Russia Out Of Ukraine! Defend Ukraine’s Sovereignty!

Statement issued by the Communist League in New Zealand, February 28

The Communist League demands that Moscow pull its tanks, troops, warplanes and battleships out of Ukraine immediately. Its invasion and bombardment of Ukraine is a violation of that nation’s sovereignty and a blow to the interests of all working people – in Ukraine, in Russia and worldwide. We call on working people everywhere to support protests against the Russian invasion and to back the fight by the people of Ukraine to defend their country.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and his government aim to force Ukraine to submit to Russian domination. Ultimately they seek to re-establish Moscow’s control over the nearby countries in Asia and Eastern Europe that it dominated prior to 1991 as part of the Soviet Union.

Using a version of history that suits Russia’s capitalist rulers, Putin claims that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people”. Putin opposes the course taken by V.I. Lenin and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution he led, which championed the right to self-determination for Ukrainians and other oppressed nationalities within what had been the Russian Empire of the czars.

Under czarist rule, Ukrainians, Jews, Tatars, and millions in Central Asia and the Caucasus region were oppressed, denied the basic right to read or use their native language, practice their religion, or exercise control over cultural, economic and political affairs.

This “prison house of nations” ended with the victory of the Bolshevik-led socialist revolution that established a workers and peasants government in 1917. The Ukrainian people formed an autonomous republic and voluntarily joined the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. National pride grew. Use of the Ukrainian language, literature and the arts flourished.

After Lenin’s death, Joseph Stalin assumed power and led a thorough­going political counterrevolution against the policies of the Bolsheviks. He instigated the reimposition of Great Russian chauvinism over Ukraine and the other oppressed nations within the Soviet Union. This continued through to its collapse in 1991. For over two decades, the Putin government has pursued this same reactionary course, acting on behalf of Russia’s capitalist class.

In 2014 there was a mass popular uprising in Ukraine, known as the Maidan, which overthrew the pro-Moscow regime there. In retaliation, the Russian government armed and backed pro-Moscow separatists in occupying parts of eastern Ukraine, and Russian forces occupied Crimea.

The response to the current Russian invasion by Washington and other Western nations, including Wellington, has been to impose sanctions. But they are not friends of Ukraine’s working people. Their actions serve the interests of the same capitalist classes that attack workers and farmers in their own countries.

Washington is using its military might to advance its own imperialist interests in the region and to weaken Russian competition. The Communist League calls for an end to sanctions and for US troops out of Eastern Europe.

The aspirations of Ukrainian workers and farmers can best be defended by their own mobilisation and action – as they did in the Maidan revolution in 2014 – and with solidarity from working people worldwide, including in Russia.

The current resistance in Ukraine to the Russian military invasion shows that working people there can and will fight to defend their interests. They deserve the support of fellow working people everywhere.

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