Economics and politics of an escalating war

 

The costs of the war are mounting

Over one thousand people have been killed, more than three thousand injured, almost a quarter of a million forced to leave their homes. The overwhelming majority of people killed, injured and displaced have been civilians playing no part in the fighting at all. There has been widespread destruction to infrastructure, enterprises, public utilities and homes. The productive economy – that which makes possible the reproduction of human society – is shrinking as a result of the simultaneous contraction of civilian industries and the expansion of the industries supplying the war. Arms and munitions are consumed only by way of their destruction.

The economic decline continues

Prime Minister Yatseniuk predicts that GDP will fall by 6% in 2014, inflation will go up by 19.5% and nominal wages will fall by 6.3%. The rate of unemployment according to the IMF will be between 10 and 15% by year end. These are conservative estimates, but they still represent a further serious decline from an already grave economic position for the great majority of Ukrainian workers, small farmers, students and pensioners. The hryvnia has already devalued by 47% against the US dollar since the start of 2014 ($1=12.2UAH). The combined impact of devaluation and inflation since the beginning of this year has cut the real income of workers by 50% and of middle class professionals by 30%.

Growth of a siege mentality

War inhibits protest against state policies: “All dissent is treason when the castle is under siege” (St Ignatius Loyola) So what will be the outlet for the inevitable social tensions and grievances generated by the economic crisis? Protest and political struggle or more war? Can there be both war and peace in Ukrainian society at the same time? Not for long. One will inevitably overwhelm the other. The “peaceful” area of Ukraine is increasingly on a war footing that will eventually make a democratic political process there unsustainable.

State budget

The revisions to the 2014 budget that were adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on 31 July were driven principally by the need to increase funding for the war effort. The main changes are as follows:

• to increase the budget for the Anti-Terrorist Operation by 18bn UAH, which represents an increase of 28% on the original 2014 defense budget of 63bn UAH. If large scale military operations go on beyond the summer, this requirement will double;

• to introduce a 1.5% war tax on all wages and salaries;

• to cut public services responsible for enforcing standards of environmental protection, quality of medicines, food quality and occupational health and safety,

• ministries will at their own discretion to lay off public sector workers without pay for up to two months in order to balance their budgets

• to decouple the rates of public sector pay, state pensions and student stipends from index linking to the rate of inflation,

• to freeze the minimum wage and official poverty line,

• to reduce workers’ protection against unfair or arbitrary dismissal under the Labour Code,

• to reduce availability of HIV-AIDS treatment,

• to cut support for the resettlement of deported Crimean Tatars.

• to suspend in time of martial law the law on tendering for state contracts to supply the Armed Forces of Ukraine, “other military formations”, law enforcement bodies and other institutions responsible for state security

• to increase the rents paid by businesses for oil, gas and iron ore extracted in Ukraine and destined for sale abroad.

These changes to the state budget were pushed through the Rada at the end of a week of high political drama. First, the parliamentary deputies refused to consider an original set of revisions put to them by Yatseniuk’s government on 24 July, declaring publicly they would not support an “anti-social” budget. Svoboda and UDAR leaders then announced they were quitting the parliamentary coalition with Bat’kivshchyna that was holding up Yatseniuk’s government. Yatseniuk duly resigned, and the country waited for the government to resign in turn, the parliament to be dissolved and new general elections to be called.

This course of events, however, was unacceptable to Poroshenko, because the country would be left without funding for the war while a caretaker government waited for new elections to parliament. Poroshenko persuaded Yatseniuk -or was he colluding with him all along?- to return to the parliament and try again. When a second, renegotiated version of the revisions was published and duly adopted by the Rada on 31 July it turned out the deputies had rejected the original version because it had been unacceptable to their oligarch sponsors, not because it was “anti-social”. Though softened a little at the edges the harsh anti-social character of the revisions to the budget remained in place.

The Rada had refused to consider these July 24 revisions because – according to Minister of Financs Oleksandr Shlapak – they would have increased the rents on the extraction of oil and gas in Ukraine that is then exported to levels that were unacceptable to big business. The biggest loser of all would be Ihor Kolomoisky, governor of Dnipropetrovsk. Kolomoisky runs Ukrnafta, the majority shareholder of which is the state. It is highly profitable, and would have remained so even with the increased rents that were tabled on 24 July. But Kolomoisky did not want to be the fall guy. To make his point he closed all the petrol stations he owns in Ukraine for “stock taking”.

The July 24 revisions did not increase the rent on extracted iron ore. Its rate had been increased just recently, in March. But iron ore is one of the main businesses of Renat Akhmetov, Kolomoisky’s rival. And Akhmetov is viewed widely as a renegade oligarch who hedged his bets and secretly backed the separatist movement. Unlike Kolomoisky, Akhmetov does not control “his” province of Donetsk any more.

So the 31 July version that was voted through increased the rent of iron ore once again – at a cost to Akhmetov, Kostiantyn Zhivago (of Ferrexpo infamy) and ArcelorMittal. It also reduced the planned increase on rents of extracted and exported Ukrainian gas and oil and alternative fuels as a further concession to Kolomoisky. And these changes are to be in effect only until the end of 2014, rather than indefinitely.

Thus the battle over the revised state budget sees the oligarchs vying to relinquish the least of their super profits to finance the war effort. The Left Opposition in Kyiv concludes that “the burden of the war is being put fully on the backs of the workers while big business is quietly accumulating its profits”. http://gaslo.info/?p=5344

Western support to Kyiv

Nor should it be forgotten that the Ukrainian state is on the verge of insolvency. Without the $6bn it is has received in loans and grants from foreign governments and their multilateral institutions, it could not hope to balance its budget in 2014 and to carry on the war in the east. Thus, the Western powers are in effect financing the Kyiv government’s prosecution of the war, in addition to the intelligence, advisors, food provisions, bulletproof vests and night vision equipment they are also providing.

The IMF is prohibited by its own charter from lending to a country at war. Conveniently for the Ukrainian government the Russian government is pretending that it is not making war in Eastern Ukraine. President Poroshenko has taken a cue from Putin by not declaring war on Russia either, even as he dons military fatigues and stresses that the Kyiv government is not engaged in a civil war.

Elections in October

The Verkhovna Rada rejected Yatseniuk’s resignation as it voted in the changes to the state budget. Now all the deputies can go to the electorate and say they have taken responsibility for financing the war effort and allowed the government to carry on discharging its functions. They will now prepare for general elections.

The present parliament is widely, if not universally, regarded as unrepresentative of post-Maidan society, inadequate to the tasks the country faces, and discredited by its deputies’ association with the old regime.

So the present parliamentary deputies will seek ways to crawl under the wire into the new parliament with the least number of casualties. The election period will be reduced from 60 to 45 days. This for several reasons: officially to save money; unofficially to have elections before the beginning of the heating season – when heating costs go up. Possibly also, Kyiv is anticipating major advances on the battlefield before election day.

There is also talk in Kyiv about parliament backtracking on Poroshenko’s election promise to hold the next general elections solely on the basis of proportional representation with open party lists. Doing away with single member constituencies as well as closed party lists reduces the opportunities for the rich buying a seat in parliament, either from local power brokers in the constituencies or from the party bosses/oligarchs.

Now the talk is about staying with the mixed system of one half proportional representation chosen from closed party lists and one half majoritarian election in single member constituencies. This was the system that gave the country the dirtiest, most corrupt election since independence and a parliament in 2012 that relinquished its powers to the presidency and made Yanukovych a near dictator. This system will help retain the status quo – as difficult as that might be. It might also prevent Oleh Liashko, the right wing populist allied to UNA-UNSO, from building a big fraction in the Rada.

There is no talk at all about lowering the 5% threshold for parties to enter the parliament on a proportional representation basis. This was another one of the democratic aspirations of the Maidan being left by the wayside.

The elections will most likely be announced on 24 August, Independence Day, and be held as soon as 12 October.

Elections will not touch the old regime

The old regime is still very much alive in the ministries, regulatory bodies, courts and tax authorities that make up the carcass of the Ukrainian state. Politician – public official – private businessman: this is the holy trinity that fears disruption by the current crisis. Elections could threaten its unity if there was a radical, progressive party – a genuine Workers Party – to contest them. But it has not yet appeared, while the forces of the far right both inside and outside parliament do offer the new/old Ukrainian regime a channel to divert the anger and frustration of the lower classes away from themselves. This is a real danger of the current situation.

Poroshenko escalates war

There is no doubt in my mind that both Poroshenko and Putin want to end the war. Each, however, has his own terms, and these terms are still too far apart for either side to stop fighting now. Many people voted for Poroshenko in May in the hope and expectation that he would enter into negotiations for a peace settlement. Indeed, Poroshenko and Putin both put forward their representatives and negotiations did begin – and are still ongoing even as the fighting escalates.

However, Poroshenko set about strengthening the Ukrainian armed forces in order to apply overwhelming convential military power over what was still in May a lightly armed guerrilla force of some five thousand men with few seasoned fighters to lead them. Military victories against them would decisively strengthen Kyiv’s position in any peace negotiations. That still seems to be the objective of the Ukrainian government as it uses heavy weapons on the ground and in the air, as it orders a second call up to relieve soldiers who have been in the field for four months, and as it expands the military budget.

Putin now builds an army, not an insurgency in Eastern Ukraine

Putin responded to Poroshenko in kind. He is no longer trying to stimulate an insurgency in Eastern Ukraine, which in Putin’s original plan was to give birth to an autonomous statelet beholden to Russia. Rather, he is trying to match and surpass Ukrainian heavy weapons with Russian ones and to build an army. Russia has lots of surplus heavy weapons mothballed since the end of the Soviet Union. So, Putin is building up the equipment of a conventional army –armoured personnel carriers, tanks, vehicle mounted missile batteries. For such equipment one needs trained soldiers and specialists, hierarchical command, co-ordination and command centres – an army, not a guerrilla force. Where will this army’s soldiers and officers come from? The DNR and LNR? Hardly. Either Putin has lost his bearings or he is planning to station an army under Russian command in Eastern Ukraine.

Putin is not about to back off. He is counting on being the last man standing. As long as he keeps the border open into eastern Ukraine Russia can supply the DNR and LNR forces indefinitely, and indeed build an armed force of considerable firepower. But if it wants to use this firepower to its full potential Putin will have to bring hundreds more, if not thousands of Russian servicemen over the border into Ukraine.

Negotiations, but on whose terms?

According to the Independent on 4 August Germany and Russia are in secret talks about political settlement. The proposals on the table include: the West recognising the annexation of Crimea by Russia; Russia withdrawing from eastern Ukraine; some autonomy for eastern Ukraine; $1bn payment to Ukraine by Russia for the final lease of Sevastopol port for its fleet; and gas supplies and gas transit prices to Ukraine guaranteed by Russia. Once again, the Russians and the Germans regard the transnationally mobile oligarchs as the keys to any deal between Ukraine and Russia:

“Central to the negotiations over any new gas deal with Gazprom is understood to be one of Ukraine’s wealthiest businessmen, the gas broker, Dmitry Firtash. Mr Firtash – who negotiated the first big gas deal between Ukraine and Russia between 2006 and 2009 – is now living in Vienna fighting extradition charges from the Americans. But he has close relations with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders – he supported Mr Poroschenko – and has been acting as a go-between behind the scenes at the highest levels.”

A Ukrainian government facing imminent general elections, insolvency, a deepening economic crisis, massive reconstruction costs in the east, and likely protests from various domestic quarters will have few options of its own: either to negotiate a peace with Russia that recognises the DNR and LNR as legitimate parties to further negotiations, or to carry on fighting them and the Russians.

However, Ukraine’s government can match Russia’s resources in the long run only with Western support, which will mean relinquishing more of its sovereign policy making power to Western governments and institutions. Which will in turn weaken its domestic and interstate authority.

An erosion of Ukrainian state capacity and authority may in turn force the western powers to become even more directly involved in the war in the east. And it will naturally increase the chances that the big powers – USA, Russia and Germany – will put together a “solution” of their own. Such a pessimistic scenario is brought to mind by the real forces and circumstances that have come together over the past three months.

Protecting lives, denazification, a general strike

We publish below the statement of the Left Opposition collective in Ukraine on the war in the east and the steps it believes are needed to bring it to a halt. Posted originally in Ukrainian by gaslo-info on 15 June 2014. Translated by Marko Bojcun

  It is necessary above all to protect the inhabitants of populated centres from the war. The next steps should be the removal of neo-Nazis from the warfare on both sides, for they are now the ones primarily responsible for inciting the war. Getting out of the social crisis generated by oligarchs’ omnipotence has the potential to overcome the root causes of this confrontation.

One can have different views on what happened on the Kyiv Maidan this winter and the evolution of this mass movement, as well as on people’s democratic right to national self-determination and autonomy. However, one cannot tolerate there being victims among the civilian population, nor can one not see that the utilization of heavy weaponry in densely populated regions of Donetsk and Luhansk brings new victims. Both sides of the conflict admit to the use of artillery and trench mortars. It does not matter to the dead whether bombing an apartment building was intentional or not, nor which side in the conflict is more often targeting housing districts.

It is imperative to cease fire before discussing any kind of political questions about the future constitutional order of Ukraine. We demand the immediate cessation of fire and the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from populated areas. Negotiations about a ceasefire, the release of hostages (the populations of entire cities are now held hostage) and the creation of humanitarian corridors should be held now directly with commanders in the field. Such issues can be negotiated even with the worst terrorists, such as Strelkov, Abver and Bes, if they can indeed ensure the ceasefire. Meanwhile, we categorically oppose any political discussions with the terrorists. Issues concerning the future state organization and the formation of new representative government bodies can be discussed only with the representatives of local communities and not with the visiting militants.

De-escalation of the conflict is possible only when the supply of arms, presently falling in large numbers into the hands of uncontrolled semi-autonomous detachments, will be stopped, and new mercenaries from other countries and regions will be prevented from entering Ukraine. Such mercenaries do not respect the interests of the local population and are rather more interested in continuing the war “until final victory” than in seeking compromise and a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Therefore, we demand from the governments of the Russian Federation and Ukraine to ensure the effective protection of state borders and to prevent the infiltration of arms and any armed people onto the territory of Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Furthermore, it is necessary to bring to a halt the use of Ukraine as a playing card in the contest between the USA, EU and Russia as they strive to re-divide their zones of influence on the continent. The peaceful citizens of Ukraine are the ones who are paying the price for this. Therefore, alongside our condemnation of Russia’s actions we also demand the cessation of any involvement by the Western states in stoking up this conflict.

Responsibility for the infiltration of fighters onto the territory of Ukraine lies with Russia

Responsibility for halting the supply of modern weaponry and foreign mercenaries to the region lies in the first instance with the Russian Federation. At the same time the Government of Ukraine must bear the responsibility for preventing the entry of semi-partisan “volunteer battalions” of dubious status and authorisation into the zone where the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) is underway. The volunteer battalions “Ukrayina”, “Azov” and others often conduct provocative actions that serve only to foster the consolidation of the local population around the terrorists, who are then accepted paradoxically as their defenders. These battalions, like the Russian mercenaries, are politically motivated to carry on the war.

The main factor that complicates the political resolution of the crisis and undermines trust in state institutions in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts is the presence on both sides of the confrontation of ultra-right nationalists and even frankly open neonazis. In the ATO leadership, especially in the command and staff of the Ukrainian “volunteer battalions” there are members of the ultra-right nationalist and xenophobic Svoboda party (Sich battalion батальйон „Січ”) and the Right Sector. Often these are people with openly nazi views (we have learned that the “Radical Party of Oleh Liashko” has merged with the ill-reputed “Social-National Assembly”).

We demand the Verkhovna Rada (parliament), the President and the Government of Ukraine remove members of radical nationalist organisations from the operation of the ATO, that they remove them from the zone of the ATO, disarm and disband the units concerned and undertake a lustration of neonazis (denazification) in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the interior ministry organs and the Procuracy. Additionally, representatives of the Svoboda party should be removed from official positions in the Government of Ukraine.

We call upon the world community to demand that the governments of the USA and the EU member states cease supporting the Government of Ukraine until radical nationalists are removed from official positions in the Government and the Armed Forces, law enforcement bodies and the Procuracy.

 

At the same time we must point out the considerable number of Russian radical nationalists and frankly open Nazis in the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR). In particular we see in these self-proclaimed entities’ leading positions a lot of citizens of the Russian Federation who only recently were members of neo-nazi organisations that have since been banned there, such as “Russian National Unity”/ (Русское национальное единство) and others.

Neo-nazis from the Social-National Assembly are fighting on the side of Ukraine, and anti-Semites and imperialists are fighting on the side of Russia.

The following “insurgents’” websites are revealing:

http://iks2010.org/ Imperial Cossack Union (Имперский казачий союз)

http://antisionizm.info Anti-Zionism (Антисионизм)

Therefore, we call upon the residents of eastern Ukraine, the local councils in Luhansk and Donestsk oblasts, community organisations and trade unions to work by all acceptable means for the removal at least of Russian neonazis and radical nationalists from the leadership of the self defense detachments of the self-proclaimed DNR and LNR. It is necessary to declare non-confidence in the Russian neonazis who are at this moment attempting to declare themselves the representatives of the population of eastern Ukraine.

We also call upon the world community, in the first instance upon the citizens of the Russian Federation to put pressure on the Russian state authorities in order to compel the Russian Federation to acknowledge the presence of Russian neonazis in Eastern Ukraine and to cease giving them moral and material support.

We also call upon the Russian and Ukrainian mass media to stop whipping up nationalist hysteria and to turn people’s attention instead to the fascists on both sides of this confrontation.

We call upon the representatives of local communities of Eastern Ukraine and the Government of Ukraine to join in a public political dialogue, the first subject of which should be the transparent, democratic re-election of the local councils. The question of admitting observers from Ukrainian and international organisations should be decided. In our view community and trade union organisations should take on the responsibility for ensuring adherence to the terms of an agreement between the sides in the conflict in the Donbas. On the one hand they are independent of the oligarchs, and on the other they are clearly delineated from radical nationalist organisations, of both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian orientation.

It is no secret that the representatives of civil society and workers’ trade union organisations have until now taken practically no part in the events occurring in this industrial region. At the same time, where workers’ organisations have dared to take the situation under their own control they did not allow disorder or the escalation of violence. For example, the strike committee in Krasnodon, Luhansk oblast prevented any violence from taking place during the general strike there. The independent workers unions in Kryviy Rih have experience in forming their own self-defense detachments, which played an important role in preventing provocations and force being used during the protests on the Maidan of Kyviy Rih Basin. Workers’ organisations and the miners’ self defense detachments could become the most active force capable of restoring order in the Donbas.

Without a doubt Ukraine and its inhabitants are being used as small change in the geo-political contest between the imperialist powers for spheres of influence, resources and markets. However, the reasons for the emergence of the mass movements of the Maidan and the anti-Maidan, notwithstanding their very different characteristics, lie not so much in the influence of external forces or the forces of corruption inside the country as they do in the oligarchic socio-economic system, in the carefully built political and state institutions which over decades have been under the full control of the business oligarchy. It is the oligarchs, who pay practically no taxes in Ukraine and systematically plunder the country’s wealth and take it abroad, who brought the country to a social explosion. This explosion took place under nationalist slogans because of the lack of a sufficiently strong workers’ movement. At the same time the slogans of social justice were the key ones for the majority of participants in those mass actions on the Maidan and the anti-Maidan.

By agreeing to co-operate with the IMF the Government betrayed the social aspirations of the Maidan

Social peace will be impossible to achieve in Ukraine until the social crisis is resolved. This crisis has sharpened unbelievably in the wake of the hryvnia’s devaluation and the fall in production in most sectors of the economy triggered by the instability. The government and the oligarchs who stand behind it, instead of seeking ways to resolve the crisis, are using the military threat and the ATO as cover for their anti-social policies. Tenders for military orders which are taking place according to a simplified procedure – these are multi–million orders for private corporations and an opportunity for state officials to steal public funds. But the oligarchs are increasing their profits not just by enriching themselves through contracts to deliver military supplies. Most of the export-oriented firms of the mining and metallurgical complex have taken advantage of the devaluation of the hryvnia to improve their financial position. Profits have doubled in many enterprises. Which is not surprising considering that they pay the workers in hryvnia and sell their products for hard currency.

And alongside that, whilst knowing full well that they are already robbing the workers and provoking a social explosion the oligarchs can’t restrain themselves from grabbing even more. Despite the fact that Ihor Kolomoisky, governor of Dnipropetrovsk, officially acknowledged the need to increase workers’ pay by at least 20%, most enterprises are in no hurry to use some of their super profits to compensate for the workers’ losses in their real income. The situation is unfolding in Kryviy Rih in such a way that the oligarchs’ stubbornness may well provoke a general strike in this million-strong city. As the likelihood of mass strikes grows all the more, it becomes more difficult to say what kind of character they will assume. Will the miners dare to pose the question of resolving the situation in the country as a whole, and not just the either own pay and self defense?

A general strike demanding a doubling of wages will deal with the social crisis

A general strike could become a real lever to influence all sides in the conflict and ensure a swift halt to the war in deed, not just in words. The question is whether the workers can organise themselves effectively enough and to put forward relevant demands, that is general political demands. In such an eventuality an important factor will be the ability of the workers’ self defense to safeguard the strikers from the pressure of the state and the oligarchs. Indeed, one cannot exclude the possibility that attempts will be made to use “volunteer battalions” not against the separatists but against the independent workers movement in all oblasts.

We demand from Ukrainian, Russian and Western businessmen who control enterprises in Ukraine that they stop profiting from the crisis and immediately raise workers’ pay in their enterprises to a level that equals at least the real wage in 2007-08.

Cancellation of Ukraine’s debt to the IMF is also part of the solution: this crippling financial burden imposed by foreign creditors does not permit us to deal with our domestic problems.

Considering all this, we support the general direction of the statement adopted recently in Minsk http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/zimmerwald-2014-stop-the-war-in-ukraine/ . We understand very well and completely support the desire of left activists in Ukraine and neighbouring countries to express their class position and their internationalist anti-war position. The problem with this statement is that it is not so much the expression of an agreed position as it is the result of a rotten compromise. It is written in such a way as to hide the absence of an agreed position by using general and vague phrases which each of the signatories can interpret as they wish – often in direct contradiction to one another.

From this flows the second shortcoming of the statement: the eclectic and unrealistic nature of its stated demands. So, in the first point it calls for the withdrawal of Ukrainian armed forces from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and in the second it calls for the full disarmament of the armies of the DNR and LNR. It is not clear whether the local population actually supports handing over all the functions of government exclusively to some small bands that are under no-one’s control, to say nothing of the evident unreality of such a scenario.

Therefore, we call for the formation of a powerful anti-war movement whose concrete, general demand should be an immediate cease fire and a cessation in the use of heavy weapons. We hope this slogan can be and will be supported by the public at large in all oblasts of Ukraine as well as abroad.

For an independent social movement! For a free Ukraine!

 

Left Opposition statement, published on 7 May 2014 here: http://gaslo.info/?p=5217

Translated from the Ukrainian by Marko Bojcun

The mass killing of people in Odessa on 2 May cannot be justified in any way. The socialist union Left Opposition is convinced that “Whoever the deceased people on both sides are, the force used against the majority of them clearly exceeded any needed exercise of it in self defence. It is necessary to undertake an all-sided investigation of these events and to personally expose the provocateurs and the killers, who more than likely appeared there from all sides of the confrontation”.

We are unable at the present time to name the people responsible for these murders, their organisations or groups. However, we can see the political consequences of the Odessa massacre and we cannot but see that left wing political organisations are among those that carry political responsibility for it.

Without a doubt the violence was directed and organised in the first instance by ultranationalist and chauvinist groups who quite consciously kill people and try to exploit the blood of the deceased to whip up bestial nationalist hysteria in society, which to their way of thinking should “mobilise the nation” against its “its enemies”. Really, that is perhaps the only way to achieve their dreamed-of nazi dictatorship, which can be established only through bloodletting and the intimidation of people. This will become possible only if in Ukraine Russians will see a Banderite murderer in every Ukrainian, while Ukrainians will see in every Russian a potential “saboteur from Russian Military Intelligence”. Unfortunately, we have come far too close to the boundary beyond which this can really happen.

However, there appeared in Odessa on 2 May on opposing sides of the barricades people, including activists of left wing organisations, who only a year ago were making part in common protests against restrictions on the freedom to assemble peacefully and against the introduction of an enslaving Labour Code. Activists of the “Borot’ba” (Struggle) union appeared on the side led by the right wing chauvinists of the “Odesa druzhina” (Odessa Guard). On the other side anarchists and anti-fascists took part in actions that were actually directed by their opponents, in particular the right wing football ultras. The latter group distinguished themselves by their particular brutality against opponents.

The left organisations were unable to put forward an independent, distinct working class programme. To say nothing of not being unable to take the lead of a mass movement, they did not distance themselves, nor even manage to retrain the masses of people from fratricidal violence under nationalist slogans. These leftists ended up in the snare of uncritical support for a relatively large movement which in recent times has almost completely departed from the socio-economic order of the day and changed it into a nationalist one. At that moment for the protesters in Odessa the ability or inability, in the last instance the right, of the Ukrainian state to exist unfortunately carries more weight than the labour rights of the Ukrainian working class of all nationalities. Instead of a strategy to remove the capitalist oligarchies from power in Ukraine and Russia there is a discussion under way as to whether the creation of a Ukrainian state was a “misunderstanding” or “a historical mistake”.

Its no surprise that by and large the workers of the big factories in Eastern and Central Ukraine are not taking part in mass protest actions. Anti-Maidan and pro-Maidan actions are on the whole poorly attended and in no way can they be compared to the one-hundred-thousand strong mobilisations of Kievans during the Euro-Maidan in January and February this year. Armed radicals remain a small group of adventurists even in Sloviansk, where they have seized power and clearly are holding on only by intimidating the local population who quite logically don’t want to become the victims of the Anti-Terrorist Operation of the Government.

It is very doubtful whether a majority of the residents of Sloviansk support the monarchist idea of resurrecting “the one and indivisible” (Russia –translator), which is openly proclaimed by the Russian officer Strelkov-Hirkin, “commander-in-chief” of the Donetsk People’s Republic. At the same time it is clear that neither do they want to see in Sloviansk the “little green men” of Strelkov nor any other soldiers. After all, they understand only too well that with the continuation of the Anti-Terrorist Operation fighting will start sooner or later in the inhabited homes of the town and they will be the first to suffer – the peaceful local inhabitants.

The workers of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk by and large are not taking part in the stand-off, but continue each day to drive through the checkpoints to work. The question of a general strike has not even been raised here. Local lumpen-criminal gangs and old people who dimwittedly pine with nostalgia for the USSR are the main supporters of the “Sloviansk junta”.

At the same time a mass organised workers movement is present without a doubt in Ukraine. It has appeared in Kryviy Rih when the miners’ self defence brigade prevented the escalation of violence in that city during the attempts by “titushky” (thugs hired by the authorities and employers – translator) to attack the local Maidan. The workers showed themselves also in Chervonohrad, Lviv oblast, where they intervened in the political process and then de-facto nationalised the local electricity power station, which belongs to Rinat Akhmetov, the oligarch.

The workers movement has shown itself even more powerfully in Krasnodon, Luhansk oblast. During a general strike here the miners took the city under their control. It is significant that they did not want to ally themselves with the Luhansk separatist “anti-Maidan” , nor did they declare support for the bourgeois oligarchic leaders of the Kyiv Maidan. They had their own Maidan, of the workers, armed with slogans for social justice and seriously intent on realising these slogans, unlike the Kyiv Maidan. The workers were demanding not only an increase in their wages, but also an end to outsourcing for supplementary workers in the mines. Thus it was not a narrowly economic strike, but a movement that raised the need for solidarity between workers of different skills, a movement sufficiently powerful to take the whole city under its control. And in doing that there was no violence, there were no casualties or victims! The city was taken not only without a single shot fired, but without anyone offering even half hearted resistance.

Understandably, a workers’ movement organised on a national scale is still very weak. Truly active, class conscious workers’ unions are concentrated in a few centres of the mining industry. However, it is also the case that only where the workers really intervene in a confrontation that it becomes possible to avoid mass casualties and to calm down chauvinistic hysteria.

Indeed, the emergence into the political arena of an independent, class workers’ movement remains perhaps the last chance for the survival of today’s Ukrainian state and the prevention of a civil war which is unfolding before our very eyes. If the scenarios of dismemberment of Ukraine come to pass we will not be able to avert an explosion of violence and massive casualties. Alongside that the confrontation will assume more and more an international and interethnic character, not at all a class one. When the war in Yugoslavia was only just beginning the ultra-right forces were also very weak and marginalised. They had no more support in society than Yarosh and Tiahnybok, with their microscopic ratings, have today. However, less than a year into the war Serb and Croat nazis started to dominate in the Yugoslav political arena and turned themselves into big mass organisations.

If the miners of Luhansk, Donetsk, Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk regions cannot by their joint efforts stop this war we will all be dragged into its meat grinder. In that event a left movement in Ukraine will truly be destroyed for many years to come. It is doubtful whether it will survive in Russia either.

Workers of Krasnodon and Kryviy Rih urgently need your solidarity and support! The Krasnodon strike has not ended, but only been suspended during negotiations. In Kryvyj Rih the miners are also preparing to strike in the event their demands are not met.

No support to chauvinists regardless of the flags under which they stand!

For an independent and united workers’ Ukraine!

For an independent workers and social movement!