International Debate: War in Ukraine – How should socialists respond? November 24, 2022
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
| The war in Ukraine has sparked intense discussion and debate among socialists and Marxists worldwide about how to understand and respond to this war. Should socialists support or oppose the sending of weapons and military aid to the Ukrainian government from the NATO governments? What is an internationalist and socialist strategy for winning a just end to this war and avoiding a catastrophic nuclear conflict? |
| To facilitate this debate, MORE are bringing together a roundtable discussion involving speakers from different Marxist perspectives and traditions. We will also hear an eye-witness report from Nelli Tügel, a journalist and socialist activist in Germany who visited Ukraine recently to report on the effects of the war. |
| This event will take place on zoom at: 10am Seattle (Pacific Time), 1pm New York (Eastern Time), 3pm Brazil, 6pm Ireland and 7pm Germany. It is open to all to attend and there will be space for questions, comments and contributions as well. |
| Sign up for the event link |
| Marxists Organising for Revolutionary Ecosocialism (MORE) are an international collective formed by Reform & Revolution in the US, RISE in Ireland and Lernen im Kampf in Germany. |
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
No Ukrainian speaker.The Irish Left with Ukraine had Yuliya Yurchenko. https://www.facebook.com/yuli.yu2010
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Sadly, I expect the usual stuff of condemning the invasion but opposing doing anything about it. Reasons to do nothing, part 50. Hopefully the non RISE speakers give a different approach.
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Jim, there are two speakers out of four who will argue that socialists should support the Western imperial powers transferring massive quantities of armaments to Ukraine.
Your comments about “doing anything about it” are detached from reality though: neither those socialists in the West who support the policy of their own states nor those who oppose it are “doing anything about it”. All of us are irrelevant at the moment to what is happening. You can cheer on the NATO powers or curse them, but either way it’s the butchers of Iraq and Afghanistan who are “doing something about it”, not their socialist cheerleaders or their socialist critics.
As an aside, for obvious reasons no socialist groupings that support the Russian invasion or are equivocal about it have been invited to take part in this debate. The point of disagreement between these groups is NATO.
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“You can cheer on the NATO powers or curse them, but either way it’s the butchers of Iraq and Afghanistan who are “doing something about it”, not their socialist cheerleaders or their socialist critics.”. It is the Ukrainian people I cheer, and secondly the antiwar Russians.That it suits hypocritical imperialists to supply arms is by the way. I would take arms from the devil himself or herself to defend an oppressed people. It suited US imperialism to stop the Kurds being gassed. I supported that as well. The sad thing is that this encourages faith in western imperialism which can and would betray them.But it is also a betrayal to advocate abstention from helping them or opposing help from those willing, for whatever motives.
I suppose we should wait until the oppressed are lined up, squeaky clean on one side, only taking socialist vetted arms supplies etc. In the real world, this is rarely the case. I am thinking of the Howth arms supply and a certain train through Germany.
If you saw a person being attacked by thugs would you oppose them accepting aid from the cops, who are defenders of private property rights . A touch abstract.
You mention some not being invited. The IAWN is in alliance with a group which is dominated by “no socialist groupings that support the Russian invasion or are equivocal about it have been invited to take part in this debate.”.
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More detail here. International Debate:
War in Ukraine –
How should socialists respond?
Sunday, Dec. 4
10am (Pacific Time), 1pm (Eastern Time), 3pm Brazil,
6pm Ireland/Britain/Portugal and 7pm Germany/France/Italy.
Location: https://cutt.ly/ukraineroundtable
The war in Ukraine has sparked intense discussion and debate among socialists and Marxists worldwide about how to understand and respond to this war: Should socialists support or oppose NATO governments sending weapons and military aid to the Ukrainian government? What is an internationalist and socialist strategy to avoid a catastrophic nuclear conflict, end this war, and defend the interests of the working class and the democratic right to self determination?
To facilitate this debate, MORE are bringing together a roundtable discussion. Marxists internationally have generally taken two different perspectives. While there is general agreement that this war involves questions of self-determination of Ukraine, Russian imperialism, and Western imperialism, there has been significant disagreements about what conclusions should be drawn. Some argue that socialists around the globe should support the struggle for self-determination of Ukraine and therefore support military aid by the US and other Western countries; others argue that in this inter-imperialist proxy war socialists, for example in the US, have to oppose Biden’s billions in military aid to the pro-capitalist, pro-NATO Zelensky government.
Based on mutual respect for the different opinions of Marxists, this debate with representatives of both sides aims to clarify the issues and contribute to a better Marxist understanding of the challenges involved.
This event will take place Sunday December 4th on zoom at: 10am Seattle (Pacific Time), 1pm New York (Eastern Time), 3pm Brazil, 6pm Ireland/Britain/Portugal and 7pm Germany/France/Italy. It is open to all to attend and there will be space for questions, comments and contributions as well.
To attend simply sign up at https://cutt.ly/ukraineroundtable and we will send on the zoom link for the meeting & a reminder.
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Marxists Organising for Revolutionary Ecosocialism (MORE) are an international collective formed by Reform & Revolution in the US, RISE in Ireland and Lernen im Kampf in Germany.
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It sure is an improvement on the last PbP meeting on Ukraine where an anti-Semite who belonged to an organisation of three people was invited to speak for Ukrainians. I’m glad RISE is holding this meeting as it is more clearly balanced than anything we’ve heard from PbP and also (and here I’m making an assumption) it would indicate that RISE has decided not to merge with the SWN, which is a relief to those of us who have seen RISE as making a positive contribution to the development of the radical left in Ireland, despite having some comradely differences.
But why were no Ukrainian socialists or trade unionists asked to speak? Surely they would be important to hear? Imagine a meeting about what position socialists should adopt about Palestine, without any Palestinian socialists speaking.
As for cheering on NATO, those of us who support the Ukrainian people’s right to resist the Russian invasion, are cheering on the Ukrainians. They are obvious entitled to get their weapons from anywhere they can get them. What are they supposed to do, refuse NATO weapons and go down to glorious defeat? Because the Palestinian resistance got arms from regimes like Iran or Syria in the past or the left wing Kurdish YPG got arms and air support from the US, that didn’t cause most leftists to have any qualms about supporting them.
I’m not sure if you still class yourself as a Leninist PB, but you’ll recall Lenin’s complete lack of qualms in accepting assistance from any quarter, including from Imperial Germany (the train), Weimar Germany (the Rapallo Treaty), ex-tsarist officers during the civil war, etc. Of course, he knew there were risks and negatives associated with these connections but necessity dictated that those risks be taken.
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