Lefteast
Oksana Dutchak is a researcher based in Ukraine and an activist of E.A.S.T. – Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational. She tells about the current ever-changing situation in Ukraine and local attempts of self-organization to cope with the war. The question of how to create a transnational politics of peace has no easy answer. Continuing to mobilize […]
Cihan Tuğal on the implications of US and Russian wars of aggression since the end of the Cold War, and their meaning for the rights of nations to self-determination.
The inter-imperialist conflicts we see between NATO and Russia (or the US and China, as well as many smaller conflicts) are ultimately rooted in national economic competition, which itself is an outgrowth of the competition inherent to capitalism. To finally wipe out the drive to war means ending capitalism altogether. But that is no excuse for an abstract position that the only thing we can do now is call for revolution, as some on the far left are doing. War enflames national divisions and is most damaging to working people. It needs to be resisted and ended immediately. It is the end of wars, especially when opposed from below, that can open space for continued class conflict and the further struggle for socialism in Ukraine and beyond.
The article originally appeared in Bulgarian in Dversia.Net and was republished as part of a cooperation between Eastern European leftist media platforms in ELMO (Eastern European Left Media Outlet). There is war once again, and the re-radicalised right in Bulgaria is using the war in Ukraine to establish its final hegemony. While the Russian invasion of […]
The following open letter to the Russian anti-war movement was sent today by over 275 anti-war activists in Israel. The LeftEast collective is glad to amplify this voice, which we hope will help spark a movement by Russian conscripts, reservists, and soldiers to refuse to serve in occupied Ukrainian territories. We take this opportunity reiterate […]
Do not let half-baked political positions substitute an analysis of the situation. The injunction that the main enemy is in your country should not translate into a flawed analysis of the inter-imperialist struggle. At this stage appeals to dismantle NATO or, conversely, accepting anyone there, will not help those who suffer under the bombs in Ukraine, in jails in Russia or Belarus. Sloganeering is harmful as ever. Branding Ukrainians or Russian fascists only makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution. A new autonomous reality emerges around Russia, a reality of destruction and harsh repressions, a reality where a nuclear conflict is not unthinkable anymore. Many of us have missed the tendencies leading to this reality. In the fog of war, we do not see clearly the contours of the new. Neither do, as it seems, the American or European governments.
Based on all this, the ongoing conflict is between
– a richer (and of course very considerably larger) Russia that turns its economic performance into life spans of its population with relatively low efficiency (sort of like a state afflicted with what I would call a quasi-resource-curse), and
– a poorer (and, obviously, less gigantic–although by no means “small”–) Ukraine whose Life Expectancy figures are considerably higher than those of Russia, reflecting a less terrible linkage structure turning the country’s moderate per capita GDP into life spans for its population.
Translated from the Russian original in Moskvichmag.ru. Editorial note: In the absence of meaningful sociological data, it is difficult to know what ordinary Russians think of their country’s war on Ukraine. (In pro-Kremlin media, of course, it is not a war but “a special operation,” “the defense of Donbas,” etc., and the accompanying imagery reflects […]
The members of LeftEast collective are aghast at the violent military aggression that has escalated into war in Ukraine. It threatens to cast our region into bloodshed of a scale that has not been seen in decades. We unequivocally condemn the Kremlin’s criminal invasion and call for the withdrawal of Russian troops back to the […]
It has been two years already since we started living in a deadly pandemic. Тwo years since the labor we do has been claimed essential while our lives remain disposable. […]
The question is how to transform our struggles into a collective transnational power, nurture political communication and create conditions for a common social strike. Inspired by the ongoing struggles, we declare our plan for a feminist reconstruction for 8M and beyond! 8M is an important moment to join forces transnationally on the following terrains of struggle