Joint Statement: Victory to the anti-fascist forces of Donbass and their allies!

Victory to the anti-fascist forces of Donbass and their allies! U.S./NATO hands off Russia!

The NATO-funded Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other far right Ukrainian nationalists have slaughtered many thousands in Donbass in last 8 years.

On February 24, the anti-fascist Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, together with the Russian Federation, launched a military action with the goal of “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. It is in the interest of poor and working people, anti-war and anti-imperialist forces in the U.S. and other NATO countries, to take an unambiguous position in solidarity with the anti-fascist forces. The real war danger comes from US and NATO forces surrounding Russia. The government in Kiev is their proxy, with no regard for the people of Ukraine.

In March 2014 British foreign secretary William Hague lied to the House of Commons when he said that the removal of Viktor Yanukovych was in accordance with the Ukrainian constitution, saying “It is wrong to question the legitimacy of the new authorities.

In fact, Yanukovych’s removal met none of the Ukrainian constitution’s provisions: there was no special commission of the Rada, no review by the Constitutional Court, and the Rada passed a bill removing Yanukovych from office with a simple majority of 328 votes, 10 short of the two-thirds majority laid out in the Ukrainian constitution. No doubt Hague was “badly advised” by his Foreign Office advisors!

Over the past 8 years Ukrainian military and US-backed fascist battalions incorporated into the National Guard killed 5,059 people in the Donetsk People’s Republic, including 91 children (figures obtained from Donetsk last week), so the figure for both the anti-fascist republics is probably around 8-9,000 people including well over 100 children.

This war began in 2014 when Ukraine launched the “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO), just over a week after the CIA Director John Brennan visited Kiev to meet senior Ukrainian intelligence officials to “foster mutually beneficial security cooperation”. This was an all-out modern military offensive with tanks, artillery, missiles and aircraft. The ATO was still ongoing when the Russian intervention began last week, in fact it was being rapidly stepped up.

Millions of Ukrainians have been driven into political or economic exile since 2014, over two million now living in the Russian Federation alone. Many fled as a result of fascist death threats.

Up to 100 anti-fascists were murdered by fascists and nationalists at the Odessa Trade Union House Fire on May 2, 2014. No-one knows exactly how many, since there has never been any investigation.

Where was the media hysteria, and the calls for peace from the left and the peace movement, when men, women, children and the elderly were being bombed and shot by snipers in the Donbass for the past eight years?

Since November, the U.S. has pushed Kiev to a new murderous invasion of Donbass, while claiming that the real threat was from Russia. The U.S. rejected Moscow’s just demands to guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality. Russia recognized the independence of Lugansk and Donetsk on Feb. 21 –eight years after the people of Donbass overwhelmingly chose independence in a referendum, rejecting the pro-Western/neo-fascist coup government in Ukraine.

Washington and NATO deliberately and methodically pushed the Donbass republics and Russia into a corner, from which there were only two options: submit or fight back.

The People’s Militias of Donetsk and Lugansk are fighting to drive back the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including neo-Nazi battalions armed and trained by the U.S., Canada and NATO, that constantly threaten the lives of their residents. The anti-fascist military action, forced on Donbass and Russia by the Western imperialist powers – principally President Joe Biden and the U.S. government – has exposed confusion and equivocation in the anti-war movement, even among socialists and communists.

Modern capitalist Russia is not an imperialist country. It had no means to become one after the counter-revolution in the USSR. It is a regional power akin to India or Brazil, primarily an exporter of commodities, not capital. To maintain its independence, Russia had to ally with other countries in opposition to imperialism. Ukraine’s coup regime, by contrast, is a pawn of U.S. imperialism that has been waging a brutal war on its neighbours for eight years and offered itself as a base for NATO aggression against Russia.

Our responsibility is to stop U.S. imperialism and its wars in all forms, and to stand in solidarity with those who fight against U.S. domination.

· Victory to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and their allies!

· Justice for those murdered in the Odessa Trade Union House Massacre!

· Solidarity with the anti-fascist underground and exiles of Ukraine!

· U.S./NATO: Hands off Russia! Get out of Ukraine and Eastern Europe!

· Dismantle the imperialist NATO war machine – bring all the troops home now!

This statement is endorsed by: Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic, Consistent Democrats, Cumpanis (Italian communist journal), International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity, Movement for People's Democracy (USA) New Communist Party, Party of Communists USA (PCUSA), Posadists Today, Socialist Fight, US Friends of the Soviet People and the Zimbabwe Communist Party. It is adapted from a fine statement by the Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido (USA).

British forces out of Ukraine and the Black Sea!

by New Worker correspondent

Anti-fascist campaigners were back in Whitehall last weekend, defying sub-zero temperatures to stand by the Donbas people’s republics and protest against the British government’s support for the puppet regime in Ukraine. British military advisers are training Ukrainian army units and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has recently given the go-ahead to an arms deal to boost Ukraine's naval capabilities in the Black Sea.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other anti-fascist activists on Saturday demanding Britain pull its military and naval forces out of Ukraine and the Black Sea after evidence emerged that Canadian, and possibly also British, forces are training members of Ukrainian Nazi battalions.
    London comrades joined the picketers, which included members of Socialist Fight and the Consistent Democrats and British Posadists, opposite the Prime Minister’s home in Downing Street. Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU), International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity and other labour movement organisations also took part in the protest.
    Members of the Centuria battalion, who use Nazi salutes and praise Nazi German SS units, brag about “co-operation with foreign colleagues”. Ukraine’s fascist militias played an important part in the coup that overthrew the legitimate government in 2014 and were incorporated into Ukraine's National Guard the following year, and the fact that Centuria gunmen are now serving as Ukrainian army officers suggests they are being increasingly integrated into the regular armed forces.
    Amidst Western mass media hysteria about a planned "Russian invasion", with senior US and British officials claiming Vladimir Putin is preparing to invade Ukraine, the Kiev regime has deployed weapons banned under the Minsk-2 agreement including attack drones, tanks, heavy artillery and rocket systems, against the anti-fascist Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics that drove the fascists out of the Donbas in 2014.
    The Russians have dismissed talk of a Russian invasion as “baseless” and "absurd". But sending NATO military advisers to Ukraine could potentially lead to an escalation of tension across the “line of contact” or ceasefire line between the Donbas republics and Ukraine.
    Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov said: "We are deeply concerned about the provocative actions of the Ukrainian armed forces on the line of contact and preparations for a possible military solution, an attempt to resolve the Donbas problem by force," adding that nothing provocative has been done by the Donbas republics in the region.
    Meanwhile Alexei Reznikov, who says the Donbas rebels are "a cancerous tumour on Ukraine's body which needs to be surgically removed”, has been appointed as Ukraine's Defence Minister. His top adviser is the notorious Dmitry Yarosh, the former leader of the neo-Nazi ‘Right Sector’ militia that led the armed coup in Ukraine in February 2014 and is modelled on the Ukrainian collaborators who served the Nazis during the German occupation during the Second World War.
    The truth is that Ukraine has become the world epicentre of fascism and white supremacy, with networks across Europe and North America. The western mass media – and sadly many on the international left – turn their blind eye to this glaring reality. Shame on them!

• Report in the Donbas communist media

Which way for Labour?

by New Worker correspondent

Looking at Labour following Brighton conference that didn’t go entirely one-way for Starmer was the topic for a New Worker meeting in London last week. This was the first physical public meeting since the lockdown began in the capital – the last one was at the Cock Tavern in Euston in January 2020. Sadly that venue is no longer available, but London comrades felt themselves at home at the nearby Chadswell Centre that’s frequently used for Korean solidarity meetings.

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined the panel chaired by Theo Russell that looked at Labour back under the thumb of Blairites and Zionists determined to drive what’s left of the Corbynistas out of the party before the next election.

Other speakers, including Gerry Downing from Socialist Fight, Ian Donovan from the Consistent Democrats, Marie Lynam and Michael Chant from the RCPB (ML), shared their experience of the struggle between the left and right in the Labour Party, the recent Labour Party conference and the future outlook for Labour with comrades who have already given up on Labour or been expelled on trumped up charges of “anti-Semitism”, as well communists in the NCP and RCPB (ML) who were never in it in the first place.

“Debate is a luxury we can afford” is one of Andy Brooks’ catch-phrases and it’s certainly been the theme of New Worker London meetings for many a year. This meeting was no exception. Although the debate began with the usual arguments of the “stay and fight” and “build a new Labour party” brigades, it then went far beyond the day-to-day struggles within Labour to look at the grass-roots fightback in the unions and the role of communists in the 21st century.

A collection raised £110 to pay for the room and towards future planned events, which include a Ukraine solidarity picket in Whitehall and another London New Worker panel meeting in early January.

British forces out of Ukraine!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other anti-fascist campaigners in London protesting against the British government’s policies towards Ukraine.
    Last Saturday’s picket, opposite Downing Street in Whitehall, called on the Johnson government to withdraw British forces from the Ukraine and the Black Sea. They called on the British government to end all military, financial and political support for the regime in Kiev which was installed in the 2014 coup, a coup violently supported by armed, Nazi ‘Right Sector’ gangs and the rabidly anti-semitic Svoboda party. They also drew attention to the role of the fascist militias in Ukraine’s National Guard, which now legally patrol the streets of Ukraine’s cities alongside the civil police.
    Campaigners want the Johnson government and the Foreign Office to clarify their position on the lack of democracy, attacks on journalists, the closure of newspapers, TV and radio stations (most recently in February this year), and the blatant human rights violations and involvement in crime by the ‘Azov Battalion’, the ‘National Corps’ and many other violent groups with white supremacist, anti-semitic and openly Nazi beliefs.
    The National Corps’ estimated 10,000-15,000 members are legally allowed to patrol the streets of Ukraine's cities, working side by side with the Ukrainian police. Its slogan is “Strength, Welfare, Order”.
The National Corps was created by the Azov Battalion as its own political party in 2016, and its core membership came from the Azov Battalion and the Azov Civil Corps, a civilian organisation affiliated to the fascist battalion. It has gained a reputation for violence, corruption and involvement in crime
    This is of major significance for UK government policy as a British military contingent has been in Ukraine since February 2016 training members of the Ukrainian armed forces (UAF). The Azov Battalion and many other ultra-right armed militias are now part of the Ukrainian armed forces after they were admitted into the country's National Guard.
    Since 2014 the UK has had an Army contingent in Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers - quite possibly including members of the fascist militias integrated into the UAF.
    Last year the Johnson government signed a major military deal to set up new British bases in Ukraine. In September 2020 over 200 members of the British Paratroop Regiment joined military exercises in southern Ukraine. Last month the UK and Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Implementation for the “joint UK-Ukraine design and build of warships (and) construction of two naval bases” on board the very same ship, HMS Defender, which sailed through waters Russia considers its own on 23rd June, causing a major diplomatic incident.
    Members of the New Communist Party of Britain, Socialist Fight, Third World Solidarity, Communist Fight, Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine, International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity and other labour movement organisations took part in the protest. Not the first and certainly not the last. NCP London organiser Theo Russell says more solidarity actions are on their way, following the easing of the lockdown, to raise public awareness about what is really going on in the Ukraine and the Donbas. 

 

• Report in the Donetsk communist journal
  

Stand by Ukraine anti-fascists!

By New Worker correspondent

Local supporters of the Ukrainian resistance held a lightning picket outside the Ukraine embassy in West London on Sunday. They paid tribute to those that fell resisting the fascist mobs who overthrew the legitimate Ukrainian government in February 2014.
    The puppet Kiev regime serves Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism and elevates Stepan Bandera, a war-time Nazi collaborator who fled to West Germany following Hitler’s defeat, who was assassinated in 1959. But anti-fascist uprisings soon led to the establishment of the Donbas people’s republics and the underground resistance in the rest of Ukraine.
    London solidarity campaigners include members of the Labour Party, NCP and Socialist Fight as well as supporters of the Stop the War coalition.

• Report in the Donbas communist media
  

Solidarity with Ukrainian and Donbass anti-fascists

The following letter was sent on the 3rd April  2020

We send solidarity greetings from the UK to all those living under a fascist-infested illegitimate government in Ukraine, defending and building the anti-fascist people’s republics in the Donbas, and to the hundreds of thousands forced into exile by political repression, attacks by fascist gangs and economic austerity.

Although we have had no recent Ukraine anti-fascist solidarity actions, we have by no means forgotten your struggle and the sacrifices you are making.

We were intending to begin organising another Ukraine anti-fascist solidarity protest in London in the near future, but unfortunately events in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic have overtaken us.

All of us have been working hard on other political issues, including helping to organise a very successful meeting attended by 400 people in central London on March 3^rd  which exposed the lies, tampered and falsified evidence being presented at the current MH17 trial in The Hague.

Ever since the February 22 2014 Ukraine coup we have been aware of the illiegal nature of that regime change, the open involvement of actual fascists in the government, police and armed forces, the complete suppression of democratic rights and freedoms in Ukraine, and the physical attacks on political parties, trade unions and even the courts.

We have not forgotten the heinous crime at the Odessa Trade Union House on 2^nd  May 2014 and the many other outrages perpetrated by the fascist bands, and we have not forgotten the criminal, barbaric ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ launched in April 2014, unleashing all-out war against civilian anti-fascist protestors in Donetsk and Lugansk.

We know that the fighters of the people’s Donbas and Lugansk People's Militias are making daily sacrifices in the front-line trenches, and that civilians – women and men, children and the elderly – are being killed and injured every day in attacks by the Ukraine armed forces and the fascist brigades.

In our solidarity work for the anti-fascists in Ukraine we are also faced with confronting the lies and whipped up hysteria against the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin, which have continued for almost a decade.

We have no illusions about the capitalist, oligargic nature of the Russian Federation, but we reject the attempts to portray it as totally undemocratic, and we call for an end to the trade sanctions the constant western interference designed to economic instability and provoke protests. And this coming from governments which kiss the feet of the reactionary fuedal monarchs of the Middle East, and instigate coups and regime change from Brazil and Bolivia to Hong Kong.

Above all we are aware of the vital support given by the Russian Federation to the Donbas people’s republics, the generous hospitality extended to large numbers of Ukrainian exiles, and its open condemnation of the fascists in Ukraine.

We also applaud the the sacrifices made by the Russian volunteer fighters in the Donbas, by the Russian Federation’s armed forces to defend the popular front government in Syria, and the strong support the Russian Federation has extended to Cuba and Venezuela.

This anti-Russian hysteria has created a poisonous atmosphere in which anyone challenging the lies and false flag operations of of US-EU-NATO imperialism risks being labelled as a Russian asset, in a repeat of the anti-communiist witch-hunts of the 1950s.

Unfortunately many progressives, social democrats, trade unionists, and even the anti-fascist and anti-racist organisations on Britain, have fallen for this demonisation, even though it is clearly a repeat of the lies and fake news used against Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gadaffi and Hafez al Assad. This has prevented them from even discussing the most dangerous revival of fascism in the whole of Europe.

Once again we renew our support and solidarity with your organisations, which will continue as long as it takes until democracy has been restored throughout Ukraine, and communists, socialists and anti-fascists are allowed to operate freely again.

Andy Brooks

New Communist Party of Britain

Ian Donavan

Trotskyist Faction of Socialist Fight.

Gerry Downing

Socialist Fight

Bridget Dunne

Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU)

George Shaw

Posadists in Britain

As well as:

Frente Comunista Dos Trabalhadores (Brazil)

Tendencia Militante Bolchevique (Argentina)

Socialist Workers League (USA)

The letter was sent to the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic; Borotba, the underground Ukrainian anti-fascist resistance movement and the Union of Ukrainian Political Refugees

• Report in the Donbas communist media 
• Report by the Communist and Workers Front of Brazil