War and the Reformist Left: We Need a 21st-Century Zimmerwald

In response to World War I, anti-militarist socialists gathered at the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference to build a new anti-war movement. The revolutionary wing raised the perspective of an independent, anti-imperialist path, one based on the slogan to wage a war against capitalism’s wars and crises.


Santiago Lupe March 22, 2022



Today, we are witnessing the formation of a warmongering “sacred union” to which most of the reformist Left has succumbed. Others adopt pacifist positions and express illusions about the diplomatic path. It is urgent to promote a pole of the internationalist Left that calls for a stop to the escalating war and for the independent anti-war mobilization of the working classes and peoples of Russia, Ukraine, and the imperialist countries.

The warmongering spirit continues to grow on the European continent. After Germany, the main European imperialist power, announced its historic rearmament, all the governments of the European Union closed ranks behind economic sanctions, the reinforcement of NATO contingents throughout the region, and sending arms to the Ukrainian army. It is the warlike barbarism of reactionary Russian nationalism that is mainly fueling this wave. Right-wing media and “progressivism” both embrace this resurgence of militarist European imperialism.

A large part of Europe’s reformist Left has dived into this vortex. Stalinist and populist groups are justifying the Russian aggression in Ukraine as a defensive action, given the advance of NATO and the EU over the past two decades. While these are marginal positions in Europe, they have a larger audience within the U.S. socialist Left and in Latin American populism.

In Europe, the vast majority of the reformist Left and “progressives” have lined up behind their own imperialist governments. They yield to the demagogic defense of Ukraine, which is a new version of the “sacred union” of “democratic Europe.” While there is not yet a generalized war beyond Ukraine on the immediate horizon, the situation is reminiscent of other dark moments in history — such as when the support of the reformist workers’ leaderships to the warmongering of their imperialist states led to the catastrophe of World War I.

From the betrayal of Social Democracy and the Second International in 1914, supporting the workers of the continent killing each other in that great imperialist war, an alternative Left emerged. The International Women’s Conference against War, organized by Clara Zetkin in March 1915, adopted the slogan “War on war!” That September, 38 delegates from 11 countries met at the Zimmerwald Conference.

The pacifist wing, headed by Martov, did not want to break with the Social Democratic parties and avoided a condemnation of the Second International’s betrayal. The revolutionary wing included Lenin, Trotsky, and Rosa Luxemburg. All agreed on promoting the independent and revolutionary mobilization of the masses to put an end to the imperialist war. Lenin openly proposed turning it into a civil war, understood as revolution. Trotsky and the German Spartacus League of Luxemburg and Liebknecht proposed raising it as a “revolutionary struggle for peace.”

Today, most of those who oppose warmongering do so from very different starting points from those at Zimmerwald, particularly those who were in the revolutionary wing. Their starting points are generally those of bourgeois or petty-bourgeois pacifism, which holds that peace can be achieved through diplomatic channels, and that the EU should play a greater role in negotiating the peace. This also characterizes figures such as Pablo Iglesias and Jean-Luc Mélenchon; sectors within Podemos and Die Linke;1 groups such as the EH-Bildu and CUP in the Spanish State, which speak politically for the Basque nationalist Left and the Catalan pro-independence Left, respectively; and far-left groups such as Anticapitalistas in the Spanish State.

That they oppose the warmongering is undoubtedly a progressive element. But these illusions in an EU of peoples, peace, and democracy in charge of their imperialist states come across as rather naive at a time when the rulers sound more and more like commanders-in-chief and when the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrel, has given up on all avenues of dialogue. In the case of Podemos, it is actual deception, since that party is part of the imperialist government of the Spanish Socialist Party, sharing four ministerial posts with the Communist Party.

Conversely, we cannot ignore that some of these proposals are put forward as alternative ways to strengthen Spanish imperialism and European imperialism in the world. Mélenchon is a faithful proponent of this perspective. He presents today’s option of nonbelligerence as the best defense of the interests of his own imperialism, and to differentiate it from U.S. imperialism. Iglesias shares this thesis; he has been lamenting for weeks that the EU does not have its own foreign policy.
The Zimmerwald Iglesias Wants …

Pablo Iglesias, since his podcast for the newspaper Público, has been raising this same historical analogy. He believes that there is a strong “social mood” in favor of warmongering. Against what he calls this “1914 momentum,” he appeals for a new “Zimmerwald momentum” — an opportunity to refound the European Left — for the second time in less than 10 years. Then, it was about reviving the old postwar Social Democracy; today, it’s about reviving the progressive pacifism of the beginning of the 20th century.

The Zimmerwald of this former deputy prime minister of the government of Europe’s fifth imperialist power, though, has nothing to do with the Zimmerwald of Lenin, Trotsky, or Luxemburg. What Iglesias hopes to impose, by means of a citizen pressure campaign on its rulers, is a reformist utopia with a return to diplomatic channels, a strengthening of the independent role of the EU, and a peace conference between the warring states.

It is a position that condemns Iglesias to the tragic impotence of reformists in times of crisis. It is the same approach he took during his time as part of the presidency, when he ended up taking on the bulk of the social-liberal and imperialist agenda of the Sánchez government. Now his hope is that the trend toward greater competition and armed and commercial clashes between powers — which are intrinsic to the capitalist system and have been worsening since the 2008 crisis — can be mollified without breaking or clashing with this social order. It’s a simple matter of good rulers acting rationally and for the common good.

The Zimmerwald Left made clear that the only way to stop the war was through working-class struggle against their own imperialist governments, not pleas for them to stop fighting and start negotiations. Only the perspective of socialist revolution, of the conquest of workers’ governments, was a realistic perspective to stop that machinery of death and open the way to a social model at the service of resolving the great, unresolved social and democratic problems.

World War I finally came to an end. A workers’ revolution triumphing in Russia for the first time in history was a fundamental component. Not only did it achieve peace in the East without any annexations, as was the will of the Bolsheviks, but it accelerated the end of hostilities of the other powers for fear that the revolution would spread throughout Europe — as happened even in defeated Hungary and Germany.

The peace negotiations between the imperialist powers were not exactly a guarantee of peace and democracy. They just postponed combat until two decades later. The fight for global hegemony remained unresolved, with the losers, beginning with Germany, condemned to paying reparations that fed the monster of reactionary nationalism. Such were the “achievements” of opening diplomatic channels between imperialist states and establishing the reactionary utopia of the League of Nations. What makes today’s peacemakers of diplomacy think things would be any different in the 21st century?
… And the Zimmerwald We Need

At the beginning of the 20th century, Lenin defined the fundamental characteristics of the time: crises, wars, and revolutions. This has been revived and updated, at least since the 2008 crisis.

As was the case in 1914 and in the 1930s, even the greatest apologists for capitalism recognize the tendency toward crises of all kinds — economic, climate, health — as a fact. So, too, is the growing tendency toward greater confrontations between states. Now we are witnessing a surge in this dynamic, with an armed conflict of unthinkable consequences and an economic war that could lead to the kind of disruption of the world market and logic of blocs that were seen in the years leading up to World War II.

What the various versions of reformist Left pacifism do not see, and do not want to happen, is that the current situation — the afflictions to which the capitalists and their states are condemning us — is inscribed with the possibility of new acute cycles of class struggle and even revolutions.

In the last decade, revolutionary outbreaks have been diverted or defeated. They include those triggered by the “Arab Spring,” the revolts beginning in 2019 in a number of Latin American countries, and the big workers’ strikes against Macron in France. Even the International Monetary Fund — despite being responsible itself — warned of the danger that the situation left in the wake of the pandemic could be the breeding ground for a world full of revolts.

That is the perspective toward which we must direct our efforts to stop the current war and the escalation of warmongering that has ensued. Let the intervention of the masses, the class struggle, the revolts, lead to triumphant revolutions that will put an end to a social order that is incapable of guaranteeing humanity’s survival in the coming decades.

At this moment, a 21st-century Zimmerwald Left should, first and foremost, propose a way out that is independent of the various reactionary sides in the Ukrainian war. Neither Putin’s autocratic government nor the pro-imperialist government of Zelenskyy and the various reactionary nationalist forces, subordinated to the NATO powers, can provide a progressive and lasting solution to the underlying problems behind this geopolitical and military crisis.

In Ukraine itself, such a Left would mount a resistance to the Russian occupation not subordinated to NATO and the EU, as Zelenskyy champions, but based on the development of workers’ and popular self-organization and that opposes Russophobia and recognizes full rights, including self-determination, for the territories with Russian-speaking majorities. In Russia, it would struggle to develop a great workers’ and popular mobilization to stop the war machine and in defense of the independence of Ukraine — and which would be the starting point to put an end to Putin’s reactionary regime in a revolutionary way.

At the same time, such a Left would push for a strong movement against the war in the imperialist countries, a Left that stands for Russian troops out of Ukraine; for the right to asylum for all Ukrainian and Russian refugees fleeing Putin’s persecution or deserting the military mobilization; for the lifting of the economic sanctions; for a halt to all intervention and the withdrawal of all troops, including sending troops and weapons to the region; and against the escalating rearmament of the European armies.

The capitalists lead us to wars and great economic suffering that flows from their wars and crises. We must build a Left that raises the banner of “War on war!” We must build a Left that stands up for the fraternal and international struggle of the different peoples and the working class against the imperialist governments to stop this escalation and impose a program to make the capitalists themselves pay for its consequences, with measures such as nationalizing the entire energy sector under workers’ control and a sliding scale of wages linked to price increases.

Let us raise the banners of Zimmerwald’s revolutionary wing once again: the fight for a socialist perspective and to establish workers’ governments that will put an end to a social system that only leads us to barbarism.

First published in Spanish on March 6 in Contrapunto, the Sunday supplement of Izquierda Diario in the Spanish State.

Translation by Scott Cooper

The Challenge of an Independent Anti-Imperialist Policy in Ukraine: A Response to Achcar and Kouvélakis


Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked considerable discussion about what a consistent anti-imperialist policy should look like today. It is a debate of tremendous importance.


Juan Chingo, Philippe Alcoy and Pierre Reip 

March 20, 2022


The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has provoked considerable discussion about what constitutes a consistent policy of anti-imperialism today. Deep differences have been revealed in an exchange between Stathis Kouvélakis and Gilbert Achcar for the journal Contretemps. 1 A debate on anti-imperialism is particularly important; this is our contribution to that debate.

The texts of Achcar and Kouvélakis reflect some of the current disagreements within the French Left and Far Left concerning the war in Ukraine.2 If in their richness these texts offer deep insights into the situation and the questions it raises, at the same time they are — as we see it — missing a perspective of independent politics for the working class and the oppressed, which is the only perspective that can open a path to real self-determination for the Ukrainian people. Instead, the debate seems to be stuck in a logic of “lesser-evilism.” We propose a way out of that impasse.
The Nature of the War in Ukraine

One of the central concerns both authors address is the nature of the war itself. Both authors condemn the Russian aggression. Achcar calls it an “imperialist war of invasion” and Ukraine’s response a “just war,” while Kouvélakis insists on the war’s “inter-imperialist character” as part of the more general conflict between Russia and NATO, and despite the absence of direct confrontation between powers. Countering Achcar, he insists that the unification of the Western imperialist camp behind Ukraine embeds the war “in the inter-imperialist contradictions between the West and Russia.”

In fact, the Russian offensive has had the effect of closing NATO’s ranks around the Zelenskyy government, which French president Emmanuel Macron described last December as “brain dead.” Troops have been sent to NATO countries that border Ukraine and Russia, the European Union has released 450 million euros to provide military assistance to Ukraine, and U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken announced a $10 billion U.S. aid plan. Even though this intervention is indirect because of the real risks of escalating the war to a global conflict,3 this situation is fundamentally different than the imperialist invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan.

Moreover, as Kouvélakis notes, the war is inseparable from the policy NATO has pursued for the past four decades. After the fall of the USSR, the “NATO perimeter” has been moving ever closer to Russia. Once an anti-Soviet alliance, NATO has clearly become an anti-Russian alliance. The revanchism and bellicose irredentism of Putin and his regime can only be understood as the reactionary products of the post-Cold War world, entirely dominated by Western imperialism after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The March editorial of Monthly Review correctly recalls the origins of this policy aimed at “precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor,” as well as the role of Ukraine as a “geopolitical pivot” in this reconfiguration of U.S. grand strategy.

If Kouvélakis’s argument aims to highlight the internationalization of the war in Ukraine and NATO’s role, it is still insufficient to define the war as a simple “inter-imperialist conflict” and even less so to call it an “undeclared imperialist world war,” as others have claimed.4 In this respect, Achcar is correct to point out that an inter-imperialist war is “a direct war, not a proxy war,” but he is mistaken in refusing to see the undeniable international dimension of the war in Ukraine. To account for the complexity of the war in Ukraine, we think it is necessary to analyze it as a specific type of reactionary war of national oppression, characterized by an alignment of most imperialist powers behind the oppressed nation. It is a different scenario than what we saw in the Falklands War in 1982, in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, an in Afghanistan in 2001, to mention only some examples.

This specific characteristic distinguishes the war in Ukraine from “just wars,” as Lenin defined anti-colonial and anti-imperialist wars in which revolutionaries consider the military victory of the oppressed nation as progressive. If there is a just resistance to the Russian invasion and for the self-determination of the Ukrainian people, it has at present been “captured” by Western imperialism. Therefore, defining a revolutionary policy against Russian aggression requires calling for complete independence from NATO.

Before we return to this issue, let’s explore some of the differences in how the Russian aggressor is being characterized.
On Russian Power

Achcar’s minimization of NATO’s role, the political consequences of which we shall see, is explained in part by an overestimation of Russia’s potential role and the nature of its offensive. If Russia is indeed the aggressor, Achcar considers that Putin is waging an “imperialist war of invasion” and that a “successful Russian takeover of Ukraine would encourage the United States to resume its path of world conquest by force in a context of exacerbation of the new colonial division of the world and the tightening of global antagonisms.” With such logic, one could deduce that Russia is waging a form of struggle for world hegemony against the United States, with the domination and seizure of part of Ukraine’s territory as the first step.

This observation is linked to the idea, shared with Kouvélakis despite important differences in nuance, that Russia is an imperialist power. Yet if certain characteristics of the Russian state create the “illusion of a superpower,” they mask the fact that Russia is actually subordinated to a typical case of “uneven and combined development.” It has inherited from the Soviet Union and the Cold War a huge nuclear arsenal and dominant positions in several international institutions. Putin has also restored and strengthened state power after the debacle of the Yeltsin years, while consolidating and deepening Yeltsin’s pro-capitalist efforts.

Nevertheless, the Russian economy is based almost exclusively on the export of raw materials (especially oil and gas, metals, and agricultural products) and is still highly dependent on Western technology and finance. Russia’s capacity for international influence remains largely limited to the former borders of the USSR, despite partial successes in the Middle East and Africa. In sum, Russia is becoming more of a regional power, with genuine international influence remaining limited.

In this framework, the war of oppression waged by Russia in Ukraine aims first at regaining, by force, the influence it lost in the country in 2014. This is something Russia has not been able to reverse after more than eight years, despite a tactical victory in Syria — which Putin hoped he would be able to use in an eventual negotiation over Ukraine with the Western imperialists (especially the United States). Ukraine is, indeed, fundamental to Russian strategic defense interests, which are essentially based on the oppression of the various states that emerged from the former Soviet Union. To point this out, though, is not to align with Putin’s ultra-reactionary regime, and even less to absolve him of the Russian army’s atrocities in Ukraine, which include the bombing of civilian populations. It is an observation that allows for underlining the contradictions of Russia and its invasion, as have been noted by many international analysts, such as Patrick Cockburn.

In a context marked by cracks within NATO, increased U.S. hostility after its debacle in Afghanistan, a new U.S. focus on the Indo-Pacific region, and also Kyiv’s rapprochement with the Western powers, Putin’s strategists no doubt determined that the time had come to act before the window of opportunity closed. Russia first sought to pressure Biden into negotiating, with Macron certainly playing the role of intermediary. But U.S. refusal to cede even the slightest geopolitical advantage that had been gained through NATO’s expansion to the East — notably in Romania and Bulgaria, from which Putin demanded the withdrawal of NATO troops — led Putin to take a dangerous gamble.

Russia’s military intervention does not mask its weak position vis-à-vis the Western imperialists, as evidenced by its difficulties achieving its objectives in Ukraine. Russia is in a more than delicate situation because it seems to lack the financial, military, and — above all — political means to occupy, let alone annex, Ukraine. The Russian army invaded Ukraine militarily, but as a police operation aimed at extracting concessions quickly in order to avoid a costly occupation. If Russia does not achieve its objectives in the next few days, the invasion will require more and more forces and could lead to a real stalemate, as well as to an ever more deadly escalation for the Ukrainian people.

Generally speaking, Putin’s reactionary regime, which is not only anti-democratic and repressive but also deeply pro-capitalist and oligarchic, has nothing to offer the Ukrainian workers and masses. This also explains why a large part of the Ukrainian population looks with hope at the promises of prosperity made by the Western imperialists. This division has existed for years, as we saw in 2004 and again in 2014, during movements whose backdrop was conflict involving anti-Russian nationalism and the interests of the “orange” faction of the Ukrainian oligarchy, linked to the West rather than to Russia. The latter has offered nothing more to Ukrainians than its pro-Russian counterparts, which again underlines the need for a policy independent of NATO.
The Need for an Independent Policy

Kouvélakis highlights not only NATO’s reactionary role globally, but also the risk of military escalation and world war in the short term that would be implied by greater NATO intervention in the conflict — especially the “no-fly zone” demanded by Zelenskyy. In this sense, he explains why it is impossible to support the various forms of intervention by Western imperialism.

Achcar takes offense that even the slightest complacency with respect to NATO is being imputed to him, insisting his “hostility to NATO” is self-evident. His proposed orientation can nonetheless lead to confusion. He writes that a Russian victory in Ukraine would contribute to a “deterioration of the world situation towards the unrestrained law of the jungle.” For him, consequently, defeating Russia is the top priority for anti-imperialists, so much so that they should defend NATO and the EU sending “defensive” weapons to Ukraine. He also advocates neutrality regarding sanctions against Russia, even though the working classes of Russia and the world are the main victims of these sanctions — which do nothing to slow the Russian military offensive and only exacerbate tensions against the Russian populations in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world by fanning a scandalous Russophobia that places the blame for the crimes of Putin and his oligarchic caste on all people of Russian origin.

In clarifying his position, Achcar goes even further. Criticized by Kouvélakis for overlooking the negative global impact of Ukraine’s subservience to the transatlantic bloc, he replies that it would be preferable to subjugation by Russia: “If Ukraine managed to throw off the Russian yoke, it would be vassalized, argues Kouvélakis — more than likely in fact. But what he fails to mention is that if it did not succeed, it would be under Russian bondage. And you don’t need to be a medievalist to know that being a vassal is incomparably preferable to being a serf!”

Achcar thus openly assumes a policy of “lesser evilism” that leads him to side with NATO “vassalization” against Russian “bondage.” Of course, an authoritarian puppet state in Ukraine is a deeply reactionary prospect for the Ukrainian people, as is the ongoing invasion. As Trotsky wrote after the German conquest of France in 1940, there is no doubt that “of all the forms of dictatorship, the totalitarian dictatorship of a foreign conqueror is the most intolerable.” This is even more true in the case of Ukraine, which is not an imperialist power like France was in 1940, but a nation historically oppressed by Great Russian nationalism. However, this can in no way lead us to position ourselves on the side of the NATO vassalization of Ukraine. This logic of the “lesser evil” tends to embellish the semi-colonial status of Ukraine, which is bound to deepen in the case of a victory under the aegis of NATO, and is based on an erroneous appreciation of international dynamics and on skepticism regarding the possibility of an independent outcome in Ukraine.

For Ukraine, the consequences of greater imperialist domination by the West would be catastrophic. The country is already one of Europe’s poorest, with an entire slice of its population having left since the 1990s to escape poverty and, since 2014, war. After the 2014 crisis, the country received several billions of dollars in loans from the World Bank ($8.4 billion), the IMF ($17 billion), and the European Commission ($13 billion), bringing the country’s debt to 78 percent of GDP. Regardless of the war, Ukraine is expected to repay $14 billion this year. But it’s not just about repayment; the money was lent under economic, political, and social conditions and constraints that reinforce the country’s submission to Western capital, including neoliberal reforms in the agricultural and energy sectors, in the labor market, and with respect to unemployment insurance, along with privatizations.

A NATO victory would not end tensions with Russia; the situation would only worsen. For revolutionaries, therefore, the slogan of self-determination for the Ukrainian people implies rejecting not only the Russian invasion and its will to subjugate Ukraine, but also a perspective under which Ukraine would not even be a formally independent country but instead would become a sort of protectorate of Western imperialism. The “independence” of Ukraine after 1991 was a temporary exception. It was made possible by the “imperial vacuum” left by the collapse of the USSR at a time when imperialist expansion to the East, the first step of which was German reunification under the imperialist leadership of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, was only in its infancy.

Today, Ukraine finds itself once again, as it has been throughout its history, the object of conflict between the Western powers and Russia. This situation leads to the oppression of the Ukrainian people. But the Ukrainian working class and the oppressed do not have to choose between one of two oppressors — instead, they must develop an independent policy.

Achcar seems convinced that a NATO victory would play a peacemaking role in the international situation when he notes: “A Russian victory would greatly strengthen warmongering and the push for increased military spending in NATO countries, while a Russian defeat would provide much better conditions for waging our battle for general disarmament and the dissolution of NATO.” This assertion, already partially belied by the historical rearmament underway in Germany, is based on a false analogy to the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, to which Kouvélakis correctly responds.

Contrary to Achcar’s assertion, a Russian defeat would strengthen Western imperialism’s interventionist ambitions in a situation of global crisis, marked by the sharpening of tensions. Far from being a “strong deterrent on all world and regional powers,” as Achcar claims, it could establish the vassalization of Russia by the Western bloc. Such an outcome would offer respite to the neoliberal restoration, moribund since 2008, while isolating China. This could lead the Asian giant to seek an accommodation with imperialism, so as not to suffer the same fate as Russia; or conversely, it could exacerbate a disposition toward confrontation, including armed confrontation, on the part of the Chinese Communist Party’s capitalist bureaucracy. It is difficult to see any “deterrent” effect here.
For an Independent Anti-War Policy

Rejecting all NATO interference in Ukraine does not mean setting aside the Ukrainian national question and the legitimate resistance of Ukrainians to the Russian invasion. On the contrary, it means affirming that the struggle against Russia’s oppression cannot be carried out under the aegis of NATO, which, as an imperialist alliance, has never allowed any people to achieve true independence.5 In this sense, the emancipation of the Ukrainian people is inseparable from the perspective of socialist revolution and, consequently, under the difficult conditions of the current war, from an independent policy that advances toward the only progressive outcome: an independent working-class and socialist Ukraine. However, this issue is absent from the article by Kouvélakis, despite its many fair criticisms of NATO’s role.

This limitation in the ability to formulate an independent policy in Ukraine is reflected in the perspectives offered internationally. Kouvélakis defends “an anti-imperialism and internationalism of the oppressed,” which should take “the form of a broader mobilization for peace, for the democratic sovereignty of peoples, and for a break with the logic of blocs, military alliances, and “‘areas of influence.’” He then adds that Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Jeremy Corbyn and the Stop the War coalition, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), as well as “progressive sectors of the Catholic and Protestant churches and other forces” would all adhere to this line.

We share a priori the idea of an anti-imperialism and internationalism of the workers and oppressed, but we must make clear that this is not really what Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Jeremy Corbyn, or DSA propose. While delimiting themselves from NATO — which leads them to be accused of being “pro-Putin” by warmongers such as Jadot of EELV and Hidalgo of PS in France6 and the Labour Party leadership in Britain — they all advocate a diplomatic solution to the conflict. In the French National Assembly, Mélenchon championed “a truly anti-globalist diplomacy.” He also calls for sending a UN intervention force to Ukraine to secure the nuclear power plants. Jeremy Corbyn calls for a return to the Budapest and Minsk agreements and says that Russia and Ukraine must “cut out the fighting zone and go straight into the talking zone” and “start talking” — which is already partly the case, since the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers already met in Antalya, Turkey, on Thursday, March 10, without agreeing on a ceasefire. DSA also calls for diplomacy and de-escalation to resolve the crisis.

But aren’t these calls for diplomacy and de-escalation just wishful thinking, as long as there is no political force capable of bringing about an end to the logic of blocs and a lasting solution to the war and the Ukrainian crisis? Since agreements and treaties are only the expression of a balance of power at the military and political level, diplomacy alone cannot bring about a progressive outcome to the war. If this war shows one thing, it is that diplomacy has not made it possible to resolve the Ukrainian question, as the Minsk agreements never offered a real answer to the question of Ukraine’s status.

Diplomacy can only lead to ratifying a de facto situation or freezing a conflict, while in no way ruling out future, even more violent confrontations. Historically, diplomatic solutions have been systematically detrimental to oppressed peoples. Any mediation by the UN, as Mélenchon and the CGT call for, is also illusory and utopian. The UN is an institution inherited from the Cold War and has never, on its own, resolved any conflict or put a halt to any case of national oppression, as the Palestinians can testify. The presence of Blue Helmets can also prove problematic, as in the wars in Yugoslavia and the Central African Republic.

If diplomacy and the UN do not represent a credible alternative to the logic of blocs, only a workers’ and people’s alternative is capable of breaking with this logic. The organizations of the workers’ movement may be weak and divided, but the working class and the youth still have enormous potential strength throughout the world. In Ukraine, as we have pointed out, an independent working-class policy is essential to create a framework for the self-determination of the Ukrainian people. It would also make it possible to formulate demands distinct from those of Zelenskyy, to unify the different peoples of Ukraine, defending real self-determination for the Donbas and the eastern regions of Ukraine that wish it. This is central to countering Putin’s chauvinist and Great Russian propaganda. An independent policy would also be the condition for an alliance of the Ukrainian masses with the Russian workers and the oppressed, a strategic ally to defeat Putin.

Anti-war protests continue in Russia despite the ultra-repressive regime. That is why Putin has issued a decree ordering up to 15 years in prison for opponents of his war. It is also why he has imposed a social media blackout. Authoritarian, violent power against a population is power that struggles to ensure its hegemony by other means, and the contradictions within the Russian regime are very important. Only a small group of advisors around Putin was aware that a real war was being prepared. The workers and the Russian people have a decisive role to play in overthrowing the Putin regime. They must be defended against the policies of Zelenskyy and NATO, which make all Russians responsible for the war and prevent the fraternization that would hasten the resolution of this reactionary war.

The turmoil that the invasion of Ukraine, including atrocities and bombings of civilians, has provoked around the world, shows that the response to this war is anything but indifference. Many people want to do something to help the Ukrainians, and many fear the prospect of world war or nuclear catastrophe, as evidenced by the demonstrations that have taken place across Europe against the Russian invasion . These protests, motivated by indignation against the war, are for now notably the work of the so-called middle classes, and do not for the most part express an anti-imperialist perspective. Their leaderships are sometimes openly pro-NATO, notably in France.

However, the seeds of an independent orientation exist in various countries, including Germany, Italy, and Great Britain, where the slogan “Neither Putin nor NATO” has been put forward in a number of demonstrations. The working classes and the labor movement joining these mobilizations against the war could give rise to alternative slogans.

After two years of a particularly poorly managed pandemic, which is still not over, there is widespread discontent. The war and the sanctions are also causing an increase in the cost of living at a time when wages are low. This fear has led Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice chancellor and economics minister, to warn that an embargo on Russian gas, oil, and coal would endanger “social peace” in Germany. It is a fear widely shared in the European ruling class, beginning with France, where concerns over the return of a movement like the Yellow Vests are strong in a context of rising gasoline and energy prices.

By linking the issue of the cost of living to the demand that Russian troops leave Ukraine, while also opposing all NATO interference and sanctions, a mobilization against war and rearmament could give rise to a real working-class and people’s dynamic, not only in France but also globally. This would be the best proof of solidarity to bring to our class brothers and sisters in Ukraine and Russia. The slogans and possible actions for peace, for the full independence of Ukraine, the cancellation of its debt, and against the high cost of living, are easily generalized and intrinsically internationalist. They can be applied even in Russia, where a victorious strike has already taken place at the Gemont factory in Tatarstan, mainly carried out by Turkish workers demanding wage increases to cope with the fall of the ruble’s value as a result of economic sanctions.

The main obstacle to a progressive alternative to this reactionary war, however, is belief in the imperialist countries’ rhetoric about their support for Ukraine’s “democracy” and “freedom,” which seems to have become the conventional wisdom. By not opposing NATO’s policy in Ukraine head-on and considering it a lesser evil at a time when it is strengthening its warlike features, Achcar’s approach is not helping independent forces develop in Ukraine, Russia, Western Europe, or the United States.

Indeed, the debates over the war in Ukraine raise the question of what politics we need for the convulsive period ahead. With important differences in nuance, Achcar and Kouvélakis see the current period through the prism of a “new Cold War,” a definition we do not share.7 Nevertheless, we can agree with them that the war in Ukraine is increasing the tendency toward conflict at the global level. If the response to the Ukrainian situation constitutes a decisive test for the entire period to come, the position formulated by Achcar seems to us to lead to a dangerous alignment behind NATO, while that of Kouvélakis is limited by his underestimation of the role that could be played by the workers and oppressed on the political scene. From our perspective, the workers and the oppressed are the ones who must play a central role in “waging war on war” in the eruptive period now beginning.

First published in French on March 19 in Contretemps and Révolution Permanente.

Translation by Scott Cooper



Juan Chingo is an editor of our French sister site Révolution Permanente.



Philippe Alcoyis an editor of Révolution Permanente, our sister site in France.

Beyond Putin’s Propaganda, the Far Right Is a Major Problem in Ukraine

As Russian aggression continues in Ukraine, the media and Western leaders continue to downplay the danger posed by the very real existence of the country’s well-organized and armed Far Right.

Philippe Alcoy March 14, 2022

Photo: Sergei Supinsky /AFP/Getty

“Denazification” is one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s justifications for his continued attacks on Ukraine. These declarations are pure Kremlin propagandas aimed at building a consensus, primarily within Russia itself, that legitimizes the aggression of the Putin regime.

To be sure, the Ukrainian government is reactionary, bourgeois, and pro-imperialist, but it is not actually led by Nazis. However, denying the existence of far-right nationalist organizations and the ability they’ve had since 2014 to influence Ukrainian politics only strengthens their position, posing a grave threat to the working class and oppressed in Ukraine and beyond.

Putin is effectively using half-truths to feed his narrative about Ukraine. But opposing Putin’s reactionary politics and his national oppression of Ukrainians does not mean downplaying the threat posed by reactionary Ukrainian forces. In fact, this issue is even more important now as these far-right organizations try to use the war to strengthen their political position at the national level. Analysts are already warning of this trend. Even the New York Times, which is certainly not advancing a pro-Putin line, reported:

Instability in Ukraine offers white supremacy extremists the same training opportunities that instability in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria has offered jihadist militants for years,” said Ali Soufan, who heads The Soufan Group, which has been documenting for several years how the conflict in eastern Ukraine has emerged as an international hub of white supremacy. ​… The apparent mobilization of far-right groups could be problematic for the Ukrainian government, playing into Mr. Putin’s depiction of Ukraine as a fascist country, and his false claim to be waging war against Nazis who control the government in Kyiv.

But even beyond the Kyiv government, far-right groups, several of which are openly neo-Nazi, are an important factor in this situation. Not only have they gained political and social influence since the Euromaidan movement in 2014 (despite not faring well in elections), but they have also gained important experience through training and real combat. The Far Right in Ukraine actually has thousands of people in paramilitary groups, which have been more or less integrated into the official Ukrainian army. The Far Right also organizes youth camps and has its own cultural venues. In many respects, it has more in common with fascist organizations of the 1930s — even if lacking the same political strength for now — than with the present-day Western Far Right, which is much more respectful of the legal framework imposed by their own political regimes.
The Azov Battalion and the Complicity of the West and Its Local Allies

The Azov Battalion is among the best known of these organizations internationally. Michael Colborne, a Canadian expert on the Ukrainian Far Right with a forthcoming book on the Azov movement, describes it this way in the New Statesman:

Ukraine’s far right, particularly the Azov movement, has long been able to operate with a degree of impunity and openness that makes it the envy of its international peers. The movement grew out of the Azov Regiment (originally a Battalion), formed in the chaos of war in early 2014 by a ragtag group of far-right thugs, football hooligans and international hangers-on — including dozens of Russian citizens — becoming an official unit of Ukraine’s National Guard.

With estimates of membership as high as 10,000 members … the Azov movement has been able to take advantage of a general “patriotic” turn in Ukrainian mainstream discourse since Russian aggression began in 2014. …

There’s also a bevy of loosely affiliated but more extreme subgroups under its umbrella as well, including open neo-Nazis who praise and promote violence.

It’s clear that Western imperialist leaders are aware of the political and military activity of the Far Right in Ukraine. Yet they choose not to express their concerns in public, not only because it feeds into Putin’s discourse, but also because the Far Right is aligned with their interests. However, it’s clear that the armed Far Right will play a political role in Ukraine’s future whatever the results of the war. The question for imperialism and its regional partners is whether there will be a way to control these forces and guarantee their “loyalty.”

It is no coincidence that the Azov Battalion, unlike in 2014, is trying to prove that they’re the “good guys.” To win political and military support from the imperialists, they must present themselves as trustworthy and responsible partners. That’s why they’ve adopted their “de-demonization” strategy. In Novara Media, which also quotes Colborne, we read:

The movement’s concern over its image probably also means that far-right volunteers from abroad won’t play as key a role in Azov as they did in the early phase of the war. When the conflict broke out in 2014, neo-Nazis from across Europe flocked to Ukraine to join both the Ukrainian and Russian sides. The presence of far-right fighters from abroad has been costly for Azov’s reputation. “Whereas in 2014 they were actively recruiting foreign help, this time they’re actively rejecting it,” says Colborne.

For the moment, though, the most likely scenario is that Western leaders will continue to cover up and downplay these groups’ activities — as Western politicians have been doing for years. As Al Jazeera writes, “In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced that their own forces will not support or train the Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi connections. The following year, however, the US lifted the ban under pressure from the Pentagon.” Facebook, meanwhile, has recently relaxed its censorship of certain Azov propaganda.

This attitude among Western leaders and institutions creates more favorable terrain for these reactionary organizations among Ukrainians. While it’s true that not all members of the forces trained by the Azov Battalion are neo-Nazis, it is certain that their ideas have been relativized, trivialized, and spread among a large part of the population.
Pravi Sektor, the Other Far-Right Ukrainian Actor

The Azov movement and other far-right organizations benefit from the support and indulgence of the Ukrainian authorities. They even have important contacts within the state apparatus. This includes Arsen Avakov, the former Interior minister who resigned last summer and is suspected of having been the head of the Azov movement.

Pravi Sektor [Right Sector] is another important far-right group in Ukraine. Its leader, Dmytro Kotsyubaylo, has been decorated as a “hero” by the Ukrainian president himself. The Sunday Times paints this portrait of Pravi Sektor:


The group originated in 2013 as a militarised movement that included both ultra-nationalist extremists and right-wing supporters, and quickly became a mainstay in the fight against Russian-backed separatists. Though its political wing flopped, failing to secure a single seat in the 2019 elections, the Right Sector’s volunteer units are widely regarded in Ukraine as a dedicated force of patriotic volunteers committed to preserving the country’s territorial integrity. …

At home, as the threat of a Russian invasion looms, the Right Sector has found itself in an era of revitalised prestige, exemplified by Kotsyubaylo’s public recognition as a national hero. Based behind the front line as a reserve force, Right Sector fighters are training reservists and volunteers across eastern Ukraine. “We are an integrated part of our country’s defence who co-ordinate at the highest level with Ukrainian military,” Kotsyubaylo said.

There is such a strong connection between the Pravi Sektor and the Ukrainian state that it’s routine to see young schoolchildren visiting its training camps, where they are taught a totally nationalistic perspective of the country’s history. The story of Stepan Bandera’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) is a particularly good example. The UIA was a Ukrainian nationalist military organization that fought both the Red Army and the Nazis during World War II, but collaborated with the latter. Bandera’s army was responsible for the massacre of thousands of Poles and Jews. This army’s “rehabilitation” has been underway for several years, even before the Maidan movement of 2014. As part of a reactionary revision of history that has become official policy. Banderist symbols such as the red and black flag, which we’ve even seen at demonstrations in Paris, have become regular old national symbols.
The Far Right: Private Militias of the Oligarchs?

There is a lesser-known aspect to Ukraine’s Far Right: its ties to the Ukrainian oligarchs, several of whom are among the principal financial backers of nationalist paramilitary groups. This includes the energy magnate Igor Kolomoïsky, who has financed not only the Azov Battalion but also the Dnipro 1 and Dnipro 2 militias, Aidar, and the Donbas units. As journalist Peter Cioth, a former Democratic Party operative in the United States, wrote in 2019:


During the conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists, Kolomoisky was willing to do anything to ensure his side would win- that side being, for that moment, the pro-western one. Kolomoisky is Jewish, holds Israeli citizenship in addition to his Ukrainian one, and was at one time the President of the European Council of Jewish Communities. Yet none of the above facts stopped him from funding neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine, particulary the infamous Azov Battalion, so long as they were opposed to Russia (and kept Kolomoisky-owned properties from being looted).

Kolomoïsky was sanctioned by the United States in March 2021 — not because of his financial support to neo-Nazi groups, but because he began to finance parliamentary groups whose interests were at odds with those of the West. While portraying themselves as heroic, Ukrainian leaders (including Zelenskyy himself) and the oligarchs are using the disputes between Russia and the Western imperialists to improve their negotiating position with these two “blocs.” This has been the political history of Ukraine since the fall of the USSR. Financing criminal and neo-Nazi militias to fight Russia is part of the same logic: protecting their own interests.

It may seem like a paradox that Kolomoïsky, who is Jewish, is funding groups affiliated with neo-Nazism. Some also point to the fact that because Zelenskyy is Jewish, he couldn’t possibly support or be supported by “neo-Nazis.” But all this is used to disguise that these groups were founded by individuals as reactionary as they were opportunistic, ready to set aside some of their “convictions” in favor of the highest bidder.

Thus, as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote, “Its troops [of the Azov Battalion] have been accused of war crimes by the United Nations, while its paramilitary arm, the National Corps, has been linked to attacks on local Roma and members of the LGBT community. But while there has been vigilante violence by far-right groups over the past decade … violence against Jews is relatively rare.” The fact that these organizations attack Jewish populations less often does not mean that they are further from neo-Nazism — it just means that they put more emphasis on other aspects of their nauseating ideology.
What About the “Pro-Russian” Far Right?

Many would prefer to stop at denouncing the Ukrainian nationalist Far Right. Yet there is more to the story. While Putin and the Russian propaganda machine denounce the “Nazification” of Ukraine and exaggerate the actual weight of these organizations in the government, they say nothing about the far-right militants and leaders in the ranks of the “pro-Russian” Donbas militias. Despite efforts to conceal the influence of these currents within the “people’s republics,” the reality is that there are also nationalist reactionaries on the pro-Russian side.

RT has reported that “Iosif Zisels, head of Vaad Ukrainy, the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, said in 2014 that Russian neo-Nazis (including Russian National Unity) were playing an active role in the fighting in eastern Ukraine, though their ideology dates back 20 years.” Similarly, in her 2014 undercover reporting from Donbas, journalist Julia Ioffe revealed that many pro-Russian fighters wore Nazi symbols but also wanted to conceal their Nazi affiliations. She spoke with one leaders of the Vostok Battalion and recounted the following anecdote:


As Dmitry and I talked, I noticed a Vostok fighter in fatigue pants, a t-shirt, and a bulletproof vest pacing around with a Kalashnikov. He had a long, scraggly blond beard and was peppered with tattoos: a rune on one elbow, and, on the inside of his right forearm, a swastika … I asked Dmitry about it, but the man spotted me pointing to my arm.

“Come here,” he growled, beckoning angrily. I remained frozen in place.

“Don’t you go spreading your lies,” he barked as he strode toward us. “This isn’t a swastika. This is an ancient Slavic symbol. Swa is the god of the sky.”

I stared, silently.

“It’s our Slavic heritage,” he said. “It’s not a swastika.” Then he turned and walked away.

But it doesn’t stop there. There are clear official connections between authorities in the Donbas republics and the Far Right in the West. In 2014, journalist and human rights activist Halya Coynash described the list of “international observers” who came to certify the “democratic validity” of the pro-independence referendums held in Donbas: “These included at least two members of the radical right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria: Aymeric Chauprade, adviser on international issues for the French National Front; Belgian Luc Michel, former neo-Nazi FANE member and now member of an extreme right party, as well as two compatriots from the far-right Vlaams Belang; two members of the Bulgarian far-right Ataka Party; Hungarian Bela Kovacs from the far-right Jobbik party, and others.”

You might also like: Russia Is Not Fighting an ‘Anti-fascist’ War — And Neither Is Ukraine

Russia must hide this reality to guarantee the “credibility” of its propaganda, which presents itself as the “liberators” of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population, defending them against a Ukrainian neo-Nazi threat. Some also engage in demagoguery by denouncing the removal of Lenin statues. But this cannot hide the reactionary and oppressive nature of Putin’s regime. Nor can it hide the repeated political maneuvering of leaders in Donbas that reflect Imperial Russia before the October Revolution — such as establishing a state (New Russia) that would bring together the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. What these neo-fascist and right-wing nationalist groups in Russia are up to is less Nazi Germany than it is Russian czarist imperialism. This lets them get away with things that are much less fraught in the West. But these currents are no less harmful than the Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
For Independent, Working-Class Politics

As this article has shown, the Far Right is a very real threat to the working class and oppressed people of Ukraine. But the threat comes not only from the reactionary Ukrainian nationalist side, but also from the “pro-Russian” side. Putin’s oppressive “Great Russian” policy only helps the development of reactionary nationalist currents in Ukraine. Russian oppression leads hundreds of thousands of people (perhaps millions) to trivialize this reactionary danger and conflate legitimate feelings abound defending their country with the political agenda of the nationalist Far Right. Meanwhile, the policies of Kyiv and the Ukrainian oligarchs promote violent anti-Russian nationalism.

Thus, one of the dangers ahead for the workers and the masses is that the war — given the current relationship of forces — could end up strengthening extreme right-wing currents, especially those collaborating closely with Ukrainian security forces. They benefit, no doubt, from NATO “military assistance” but also indirectly from imperialist political support for the Kyiv government. Because they are in many cases playing a decisive role in the defense of Ukraine, we could see these militias led by the Far Right achieve a heightened level of prestige that could extend even to Western countries.

Even if the Ukrainian government suffers a debacle, these currents could try to profit by opportunistically opposing Zelenskyy. In the event of a military victory for the “pro-Russian” Far Fight, their movement would also be strengthened.

The only way out of the war is to build an alternative — a progressive mass movement led by the working class, independent of Russia and local pro-Russian groups, Western imperialism, the national bourgeoisie, and reactionary nationalists. Adopting a revolutionary socialist perspective in the conflict would be a crucial step forward. It is the only way to guarantee national rights and a truly independent Ukraine. Otherwise, there is a high probability that reactionary forces, including those of the Far Right, will end up benefiting from the conflict.

First published in French on March 7 in Révolution Permanente.

Translated by Emma Lee


Philippe Alcoy is an editor of Révolution Permanente, our sister site in France.

Self-Determination and Sovereignty in Europe

The war in Ukraine has produced another surge in commentary and opinion that the Scottish referendum will never happen; should never happen, and if it ever happens it will surely be lost (etcetera).  The SNP are perpetually on their knees, Sturgeon is perpetually ‘over’, and so on (and on).

The logic and the evidence is scarce but given a platform and a relentless deadline to produce copious amounts of negativity, Scotland’s commentariat never fails to deliver.

The arguments come thick and fast, mostly thick. Here is a handful of them.

First the argument is put forward that ‘we’ (undefined) can’t and won’t contemplate constitutional change while a war is being waged in Europe. ‘We’ (undefined) will cleave to the security of Britain, presumably with its broad shoulders and nukes (of which more in a moment).

Second is the argument that the war in Ukraine has exposed the vile nature of ‘nationalism’, as Russian imperial aspirations are shrouded in flag-waving propaganda.

Third is the argument that what Ukraine has shown is the essential nature of the nuclear deterrent. This argument is played out by the Herald’s Iain Macwhirter (‘SNP should call Patrick Harvie’s bluff and scrap the Green coalition’).

Here he argues that: “The SNP’s alliance with the Scottish Green Party has become a liability. Even the most sycophantic of Nicola Sturgeon’s coterie must now see that. The Greens conference at the weekend confirmed that interests and objectives of the SNP and their coalition partners are irreconcilable. The Greens are a party that opposes economic growth in principle, just as the Scottish Government is trying desperately to boost it. The Greens prefer to import Vladimir Putin’s bloodstained oil and gas rather than use our own energy under the North Sea. They want to leave Nato just as the alliance is being threatened by Putin’s missiles. They argue, perversely, that the bloodshed in Kyiv could end if only Nato got rid of its nuclear deterrent.”

Macwhirter has been nurturing a strong hatred of the Scottish Green Party for some time now. They seem to offend him for holding views beyond the centrist agenda which he thinks is acceptable. But it’s a strange brew.  It wasn’t so long ago at all that being outside NATO was standard SNP policy and a mainstream part of a nationalist-peace movement tradition. It’s not some whacky outlier, it’s a core part of the Yes movements DNA. Given the reality of climate breakdown Macwhirter’s tirade that “The Greens prefer to import Vladimir Putin’s bloodstained oil and gas rather than use our own energy under the North Sea” just comes over as a bit unhinged. And the writer seems to be entirely ignorant of contemporary debates about growth and de-growth economics which question the credibility of relentless growth on a planet of finite material resources.

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But it’s the columnist’s confidence about the ‘madness’ of the Scottish Greens policy on Trident that echoes around British public life with bellicose hubris and exceptionalism.

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Trident cannot be used and hasn’t defended the people of Ukraine. Yet it does put a target on our backs. We’ve known this a while. Scottish CND’s ‘Target Scotland’ listed the dozens of likely sites that would be first on Russia’

The argument that Trident is a great success is often asserted but rarely explained.

Scottish CND’s chair Lynn Jamieson has said: “At present, due to the Faslane/Coulport complex, we are a prime target for nuclear attack and the launchpad for the commission of mass murder.” She has stressed that maintaining nuclear weapons was colluding in the “perverted and bankrupt logic of ‘deterrence’” which should have ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.“The fact that instead nuclear weapons were ‘modernised’ and the Nato nuclear alliance expanded has contributed to Putin’s own distorted view of the world,” she said. Jamieson added that the nuclear weapon system was putting the Scottish population at risk every day in “multiple mundanely deadly and potentially terrifying ways”.
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Veteran anti-nuclear campaigner  (and Bella contributor) Brian Quail, has said: “Trident doesn’t deter anybody from anything,” he said. “It didn’t deter Putin from the madness and cruelty of the Russian attack and will play no part in our and Ukraine’s survival from this nightmare. This must be clear to every sane person.”
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To return to the first of the straw men of the ‘impossibility of independence’ – that we must and should cleave to Britain in the current crisis, it doesn’t really make any sense. We live in a world of constant crisis and nothing is achieved by inertia. Capitalism is in perpetual crisis, Britain is in perpetual crisis. To do nothing in the face of this stark reality is just an abdication of agency. There is not going to be some perfect space of contentment in which we can calmly create an oasis in the world for constitutional change. The whole concept mirrors the sheer terror that many Unionists have about discord in political debate, a primal fear that somehow change is terrifying and will unleash demons of which we can scarcely conceive.
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This is just a terrible place to be, cowering in the safety of ‘never changing anything’,  clinging to the wreckage of the British state and its moribund institutions as the world swirls and morphs and crashes around you. Assuming that ‘dependence’ is a state that will somehow protect us in this harsh world is such a dereliction of the imagination.
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If anything the war in Ukraine has exposed Little Britain as the outlier, the exposed and isolated country on the fringes of a Europe that has been drawn together by the battle. Britain is a country exposed as the nation that has acted with bad faith in the face of the refugee demands, while small progressive countries have done the decent thing. Quite why this should make us want to be part of Britain is unknown.

As Boris Johnson embarrasses himself on the international stage, the reality is more prosaic.

As James Meek has written (The Power of the New Ukraine): “Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, much has been made in Britain of the EU’s openness to Ukrainian refugees compared with the barriers put up by London. But it’s a depressing reflection of how mainstream anti-immigrant assumptions have become in the UK that virtually no one in Britain is aware the EU gave Ukrainians visa-free access years ago, as a reward for their country’s sacrifices in Europe’s name. Since 2017, as a result of that and of Brexit, Ukrainians have levelled up and Britons levelled down to identical rights of EU entry: 90 days’ stay without a visa.”

Cleaving to Britain in these times is an exercise in self-humiliation and exposure to dangerous risk.

The second of the ‘impossibility of independence’ arguments is that the war in Ukraine has shown the dangers of vile nationalism (sic). Yet even as this is being trotted out the same voices will be adding the blue and yellow flags to their profiles and extolling the absolute principles of ‘self-determination’ and the rights of ‘sovereign nationhood’ which need to be defended, everywhere in the world except … right here.

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There’s an irony in all of this that some of the ‘dereliction of the imagination’ from the Unionists side is mirrored within the Yes side.

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The bleak prospect I have unpicked here actually has some merit with the failure of the SNP leadership to lead the movement it is (nominally) at the head of; failing to resolve the contradictions of its position over (re) entry to Europe; failing to transcend the Growth Commission fiasco; failing to resolve the currency question; failing to campaign, and failing to inspire.

As Jonathon Shafi writes (Independence Captured) the process towards independence has been thwarted on three fronts: “The prospectus for independence has been captured by corporate interests.”

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“The political process to achieve Scottish independence has been captured. The SNP prefer to keep the national question on the boil, but not for it to overflow.”

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“The domestic policy agenda has been captured. The paralysis that has gripped Scottish politics has had a direct impact on policy making. Even when SNP members vote for initiatives, they are rarely seen through if they amount to real reform. In other cases, their concerns are ignored. Recent examples include the Scottish National Energy Company and “Green Ports.”

The invasion of Ukraine makes a significant argument for Scotland to be an independent nation in Europe, being able to play its part in international affairs and moving towards a resilient economy and a peaceful nation. Being tethered to Britain makes these goals impossible. But we need to make that case and not cede the airwaves and the column inches to the blind and the partial voices of the same few men.

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/