NCP and Donbas communists hold Skype conference

By Vperyod correspondent

On 4th September, a Skype conference took place between Boris Litvinov, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic (CPDPR) and the General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain Andy Brooks.
     Mikhail Kukhtin, the head of the international department of the CPDPR and Theo Russell, a member of the Central Committee of the NCPB also took part in the discussion.
    During the discussion, Boris Litvinov informed the British comrades about the current state of affairs in the Donetsk People's Republic and the situation on the line of contact. In particular, he stressed that the diplomatic efforts of the participants in the Minsk process managed to achieve a ceasefire.
    But, despite the agreement reached, provocations by the Ukrainian army and its advance into the neutral zone and the side of the DPR people's militia positions pose a threat to a fragile truce. This is not the first time such tactics of the Ukrainian side, the use of a truce to create favourable conditions for the further unleashing of hostilities, have been used.
    Andy Brooks informed Boris Litvinov about the work of the New Communist Party of Britain and its supporters to support the struggle of the people of Donbas to strengthen their statehood. At rallies and demonstrations held by left wing movements in Britain, the communists carry flags and symbols of the DPR, express demands to the British government about non-interference in the internal conflict of Ukraine and the former part of it which has embarked on the path of self-determination and regularly cover their activities on the pages of their weekly, the New Worker. According to Andy Brooks, there are up to 100 British military advisers in the Donbas who train the Ukrainian army according to NATO standards.
    A significant place in the conversation was taken by the discussion of the question of the entry of the DPR Communist Party into the Solidnet international organisation of communist and workers' parties.
    Mykhaylo Khuktin confirmed that there have been talks between Boris Litvinov and some leaders of the Communist Party of Ukraine. He said “Our striving to join Solidnet was welcomed at least by some of them, although the overall situation remains complicated”.
    The British comrades were interested in the issue of the Donetsk communists’ relationship with other communist parties that are members of the Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (SKP-KPSS).
    Boris Litvinov said that the CPDPR is an official observer in the SKP-KPSS, which actively participates in the work of this organisation and maintains close comradely ties with all participating parties.
    A special relationship has developed between the Donetsk communists and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Six years ago, the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov, provided support and gave valuable recommendations during the creation of the CPDPR.
    The Communist Party of the Russian Federation provides significant humanitarian aid to the people of the Donetsk republic, especially its children. The General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain expressed the hope that in deciding the question of admitting the CPDPR to Solidnet, the Communist Parties of the SKP-KPSS will show their support.
    During the conversation, issues of the international situation were also discussed and the positions of the communists in various areas of party activity were expressed. Thus, the communists of the DPR and Britain agreed that the events in Belarus are an attempt by the West to first subjugate and then destroy the sovereignty of the state, toturn the Republic of Belarus into another springboard for an offensive against Russia.
    At the end of the Skype conference, the parties thanked each other for exchanging views on all the topics discussed and agreed to hold the next meeting in November.

No more support for Kiev fascists!

By New Worker correspondent

London communists, along with many other anti-fascists, called for solidarity with the people of the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics in the heart of the capital on Saturday.

Twenty or more demonstrators including NCP leader Andy Brooks joined the picket opposite Downing Street called by the New Communist Party (NCP), Socialist Fight and the British Posadist movement, and supported by the Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU) campaign.

Protestors gathered opposite Downing Street in Whitehall to call for the British government to end all support for the Kiev regime and to back a peaceful negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. A Russian journalist from TASS covered the picket and interviewed Theo Russell, the NCP London Organiser. Further support came from Greek communists, progressive Italian students and members of many trade unions, who joined the protest and gave out leaflets on this busy thoroughfare between Trafalgar Square and Westminster. Many agreed with the sentiments and some even joined us to stand in solidarity with our demands.

The demonstrators pointed out that since the February 2014 coup there has been no democracy in Ukraine, pointing to the armed Nazi thugs on Ukraine’s streets, in the army, the police and the security service, the joint far-right militia patrols with the police, the banning of political parties, the attacks on courts, threats and intimidation of judges, and the closing down of opposition newspapers, TV and radio stations.

In July the remains of 28 soldiers of the 14th Waffen SS Division, made up of Ukrainians who fought alongside the Nazi German forces in the Second World War and assisted in the murder and deportation of millions of Jews, communists and others, were reburied near Lviv with full military honours.

Dozens of openly fascist militias have been incorporated into Ukraine’s American-trained and equipped National Guard, notably the powerful Azov Battalion, whose symbol is based on that of the Ukrainian SS Nachtigal Battalion, the ‘Wolfsangel’, that committed many atrocities during the Nazi occupation during the Second World War.

In February 2014 a fascist-backed coup took place in Ukraine. Two months later neo-Nazi thugs besieged pro-democracy protesters inside the Trade Union House in Odessa before torching it, blocking the exits to trap the victims in the blaze. The Kiev regime says 50 were killed but eyewitnesses believe the true number is well over 100. Not one of the thugs responsible for the murders has been charged because they are followers of the neo-Nazi militias that prop up the corrupt regime that does the bidding of Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism.

Soon afterwards the people in eastern Ukraine took up the gun to defend themselves from the fascist onslaught and set up their own people’s republics in the Donbas. Thousands of Donbas civilians have been killed by the fascists and the Ukrainian army in the struggle to defend their new-born freedom.

Since the beginning of 9th July, defenders and 10 civilians have died in the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, and many more have been injured, in attacks by Ukraine’s army and the US-trained National Guard made up of fascist battalions. This year 116 civilians have died in the Donetsk People’s Republic in attacks by Kiev’s forces.

The protesters do not believe that the removal of Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 was legitimate. Foreign secretary William Hague told parliament that his removal was “made by the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, by the very large majorities required under the constitution”.

In fact the vote in the Rada did not meet the two-thirds majority required under Ukraine’s constitution, and the requirements for a special commission of the Rada and a review by the Constitutional Court were not met. In effect, the change of power was a coup backed by violent protests.

• report in Ypered (Forward) the organ of the Donetsk communist party

Freedom for Ukraine!

by Theo Russell

Protesters gathered on Saturday 23rd February opposite Theresa May’s residence in Downing Street to send a message of solidarity to anti-fascists in Ukraine and the Donbas who are resisting the illegitimate government in Kiev, which has unleashed a war in eastern Ukraine and a wave of fascist terror in the five years since the US-backed coup on 22 February, 2014.

Members of the New Communist Party, Socialist Fight, Posadists in Britain and Solidarity With the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine also demanded that the British government end its support for a government that continues to wage the war it launched against the Donbas people’s republics in 2014, and bring home the British troops sent to train Ukrainian army units.

Messages were read out from Borotba (Struggle), the most active anti-fascist resistance organisation in Ukraine, and from the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Alexey Albu from the Borotba (Struggle) Association said in his message:

“Dear comrades and friends!

“The current political regime is building a ‘new Ukrainian nation’ by falsifying history. Supporters of Nazi collaborators are openly encouraged, national policies are based on naked chauvinism, and even moderate alternative views on what is happening and the Ukraine’s future are being censored.

“The ruling class is suppressing any political opposition, even moderate conservatives, and Nazi gangs have been elevated to official status and integrated into the state structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the SBU (intelligence service).

“The war criminal Poroshenko, who has spurned the Minsk peace agreements and continued the war against the Donbas, constantly tries to increase the divisions between Ukrainians along political, religious, linguistic, ethnic and class lines.

“War is the only way Poroshenko knows to hang onto power, using militaristic populism to distract people from Ukraine’s problems.

“Unfortunately, the world community has closed its eyes to the continuing glaring examples of the dehumanisation of Ukrainian society, the killing of innocent people, and the existence of real Nazism not seen anywhere since 1945.

“Borotba has been banned, labelled ‘terrorist’ on national TV by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, and cannot conduct public political activities. Our activists have been forced underground, to organise in secret, aware that the country is in a state of civil war with the support of the Western imperialism.

“We are well aware of the true feelings of the Ukrainian people, and we know that this regime of marauders and war criminals can only continue with foreign support. We will never reconcile with the prepared destiny of the peoples of Ukraine and we will fight for liberation for as long as we have the strength – by all available means!

“Ukraine will be free! Ukraine will be socialist!”

The message from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic read:

“Dear comrades!

“On 14 April, 2014, the illegitimate Kiev regime, which came to power as a result of a coup d’état, launched an aggressive war against the people of Donbas, who had chosen the path of self-determination.

“This has led to huge civilian casualties in the region, and massive destruction of production facilities and infrastructure. The people’s republics of Donbas have been living in incessant hostilities for more than four years.

“The systematic violations of the truces by the Ukrainian side indicate that Kiev and the Western imperialists behind it are not interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

“We should respond to this with the strengthening of international workers’ solidarity and the strengthening of the co-operation of the world’s progressive forces.

“Long live peace between the nations! Long live anti-imperialist solidarity!”

• report in the Donetsk communist media 
• report from Vpered (Forward) the organ of the Donetsk communist party

Down with the Kiev fascist regime

Outside the embassy

by New Worker correspondent

New Communist Party (NCP) leader Andy Brooks joined other anti-fascist campaigners demonstrating outside the Ukrainian embassy in London last weekend. The picket, called by the NCP, Socialist Fight and the British Posadists, was part of an international peace protest called by the Donetsk communist party to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the fascist offensive on 14^th April 2014 that started the civil war and the armed resistance that established the people’s republics in what was once eastern Ukraine. The protest was also supported by members of the London branch of Partido Communista from Italy and other progressive forces.

British imperialism gives military and financial support to the illegal regime in Ukraine, which is propped up by fascist militias that idolise Stepan Bandera, a Second World War Nazi collaborator whose followers massacred Jews and Poles during the German occupation. They later became a willing tool of the CIA to spread terror across Soviet Ukraine and People’s Poland during the Cold War.

A resolution from the Communist Party of Donetsk was read out and Andy Brooks was interviewed by Sputnik International for a report that was published on Monday.

• Report of the protest on the Donetsk communists' website