What’s really at stake in Ukraine

For many years the mainstream media has been full of relentless, wall-to-wall propaganda against Russia and China. As the US-NATO defeat in Ukraine becomes impossible to deny, the campaign against Russia and its ally China has intensified.

Recently, for instance, former Victorian Labor premier Daniel Andrews was excoriated by the media because he appeared in a photo in Beijing with “rogues and dictators” (ABC News), namely, Putin, Xi and Kim Jong-un — currently the top hate figures for the West. If he had appeared in a photo with, say, Trump, Starmer, Macron and Merz — lying Western capitalist politicians who specialise in blighting the lives of ordinary people in the interests of the corporate rich — nothing would have been said.

The wheels are falling off the system

 

Under intense pressure from the Trump administration, at its June 25 meeting NATO agreed to massively boost “defence” (I.e., military) spending. Along with the turn to war, an intense Russophobia has gripped the European political elite. To justify its existence NATO needs enemies and Russia fits the bill. Fear and loathing of Russia is both cause and consequence of the NATO countries’ plans to dramatically increase military budgets. The failure of the West’s proxy war in Ukraine has stoked anti-Russia sentiment to unprecedented levels.

The Ukraine war & Trump

1. The Ukraine war was actively and persistently prepared by the West. The work began years before Ukraine became independent in 1991 following the breakup of the USSR, dating from the point where it became possible for Western NGOs to operate on Soviet territory under perestroika. As key US operative Victoria Nuland notoriously boasted in 2013, the sums spent were of the order of $5 billion.

This process took a huge step forward with the Maidan events in 2014 and the coming to power of anti-Russian chauvinist and far right forces (many ideologically inspired by World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera), determined to crush the ethnic Russian population and “Ukrainise” the whole country. They began a civil war against the Donbass.

Syria: The fall of the regime, the future of the country & Turkey’s war on the Kurds

 

[Educational given to the Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance, December 17, 2024.]

The extremely rapid and unexpected fall of Syria’s Assad dictatorship is a political earthquake in the Middle East. A regime (father and son) that had endured since 1970 is gone.

There were hardly any battles; the regime’s forces didn’t want to fight and just melted away (deserted, defected). Assad’s long-time backers — Russia, Iran and Hezbollah — had all been weakened by recent events but in any case they couldn’t support the regime if its own forces had lost all will to fight.

Palestine: Notes on a tumultuous year

 

[Educational given to Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance, October 1, 2024. Photo above: Gaza ruins.]

The world is not the same since October 7

Since October 7 last year, Palestine has become the number one issue in world politics. And, as Israel’s current war on Lebanon shows, this is likely to be the case for some time to come.

‘Two-state solution’ a fig leaf for Western leaders

At the time of the Fatima Payman affair, Prime Minister Albanese told the ABC on July 1: “Labor supports a Palestinian state existing alongside an Israeli state. We don't support a one-state solution.” 

Calling for a separate Palestinian state serves as a fig leaf for Western politicians to cover their fundamental position of support for Israel. It suggests they support Palestinian rights when they know it is never going to happen. And the West has no intention of ever doing anything to even try to make it happen (like ending all arms deliveries to Israel and imposing strong sanctions).

Notes on the war in Gaza

  

[Educational given to Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance,April 2,2024. Photo above: Palestine solidarity rally in Amman, Jordan, October 13, 2023.

The struggle in Palestine is now the number one issue of world politics. The armed breakout from Gaza on October 7 by Hamas and its allies has raised numerous questions, mainly because the West and Israel have spread lies about what actually happened and continually try to obscure what the real issues are.

A discussion about Hamas & October 7

 

We are constantly told by the Western corporate media that Hamas is a terrorist group, that the October 7 attack was a terrorist attack, atrocious, a massacre and so on. In the days following the raid pro-Palestinian interviewees in the media were repeatedly pressured: “Do you condemn Hamas?”

Ukraine: US proxy war in crisis

 

Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, NATO has been calling the shots, fighting a proxy war against Russia on Ukrainian territory, using NATO arms, training, intelligence, “volunteers” and advisers, with Ukrainians as expendable cannon fodder on the ground.

This campaign is now in a deep crisis on all levels.

Notes on a trip: Singapore, Paris & Melbourne

 

In May Andrea and I spent two weeks in Paris. Breaking our flight going and returning, we stayed for several days in Singapore. As Paul Keating once famously said, Australia is at the arse-end of the world. To get to Paris we had to undertake three seven to eight-hour flights (Melbourne-Singapore, Singapore-Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi-Paris). Here are a few thoughts on what we saw.

Imperialism: A short introduction

[This the text of an educational given to Socialist Alliance Melbourne branch on April 4, 2023.]

We live in a world where capitalism is near universal. However, it’s not just capitalism but capitalism in its imperialist stage. If we don’t understand what this is (and what it is not), we can’t understand anything about the politics of Australia and the world today.

Key issues of the war in Ukraine

These notes should be read in conjunction with the document Theses on the war in Ukraine by myself and Renfrey Clarke which gives a succinct overview of the issues raised by the war. Here I want to deal in more detail with some of the key questions.

The West wants to dominate Russia

Washington has an historically unprecedented world empire which it wants to maintain and expand. It is never going to be reconciled to any country it doesn’t control or dominate. The two main targets in its sights today are Russia and China, both big capitalist countries which are by no means opposed to relations with the West but want them on their own terms.

One way or another, Washington wants to dominate Russia, to subjugate and exploit it, install a client regime, or possibly even to break up it up into several more pliable states, as advocated by some neocons. Right now, through the conflict in Ukraine, it seeks to move NATO bases and missiles right up to the border and to bleed Russia in an endless war (like in Afghanistan).

Theses on the war in Ukraine

By Dave Holmes & Renfrey Clarke

A.  Introduction

1. Climate change threatens the survival of humanity. Disasters are coming thick and fast and will quickly get much worse. But rather than deal with the truly existential crisis this represents, Western imperialism is devoting more and more resources to a war drive against Russia and China, two big countries that have persistently resisted subordination to Western imperialism.
   

2. This perverse misallocation of resources shows the pathological sickness of the world imperialist system presided over by the United States.

3. The war in Ukraine is being used to massively intensify the West’s anti-Russia campaign. But the blowback from the sanctions regime is destabilising Western Europe and intensifying the suffering of developing countries.

Ukraine war: Negotiations only way forward

 

The Russia-Ukraine war has been raging for over six months. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians have died, many more have been wounded and traumatised. Millions have become refugees. The material damage is immense — towns and villages, infrastructure, transport and so on have been smashed up.

Rojava & Turkey’s war on the Kurds

[Education to Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance, August 2, 2022.]

There are around 40-45 million Kurds — about 20 million in Turkey (a quarter of the population), 10-12 million in Iran, about 8 million in Iraq and 3.5 million in Syria. There is a Kurdish diaspora in Western Europe of as many as 2 million people, about half of them in Germany.

 

In each country they face a struggle for their rights. In Iraq there is the Kurdish Regional Government area but it is controlled by a neo-colonial kleptocracy headed by the Barzani family which colludes with Turkey to keep the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in check.

 

Stop Turkey’s war on Rojava

 [Speech at a rally in Melbourne on July 23.]

Socialist Alliance joins with you in calling for the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone over the liberated territory of North and East Syria — Rojava — to block a new invasion by Turkey and its Islamist mercenaries.

Open Borders or a First World Fortress?

[From Asylum! A Socialist View of the Refugee Crisis (2022).]

The spectacular August 2021 collapse of the Western puppet government in Afghanistan in the face of the Taliban offensive generated a new wave of people seeking asylum.

Prime Minister Scott Morison made it clear that only Afghans who came through “official channels” would be resettled in Australia. If you come by boat forget it — apparently, making the slightest concession to “boat people” would open the floodgates to the dreaded people smugglers. And none of the 4200 Afghans already here on temporary visas would be permanently settled. Then Defence Minister Peter Dutton weighed in, claiming that some Afghan asylum-seekers could be terrorists or pose a threat to Australia.

Introduction to Asylum!

[Introduction to the pamphlet Asylum! A Socialist View of the Refugee Crisis (2022).]

Our world is in chaos. Within countries and between countries, tens of millions of people in the Third World are on the move — they are fleeing war, oppression, gang violence, grinding poverty and escalating climate change. They are desperately looking for a way out.

And now the Russian invasion of Ukraine has produced a fresh crop of refugees. Being forced to leave your home and seek safety in another country will always be traumatic but for various reasons the Ukrainian refugees are generally being treated differently to those from the Third World.

As climate change bites deeper and deeper, the refugee crisis is only going to get radically worse. Whole regions of the world are on the cusp of becoming uninhabitable. This will result in very large-scale population displacement.

Hard rubbish collection: Endpoint of consumerism

The Melbourne suburb of Brunswick where I live is a long way from flood-ravaged Lismore and we’ve suffered no climate disaster but in some streets there is definitely a resemblance at the moment.

It's the biannual municipal hard rubbish collection!

I don’t know what it’s like in wealthy Toorak, but here it’s always a source of great local interest and amazement. This time there seems to be a lot more stuff and, along with the usual crap, some of it looks to be very good quality.

‘National security’ or protect people here and now?

As the lives of residents along Australia’s east coast were smashed by unprecedented floods, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was talking up “national security”. The Coalition government has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars on beefing up our armed forces.

“Our world is becoming increasingly uncertain, so it’s important we take steps now to protect our people and our national interest over the coming decades”, Morrison said in a March 10 speech. The website of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet claims that “National security is all about keeping Australians safe and secure.”

Actually, it’s not. It's about the interests of the tiny capitalist class who rule the country. When the code phrases of "national security" and "national interest" are trotted out we are all meant to stand to attention and salute the flag. They are meant to trump all other concerns that people may have. Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party leaders certainly understand it that way. Albanese's pathetic response to the Coalition's war drive is to claim that Labor will actually deliver the weapons systems that Morrison has merely promised.