The tragedy of Odessa
Leaders of the "Donetsk People's Republic"--which has taken control of government buildings and displaced authorities in a dozen cities in eastern Ukraine--reported that a referendum vote on May 11 showed overwhelming support for autonomy in Ukraine, possibly setting the stage for secession and annexation by Russia.
The vote was the latest episode in Ukraine's upheaval after the downfall of President Viktor Yanukovych in February, following months of a mass protest movement centered in Kiev's Maidan Square and radiating out to other cities. After right-wing Ukraine nationalist parties, supported by the U.S. and Europe, took control of parliament, Vladimir Putin's Russia responded with a military takeover of the Crimean peninsula on the southern edge of Ukraine. A subsequent referendum favored secession, and Putin made the region's annexation to Russia official with a ceremony in Moscow.
Since last month, pro-Russian armed groups have taken over in a number of cities in eastern Ukraine, and the central government has launched an offensive against them. Sunday's referendum was scheduled for two weeks before a presidential vote that the ruling parties in Kiev hoped would lend legitimacy to their rule. Meanwhile, skirmishes between the new regime's security forces and the pro-Russian insurgents in the east continue.
Earlier this month, before the eastern vote, wrote a commentary for the Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century website that looked at the dynamics after one of the deadliest eruptions of violence--in the southern Ukraine city of Odessa.
MORE THAN 40 people were killed in city of Odessa in southern Ukraine on May 2, following fierce fighting and a deadly fire at the city's Trade Unions House. Other cities, such as Slavyansk, have also seen lethal clashes. News sources differ on the sequence of events leading to the fire, but footage and photographs of the scene show that the victims died horrific deaths. There were undoubtedly fascists involved in the worst of the attacks, and the police clearly played a role, whether through inaction or by design.
There are many reports scrutinizing the exact details of what happened on that day, but it is important to understand who benefits from this violence. The Russian government can use it as an excuse to escalate their military operations, as can the Ukrainian government and their supporters in the EU and the U.S. Ukraine's interior minister is claiming that pro-Russian "rebels," who were the victims in Odessa, started the fire accidentally.
Neither side requires their version of events to be true--they simply need to entrench division and turn popular opinion against the other. In the meantime, the fascists are able to gain support and grow in numbers.
These consequences only deepen the tragedy of the Odessa killings. "Nationalism, both Ukrainian and Russian, is now celebrating over the bones of the young people killed in Odessa," in the words of Andrei Ishchenko, a member of the Left Opposition in the city. Meanwhile, Russian socialist Ivan Ovsyannikov emphasizes that "we cannot allow the death of these people to be used as a justification for military intervention or further killings."
The ultimate provocateurs of violence and division across Ukraine, from Sevastopol to Kharkiv, from Donetsk to Odessa, are the competing blocs of imperialists and oligarchs.
The U.S. and EU seek to consolidate the position of the interim government in Kiev, which intends to impose severe austerity measures on the population and suppress any further dissent of the kind that overthrew Yanukovych and provided its leading parties with a chance to take power in the first place.
Russia is expanding into eastern Ukraine, having already seized Crimea. This is of particular concern to Crimean Tatars, some of whom have left the peninsula, and Jews in eastern Ukraine, who are emigrating to Israel in large numbers. Both groups are threatened by pro-Russian forces, which are supposedly "antifascist." It should go without saying that the spread of Svoboda and Right Sector in Ukraine threatens them also.
Socialists don't need to choose between imperialists or make apologies for their actions. Opposition to Russian imperialism does not mean support for Western neoliberalism, and it is not a surrender to fascism.
It is a grave mistake to pretend that Russian intervention allows meaningful self-determination for Crimea or eastern Ukraine, or that the actions of the Russian state are in any way anti-fascist. A successful Russian takeover of the east will strengthen Putin's hand in the oppression of other victims of Russian imperialism, such as in the North Caucasus, as well as against ordinary Russians who will find that dissent is even more fiercely suppressed.
It should be absolutely clear that we stand with the people of Ukraine against their own government and oligarchs, against the machinations of the West, against the growing threat of fascism and against the rising tide of Russian imperialism. There can be no compromise on any of these matters.
First published at the RS21 website.
