrir Square protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak and opened the door to the US-backed Muslim Brotherhood.[1] The photo below is a side-by-side comparison:

 

The photo left is from Tahrir Square; the right from Kiev and here below is the English original used by the Belgrade CANVAS NGO:

 

 

Canvas, formerly Otpor, received significant money from the US State Department in 2000 to stage the first successful Color Revolution against Slobodan Milosovic in then-Yugoslavia. Since then they have been transformed into a full-time “revolution consultancy” for the US, posing as a Serbian grass-root group backing “democracy.” [2] Who would ever think a Serbian-based NGO would be a front for US-backed regime change?

 

The Strange Ukraine “Opposition”

Direct sources in Kiev that I have contacted report that the anti-government protestors have been recruited with money from among university students and unemplyed to come by bus into the heart of  Kiev. The revealing aspect is the spectacular emergence of champion boxed Vitaly Klitschko as presumably the wise politician guiding Ukraine’s future. No doubt spending your career beating other boxers unconscious is a superb preparation for becoming a statesman, though I for one doubt it. It reminds of the choice of a low-grade Hollywood movie actor, Ronald Reagan as President. But more interesting about “opposition” spokesman Klitschko is who his friends are.

Klitschko is being backed by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. Nuland, former US Ambassador to NATO, is a neo-conservative married to leading neo-conservative hawk, Robert Kagan, and was herself a former adviser to Dick Cheney. [3]

Klitschko is also very friendly with German Chancellor Merkel. According to a recent Der Spiegel report, Merkel wants to support Klitschko in his bid to become Ukraine’s president in 2015. [4]

More evidence that a darker agenda lies behind the “democracy” opposition is the fact that the demands of the protestors went from demanding accession to the EU to demanding the immediate resignation of the Yanukovich government. Klitschko and the opposition used an unfortunate police crackdown on protesters to massively expand the protest from a few hundred to tens of thousands. On December 18, the government took the wind partly out of the Klitschko sails by signing a major economic agreement with Moscow in which Russia agreed to cut the price of Russian gas exported to Ukraine by a third, down to $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters from the current level of more than $400, and to buy $15 billion of Ukraine’s debt in eurobonds. That gives Ukraine breathing room to avoid a sovereign debt default and calmly negotiate over its future.

Ukraine and the Rebirth of Fascism in Europe

The violence on the streets of Ukraine is far more than an expression of popular anger against a government.  Instead, it is merely the latest example of the rise of the most insidious form of fascism that Europe has seen since the fall of the Third Reich.

Recent months have seen regular protests by the Ukrainian political opposition and its supporters –  protests ostensibly in response to Ukrainian President Yanukovich’s refusal to sign a trade agreement with the European Union that was seen by many political observers as the first step towards European integration.  The protests remained largely peaceful until January 17th when protesters armed with clubs, helmets, and improvised bombs unleashed brutal violence on the police, storming government buildings, beating anyone suspected of pro-government sympathies, and generally wreaking havoc on the streets of Kiev.  But who are these violent extremists and what is their ideology?

The political formation is known as “Pravy Sektor” (Right Sector), which is essentially an umbrella organization for a number of ultra-nationalist (read fascist) right wing groups including supporters of the “Svoboda” (Freedom) Party, “Patriots of Ukraine”, “Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defense” (UNA-UNSO), and “Trizub”.  All of these organizations share a common ideology that is vehemently anti-Russian, anti-immigrant, and anti-Jewish among other things.  In addition they share a common reverence for the so called “Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists” led by Stepan Bandera, the infamous Nazi collaborators who actively fought against the Soviet Union and engaged in some of the worst atrocities committed by any side in World War II.

While Ukrainian political forces, opposition and government, continue to negotiate, a very different battle is being waged in the streets.  Using intimidation and brute force more typical of Hitler’s “Brownshirts” or Mussolini’s “Blackshirts” than a contemporary political movement, these groups have managed to turn a conflict over economic policy and the political allegiances of the country into an existential struggle for the very survival of the nation that these so called “nationalists” claim to love so dearly.  The images of Kiev burning, Lviv streets filled with thugs, and other chilling examples of the chaos in the country, illustrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the political negotiation with the Maidan (Kiev’s central square and center of the protests) opposition is now no longer the central issue.  Rather, it is the question of Ukrainian fascism and whether it is to be supported or rejected.

For its part, the United States has strongly come down on the side of the opposition, regardless of its political character.  In early December, members of the US ruling establishment such as John McCain and Victoria Nuland were seen at Maidan lending their support to the protesters.  However, as the character of the opposition has become apparent in recent days, the US and Western ruling class and its media machine have done little to condemn the fascist upsurge.  Instead, their representatives have met with representatives of Right Sector and deemed them to be “no threat.”  In other words, the US and its allies have given their tacit approval for the continuation and proliferation of the violence in the name of their ultimate goal: regime change.

In an attempt to pry Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence, the US-EU-NATO alliance has, not for the first time, allied itself with fascists.  Of course, for decades, millions in Latin America were disappeared or murdered by fascist paramilitary forces armed and supported by the United States.  The mujahideen of Afghanistan, which later transmogrified into Al Qaeda, also extreme ideological reactionaries, were created and financed by the United States for the purposes of destabilizing Russia.  And of course, there is the painful reality of Libya and, most recently Syria, where the United States and its allies finance and support extremist jihadis against a government that has refused to align with the US and Israel.  There is a disturbing pattern here that has never been lost on keen political observers: the United States always makes common cause with right wing extremists and fascists for geopolitical gain.

The situation in Ukraine is deeply troubling because it represents a political conflagration that could very easily tear the country apart less than 25 years after it gained independence from the Soviet Union.  However, there is another equally disturbing aspect to the rise of fascism in that country – it is not alone.

The Fascist Menace Across the Continent

Ukraine and the rise of right wing extremism there cannot be seen, let alone understood, in isolation.  Rather, it must be examined as part of a growing trend throughout Europe (and indeed the world) – a trend which threatens the very foundations of democracy.

In Greece, savage austerity imposed by the troika (IMF, ECB, and European Commission) has crippled the country’s economy, leading to a depression as bad, if not worse, than the Great Depression in the United States.  It is against this backdrop of economic collapse that the Golden Dawn party has grown to become the third most popular political party in the country.  Espousing an ideology of hate, the Golden Dawn – in effect a Nazi party that promotes anti-Jewish, anti-immigrant, anti-women chauvinism – is a political force that the government in Athens has understood to be a serious threat to the very fabric of society.  It is this threat which led the government to arrest the party’s leadership after a Golden Dawn Nazi fatally stabbed an anti-fascist rapper.  Athens has launched an investigation into the party, though the results of this investigation and trial remain somewhat unclear.

What makes Golden Dawn such an insidious threat is the fact that, despite their central ideology of Nazism, their anti-EU, anti-austerity rhetoric appeals to many in the economically devastated Greece.  As with many fascist movements in the 20th Century, Golden Dawn scapegoats immigrants, Muslim and African primarily, for many of the problems facing Greeks.  In dire economic circumstances, such irrational hate becomes appealing; an answer to the question of how to solve society’s problems.  Indeed, despite Golden Dawn’s leaders being jailed, other party members are still in parliament, still running for major offices including mayor of Athens.  Though an electoral victory is unlikely, another strong showing at the polls will make the eradication of fascism in Greece that much harder.

 Were this phenomenon confined to Greece and Ukraine, it would not constitute a continental trend.  Sadly however, we see the rise of similar, albeit slightly less overtly fascist, political parties all over Europe.  In Spain, the ruling pro-austerity People’s Party has moved to establish draconian laws restricting protest and free speech, and empowering and sanctioning repressive police tactics.  In France, the National Front Party of Marine Le Pen, which vehemently scapegoats Muslim and African immigrants, won nearly twenty percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections.  Similarly, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands – which promotes anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant policies – has grown to be the third largest in parliament.  Throughout Scandinavia, ultra nationalist parties which once toiled in complete irrelevance and obscurity are now significant players in elections.  These trends are worrying to say the least.

It should be noted too that, beyond Europe, there are a number of quasi-fascist political formations which are, in one way or another, supported by the United States.  The right wing coups that overthrew the governments of Paraguay and Honduras were tacitly and/or overtly supported by Washington in their seemingly endless quest to suppress the Left in Latin America.  Of course, one should also remember that the protest movement in Russia was spearheaded by Alexei Navalny and his nationalist followers who espouse a virulently anti-Muslim, racist ideology that views immigrants from the Russian Caucasus and former Soviet republics as beneath “European Russians”.  These and other examples begin to paint a very ugly portrait of a US foreign policy that attempts to use economic hardship and political upheaval to extend US hegemony around the world.

In Ukraine, the “Right Sector” has taken the fight from the negotiating table to the streets in an attempt to fulfill the dream of Stepan Bandera – a Ukraine free of Russia, Jews, and all other “undesirables” as they see it.  Buoyed by the continued support from the US and Europe, these fanatics represent a more serious threat to democracy than Yanukovich and the pro-Russian government ever could.  If Europe and the United States don’t recognize this threat in its infancy, by the time they finally do, it might just be too late.

Ukraine “Color Revolutions”: At the Crossroads of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian Power Politics

Over twenty years after its independence, Ukraine is being rocked by an attempt at a second “color revolution” as its problems span a wide spectrum of politics, economics, and cultural identity and its “strategic location” places the country in the middle of the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian power politics.  If the West wants to help Ukraine, it should reverse course and adopt a helpful approach.    

Ukraine’s eastern sustenance

At its independence after the break-up of USSR, expectations for Ukraine were high: it had inherited a fair share of Soviet industries, rich agricultural lands, millions of skilled workers and educated professionals, and among the highest per capita GDP in the former Soviet Union, higher than in Russia. These expectations have yet to be borne out. In the Post-Soviet space, Ukraine’s per capita GDP is now 6th, below Turkmenistan and 2.5 times below Russia at Purchasing Power Parity. Symbolically, the Project 1164 missile cruiser “Ukraine”, pried from Russia during the partitioning of the Black Sea Fleet, still sits unfinished and rusting at the Nikolaev wharfs.  

To an important extent Ukraine has depended on Russian energy subsidies, debt forbearance, and labor market to help carry the social and economic burden of its independence. For over a decade (1992-2005) Ukraine received Russian gas supplies at a quarter to a third of the European market price, bought extra quantities and re-exported them abroad for additional revenues, saving and making billions of dollars each year. Ukraine’s industry and households relied on such discounts to survive in the long and arduous period of transition and socioeconomic dislocations. When president Yushchenko (2005-2009) began to sever ties with Russia and to pull Ukraine towards NATO, Russia began to reduce energy discounts but was till selling gas at 20%-30% below European prices.  

Russia has also been a major source of remittances for the Ukrainian economy with 3.7 million Ukrainian citizens residing there in 2013, over 1 million of them illegal migrants,[1] with annual remittances in the billions of dollars, delivered not as official aid through government intermediaries, but straight to family budgets. Furthermore, Ukraine’s industries continue to rely on Russia for exports of a variety of industrial manufactures.

As his country’s economy and finances entered yet another crisis, President Yanukovitch has turned to both east and west. The most immediate and tangible response has come from Russia.

Another financial bind

The initial $3 billion bail out from Russia was urgently needed to pay pensions and other social benefits, and government debt. Ukraine’s leadership has grumbled at the difficulty of securing a smaller, €600 million loan from EU and the multi-billion dollar package from the IMF. The latter has put forth familiar conditions – freezing pensions and other social benefits, laying off government workers, raising the energy prices for households and industry – a precursor to the sort of social and political explosion any leader would want to avoid. Apparently the IMF feels the people there can afford to tighten their belts even more.

Over the past few years, Ukraine’s leadership had turned to Russian and Chinese sources to provide over $20 billion in loans for the state and banking sector. The most recent gas discount from Russia lowers the price to $268.5/1000 m3 , $100 below European prices, and slows down the steady depletion of Ukraine’s foreign exchange reserves. Moreover, Russian energy giant Gazprom has prepaid several years of gas transit fees to Ukraine. Yet the importance of discounted gas price runs wider and deeper than the national budget since energy prices affect production costs for Ukraine’s industrial exports.

At this moment, Ukraine’s outstanding gas bill for 2013 and 2014 stands at nearly $3.5 billion as its leadership has requested another deferment, including for the discounted 2014. If Kiev ever got a worthy financial aid package from the EU, it would need to forward a large part of it to Gazprom.

Accompanying the above, are the declining quantities of Russian gas transited through Ukraine’s pipeline system. During the early 2000’s Gazprom had sent an average of 100-120 billion m3 per year through Ukraine’s Soviet-build network, bringing over a billion dollars. In the past two years, however, the transited volumes have declined to 80 billion m3 as Russia is implementing new pipeline projects whose combined capacities exceed its European exports. Bypassing Ukraine, these pipelines enable Gazprom to deliver consistent supplies to European consumers. They also raise doubts over the modernization plans for Ukraine’s gas transportation network which, without the guaranteed transit volumes, removes the rationale behind the multi-billion dollar funding such project requires.

Yet this modernization is necessary if the system is to continue to function reliably and to retain for Ukraine one of the advantages it inherited from the USSR. Now the pipeline network appears to be too costly not to modernize and too risky to commit substantial sums, given the danger of unfilled pipes. The key to this dilemma, as to others, is improved relations with Russia which retains considerable economic leverage over Ukraine.      

Dreams and nightmares

After several years of steady PR campaign in favor of “Euro-integration” nearly half of Ukraine’s citizens grew to believe in the approaching economic miracle, to help escape from the dream-turned-nightmare of transition to capitalism. Current expectations included higher pensions, better salaries, open access to EU job market, newly-paved roads, and law and order. As my Italian acquaintance claimed, “the new EU members all want to hang their problems on us and think we are going to carry them and solve them.” Perhaps if EU membership was actually in the table for Ukraine these expectations would not have been unfounded.

Meanwhile, Russia has used its leverage to promote its interests and certainly continues to do so today, offering inducements and applying pressures towards eastern integration, haunted by nightmares of further NATO expansion, U.S. military bases, and ABM installations in Eastern Europe as sign-posts of post-Cold War “partnership”. As American scholar K. Waltz observed, U.S. leaders “to a dismaying extent think of East or West rather than of their interaction” and the expansion of NATO “is intended to keep a new balance of power from forming…to freeze historical development [and] keep the world unipolar”  but this “alienates Russia”.[2]  

More ominously, in 2007 U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, W. Taylor dismissed neutrality as a viable option for Ukraine but promised that “NATO will not use Ukraine’s membership against Russia…there are a lot of examples of former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics now in NATO, but we have not seen them being used against Russia”.[3] Today, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria have been designated as new hosts for the relocation of U.S. forces and for U.S. ABM sites.

A few years later, Under-Secretary of Defense A. Vershbow disclosed that the U.S. and Ukrainian officials are discussing the use of former Soviet and Russian radars in Ukraine for the American ABM system, a claim that was seconded by Ukraine’s ambassador in Washington.[4] Soon after, NATO General Secretary Fogh Rassmussen promised “in no way [to] compromise on principal issues [with Moscow]”[5] and that NATO will continue to promote membership for Ukraine.[6]

Neutrality has indeed become very difficult for Ukraine in the context of west-east geopolitics. Observing from the other side of Eurasia, China’s Xinhua stated that “Ukraine has turned popular for Russia and NATO” and finds itself in a “delicate position…important for Russia [as] the final buffer against NATO”.[7]

The power and security competition has been accompanied by the geopolitics of integration. In 2011the EU Commissioner Barroso warned Ukraine that “it is impossible to integrate into the Customs Union [with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan] while having a free-trade zone with EU”[8] while U.S. State Secretary Clinton openly declared that “we will work out methods to slow down or prevent reintegration” of the whole region.[9] Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov attempted to toned down the rhetoric and rejected “artificial choices between ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ vectors of development…these should not be opposed to each other…[our] approach envisions Eurasian integration as a  contribution to the creation of a single economic and human space from the Atlantic to the Pacific”[10], a theme reiterated by President Putin during the January 2014 EU-Russia summit. Of course, if it ever to take place, the sequence of this integration and the eventual place of Ukraine in it are issues of conflict for both sides.

The right side of history?

A wealthier EU, endowed with substantially larger financial and economic resources than Russia, could have opened its borders to millions of Ukraine’s migrant workers that go to Russia, begin to subsidize Ukraine’s gas consumption, and offer hefty and low-interest loans. It has not done any of these. It has instead used its levers inside Ukraine’s fragile and troubled domestic politics to pressure and lecture its leadership.

In the West fascism and terrorism are rightly considered evil and, ultimately, dead-end movements. Surprisingly, today one could observe the U.S. and its NATO allies dabble on the wrong side of history, quite willing to exploit extremist, backward factions for geopolitical goals in the Syria and now in Ukraine. Moreover, as it has done in Mosaddegh’s Iran and Allende’s Chile, the U.S. appears to be once again subverting a democratically-elected leader in an era when democracy is said to be on the march.

And while the Kiev Maidan to a large extent is made up of organized civil society groups and well-wishing individuals, the openly racist ultra-nationalist squatters have a strong presence there as well and are the fighting wing in the Maidan division of labor. Western politicians now euphemize as “activists” the groups inspired by the fetid remains of Hitler’s ideology, they indulge in anti-government demagoguery before the crowds in Kiev, meddle in Ukraine’s domestic politics and rock its fragile consensus. Even assuming the best intentions, this is an irresponsible and harmful policy.

They also consistently ignore Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions and do not seem to include among “the People of Ukraine” those quieter millions that voted Yanukovitch into the presidency and made his Party of Regions the most numerous in the parliament. These same southern and eastern regions drive the country’s economy and fill its budget. Western politicians are wrong to expect the less developed, recipient regions of Ukraine to unilaterally decide national policy for the more numerous and industrialized donor regions of the east and south, regions that have elected two of Ukraine’s last three presidents.

A new “partnership”?

Besides the displays of diplomatic discourtesy in Kiev, the tenors of Western instructions to Ukraine are indicative. Even without signing the EU association agreement, the country’s leadership has received demands to change domestic laws, create new coalitions, and peremptory proscriptions against government use of police all the while its offices are occupied, Kiev streets barricaded and manned, and its policemen attacked. In this light, one almost admires the effective suppression of the Occupy movement in U.S.A, with thousands arrests made against protesters immeasurably more peaceful than those in Kiev, or the EU indulgence towards the Greek police during the massive anti-EU and anti-Merkel riots in Athens.

Having obligations without equal participation or rights, faced with demands and strong suggestions in place of a dialogue, categorizes a person – and a country – as a subject. Rulers only have subjects; democracies have citizens. If the West truly has the best intentions in Ukraine, it ought to adopt different, more constructive means, to become sensitive to the plight of all of Ukraine’s citizens and groups, not just to those it currently finds useful, and to match its  financial aid with its political hyperactivity.

Ukraine on the Verge of Civil War: Blood on the Maidan

Ukraine is teetering on the verge of civil war, and as usual Western media haven’t been particularly helpful in shedding light on the unravelling situation. Aside from evocative photos of clashes between legion-like formations of Berkut riot police and their rough nationalist opponents on the Maidan Nezalezhnosti(Independence Square), about all we can expect from the mainstream press corps is the following fanciful narrative:

• When corrupt Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych scrapped the country’s EU Association Agreement he had been set to sign in November 2013, “peaceful protests” were launched by pro-Western Kievans intent upon a European future.
• Popular anger only intensified after Yanukovych agreed to a wide-ranging economic cooperation treaty with Vladimir Putin’s Russia on December 17th. Helpless, liberty-loving Ukraine was being sucked into Moscow’s dark orbit. Only the gallant protestors could halt this process.
• The battle for Kiev continues as the unsteady regime enacted draconian laws limiting freedom of assembly in an attempt to hold on to power. Ukraine is the new front line in the struggle for democracy, genetically engineered Big Macs, and psychological warfare via Disney and MTV.

Strategic realities, however, rarely fit the script of a made-for-TV morality tale. The story behind the scenes concerns a drive by the United States to short-circuit Russia’s resurgence where it truly matters: in Ukraine.

US foreign policy commentators would rather divert focus from facts that discredit their preferred plotline; the first of these is Washington’s activation of an upgraded template for carrying out a coup d’état in Kiev. For over a decade now, the American public has been led to believe that successive waves of “people power” have risen up to overthrow oppressive rulers across Eurasia and the Middle East, all of whom just happened to contradict US interests. None of this was accidental; from Belgrade and Tbilisi to Minsk and Kishinev, the CIA and State Department have carried out plausible-deniability regime-change operations with varying degrees of success. Western darling Viktor Yushchenko’s 2004 “Orange Revolution” deflated ignominiously, but Ukraine’s valuable geographic position and its ethnic and cultural fissures have again made it the target of US covert action.

The issue of European integration only delivered a necessary pretext to set off this latest round of the Great Game. What talking heads and Upper East Side columnists also omit to tell their audiences is the nature of Kiev’s potential “association” with the EU – the country would have become an economic colony of Western corporate interests, complete with the gutting of Ukrainian manufacturing capacity and a crushing, banker-imposed austerity already familiar to current EU residents. The agreement itself was originally promoted by the nation’s oligarchic elite, the real power behind any presidency in Kiev. Brussels sought to acquire Ukraine on the cheap, offering less than $1 billion to cover its $17 billion debt obligations plus the enormous damages that would be wrought to Ukraine’s economy from signing on. Russia, in contrast, deepened partnership with its neighbor by assigning $15 billion to Ukrainian debt, forming joint enterprises in key heavy industries and setting gas prices below market value[i].

Since Ukraine’s official declaration of sovereignty in 1991, the corruption and malfeasance of any presidential administration has never been a matter worth debating. Yet Yanukovych and pivotal backers such as Rinat Akhmetov finally came to understand that the Association Agreement itself would be a sure recipe for economic ruin and political catastrophe, even as European officials publicly presented the deal as Ukraine’s “choosing Europe” over Russia. Seeing few tangible benefits from this glaringly uneven arrangement, the regime in Kiev found more amenable negotiating partners in Putin’s Kremlin than among the likes of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Baroness Catherine Ashton.

The West’s main assets in upending a closer Russo-Ukrainian relationship are the opposition groups who have swarmed Kiev and are currently engaged in urban combat with police in addition to seizing regional capitals. But many of these “protestors,” today’s cause célèbre among US policymakers, are in actuality hard-core nationalists who hail primarily from Galicia, composed of three provinces in Ukraine’s far west. Often Catholic and previously under centuries of Polish and Austro-Hungarian rule, the Galicians nurse a strong animus toward the Orthodox, Russian-oriented east and Crimea.

The recent forefathers of today’s fighters on theMaidan once filled the ranks of a whole Waffen-SS Division, and now Galician-heavy outfits likeBatkivschyna “Fatherland,” and Svoboda,“Freedom,” see themselves as advancing their ancestors’ cause of national independence from the hated Moskali yoke. It’s a near-certainty that Washington is not only providing the Ukrainian opposition with vocal diplomatic cover (including threatened sanctions) and extensive coordination and logistics aid through a host of NGOs like Freedom House and the NED. US intelligence networks, along with allies from MI6, BND and the Polish service, have in all likelihood been actively supporting the marauding nationalists, who are called “peaceful protestors” in the same way that jihadist mercenaries who have laid waste to Libya and Syria are “freedom fighters” and partisans of deviance are celebrated as “rights activists.” Whatever their aspirations, the ultras are ultimately foot soldiers in a wider geopolitical gambit.

The lands astride the Dnepr and the Don are not only the historical heart of Eastern Slavic civilization; they form the cornerstone of a viable Russian security posture vis-à-vis Europe. For a proper understanding of the aims of US foreign policy in Ukraine, it is worth recalling the analysis ofZbigniew Brzezinski, strategist emeritus of international financial elites:

Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire…However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its [46 million] people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.

Brzezinski also often speaks of his hopes for the imposition of liberal democracy upon Russia – doubtless due to his tremendous philanthropic affection for the Russian people. The only things he consistently despises about that nation are its sovereignty, identity and Orthodox Christianity.

It is a sovereign Russia that prevents bankster-run America from fully realizing the inhuman dream of a planetary panopticon; therefore Brzezinski and his acolytes in the US national security apparatus have slated their enemy for subversion and dismemberment. Coupled with continuousunofficial US backing of Islamic separatist movements in the Caucasus, choreography of a revolution in Ukraine is a rather cheap method of destabilizing Russia’s southern periphery. Not only would the 2014 Sochi Olympics be overshadowed, but major energy projects like South Stream could also be thrown into disarray. As in Kosovo, unleashing chaos to the accompaniment of liberal-humanitarian rhetoric can furnish a ready excuse for the introduction of NATO forces into a region.

After Putin’s 2013 success in deterring an attack on Syria and strengthening the Kremlin’s position in the Eastern Mediterranean, Washington is now channeling its efforts to undermine any consolidation of Russian power in Eurasia. Its grand opportunity lies in exploiting the schisms that rack Ukrainian society to install another pro-Western government in Kiev and set the stage for a US military presence mere hundreds of kilometers from Moscow. Yet Russia seems to appreciate the lessons it learned from the past decade’s Orange Revolution and is in no mood to entertain such notions.

With the hope of avoiding a civil war, there exists in Ukraine the distinct possibility of a future partition that would see the industrial east and Black Sea littoral under Russian protection while the westerners fulfil their European destiny[ii]. So let the Galician ultras be feted by their benefactors with parades in Paris, London and Berlin; US diplomats and the eurocrats will hardly know what hit them.

Media Disinformation: What’s Really Going On in Ukraine?

You’d be forgiven for knowing very little about the unrest in Ukraine – the violence, the rioting on the streets, the armed protesters storming government buildings amidst plumes of thick black smoke rising from makeshift barricades. Most of the public have once again been Beibered by the mainstream media – the arrest of this precocious, spoilt physical embodiment of crass corporate culture proving newsworthy enough for an MSNBC host to interrupt an interview with a member of Congress discussing the true scale of NSA spying.

In this climate of superficial distractions and media inanity, you’d be equally forgiven for not really knowing why there is political unrest in Ukraine. Most of the explanations for the violence offered by the mainstream media present the information in simplistic soundbytes – talking points without the relevant wider political and historical context which renders current events coherent.

The following article from The Independent provides us with a brief overview of the media’s presentation of recent events in Ukraine:

In November President Viktor Yanukovych decided to pull out of a treaty with EU, an agreement many felt would have paved the way for the Ukraine to join the union. It looked like he was going to sign the agreement before performing a U-turn, which has made Ukrainian disappointment all the sharper. However the government would rather stay friendly with Putin in return for favourable treatment. The protesters think it would benefit ordinary people far more to be aligned with the EU and consider Yanukovych a man who only represents the interests of the richest.

The article goes on to define the demonstrations as ”more than a pro-EU movement”, one which represents popular resentment towards perceived government corruption and violent repression towards peaceful activists.

President Viktor Yanukovych’s government forces are certainly guilty of using excessive force against the rioters, and accusations of torture appear to be well-founded and should not be excused. But condemnation is certainly clouded when you consider the level of violence from the rioters. By the same token, when mobile phone users near the scene of the riots received text messages from the state reading, “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass riot” it brought to home just how omnipresent – and ominous – surveillance technology in the 21st century has become.

The problem with the “popular protests against the government and for integration into the EU” narrative is that it omits crucial information regarding the role of the West is fomenting and orchestrating demonstrations such as these; a role which illuminates broader geopolitical objectives in the region and the extent to which intelligence agencies and their offshoot organizations meddle in the affairs of sovereign nations. Understanding the nature of soft power – the use of coercion and bribery – and the subversion and infiltration of grassroots political movements by NGOs and other organizations backed either directly or indirectly by the US government, helps us to more broadly understand why the unrest in Ukraine is reaching such a fever pitch.

The seemingly spontaneous 2004 Ukrainian “Orange Revolution”, sparked by alleged electoral fraud and allegations of voter intimidation, was led largely by a number of grassroots movements tied to political activists and student groups. Many of the groups involved, however, were funded and trained by organizations intimately linked to the US government. The foreign donors of these groups included the US State Department, USAID, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the Open Society Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy.

The candidate who emerged victorious in the wake of these widespread orchestrated protests, Viktor Yushchenko, was not only endorsed by the same institutions which wielded their influence over the protest movements themselves, he was also supported by the International Monetary Fund. A central banker by profession, Yushchenko was a firm advocate of implementing IMF monetary reforms and, equally crucially, an advocate of NATO membership. Before entering into Ukrainian politics he had worked at the US State Department,the Reagan White House, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. In short, it’s safe to say that he was a product of Washington, an image only exacerbated by his hostility towards Russia.

It is tempting to automatically assume that the same process is taking place in Ukraine at the moment. Certainly, intelligence agencies have historical form when it comes to covert operations and the manipulation of activists via social media – similar US-backed ”Colour Revolutions” have taken place in Georgia, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. The widespread political support for the protesters in Ukraine and the lack of condemnation for their use of violence would certainly add to the view that these protests are at least tacitly backed by the West, if not outright orchestrated. While none of this constitutes “proof” of outside interference, at the very least it is enough to raise suspicions. On the other hand, without firm evidence it is perhaps equally plausible that the support for the protesters is simply a case of making political capital out of the situation, stoking the flames of an already lit fire.

As the violence on the streets of Kiev continues, already spreading away from the capital, the Russian State Duma recently passed a resolution slamming foreign politicians and other players for interfering in Ukrainian internal affairs in an attempt to escalate the conflict. It’s a marked contrast to the rhetoric emerging from Washington and the EU, both of whom have expressed the possibility of intervening, with the US adopting a stance which hints at another planned ”regime change” on Russia’s doorstep.

Perhaps the most damning indictment of the West’s stance over Ukraine and their support for what they refer to as a “pro-democracy protest movement” is the profoundly anti-democratic leanings of the violent protestors at the vanguard of the assault on the Ukrainian authorities. Anyone familiar with the crisis in Syria and the attempts to topple President Assad will be all too familiar with the US’s willingness to get into bed with extremists of the worst possible nature in order to achieve their objectives.

In Ukraine today it appears that very little has changed. Just as the Western-backed Syrian rebels with intimate ties to al-Qaeda were presented in our media as “pro-democracy” organizations, so too are many of those protesting in Ukraine drawn from far-right and fascistic groups such as the opposition Svoboda party, whom John McCain was more than happy to appear on stage with in December 2013 and offer his – and by extension America’s – support.

Yet it would also be wrong-headed to characterize the protests in Ukraine as being led by far-right extremists – many protesters are taking to the streets through genuine and legitimate grievances with the current government. The danger lies in these moderate protesters allying themselves with those on the far-right – combined with tacit support from the US for the likes of the Svoboda party, it could be a concoction which would set the stage for a dictatorship far more corrupt and repressive than those currently clinging onto power.

With the geopolitical stakes as high as they are, not least with the potential for a broader NATO influence in the region, it would be wise to view the situation in Ukraine through the wider prism of the global balance of power and all that this entails. Equally, we should be wary of simplistic media narratives which seek to paint any conflict in black and white/good vs. evil terms, particularly when the “good guys” are being backed by the US government and her allies. All too often this amounts to little more than propaganda designed to rouse support for opposition movements favourable to “regime change”, and by now it should be very clear how little this has to do with vague, idealistic notions of “democracy”, and how much it has to do with regional – and ultimately global – hegemony.

Ukraine and Pro-Imperialist Intellectuals

The “Open letter on the future of Ukraine” issued by a group of Western academics and foreign policy operatives is a vile defense of the ongoing far-right protests in Ukraine supported by Washington and the European Union (EU). It peddles the old lie, repeated over nearly a quarter century of imperialist wars and interventions in Eastern Europe since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, that US and EU policy is driven only by a disinterested love of democracy and human rights.

It states, “The future of Ukrainians depends most of all on Ukrainians themselves. They defended democracy and their future 10 years ago, during the Orange Revolution, and they are standing up for those values today. As Europeans grow disenchanted with the idea of a common Europe, people in Ukraine are fighting for that idea and for their country’s place in Europe. Defending Ukraine from the authoritarian temptations of its corrupt leaders is in the interests of the democratic world.”

The identity of the imperialist powers’ local proxies demolishes the open letter’s pretense that the imperialist powers are fighting for democracy. They are relying on a core of a few thousand fascistic thugs from the Right Sector organization and the Svoboda Party to topple the Ukrainian regime in a series of street protests, replace it with a pro-EU government hostile to Moscow, and impose savage austerity measures. Washington and the EU are not fighting for democracy, but organizing a social counterrevolution.

In November, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych backed away from plans to integrate Ukraine into the EU and push through tens of billions of dollars in social cuts against workers to pay back Ukraine’s debts to the major banks. Fearing an explosion of mass protests, he accepted a bailout from Russia instead. The far-right opposition redoubled its efforts, as dueling anti-government and anti-opposition protests spread in Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking parts of the country, respectively.

While EU intervention threatens Ukraine with social collapse and civil war, the open letter stands reality on its head, presenting the developments in Ukraine as a threat to the EU: “It is not too late for us to change things for the better and prevent Ukraine from being a dictatorship. Passivity in the face of the authoritarian turn in Ukraine and the country’s reintegration into a newly expanding Russian imperial sphere of interests pose a threat to the European Union’s integrity.”

In fact, neither Ukraine nor Russia has threatened to attack the EU. It is Ukraine—with its energy pipeline network, strategic military bases, and heavy industry—that is emerging as a major prize in an aggressive thrust by US and European imperialism to plunder the region and target Russia. While US and European imperialism threaten to attack Moscow’s main Middle East allies, Syria and Iran, they are threatening Russia’s main Eastern European ally, Ukraine, with regime change or partition.

The drive to impose untrammeled imperialist domination of Eastern Europe, which began after the restoration of capitalism with escalating NATO interventions and wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, is at a very advanced stage. It is setting into motion the next campaign, for regime change and ethnic partition in Russia, where Washington is studying a variety of ethnic groups—from Chechens, to Tatars or Circassians—whose grievances can be mobilized against Moscow.

This is raised quite directly in leading sections of the Western press. TheFinancial Times of London wrote Sunday, “Mr. Yanukovych and Mr. Putin are leaders of a similar type and with a similar governing model. If Ukrainians push the man in Kiev out of power, Russians might wonder why they should not do the same to the man in the Kremlin.”

By aligning themselves with the US-EU drive to dominate Eastern Europe, the signatories of the open letter are embracing what historically have been the aims of German imperialism. Berlin twice invaded Ukraine in the 20th century, in 1918 and 1941. Significantly, imperialism’s proxies in Ukraine today are the political descendants of Ukrainian fascists who helped carry out the Ukrainian Holocaust as allies of the Nazis—whose policy was to depopulate Ukraine and prepare its colonization by German settlers through mass extermination.

Now, at this year’s Munich Security Conference, top German officials stated that Berlin plans to abandon restrictions on the use of military force that it has obeyed since the end of World War II.

The disastrous consequences of the Soviet bureaucracy’s self-destructive policies and the light-minded approach of Mikhail Gorbachev as he moved to dissolve the USSR—believing that the concept of imperialism was a fiction invented by Marxism—are emerging fully into view.

Trotsky warned that the dissolution of the USSR would not only restore capitalism, but also transform Russia into a semi-colonial fiefdom of the imperialist powers: “A capitalist Russia could not now occupy even the third-rate position to which czarist Russia was predestined by the course of the world war. Russian capitalism today would be a dependent, semi-colonial capitalism without any prospects. Russia Number 2 would occupy a position somewhere between Russia Number 1 and India. The Soviet system with its nationalized industry and monopoly of foreign trade, in spite of all its contradictions and difficulties, is a protective system for the economic and cultural independence of the country.”

This is the agenda being laid out by imperialism and its fascist proxies: to return Russia and Ukraine to semi-colonial status through internal subversion, civil war, or external military intervention. Processes are being set into motion that threaten the deaths of millions.

Mobilizing the working class in struggle against imperialist war and neocolonial exploitation is the central task in Eastern Europe. Due warnings must be made. In the absence of such a struggle, given the bankruptcy and unpopularity of the region’s oligarchic regimes, there is every reason to think that determined fascist gangs—supported by imperialist governments and given political cover by pro-imperialist academics and diplomatic operatives—will succeed in toppling existing regimes.

This underscores the reactionary role of the signatories of the open letter. Some are top diplomats or “non-governmental” imperialist operatives—such as former foreign ministers Ana Palacio of Spain and Bernard Kouchner of France, or Chris Stone and Aryeh Neier of the US State Department-linked Open Society Institute of billionaire George Soros. Most, however, are academics and intellectuals who are lending their names to give credibility to far-right reaction in Ukraine, through a foul combination of learned ignorance and historic blindness.

Some of the names on the list of signatories evoke regret—such as Fritz Stern, a historian who was once capable of writing seriously on historical questions.

Others, like that of postmodernist charlatan Slavoj Zizek, come as no surprise. They only confirm the alignment of affluent sections of the middle class with imperialist brigandage, and the reactionary role of pseudo-left thought in training mouthpieces for imperialism.

After decades of intellectual war on Marxism in universities and the media, cultural life is in a disastrous state. Hostile to the Marxist conceptions of imperialism and of material interests driving its policies, these layers are left unmoved by imperialist crimes—the destruction of Fallujah during the US occupation of Iraq, or the drone murder campaign in Afghanistan. Their pens spring into action, however, when EU politicians excite their moral glands by denouncing regimes targeted for imperialist intervention. They can be led by the nose, even behind fascists, with a few empty invocations of human rights.