I always thought it was Lennon's megahit Imagine popular for the wrong reasons. In short, imagine that the "world will live as one" plan is the best way to hell.
Insisting on pacifism in the face of the Russian attack on Ukraine is one version of that path. Imagine a world where tensions are no longer resolved by armed conflict... Europe persisted in that imaginary world, ignoring the brutal reality outside its borders. It's time to wake up.
The dream of a quick Ukrainian victory is over, on the trail of the original dream of a quick Russian victory. The chances look more and more like the beginning of a long-term stalemate; Russia is slowly making progress, and its ultimate goal is clear. There is no more need to read between the lines when Putin compares himself to Peter the Great: "Apparently, he was at war with Sweden to take something from her... He didn't take anything away, he returned it... He restored and fortified, that's what he did... Obviously, it is our responsibility to return and establish.”
Instead of focusing on specific issues (is Russia really just "giving back", and what?), we should carefully read how Putin basically justifies his claim: "To claim some kind of leadership - I'm not even talking about global leadership, I mean leadership in any field - any country, any nation, any ethnic group must ensure its sovereignty. Because there is no transitional state: either the state is sovereign, or it is a colony, no matter what those colonies are called."
From that, as one commentator said, it clearly follows that there are two categories of state: "Sovereign and conquered. From Putin's imperial point of view, Ukraine should fall into the latter category."
And these are, as is clear from Russian official statements in recent months, also Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Finland, the Baltic states... and finally Europe itself; it all "falls into this second category".
Now we know what the appeal to allow Putin to "save face" means. This means accepting not a petty territorial compromise in Donbas, but Putin's imperial ambitions. And such an ambition should be unconditionally rejected precisely because we are all haunted by the same disasters, because we are all in a state of transition, neither a sovereign nor a conquered state: to insist on full sovereignty at a time when we are faced with global warming is pure madness because our survival depends on close global cooperation.
Russia's position is not simply to ignore global warming. Why was she so angry with the Scandinavian countries when they expressed their intention to join the NATO alliance? Global warming puts the issue in the perspective of controlling the Arctic Passage. (That's why Trump wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark.) Due to the explosive development of China, Japan and South Korea, the main transport route will go north from Russia and Scandinavia. Russia's strategic plan is to profit from global warming: control of the world's main transportation route, plus development of Siberia and control of Ukraine. For Russia, this would mean such a dominance in food production that it would be able to blackmail the whole world. Underlying Putin's imperial dream is an economic reality.
Those in favor of reducing support for Ukraine and increasing pressure on Kiev to negotiate, which includes accepting painful territorial concessions, like to repeat that Ukraine simply cannot win a war against Russia. True, but this is precisely where I see the greatness of the Ukrainian resistance: they risked the impossible, defying pragmatic calculations, and the least we owe them is full support. To do that, we need a stronger NATO - but not as an extension of US policy.
The US strategy to counter through Europe is far from obvious: not only Ukraine, but Europe itself is becoming the site of a proxy war between the US and Russia, which could end in a compromise at the expense of Europe. There are only two ways for Europe to step out of that space: to lead the game of neutrality - which is a shortcut to disaster - or to become an autonomous player. (Just imagine how the situation could change if Trump wins the next election.)
While some leftists claim that this war is in the interests of the NATO military-industrial complex, which is using the demand for new weapons to avoid an internal crisis and make a profit, their real message to Ukraine is: OK, you are the victims of brutal aggression, but don't rely on our weapons because that way you are helping the military-industrial complex...
The disorientation caused by the Ukraine war creates strange friends, like Henry Kissinger and Noam Chomsky, who "are at opposite ends of the political spectrum - Kissinger was secretary of state under Republican presidents, and Chomsky is one of the leading left-wing intellectuals in the United States - and are often clashed. But when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both recently declared that Ukraine should consider a solution in which it would give up the right to part of the territory in order to reach a peace agreement faster."
In short, the two represent the same version of "pacifism" that only works if we ignore the key fact that this war is not about Ukraine, but about a brutal attempt to change our entire geopolitical situation. The real goal of the war is the breaking of European unity, which is advocated not only by American conservatives and Russia, but also by the European extreme right and left - on this topic, Mélenchon is meeting with Le Pen in France.
The craziest idea circulating these days is that Europe and Russia, in order to counter the new polarity between the US and China (representing the excess of Western liberalism and Oriental authoritarianism), should once again join forces and form a third, "Eurasian" bloc based on Christian a legacy purged of its liberal excess. The very idea of a "Eurasian" third way is a form of fascism today.
So what will happen "when voters in Europe and America, faced with rising energy costs and inflation due to sanctions against Russia, may lose their appetite for a war that seems never-ending, with needs only increasing as both sides prepare for long-term impasse”? The answer is clear: at that moment the European heritage will be lost, and Europe will de facto be divided between the American and Russian spheres of influence. In short, Europe itself will become an area of war that seems to have no end...
For a true leftist today, it is absolutely unacceptable not only to support Russia, but also to make a "more modest" neutral claim that the left is divided into pacifists and supporters of Ukraine and that this division should be treated as a minor fact, which should not affect the global struggle the left against global capitalism.
When a country is under occupation, usually the ruling class is bribed to cooperate with the occupiers in order to maintain their privileged position, so fighting the occupiers becomes a priority. The same applies to the fight against racism; in a state of racial tension and exploitation, the only way to effectively fight for the working class is to focus on the fight against racism (which is why any appeal to the white working class, as in today's alt-right populism, is a betrayal of the class struggle).
Today, one cannot be a leftist without unequivocal support for Ukraine. To be a leftist who "shows understanding" for Russia is the same as being one of those leftists who, before Germany attacked the Soviet Union, took seriously Germany's "anti-imperialist" rhetoric directed at the UK and advocated neutrality in Germany's war against France and of Britain.
If the left fails on that, it's game over for it. But does this mean that the left should simply side with the West, which includes right-wing fundamentalists who also support Ukraine?
In a speech in Dallas on May 18, while criticizing the Russian political system, former President Bush Jr. said, "The result is the absence of the rule of law in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a completely unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq." He quickly corrected himself: "I think , Ukraine"; then he said, "Iraq, anyway," to laughter from the audience, and added "75," referring to his age.
As many commentators have noted, two things stand out in this rather obvious Freudian slip: the fact that the audience laughed at Bush's implicit admission that the US attack on Iraq (which he had ordered) was a "completely unjustified and brutal invasion", rather than treats it as an admission of a crime comparable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine; plus Bush's cryptic follow-up after correcting himself, "Iraq, anyway" - what did he mean by that? That the difference between Ukraine and Iraq doesn't really matter? The final remark about his advanced age does not diminish the mystery.
However, the mystery disappears the moment we take Bush's statement seriously and literally: yes, given all the differences (Zelensky is not a dictator like Saddam), Bush did what Putin is doing to Ukraine now, so they should both be judged by the same standard. .
As I write this, the media is reporting that UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States. What is his crime? Just that he publicly stated the crimes that Bush admitted was a slip: documents revealed by WikiLeaks showed that, during Bush's tenure, "the US military killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the war in Afghanistan, while leaking war files in showed to Iraq that 66.000 civilians were killed and prisoners were tortured". Those crimes are completely comparable to what Putin is doing in Ukraine. Looking back today, we can say that WikiLeaks revealed dozens of American Buchs and Mariupols.
So while taking Bush to court is no less illusory than sending Putin to the Hague Tribunal, the least that those opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine should do is demand Assange's immediate release. Ukraine claims to fight for Europe, and Russia claims to fight for the rest of the world, against the unipolar hegemony of the West. Both claims should be rejected, and this is where the difference between the right and the left comes into play.
From a right-wing point of view, Ukraine is fighting for European values against non-European authoritarians; from the left, Ukraine is fighting for global freedom, including the freedom of the Russians themselves. That is why the heart of every true Russian patriot beats for Ukraine.
(The Guardian; Peščanik.net; translation: M. Jovanović)
Bonus video:
