Letter to the Morning Star

LANGUAGE POLICY IN UKRAINE is far more politically charged than my ex-comrade Simon Pirani says (M Star January 17). A law passed in 2012, “On the principles of the State language policy” led to uproar and fistfights in the Rada. It granted minority languages equal status where they exceeded 10%; Russian (40% of speakers), Hungarian, Moldovan and Romanian. Two days after the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych was driven out by the fascist-led coup the law was repealed by the Rada, although the acting President refused to sign it.

We are all aware of how the US organised that coup; Victoria Nuland is now gracing the airways once again. Back on 5 February 2014 she was recorded making the following coup plans: “and you know, fuck the EU … I think Yats (Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime Minister of Ukraine post-coup) is the guy who’s got the economic experience”.

As for killing trade unionists, on May 3, just ten weeks after the coup, the Right Sector, flying swastikas and images of wartime fascist leader Stepan Bandera, attacked the Trade Union building in Odessa with a football crowd, setting it on fire.

There were 48 official deaths, but relatives have claimed up to 150 perished. Those who jumped from the burning building were clubbed to death on the ground. A pregnant woman was hanged, the crowd heard her death screams and roared approval when her murderer appeared at the window celebrating.

And their crime? They were Russian speakers! A Right Sector fascist tweeted, “colorado beetles are being roasted up in Odessa”. Russian speakers wore St. George’s ribbons. No one has been prosecuted for these crimes. This was the turning point that led to the separation movements in the Donbass and Crimea; Russia did not need to encourage self-preservation.

Gerry Downing 17/1/22 ▲

Historical Truth

Socialist Fight No. 17, June 2014 reports on the events in the House of Commons on June 9 2014

THIS IS AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT of the politics of the (Left Opposition) group which must be very careful not to take sides lest they offend their hosts, the Euro-Maidan fascists and the Kiev junta. This was further clarified when Gerry Downing quoted from the Left Opposition statement on the Odessa massacre which said: “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.” And he then asked if Nina (Potarska, left Opposition spokesperson) had discovered by now who was responsible for the murder of 48 anti-fascists in the Trade Union House in Odessa? She took about five minutes to say no. Simon Pirani [1] intervened to take even longer also to proclaim that the identity of the murderers was unknown.

You can see from the extract that the Left Opposition is speculating that the anti-fascists may have killed themselves, presumably to make the Kiev government look bad. Of course, the Left Opposition cannot say that the Maidan fascists carried out the massacre, even though the fascists themselves openly boast about it online, because it is a legal party in Kiev precisely because of its pro-Maidan stance and its defence of the Kiev government whom it wants to transform into a socialist government by “de-Nazifying” it. This act of political alchemy is deemed possible so they can still appear as leftist but also get permission from the Maidan to stand their candidates in Kiev. The fascists would allow no genuine leftists to stand in any elections; they attacked the Communist party in the parliament itself and are intent on banning it. And what candidates the Left Opposition have: Pavlo Vezdenetsky, Zakhar Popovych, Mykola Vlasov and Nina Potarska.

Brighid Ó Duinn comment on them: As you may already know Nina Potarska’s ‘comrades’ in the LO include Zakhar Popovych, a well-known fraudster and Pavlo Vezdenetsky. Pavlo (unlike the USSC, Chris Ford’s Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign, ) doesn’t bother to hide his US Imperialist motivations (a point I made when I spoke) nor his reactionary Nationalism on his FB page: [2] Note not only the icon (US-Ukrainian flag) – the first post today – “I’m going to Carpathians to learn experience of the Banderites” [3] The post of 5 July “Avakov [interior minister] and Filatov state that they didn’t eliminated the column of Slavyansk militia of Girkin and let it come out from Slavyansk because there were 200 women and children in the column. So, does it mean that a column with women and children can freely come towards Kiev?” – complains the ‘left candidate’ about the fact that column of refugees was not eliminated. The “left” cover for the USSC is the Left Opposition, a gang of fraudsters who alibi the Maidan and Kiev fascists whilst hypocritically proposing to “de-Nazify” them. The SARU supports the leftist Borotba who are heroically fighting the fascists. We have no problem supporting these genuine leftist anti-fascists against these fraudsters of the Left Opposition.

Eddie’s (Dempsey) ends his account where the most disgraceful incidents of the night began. The Ukrainian woman he referred to complained about the fighters in the Southeast being called terrorists, and another woman later spoke of the actions of the Kiev junta, they had banned the Russian language (not true, the pro-Maidan hecklers shouted at her, in fact the parliament had banned it but the President vetoed the law, no doubt on US instructions; the intention was clear), they were banning the use of Russian names and they were changing all the history books in the schools to reflect their bigotry (more heckling and derision).

When the hecklers shouted at her that Gubarev, People’s Governor of the Donetsk Region, was a fascist she explained that he was fighting for the people there and she had to support him. This drew more hoots of derision for the pro-Maidan mob. In particular both Brigid Ó Duinn and I were outraged at the derision that Simon Pirani was pouring on these courageous women, and we let him know it – we had all been members of the WRP under Gerry Healy, but he was one of the central leaders and we were rank and filers – “the working class have the shit on the outside but the middle class have it inside” Brigid remarked at his actions. [4]

Notes

[1] Simon Pirani is a former leader of the old WRP and the post-split WRP (Workers Press). He has extensive interests in Ukraine’s oil and gas industries so has to be very careful nor to offend the Kiev regime.

[2] Pasha Vezdenetsky, https://www.facebook.com/pasha.vezdenetsky?fref=ufi

[3] Who Was Stepan Bandera? by Norman J.W. Goda: “On January 22, 2010 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko honoured Stepan Bandera by posthumously bestowing on him the state honour, “Hero of Ukraine… (President Viktor Yanukovych annulled the decree in January 2011 after a long legal and political struggle—GD)… Bandera, his deputies, and the Nazis shared a key obsession, namely the notion that the Jews in Ukraine were behind Communism and Stalinist imperialism and must be destroyed. “The Jews of the Soviet Union,” read a Banderist statement, “are the most loyal supporters of the Bolshevik Regime and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in the Ukraine.” When the Germans invaded the USSR in June 1941 and captured the East Galician capital of Lvov, Bandera’s lieutenants issued a declaration of independence in his name. They further promised to work closely with Hitler, then helped to launch a pogrom that killed four thousand Lvov Jews in a few days, using weapons ranging from guns to metal poles. “We will lay your heads at Hitler’s feet,” a Banderist pamphlet proclaimed to Ukrainian Jews. But whatever their disappointment with the Germans, the Banderists never disagreed with their Jewish policy in Ukraine, which eventually killed over 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews.” http://hnn.us/article/122778

[4] Socialist Fight No 17, August-September 2014, Page 17, Eddie Dempsey on London Ukraine events of 9 July, https://socialistfight.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/235598179-socialist-fight-no-17.pdf ▲