By Sergio Garcia, MST of Argentina
A few days ago, a long article entitled “How to Position in the Ukrainian War? Some Mistakes…” This work by Arslan was written as a polemic against an important and very useful text by our comrade Alejandro Bodart, who in his article condensed the political positions of the ISL and delved into different aspects of the policy that we have been carrying out, and are summarized in three ISL statements on the war that we all shared and disseminated.
Bearing in mind how important it is to specify the debates on the war that run through the entire left, I am going to refer to the text by V. U. Arslan, because I consider it entirely mistaken in its whole political line and analysis, and as we will see in the end, it also arises from a very mistaken method. But let’s begin properly by the political debate in question.
The characterization of the war and politics
In the text published by the comrade from the SEP of Turkey, a series of mistakes are made in the relationship between the characterization of the war and the politics, as well as methodological and political errors regarding other issues such as the military camp and the political camp, the positioning of the different imperialisms, the characterization of Ukraine and the policy towards nationalism, all issues that lead to falling into deep mistakes when explaining what to do in Ukraine.
First of all, about the characterization of the war, Arslan says in his text: “it is necessary to understand the dual character of the war in Ukraine. On the one hand, Russia, an imperialist force, occupies the territory of a sovereign state; on the other hand, there is a reckoning between imperialists in Ukraine. Therefore, it would be a great mistake to define the war in Ukraine unilaterally as a national war or the ‘National War of Independence of Ukraine’.”
In fact, this is not a debate in the ISL, since from the beginning we defined that the war had two components and that the only correct policy was to respond to both and not have unilateral policies. This is how all our public texts and the policy that we have been raising since the beginning of the war define it. We always take the first element (the Russian invasion) to demand Russia’s withdrawal and stand in solidarity with the invaded country and the Ukrainian resistance. And at the same time we combine it with the permanent condemnation of NATO and the Zelensky regime, to respond to the second element of the war, which is the inter-imperialist friction and disputes and the expansionist plans of Western imperialism. In fact, Alejandro Bodart’s article is correctly and solidly written on these political parameters.
What is actually happening now is that the SEP comrades are leaving aside the characterization of the war and falling into a unilateral policy, because, despite saying that the war has two components, they abandon the first one, the need to support the just struggle of the Ukrainian people to defeat Russian imperialism, which is the invading country.
Defeating Russian imperialism, an elementary right of the Ukrainian people
Nowhere in his long text does V. U. Arslan take a stand for the defeat of Russia. On the contrary, he is dedicated to explaining the problems that would arise if Russia loses, because that would strengthen the US. And in an unusual way he says that: “Comrade Alejandro’s statement that ‘the revolutionaries need to work for the defeat of Russia in the war with all forces’ would mean a dangerous approach to the NATO line.” In other words, the SEP does not stand for the defeat of the invading imperialist country, which is an absolute political capitulation to Russian imperialism and incoherent with all the declarations of the ISL that the comrades have signed, in which we support the Ukrainian people.
This policy that the SEP now proposes to us for Ukraine, of not working with all our forces for the defeat of Russia, would place us, in the invaded country, on the side of the invading army. And it is a policy that makes it impossible to play a revolutionary role inside Ukraine, because there is no revolutionary policy in an invaded country that begins by not wanting the imperialist invaders to be defeated. The SEP’s position on this issue would not withstand a minute’s dialogue with a Ukrainian worker or left-wing activist, who has the just right to defend his semi-colonial country against an imperial invasion, and not only the right to, but also the militant obligation to be part of that fight.
In addition, with the mistaken reasoning of the SEP comrades, who place in the center how the US and NATO would be positioned if Ukraine wins, hardly any just struggle could be promoted in the world. Because, due to the absence of revolutionary leaderships with mass influence, right-wing sectors always appear to attempt to take advantage of the victories of a mobilization to strengthen their own projects. Revolutionary politics cannot be decided on the basis of this fact, which is part of reality, but by the concrete necessities. In this case: Is it a just war waged by an invaded semi-colonial country like Ukraine? Do its people have the right to defend themselves and defeat the invaders? Of course yes, so the task of any Ukrainian worker is to be part of the resistance of his country and fight to defeat Russia, and there is no revolutionary policy in Ukraine that does not begin precisely from standing in the vanguard of wanting Russia to lose and having to leave, and, along with that, strongly condemning NATO and all its plans for the region. Not wanting to win the just war of an invaded people is propagandism, abstentionism and, in fact, capitulation to Russian imperialism.
In addition to having clarity on that policy, we also believe that a Russian defeat would effectively generate enormous changes throughout this huge region. It would enable the awakening of the Russian working class in the struggle against its own regime, which would be greatly weakened. The fighting conditions would change not only in Ukraine but also in all the countries of the region, like Belarus, Kazakhstan and many others. Moreover, the right to self-determination in some regions can only be realized after a Russian defeat and departure from those areas, because there is no self-determination with oppressive tanks inside. At the same time, the US and NATO will logically seek to appropriate such a victory, as always happens. In fact, Russia has already strengthened them since it invaded Ukraine, giving them an excuse to reorganize and vote to increase all their war budgets, as we have been denouncing. That is why, as we have been doing since day one, we have to harshly criticize all of NATO’s policies and confront its political-economic plans, as our comrades of the Ukrainian Socialist League have been doing, confronting from Kyiv the policies of the Zelensky government within Ukraine.
There is no inter-imperialist war yet
In his text, the SEP comrade defines that “The United States and its partners see these wars as their own wars and are involved in the most effective way possible on the battlefield… In order to avoid a nuclear world war, NATO/USA does not directly participate in the Ukraine War with its own army. But they support Ukraine with all their might in all other fields except this one.”
What happens is that in politics every half truth ends up being something wrong. Because NATO effectively supports Zelensky, sends him weapons, money and wants to extend his rule to Eastern Europe. But it is also true that NATO has so far decided not to go to war directly, and that is why it does not send troops, nor block Russia’s airspace as requested by the Ukrainian government, nor send Ukraine the most sophisticated long-range weapons. And all this has just been reaffirmed at the recent NATO Summit.
This is well explained in an article titled “The weapons that Ukraine asks for and will not have,” where the following is clarified, in relation to one of the most sophisticated and aggressive weapons that the US army has and does not send to Ukraine: “The Patriot missiles will not arrive in Ukraine for two main reasons that could be grouped into one: to not provoke Russia more than necessary.” In addition, those long-range weapons that Zelensky asks for “require highly specialized personnel and, in the current circumstances, would force the deployment of US personnel on Ukrainian soil… their eventual deployment would be seen by Moscow as direct US involvement.” This is why, at the NATO Summit, Zelensky explained again that without more modern and efficient weapons, they cannot stop Russia in the Donbass region, something that is evident, because Putin’s troops have been advancing there with partial victories in recent weeks.
Therefore, the facts ratify the characterization of the war that we have made in the ISL from the beginning: a war that combines the just struggle of a semi-colonial country to defend itself from an imperialist invasion and an escalation in the inter-imperialist friction and disputes, without it yet becoming an inter-imperialist world war. Therefore, the policy that we have been raising in Ukraine and throughout the world is ratified.
Logically, if at some point reality changes and NATO directly enters the war, the situation will change, so will our politics and its axis will move there. Until that happens, our policy is articulated by the demand for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, supporting the resistance so that it wins the military struggle against the invaders, and permanently condemning all of NATO’s plans in the region, demanding its departure from Eastern Europe and its dissolution.
Mistaken definitions of Russia and Ukraine
Returning to NATO, the US and the different imperialisms, in an effort to demonstrate that Ukraine is not so weak nor Russia so strong, the SEP’s text provides mistaken definitions of both countries.
Regarding imperialism, it clarifies that “The United States, which has made its own war through Ukraine and mobilized NATO in this direction, is still a global power at the top of the imperialist hierarchy. Russia, on the other hand, is a regional force in the 3rd category in the imperialist hierarchy.” With this definition, they mix the general, global characterization of the different imperialisms, where the US is clearly much more than Russia, with the characterization of these two powers in the conflict zone. Because in all of Eastern Europe, Russia is not “in the 3rd category in the imperialist hierarchy” but the main oppressive imperialism of all nations. This is its actual role, and this is how millions of workers and populations who repudiate the policy of the Putin regime see it. To say in this debate that Russia is in the third category, is to falsify the reality of this immense region of the world, with the result, once again, of capitulating to it.
In the same way, but opposite direction, the SEP’s text also seeks to show that Ukraine is stronger than it is, which is why they say that “minimizing the forces Ukraine which has the support of the superpower, while exaggerating Russia’s capacity will not contribute to a revolutionary analysis.” In fact, nowhere in the article is Ukraine defined as what it really is: a semi-colonial country. The article does highlight it as a “sovereign state… that has the support of the world’s superpowers.” But Ukraine’s semi-colonial character is undeniable, as is Russia’s imperialist superiority in the military field. Furthermore, in order for Ukraine to actually be a sovereign country, it has to first of all free itself from the invading country, which is destroying not only thousands of lives, but also an important part of its productive apparatus, which will take years to rebuild. And to free itself, it has to win its just war. This is why, as the ISL statement says, our task is to: “Support the resistance of the Ukrainian people and their right to defend themselves from the brutal Russian aggression with all means at their disposal,” not sit down to analyze from the outside how strong or not Russia is or how weak or not Ukraine is.
Malvinas and the Sino-Japanese war: two historical examples that contradict the SEP
The text by V. U. Arslan says that “the position of the Ukrainian revolutionaries is revolutionary defense. It should be aimed to establish workers’ self-resistance organizations independent of the bourgeoisie, all kinds of reactionary elements and NATO forces. Unfortunately, it is a given situation that the forces of the Ukrainian revolutionaries are very limited.”
The phrase as such is incoherent, it proposes one thing and immediately afterwards clarifies that the forces of the revolutionaries to do so are very limited. That is, it is useless advice. In addition, the reality of the war today is that the Ukrainian working class and people, with the few anti-capitalists and socialists who are active there by their side, are in one way or another actively resisting the invading army. More than 300,000 workers have joined the battlefront, because, although the SEP does not take it into account, in wars there is an invading military camp and a military camp that resists that invasion. And all the political and social forces act in that camp of resistance. The SEP comrade correctly points out that the forces of the revolutionaries are very limited, but he advises them to undertake tasks that are impossible in this context, such as focusing on building their own self-defense groups that, in the current context of war, could neither fight nor even have weapons without establishing a military relationship with the regular army. And this childish mistake is a consequence of not understanding a basic Marxist concept, which is the difference between the military field and the political field.
As we have seen in many historical examples, when a power invades a semi-colonial country, revolutionaries must be in the same military camp as the oppressed country and completely separated from the bourgeois forces in the political field, developing our program and our class organization. This is how it happened, for example, in the Malvinas war. Our militants signed up to go to war against England, and the only possibility they had was to enlist in the regular army led by a pro-US dictatorship, while at the same time we were denouncing it.
It is worth remembering that, for example, English Trotskyism of that time refused to support Argentina in that war, and used as arguments that there was a right-wing dictatorship in front; that it was wrong to fight alongside them; that if it won, that would it strengthened the pro-US dictatorship; a whole series of justifications to capitulate to British imperialism. Now V.U. Arslan reasons in a similar fashion: he opposes us actively militating for the defeat of Russia and does not want to be in the resistance of the people against Russia because the army is led by Zelensky and there are nationalists at the front. This, of course, gives up the vanguard of that struggle to the nationalists who will appear as the combatants to the population, while the SEP proposes abstract generalities, such as its proposal: “the revolutionaries against the invading Russian army and the extreme right-wing collaborator Kyiv regime should form organizational structures suitable for their own powers.” That is, he proposes nothing at all, a policy of absolute abstentionism, right in the middle of a war of occupation, when making propaganda and not intervening in reality is the worst of political capitulations.
Finally, and returning to what position to adopt toward this war, the SEP comrade is also mistaken, with notorious ignorance, when he refers to the Sino-Japanese war. V. U. Arslan says in his text that “the fascist and imperialist Japan‘s invasion of colonial China, an example given by comrade Alejandro Bodart, cannot explain the situation in Ukraine today… Neither Iraq nor the 1930s were the superpowers of the world. But today, the US and the NATO Bloc as a whole support Ukraine.”
Actually, the example brought by Alejandro Bodart is very adequate, and the historical reality is exactly the opposite of how the SEP presents it in their text. China defended itself from the Japanese invasion, and received the support of the US, which, as part of its inter-imperialist dispute, wanted to weaken England in that region of the world and Japan in particular, by guaranteeing its defeat against China. Something very similar to what is happening today in the dispute between NATO and Russia. And it was in this context, China’s just war of national liberation, that Trotsky recommended doing the following, in his text On the Sino-Japanese War: “To speak of ‘revolutionary defeatism’ in general, without distinguishing between exploiting and exploited countries, makes a miserable caricature of Bolshevism and puts that caricature at the service of the imperialists. (…) Chiang Kai-shek is the executioner of the Chinese workers and peasants. But today he is forced, in spite of himself, to fight against Japan for the rest of China’s independence. He may betray again tomorrow. It’s possible. It is probable. It is even unavoidable. But today he is fighting. Only cowards, scoundrels or complete idiots can refuse to participate in this fight.”
The IV International also took into account the actions of the US in regards to its material support to China and stated the following in the declaration of its March 1941 International Executive Committee: “The revolutionaries must explain to the Chinese masses that the alliance of their national bourgeoisie with US imperialism is the inevitable consequence of Chiang Kai-shek’s reactionary leadership of the war against Japan; they must explain that the crushing of any independent movement in favor of social reforms and, subsequently, the alliance with Washington are two aspects of the same policy, and that this policy cannot ensure the emancipation of the country, nor advance the social liberation of the Chinese people… But this will not prevent the revolutionaries from continuing to be in favor of the victory of the Chinese armies against the Japanese invader. The Washington-Chong King alliance and the outpouring of American material aid to the Chiang Kai-shek regime will not eliminate the task of driving Japanese imperialism off Chinese soil.“
In summary, the policy expressed by the SEP in its article has nothing to do with the historical policy of Leninism and Trotskyism against this type of war, and also breaks with the general guidelines of everything done and written by the ISL in these five months, when, from a permanent criticism of NATO and the Zelensky government, we have also supported the resistance and its right to defeat the invading Russian army, as task of the first order that we have the revolutionary obligation to be part of.
On nationalisms and pro-Russian propaganda
Another debate in which the SEP comrade falls into propagandistic, hence mistaken, positions, is around nationalism. He even begins with a fallacious sentence, saying that “the presence of a certain sympathy for Ukrainian nationalism is clearly perceived in Comrade Alejandro’s article.” What is actually clearly perceived is that Alejandro, like any serious and coherent revolutionary, cannot ignore the existence of nationalist movements in oppressed countries, least of all in the middle of a war. And, therefore, based on that, he has to consider what policy to have to dispute the leadership of the masses against these sectors, weaken them and thus strengthen a socialist and revolutionary class organization. In addition, the text by Comrade Bodart logically starts from understanding Putin’s propaganda campaigns that there are only fascists and right-wingers in Ukraine as false.
Incredibly, the text by V.U.Arslan of the SEP does the opposite. He dedicates himself only to repeating the complete arguments of Russian imperialist propaganda, and presents us a monolithic and anti-dialectical vision of Ukrainian nationalism, reducing all reality to a scheme that benefits the invaders: all nationalism is right-wing and extreme right-wing, that is how it has always been and will always be, and one cannot say that they are combatants for national liberation, nor be in the same military struggle with them. An argument that is similar throughout to the one written by the world’s campist forces, no more, no less.
At the same time, in his attempt to show that the entire nationalist movement is extreme right, he forces reality. He has to look to electoral and partial data from 10 years ago, data that also does not show that everything in Ukraine was “extreme right” then nor is it today. What the SEP loses sight of is that definitions have to be dialectical and allow seeing changes, perspectives, attending to the oscillations that nationalist movements can always have, just as Trotsky taught. And also starting from the fact that in Ukraine there is a nationalism of an oppressed country, not of an oppressor country.
In addition, what the SEP comrade does not even contemplate is that if we revolutionaries want to win the leadership of the working class from the different nationalisms, the first thing is to be vanguard in the resistance to the invading country, something that he does not proposes, since, as we saw, he does not even propose that Russia be defeated. What a great favor that abstentionist policy does to the nationalists! That they would remain as the only heroes of the national liberation struggle, even if Comrade Arslan wants to cover his eyes and not see it.
Our task in a semi-colonial country, regardless of whether there are nationalist movements of the right, of the center or more of the left, in all cases, is to dispute their leadership and tear away sectors of their social bases for an independent, class, revolutionary policy. And in this case, since there is an imperialist military occupation of the country, there is no dispute possible if we are not better combatants than the nationalists. The reality is that all political and social sectors are involved in the resistance, it is not something that we decide, it is the reality. And you have to have an independent and class policy based on that reality and not on an imaginary reality.
Therefore, this is not about making false debates with this topic. Our strategy in Ukraine is to build our socialist political organization, independent of all bourgeois, reformist and nationalist sectors. The more strength we gain, the better conditions we will have in the task of confronting all the rest, and in the context of war, we can only gain that strength by being part of the resistance, not giving that role up to the nationalists. What cannot be done is to ignore them or be content with only general definitions.
The construction of a revolutionary party and the internationalist method
Political debates in the middle of a war are ultimately put to the test with the progress or otherwise of the implementation of politics and its results. And this is finally expressed in whether we advance in building revolutionary parties, since the greatest political opportunism is not building a party. In this sense, the policy proposed by the SEP for Ukraine is opportunistic and does not allow anything to be built, because no honest worker or youth who sympathizes with the left is going to want to be with the ISL if they do not see us in the first line of wanting to defeat the invading Russian army. It is something so elementary that it does not withstand a minute of debate. At any meeting or assembly of the Ukrainian people, those who do not fight for the defeat of Russia in the first place will be seen as traitors.
From our point of view, the SEP comrades end up expressing in Arslan’s article a completely mistaken analysis and policy, that is propagandist and abstentionist in the face of the war, from beginning to end. Much of this has to do, evidently, with political-theoretical weaknesses of their formation and a short development, where they reflect a glaring downplaying of the importance of national and anti-imperialist causes in oppressed countries, in which revolutionaries cannot be abstentionists but must be front-line militants.
And if something also stands out, it is that the method from which his policy arises is not that of a healthy revolutionary internationalism, but of a limited national vision. Because all the policy that they propose and advise us, never took into account what our own comrades from the Ukrainian Socialist League, who have been resisting an invasion for five months, say or do in their country. And an internationalist method is always based on working together with the Marxist militants who are there, seeing what they are doing, listening to them, accompanying their experience and valuing it, traveling there to get to know it, being willing to learn from that experience as well. And on that basis, obviously an internationalist proposes, incorporates things, can see weak points to improve and strong points. What does not help at all is to stand from afar with a professorial attitude, oblivious to the concrete political intervention that the Ukrainian militants of the ISL, are carrying out in the invaded country.
A matter of method that goes to the essence of LIS
Finally, having clarified the opinion on the political debate against the war, I wish to point out an important difference in method. As I said at the beginning of this text, the article by V.U. Arslan suddenly appeared published on the SEP website, beginning with it a public debate, something that is very mistaken, twofold. On the one hand, the very statute of the ISL, which clearly states that all necessary debates will take place in the organic bodies of the International, not outside of them, is violated. And at the same time, Comrade V.U. Arslan passes over the last meeting of the ISL International Executive Committee in which he participated, where by mutual agreement all the members of the IEC agreed to hold a new meeting and direct the political debates that exist through an IDB for our memberships, and not through a public debate that weakens the ISL and deteriorates the relationship between its leaders.
In addition, in said meeting, Arslan did not make any critical comments about Alejandro Bodart’s article, which was positively valued by all the rest of the IEC members. And yet two weeks later, he appears with a public debate attacking that text. It is clear that the SEP comrade has every right to defend the political positions that he considers, in the ISL all political debate must be carried out in depth and nuances or differences must not be hidden. But the debates have to be carried out through the organic channels that we all agree on and voted for in a Congress, which is the essence of a healthy Leninist and Trotskyist regime, and not stepping over them. The SEP has to reflect on its politics that dangerously brings it closer to campist positions, and on its methodology of debate that distances it from the essence of the construction of the ISL.