Freelancing for Putin

Reading the latest piece from Socialist Action, you could be forgiven for thinking it was the United States and Britain who had invaded Ukraine, was terror bombing civilians, and playing radioactive roulette by shelling nuclear power stations. And yet here we are, an example of where prioritising the defeat of one's own ruling class and its ambitions is interpreted as throwing your lot in with Russia. What happened to no war but the class war, eh?

Nuance is unpopular in politics, but it is vital for the analysis that informs our politics. What SA say about supplying Ukraine with weapons, and the disgraceful role the Tories played strutting like plucked peacocks on the world stage is right. As are comments and contributions made by others concerning the illiberal turns of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government and the blind eye conservatives and liberals alike turn to the activities, if not the existence of the openly fascist Azov regiment. All these things are true, but they don't change the fundamentals of the situation: that Ukraine has been invaded by its authoritarian and, to use the old language, imperialist neighbour. The Americans and British might have prefaced the invasion with goading language while France and Germany preferred shuttle diplomacy, but it's obvious Putin was set on this course of action long before the Liz Trusses and Ben Wallaces happily reduced the UK's reputation as a serious nation further.

Again, to restate the ABCs, there are just wars and there are unjust wars. In moments of tension between big powers, in this case between NATO on one side and Russia and Belarus on the other, labour movements have no truck in prettifying either side, let alone offering political endorsements. Britain and America, after all, have done more to destabilise global politics these last 20 years than any other power or alliance. The condemnation they heap on Russian shells flattening Ukrainian concert halls and residential districts are not matched by a scintilla of concern for what their allies are doing in Yemen or Gaza and the West Bank. However, being clear eyed about the blood on our governments' hands does not mean that Putin's regime is shoved in a black box and ignored. Our enemy's enemy isn't necessarily our friend.

The second point is while NATO and Russia are confronting one another, the actual shooting war is between Russia, a big power, and Ukraine, which is a minor power. One of the primary dividing political lines in Ukrainian society since the dissolution of the Soviet Union has been between rebuilding close ties to its former occupier, or tilting toward the West via the European Union and NATO. Both sides have, historically, been bound to their own home-grown groups of oligarchs and when it came to corruption you couldn't get a credit card between the two sides. As a minor power, both the West and Putin have skin in the game - for the West having Ukraine firmly in its camp helps stymie Russia, while for Russia it covets a friendly buffer state to complement the subservience Lukashenko has shown Moscow. Both sides have and continue to find willing support in Ukrainian society, but this does not mean they are the sole active agents. The dynamics that give rise to this split are driven from within. Therefore, the Euromaidan protests that culminated in the Orange revolution was not a CIA coup or some such as the Putin apologists pretend: it was an organic development that the EU and US supported, but did not cause.

A pretty banal statement all told, but something that needs stating. The SA piece strongly implies that Ukraine is but a puppet whose strings are pulled from Washington (with a few tugs occasionally delegated to London). Not a word on how the "special military operation" was designed to force the country into Russia's sphere of influence in violation not just of Ukraine's sovereignty but its national right to self-determination - a principle Marxists are supposed to uphold. Had Putin not rolled in the tanks, the weapons shipped to Ukraine's military would not be exacting their grim price on Russian soldiers and materiel. War is politics by other, more violent means, and Ukraine's will to resist is not a product of Western brainwashing and arms shipments. The onus therefore should be on Russia to stop its attacks and withdraw, not on Joe Biden and Boris Johnson telling Zelenskyy to throw himself and his country on Putin's mercy.

If the main enemy is at home, effectively freelancing for Putin's war undermines the left's political response to the Tories. Not because of optics, though being seen to put a plus where the West puts a minus is bad enough, but because Johnson and his cronies are utterly compromised by their close relationships with Russian oligarchs present and past. There's Johnson's close relationship with Evgeny Lebvedev, an FSB-linked man whose money he was so keen on that he overrode the spooks' security concerns to appoint him to the Lords. There are the millions that have saltered their way into Tory coffers, and the untold billions that have sloshed through the City and the London property market. And just today, we learn Akshata Murthy, the chancellor's wife, has over a billion sunk in Infosys, which also operates unimpeded in Moscow. The threads are anything but red, but there are thousands of them tying the Tories to Russian ruling interests - and helps explain the reluctance the government has shown to sanction them, despite the tough-sounding rhetoric.

Putin's invasion has laid bare this corrupt and corrupting relationship. It's a goal so open that even Keir Starmer has taken a couple of shots at it. This is an obvious vulnerability the left should bang on about, but if we follow the logic of SA, the Chris Williamsons and George Galloways, and sundry tankies, lining up with Putin and pretending the West are responsible for the war prevents us from being the opposition we aspire to be. By conjuring up absurd "anti-imperialist" reasoning to defend the military actions of a brutal imperial power, they make the revolution they profess to work toward in our key metropolitan heartland much more difficult. It's just as well they're stuck out on the margins, a place their politics will forever doom them to inhabit.

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