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Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Open letter to Socintern from Ukrainian leftists

A month ago the Presidium of the Socialist International, an organization of more than one and a half hundred socialist and social democratic parties from 126 countries, which considers itself the successor of the First and Second Internationals and the Socialist Workers’ International, and which has a history of more than 150 years, met in the United States.

          The history of the Internationals includes such famous names as Engels, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Kautsky, Vandervelde, Bauer, Adler, and Bebel. The history of the 20th century Socialist International is inextricably linked with Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, François Mitterrand, President of France, Willy Brandt, Socialist Chancellor of post-war Germany. By the way, it was Brandt who set the vector for Socintern to consider the most important world problems in interconnection, not in isolation: wars and peace, economic development, development of democracy and ensuring genuine national independence, relations between the developed world and developing countries, ecology.

          It was in the 20th century that Socintern became a subject of world politics, analyzing and working with global problems not from some abstract positions, but from ideological and political ones, emphasizing the obvious signs of the crisis of the capitalist way of life. Revived in the second half of the 20th century, Socintern became the most influential spokesman and representative of the ideas of socialism on the world stage.

          Freedom, Justice, Solidarity – these are the most important political principles of the Socialist International and are enshrined in its main program document, the “Stockholm Declaration of Principles”.

          Today the head of the Socialist International is the chairman of the Spanish PSOE, Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez, an extremely spectacular politician who can look bright on stage and express his thoughts beautifully.

          We, Ukrainian socialists, watched the meeting of the Presidium of the Socialist International, its unifying and progressive statements with joy, good envy and some bewilderment.

         Gladly, because the world socialist movement has not died out on the example of Socintern, but on the contrary, it has declared that it is growing and strengthening, consolidating, setting itself modern tasks vital for all mankind, is on the way to global goals, has every chance to be a global player in opposition to neo-liberals and oligarchs and their satellites.

          Good envy is caused only by the fact that Ukrainian socialists are not represented in Socintern and do not participate in its activities.  One of the reasons is that Ukrainian socialist and other left-wing parties have been crushed and banned by President Zelensky’s regime, and there is no one to submit an official application.

          Our bewilderment is caused by the incomprehensible for us, Ukrainian leftists, absolute absence of reaction of the Socialist International, in general, and its members, in particular, to the persecution of the Ukrainian leftist movement, its leaders and its members in Ukraine by the current Ukrainian authorities, which has been going on for almost three years now.       

          The Socintern, its chairman, and many of its European member parties cannot but be aware that since the beginning of the war the Ukrainian government has closed down all, we emphasize !!!ALL !!! leftist Ukrainian parties – they have been outlawed – on far-fetched and absolutely absurd, unfounded charges! Those of their leaders and members who could not leave the country were killed or thrown behind bars: March 6, 2022 – communists, Kononovich brothers arrested and imprisoned; March 10, 2022 – socialist journalist Jan Taksyur arrested; March 19, 2022 – opposition politician, human rights activist Olena Berezhnaya arrested; February 22, 2022 – blogger and publicist Dmytro Skvortsov arrested; March 19, 2022 – leftist journalist Yuri Tkachev; March 31, 2022 – Gleb Lyashenko, journalist, opposition blogger. A year later, Ilya Kiva, former head of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, was murdered in Moscow by an agent of the Ukrainian security services.  The list could go on for another two pages. Party offices of leftist parties have been vandalized by nationalists and radicals.

          The left-wing parties of Ukraine, in particular the Union of Left Forces of Ukraine, were outlawed for the mere fact that they advocated peace, the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the beginning of peace negotiations; declared that a nuclear catastrophe was approaching; directly pointed to the beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine – the oligarchy and the military-industrial complex; shouted about corruption of catastrophic proportions; about the apogee of neo-Nazism in the country; about the destruction of the national economy and the enrichment of oligarchs and officials close to the president. In general, about everything that even the mass media serving the world oligarchy declare today.

          Our numerous appeals to many left-wing parties in Europe, in particular, to the PSOE, and personally to the chairman of the Socialist International P. Sanchez, remained simply unanswered. What is this? Indifference? Then what is the world solidarity and mutual assistance of the left, which is so often mentioned at the congresses of the Socialist International? Where are your declared “Solidarity”, “Freedom”, “Justice”? Or is it only for members of the Socialist International, other leftist parties are not covered? Where are your Socintern solidarity protests with us? Why do your leaders, such as Sanchez and Scholz, cheerfully greet the bosses of Zelensky’s regime, instead of pointing out its obvious dictatorial-nationalist features in a stern, socialist way?

        Or is it the tacit support of repression and persecution of Ukrainian socialists and communists by the leadership of the Socialist International and European socialist parties? Why? For what? I do not want to believe in the latter, but how else can we explain your silence during these years? Ignorance? Once again, nonsense; I personally informed you about it.

          Imposture, pretty words, slogans, declarations and postures on stage will hardly be enough to equal the role and power and depth of your convictions with Brandt and Palme. Such behavior and the position “I see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing” will reduce the global-political level of the Socialist International to nothing decisive and not influencing anything. And its current specific weight in the world politics of the new millennium risks becoming absolutely incomparable to Brandt’s time.

          As the then head of the Socialist International, B. Carlsson, rightly said some 35 years ago: “the congresses of the organization turn into rivers of beautiful words that dry up in the desert of inactivity”.

          The global goals declared at the recent Presidium meeting are fine, but it is obviously worth starting small: to learn to defend the left in other countries, to become tough and irreconcilable with the enemies of socialism, to show ourselves as a reliable defense for the left movement worldwide. Only then can we move on to the main thesis of the Socialist International: to build a global coalition for global progress.

          We remember that almost all leftist parties were persecuted in their own countries, their leaders and members languished in prison or were forced to emigrate, some of them were destroyed by the ruling regimes. But in the end they not only rose from their knees, but in many states they became the winning parties, the ruling parties. We too believe in such bright moments of victory of modern socialism in Ukraine, and we work for it. Even being in exile and being persecuted.

          We need support and defense today – something that in reality, not in words, will show the unity of socialism into a single fist, a single force around the world.


The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author. ‘The Press United’ does not endorse or support any statements made by the author.

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